Oh, I kid the grammar nazis because I’m really bad at it and making jokes is easier than contemplating my own shortcomings. But even I can acknowledge that some typos are distracting. Give me another sentence and I’ll show you — or maybe I have already (that’s an honest question: I’ve got no damn clue just at the moment).
Luckily, I write on the internet, and I have a legion of free copy editors who are happy to help me correct mistakes in real time. If I worked in a more permanent medium… well, let’s just say that I hope that never happens.
Let’s just pray that I’m never in charge of writing copy for people’s graduation ceremonies. Those memories are supposed to last a lifetime and you just wouldn’t want administrative carelessness to ruin anything. You simply don’t want mistakes like this invitation to a law school commencement…
Continue reading “Embarrassing Commencement Typo”
I graduated from Northwestern Law in 2009. It is now 2011, my loans are coming due (real due — not the fake, put ‘em in forebearance, due of yesteryear), and I am currently “employed” doing two things: reviewing documents at an embarrassing hourly wage on projects that start and stop without any sort of consistency, and writing “jokes” about the Microsoft Zune every weekday morning, every other week. To borrow from David Foster Wallace, this is water.
And so it is with a sick sort of pleasure that I read Professor Paul Campos’s very interesting piece on The New Republic website yesterday. Coupled with Elie’s post on the Biglaw bloodletting, the article tells me what I’ve wanted to know and, in fact, what I’ve been telling my mom for two years now. Namely, that MJ was right. I am not alone.
What is the true state of unemployment for law school graduates? Professor Campos has crunched some numbers….
Continue reading “Law Schools Lie Like A Dog… Or A Rug. A Dog On A Rug.”
Judge Vaughn Walker, the man who overturned Proposition 8 in California, is gay. He even admitted it. You know what that means, don’t you? [Wink, wink]. I mean, the man is gay so clearly… like, do I have to spell it out for you? He’s a man who likes to have sex with other men, how can he possibly be impartial when it comes to whether or not God wants marriage defined as something exclusively between a man and a woman. Well, not God exactly, I mean that law… and the voters, you know. The law that has traditionally defined marriage as a union between man and woman under God. You know what I’m getting at. How can he impartially judge the law on this matter when he wants to do it in the butt with another man??? That’s got to make him tainted or damaged or somehow unfit, I mean d’uh, right?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at long last the anti-gay marriage movement has been unmasked for what it is; disgusting homophobia and bigotry wrapped up in voter referendums and moving documents. Yesterday afternoon ProtectMarriage (a supporter of the California ban on gay marriage) moved to have Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling set aside because Walker is gay. I’m being entirely serious; the sole basis for their legal argument here is that Walker is gay and in a relationship. Somehow, this made Walker unfit for deciding whether or not gays and lesbians should have the legal right to marry.
ProtectMarriage’s indignation would be more interesting to me if it wasn’t so covered in crap. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall them arguing that married men cannot impartially preside over divorce proceedings.
But I’m sorry, to even pretend like the above are useful analogies gives ProtectMarriage more credit than they deserve. They world they propose living in is truly ludicrous…
Continue reading “Apparently, Prop 8 Supporters Are Now Comfortable With Everybody Knowing They’re Raging Bigots”
Ed. note This is the second in a series of posts that Alex Aldridge, a London-based journalist who covers legal affairs, will be writing for Above the Law about the upcoming royal wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton. You can read the first post here.
In Britain, middle-class people who don’t know what to do with their lives have the option of trying to wed a royal.
If that doesn’t work, the situation is much the same as in the US: they become lawyers. A case in point is Prince Harry’s on-and-off girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, who will begin a traineeship with “Magic Circle” law firm Allen & Overy in September, having failed to secure the ginger hell-raiser on a permanent basis. Had Kate Middleton’s 2007 split with Prince William proved final, our future queen — whose ex is an in-house lawyer — may well have gone down the same route.
Needless to say, royals don’t do law. It’s too aspirational. They don’t even sue; one lawyer who has had dealings with The Firm once told me (in jest, possibly): “The royal family don’t take people to court, they kill them.”
Perhaps this explains why they’re so keen on the military: Wills and Harry have followed family tradition by going into the air force and army, respectively. They probably won’t stick around long, though. Like Princes Charles and Andrew before them, the pair will soon be eased into a middle age of government handouts and state-provided housing. Royals, bless ‘em, are basically very rich poor people.
So is a union between a very rich poor person and a member of the middle class likely to work?
Continue reading “The Royal Wedding: A Legal Look (Part 2)”
That was quick. Last night, we ran a story about the threatening message up on the New York State Board of Law Examiners website. Predictably, that message is now gone (which is why we took a screen shot, yesterday). But it’s been replaced with the kind of relevant information people are actually looking for when they check the NY BOLE website:
That’s what people like to see; results. Some of our tipsters are claiming that they already received their results email.
So, February bar takers, New York State knows whether or not you passed.
Congrats or condolences, respectively.
Earlier: Recent Bar Exam Results: Open Thread
(And: Is the New York Board of Law Examiners Threatening Me?)
Ken Cuccinelli
* The Supreme Court screwed the Cooch because his health-care challenge came too soon. That’s what she said. [Wall Street Journal]
* Hide your bong, hide your weed, ‘cause Antoine Dodson’s smokin’ everything out here. Run and tell that, homeboy. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* If this guy can hide weapons in a 1/8-inch beard, he deserves a prize – that, or maybe a patent for the smallest shank ever. [Associated Press]
* Safeway is being sued for refusing to gouge gas guzzlers. At this rate, it would just be cheaper to mail your car. [The Snitch / SF Weekly]
* Everything’s bigger in Texas, except the brains of Republicans. They want to stop transgendered people from getting married based on the rationale that they can’t read good. [Washington Post]
* Like father, like son. These people are really keeping it in the family. And by “it,” I mean student loan debt. [ABA Journal]
* Ropes & Gray is now America’s law firm. [Law Shucks]
* And the Galleon Group case finally goes to the jury. [Financial Times]
* Paul Krugman needs friends. [Dealbreaker]
* Apparently, American children are more dumb than British children and thus cannot be trusted with the same kinds of Easter candy. [DNAinfo]
* The chief judge of the Delaware Chancery Court has decided it’s time to cash in his chips. [WSJ Law Blog]
* This isn’t legal, but I thought all you humane animal stompers would like to know that New Zealand makes Watership Down sound like a bunny day spa. [Huffington Post]
* Today Blawg Review commemorates national DNA day. Hail Science! [An Associate's Mind via Blawg Review]
I think it’s important for lawyers on the other side of the political divide from Paul, who’s a very fine lawyer, to reaffirm what Paul wrote [in his resignation letter from King & Spalding]. Paul is entirely correct that our adversary system depends on vigorous advocates being willing to take on even very unpopular positions. Having undertaken to defend DOMA, he’s acting in the highest professional and ethical traditions in continuing to represent a client to whom he had committed in this very charged matter.
– Seth Waxman, former U.S. Solicitor General (under President Clinton) and current WilmerHale partner, commenting to Washingtonian magazine on the decision of fellow former S.G. Paul Clement to resign from King & Spalding and join Bancroft PLLC. At Bancroft, the D.C. boutique law firm founded by former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, Clement will continue to represent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives in its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
The funny thing about spring bonuses is that nobody really planned on them. Firms really thought they were going to be able to get through bonus season paying Cravath’s lowball initial bonuses. Remember when Cravath seemingly set the market, and there was that one partner caught saying “thank God”? That’s what firms were thinking.
Well, spring bonuses have been with us for some time now, and most firms that are going to pay them have announced. Still, there are some firms that seem to be trying to figure out how to delay or avoid paying market compensation for as long as possible.
Schulte Roth is in that category. They’ll be paying spring bonuses, but only if you hit various 2010 and 2011 hours requirements.
And so while Schulte can say that it is “matching” the Cravath scale for spring bonuses, it seems like there are a lot of Schulte people who will not be seeing a single spring bonus dollar. These are the kinds of things that happen when firms are caught off guard by market forces…
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Schulte Will Pay Spring Bonuses, But You’ll Need To Jump Through Some Hoops First”
I’ve got news for you: The future of practicing law will not be about cloud computing. It won’t be about tablets or offshoring or client self-help or virtual law offices. It won’t be about e-discovery, or practice management, or paperless offices. Yes, these things will certainly all happen; many are happening now, and a number of them are helping to give small firms an advantage, or at least level the playing field. But they will not be the biggest change in our industry.
I recently gave a speech on what the practice of law would look like in 2019. I chose that year for two reasons. First, it’s the year that the classic sci-fi movie Blade Runner takes place, with a younger-than-Calista-Flockhart-is-now Harrison Ford playing a cop who rides in flying cars and hunts robots that look like humans.
I’ve got news for you, guys: There won’t be any flying cars eight years from now. (Which is probably just as well, as people will insist on texting while flying.)
But the other reason I chose 2019 is because it will be the hundredth anniversary of something nearly every lawyer deals with all day every day.…
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Blade Runner and the Future of Law”
They're going to need a new logo.
If your law school sells its naming rights but keeps tuition flat, would you protest? That’s the question facing students at the University of Maryland School of Law. They woke up on Monday morning to find out that instead of going to an easily identifiably state law school, they’ll soon be going to something called the Francis King Carey School of Law.
(Good thing you can spell that name without the letter ”T.”)
Of course, so long as U.S. News keeps identifying the school as “Maryland” in some fashion (the same way that “Levin School of Law” never obscures the University of Florida affiliation), I doubt this name change will affect how the school is regarded. And since Maryland is not raising tuition, the administration needed to raise cash in some other fashion.
So all things considered, I’m guessing Maryland Law students are pretty happy with this outcome. Right?
Continue reading “If Tuition Stays Down, I Don’t Give A Damn What They Call It”
I never noticed this before I went in-house, because it never made a difference to me: When you’re an outside litigator, representing corporations in significant disputes, your clients are lawyers.
This may not be true for all outside lawyers. If you’re representing a small business, the business may not have inside counsel, so you may report to the business people. If you’re a transactional lawyer, perhaps your clients are more often business folks. But, as an outside litigator representing big companies, your client contacts are generally lawyers.
This matters. The client contacts have been through four years of college and three years of law school. That may not mean much, but it means something. Tautologically, it means that they’ve had lots of years of formal education. (“If I’m still dumb now, it’s my fault.”) Practically, it means that your client contacts have learned how lawyers think and, to some extent, the words that lawyers use. (When I was outside counsel, not all of my clients knew what an “MDL” was. If the client had the misfortune to be dragged into one of those puppies, I might have spent a little time explaining. But basically all of my client contacts knew what the words “complaint,” or “discovery,” or “summary judgment” meant. We shared a common vocabulary.) And lawyers as a group probably care more about legal issues than non-lawyers do.
To be sure, outside litigators often work with non-lawyers. We’ve all had to prepare for depositions senior executives who were way too self-assured, or people whose view of the facts wasn’t exactly confirmed by the documents, or witnesses who required a lot of time and effort because they were slightly slow on the uptake. But, as outside counsel litigating cases for big companies, it was typically the in-house lawyers who ultimately supervised and evaluated our work.
Once you move in-house, that is no longer true. We’re the lawyers; our clients are not….
Continue reading “Inside Straight: Non-Lawyers As Clients”
Paul Clement (left) and John Boehner (right)
The leading law firm of King & Spalding, which came under fire from LGBT rights groups after its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) became public last week, has moved to withdraw from the litigation. The firm cited problems with the vetting process applied to the engagement.
And Paul Clement, the former U.S. Solicitor General and King & Spalding partner who was going to spearhead the DOMA defense, is now a former K&S partner. He resigned from K&S this morning, in response to the firm’s withdrawal decision. Clement will continue his representation of the House of Representatives in DOMA litigation from his new home, Bancroft PLLC, the high-powered D.C. boutique founded by a fellow alum of the Bush Department of Justice, Georgetown law professor Viet Dinh.
UPDATE (12:20 PM): We reached out for comment to Professor Dinh, who said: “Paul wins the biggest cases and Bancroft solves the most complex problems. This is a no brainer. We will continue to do what Paul and I love doing most, which is to serve the best interests of our clients.”
Let’s take a look at King & Spalding’s stated justification for dropping the DOMA representation, and at Paul Clement’s resignation letter….
Continue reading “Paul Clement Quits King & Spalding After K&S Moves to Drop DOMA Defense”
It’s hard to put a number on just how many people are in the so-called “lost generation” of attorneys who had their careers ruined during the recession. We’ll probably never know how many people did not get jobs or had to take very bad jobs because of the weak economy in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
But one way of assessing the damage is to look at the number of positions that have been shed by Biglaw firms. That’s the perspective the National Law Journal 250 took this year. Based on their numbers, Biglaw has lost almost 10,000 lawyers since 2008.
So if you got laid off during the recession, you are certainly not alone…
Continue reading “Just How Big Is The Lost Generation?”
* LiLo was sentenced to 4 months behind bars and 480 hours of community service in a morgue. I guess the morgue is fitting, since this might be the final nail in her acting career’s coffin. [Reuters]
* The Winklevii didn’t take kindly to being told to STFU and GTFO, so they found some new evidence to totally pwn Mark Zuckerberg. [USA Today]
* In Virginia v. Jesus, a public defender convinced holy rollers to spare JHC from the death penalty. Way to negate your own holiday, guys. [CNN]
* Don’t haze me, bro! A would-be frat brother from Hartwick College is suing over his sore tushie. Former sorostitute pro-tip: it wouldn’t have hurt so badly if you drank more. [New York Daily News]
* Oh, come on, $99.99 is a completely reasonable price for a wagon of smurfberries. It isn’t Apple’s fault that your children aren’t natural-born economists. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
* Apparently, you can be arrested in Michigan for speech crimes you haven’t committed yet, but only if your message sucks. What is this, Minority Report? [Wall Street Journal]
* Richard G. Mintz, name partner at Mintz Levin, R.I.P. [Boston Globe]
Despite the waves of people trying to show me the humor and humanity of stomping a bird to death, I prefer my laughs to come in more traditional formats. Something light: like YouTube videos, made by prospective law students, that are both intentionally and unintentionally funny at the same time.
And it just so happens that I have the perfect thing. A prospective law student made a YouTube clip about his choice of where to go to law school. Yep, it’s the law school version of The Decision…
Continue reading “One Person’s Law School ‘Decision’”
* Technology is a godsend, but old-school ways did have their charms. Ben Kerschberg reminisces about preparing SCOTUS briefs back in the days of hot-metal printing. [Forbes]
* Ed Whelan calls out Linda Greenhouse regarding the D.C. Circuit nomination of Caitlin Halligan (in a blog post whose title I prefer not to dwell on). [Bench Memos / National Review Online]
* Volokh on Vibrators. Sounds like the title of a treatise, no? [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Lessons learned from The Lincoln Lawyer. [Tips for Young Lawyers]
* San Francisco residents: this is satire, right? Right? [Breadbucket]
* Wise Latino? Luis Ramírez, an ex-associate at Quarles & Brady, is suing his former firm. [Am Law Daily]
* If your parents are paying for law school, do they have the right to learn your Fed Jur and Corporate Tax grades? [TaxProf Blog]
* Today is Good Friday — an appropriate time for reflection on social justice. [Mirror of Justice]
* How would you like to have us as colleagues? Our sister site, Dealbreaker, seeks a new writer. [Dealbreaker]
It appears that Larry Sonsini, chairman and name partner of the high-powered Wilson Sonsini law firm, is a very good golfer. Earlier this year, while playing golf to celebrate his 70th birthday, the legendary lawyer scored a hole in one.
Sonsini isn’t the only one who’s scoring over at 650 Page Mill Road. His partners are doing deals left and right, and the fees are trickling down to the associates, who just scored some nice pay raises.
What is Wilson Sonsini up to? Let’s find out….
Continue reading “Associate Salary Watch: Wilson Sonsini Restores Pay to Pre-Freeze Scale”
