Archive for May 2011

Morning Docket: 05.19.11

By Juggalo Law

* “Can’t fire me, cause I f**king quit.” Dominique Strauss-Kahn [BBC News]

* “Can’t fire me, cause I f**king quit.” Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo [Bloomberg]

* Rudy Giuliani elevated the perp walk to “an art form.” Reached for comment, Giuliani replied “9/11.” [Reuters]

* Goodwin Liu needs seven Republicans to cross party lines in order to advance his nomination to the federal bench. In related news, Goodwin Liu will not be confirmed to the federal bench. [Los Angeles Times]

* A law firm in Cleveland has developed an app that notifies potential hires when a job opens up at the firm. It’s called Angry Nerds. Bonus: Lat quotes! [Plain Dealer]

* Vivia Chen thinks Pepper Hamilton has the right idea about interviews. [The Careerist]

* Rosie Perez is suing the production companies behind Law & Order: SVU over injuries suffered during filming. In her complaint, the actress said a lot of legal-sounding junk in a really annoying voice. [New York Post]

Non-Sequiturs: 05.18.11

By David Lat & Elie Mystal

* If the Supreme Court grants cert to the Winklevoss twins, it’ll be time to start paying more attention to this Mayan prophecy. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Michigan’s public defender system is one of the worst in the country. So are we to understand that Thomas M. Cooley Law School, the #2 law school in the country, can’t even produce quality public defenders? [ABA Journal]

* If you’re a student at Liberty Law and can’t figure out that “God’s law” trumps “man’s law” on the final exam, then you are really beyond salvation. [Religion Dispatches]

* So you think you can dance? Well you can’t! Not at the Jefferson Memorial. Mwahaha. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Prominent Skadden partner Sheila Birnbaum, known as the “Queen of Torts,” has been picked as the special mistress master who will administer the new $2.8 billion fund for sick Ground Zero workers. [Wall Street Journal; Main Justice]

* Learn to write like a Supreme Court justice — you know, one of those people who writes things that nobody bothers to read. [An Associate's Mind]

* The Tea Party isn’t that irresponsible, right? They’re going to raise the debt ceiling, right? Or is it time to take all my money and put it in my mattress? [Huffington Post]

Would You Work as a Federal Prosecutor — for Free?

By David Lat

Being a federal prosecutor, an assistant United States attorney (AUSA), is a great legal job. The work is interesting and challenging, you’re serving the public, and you’re paid decently — maybe not Biglaw bucks, but reasonably well when compared to many state government or public interest positions. And if you want to earn more money later, perhaps as your kids approach college age, you can walk through the revolving door into the world of private practice, which values AUSA experience.

I worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in my home state of New Jersey from 2003 to 2006 (under then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie). My colleagues enjoyed their work. I remember that when I interviewed for my position, I met one AUSA who told me, “I love my job so much, I’d do it for free!”

Well… would you? Because that’s what some U.S. attorney’s offices are offering: the opportunity to work there, for no pay, with a minimum commitment as to time period.

And apparently lawyers are lining up for the opportunity….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Woman Allowed To Relieve Pressures Via Masturbation At Work

By Elie Mystal

Are we good if this is my default photo for anything involving Brazil?

UPDATE (5:30 PM): Please note that the veracity of this story has been called into question. For more, see the note at the end of this post. (Or ignore the note and pretend that the story is real; life’s more fun that way.)

Fair warning: I will not succeed in writing this post like an adult.

A Brazilian woman who in the past needed to masturbate up to 47 times a day has won the right to masturbate at work. The woman suffers from severe anxiety and “hypersexuality,” which is apparently a real thing and not just as something that’s been invented for the porn industry.

Excuse me, I need a minute to ask God why I don’t get to work with the Brazilian nympho woman who has to masturbate at work…

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Quote of the Day: Thomas Talks Back

By David Lat

I think there is a disease of illiteracy or laziness, because just the commentary will tell you they haven’t read [the opinions they're critiquing]….

You don’t go to a Georgia fan to get commentary on the University of Florida, because it’s not objective commentary. Unfortunately, much of the commentary about the court is from the standpoint of people who have vested interests in particular outcomes, particular policies or particular results. Do you think you are getting an honest assessment?

– Justice Clarence Thomas, in remarks he delivered at the Augusta Bar Association’s Law Day Banquet. (Gavel bang: ABA Journal; see also Morning Docket.)

Indiana Tech Moves Forward With New Law School Plans. Can Nobody Stop Them?

By Elie Mystal

Does somebody have to die? Does somebody have to commit suicide? Does somebody have to leave a suicide note that reads, “I just couldn’t go on paying off the debts I incurred from going to this law school”? What is it going to take before somebody, some organization, some kind of regulatory authority steps in and prevents universities from opening up debt-generation shops under the guise of providing legal education?

There have been some recent successes in the fight to get people to think before they open a new law school. Plans to further saturate the legal market with expensive J.D.s have been tabled in North Texas and Delaware.

But this is a game of whack-a-mole that can’t be won without regulatory control. The Indiana Institute of Technology is going forward with its law school plan, because nobody will stop them….

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Get Rid of Sick Days

By Jay Shepherd

Every so often a lawyer with a small firm will ask me what to do about providing employees with paid sick days. The practice is much more common in large firms, but many lawyers have come to expect it as a perk no matter how big their firms are. (To be clear, I’m talking about paid-time-off policies, not legally required unpaid leave like the Family and Medical Leave Act.) Many larger firms allow their employees to accumulate and bank their leave, saving it up for a rainy day, as it were. Some have the days expire after a certain time, while others allow the days to survive until the end of an employee’s tenure.

That’s fine at large, wealthy firms, who can well afford to pay people not to work. But what about small firms, where a person’s absence is more likely to have an impact? How many days of paid sick leave should a small law firm’s policy permit?

My answer might surprise you. Not ten days a year. Not five. Not even three.

Zero. Small law firms shouldn’t have a policy of any days of paid sick leave a year.

But before you set your comment phasers to “kill,” give me a chance to explain.…

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May We Give Thanks…

By Above the Law

to this week’s advertisers on Above the Law:

If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, please download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks.

Is The ‘Perp Walk’ Contrary To Justice?

By Elie Mystal

I’m sure that somewhere there is a gang of civil rights activists and defense attorneys saying, “So, we’re only going to talk about this if it happens to a rich European?” But hey, let’s not dwell on why the perp walk is suddenly generating some controversy, and instead embrace the fact that people are willing to talk about it at all.

As you may have heard, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in Manhattan over the weekend on sex crime charges. As is customary in this country, Strauss-Kahn was paraded before the news media in handcuffs (see picture; feel free to point, stare, laugh, as is traditional).

This common American practice is illegal in France. Under French law, the media is not allowed to show pictures of people in handcuffs unless they’ve been convicted of a crime. Apparently, the French believe that such pictures are highly prejudicial to the defendant.

We’re not so much worried about that in America….

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Oh… That.

By The People's Therapist

Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon (affiliate link).

Associates at big law firms don’t normally burn out right away. They arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, raring to go. This is their moment! Grasp the golden ring!

If you look closely, though, you’ll notice a few poor souls who burn out immediately – sometimes within a few weeks. These folks look awful almost from Day One, dread coming to work, don’t talk to the others, can’t sleep and wonder how to get out – like, immediately.

That’s because they’ve been sexually harassed.

Oh… that.

Right. That.

I know. Sexual harassment is a drag of a topic, the stuff of tedious lectures by gender theorists and “Human Resource professionals.” Nothing new to say, just standard material: wince-inducing scenarios, tired platitudes about respect and crossing the line and what’s appropriate in a workplace blah blah blah…boring, scary, boring.

I hear about sexual harassment all the time from my clients, so it’s a little less boring for me, and a lot more real. There is stuff worth talking about. But I’ll keep it quick.

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Morning Docket: 05.18.11

By Juggalo Law

Ben Stein

* I was just asking myself, “What does Ben Stein think about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case?” [American Spectator via Daily Intel]

* The perp walk is illegal in France. It’s not clear from this article how the French view the crip walk. [Sacramento Bee]

* Carl Icahn, the Blockbuster bankruptcy, insider-trading charges, and a golden retriever wearing comically huge sunglasses. This story touches on three of those things. [Bloomberg]

* Hogan Lovells fired a partner who falsely claimed $1.6 million in expenses. To put that in perspective, that is $1.6 million more than I have. [Am Law Daily]

* A Brooklyn juror died of a heart attack while listening to testimony. And that’s… sad, I guess. But the story goes on to note that “The juror, who was unemployed, was said to be ‘happy’ to be collecting a check for his service on the case which was expected to go on for about a month.” Man. [New York Post]

* Sammy Alito batted down 10 popular misconceptions about the Supreme Court in a speech on Monday. Chief among these myths is that Justice Sotomayor listens to a lot of Buena Vista Social Club on her Zune. Sonia never really got into that album, Alito noted. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch via ABA Journal]

* Meanwhile, Justice Thomas wondered in a speech whether critics of the Supreme Court suffer from a “disease of illiteracy or laziness.” So is your face, Justice Thomas. So is your face. [Fox News]

BAR/BRI Class Actions: Open Thread

By David Lat

As we reported last month, it looks like Leeds Equity Partners will be acquiring BAR/BRI, the well-known bar exam preparation business, from West Publishing / Thomson Reuters. If you’ve taken a bar exam prep course, odds are that you took BAR/BRI — although there are alternatives, such as BarMax and Themis (disclosure: ATL advertisers, whom we thank for their support).

If the deal goes through, Leeds will get its hands on what would seem to be a very good business. BAR/BRI courses aren’t cheap, at a few thousand a pop (often paid by law firms, which aren’t very price-sensitive). And since BAR/BRI has had its bar-prep infrastructure in place for a long time — curricula, instructors, etc. — its marginal costs for each new teaching cycle aren’t that high. In short, BAR/BRI seems like a money-making machine.

(Note: This analysis about the economics of BAR/BRI is somewhat speculative. Please correct us, by email or in the comments, if we’re wrong.)

But Leeds will also inherit complaints about BAR/BRI. Some are of the consumer variety — e.g., the website going down when people were trying to pick their course locations, the date by which books must be returned in order to get deposits back being set too early, unfair late fees, etc.

And some complaints are of the legal variety, in the form of antitrust class actions alleging collusion between (1) West Publishing, the owner of BAR/BRI, and (2) Kaplan Inc., the test prep company owned by the Washington Post Company that is known in the legal community for its LSAT courses. One of the lawsuits alleges “that BAR/BRI agreed not to compete in the LSAT business and that Kaplan agreed not to compete in the bar review business, thereby allocating to BAR/BRI the market for full-service bar review courses in the United States.” (Now, of course, Kaplan has its own full-service bar review course.)

To the legal complaints we now turn. You should follow along, since there might be some money in it for you….

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.17.11

By Elie Mystal

* Starbucks sued for not being nice to dwarfs. I propose to fix this by offering a dwarf-sized coffee that is the volume of a full-sized dwarf. That way, everybody would learn that dwarfs might be small in stature but huge if you had to drink one. [ABA Journal]

* Happy is the lawyer who has clients who are worse at math than he is. [Constitutional Daily]

* It’s not that I think cops shouldn’t be allowed to break down doors if they fear evidence is being destroyed. It’s that I don’t want cops to break down my door for the crime of “owning a door while black,” while invoking the “we thought we smelled pot and he was smoking the evidence” exception. [Law & Technology / Forbes]

* Whenever America and France get into a fight, I always picture some German dude sitting around saying “Jå, Iago. Now das taschentuch!” [Simple Justice]

* Could Goodwin Liu get a hearing already? [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]

* Eric Schneiderman, if you want to be governor in 7 years, you’re going to have to give us a little more than this. [WSJ Law Blog]

The Legal Technology Leadership Summit: More Speakers and Sponsors

By Above the Law

As we’ve previously mentioned, we are pleased to be hosting the Legal Technology Leadership Summit, in partnership with the Electronic Discovery Institute and the American Society of Digital Forensics and eDiscovery (ASDFED).

Today we’re happy to announce a new sponsor: Applied Discovery. We’ve also added some great speakers to the panels, including David King of Research In Motion (makers of the Blackberry), John Reilly of Lorillard Tobacco, Erika Santiago of ASDFED, and Mark Herrmann of Aon (and author of Inside Straight, our in-house counsel column).

You can learn more about the summit here, and you can register to attend here. We hope to see you there.

Legal Technology Leadership Summit

Earlier: For Legal Technology, Above the Law Needs An Entire Summit

Enough With The ABA; Law Students Appeal to the DOE To Force Law School Transparency

By Elie Mystal

Fed up with the slow movement towards law school transparency, several law school student body presidents are appealing to a higher power. They’ve proposed legislation that would require law schools to engage in some honest reporting practices, under the oversight of the Department of Education.

If the American Bar Association is too weak or too unwilling to act, these students are hoping the DOE will take into account the best interests of students. Arne Duncan, if you are listening, every law student in America could use your help.

The movement seems to be spearheaded by Nate Burris, the student president at Boston College Law School. But 55 other SBA presidents have signed on, representing law schools in 27 states.

We already know that the legal educators don’t give a damn about the changes their students would like to see, but is there any chance law makers or the DOE will take a look?

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White Male Judges Are Being Discriminated Against (On Television)

By Elie Mystal

I would still trust Judge Wapner.

It feels like I receive at least one email a week from a pissed-off white male. I feel like everywhere I look there is some white person whining, complaining, playing the “victim” card, and moaning about how difficult things are for a white person nowadays. I’m telling you, if white males have to live under a non-white male president for another four years, Ted Nugent is going to start writing spirituals.

Sometimes I respond to these “white plight” emails. Sometimes I get into passionate debates with people. Never do I sit back and say, “Man, white men really are getting screwed on this issue. White power!” I mean, at the end of the day the playing field still ridiculously favors white males. Sometimes white men can’t see it, just like sometimes you can’t tell that the Earth is curved when you’re standing on the ground. But if you look up — and do some math — it’s pretty obvious we live on a sphere, and it’s pretty obvious we live in a society that favors white males.

But I am… open-minded. And my mind was blown wide open when I read a blog post on Just Enrichment about the paucity of white male judges as fictional characters. Without having the resources to do a full-scale survey of every movie or television character in the past twenty years, this guy makes a compelling point that white males are disfavored when it comes to portraying impartial justice.

And I think this guy — Adam Chandler, a 3L at Yale Law School — is absolutely right….

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Size Matters: Growing Up Together

By Valerie Katz

Oprah is ending on May 25. Like most Americans, I am exhibiting signs of Empty Oprah Syndrome. During this time, as I mourn the loss of my “ultimate girlfriend,” I find myself asking one key question: why does Gayle King get to be Oprah’s actual best friend? I would be way better.

There are a few answers to that question. One answer, I guess, could be attributed to the fact that I have never met Oprah Winfrey. The other answer is that Gayle has something I do not. She has a shared history with Oprah, spanning thirty years. In other words, these women grew up together; they were friends before Oprah Winfrey became Oprah.

Why am I talking about Oprah and Gayle? Because I have Empty Oprah Syndrome, remember? And because there might be a lesson here for small-firm lawyers….

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Career Center: How well did your firm behave during the recession?

By Above the Law

Some firms handled the great recession with grace and poise, while others need lots of improvement if they ever want to receive a Miss Congeniality award in the near future. Check out the blurbs below, as well as the firm profiles at the Career Center, to see which firms are pageant contenders and which firms are just pigs with a little lipstick on.

  • This firm is known for its prestigious bankruptcy practice and has handled several newsworthy bankruptcies during the economic crisis. Associates here receive lots of quality work and direct client contact; however, Lateral Link Members warn that some clients have unrealistic demands on associate availability and deadlines. On the plus side, since associates are pretty self-sufficient with getting their own work, the firm is not very strict about minimum billable hours.
  • While some Lateral Link Members describe the compensation model at this firm as “laughably low in comparison to other firms,” face time expectation at the firm is minimal, and associates say there is “lower stress” than at other large firms. Pro bono work is also encouraged, and the firm counts the first 100 pro bono hours towards billable hours and bonus consideration. As a result of its pro bono commitment, 99% of associates firm wide participated in some form of pro bono work last year.

More profiles, after the jump.

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Commencement Speechmaking 101

By Elie Mystal

Is it really that hard to make a commencement speech? I wrote one in high school. It was basically about seizing the day. My friend made one in college. Same theme, only in Latin. You can also make commencement speeches about giving back to your community, the importance of education, or how your generation is the most awesome generation ever to be generated. It’s not hard, people.

And yet people consistently screw it up. Today we have two different ways that people can screw up a commencement speech — one example from an old person, one example from a young person. One example from a very good law school, one example from a school that isn’t ranked that highly.

Apparently, anybody can screw up a commencement address if they try hard enough….

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Quote of the Day: In Da Club

By David Lat

If I were in their role and in their position, I probably wouldn’t understand it either, that a club really can’t attract minority members.

– Judge Gilbert S. Merritt Jr. of the Sixth Circuit, commenting to the New York Times about two of his colleagues on the court — Eric L. Clay and R. Guy Cole Jr., both African-American — and their strong reactions against a bankruptcy judge’s membership in an all-white, all-male country club.

(Judge Merritt is also a member of the Belle Meade Country Club, although an honorary one without voting privileges.)