Archive for June 2011

Morning Docket: 06.16.11

By Staci Zaretsky

* Oooh, Obama drama at the White House! They’re fighting with Congress over the legal definition of war “hostilities.” Can’t we all just celebrate good Obama (come on)? [New York Times]

* Schulte Roth’s tech-support crew would love nothing better than to blue screen the entire firm, but instead, they’re suing for overtime pay. [Thomson Reuters]

* At this point, it’s a shame that Charlie Sheen didn’t try to trademark “LOSING.” It looks like the actor won’t get his day in court after all. [Company Town / Los Angeles Times]

* Given my obsession with Lady Gaga, there was no way I was going to leave out this story about “Lawyer Gaga” and her role in the Casey Anthony trial. [WESH Orlando]

* It may be a bad sign for your case when the judge’s name is Thrash. How will Georgia’s tough new immigration law fare against this scary-sounding member of the judiciary? [Forbes]

* This is actually a bit of a surprise because it comes from the land of Jewish grandmas. A middle school in Florida is being sued by the ACLU over “Kick-a-Jew Day.” [Marco Eagle]

* With a motion critiquing opposing counsel’s grasp of the use of apostrophes, Richard Crites’s pleading is a potential candidate for Motion of the Day for sure. [Springfield News-Leader]

Fictional Lawyer Madness: Your Favorite Fictional Lawyers of the Past 30 Years

By Elie Mystal

About a month ago, I asked for nominees for an epic bracket that would ask: Who is your favorite fictional lawyer. The suggestions flowed in. In the comments, over email, via Twitter, and even from people I met in bars. And the tips came from all kinds of people. Lawyers and law students, their parents, legal journalists and bloggers, and even television critics.

Everybody has a fictional legal character that they cherish and wanted to see represented. I had hoped that a 32 lawyer bracket would capture most of the worthy contenders, but it turns out we could have made a 128 lawyer bracket and still had notable snubs.

So we’ve had to make some tough cuts to bring it down to 32 lawyers. And we’ve had to create some arbitrary cut-offs, like limiting ourselves to lawyers who got their fictional start in the last 30 years — to keep things manageable and keep this from becoming an Atticus Finch coronation exercise. But with big apologies to Perry Mason, Tom Hagen, and the older readers who adore them, I think we’ve come up with 32 lawyers fictional lawyers worth arguing over…

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Non-Sequiturs: 06.15.11

By Staci Zaretsky

* Happy Magna Carta Day! Freedom is great, but real property laws aren’t fun. Law students could have survived without half of them. [An Associate’s Mind]

* For those of you who get angsty on planes, here is a quick list of the things you can’t do. Getting naked in the bathroom — not in the cabin — counts for mile high club points. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Some more praise for Law School Transparency due to its work this week with the ABA. Reform is coming, whether you like it or not. [The Careerist]

* The so-called “master of disaster” Stanley M. Chesley’s life may be in shambles if he gets disbarred. How’s he going to clean up that mess? [WSJ Law Blog]

* A precious story about a law student who just loves being a dad. I hope he loves studying just as much, because he’s a single dad. [NPR]

Thanks to This Week’s Advertisers

By Above the Law

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Did Uga Eat The Grades At UGA Law?

By Staci Zaretsky

Uga, did you eat the grades?

Well, it’s the middle of June, and it seems that some law students are still waiting for their grades. As we know from past discussion of the issue, this is a fairly common practice. The only problem with it is that it keeps law students fiending for their last grade like a crack addict searching frantically for his last rock.

The worst part of this situation is the fact that the grade delay may be keeping these law students from becoming gainfully employed. The legal job market may allegedly be on the rise, but when law students can’t do more than offer two-fifths of their updated transcripts to prospective employers, you can take a wild guess as to where their résumés will be headed.

So, while the professors are taking their sweet time grading their exams and possibly costing you a job, your classmates are banding together to try to figure out how to resolve the problem. First, they go to the Student Bar Assocation. Then, when they don’t like the answer they get from the SBA (“there’s a grading deadline, I’m sure we’ll get our grades soon”), they go straight to the source, the administration. Finally, when the administration’s response isn’t good enough (“it’ll be okay, you’ll get your grades when you get your grades”), they come to Above the Law. And we’re happy to help.

Hey, University of Georgia School of Law, we’re looking at you. Where are your grades?

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: The Real Reason for Timesheets

By Jay Shepherd

What did you do yesterday? I’m assuming you went to work. Did you put in a full day? Great. Let’s assume you got started around 9:00, took about an hour for lunch, and signed off at 7:00. Maybe for you that’s a light day, or maybe that’s a long day. Doesn’t matter. So that means you worked nine hours. OK.

Let’s further assume that you frittered away an hour, mostly spent reading Above the Law or wondering why they’re still playing hockey in the summertime (I’d make a Bruins reference here, but it would be strictly from the bandwagon). So that leaves eight hours of bona fide work. Eighty point-ones. Four hundred eighty minutes.

Now look over your timesheet from yesterday, and think about how you spent those 480 minutes. Were they all the same? Were they all of equal value to solving your clients’ problems?

Of course not. But if your minutes aren’t all the same, why are you counting them as being the same? What are the real reasons that lawyers track their time?

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Kids, Get High Off Drugs, Not Debt. It’s More Fun And People Are Nicer To You When It’s Time To Recover.

By Elie Mystal

Let’s say that instead of taking on huge debts while I was in law school, I had taken up a wicked cocaine habit. Let’s say I had done loads and loads of blow from 2000 to 2007 and then went into a 12-step program. If I had been lucky enough to avoid an overdose or jail, you could argue that things would be better for me right now — even if I had a really serious cocaine problem where I spent my all my disposable income on the drug, and even if I put a good job and a good marriage straight up my nose. If I had been through all that and then wrote an essay about the highs and the lows of doing cocaine throughout my legal career, if I was telling kids that they could overcome a wicked cocaine habit even though the consequences were severe, if I was truthfully telling people that even though I’m trying to stay clean and sober now I’m not “ashamed” of my past life, I’d have nearly everybody in my corner.

Instead, I didn’t have a cocaine habit in law school and beyond. I defaulted on my student debts.

Really, the smart thing to do would have been to default on all my loans, then blame it on the cocaine that I was “powerless” to stop. But instead of playing the victim, I marshaled what autonomous power I had and chose not to pay back my loans in a timely manner. I decided to go down on my own terms, not the terms set out for me in a promissory note.

That seems to be what has really pissed everybody off…

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Lawyer of the Day: Gibson Dunn Associate Hit With Child Porn Charges

By David Lat

Allegations of criminal conduct can be made against attorneys from all walks of life. An innocent-looking solo practitioner in Illinois can be accused of prostitution. A partner in a well-regarded Minnesota law firm, the incoming president of the state bar association, can be accused of molesting a child (and convicted of criminal sexual conduct, after pleading guilty).

Such seamy accusations aren’t limited to the heartland; we also see them here in New York, at elite law firms. As we mentioned last night, Moshe Gerstein — a 35-year-old corporate associate in the New York office of Gibson Dunn, who also once worked at Skadden — has been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with child pornography possession. And we’re not talking about garden-variety kiddie porn, but images of a particularly disturbing nature.

Let’s learn more about the charges against this young lawyer, have a look at Moshe’s mug, and hear from some tipsters who know him — including a former colleague….

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Dancing The Pole

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).

My client’s concise estimate of her second year at a big law firm:

“Meh.”

For months, the “career” consisted of one-third idleness, one-third word-processing, and one-third pointless research. That morphed over time into “managing” doc review, which morphed into doing doc review, which translated into odious hours staring at odious documents on a computer and clicking “responsive/relevant” or “privileged” or some euphemism for “embarrassing.” According to rumors at her firm, there’s juicy stuff squirreled away in electronic nooks and crannies – most notoriously, emails from execs’ hiring hookers. To date, my client’s experience of “doing doc review” has matched the edge-of-your-seat excitement of watching drywall compound discharge moisture.

“There are days I want to scream, ‘Who are we fooling?!’” she remonstrated. (Granted, there wasn’t much use remonstrating with me, since I’m her therapist. Sometimes you just need to remonstrate – to demonstrate you can remonstrate.) “This isn’t a career – it isn’t even a job. It’s a joke. Every day I think about quitting.”

But she doesn’t.

Why?

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Planet Data Provides For Your E-discovery Needs

By Above the Law


When you buy any product, there’s one thing that matters most: your needs. And any business that wants to succeed must keep their clients’ needs front and center.

That axiom is true in the e-discovery world, just like anywhere else.

With the recent release of Exego version 2.0, Planet Data’s flagship Early Cost Assessment platform, the veteran e-discovery provider has truly taken its clients’ needs to heart.

When developing the updated e-discovery solution, Planet Data asked its customers, “What do you want us to do for you?” The company incorporated those requests into Exego 2.0.

Performance and usability enhancements make the new Exego faster and easier to use than the first version. It offers in depth reporting and project management functions so clients can deal with large amounts of ESI data more efficiently. New features include, to name a few, Concept Searching and Hot Document searching.

Exego’s methodology reduces the amount of data processed and reviewed in litigation, and it reduces overall e-discovery time and costs.

In short, this platform really is intelligent.

Let’s say you have a case trying to determine, I don’t know, whether Led Zeppelin might have stolen other people’s songs. Exego could search a record label’s files for anything conceptually related to Jimmy Page, “Stairway to Heaven” and bustling hedgerows, even if relevant documents don’t say the exact words.

“Our goal since launching Exego has been to continue to improve its features and capabilities to outpace the rapidly evolving e-discovery landscape,” said Zoltan Horvath, Planet Data’s president. “We are excited to introduce an updated version that offers enhanced usability, faster results and a broader range of functions, while maintaining the quality and defensibility for which our Exego solution is known.”

Planet Data is a proud sponsor of the 2011 Legal Technology Leadership Summit. Thought leaders and decision makers will be attending the summit in September to learn about and discuss the ever-changing impact of technology on the legal world.

“The Summit has an impressive lineup of speakers and participants who will offer fresh thinking on e-discovery trends and best practices,” said Planet Data CEO Howard Reissner. “We are excited and honored to participate in this prestigious event and look forward to hearing new perspectives and insights from some of the top minds on the subject.”

For more information about working with Planet Data, contact Laura Marques at LMarques@PlanetDS.com or go to www.planetds.com.

Breaking Up the ATL Boys’ Club (Nobody Likes a Sausage Fest)

By Staci Zaretsky

My name is Staci Zaretsky, but most of you have known me as Morning Dockette for the better part (or worst part, depending on your opinion) of a year now. You must be wondering why I’m finally putting aside my absurd pseudonym and writing this post under my real name. Well, thanks to the powers that be at Above the Law, I will be joining the editorial staff as a full-time writer.

I’ll give you all a moment to groan and/or squeal and then soil yourselves with disgust and/or pleasure. Super! Now that we’ve gotten over that hurdle, let me assure you that you don’t have to worry, because my fabulous friend Juggalo Law will continue to write for ATL.

Since I started writing for ATL, I have learned a lot about the legal community that frequents the site. I’ve learned that some people just can’t take a joke. That’s pretty unfortunate, but most law types are lacking in the personality department, so it’s understandable. I’ve learned that our commentariat can determine what people look like, just from their style of writing. Apparently, I’m a hot Asian girl. Who knew?

The most important thing I’ve learned from my time here at ATL is that a lot of our readers have graduated from elite educational institutions and then moved on to even greater law firms. I’ve also learned that not everyone who makes the decision to enter the legal field is so lucky – and I’ve learned that from my own personal experiences.

Now, before you get your Google on, and if you really want to see if I’m a hot Asian girl, please read on after the jump…

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Morning Docket: 06.15.11

By Morning Dockette

* According to this lawsuit, a medical license is just a free pass to steal people’s time and money. Clearly, the way around this is to bill the doctor for your time and then sue when he refuses to pay. [MSNBC]

* Former lieutenant Daniel Choi will go to trial this August for his White House DADT protest. Man, I love a guy in uniform. Too bad this one loves other guys sans uniform. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]

* The Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated Governor Walker’s controversial union law on the same day the Senate approved carrying concealed weapons. These people really aren’t communicating with each other, are they? [New York Times; Reuters]

* Trying to get ABA accreditation is a little like playing Press Your Luck. No whammies, no whammies, no whammies, stop! Elon got lucky yesterday, too. [The Business Journal]

* UND School of Law got its first woman dean, well, ever. I figured she’d look like the farmer chick from American Gothic, but I was pleasantly surprised. [The Republic]

* The King of Pop’s got legal troubles from beyond the grave. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Jackson, but I don’t need to smell like him (or like a child toucher, as my boyfriend noted). [New York Daily News]

* The Winklevii just… won’t… die! Well, their legal claims won’t, at least. All litigation in the Facebook lawsuit is now on hold pending a plea to the Supreme Court for intervention. [Bloomberg]

* These are the 33 reasons why normal humans love summer in New York City — but, for lawyers, some of these luxuries just don’t exist. That, or we’re too cynical to acknowledge them anymore. [Village Voice]

Fear And Loathing, The Squeakquel

By Juggalo Law

Casey Anthony

I knew the moment would come when I’d have to watch a full hour of Nancy Grace and I was not looking forward to it. The daytime anchors and hosts had been mere fluffers for Nancy Grace’s performance at night and there were multiple teases to her show throughout the day. For Nancy Grace is the shrieking televangelist of something called victims’ rights. In her worldview, there are saintly victims and black-hatted criminals who roam the earth, preying on the canonized. Previously, I knew she had been criticized for picking the wrong saints. While the Duke Lacrosse case had made fools of many, very few had been as brazen and unapologetic as Ms. Grace.

This, of course, made something like Caylee Anthony’s tragic death a sort of no-lose proposition for Nancy Grace. Caylee is dead and she’ll always be dead and all the wild conjecture in the world won’t change that heartbreaking fact. I planned to watch three solid hours of Headline News last night, starting with the full-frontal assault of Nancy Grace and giving myself two solid hours of cool down with Dr. Drew and Joy Behar.

So I sat up straight on my couch, turned the channel back to Headline News, and steadied myself for the onslaught….

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Non-Sequiturs: 06.14.11

By David Lat

Judge Vaughn Walker: He's here, he's queer -- deal with it.

* An associate in the New York office of Gibson Dunn, Moshe Gerstein, has been hit with child pornography charges. (More coverage to come; if you know him personally and have info to share, please email us.) [New York County District Attorney's Office]

* Motion to vacate the Proposition 8 decision, on the grounds that (now retired) Judge Vaughn Walker is gay and has a partner, DENIED. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]

* Vivia Chen has some advice for married couples trying to juggle their careers and domestic duties: “Keep mom on the job, and get dad a fresh apron.” [The Careerist]

* Confession of an affirmative action baby: “It pains me to say this, but putting down black might help my admissions chances and putting down Asian might hurt it.” [Althouse]

* Congratulations to UC Irvine Law on winning provisional accreditation from the ABA — and condolences to the University of La Verne College of Law, which just lost it. [National Law Journal]

* How is a constitution like a computer operating system? Professor Glenn Reynolds has some interesting thoughts on the subject. [SSRN via Instapundit]

* Meanwhile, Mark Steyn wants to know: “Is Every Lesbian Blogger a Middle-Aged Man?” [National Review Online via Instapundit]

Career Center: Manage Your Time — Life on a Professional’s Clock

By Above the Law

Welcome to the world of Biglaw — a world of wonder, a world of magic, a world of pure imagination — okay, not really. After you are done watching Willy Wonka, come with me and you’ll see a world of schedules, time constraints, and statutory deadlines with loopholes and an infinite number of exceptions. If you haven’t already, buy yourself a watch — and no, not a Rolex (as Elie well knows, student loans are not easy to live with).

Transforming your wake-up-at-9:55-to-get-to-class-by-10 schedule to a working-at-a-law-firm schedule is not easy. The work habits of many students do not match well with the daily life of a firm. I’m not saying that law students do not know how to work hard, but when you join a law firm, you follow the pulse and practice of the firm, its partners, and its clients.

The following tips on managing your time and transitioning from law school to law firm are brought to you by Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner. Now on to the tips…

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Ilan Grapel: He’s No Austin Powers

By David Lat

Who is the real spy? Ilan Grapel (left) or Austin Powers?

As we mentioned yesterday, a student at Emory Law School by the name of Ilan Chaim Grapel was arrested in Egypt on Sunday, and ordered held for 15 days. The Egyptians allege that Grapel is a “highly trained” spy, working for the state of Israel.

Ilan Grapel is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. And he did serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prior to law school, as a paratrooper (which sounds pretty awesome bad-ass).

But does that make Ilan Grapel a spy? Some observers, including classmates of Ilan’s from Emory Law, find the allegation highly dubious….

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Above the Law Readers Can Get 50% Off For A Father’s Day Gift

By Elie Mystal

Father’s Day is coming up. This holiday is never as big as the other fake holiday known as Mother’s Day. That’s because fathers, in general, just want the kids to get out of the house long enough for them to have sex and an uninterrupted nap.

But, if you have a good Dad who only beats you when you deserve it, you should certainly get the old man a present. If you are in the market, Above the Law has a deal for you. We are bringing back our Blank Label deal for men’s shirts that you design yourself.

Under the offer, $50 gets you $100 towards a custom-designed men’s dress shirt. But the deal expires soon, so don’t delay. Click on the link below to access it — and take on the fun role of fashion designer. Happy shopping!

Blank Label: Design Your Own Custom Men’s Dress Shirt [Buy With Me]

Lawyer of the Month: May Reader Poll

By Elie Mystal

Yes, I get that June 14th is a little bit late to be doing the May Lawyer of the Month poll. Yes, I also understand that the person who will almost undoubtedly be June’s Playmate Lawyer of the Month, Reema Bajaj, is ineligible for May — and that fact might leave some of our readers with blue balls.

But you know what? There were some really interesting candidates for May. And they deserve their moment of fame/infamy on these pages. Not every lawyer has to allegedly sell vaginal access in order to be special.

For instance, some people can become famous simply with an attempt at sexual trespass….

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Size Matters: An Important Victory For Small-Firm Advertising

By Valerie Katz

Law firm advertising is expensive and certain methods may be cost-prohibitive for small firms. For instance, a small firm may not be able to afford a television or print campaign. Enter online marketing including, among other things, Google AdWords and sponsored links. In 2009, a law firm filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin state court challenging certain marketing strategies as an invasion of privacy, as defined in the Wisconsin privacy statute. Luckily for consumers and small firms, the court disagreed.

The case involved the two most prominent personal injury firms in Wisconsin. One of them, Cannon & Dunphy, used a Google AdWords PPC (price-per-click) strategy (and other search engines) to bid on the name of the state’s largest personal injury firm, Habush, Habush & Rottier. In other words, when a user would search the terms Habush or Rottier, a Cannon & Dunphy link would show up in the shaded section as a Sponsored Link.

Habush sued Cannon, alleging that Cannon’s online marketing campaign violated Wis. Stat. §995.50. That statute prohibits “the use, for advertising purposes or for purposes of trade, of the name . . . of any living person, without having first obtained the written consent of the person,” and provides a cause of action where such an invasion of privacy was unreasonable.

The result of the litigation, after the jump….

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Bar Review Diaries: Making Law From Fire Logs

By Christopher Danzig

I’m not sure how to say this, but I think some of our columnists are starting to get a little unhinged.

This week on the Bar Review Diaries, we’ll start off with some wood-piling hallucinations and imaginary Kiwi exchange students.

Let’s join Mariah in Vermont, a.k.a. the 1860s, after the jump…

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