* To be clear, hiring a legal secretary who doubles as a personal prostitute is not okay. Yes, we finally have a punishment for Samir Zia Chowhan’s “adult gigs” legal secretary ad. [Legal Profession Blog]
* Is it time to start getting civilly disobedient with the TSA? [WSJ Law Blog]
* It’s possible that the House Ethics Committee screwed up the Maxine Waters investigation. That Committee is so incompetent that if it was an elected official it’d be called “Maxine Waters.” [Politico]
* The court awards $47K in damages over a stolen laptop. I wish I owned something that was worth nearly $50K if it was stolen. [Legal Skills Prof Blog]
* Indiana man prevented from donating blood because he “seemed gay.” You know, Indiana is starting to “seem dumb” to me. [Hip Hop Wired]
* As the economy heats up, there will probably more people quitting their jobs, so here is a quick refresher course on how to quit appropriately. [The Awl]
* It’s Nelson Mandela’s birthday. I call him “Nelson Mandela” and not “Madiba,” because I don’t think watching Invictus qualifies me for that level of familiarity. [Blawg Review]
[Brendan] Sullivan and his law firm certainly have their work cut out for them. [Rupert] Murdoch may have thought the damage was contained, but it appears this scandal will persist for quite a while.
– Professor Peter J. Henning, commenting on the decision of News Corp. to hire renowned litigator Brendan Sullivan and his powerhouse law firm, Williams & Connolly, to handle the U.S. component of its massive (and metastasizing) phone-hacking scandal.
A couple of days ago, we invited in-house counsel to join this group of interesting speakers at the Legal Technology Leadership Summit, taking place on September 6 -8 in Amelia Island, Florida.
We received a bunch of responses from people who work with in-house counsel, which is nice. But that still leaves us looking for a few more attorneys who actually work in-house. We want to hear the thoughts, concerns, hopes, and demands of in-house counsel, directly from their mouths.
So, if you are working in-house and you have something to say, please take this opportunity to tell people how you prefer to be served. For free, at the Ritz, right after Labor Day.
If you would like to participate, submit a speaker proposal via email, to speakers@abovethelaw.com (subject: “Summit Speaking Proposal”). Let us know the company where you work, your title, and the subject on which you would like to speak, picked from the Summit agenda located here. Speakers will attend the event for free. Travel scholarships are available for qualified corporate counsel, and applications for CLE credits have been submitted. But obviously space is limited.
And if you don’t work in-house but want to hear what these in-house lawyers have to say (as well as network with them), you should sign up to attend the conference, over here.
Edward De Sear
On Friday we brought you the story of Edward De Sear, a former partner at several top law firms who now faces a charge of child pornography distribution. De Sear — a graduate of Columbia and UVA Law, who is now one of the nation’s leading capital-markets lawyers — has been a partner at Allen & Overy, Bingham McCutchen, McKee Nelson, Orrick, and Milbank Tweed. As we mentioned in our prior post, the charges against De Sear came as a shock to fellow New York lawyers and to neighbors of his in Saddle River, New Jersey (my hometown — I can walk to De Sear’s place from my parents’ house).
After our story appeared, a former colleague of Ed De Sear came forward, to share some recollections. “I’m completely stunned,” said this attorney.
What could our source recall about De Sear?
Continue reading “More About the Former Biglaw Partner Accused of Child Porn Distribution”
This is a guy who doens't lose his cool.
It’s two weeks before the bar, so you know what that means; total freaking panic. Ah yeah: dogs and cats living together, pants on the ground, don’t feed the one-man wolfpack after midnight kind of hysteria.
For people who will eventually fail the bar, this is the time that they start choking hard enough to merit a tryout with the U.S. Women’s Soccer team. You know the people out there studying with one hand around their throat. They’re the ones who are still making boneheaded mistakes on evidence questions, but are going to waste an entire day over the next two weeks on commercial paper.
Of course, if you are a first time Bar taker, it might be hard to know if the pressure is getting to you. So here’s a hint, and I’m going to break out the Jeff Foxworthy voice to get it across: if you are threatening to dismember people with plastic cutlery, you might be about to fail the bar…
Continue reading “You Have No Scars On Your Face, And You Cannot Handle Pressure”
Career paths are easy at big law firms: As an associate, stay fully occupied doing great work, and become a partner. As a junior partner, stay fully occupied doing great work, and become a powerful partner. As a senior partner, generate enough business to keep you and others fully occupied, and become an even richer and more powerful partner.
These things may or may not be attainable, but everyone understands the career path.
Things are much trickier in-house. Corporations tend to have fewer lawyers than big law firms do, and in-house law departments tend to be flatter. Turnover tends to be less common. Six or eight people often report up to a single supervisor. In that environment, staying fully occupied and doing great work may not move you up the ranks. You can be fully occupied doing great work, but your boss is competent, happy in her job, not close to retirement age, and in good health. She’s going nowhere, so you have nowhere to go in the corporation.
The corporation can actually be very good to its lawyers — investing in leadership and management training, using incentive or equity compensation, and employing other tools for recognizing achievements — but still fall short in actually creating career paths that make sense.
How do corporations create career paths for their in-house lawyers?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: In-House Career Paths”
Now that she has been acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges arising out of the death of her daughter, Caylee Anthony, where will Casey Anthony go next? Given her notoriety, it’s a tough question.
One possible answer: law school. As Ann Finnell, one of Casey Anthony’s lawyers, told People magazine, “She’s been exposed to the criminal justice system, and I think that might be a pursuit of hers.”
So should Casey Anthony go to law school? Many observers, including some of my colleagues here at Above the Law, say that going to law school isn’t a good idea for most people.
But Casey Anthony is no ordinary law student. She is an extraordinary young woman and who has had some extraordinary experiences. Conventional wisdom does not apply to her.
Let’s imagine Casey Anthony’s future legal career….
Continue reading “Imagining the Future Legal Career of Casey Anthony”
Over the weekend, you may have noticed that the New York Times suddenly figured out that law schools are cash cows despite offering dubious value to the students attending law school. We pulled out a fun quote from the article on Sunday.
You know the game: we talk about the danger of going to law school a lot, but because the New York Times is talking about it now we all have to talk about it again.
If you haven’t been paying attention to how law schools operate, the Times article is very, very good. It should be required reading that they send to you when you sign up with LSAC. But even if you have been paying attention, you should still read it. The article, by David Segal, contains a brilliant case study of just how New York Law School goes about generating cash. It’ll make good people sick to their stomachs.
But while the Times takes a critical look at law school deans and university presidents and even U.S. News, one constituency escapes the NYT’s glare: law students themselves…
Continue reading “The Times ‘Unearths’ The Law School Scam, But Still Can’t Explain It”
Rebekah Brooks
* The arrest of Rebekah Brooks over the weekend only complicates the investigation into News Corp. phone-hacking. I like her hair. I only have one question. [Bloomberg]
* What (and where) becomes of Casey Anthony now that she’s out? Y’know, F. Scott Fitzgerald once opined that “There are no second acts in American lives. But Playboy is always a wise option.” Well said, F. Scott. Well said. [New York Times]
* Dominique “L’Dominator” Strauss-Kahn may have had multiple slam pieces on the fateful weekend he was accused of sexual assault. Trois, to be exact. Trois slam pieces. [Daily Intel]
* Some longhair in San Francisco got off a shrooms possession charge because he claimed to forget he had the magical caps and stems. He could, however, rattle off Phish’s entire set list from their Montreal show on 5/9/1998. “Trey was on fire that ni…” the hippie trailed off before asking the reporter for bus fare. [San Francisco Examiner via Gawker]
* More on Cooley’s lawsuit against the internets. [Lansing State Journal]
* The Supreme Court continues to hold its own Player Hater’s Ball with regard to the 9th Circuit. [Los Angeles Times]
* Obama’s pick to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the former Ohio AG, a University of Chicago Law alum, a member of The Elect and, most importantly, a five-time Jeopardy! champ. [Columbus Dispatch]
In these materials and in our conversations with students and applicants, we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000.
– Richard Matasar, outgoing dean of New York Law School, quoted in a lengthy New York Times article entitled Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!
(We’ll have more to say about the Times article — by David Segal, who has written a series of pieces about legal education — tomorrow.)
UPDATE (7/18/11): Here are Elie’s thoughts on the NYT article.
You’re not going to believe this, but according to the National Jurist, the best law school for “standard of living” is not in the Northeast. I know, I’m as shocked as you that schools in the mostly cold, dreary, overcrowded, hyper-competitive, super-expensive Northeast don’t rank more highly when it comes to their standards for law school life.
In all seriousness, I don’t begrudge University of Texas Law its victory in the lifestyle rankings (gavel bang: The Careerist). I have a couple of good friends who live in Austin and two things are clear: there’s is some serious, drop dead, it’d be worth having to drive a Lexus, talent in and around UT. And Austin is to Texas as The Hanging Gardens were to the rest of the Babylonian desert.
But there are a couple of top standard-of-living schools that seem a bit undeserving….
Continue reading “‘Best Standard of Living’ Law Schools Have A Distinctly Southern Bias”
Stephen McDaniel
* Is the D.C. Circuit is okay with TSA screeners touching your junk? Professor Orin Kerr discusses an opinion handed down today. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* According to his mother, Mercer Law grad Stephen McDaniel — a “person of interest” in the investigation of the death of Lauren Giddings — would like to serve on the Supreme Court someday. He might want to get a haircut first. [Macon.com]
* Speaking of SCOTUS, here’s Linda Greenhouse’s scorecard for the Term that just finished. [Opinionator / New York Times]
* Could a change in Irish law result in priests going to prison? [Catholic News Agency]
* Can a criminal defendant assert a Batson claim based on sexual orientation? [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe): all grown up now.
* Lawyer turned novelist Arin Greenwood offers conflicting thoughts on the Canadian legal troubles of comedian Dave Foley. [Washington City Paper]
* “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Lawsuits”: Justin Tenuto reviews “the most interesting, amusing, and preposterous claims from a decade of Potter case law.” [Legally Easy]
* Has diversity taken a hit during the recession? Not on the campuses of the University of California, according to Heather Mac Donald. [City Journal via Instapundit]
* How can legal departments implement new technology to increase the value they provide to their organizations? [Above the Law (sponsored content)]
On a nice, lazy, summer Friday, it’s good to know that rudeness still exists this world.
Today’s example of questionable behavior comes from a midsized Midwestern law firm. Yeah, apparently Midwestern manners don’t extend to how you treat people while you are rejecting them. This firm decided to use its rejection letters as an opportunity to market its new iPhone/iPad application.
It’s an app for people looking for work, of course…
Continue reading “Dear Firms: A Rejection Letter Is Not A Marketing Opportunity”
Layoffs at law firms have slowed to a trickle (although we still hear the occasional rumor; email us with your tips). In the public sector, however, layoffs continue — and may even accelerate, as state governments and the federal government grapple with contentious budget issues.
Today brings word of major layoffs in Connecticut. In a just-issued report, Judge Barbara Quinn, Chief Court Administrator, laid out some serious cuts to positions in the judicial branch.
How serious? This may be hard to believe, but the number of jobs being axed exceeds the February 2009 bloodbath at Latham & Watkins….
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: The Connecticut State Judiciary”
In late December 2010, the elite California law firm of Irell & Manella announced 2010 year-end bonuses that reportedly doubled the benchmark Cravath scale. Although some felt the firm could have been even more generous, given its strong performance in 2010, most Irell associates were quite pleased.
Discontent grew, however, over the following months. Sullivan & Cromwell announced spring bonuses, Cravath announced better spring bonuses, and most top firms followed suit. But not Irell.
Spring turned into summer. Some at Irell feared that the firm was done doling out bonuses until December.
But that fear was misplaced. Yesterday the firm announced “mid-year” bonuses.
So, how much are we talking about?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Irell Announces Mid-Year Bonuses”
Here’s a cautionary tale for every woman. Never, never, never allow your husband (or anybody else) to take dirty pictures of you. The pictures could wind up on the Internet. You could be publicly humiliated. You could lose your privacy, your dignity and your career….
Lori Douglas’s only crime was to choose an unstable spouse, and have sex with him. If that’s enough to lose your job, then a large proportion of our judiciary should be removed.
– Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail, commenting on the controversy over Madam Justice Lori Douglas, the Canadian judge whose nude photos made their way to the internet.
You see what happens, Cooley? You see what happens when you sue anonymous commenters on the internet?
We’re only on day two of Cooley’s reputation defense lawsuits, and it’s already obvious that the lawsuits have made it possible for more people to be more critical of the education offered by the school.
So far, the most damning statement about Cooley’s education has come from Cooley itself. Cooley president Don LeDuc said that the school filed these suits “to protect Cooley’s reputation and stand up for our students and more than 15,000 graduates.”
And yet, of those 15,000 graduates, when it came time to defend Cooley’s reputation, the school went with lawyers who were not educated at Cooley.
Not only did the school not use its own graduates for this work, one of the anonymous commenters the school is suing appears to be a recent Cooley graduate former Cooley Law student. I mean, with friends like these, right?
CORRECTION (7/16/11): It appears that this commenter did not graduate from Cooley, but instead studied there for a time before transferring out.
In any event, that defendant has decided to respond to the Cooley lawsuit…
Continue reading “Cooley Lawsuit Update: One Of The ‘Cooley Four’ Responds To The Law School’s Complaint”
Edward De Sear
I grew up in the town of Saddle River, New Jersey, a suburb about 40 minutes outside of New York City. With its wooded rolling landscape and small-town charm, Saddle River is a pleasant place to live. Large houses, a mix of stately older homes and well-executed McMansions, sit on sizable plots of land, thanks to two-acre zoning.
It was a peaceful and bucolic locale, and when I visit my parents, it seems much the same. My colleague Staci Zaretsky, our newest full-time contributor here at ATL, also grew up there — and concurs with my assessment.
But Saddle River, like the suburbs depicted in such films as American Beauty and Happiness, is not without its drama. Yesterday Edward De Sear, 64, a resident of Saddle River and a capital-markets partner at the distinguished international law firm of Allen & Overy, was arrested at his home and charged with distributing child pornography. The charge of distributing child pornography carries a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of 20 years and a $250,000 fine.
UPDATE (12:00 PM): Make that a former partner of Allen & Overy. De Sear has resigned from the firm, according to a statement issued by A&O. Read it in full after the jump.
Let’s learn more about the allegations against Ed De Sear, hear from someone who knows him, meet his high-powered defense counsel — and check out his beautiful and historic home….
Continue reading “Allen & Overy Partner Accused of Kiddie Porn Purveyance”
