* DADT may be back on the table after yesterday’s DOJ request. For real? Whoever wants to serve our country should be able to do so. End of story. [Bloomberg]
* @JoseBaez’s trial strategy in the #CaseyAnthony case was based on the opinions of Tweeps and bloggers. #knowhowiknowurdumb [Palm Beach Post]
* This Emory Law student took the Beastie Boys a little too seriously. The fight for his right to party reached the Georgia Supreme Court this week. [ABA Journal]
* Know what sucks for this Sidley Austin attorney? Finding out she cheated on her husband with a man who cheated on (and allegedly murdered) the wife she didn’t know existed. [Daily Mail]
* If this “promising young college student” had heard of TNAFlix, obtaining Purdue’s protection for the alleged downloading of Illegal Ass 2 wouldn’t be an issue. [Journal and Courier]
* Anyone remember the “pants on the ground” song? This is the lawsuit remix. I guess saggy pants on a plane are worse than snakes. [NBC Bay Area]
We’ve all had obnoxious neighbors. The stoners who play music too loud, the dysfunctional lovers who are always yelling at each other… it’s part of life.
Most of us, though, have not lived next door to our own personal cyber-terrorist. Minnesota attorney Matthew Kostolnik has.
His neighbor “launched a calculated campaign to terrorize his neighbors, doing whatever he could to destroy the careers and professional reputations of Matt and Bethany Kostolnik, to damage the Kostolniks’ marriage, and to generally wreak havoc on their lives.”
On Tuesday, the man who published child pornography and sent a death threat to Joe Biden, all under Kostolnik’s name, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Keep reading to learn more about the worst neighbor since the door-kicking judge….
Continue reading “This Lawyer Had the Worst Neighbor Ever”
* Today, it’s been fourth months since I quit smoking. Luckily, being smoke free hasn’t dulled my sense to the point where I think busybody neighbors should be able to impinge on a man enjoying a cigarette in the privacy of his own home. See, I think it’s possible to not smoke and not be a fascist. [ABA Journal]
* I’m not going to lie, I’m loving every single minute of this NewsCorp scandal. [Ad Week]
* Former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has joined a law firm. The crack free position should end any speculation about a return to public office. [BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]
* Regardless of what you think about abortions in Missouri, can’t we at least agree that the Missouri Governor is a sniveling politician who is too busy trying to be all things to all people? [Huffington Post]
* But I’m sure Missouri’s new abortion restrictions will please the Flying Spaghetti Monster who is also now getting the international recognition it deserves. [Constitutional Daily]
* The 100 most powerful attorneys in Hollywood. So, these are the people who make offers you can’t refuse. [The Hollywood Reporter]
* Don’t forget, if you’d like to be considered for our in-house columnist position, the deadline is tomorrow. [Above the Law]
Welcome back to school, summer associates –- well, not yet — but many of your summer clerkships are coming to an end. With the scent of sweet, sweet money still lingering in the air since spring bonuses were announced, Biglaw summer associate programs are roaring back to life –- or are they?
Are partners partying like it’s 2007, or groveling before their clients like it’s 2009? Are full-time offers being passed out like candy, or hoarded like the world’s last Twinkie? Are future associates (gasp!) no longer going to be subject to deferred start dates, or is your start date contingent upon a group hug between the Democrats and Republicans?
If you are a 2011 summer associate, let us know if it’s okay to go ahead and pop the bubbly by filling out a short survey (as always, responses will be kept strictly confidential), sponsored by Lateral Link.
Click HERE to take the survey.
Continue reading “Career Center: Summer Associate Experience Survey”
Yesterday I was at a local coffee shop around the lunch hour. I spotted a man that I think was Morgan Spurlock. I am not positive that it was him, but he had red hair and the Horseshoe mustache. It is possible that I saw Danny Bonaduce, a mustached Alfred E. Neuman, or some other ginger. Nevertheless, my potential sighting of the documentary filmmaker got me thinking: What embarrassing secret would Spurlock uncover if he spent 30 Days at a small law firm?
To find the answer to this question, I reached out to my network of small-firm insiders and picked what I thought was the most embarrassing secret. What was it?
Continue reading “Size Matters: Time For An Exposé”
Cooley President Don LeDuc
Earlier this month, we reported that somebody was looking to Craigslist for potential plaintiffs to sue Thomas M. Cooley Law School over the school’s published post-graduate employment statistics. As many of you know, Thomas Jefferson School of Law has already been hit with such a lawsuit.
Well, apparently Cooley isn’t going to sit around and wait for somebody to sue them. Instead, the school is going to sue first.
A message from Cooley president Don LeDuc informed students that Cooley is suing a New York law firm and four anonymous “John Doe” commentators on the internet. We haven’t seen the lawsuit, so we don’t know exactly who the school is suing. According to LeDuc, Cooley is not trying to “police the internet.” Instead he says the school is trying to defend its reputation and the value of a Cooley Law degree.
You can read his full letter to students below….
Continue reading “Thomas Cooley Sues A Law Firm And Four ‘John Does’ On the Internet”
Ted Freedman
Last October, we wrote about the mysterious departure from Kirkland & Ellis of Theodore Freedman. Freedman was a prominent bankruptcy and restructuring partner at the firm, based out of the New York office.
As we mentioned in the story, our coverage of Freedman’s departure was prompted by “interesting rumors.” We hoped that our post would result in additional corroboration of what we were hearing. Alas, our write-up just prompted the usual attacks from Kirkland Kool-Aid drinkers, who accused us in the comments of harboring ill-will toward K&E and engaging in shoddy journalism.
Well, this time we’ll enjoy the last laugh (not because we have anything against K&E — we don’t — but because we like being proven correct). We can share what we know about Ted Freedman, because the rumors are now embodied in a federal criminal indictment….
Continue reading “Mystery Departure Solved: Ex-Kirkland Partner Hit With Federal Criminal Charges”
We've got spirt! Yes we do! We've got spirt! How about you?
Give me an S! Give me a T! Give me an F! Give me a U! What does that spell? STFU!
Just in case you’re not aware, cheerleading is a pretty big deal in Texas. Everyone wants to be a cheerleader because it has some awesome perks. Cheerleaders get the rare privilege of ruling the school while they parade around spreading “spirt” throughout the halls. Cheerleaders hope and pray that they’ll land a football stud who will be their ticket out of town to work at the downtown dollar store.
And last, but certainly not least, alumnae cheerleader moms get to live vicariously through their daughters. And sometimes when former cheerleader moms don’t get what they want, they’ll — Fight! Fight! Fight with all their might! — sue over it.
Girls in my high school used to call each other names and claim Title IX sexual harassment and retaliation all the time. It was no big deal….
Continue reading “Benchslap of the Day: Shouldn’t Cheerleaders Know How to Spell?”
Is it me, or do government lawyers kind of suck? First Casey Anthony gets off, now there’s been a mistrial declared in the Roger Clemens Congressional perjury case just days after the trial started. Why? Because the government violated a pretrial order.
Updates after the jump….
Continue reading “Breaking: Mistrial Declared In Roger Clemens Trial”
We don’t usually make predictions about the longevity of the marriages we cover. It just seems excessively harsh to say, “This couple is going to get divorced.”
But… this couple is going to get divorced. The 32-year-old grandson of Richard Nixon marries the 21-year-old daughter of a Greek billionaire in front of 700 guests, including Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger. At the Waldorf-Astoria reception, George Pataki grooves to a 24-piece orchestra playing AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” We give it two years.
But on to some more promising unions. Here are your latest Legal Eagle Wedding Watch finalists:
Elizabeth Smith and Richard Cotton
Chelsea Purvis and Alnawaz Jiwa
Chloë Schama and Michael Pyle
Read all about these wildly impressive couples, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Out of Africa”
If you’ve been searching the Illinois State Bar website looking for employment opportunities, you might have come across a “super duper” job option. Unlike most attorney job offers that grace our pages, this is not facially offensive. It’s an in-house position. The responsibilities seem legit.
The salary is not listed, but that is better than a listed wage of $10 per hour or something ridiculous. They appear to offer nice benefits to all their employees.
So why are we bringing this opportunity to your attention? Because when Red Bull and beer are listed as job perks, we know that our “bro” readers will want to hear about it…
Continue reading “If It Was Supposed To Be Fun, They Wouldn’t Call It Work”
I’m thinking again, as I did on Monday, about why lawyers go insane over time.
Years ago (long before MapQuest was even a gleam in its inventor’s eye), an older lawyer sent me directions for driving to his home. It was pretty easy to get from my apartment to his house; I had to make only three or four turns. But the directions were several typed pages long. Why?
Because this guy had been driven insane by mistakes in the past. He had told someone to turn east on a road, and the person had turned west. So now the directions eliminated that possible mistake: “Turn east (that is, turn right as you are proceeding northbound on route 1) at the light.” Someone else had missed the turn. So now the directions eliminated that possible mistake: “If you see a shopping mall followed by a McDonald’s on the right side of the road, then you have gone too far. Turn around, go back to the light, and turn east (that is, left as you are now proceeding southbound on route 1) at the light.” Having experienced all of these mistakes, the older lawyer felt compelled to help me avoid them, which made his driving directions nearly incomprehensible.
What does this have to do with being a lawyer?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: Analyzing The Generational Divide”
* No lactation for Jared Lee Loughner. Forcing him to take anti-psychotic medication would violate his rights. And it would probably make him competent to stand trial, but who cares about that, right? [CNN]
* Before all of his campaign finance shenanigans, John Edwards wanted to hang a shingle in New York. A potential partner said he’d bring “cachet” to the firm. Yes, the cachet of a $400 haircut. [USA Today]
* Miller High Life has offered to pay any taxes that Christian Lopez may owe because he caught Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit. Which would make him owe more taxes. I hate knowing so much about tax law. [CNBC]
* Businesses in Nevada can’t discriminate based on gender unless they make it rain. Do you care about gender discrimination if it’ll get you a ticket to poundtown at ladies’ night? [Las Vegas Sun]
* Law grads in New York might want to take note of this Starbucks ruling. Even though the benefits are great for assistant managers, you won’t be able to get any of the barista tips. [Reuters]
* So, remember that time your mom died and you buried her at our cemetery like 20 years ago? Yeah, about that. We screwed up. That’s not your mom’s grave. Our bad. [New Jersey Newsroom]
The Mandarin Oriental in Boston.
Some readers have issues with the often irreverent commenters here at Above the Law. While ATL commenters sometimes say hurtful or offensive things, like anonymous commenters all over the internet, they also provide significant value. They serve as copy editors, highlighting our typographical mistakes; they work as tipsters, pointing us in the direction of news stories; and they function as fact checkers, identifying errors in reporting.
Relying upon the estimable Boston Globe, we recently reported that Henry Rosen, a real estate lawyer at Choate Hall & Stewart, purchased a fabulous $13 million penthouse condominium. But a commenter came along and disputed that: “[Rosen's] just a straw — he purchased it as trustee for a trust.”
After seeing this comment, we raised the issue with the Boston Globe reporter who wrote the original story. And as it turns out, Henry Rosen is not the real party in interest. He is not the true purchaser of the prime penthouse at the Mandarin Oriental in Boston.
Let’s look at the Globe’s correction….
Continue reading “Think A Lawyer Can Afford a $13 Million Condo? Think Again.”
Well, it’s day three of Albany Law School Watch here at Above the Law. This school is definitely on the outskirts of our usual beat, but the craziness keeps rolling in, so we’re going with it.
If you haven’t been keeping up, it seems that Albany Law decided to replace almost all of its admissions office staff. Shortly after our initial story broke, the administration emailed students to inform them about the resignation of the law school’s assistant dean for admissions.
Our sources questioned whether that resignation was voluntary — and claimed that the admissions office staff members in question were escorted from the building by security, late last week.
It seems that alumni from the law school are upset, and some believe that our decision to run this story was premature because we didn’t have all of the facts. Interestingly enough, we’ve received information that provides another side to the story unfolding at Albany Law.
If you thought there was drama before, read on, because sh*t (on the rug) just got real….
Continue reading “More Drama From Albany Law School: Another Side to the Story”
* Has anybody considered pouring a Chernobyl-like sarcophagus over the Wisconsin Supreme Court? [WSJ Law Blog]
* If Mark Zuckerberg ever tries to sue Kash for stalking him, I’m sure a bunch of ATL readers will offer to defend her. [Not So Private Parts / Forbes]
* Intelligent design my ass. An intelligent creator wouldn’t have put genitalia on the outside where it could get chopped off by an angry spouse one’s trying to divorce. [Radar Online]
* This week’s Round Tuit perfectly sums up the Casey Anthony situation by finding the perfect picture of an outraged Nancy Grace. [Infamy or Praise]
* When legal historians attack: Gordon Wood v. Alison LaCroix. [University of Chicago Law School via Brian Leiter]
* It looks like this gay couple got a two year lease on love. [Stop the Deportations]
* Did you know that Above the Law has its very own LinkedIn group? You should join! [LinkedIn]
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If they ask your kid to pose for stock photography that will come up when somebody searches for "fat kid," that's not a good sign.
An article from the Journal of the American Medical Association is making the rounds today. It’s written by a lawyer and a doctor. The authors argue that obese children should be taken away from their parents and placed in foster care.
Yes, it’s entirely possible that this country has become so vain that people want to make letting your kids get fat an offense tantamount to child abuse. But that’s not what’s going on here. The authors aren’t suggesting that parents should lose custody rights if little Johnny has a tubby tummy. Instead, the authors are concerned when little Johnny has diabetes and a measurable gravitational pull by the time he’s 11.
If it weren’t for the fact that foster care in this country is just a little bit better than sending kids to concentration camps, I think I would support this idea. Parents should be on a shorter leash in general….
Continue reading “Should The Law Take Fat Kids Away From Their Parents?”
The first day of the bar exam is about 13 days away. THIRTEEN DAYS. The number thirteen is just evil (especially for those with triskaidekaphobia), but pairing that number with the term “bar exam” makes it that much worse. You’re probably on edge. Your Facebook statuses are bordering on homicidal. You’re so pissed off at the pen-clicking guy in the library that you’re contemplating slicing his throat with the worst notecard paper-cut ever.
I know that we’re not supposed to panic, but some people are panicking, and rightly so. The powers that be at the University of Minnesota Law School are not making it pleasant for recent graduates to study for the bar exam at the school’s law library. Apparently, there’s a lot of banging going on between the stacks, and not of the variety you’d brag to your friends about….
Continue reading “You Know What Makes Studying for the Bar Exam Easier? LOUD BANGING IN THE LIBRARY.”
Are you looking for an opportunity to present information about legal technology to your colleagues? Would like to join this illustrious group of speakers? Then look no further, because a handful of speaking opportunities are still available at the 2011 Legal Technology Leadership Summit.
If you would like to submit a speaker proposal, please email 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.
Those whose speaker proposals are accepted will receive a free pass to the event, and speakers will be able to attend all portions of the Summit. Please hurry, as we have only a handful of opportunities left. Travel scholarships are available for qualified corporate counsel, and applications for CLE credits have been submitted.
The Summit will take place on September 6 – 8, in Amelia Island, Florida. If you are interested in attending the Summit, please sign up here to join us. You can also take a look at the full agenda for the event here.
