In August, New York Law School was hit with a class action lawsuit over the school’s allegedly deceptive post-graduate employment data. The suit accused NYLS of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and deceptive business practices. Now, two months later, NYLS is packing some Biglaw heat and moving to dismiss the complaint.
In a case of David v. Goliath, Jesse Strauss and David Anziska, the small-firm lawyers who brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, are now up against the lawyers at Venable, whose motion to dismiss on behalf of NYLS was accompanied by a cutting 25-page memorandum of law.
But why is the NYLS brief so harsh? Because the school argues that the Gomez-Jimenez suit isn’t about the plaintiffs at all, but instead is part of a “crusade” against the American Bar Association….
Continue reading “New York Law School Files Motion to Dismiss Suit Over Employment Data”
* Wait, is this real? People actually sued al-Qaeda and expect to be paid billions of dollars in damages? Seriously? Having a major “what is this I don’t even” moment over here. [Bloomberg]
* Judith Kaye is the new centerfold for the New York State Court of Appeals. She’s the first woman in history whose portrait will hang in the state’s highest courtroom. [New York Law Journal]
* Thompson Hine partner Leslie Jacobs was charged with tax fraud last week. As could be expected, the Biglaw firm now wants nothing to do with him. [Am Law Daily]
* Another law firm’s confidential files mysteriously ended up in the garbage, but this time at a Georgia newspaper’s office. Just as an FYI, our office is located in New York. [Gainesville Times]
* GTL doesn’t just stand for “Gym, Tan, Laundry” anymore. Apparently, it also stands for “Get The Lawyer.” The Situation is suing a guido lifestyle company for trademark infringement. [Examiner]
* Lindsay Lohan’s alleged probation violations might send her back to the slammer, but she doesn’t want to be made “an example of” in court. Sweetie, it’s called “a mockery.” [Daily Mail]
* This guy suggests that all the Occupy Wall Street people go to law school. Put another way, this guys suggests the single dumbest thing I’ve heard over the course of these entire protests. These people want to be in less debt, not more. I’m putting this in Non-Sequiturs because if I had to write a full post on this, my head my would actually freaking explode. [Cornell Daily Sun]
* I mean, I can’t believe this Cornell guy. Look at his argument. It’s not that I disagree that “clever lawyers” could be helpful for the cause, but going to law school because you want to enact “social change” is exactly how many people end up in debt up to their eyeballs with a degree they don’t even like. Give OWS this iPhone app for getting arrested, not a freaking J.D. [An Associate's Mind]
* At least the OWS people aren’t spending three years procrastinating from the real world at great debt. [Ms. J.D.]
* To say nothing of the fact that lawyers get run over down at Zuccotti park. [Gothamist]
* Why doesn’t he just tell the protesters to light themselves on fire in front of a bunch of schoolchildren? [Slate]
* If you want to hear more about my thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, I’ll be on Mike Huckabee’s show this weekend. I’ll be comparing and contrasting OWS to the Tea Party and debating Phillip Dennis. [Huckabee]
In an installment of our Lawyer of the Month contest in which our candidates brought you sex, violence, and stupidity, we were hardly surprised that our readers chose one of our sexier competitors as the winner.
But which one? Apparently, our readers like it rough. But not too rough.
Take a look at September’s Lawyer of the Month, but please remember your safe word….
Continue reading “September Lawyer of the Month: You Like It Rough”
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), come on down! Okay, I’m sure Senator Coburn wouldn’t put it this way, but you can count him as the latest Senate member who has joined the fight for something that the Occupy Wall Street people should really care about. He wants there to be more transparency when it comes to American law schools.
First, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) led the charge to try to get law schools to engage in some basic honesty when telling prospective students about the value of a law degree. Then Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) added his voice. That was important, as Grassley is the Republican leader on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And now Coburn, another Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is joining in.
Democrats, Republicans, men, women, when will the ABA figure out that there will be broad support for law schools that are required to tell the truth about their graduate outcomes?
Continue reading “Another Senator Wants to Hop on the Occupy the ABA Bandwagon”
At this point in the Courtship Connection Chicago series, I’m shocked that Chicago made it to the Final Four for coolest city for lawyers. I have to assume that those voting weren’t taking the dating scene into consideration. Perhaps Above the Law could start a fund to transplant Big League from D.C. to Chicago, so that she could train her colleagues in how to have an exciting first date. (Step 1: Drink rye whiskey. Step 2: Visit a strip club.) My Chicago daters keep going on “pleasant” dates with “good conversation.” Descriptors like “nice guy” abound in their write-ups. Why do all have to be so darn… Midwestern?
Inspired by ExRated.co, moving forward, I’m going to force nicely ask lawyers in the Windy City to rate their dates (out of five stars), and list their legal eagle match’s best and worst qualities. Should the date not lead to a bedding, it can at least lead to a bettering.
The latest Chicago pairing involved two lawyers in their 20s. Asked why he agreed to be set up by a random legal blogger, our male lawyer, who described himself as “kinetic, adventurous, and faux-angsty,” said, “regardless of the outcome, it’ll probably be a good story, which is generally the important thing.” He asked to be set up with someone “outgoing and hilarious.” Our female lawyer volunteered that she has “HUGE brains.” That seemed like a decent match.
It wasn’t. Emo Lawyer thinks it’s because Mars Attacks didn’t drink enough. Meanwhile, she explained why: she couldn’t stand a second round with him….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Please Try To Be Less Boring”
Today, we have news that both Virginia and Pennsyltucky Pennsylvania have released the results of the July 2011 bar exam. Our congratulations go out to everyone who passed. And for those who didn’t, better luck next time (but on the upside, it’s Friday, so it wouldn’t be completely inappropriate for you to drink yourself into a stupor today).
Here’s an open thread for discussion of July 2011 bar exam results from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and any other states that have already announced their results….
Continue reading “Recent Bar Exam Results: Open Thread
Pennsylvania, Virginia — any others?“
Earlier this week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this trashy photo:
Let’s have a look at what our readers were able to come up with, and then vote on the finalists….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Finalists: Ugh, Our Library Is Such a Dump”
In an event I did a few years ago at the University of Chicago with Judge Richard Posner (check out the podcast here), Judge Posner tossed out a delicious little blind item. He mentioned a federal judge in Chicago who would fire law clerks for what she viewed as a very grave offense: splitting infinitives in written work product.
But is splitting infinitives really such a crime?
Continue reading “Grammer Pole of the Weak: Split Infinitives”
I like pictures. They’re easy. They say a thousand words. And I think they’re more effective at getting a point across to millennials than long screeds full of facts, information, and data. I mean, some of these kids have the attention span of fruit flies. Putting information in pictorial form might help.
Today, we have a great infographic that explains the student loan “racket.” Government secured loans, collection agency premiums, non-dischargable debts through bankruptcy — this graphic has everything.
The opening paragraph says it all:
Student loan debt, now at $830 billion, has surpassed credit card debt—a statement not likely to have been heard 20 years ago. Student loans, unlike any other form of debt, CANNOT be forgiven via bankruptcy—these loans MUST be repaid. Is this the next bubble to burst?
Uh… yes?
Let’s check out the graphic….
Continue reading “A Picture of How the Student Loan Industry Took Advantage of You”
In Feeling the Kumbaya (Part I), we looked at how different the perspectives of business clients and in-house lawyers can be. Below are a few techniques that have helped me and my clients to feel the Kumbaya for each other (or at least have helped them to not think I’m only a total loser who has nothing better to do than change all of the commas in a list after a colon to semicolons).
Prioritize. I used to suspect that there was something about going in-house that made perfectly good law firm attorneys develop permanent amnesia when it came to good drafting. It was the strangest thing. Even my husband, a supposedly respectable corporate law firm attorney, after going in-house, suddenly started to let minor errors appear in his emails. My judgment of him was quick and deliberate. He would sometimes mistakenly use “there” instead of “their,” for God’s sakes! What lawyer does that?
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Feeling the Kumbaya (Part II)”
Give me a break. I 'raised' 23 foster kids.
* Members of the Occupy Wall Street brigade were allowed to continue to be dirty hippies living in a park without toilets this morning. So fresh and so clean! OMG, yippee! [Wall Street Journal]
* French prosecutors have dropped another yet another rape charge lodged against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Seriously? It looks like nothing sticks to this man except money. [CNN]
* Recognizing that it’s really hard to get someone to pick up a partner from the drunk tank when there’s a Blackberry outage, DLA Piper is thinking about switching to iPhones. [Reuters]
* RajRaj was literally the biggest target in the Galleon case, but one of his buddies was sentenced, too. On Wednesday, Michael Kimelman got 2.5 years at the luxurious Club Fed. [Daily Record]
* It took Michele Bachmann seven years to graduate from law school (whereas most graduate in three). She can get things done, but apparently only on her own time. [New York Times]
* Food fight! Things are getting really dirty in this Food Network lawsuit. Guy Fieri not only likes to cook with alcohol, but he allegedly speaks like an angry drunk behind the scenes. [City Pages]
Last month, there was some controversy out in California about public nudity. In San Francisco, it’s totally legal to prance around naked all day long, but local nudists were upset when they found out they might soon be forced to put down a towel before sitting buck-ass-naked on public seats.
Now a similar controversy has traveled to New York — not over increased restrictions on nudity, but whether there can be public nudity at all. Holly Van Voast, a 45-year-old activist for the cause, has had her fair share to say about it. And by “say,” I of course mean “show.”
Van Voast has grinned and bared it all — in Times Square, on the Staten Island Ferry, and most recently, in the middle of Grand Central Station. One of these public displays of middle-aged nudity landed her in Midtown Community Court yesterday, where the naked truth was revealed….
WARNING: A photo of a topless Van Voast — tastefully redacted, of course — appears after the jump. If you can’t handle it, or if you’re not in a place where you can view a (tastefully redacted) photo of a topless woman, please stop reading here.
Continue reading “The Naked Truth Always Comes Out in Court (But Not Like This)”
* If I tell you a check “cleared,” do you know what I’m talking about? No, you don’t. According to bankers, you have no freaking idea what I just said. Mwahahaha. Pick up the pieces of your mind, ’cause I just blew it. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]
* Finally, we have two lesbians on the federal bench. Now it’s a party. [MetroWeekly]
* Being required to get fingerprinted in order to apply for food stamps is demeaning. And it’s not like signing up for food stamps is a big jolt of self-esteem in the first place. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Honestly, I think UNC should just go pro. [WRAL Sports]
* Really, we’re protesting people’s houses now? I have an idea: how about we get to stone one random rich person every day the economy fails to improve for the common man? Wait, that might actually work. [Huffington Post]
* Are you too important to return calls to your clients? [What About Clients?]
* JD Match continues to gain momentum. [JD Match]
Like any well-adjusted adult, I blame my parents for all of my problems. You should too, at least when it comes to your name. For instance, if your parents named you Candy, then they ensured that you would become a stripper. Similarly, if your parents named you Stanley, then you were destined to become a tool.
There are a few exceptions where the name chosen by your parents guarantees that you will be a success. For example, if your parents named you “Valerie,” you were destined to become a star.
The luckiest of all, for our purposes at least, are those chosen few with the last name Small….
Continue reading “Size Matters: Mr. Small”
What does a peacock have in common with a gun owner?
Maybe we should look at this as a grand test of the “theory” of evolution via natural selection. Eventually, over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, the gun nuts should really die out, while those who favor sensible gun regulation will live and procreate and prosper.
But then again, maybe this is a case of sexual selection. Maybe the gun-nut trait will be favored because — despite its negative correlation with survival (most gun nuts don’t even understand that gun owners are more likely to shoot themselves or a loved one than any kind of criminal) — toting a gun just drives the ladies wild. Maybe holding a gun really is like holding a (pea)cock.
Either way, I feel the need to explain Tennessee state representative Curry Todd’s alleged behavior with the understanding of the natural forces in play. Because on the surface, the fact that the politician in favor of guns in bars got pulled over for allegedly driving while drunk, with his gun in his car, just seems to speak to the natural evolution of our species….
Continue reading “Drinking, Driving, and Packing”
Hiring of attorneys by corporate legal departments has picked up in recent months. As companies became more cost-conscious during the recession, they began reducing legal expenditures by keeping more legal work in-house and relying less on outside counsel with their high billing rates. This has resulted in an increased workload, and thus a need for more legal staff for manyin-house legal departments.
So if you’ve been thinking about looking for an in-house job, now may be the best time to make a move. In today’s Career Center Tips Series, Lateral Link’s recruiters discuss which practice areas are in the highest demand for the in-house job market. However, since practice area activity can be very region-specific, the following are general trends observed in the in-house legal sector nationwide….
Continue reading “Career Center: Hot Practice Areas in the In-House Legal Market”
Earlier this week, the federal government got some heat for allegedly violating the common man’s electronic privacy by snooping around in email and the like. Today we have a lawsuit from Kentucky accusing a tech company, specifically Facebook, of doing nearly the same thing.
What is going on? It’s almost like there’s no privacy anywhere anymore! (I’m kidding, of course: Privacy completely disappeared years ago.)
The suit, filed by an average Facebook user like you or me (well, most of you are lawyers, so not quite like you), claims a class of 150 million people, and damages of hundreds or thousands of dollars per class member. Exactly what heinous offense has Facebook supposedly committed?
I’m so glad you asked….
Continue reading “Did Facebook Illegally Wiretap 150 Million People? Maybe! Probably Not”
