Stephen McDaniel
This should not come as a great shock, since he’s been in jail since July, but Stephen Mark McDaniel has been indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Lauren Giddings. McDaniel and Giddings graduated earlier this year from Mercer Law School, where they were classmates, and they were also neighbors in the Barristers Hall apartment complex in Macon, Georgia.
In addition to being charged with the Giddings murder, McDaniel has been indicted for other creepy crimes….
Continue reading “Stephen McDaniel Indicted for Murder of Lauren Giddings”
Word on the street is that people have been saying that I’m “anti-woman.” Apparently, I might as well get in touch with Al Bundy and join NO MA’AM. And while sitting around drinking booze and going to strip clubs would be fun, it’s just not my thing. I’m sorry to disappoint our readers, but I’m not anti-woman. I’m anti-stupidity.
Women in Biglaw: good. Women in Biglaw being nasty to others: bad. Breastfeeding in general: good. Breastfeeding in court: bad. The point is that I don’t have to be a knee-jerk feminist to be in favor of women’s rights.
And in the latest round of woman-related stupidity, it turns out that religion is still trumping women’s reproductive rights at a highly-ranked law school in the New York metropolitan area. So, which school is denying its women access to birth control?
Continue reading “Which Law School Needs to Give Thanks for Birth Control?”
Reema N. Bajaj
Next week, Reema Bajaj, the comely Illinois attorney who has been accused of prostitution, will celebrate her 26th birthday. (You can look up her date of birth on the DeKalb County criminal docket.)
But how happy will that birthday be? There’s a cloud looming over this lovely lawyer….
Continue reading “Reema Bajaj Is Going All the Way”
Back in June, we wrote about Lisa M. Johnstone, a corporate associate in the Los Angeles office of Skadden who passed away in her home.
At the time, we didn’t have the autopsy report (as we noted in our story). But I, and some of Johnstone’s Skadden colleagues, used her passing as an occasion for reflecting on nature of working in Biglaw.
The autopsy is out now. While the cause of death is inconclusive, the toxicology report found no trace of drugs….
Continue reading “Autopsy Inconclusive In Death Of Skadden Associate, But Toxicology Report Is Clean”
* One of the reasons that members of Congress are so filthy rich is because they’re only technically breaking the law, but Scott Brown wants to try to curb Congressional “insider trading.” [CBS News]
* In other Congressional news, pizza is now considered a vegetable. And fat people the world over rejoiced by stuffing their faces and continuing to clog their arteries. But not me, because goddamn do I hate pizza. [MSNBC]
* MMA fighters sue, saying the ban on fighting in the state of New York is unconstitutional. If beating someone’s face in is an art form, then Anderson Silva is this generation’s Picasso. [New York Daily News]
Find out whose face the Spider should beat next, after the jump….
Continue reading “Morning Docket: 11.16.11″
The $215,000 engagement ring.
Voter turnout in our October Lawyer of the Month poll was not high: only 453 votes were cast. In the end, DLA Piper partner Laura Flippin, who allegedly blew a .253 on a breathalyzer test, narrowly edged out Cadwalader partner Ira Schacter, who reportedly bought a $215,000 engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny ex-fiancée — while refusing to pay for his teenage daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids.
A mere 11 votes separated the winner and the runner-up. Given the closeness of the vote, maybe Laura Flippin should have focused more on voter turnout, to boost the tallies of her rivals.
It seems that Ira Schacter did just that. Check this out….
Continue reading “A Prominent Partner Gets Out the Vote and Avoids ‘Lawyer of the Month’ Honors”
* New York journalists were learning all about how NYPD rolls. [Huffington Post]
* If this were a political philosophy class, I’d suggest destroying all the law schools and starting again from scratch. But it’s nice to see how more practical people deal with the issue. [JD Match]
* It’s the birthday of the Articles of Confederation. I like to remember this document as its proof that the Founding Fathers didn’t really know what they were doing. [Oxford Patch]
* From “homemaker” to judge. I kind of think every District should have one judge who had a non-traditional career before the bench. [Northern District of California Blog]
* I’d care more about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act going too far if I lived in a world where the TSA didn’t already have access to the genital regions of any air traveler. [Gawker]
* Always sad when a gun owner shoots himself. Sad for the Second Amendment. [Underdog]
* Law360′s lawyer “MVP” list = things we’ll be seeing more of as the NBA lockout continues. [Law360]
After writing months’ worth of columns for Size Matters, I now consider myself somewhat of a career coach for small-firm attorneys. It is the perfect coaching relationship: I give unsolicited advice to no one in particular and assume that my advice was followed and successful. Last night, I learned about another career coach (slash Headhuntress) who may be giving me a run for my money. Luckily for me, Wendy Doulton does not specialize in career coaching for small-law firms.
There is, however, someone who does (other than me). His name is RJon Robins. His website guarantees that clients will learn how to successfully start, manage, and expand their own small and solo practices. He also promises that he can show lawyers how to have fun while practicing, and how to write a bio that “doesn’t suck.” I was intrigued and decided to check out the website to see if RJon was going to get his own reality show and force me to get out of the advice-giving business….
Continue reading “Size Matters: What Do You Get When You Combine a Drug Dealer With a Career Coach?”
Mayor Bloomberg has reason to smile today.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg can have his way with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. According to the Associated Press, Justice Michael Stallman of New York Supreme Court just shot down the Temporary Restraining Order sought by the protesters against Mayor Bloomberg.
Let’s hope everybody keeps their cool.
The ruling on the TRO appears below…
Continue reading “Breaking: Judge Stallman Rules Against Occupy Wall Street Protesters”
If you’re a law student, you probably checked your email first thing this morning for one reason or another. Maybe you were waiting to hear back from a professor. Maybe you were praying for a snow day and hoping that classes were canceled. Either way, you probably weren’t expecting to see something like this from your law school:
What the hell? If the proposed war on gunners started today, Above the Law didn’t get the memo. Which law school sponsored a “Killing Spree”?
Continue reading “Did You Attend Today’s ‘Killing Spree’?”
I genuinely dislike Jose Baez.
– Jeff Ashton, former Florida prosecutor in the Casey Anthony case, commenting in his new book, Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony (affiliate link), on how he really feels about her lead attorney, Jose Baez.
(More of Ashton’s less-than-complimentary commentary on Baez, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quote of the Day: You’re Not the Only One”
Jerry Sandusky's lawyer, Joe Amendola.
It would be hilarious if the man wasn’t accused of raping little kids. It appears that Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defensive coordinator who is accused of having sex with little boys, has hired an attorney. Unlike Joe Paterno, who lawyered up with the Biglaw firm of King & Spalding, Sandusky went with attorney Joe Amendola.
You’d think that out of all the attorneys in the world, Sandusky would pick one who had an untarnished record when it comes to sleeping with minors. But you’d be wrong.
Instead, Sandusky went the other way. He didn’t find a lawyer who just slept with a minor, he found one who reportedly impregnated one….
Continue reading “Jerry Sandusky’s Lawyer Also Likes Them Young?”
November 15th, 2011, there was a riot in the streets, tell me where were you? While you were at home watching your T.V., I was participating in some anarchy.
Well, there wasn’t really a riot in the streets. And I wasn’t really participating in it so much as taking the 5 train to work today. But I did bump into some would-be Occupy Wall Street protesters looking to join the movement after the main group was evicted from Zuccotti Park under the cover of darkness early this morning. The people on the train asked for my legal advice.
I laughed — then told them I could do them one better. Let’s see if we can’t crowdsource a legal recourse for the Occupy protesters now that big bad Bloomberg has put his jackboot on the movement….
Continue reading “On The Train With Occupy Protesters As They Roll Toward Trinity Church”
We hope you’ve enjoyed following the Career Center’s Top Partners series through which we’ve recognized Biglaw partners from around the country who exemplify what it means to be an exceptional partner who associates are actually happy to work for. Thanks to all the readers who took the time to submit such glowing nominations and give some well-deserved recognition to the 60 partners highlighted in this series.
Today we conclude with the best partners in the smaller legal markets of Chicago, Dallas, and London. While the markets in which they work may be smaller, their firms are some of the biggest names in Biglaw: Winston & Strawn, Sidley Austin, Katten Muchin, K&L Gates, SNR Denton, and Latham & Watkins.
Let’s see who the final six partners are….
Continue reading “Career Center Survey Results: Top Partners to Work For – Smaller Legal Markets (Part 2)”
As Europeans from the sun-dappled Mediterranean to the icy North Sea brace themselves for doomsday, I thought I’d ignore the wildfire-like turmoil sweeping my continent to write you a sweet little piece about the difference between British and American English.
The hook, as we say in the U.K. media, is the Economist’s recent ‘British Americanisation’ survey. As with most things produced by the Economist, it’s pretty dull, revealing, amongst other things, that some British people have started saying ‘vacation’ instead of ‘holiday’. Others have begun traitorously moving the stress on the word ‘controversy’ from the second to the first syllable. Crazy, eh?! But I know marginally more about linguistics than economics, so I’ll plough on.
Actually, I’m underselling this column. I’ve been wanting to write something ‘you say tomato, I say tomato’ for ages, because British people’s use of Americanisms is highly revealing — about them, about the U.K.’s relationship with America, about the continuing popularity of U.S. T.V. series on these shores….
Continue reading “Letter from London: Going Forward, We’re Screwed”
We’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of the “PC Police” at Northwestern Law School. The school seems to have a number of students who are easily offended. Some of the kids there overreact at the slightest provocation.
Do you want to see how they react when something actually offensive happens?
Continue reading “Northwestern Law ‘Bro’ Offends Most Of Law School, All Of Thailand”
Kim Kardashian
* Deborah Batts, the first openly gay judge to serve on the federal bench, got married this weekend. We hope she doesn’t become the first openly gay federal judge to get divorced. [New York Times]
* Things are getting hairy for Kim Kardashian, and not just because she’s Armenian. A hair removal company is suing her, saying she’s lying about how she gets all of that hair off her body. [Fox News]
* Lori David: she’s every teenage boy’s dream, and every mother’s nightmare. A hot Texas mom has been banned from the internet after sexting naked pictures to her son’s friend. [Daily Mail]
Let’s see what else the ladies are up to this morning….
Continue reading “Morning Docket: 11.15.11″
The New York State Bar Association wants to avoid this.
Attorneys tend to be a work-hard, play-hard bunch. After all those long days, it can feel really nice to unwind with a Manhattan at the end of the day. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.
That said, nobody wants to end up like Paul Newman’s character in The Verdict, a washed-up, alcoholic ambulance chaser. And it turns out the New York State Bar Association doesn’t want that either.
Last month, the association launched a new online portal for New York attorneys and law school students struggling with alcohol or drug addiction….
Continue reading “NY State Bar Wants to Help All the Alcoholic Lawyers Out There”
* A fifth grade girl attacks her teacher for taking her candy, and the mother doesn’t think the child should have been arrested. We agree. I think they should have arrested the mother who’s had years to correct this behavior. [Huffington Post]
* …Speaking of things not to let your daughter do. [The Legal Satyricon]
Enough of the little girls, lets get to the little boys version of NS….
Continue reading “Non-Sequiturs: 11.14.11″
