Don’t you just hate it when rude and inefficient airline administrators ruin your vacation by stranding you on the ski leg of your vacation in Aspen, causing you to almost miss your cruise leaving out of Florida? It’s so annoying to have to stay in a series of luxury hotels across the country because the airline industry can’t get its act together.
I’m doing a silly parody of rich people problems, but honestly, if I have to choose between well-offf Americans and the fools and crooks who run the airline industry, I’m going to throw my lot in with the rich people every time. Especially when some employees are allegedly hurling racial insults at them.
It was a wild holiday vacation for the the Shulick family of Philadelphia. Luckily, patriarch David Shulick is a lawyer, so he knows that when the airlines push you around, you can sue….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Nightmare Vacation for Rich ‘Honkeys’”
I believe the defendant failed a saving throw against berserker, so when he killed those people he didn't know right from wrong.
* Dressing shrinks as wizards when they testify would be an AWESOME idea. I’m serious. Why can’t we have this? And titles, too. “Your Honor, I call Dr. Freud — Ph.D in weakness management and keeper of the sacred staffs of Ivory guard — to the stand.” [Overlawyered]
* iTextbooks! Could be awesome, could widen the gap between the rich and the iPoor. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* Old lawyer accidentally smuggles a gun onto a plane, mainly because security — which noticed said gun — forgot to stop her. TSA doesn’t make us more safe, folks. It just makes us more molested. [Daily Mail]
* Apparently, LLMs go great with Brazilians. The people, not the grooming. Or maybe both — I don’t know, but I was only asked about people. [Live Mint]
* To be clear, putting slavery analogies into our math problems is bad… unless you are a college basketball or football star trying to work out how much you got paid in free tuition for last night’s game, versus how much the university made off of the performance of your team. Then the analogy is “apt.” [CBS Atlanta]
* White people problems, written by a former Cahill Gordon associate who quit to take a job in television. [Funny or Die]
* Additional impressive hires by an elite litigation boutique. How long before MoloLamken ends up on somebody’s hot list? [MoloLamken]
As I waited for my plane to take off Sunday morning, coming back from Thanksgiving vacation, I was listening to music on my iPod. We had been waiting on the runway for 25 minutes and I was bored, tired, and roasting hot. I needed to distract myself. But then, before I knew it, it was apparently time to take off. Without warning, the stewardess came from the back of the plane, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “SIR, you have to turn it off now. SIR. SIR.”
Like I do every time I fly, I took off my headphones until the flight attendant walked away. Then I put them back on. I also never turned off my cell phone or put it in airplane mode.
You probably know this is not allowed. Airplane passengers are supposed to turn off all electronic devices for takeoff and landing.
But WHY? Is aviation safety so delicate that a few Kindles or iPads endanger hundreds of lives? I don’t think so. A New York Times article from Monday takes a look at this mysterious, anachronistic facet of America’s law of the skies….
Continue reading “Why I Refuse to Turn Off My iPod for Takeoff and Landing”
I once observed that federal judges are “the closest thing this nation has to an aristocracy.” If that’s the case, then justices of the United States Supreme Court are royalty — or maybe even deities, gods, and goddesses who walk among us (and occasionally crash into us, too).
Alas, it seems that two members of SCOTUS didn’t get the memo. They are comporting themselves in public in ways that are inconsistent with the dignity of the Article III judiciary.
This is a bipartisan problem. One of the offenders comes from the left side of the Court, and one comes from the right….
Continue reading “The Eyes of the Law: Justices Who Are Slumming It”
* Pennsylvania may have new child abuse reporting requirements by the year’s end. Apparently the key to efficiency in state government is to sully the reputation of the state’s pride and joy. [CNN]
* “There is always room for a good law school, regardless of the climate.” Say hello to Peter C. Alexander, the founding dean at the Indiana Tech law school that nobody wants. [Journal Gazette]
* The hunt for the remains of Mercer Law grad Lauren Giddings is playing out like an episode of Scooby Doo. Will the gang be able to investigate at Old Man Jenkins’s Browning’s farm? [Macon Telegraph]
* A paralegal-cum-prisoner is suing over his soy-based diet, saying it’s cruel and unusual punishment. He’s doing life for child sexual battery, so I say bring on the soy! [New York Times]
* Lat once said that lawyers are like cockroaches: you can’t kill them. Probably why this lawyer bugged out when he saw his creepy-crawly brethren on an AirTran flight. [New York Daily News]
* Like many of the victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, he and his wife contemplated suicide, too. But come on, why bother? Was career suicide just not good enough? [New York Times]
* For Sale: One Illinois law license at discount price! Hasn’t been used in 15 years — almost like new. Slightly tarnished. If interested, please contact Rod Blagojevich ASAP. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* Howrey gonna get paid? With a $3M bill and a new Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee in place, that’s what all of these professional service firms are wondering. [Am Law Daily]
* 1Ls may be dumber this year, but prospective law students have gotten 13% smarter. That isn’t saying much, though, because 68% of them still want to go to law school. [National Law Journal]
* The TSA agent who advised this lawyer to “get her freak on” after spying a sexy personal item in her luggage has been professionally spanked. [New York Post]
Those blinking lights are important. Seriously.
I’ve been writing about electronic discovery for almost three years now. I’ve learned that most of the time, it’s not worth trying to interest non-attorneys in the subject. My friends’, family’s, and girlfriend’s eyes glaze over pretty quickly when I started mentioning the EDRM model or document review.
So when I saw the story early this morning about big e-discovery news in the litigation following a tragic plane crash, at first I thought I had misread something.
On February 12, 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York, killing 50 people. Later that year, authorities blamed pilot error for the crash. Unsurprisingly, families of the victims have sued the airline for failing to provide trained, capable, and rested pilots. This week, attorneys for the families released internal company e-mails that appear to show Colgan knew the pilot of the doomed flight was having serious problems.
What do the e-mails have to say?
Continue reading “Airline E-mails Could Play a Big Part in Buffalo, NY Plane Crash Lawsuit”
* The TSA must be stopped. They’re now leaving creepy notes when they spy personal items in your luggage. [Not So Private Parts / Forbes]
* Law students, trust me, there’s nothing on your Facebook page that three more points on the LSAT won’t fix. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Berkeley Law 1Ls are playing an awesome game of assassin. Man, I miss college. I mean law school. [Nuts & Boalts]
* Would there even be medical malpractice if libertarians ruled the world? [Overlawyered]
* The Casey Anthony jurors are probably dying for a closeup. [Huffington Post]
* The future of Law and Economics. [Truth on the Market]
* LSAC might start auditing the LSAT scores and GPAs that law schools report to the ABA. Now, which agency is going to handle their too good to be true employment stats? [National Law Journal]
* Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s lawyer asked a judge to ban the word “bomb” from his trial. The judge denied it, because, well, he’s called the Underwear Bomber. Duh. [New York Daily News]
* “Don’t sanction me, bro!” Paul Ceglia’s lawyers are begging the court to pass on Gibson Dunn’s request for discovery sanctions after multiple delays. Like. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* In a continuing battle over the market for slutty children’s dolls, Quinn Emanuel may have scored a big one for Barbie with this tentative ruling to toss MGA’s antitrust suit. [Washington Post]
* Apparently it’s unprofessional to put your colleagues on blast for allegedly having “sexual torture chambers” in their basements. Who knew? [Chicago Tribune]
* It’s also unprofessional to slap a man in the face during a deposition. And to think, this came after a confrontation about the impropriety of finger-pointing. [The State]
* Hey, Preet Bharara, even Lady Gaga can read your poker face when you’re going all in on an allegation of Full Tilt Ponzi. Maybe Lederer and Ferguson will finally fold. [Wall Street Journal]
* You know what this country really needs? More doctors who don’t believe in science. Another stem cell research case is going up to the D.C. Circuit. [Bloomberg]
* The last 9/11 wrongful death suit has been settled. Lessons learned: airport screeners might not know what Mace is, but they sure can lift and separate your balls. [New York Times]
* Cooley Law held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus. We’re good at surviving natural disasters, but a tsunami of unemployed lawyers might break this profession. [Miami Herald]
* A group of drag queens in Florida got busted for thieving the essentials — bras, boas, and butt pads. As RuPaul would say, you better work. Or steal. You know, whatever. [New York Daily News]
* Guys in my high school middle school used to have the ACLU file lawsuits over breathalyzer tests all the time. It was no big deal. [MSNBC]
Every couple of years, people need to be reminded not to have private conversations in public spaces. Who could forget Acela Bob, the Pillsbury partner who talked about firing people on a crowded train?
University of Virginia law students, that’s who. Yes, we have another installment of: when popping your collar goes real wrong. On the way back to Charlottesville from New York City, a group of UVA Law students were waiting for their flight out of LaGuardia. They started talking about how their callback interviews went. They started talking loudly.
And others were listening….
Continue reading “Students Making Fun of Biglaw Interviewer Overheard By MOST OF THE AIRPORT”
First class is a great place for napping.
Along with all of the other passengers, according to the Washington Post. The plane reportedly experienced engine trouble.
United Airlines Flight 586 was scheduled to depart Dulles for San Francisco at 12:34 p.m. The engine problems apparently started before the plane took off. The passengers were evacuated from the smoky plane via emergency chutes and sent back to the terminal. They will board a flight scheduled to depart at 3 p.m. today.
There were reports of three injuries — but Justice Ginsburg, 78, is doing fine, according to Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe Estrada. RBG is on her way to an appearance tomorrow at the UC Hastings College of the Law.
Elie wonders: “Is this God’s way of telling RBG to retire? Things aren’t looking so great for 2012.”
UPDATE (4:40 PM): More from the Associated Press.
Justice Ginsburg aboard plane evacuated at Dulles International Airport [Washington Post]
My objections to the TSA and the invasive search techniques they employ have been well documented in these pages. I believe their tactics are violative of our rights and would be deemed unconstitutional in any America where courts placed justice ahead of fear. I believe a government that authorizes these searches has lost its legitimacy to rule. I believe citizens who support these procedures do not deserve the liberty they so eagerly toss aside.
And I believed all of that before I was actually molested by the TSA just yesterday.
Having now been through that awful experience, and so close to the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, I can only conclude that not only did the terrorists win, but they keep winning. Right now, the terrorists are winning so hard that they’ve gotten us to do their work for them. In my opinion, the TSA is nothing more than a domestic terror organization that operates above the law.
Just two minutes alone with these people has made me realize that their power now far exceeds the normal constraints of law and order. It might well take active civil disobedience to stop them.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. That’s a disclaimer I feel I need to make very clearly, since the TSA apparently believes that I should be wary of even criticizing it, for fear of being slapped with a lawsuit….
Continue reading “Two Minutes of Terrorist Triumph: Alone With the TSA”
Aaron Tobey
* A judge will soon rule in the Aaron Tobey case. If you don’t remember, he’s the kid who stripped at the airport to protest the TSA. Because that wasn’t going to cause a scene. [Washington Post]
* Diallo plans to introduce evidence of DSK’s alleged global history of sexual assaults at trial. The man’s got money — he can’t help it if he’s got hoes in different area codes. [Thomson Reuters]
* And speaking of hoes, if you’re convicted of soliciting backdoor deals in Louisiana, you’ll have to register as a sex offender. Is that constitutional? [Beaumont Enterprise]
* Louboutin is seeing red after losing to YSL. I guess I can stop hoping to own a pair of Louboutins, since everyone and their mother will have red-soled shoes in the future. [Hollywood Reporter]
Warren Jeffs
* Zàijiàn, Aggarwal! K&L Gates is suing a former partner, Navin Kumar Aggarwal, for breach of trust after he was arrested for theft and forgery. [Bloomberg]
* Widener Law Professor Lawrence Connell will be suing the school for $1.8M over a psych evaluation. He must be crazy for daring to defend himself in an email to students. [NBC Philadelphia]
* God gave him life, and so did the jury. Poor Warren Jeffs must be bored in jail. This polygamist pedo has been beating the bishop up to 15 times a day. Ouch. [The Daily]
* I’m flying this weekend for the first time in over a year (it couldn’t be avoided). I’ll need to brush up on what rights I still retain during air travel. As long as I acknowledge TSA’s droit du seigneur to my wife, I’m allowed to carry an unopened water bottle on board, right? [Legal Blog Watch]
* There’s a statement from the University of Baltimore on the Phillip Closius situation. They say their “forward momentum” will continue. Does that mean they expect future Baltimore Law students to be unable to run a Google search? [WSJ Law Blog]
* Lat imagined a future legal career for Casey Anthony that starts with a Anthony getting a GED (before clerking on the Supreme Court and becoming a law partner of Jose Baez). But doesn’t Hustler seem like something more in her wheelhouse? [Gawker]
* Have we done irreparable damage to our credit rating, unless we can prove we have a legal “fail-safe” in case a vocal Tea Party minority hijacks the entire freaking nation again? [Blackbook Legal]
* Taco Bell employee fired for refusing to get his hair cut. I guess they were worried about 100% real hair mixing with their isolated oat product — er, seasoned beef. [Associated Press]
* Howrey going to massively reduce our assets for bankruptcy reporting purposes? [Chapter11Cases]
The tyranny of air travel continues. But every day, the resistance grows.
Today brings us word of another attempt by the allies of freedom to fight against the invasive and demeaning tactics our government uses against air travelers. There’s been a lawsuit filed by financial consultant Malinda Knowles against JetBlue Airways.
Her allegation? An airline worker asked her to confirm that she was wearing panties.
Knowles claims that was escorted off the plane, then made to lift up her shirt. Even after she showed her drawers to the worker’s satisfaction, she was still booted off of the flight.
And this wasn’t even ordered by a member of the TSA goonsquad under some BS security rationale. Knowles was allegedly asked to flash a JetBlue worker to confirm that she met with JetBlue’s dress code….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Asking For Proof Of Panties Is One Way To Put Them in a Bunch”
Here in New York City, the headquarters of Above the Law, we’re still dealing with the aftermath of the Great Blizzard of 2010. Check out our slideshow for some images (like the one at right).
Although the snowstorm ended on Monday, and it’s now Wednesday night, many streets remain unplowed and many sidewalks uncleared. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, generally praised for his tremendous competence, is taking a lot of flak for the city’s inadequate response.
And that’s just in terms of politics and public relations. Wait until the lawyers get involved!
What possible causes of action could arise out of the snowstorm? Let’s discuss….
Continue reading “Will the Great Blizzard of 2010 Lead to a Storm of Lawsuits?”
More fun than document review?
I’m surprised we’re not seeing more of this. As TSA continues to scan and/or feel-up everybody who gets on a plane, raising questions under the Fourth Amendment, an Oklahoman woman stripped down to her underwear to prove a point.
According to a report by News 9 – Oklahoma, Dr. Tammy Banovac, 52, arrived at the Oklahoma City airport wearing an overcoat and in a wheelchair. When she got to security, she removed the coat, revealing her curvaceous figure — clad in nothing but a black bra and panties. She refused to go through the metal detector, so she had to be subjected to a pat-down.
Is there video? Would I be posting this if there wasn’t?
Continue reading “Slightly Crazy Blonde Disrobes for TSA”
We’ve received a number of email messages from readers today conveying some very sad news. In the words of one correspondent, “Texas lost one of its finest lawyers, as well as a great man and father, last night.”
On Tuesday night, prominent Texas lawyer Gregory Coleman — name partner at appellate boutique YetterColeman, former Solicitor General of Texas, and former partner at Weil Gotshal — was killed in a plane crash. Said a second source: “I think most folks in Texas would regard him as one of the best, if not the best, appellate lawyer in the state.”
Continue reading “Greg Coleman, Leading Appellate Litigator and Former Texas Solicitor General, RIP”
This morning, the Senate had a TSA oversight hearing to discuss serious issues around secure air travel, notably the use of 
