Puppy is sad because you think he has no soul.
* Rick Santorum and the Sweater Vests can join Rick Perry’s ballot access lawsuit in Virginia. It’s funny, because at this rate, Perry will have dropped out before the first hearing. [Washington Post]
* If you’re an unemployed law grad drowning in debt, you should’ve known that you’d be screwed. Warning! Danger, Will Robinson! Opinion does not compute! [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Scott Rothstein claims that his firm kept a condo across the street so that partners could bang hookers. If real firms were like this, there would be less partner defections. [Orlando Sentinel]
* One robo-signer to rule them all: David J. Stern, Florida’s dethroned foreclosure king, is being sued by his own company for fraudulent conduct. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. [Bloomberg]
* Do cute, little doggies have souls? Of course they do, but the law doesn’t really conform to animated children’s movies from the eighties. This lawsuit hopes to reveal the truth. [Gothamist]
Herman Cain: Do you miss him yet?
* It’d be easy to say “a former Tea Party candidate posted about assassinating the President.” But it’s probably more accurate to say a crazy, racist, loony person scrawled something naughty on Facebook and is now in trouble. [Huffington Post]
* I’d like to buy this, and then use it to TP Herman Cain’s house while screaming, “It’s less complicated than your sex life!” [Tax Prof Blog]
* I wonder if, a generation from now, people will look back on Citizens United like Plessy v. Ferguson. Like, there will still be a few holdouts saying, “money is speech now, money is speech forever,” but most of society will have moved on to a more enlightened state. [Congressman John Yarmuth]
In my lifetime, Kobe has been one of the most fun players to not like.
* Maybe all we need is a simple Constitutional amendment clarifying that “only people are people.” Corporations are not people. Animals are not people. Artificially intelligent robots who one day rise up to threaten humanity’s existence are not people. [Miller-McCune]
* Oh, Kobe. When you beat a rape rap yet still have to publicly admit you bang hoteliers in Vail, you should just get divorced right then and there. No number of diamond nor championship rings is going to put that back together. She’s still going to kill you in the divorce, and all you’ve bought yourself is a few extra years of living with a woman who openly hates you. [L.A. Now via ABA Journal]
* You think bloggers suffer from group think too much? I vote for 2012 being the year when the mainstream media stops stealing story ideas from the blogs (without credit), and does some actual original reporting again. You know, like they are supposed to with their huge staffs and massive budgets. [What About Clients?]
Back in August, Elie wrote something controversial (what else is new?) about the difference between black people and dogs. He thought that nobody believed that police needed to respond with deadly force to protect themselves from random dogs, whereas the same standard did not apply to random black men.
Looks like Elie’s never been to Florida….
Continue reading “All Bets Are Off When You Kill a Lawyer’s Dog”
This is perhaps the dog-gonest case ever to reach a federal appellate court.
– Judge Ronald Lee Gilman, writing for Sixth Circuit in O’Neill v. Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government, a case that involved the forcible implanting of microchips in a family’s dogs without consent.
Elie's therapy dog.
Has law school gotten so bad that law students really need therapy dogs as standard issue on campus? I mean, therapy dogs are for disabled people or old people who need some company before they die.
Monty, the Yale Law School therapy dog, was a cute story we wrote about a while ago. But that was just for fun.
Is the mental beating that people take in law school really so bad that they need a furry friend to soothe them?
Perhaps so, because now schools that aren’t even ranked as highly as Yale want their own therapy dogs….
Continue reading “All Dogs Go to Law School?”
A beautiful creature that would gladly eat the animals PETA tries to save.
Animals are not people.
If a PETA person had been sitting next to me when I wrote that, he’d smugly say: “You know, some people said the same thing about black people 200 years ago.” At that point, I would grab the PETA person by the neck with my left hand, pimp slap him across his face with my right hand, throw him down on the ground, and then bellow: “How dare you, sir!”
That’s because I’m a person. And while I acknowledge the historical reality that many people didn’t think black people were “people” at various times in history, that thinking never changed the underlying truth that the color of one’s skin had nothing to do with personhood. You dig? It’s like how the New World was here long before anybody “discovered” it.
Non-human animals are not non-human animals because thinking makes it so. They’re animals because they’re animals. Now I think animals should be way, way more respected then most humans treat them. But applying a human right — such as freedom from involuntary servitude — to animals both denigrates people and disrespects the animals that they anthropomorphise.
What I’m saying is that once again, PETA has gotten it all wrong….
Continue reading “PETA’s Animal Slavery Constitutional Test Case Is Just Stupid”
Close, Lindsay, but no cigar.
* Rajabba is appealing his insider trading convictions and prison sentence, but someone needs to suffer for this outrage. Where are Solo and the Wookiee when you need them? [Bloomberg]
* PETA is suing SeaWorld on Thirteenth Amendment grounds for enslaving killer whales. Oh, so the only marine animals you’ll help have to be black and white? Racists. [Washington Post]
* It’s not just black Biglaw associates who get called “token,” but now it’s law professors, too. Kellen McClendon is suing Duquesne Law for race discrimination. [Courthouse News]
* Lindsay Lohan is getting a full spread in Playboy’s January issue, but won’t be doing any spreading of her own. Contract negotiation just ain’t what it used to be. [Los Angeles Times]
* When you sue for age discrimination, you probably shouldn’t discriminate against your judge, no matter what his age. At least this violinist can play his own sad song. [New York Daily News]
* The American Bar Association is hiring Carol Stevens, former managing editor of USA Today, as its new director of media relations. Yeah, ’cause it’s the media that makes the ABA look bad, not the ABA’s refusal to regulate law schools during a time of dishonesty and profiteering by member institutions. [Poynter]
* Let’s play “count the stupid lawyer stereotypes” in this paragraph, many of which could lead a person into making a grave financial mistake. [Boise Weekly]
* Look, if an animal escapes from a zoo, it wins. It shouldn’t be hunted down and taken back to captivity. That’s just natural law. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Breaking news: if you sign your name on a petition, people might find out you signed your name to a freaking petition. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Pretty awesome collection of t-shirts people are wearing in their mugshots. [New York Daily News]
* Viacom cancels Ted Olson, taps Paul Smith as his mid-season replacement. [Hollywood, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]
* I’m trying to figure out what this report on parenting styles can tell us about Bonobo_Bro’s upbringing. [Dealbreaker]
* If you’ll be in New York on October 26 and would like to attend a free screening of the new, buzz-generating HBO documentary, Hot Coffee, followed by a conversation between Lat and director Susan Saladoff, click here to RSVP. [New America NYC]
Judge Sam Sparks
* Remember the “kindergarten party” that Judge Sam Sparks (W.D. Tex.) was planning to hold? His Honor has canceled the festivities. [WSJ Law Blog]
* John Althouse Cohen — yes, son of La Althouse — discusses one way in which Texas might be emulating… Europe? [Jaltcoh]
* Professor Paul Campos opens up a can of whoop-ass on people who say students go to law school — and take on six figures of debt — “for the chance to make a difference.” [Inside the Law School Scam]
* Musical Chairs: Mr. Quinn Goes To Washington (with the help of three Alston & Bird partners). [ABA Journal]
* The latest news on Stephen McDaniel / Lauren Giddings: if the blue gloves don’t fit, you must acquit? [Macon Telegraph]
* Above the Law — of animal cruelty? Steven Seagal, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a dead dog, and a rooster massacre. [TPM Muckraker]
Steven Seagal
* After a judge shot down the effort by NBA star Gilbert Arenas to stop “Basketball Wives: Los Angeles” from airing, Arenas’s ex-fiancee, Laura Govan, was allowed to strut her stuff on television — and it wasn’t pretty. [Sister2Sister]
* Congratulations to super-mensch Stanley Levy, senior counsel at Manatt, on winning Am Law’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2011. [American Lawyer]
* And congrats to Masimba Mutamba, a 3L at Miami Law, who has just been awarded an apprenticeship with Waller Lansden’s innovative Schola2Juris program. [University of Miami School of Law]
You'll get in less trouble if you accidently shoot the one on the right.
I’m about to tell you a story. If the story included Chicago PD shooting an innocent black man who posed no threat to them, the story would end in an acquittal, vindication for the officers, and an outraged black community starting a charity fund for his widow.
But this story involves CPD shooting an innocent black Labrador Retriever. A family pet who posed no real threat to the officers. As such, the police have been punished and roundly excoriated, and a federal jury awarded the family a huge sum for damages.
Which is fine. I mean, I agree with the jury’s decision. I just don’t like living in a world where shooting my dog is a bigger liability risk for a police officer than shooting me….
Continue reading “Police Better Off Accidentally Shooting Black People Than Family Dogs”
Please give me a job.
We mentioned it briefly in Morning Docket a few days ago, but now we know for sure that dogs are marking their territory in the legal profession. Dogs are appearing everywhere from law school libraries to courtroom witness boxes.
Naturally, when we heard that the doggie-at-law phenomenon had made it all the way down to Texas, we were excited. Unfortunately, students at the Texas law school where this occurred were less than thrilled. Who doesn’t love cute, cuddly-wuddly little dogs? People who paid to go to law school and thought they could get law-related jobs, that’s who.
So who let the dogs out? Let’s find out which law school wants its students to roll over and beg for a job….
Continue reading “The Legal Profession Is Literally Going to the Dogs”
Something we don’t really get a chance to write about that often on Above the Law is the rise of the Goth subculture in America — and that’s probably because no one cares about it. Just like how no one cared about most Goth kids when they were growing up, which led them to believe that dressing up like sad, neoclassical clowns was a good idea.
You know what, this is America, and if you want to paint your face like an inept contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race and wear chains connecting your ears to your nose, then by all means, go right ahead. I have absolutely no problem with that. If you want to look like the latest incarnation of Boy George, and thereby make your family embarrassed to be around you, then go for it.
But really, leave your pets out of it, okay? Your kittens don’t have daddy issues like you do…
Continue reading “Piercing Your Cat Will Not Make You Better at Being a Goth”
Hey little dude. FYI, don't go to Alabama.
Yesterday, there was a wonderful story coming out of Kansas Law School (gavel bang: @VaultLaw). A student there is starting the first animal cruelty prosecution clinic in the country. That’s what the scholars call “awesome.” There are simply not enough lawyers who are even familiar with animal cruelty laws. If more people know how to go after people who abuse animals, these criminals are more likely to be identified and punished.
Unfortunately, there’s an email going around a law school down south which will illustrates just how important it is for the new Kansas program to succeed and provide a model for similar initiatives around the country. There are some sick a$$holes out there, and they need to be stopped…
Continue reading “Sicko Mass-Emails Animal Death Fantasy To Law School Classmates”
Jeff Skilling
* Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s appeal was denied by the Fifth Circuit. While he remains the smartest guy in the room, the room consists of him and a half-wit cellmate whose only discernible talent is making Prune-o. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Bruce Fein, an attorney who worked on Clinton’s impeachment and called for Bush’s impeachment as well, has drafted articles of impeachment for Barack Obama. His high crime and misdemeanor? Time theft. [Politico]
* An Ohio man has been charged with a misdemeanor for barking at a police dog. When asked why he was barking at the female dog, the man calmly replied, “Bitch owes me money.” [CBS News]
Raj Rajaratnam
* The government rested its case in the Raj Rajaratnam trial yesterday. Of additional note is the fact that Rajabba sits ten feet behind his defense table, partially obstructed from the jury box. You can’t completely block Rajabba from view. You can only wish to contain him. [New York Times]
* The government has warned attorneys for former Madoff employees not to use money that might be associated with Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. That includes, for their own health, any ass pennies. [ABA Journal]
* The Fourth Circuit rules in favor of a pundit-professor, in a case about the free speech rights of faculty members at public universities. [Chronicle of Higher Education]
* Charlie Sheen is trying to trademark his catchphrases now. He’s overexposed like a frostbitten penis — is there anything funny left to say about him at this point? (We might try; check in later.) [Forbes]
Monty, the Yale Law library dog
In the past week, we’ve learned about the best law schools for getting rich and the best law schools according to law firm hiring partners. So let’s do one more ranking: the best law schools for dog lovers.
This ranking, as it turns out, looks a lot like the U.S. News law school rankings: there’s Yale Law School at #1, and then there’s everyone else.
How many law schools let you “check out” a certified therapy dog from the library, for thirty-minute periods of stress relief? As far as we know, YLS stands alone.
We kid you not. And this time around, YLS isn’t denying it….
Continue reading “The Best Law Schools — For Dog Lovers”
Legal Blog Watch has a perfect Friday story up on its pages. Two men were arrested for riding animals while drunk. One guy was on a mule, the other was on a horse.
But when they got to the police station, the county attorney determined that the animals did not fall within the definition of “a device in, on or by which a person or property is, or may be, transported or drawn on a highway,” to trigger a DWI arrest. And so the men were released.
OF COURSE this happened in Texas…
Continue reading “Drinking While Riding Your Burro Is Still Legal!”
Legal outsourcing makes her happy.
* Demand for attorneys well-versed in animal law is on the rise as pet owners push for recognition of their pets as family members rather than ordinary property. Which reminds me of my dog Rascal. He ate his own crap, licked furniture, and once peed on a baby. And when he died, my parents looked at me and said, “It should have been you.” [Baltimore Sun]
* Yesterday in the life of Mikhail Khodorkovsky has American diplomats crying about a traveshamockery. [Bloomberg]
* Joe Miller may allow Lisa Murkowski to be certified as the winner of Alaska’s contested U.S. Senate seat, but Miller isn’t done scrapping and a’clawing. Shine on you crazy diamond. Shine on. [Washington Post]
* 200 massholes in the Massachusetts Legislature and only 52 of them are attorneys. [Boston Globe]
* Sotomayor, so hot right now. Sotomayor. [New York Times]
* Another article about legal outsourcing. Better bone up on your trivia, slumdogs. Ouch. That one barely makes sense. [Chicago Tribune]
* The Brits have beefed up their laws against companies bribing foreign officials. Reached for comment, Mr. Bean made a stupid face. [Wall Street Journal]
Animal abusers now must tell me and my dog where they are if they live in Suffolk County.
Suffolk County, my old ‘hood, just took a huge step forward in the cause for animal rights. The WSJ Law Blog reports:
New York’s Suffolk County legislature on Wednesday signed off on a measure that would publicly name anyone convicted of animal abuse by having them report to a registry for five years after their conviction.
“Most serial killers began as animal abusers,” Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Chief Roy Gross told the North Shore Sun. “It’s a known fact: people who hurt animals hurt people too.”
Good. Great. Parents don’t want their kids hanging out at the sex offender’s house next door, and they really shouldn’t want their kids hanging out with the neighbor who mistreats and harms defenseless animals as well. People who prey on weak animals will soon prey on weak people.
And here’s the follow up legislation, which should be a no-brainer….
Continue reading “Animal Abusers Are One Step Closer to Being Treated Like the Soon-To-Be Human Abusers They Really Are”
U Can't Touch This (dog).
Earlier this week, we reported on the Yale Law School library apparently allowing students to “check out” a stress-relieving dog named Monty, for 30-minute periods. This precious pet perk was not offered during my time at YLS (but we barely had a library for two years, due to extensive construction).
Alas, the commenter who noted that “Monty has been withdrawn” appears to be correct. The link to Monty’s catalog entry is dead.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Booktryst blog explains why….
Continue reading “Who Let the Dog Out? Not the Yale Law Library”
* More law school graduates are trying to get their day in court for bankruptcy protection. Looks like these people didn’t read their student loan MPNs carefully (or at all). They state pretty clearly that you’re screwed for life. [Reuters]
