Last month, we reported that bankrupt law firm Heller Ehrman would be selling some of its art to raise money for its creditors. Heller hopes to raise $1 million (or more) through a series of sales, in New York and California.

The first of several Heller art auctions took place yesterday at Bonhams & Butterfields, at 580 Madison Avenue in New York. We attended, both to cover the proceedings and in the hope of making a purchase or two. (The most important works from the Heller collection will be sold next year, but those pieces — by artists like Diebenkorn, Lichtenstein, and Serra — are a bit beyond our price range.)

Upon arrival at Bonhams, we checked in with a receptionist. We were asked to provide our driver’s license and credit card for photocopying, which we did. Buyers can pay for purchases with either a credit card or a check, but the auction house still copies your credit card for its records.

(There is a slight discount for using a check or cash over a credit card. The buyer’s premium, a commission paid by the winning bidder to the auction house, is 22 percent of the purchase price for credit cards, but 20 percent for cash or check.)

After supplying the requested documentation and filling out a short form, we were given a paddle for bidding. We were hoping for something wooden; the word “paddle” conjures up images of spanking — fun! Instead, we received a laminated card of gray and white plastic, printed with the number “238” (our bidder number).

Did we make any purchases? How well did the Heller Ehrman art sell? Find out, plus check out pictures of the art, after the jump.

It’s been a long time since we checked in on the ruins of Heller Ehrman. It seems strange that it’s been over a year since Heller Ehrman announced that it was closing its doors.

Everybody that was going to land on their feet after Heller collapsed has presumably landed. Those who never did get a job back in Biglaw post-Heller have hopefully moved on to other lucrative and rewarding careers.

While most of Heller’s employees have moved on, it looks like some of Heller’s things are still looking for new owners. One tipster reports that you can purchase your own little piece of Heller if you want to:

FYI the art from the Heller Ehrman art collection is up for sale at Bonhams New York:

Sale 17421 - Contemporary and Modern Art

Let’s take a look at what fine pieces of art you can score from the demise of Heller Ehrman.

Your ATL editors kicked off the Memorial Day weekend with a trip to the East 13th Street Theater in Manhattan, where we saw A More Perfect Union, presented by the Epic Theater Ensemble. The play, by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen, is about two members of The Elect — i.e., two Supreme Court clerks, who fall in love while clerking at the U.S. Supreme Court. Maddie, a white Jewish woman from Ohio, clerks for a fictional conservative justice called “The Wise One”; James, an African-American man from Georgia, clerks for a fictional liberal justice called “The Enlightened One.”

Like the night we spent reviewing Law Revue videos, there were highlights and low points. A big highlight was a post-play discussion featuring former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse. As you know, we are what some might call Greenhouse groupies, though she was not as excited to talk to us as we were to talk to her. We just got a little handshake, a “nice to see you,” and an introduction to her daughter.

The post-show discussion also included professors Elizabeth Emens and Susan Sturm, both of Columbia Law School. Professor Sturm mentioned being a law school classmate of SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor, whom she described as “a straightforward person, who doesn’t hide from her background or make decisions based on it.” She also defended Judge Sotomayor’s Berkeley remarks about personal experience informing a judge’s jurisprudence, noting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg basically said as much in discussing the recent strip search case before the Court (noting that her colleagues, who seemed less sensitive to the plaintiff’s plight, “have never been a 13-year-old girl”).

Obviously, we think the legal world is an exciting place, and we are always thrilled to see the courts get dramatic treatments. But our standards for fictional treatment of the courts, and especially the Court, are high.

Check out our reviews, after the jump.

* NBC was criticized by the Department of Homeland Security for a series on war criminals that enforcers say could interfere with their investigations. [The New York Times]

* Raising questions about human rights, the State Department expressed concern about a Chinese blogger who has been indefinitely detained. [CNN.com]

* The artist of highly popular Obama posters Shepard Fairey filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against the AP, which accused him of copyright infringement. [The International Herald Tribune]

* Investors suing feeder funds that invested their money with Madoff will be fighting an uphill legal battle. [Bloomberg.com]

* Alan Dershowitz on bringing Israel before the International Criminal Court. [The Huffington Post]

For all of you lawyer / artist types, here’s an inspiring tale, from the San Francisco Chronicle. Meet José Klein, a recent Harvard Law grad who does plate art on the side. The truly inspiring part of the tale is how Klein found time during law school to make all these “Learned Handmade Plates”!

Klein spends nearly every free minute making magic marker drawings.

Not just any magic marker drawings, but drawings that are converted to dinner plates — Make-a-Plates, specifically, that cheap craft store staple where marker drawings are transferred permanently onto melamine dishware. Klein had never been a drawer, but something swept over him. It wasn’t landscapes and still lifes that emerged, but the figures and doctrines that comprise the jurisprudential canon. With a savantlike intensity he began translating law school into odd and remarkably lovely images you can eat off of.

There’s “Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists,” part of the First Amendment series. There’s the Punitive Damages collection. There are six plates commemorating the Interstate Commerce Clause. Then there’s each of the Supreme Court justices, lovingly rendered.

We won’t say Klein has totally uncapped his artistic free spirit. The plates are art, but they’re practical art. You can eat off the final product.

Additional discussion, below the fold.

* “T.Owes.” [ESPN]

* Rebates to $500? [CNN]

* AG Mukasey won’t label waterboarding. [MSNBC]

* Sen. McCain wins Florida, Rudy to bow out. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* Federal inquiry into stolen artifacts expands. [New York Times]

* Margaret Truman, only child of President Truman and author of mysteries set at the Supreme Court and the FBI, RIP. [AP]

* Slate debates Sen. Craig’s arrest and plea. [New York Times]

* DC Madam seeks new counsel. [CNN Poli-Tick]

* Federal court, using wooden gavel, upholds NYC metal bat ban. [ESPN]

* Artist arrested for burning Burning Man man. [MSNBC]

Working in the legal profession, and especially at a large law firm, generally comes with a lot of fringe benefits. So our series of posts on Biglaw perks is by no means complete.

Here’s the perk that we’ll discuss today: office art (or a decorating budget). If you’re going to spend thousands of billable hours a year in that space, shouldn’t it be beautiful?

When we were at a firm, if you asked the office manager, you’d be taken to a special art closet. It was full of random items that were deemed unsuitable for other spaces within the firm — e.g., hallways, conference rooms, partner offices — but were there for the taking by associates. We selected this weird orange-brown-white composition, a painting that looked a lot like a collage. It had a certain “so bad it’s good” quality to it.

Other firms will give you a budget for decorating your digs. We hear, for example, that Kirkland & Ellis gives associates something like $300 $350 for art and office decor. A source tells us: “People use it to frame their diplomas and bar admission certificates. It’s nice.”

So, what does your employer do for you on this front? Please discuss, in the comments. Thanks.

Update: To read about law firm art collections (as opposed to art in associate offices), see here.

“A Robe Called Paul Weiss” [WSJ Law Blog]

* Alaskan attorney survives icy spill. [CNN]

* “Scream” thieves sentenced in Norway court. [MSNBC]

* ABA hosts legal technology expo. [ABA]

* Supreme Court hears arguments in high school sports recruitment case. [Washington Post]

* Timetable of VOIP litigation. [WSJ Law Blog]

A friendly warning to Peter Lattman and the WSJ Law Blog: “Hey guys, step off our turf!”

In a post this morning comparing President Bush’s purge of U.S. Attorneys with President Clinton’s, the WSJ Law Blog includes the graphic at right, showing three different WSJ “hedcuts” of former Attorney General Janet Reno. They pose the following “Law Blog Bonus Question”: “Which of Reno’s three dot-drawings do you prefer?”

Despite the attempt to mask the inquiry as focused on “dot-drawings,” we see this post for what it really is. It’s a clear incursion into our blogging territory: evolving hairstyles of legal celebrities (e.g., Judge Janice Rogers Brown).

So back off, guys! We leave the options backdating and Vioxx litigation to you. Why can’t you leave the hair and make-up of former AGs to us?

WSJ Law Blog readers agree with us. Right now there are a ton of comments to the post, but only two address the “Bonus Question” — which one of them criticizes as “rather inappropriate.”

Inappropriate for an MSM blog about “law and business, and the business of law”? Sure. But certainly not inappropriate for an online legal tabloid.

Time for a poll. We know that ATL readers are very knowledgeable about hair. But just to be perfectly clear, in the graphic at right, the hairstyles are (left to right) Janet With a Perm, Janet With a Part, and Janet With Bangs.

Bush’s U.S. Attorney Purge Vs. President Clinton’s … Discuss [WSJ Law Blog]

* This really could happen to anyone who uses public transportation. Seriously, slow down people — that extra 5 minutes isn’t going to tear off three of your fingers and half your palm, or turn you into a deserving-yet-questionable plaintiff. [Gothamist]

* I love it when the art world gets nasty. [New York Sun]

* Ethiopia knows a good thing when it sees it. Or does it just really hate that Red campaign? (I’m still wondering if any of those self-righteous celebs are able to locate any African country on a map.) [Legal Times]

* The face that launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Hope her self-esteem is in check, because the commentary is bound to be nastier than the comments to ATL’s “Hotties” contests. [QuizLaw; CNET]

* I don’t know who this is, but this happens way too much. For shame. [Yahoo! Sports]

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about Judge Richard Posner’s opinion in the “Giftes” free speech T-shirt case.

Thanks to the commenter who brought the two drawings in the opinion exhibits to our attention. We reprint them after the jump. And we look forward to seeing them in the august pages of the Federal Reporter.

* Blogs: Changing life as we know it — or just giving law students a respite from those pesky casebooks. [Balkinization]

* Guess this is more than playful alteration by a bored junior associate, like dropping the “l” from “public offering,” or the “cl” from “Class A common stock” in a prospectus. [National Review via Instapundit]

* Expect some “National Pork Board”/ “Chauvinist Pig” wordplay on a t-shirt soon. [Feminist Law Professors]

* We repeat: Blogging does not pay the bills. And Salon is not exactly old-establishment, so relax already — and edit your bookmarks, because Glenn Greenwald is moving February 8. [Unclaimed Territory]

* Young NYC graffiti artists, or just anyone ages 18-21 with a need for spray paint and broad-tipped markers, are free at last. [AM New York]

* This is beautiful and noble. Painting with your butt — or, rather, using your butt as a type of giant rubber stamp — not so much. [Richmond Times Dispatch]

* Not all law students are holed up in the library 24/7, but it’s clear that cramming has taken a lot out of Legal Bachelor’s game. [Chicks Dig Law Students]

* Hmmm. I actually agree with Scalia here. (Well, if you are the inspiration for a Christmas season movie starring Will Smith, you could raise a kid on nothing but love and hope.) [Crime & Federalism]

* Your words-of-the-day: racewalker, Hooman, and the universal favorite, law school gunner. And to think I’ve been out of law school for only a few years. [Urban Dictionary]

* We should remind Evel Knievel that Jesus didn’t sue. And while we’re on the subject, why do I know who Evel Knievel is? [Likelihood of Confusion]

* German citizen files state action to block sale of Picasso painting after federal action was dismissed earlier this week. [CNN]

* Talk about court tv: Cablevision is involved in a little bit of litigation. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Prosecutors file 12 murder counts in Reno Halloween hotel fire. [Reno Gazette-Journal]

* Must not have been a very good fence. [MSNBC]

* Barot (almost like Borat, except not funny and a terrorist) gets life for bomb plots.[MSNBC]

If you, like us, find Supreme Court justice sightings more thrilling than Brangelina spottings, you would have died from excitement at the portrait ceremony for Judge Stephen F. Williams.

Judge Williams is the brilliant former law professor who now sits on the venerated D.C. Circuit. Back in the day, before he assumed senior status, Stephen Williams was one of the biggest feeder judges in Christendom. He fed huge numbers of his clerks into Supreme Court clerkships, with an impressively broad spectrum of justices.

The Williams portrait ceremony was held last Friday. Stuart Buck, a former Williams clerk, offers a detailed report. Here is an excerpt:

Portrait ceremonies are evidently a big deal: I’d never been to one before, but it was probably the most legal talent that I’ve ever seen in one room. The entire D.C. Circuit was there, as were six members of the Supreme Court (all except Souter, Kennedy, and Alito).

There was a person I didn’t recognize sitting between Justices Stevens and Thomas. Judge Laurence Silberman later said in conversation that it was Judge Louis Oberdorfer — a long-time and highly respected district court judge who has to be in his late eighties now. [Ed. note: Judge Oberdorfer was also a feeder judge in his time — especially impressive given that he’s “only” a district court judge.]

Now THAT is an impressive line-up. It’s the federal judicial equivalent of Ed Limato’s Oscar pre-party, a more star-studded event than the Lori Alvino / Matt McGill wedding — and maybe even than the Ted Olson / Lady Booth wedding. (That second comparison turns on how much weight you assign to SCOTUS justices as opposed to other legal luminaries.)

Anyone have pictures from the ceremony? If so, we’d love to see them. You know how we love pictures.

And while we’re on the subject of judicial celebrity sightings, a quick follow-up to our item yesterday about Justice Alito swearing in his former clerk, Alex Acosta, as U.S. Attorney in Miami. David Oscar Markus has a firsthand account of the event, which you can check out at the S.D. Fla. Blog.

Judge Williams’ Portrait [The Buck Stops Here]*
Acosta Sworn In [Southern District of Florida Blog]

Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Justice Alito Hits South Beach
Lady and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Wedding Photos That Rock
The Eyes of the Law: Ted Olson’s Star-Studded Nuptials
The Eyes of the Law: Wedding Crashers

* The “s” after “Williams’” is missing in the original. Our views on this dispute are set forth here.

* Look at us, we’re patrons in training! Our law firms are getting funky with their art. But let’s hope they draw the line at installation art. [New York Observer]

* If you want something dirty, keep up with the Heather Mills / Paul McCartney divorce. The divorce papers were leaked, and everybody’s getting sued. [Daily Telegraph]

(Because, honestly, who the f&*k is Sara Evans, and does she have only one leg?)

* If you want something really dirty, both literally and figuratively, read about the prosecutor who allegedly had sex with a paralegal — in a stadium bathroom stall. [Seattle Times]

* I wonder what happens to puppy killers in jail? [Washington Times]

* I think Elmo has always been on something. Or maybe it’s just an overactive thyroid. [KVBC]

* Yet another lawsuit against Cracker Barrel, and again it has nothing to do with how greasy and soggy the omelets are. Just saying. [CNN]

* Banning fun? They’re turning grade school into law school! [CNN]

* You’ve already heard about the melee between FIU and Miami (FL). But check out this Ivy League brawl, which brings to mind an old Onion article. [MSNBC]

* Keith Olbermann: “And if Justice Kennedy tries to change us back, we can always call him an enemy combatant.” Professor Turley lays the smack down on executive agrandizement and the new habeas law. [MSNBC]

* Note to self: if you agree to sell something for $139 million, don’t bring your buddies up to check it out during a party. But if you must, make one of those buddies a superlawyer. [WSJ Law Blog; DealBreaker]

For you fantasy football tip-seekers, see you after the jump…

* Who’d have thunk it? Objectivity is subjective. And how much do you want to bet that any article or blog entry referring to this controversy will be titled the “Greenhouse Effect”? [PrawfsBlawg]

* Shi—ite! That’s scary. But the op-ed is a good primer for lay idiots like me. [New york Times via AMERICAblog]

* Forget the Shiites and Sunnis. Someone needs to write “Abortion for Dummies,” and give it to Mr. O’Reilly pronto. [Media Matters]

* “Working for food” just doesn’t seem legal in this context. Isn’t there a Models Union or something? [OnMilwaukee.com]

* Lichtenstein would no doubt describe the noise of this head-on collision between copyright and fair use with a POW! “Sampling” doesn’t look so bad now, does it? [Boston Globe]