The settlement with Goldman Sachs was not a glorious episode in the history of the Revenue.
–UK High Court Judge Andrew Nicol, employing the spirit of British understatement in a written opinion dismissing a claim by activists that the tax settlement Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs made with Goldman Sachs in 2010 was an unlawful “sweetheart deal.”
Law schools have been sued before. Often, we here at ATL, applaud those efforts. It’s a David and Goliath undertaking to bring a school literally filled with lawyers to court.
But this lawsuit has a little less “heroic struggle” to it. Suing because a dean accused you of being too quick to accuse others of acting in bad faith? Maybe he hasn’t taken torts yet, because truth is a defense…
Continue reading “Law Student Sues Law School For Implying He’s Litigious”
* New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commissioned a report on SDNY Judge Shira Scheindlin in advance of her ruling on the NYPD’s controversial “hey, you’re black, come get a pat down” “stop-and-frisk” policy. According to the report, Judge Scheindlin is biased because she ruled against the NYPD in search and seizure cases 60% of the time. An alternative read is that the NYPD is really bad at following the Constitution. Occam’s Razor strikes again. [New York Daily News]
* STRIKE!: Legal Services NYC walked off the job this morning after rejecting new contract offers. [New York Law Journal]
* Pentagon Papers lawyer James C. Goodale thinks President Obama, whose administration seized phone records of journos, is worse than President Nixon, who tried to charge the New York Times for conspiracy to commit espionage. Because hyperbole is the awesomest thing in the world! [New York Observer]
* A surplus of lawyers over law jobs exists in every state, and for most states the surplus has grown. I’m sure third-party litigation financing will solve all of this though. [Am Law Daily]
* Tennessee law grad and judicial affairs director fired amid allegations she hooked up with Tennessee basketball player Trae Golden. [MStars News]
* After revelations earlier that Arkansas wasn’t “buying American” and instead getting its death penalty drugs from the UK, the pharmaceutical company announced it would cut off the supply, joining a number of drug companies that are practically slowing executions around the country by limiting supply. [YubaNet]
* After the post, check out the Biglaw firm using 4square way too much…
LSATs are lower than in previous years. There’s been an arms race with LSATs and GPAs [among top law schools], but I think the shrunken pool has forced admissions officers to think about what we really need in our class, and it’s not just the LSAT. I think we are choosing substance over LSATs.
– Sarah Zearfoss, dean of admissions at the University of Michigan Law School, explaining to The Careerist that with fewer applications, Michigan is starting to consider substance (implying that she doesn’t think the LSAT is substantive).
Pimps are traditionally colorful characters. Flashy dressers brandishing pimp chalices and all that. Sure sometimes Wayne Brady needs to choke a woman, but “a pimp’s love is very different from that of a square.”
Apparently attorneys for pimps are equally colorful if a New York sex-trafficking trial is any indication. And comparing the prosecution’s expert to a prostitute is not the only wacky legal tactic in the case.
Why can’t I ever get this case when I get called for jury duty?
Continue reading “Lawyer Compares Expert Witness to Street Walker”
This morning, the New York Times published an op-ed by actress Angelina Jolie discussing her decision to get a preventative double mastectomy.
Jolie is being hailed as an inspiration for coming forward with this story, which marks an amazing turn-around for a woman who used to make out with her brother and carry vials of her then-husband’s blood around her neck.
The actress decided to take the preventative measure after genetic testing determined that she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.
Now, Jolie is a movie star married to another movie star, so the decision to undergo an expensive procedure did not deter her like it will many women in the United States.
Not the mastectomy. Insurance usually covers that if the patient presents such risks. No, the expensive procedure is the initial genetic testing. And the Supreme Court might be able to do something about that in the next couple of months…
Continue reading “Yes, It Is Worth Making A Federal Case Over Angelina Jolie’s Boobs”
* Even JFK had mommy issues. Unfortunately, his came with possible nuclear armageddon. [Lowering the Bar]
* Washington, D.C. is a horrible back-biting hellhole. Except for the D.C. Circuit, where Judge Tatel and Chief Judge Sentelle apparently hold weekly kumbaya circles and talk about their feelings. [Concurring Opinions]
* Prosecutors file motions to keep George Zimmerman’s lawyers from bringing up Trayvon Martin’s past in the trial. Probably because “getting into school fights” is not particularly probative of “deserved to get murdered.” [WKMG]
* Another look at the DOJ/AP scandal from a unique perspective: a privacy lawyer who used to be a journalist. [Inside Privacy]
* Jones Day landed the plum job as restructuring counsel for Detroit by one “point.” [AmLaw Daily]
* When you’re choosing an expert witness, you should really look for that elusive “part-Don Draper, part-Lois Griffin” type. [The Expert Institute]
* This was an actual problem I encountered when I had to edit the bills of some of my colleagues. [First World Lawyer Problems]
The “Angry Police Captain” is one of the premiere cultural archetypes of late 20th Century America. The gruff, by-the-book peace officer asking his roguish subordinate if he realized how many regulations he’d broken or if he understood how many times the mayor had called that day to complain about all the damage from the car chase. At some point in the film, the captain will ask our anti-hero to turn in his badge and gun. Later on, the captain will begrudgingly return them while delivering some version of this speech: “I may not like your methods, but you get results.”
One judge has the first part of this archetype down, labeling a cop “dangerous” and questioning if he, “should not be carrying a gun.” I doubt the judge will have occasion to change his mind about a cop who pulled a gun on his neighbor, and then asked for a restraining order…
Continue reading “Judge Lays the Benchslap on ‘Dangerous’ Cop”
The only thing surprising about the revelation yesterday that the Justice Department seized the phone records of AP reporters, is that anyone still cared enough to express outrage.
In a world where both parties (with the implicit support of almost everyone in the country) gladly support the PATRIOT Act and sternly denounce intelligence leaks as the worst breach of security ever, how can anyone be shocked or dismayed that the Justice Department used its broad investigative powers in an effort to stop a leak?
Conservatives, liberals, and reporters alike have little room to seriously complain…
Continue reading “Why Is Anyone Outraged That the DOJ Spied on the Associated Press?”
* Joseph Rakofsky has lost his case against, well basically everyone. Including ATL. [Popehat]
* EDNY Judge Edward Korman is earning accolades for his sassiness. [Jezebel]
* The Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Monsanto case. Reading the decision is not exhausting. Get it? [Patently-O]
* Happy Mother’s Day from Kobe Bryant! Black Mamba takes his mom to court. [Legal Blitz]
* Sammy Hagar can’t be held liable for defaming a woman. He also can’t drive 55. [Courthouse News Service]
* Stealing $100 worth of cigarettes may seem crazy, but $100 worth of cigarettes in Texas would net something like $480,000 in New York City. [Legal Juice]
* Intellectual property run amok. And it doesn’t involve Prenda in any way! [Dealbreaker]
* As we reported before, being a divorce lawyer is not just for nailing your clients anymore. [Jezebel]
What does it mean to be “newly admitted?” To us, it means endless possibilities!
We recognize that you already possess the ability and intelligence to succeed in a variety of legal professions. Our job is to expose you to various practice areas in a way that ensures those very attributes are successfully applied. Our seasoned and successful faculty present unique programs that provide an approachable and practical understanding of the avenues of achievement available as you launch a fruitful, enjoyable and promising career.
Our Live Bridge the Gap weekends satisfy the entire year of New York Newly-Admitted CLE Credits in only two days!
After physically attending a full weekend, you will receive:
• 3.0 Ethics CLE credits,
• 6.0 Skills CLE credits, and
• 7.0 Professional Practice and/or Law Practice Management CLE credits
Date: Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9, 2013
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 4:35 p.m. (EST)
Location:
55 Exchange Place
5th Floor
New York, NY 10006
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
Keep reading »
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
