Susan Finkelstein is NOT a prostitute! Is that clear? NOT a prostitute.
* A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that selling sex for Phillies tickets doesn’t make you a prostitute. She was already a Phillies fan, so calling her a whore was redundant. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Occupy Wall Street is looking for a few good accountants. Man, they are about six months from telling us that some of us are more equal than others. [Going Concern]
* If the mainstream media is afraid of speaking out against the TSA, it’s only because they’ve gotten used to simply regurgitating the spin fed to them by their precious government sources. [Popehat]
Congrats to Ronan Farrow and all the other members of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
* If this is what Forbes is publishing for its “30 Under 30 in Law & Policy,” then Above the Law should publish “20 Legal Leaders Under 20.” Look, here’s a college freshman who takes color-coded notes, keeps an extra raised hand in her purse, and has no womb — she’s a future SCOTUS justice! [Forbes]
* Move over, Memoirs of a Geisha; make way for Memoirs of a Gunner. [Smashwords]
* An interesting look at how five federal circuit courts manage their caseloads, by Marin Levy. [Jotwell: Courts Law and SSRN]
* Only in Texas can a judge get paid leave after a video of him beating his daughter’s ass goes viral. Makes you wonder about the kind of crazy sh*t you’d need to do to get stuck with unpaid leave. [KRIS TV]
* A federal judge has ordered Paul Ceglia to return from Ireland to produce more of his hidden destroyed missing evidence. Oh, Facebook, always trying to steal his lucky charms. [paidContent]
* Memo to the NBA: you know you’re playing on the wrong court, right? On the bright side, at least we don’t have to worry about this happening with the WNBA. Or anyone caring about it if it did. [Bloomberg]
* Bar passage rates for first-time takers in New York were up by half a percentage point. Biggest contributing factor: I didn’t take the New York exam. Yeah, you’re welcome. [New York Law Journal]
* Joe Francis is suing over a debt dispute and vows to take the it to the Ninth Circuit if he loses. He needs to realize that no one cares about what he does unless it involves boobs. [Washington Post]
* Don’t be fat and then smush a lawyer at Shea Stadium. You’ll break her back, she’ll sue, and you might be known as the guy who got fat people banned from the upper deck. [New York Post]
Nobody ever seems to believe me when I say this, but San Francisco gets chilly. It is cold most of the time. And foggy. The warmest time of year is right now, in late October. If you come to visit in July, and you stay in the city, and you will get cold.
That’s why every San Francisco tourist ever buys those cheesy sweatshirts with “San Francisco” written on them in a font that strangely resembles one of the main logos for our hugely disappointing championship-winning major-league baseball team, the Giants. Actually, it might be exactly the same logo. The baseball team is currently in a trademark dispute with the clothing company from Hayward (Oakland’s smaller, crappier neighbor to the south) over rights to the logo.
But hold on, the Giants have been using it for almost 20 years. They must have gotten the rights locked down years ago, right? Oopsies….
Continue reading “Whoops, the San Francisco Giants Forgot to Trademark Their Logo”
Really? You're still suing?
* Sorry Missouri, but your reign as the “Show Me” state is over. Thanks to its immigration law, Alabama is going to be taking over as the “Show Me Your Papers” state. [CNN]
* Time to review the footage. Irving Picard stands to lose the game for the Investors if he can’t get an instant replay on Judge Rakoff’s home run decision for the Mets. [Bloomberg]
* Reebok has to pay out $25M in refunds because contrary to popular opinion, wearing a pair of sneakers won’t give you a nicer butt. Dammit, foiled again. [Blog of Legal Times]
* The EEOC is suing because a 680-pound man was allegedly fired for being too fat. Everything really is bigger in Texas, and now it’s considered a disability. [Houston Chronicle]
* Unpaid interns who worked on “Black Swan” are suing because they didn’t benefit from the job. Seriously? They should be sued for not appreciating all the film’s HLA. [New York Times]
Judge Jed Rakoff appreciates a man who doesn't know what he's doing.
Don’t worry about investing in a Ponzi scheme as long as you are smart or lucky enough to recoup your money before the whole thing falls apart. That is the upshot of U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s decision to significantly limit the amount of money trustee Irving Picard can seek from New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
It’s a huge decision. Because a professional sports franchise is involved (and I’m using the term “professional” very loosely when talking about the Mets), how this impacts Wilpon and the team on the field will dominate most of the headlines and discussions about the ruling.
But make no mistake, Judge Rakoff’s ruling will have a major effect on how much money is ever recovered for victims of Madoff’s shenanigans, and could have an effect on the future liability for all investors in Ponzi schemes….
Continue reading “Mets’ Madoff Victory Is Bad News For Everybody Else”
Andrew Shirvell: Photoshopportunity?
* SCOTUS halted Duane Buck’s execution in Texas last night. How did it take 16 years for this to happen? Slow and steady doesn’t win the race on death row. [CBS News]
* Casey Anthony owes the state of Florida a pretty penny. At this rate, she may as well go to law school, because she’s already $97,626.98 in the hole. [CNN]
* New lawyers in Florida must take civility pledges. If they’re treating each other with such incivility, why haven’t we seen any benchslaps from that state lately? [ABA Journal]
* The U.S. Trustee has thrown a curveball at two Biglaw firms in the Dodgers bankruptcy case. Will Dewey & LeBoeuf and Young Conaway ever get paid? [Bloomberg]
* You’re so vain, you probably think this movie’s about you. Sorry guys, you may be a few good men, but to be Tom Cruise, you have to be good-looking and have a passion for Xenu. [New York Times]
* Andrew Shirvell has to spill the beans on whether Ave Maria had to warn the state bar about his conduct. Apparently the man’s got great gaydar. Wonder why… [Detroit Free Press]
Judge Peggy Ableman
Ed. note: Due to the Labor Day holiday, we’ll be on a reduced publication schedule today. We’ll be back to normal tomorrow. A restful and happy Labor Day to all!
* More about the Delaware benchslap that we covered last week (including the news that Judge Peggy Ableman’s pajama party did not go forward as proposed). [Delaware News-Journal]
* The federal government is suing 17 banks for almost $200 billion, blaming the banks for mortgage-backed securities that went bad. [Bloomberg]
* An interesting dissection of the legal fees that Dewey & LeBoeuf is running up as counsel on the Los Angeles Dodgers bankruptcy. [New York Times]
Roger Clemens
* Roger Clemens will face a second trial next year. Lester Munson, the esteemed legal analyst, explains why. [ESPN]
* “From One Bankrupt Firm to Another: Brobeck Asks Heller For $471,000.” [Am Law Daily]
* AT&T faces a tricky balancing act in dealing with the Justice Department’s challenge of the T-Mobile deal. [New York Times]
* If you’re confused about the current role of lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Michael Arrington over at AOL, in the wake of AOL’s acquiring his TechCrunch site, you’re not alone. [Digits / Wall Street Journal]
Paul Bergrin
* Paul Bergrin wants to represent himself in his racketeering case. They say that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, but that’s not the case when you’re considered the Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
* Hordes of Biglaw lawyers couldn’t stop the DOJ from trying to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. New antitrust issues abound, like “higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products.” They already have a monopoly on crappy coverage. [Am Law Daily]
* The truth? You can’t handle the truth! That, or you don’t really care about it when it comes to Barry Bonds. The big-headed baseball MVP will not face a retrial on his perjury charges. [CNN]
* Sasan Ansari, a convicted killer in Canada, will return to the University of British Columbia to complete law school. Good luck with your character and fitness evaluation, eh? [Vancouver Sun]
Jessica Beagley
* Jessica Beagley managed to avoid jail time at sentencing. Come on, judge, you could’ve at least given her a taste of her own medicine: hot sauce and a cold shower. [WSJ Law Blog]
* BitTorrent porn? On my grandma’s computer? It’s more likely than you think. After this California granny scolded Steele Hansmeier, the lawsuit against her was dropped. She mailed the firm a Werther’s Original in thanks. [Huffington Post]
* Nudity first, names later. I like this sheriff deputy’s alleged style. A girl in Utah is suing over a roadside traffic rendezvous that she says turned into an illegal strip search. [Standard-Examiner]
Lenny Dykstra
Lenny Dykstra was once a famous for being a scrappy center fielder for the Mets and the Phillies. Now he’s more famous for taking the same scrappy approach with the law. In January, Dykstra was accused of sexual assault by his housekeeper. In May, Dykstra was indicted for bankruptcy fraud. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
No charges were brought against the former ball player for sexual assault earlier in the year. In fact, Dykstra cracked jokes about the accusation, quipping: “If she was assaulted on Saturdays, I’m a ballerina dancer on Sundays.” But now it’s time for this twinkle toes to batter up, because apparently Dykstra really likes his housekeepers.
I’m starting to notice a trend here with men and their illicit love for housekeepers. So, what has Nails been nailed with now?
Read more at Dealbreaker….
Fortunately, you gave me so much paper. Otherwise, I would have had to watch a Mets game, which would have been a very painful process.
– the eminently quotable Judge Jed Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.), praising the thorough briefing by lawyers involved in the legal battle between the Bernard Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, and the owners of the New York Mets, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz.
* The hotel maid behind DSK’s extended stay in New York has now sued her alleged attacker. Remember, this is all about the truth. It has nothing to do with money. [CNN]
* Should you be worried about the stock market’s seppuku yesterday? If you like money, then probably. If you like your job as an M&A attorney, then definitely. [The Recorder]
* Illinois is giving sex trafficking victims the chance to vacate their prostitution convictions. Even if Reema Bajaj gets convicted, she still couldn’t use this law to clear her name. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* Therapy dogs aren’t just for law school libraries anymore. Now they’re appearing in courtrooms. But is an adorable dog unfair to defendants? Only if you hate dogs… and justice. [New York Times]
* Frank McCourt is still on deck for his at bat with Bingham McCutchen. The good news is that the Dodgers can keep on sucking in the interim. [Los Angeles Times]
* We’re happy that the Breaking Media dress code doesn’t include “Tube-top Tuesday” and “Wet T-shirt Wednesday.” An employee in Utah claims she isn’t as lucky as us. [Salt Lake Tribune]
Is this guy loving Citizens United or what?
* Is a Ropes & Gray attorney behind a shell company that gave $1 million to the Romney campaign? [The Docket / Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly]
* Working on the matter pro bono, Skadden wants greater cooperation from the NYPD in the case of a missing eight-year-old boy. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Breaking down the Alex Rodriguez poker scandal. [Legal Blitz]
* Can’t the ABA and NALP just get along? [Law School Transparency]
* How is that we have more lawyers than we can shake a stick at, but not nearly enough judges? Ian Millhiser looks at the numbers. [Think Progress]
Know who this guy is? Click on the picture to find out.
* Can’t all the people in same-sex marriages facing deportation just move to New York? [Stop the Deportations]
* Who is “the most important American you’ve never heard of”? Read a well-reviewed new book, Michael Toth’s Founding Federalist (affiliate link), to find out. [Ricochet]
* Great job Tea Party, no really. You guys sure you won’t want any social spending when you are living in the wonderful economy you’ve wrought for us? [Huffington Post]
* Don’t forget to sign up for our chess set giveaway. Or join us on Linked In. [Above the Law]
Yesterday was the last day of July, and baseball fans know that this day is important because it’s the trade deadline. (Seamheads and baseball lawyers understand that it’s actually only the nonwaiver-trade deadline, but why take the fun out of it?) So I spent some time this weekend following the interwebs to see whether the Red Sox would do anything to improve their league-leading team (and even better, thwart the Yankees from improving at the same time).
At one point, there were reports that the Red Sox had traded for A’s pitcher Rich Harden. But the Sox scuttled the deal once they learned that the oft-injured Harden had a hospital bracelet tattooed on his arm to save time. (They ended up acquiring left-handed pitcher Erik Bedard, who is injured slightly less often than Harden.)
But as I was watching the annual trade-deadline special on the New England Sports Network after Sunday’s game (apparently, I have no life), I saw a laptop commercial that only a law firm could appreciate.
Whose ad it was and why it made me think of the sorry state of law-firm marketing, after the jump.…
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Marketing Like a Law Firm Would”
Is it me, or do government lawyers kind of suck? First Casey Anthony gets off, now there’s been a mistrial declared in the Roger Clemens Congressional perjury case just days after the trial started. Why? Because the government violated a pretrial order.
Updates after the jump….
Continue reading “Breaking: Mistrial Declared In Roger Clemens Trial”
* TLC’s Sister Wives are challenging Utah’s bigamy laws. More power to these polygamist people, especially the men. They deserve some credit for tolerating a handful of wives. [Jonathan Turley]
* Screw law students, we need to keep our professors employed. This is definitely the most important thing the ABA needs to worry about right now. [TaxProf Blog]
* Even though the fan who caught the ball on Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit is swimming in student loans, he may still have to pony up taxes on all of his new Yankees loot. [Going Concern]
* We all know Julian Assange doesn’t want to get extradited to Sweden because no one understands zeeur phuenteec lungooege-a boollsheet. Börk, börk, börk! [Constitutional Daily]
* A PA restaurant is banning kids under 6 because they are LOUD, NOISY a-holes. Parents, WHY do you think it’s okay to bring your kids to a restaurant if they can’t behave? I’ll never get this. [CNN]
* Crackpot Law, starring Herb Titus and Michele Bachmann. You better get armed and dangerous in God’s Law and “normal people values” if you know what’s good for you. [Religion Dispatches]
* If you think that your law school loans ruined your credit, you should try being “dead.” [ABA Journal]
I’m a huge Red Sox fan. (That noise you just heard were all the Yankees fans skipping ahead to the comment section. Don’t wait, guys. I’ll be right there.) This season began with the highest expectations, after the Sox won the offseason by acquiring superstars Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford and by rebuilding their bullpen. Experts and fans alike were predicting a 100-win season (their first since 1946) and a nonstop flight to the World Series. Instead, the team got off to a horrific start, going 0–6 and 2–10. Since then, they’ve begun to turn it around, finally reaching .500 on May 15. Now they’re just half a game out of first place in the tight AL East.
Part of the reason for this turnaround has been excellent pitching. Jon Lester, the young lefthanded cancer survivor, sits atop the American League leaderboard with a 6–1 record; no AL pitcher has more wins. Josh Beckett, the veteran star rebounding off a couple down years, is 3–1.
Now just looking at wins, you’d think that Lester is outperforming Beckett. But you’d be wrong, because win totals tell you very little about how a pitcher is performing. Just as looking at hours-billed totals tell you very little about how a small-firm lawyer is performing.
Better ways to measure performance (for pitchers and lawyers), after the jump.…
Continue reading “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Small-Firm Wins”
Harvard Law School
* Attorney Jason Goldfarb pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy yesterday in a case that originated with the Rajabba investigation. Here’s his firm website photo. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Harvard Law is being investigated for violating Title IX. As someone who did not attend Harvard, I assume IX rhymes with sticks. Which brings me no closer to understanding exactly what was violated here. [Harvard Law Record]
* The Bonds trial ended just in time for us to get super-psyched about the Roger “Frosted Tips” Clemens perjury trial. Let’s start boning up on it! [Reuters]
* Mexico is considering filing a lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers. Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to Remington. [CBS News]
Frank and Jamie McCourt, in happier days.
* Here’s a thorough breakdown of the McCourt mess, including details on the ongoing Bingham divorce debacle. [Am Law Daily]
* So there’s a Canadian lawyer who looks like Kate Middleton? Yeah, well my buddies say I look like Hedo Turkoglu. #humblebrag [Vancouver Sun via ABA Journal]
* Fox News wins the headline contest for Obama’s new gasoline price task force. [Fox News]
* It’s Friday. Let’s consider the better bonobos of our nature, guys. [Times Higher Education]
* BP has its granny panties in a bunch over Transocean’s liability for the oil spill. So they’re suing. [Bloomberg]
* Major League Baseball sought to take over the Dodgers from Frank McCourt yesterday. Your move, Wilpon. [Los Angeles Times]
* Tax Lady Roni DEUTCH may be thrown in jail. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on in this video, but definitely wait for the thrown dog. [ABA Journal]
* Juvenile killers are hoping to reach the Supreme Court in an effort to overturn their life sentences. If their cases make it that far, they’ll undoubtedly find a certain justice who only cares about inferior MP3 players and Emilio Estefan. [New York Times]
* Something called the Second Amendment Foundation has sued Massachusetts over their law forbidding legal immigrants from owning handguns. Crocodile Dundee didn’t need a handgun. [Fox News Latino]
Talk about the branches getting together! I’ll have to show up.
– Rep. José Serrano (D-NY), reacting to the prospect of Justice Sonia Sotomayor joining the congressional women’s softball team.
Did Lester Munson get his law degree by staying at a Holiday Inn Express?
Last night, Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice, while the jury hung on all other counts, resulting in a mistrial as to those counts. We posted about it.
Now, I don’t expect non-lawyers to really understand what “obstruction of justice” means. I certainly don’t expect them to understand what a “mistrial” is. But I do expect anybody who has been through 1L year at an American law school to understand these concepts. I certainly expect law professors to understand these terms. And I freaking demand that legal analysts charged with making sense of this issue for ESPN — the WORLDWIDE LEADER IN SPORTS — have a basic grasp on what the hell is going on.
ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson, you, sir, have failed. Failed at your job. Failed at being a thought leader. Failed at failing in a funny, non-offensive way.
Even 1Ls won’t believe the kind of tripe Muson has been spewing on ESPN…
Continue reading “ESPN Legal Analyst Does Disservice to All Mankind”
