As expected, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner easily won our October Couple of the Month poll. You can read all about Ivanka’s newlywed bliss here, here, and here (she’s already “gadding about the city ringless.”)

Now we plummet back to earth to turn the LEWW spotlight on more ordinary folk. This week’s contestant-couples:

1. Lisa Klein and Blake Sparrow

2. Sarah Goodstine and Laurie Levin

3. Rachel Moston and Garrett Ross

Get the scoop on these newlyweds, after the jump.

Yesterday we reported on this announcement by Brooklyn Law School:

This semester we have received several warnings from our Internet service provider that copyrighted movies and TV shows are being downloaded illegally via our wireless network. The Information Technology office is now ascertaining who is doing this. Once we have names of the individuals involved, we intend to give them to the copyright holders for enforcement purposes.

This stance proved unpopular with BLS students, as well as ATL readers. In a poll, about 75 percent of readers answered “yes” when asked, “Should Brooklyn Law School do more to protect its students from being sued for illegal downloading?”

It seems that Brooklyn Law School has had a change of heart. Check out the email that went out this afternoon, plus selected reader comments, after the jump.

Apparently so. From a student at Brooklyn Law School:

Today we received this e-mail from the administration, which is causing quite an uproar among the student body.

The gist of it seems to be that, contrary to the practice of other schools, BLS will begin actively investigating [illegal] downloading and proactively providing names of people to media [companies] so [the individuals in question] can be sued.

I believe the typical practice at other schools (graduate and undergraduate) and institutions is to wait for a subpoena and either cooperate or fight the subpoena, not to go out of their way to inform on their students.

The total cost of attendance at Brooklyn Law for the 2009-2010 academic year, for full-time students not living with their parents (God forbid), is a shade over $66,000. Shouldn’t that buy BLS’s silence?

Or is the law school in the right here? Shouldn’t law students, i.e., future lawyers, know and follow the law?

UPDATE: Brooklyn Law has announced a change in this policy.

Read the email and take a poll, after the jump.

The Village Voice had a great piece last week on the developing trial of Robert Simels, a New York attorney who has attracted a fair amount of fame from defending alleged mobsters and other assorted “kingpins.”

Legendary local attorney Robert Simels is only being punished for representing some of New York’s most unredeemable gangsters, say some in local legal circles. Kind of a what-goes-around-comes-around situation.

Simels not only lawyered for mafia turncoat Henry Hill (on whose life GoodFellas was based), but also some of the biggest Latino and black drug kingpins of the ’80s and ’90s. And now, Simels himself is in deep trouble. He’s been indicted for allegedly tampering with witnesses in a case revolving around a comparatively little-known Guyanese drug gangster, Shaheed “Roger” Khan.

There is talk that Simels has been hauled into court as a punishment for his unsavory client list. Coincidentally enough, his trial is taking place before U.S. District Judge John Gleeson — a former prosecutor who went after John Gotti.

So it should come as no surprise that Simels has turned to another legendary defender of clients with supposed mafia ties, Gerald Shargel:

Simels has hired Gerald Shargel, one of Gotti’s main lawyers and a guy who is, in fact, one of the most prominent mob lawyers in the city.

Nice.

But did you know that Shargel also doubles as a professor at Brooklyn Law School?

Details after the jump.

This week’s contestants are not our strongest crop ever, but they’re evenly matched — so much so that we were unable to choose a winner. So we’re taking the unusual (but not unprecedented) step of opening this week’s contest to a reader vote. The poll is below, after the jump.

Here are your finalists:

1. Elissa Bassini and Jeremy Pick

2. Julia Bartolf and Gregory Milne

3. Valerie Durollari and Ken Biberaj

Read all about these couples and vote for your favorite, after the jump.

Just in case you thought law firms were the only ones freezing salaries on employees, it turns out that law schools are doing the same thing. Yesterday, Brooklyn Law School announced a freeze on faculty salaries:

All departmental budgets will be carefully reviewed, but we will be able to keep our tuition increase to a minimum by foregoing salary increases for deans and almost all administrators, faculty, and staff in the coming year. The savings will be passed on to you.

The cost of attending law school is the 800lbs, chest thumping gorilla that menacingly sits in on every salary freeze and bonus discussion we’ve had in recent months. Associates are overpriced, entitled, and generally worthless? The global financial crisis is exposing a fundamental weakness in the Biglaw business model? No client in his right mind would pay fthis much or associate time? Fine, fine, and fine. Pay back that massive debt recent grads incurred to put themselves in this expensive, unsustainable model and we’ll call it even.

If, given the events of the past few months, you are even contemplating becoming a part of this system, keeping your debt low is at least like strapping on a seat belt before you drive off of a cliff.

Anything that law schools can do to keep tuition low is sure to be appreciated.

Obviously, Brooklyn is not the only law school feeling the economic pinch. We take a look around after the jump.

Some of our friendly commenters frequently gripe about the high number of Rabbi-officiated weddings featured in this space. They’ll be delighted to know that only one of our three weddings this week is a straight-up Rabbi wedding. The others were jointly officiated by a Rabbi and a Mennonite minister and a Rabbi and a bankruptcy judge. Yay for diversity!

Here are this week’s lucky finalists:

1. Harper Fertig and James Robinson

2. Marion Ringel and Joshua Panas

3. Julie Hootkin and Benjamin Schneider

Read all about these couples, after the jump.

If the photos of this week’s contestants look a little stiff, please understand that it’s because the NYT didn’t run pictures of any lawyer weddings this week, forcing us to Photoshop them from the attorneys’ firm bios. You’re welcome. And Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are this week’s Legal Eagle Wedding Watch finalists:

1. Elizabeth Raizes and Kayvan Sadeghi

2. Amy Stutius and Adam Slutsky

3. Sara Rubenstein and Yariv Ben-Ari

Read our assessment of these couples, after the jump.

On Saturday the American Civil Liberties Union elected a new president, Susan Herman.

She’s a constitutional law professor at Brooklyn Law School and had served as the ACLU’s general counsel prior to this promotion. It has been a long time since ACLU leadership changed hands:

Herman’s selection gives the organization a new public face for the first time in nearly two decades. Nadine Strossen, the ACLU’s longest-serving president and the first woman to hold the job, had led the group since 1991, overseeing a substantial rise in formal membership and national staff.

Herman intends to spearhead the organization’s outreach to the African-American community, and she believes that her professorial background will help encourage young people to become card-carrying members.

More on Susan Herman’s background after the jump.

Even as the national economy teeters on the brink of collapse, Wall Street’s elite continue to flock to the altar. Click here, here, and here, and imagine what this month has been like for these people. Getting married is stressful enough; we can’t imagine doing it while at the center of a financial meltdown.

In other random New York observations, both of the city’s baseball stadiums will close their doors this fall. Last Sunday’s final game in Yankee Stadium was celebrated with a Sports Illustrated cover and wall-to-wall coverage on ESPN. This Sunday’s game could be the last in Shea Stadium, and the New York Times marks the occasion with a gripping piece on how pilots landing at La Guardia won’t be able to use the place as a landmark anymore.

Here are this week’s couples:

1. Jean Park and Albert Cho

2. Trinity Jackman and Joshua Harlan

3. Edward Pierce and Robert Saltzman

More about our finalists, after the jump.

Yes, LEWW hears the howls of protest from our readers about the weeks we skipped recently. We’ll do a makeup post soon, we promise. The weddings pages have been such a wasteland lately that it’s been hard to pull together the kind of legal and nuptial excellence you’ve come to expect here. And it’s crushing our spirit.

Take this week. The NYT featured just seven weddings total, with only two LEWW contenders and one Ivy degree (from U. Penn). Here are the two finalists:

1.) Robin Rosenthal and Richard Rothfeld

2.) Erin Conroy and Thomas Welling Jr.

More about these newlyweds, after the jump.

Yes, yes, LEWW has been a tad neglectful of our wedding-watching duties. Our full-time job has been, well — full-time. And then there are all our fabulous society engagements.

Anyway, let’s face it: High wedding season ended in mid-October. You know people aren’t focusing on weddings when the Times hauls out the perennial “Is the Bride Changing her Name?” article. Yawn. But fear not — while you’re focusing on Christmas shopping and year-end bonuses, LEWW will be watching the weddings.

And here’s the latest bunch:

1.) Matthew Morningstar and Alan Van Capelle

2.) Elizabeth Hack and Richard Larach

3.) Allison Hersh and Daniel London

4.) Hayley Lattman and Ryan Geftman

More about these couples, after the jump.

Reactions were varied to Amir Efrati’s controversial, widely read, front-page Wall Street Journal story about the job prospects for graduates of non-elite law schools. Some students and alumni of non-top-tier law schools hailed the piece for revealing some dirty secrets about American legal education. But not everyone was so pleased.

From a tipster at Brooklyn Law School:

I thought you would be interested in hearing about a BLS Career Services breakfast held this morning. Apparently the director of Career Services at BLS, Joan King, was asked about her reaction to the WSJ article. (Note: this breakfast is an annual event, and was not held as a reaction to the article).

Ms. King said she was contacted in the research-gathering stage by the WSJ author, who interviewed her about the job market for BLS students. She believes that there were some omissions in the article, and that the writer had an agenda: to prove his hypothesis, without highlighting some additional facts.

Amir Efrati, if you see Joan King in a dark alley, turn the other way — and RUN. If you mess with a girl from Brooklyn, you WILL regret it.

And there’s more. Check it out, after the jump.

* Ann Althouse is a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School this year — and they’ve put her up in an apartment with some pretty sweet views. (Perhaps she can see 125 Broad Street, home of Sullivan & Cromwell, where she once worked as an associate.) [Althouse]

* Pope Benedict: Tax evasion is sinful (in case you didn’t know that already). [TaxProf Blog]

* Judge to public defender: What, you’re not ready to go to trial on a case you’ve had for less than a day? I’m holding you in contempt! [Record-Courier]

* Courtesy of Orin Kerr, pointers for how to talk about the Jose Padilla verdict at the next cocktail party you attend. [Volokh Conspiracy]

Law school snobs — or “tierists,” as some call them — should check out this interesting article, by Lindsay Fortado of Bloomberg News. It’s about how high demand for summer and permanent associates is pushing large law firms to expand their recruiting efforts, to include law schools outside the “top 10.”

When Josh Kleiman, a student at Brooklyn Law School, interviewed at 17 law firms for a summer position, 12 called back. He joined New York’s Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen, one of the city’s most profitable.

The competition has increased for Kleiman and other students at so-called second-tier law schools for jobs that pay more than $3,000 a week, plus free lunches and cocktail parties. New York’s largest law firms have hired record numbers of summer associates to deal with an abundance of work and defections of lawyers to banks and private equity clients.

Kleiman was also offered summer positions at Sullivan & Cromwell; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker; White & Case; Shearman & Sterling and Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. He said he chose Fried Frank, ranked 14th in the city in revenue per partner, because the attorneys were “diverse and interesting.”

Presumably Kleiman chose Fried Frank over the conventionally more prestigious S&C sometime this past fall (pursuant to the NALP deadlines). But if similarly situated law students turn down S&C in higher-than-usual numbers this coming fall, we’re blaming it on this guy.

(To whom, by the way, law clerks may owe their newly improved bonuses. Some speculate that S&C raised its clerkship bonus to $50,000 because it feared a tough recruiting season this fall, due in part to L’Affaire Charney. Eventually Simpson Thacher followed suit, followed by many other top shops. And the rest is history.)

Lawyer Search Spurred by M&A Sends Manhattan’s Best to Brooklyn [Bloomberg]

Even in these dark days, as an anxious nation awaits the latest dispatch from the associate salary wars, the wedding machine grinds on. We salute the brave couples who choose to go ahead with their ceremonies in the face of all this uncertainty — after all, how crushing would it be to return from your honeymoon and find your employer on someone’s List of Shame!

Honorable mention this week goes to this couple. (The father of the bride, William Barr, was once Attorney General under George H.W. Bush.) Unfortunately, those two did not make the cut. Here are the lucky lovebirds who did:

1. Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert

2. Eliza Harrington and Minor Myers III

3. Jennifer Merzon and Christopher Evans

More on this week’s couples, after the jump.

Here are the results of the various reader polls we conducted concerning Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who appeared nude in a video for Playboy TV:

These results make sense to us. Dominguez’s participation in the Playboy really has no bearing upon her character and fitness, with respect to her bar admission. It wasn’t criminal, and we don’t live in the Victorian Age.

As for her legal career, if she’s a talented lawyer, who cares if she has, er, certain other abilities? Sure, one might question her judgment; but this was one mistake, and nobody’s perfect.

(But yeah, maybe she’s not that hot. And just because her doing this nudie video shouldn’t preclude her bar admission doesn’t mean people can’t look down on her for doing so.)

Earlier: Adriana Dominguez: What Do YOU Think?
The Jurisdiction Stripper: Two More Polls

Former Justice Department official Monica Goodling isn’t the only appealing female who’s hiring lawyers these days. Yet another damsel in distress, who has also been in the headlines lately, has obtained legal representation for herself.

Remember Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a nude video for Playboy TV? If you email Ms. Dominguez with an interview request, you receive this message:

I have no comment at this time. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to my attorney:

Brian Bloom
Cozen & O’Connor
(212) 509-9400
bbloom@cozen.com

Sincerely,
Adriana Dominguez

Why on earth has Adriana Dominguez hired a lawyer? We saw the video, and it was pretty trashy — but not criminal (although reasonable minds can differ).

Here’s the law firm bio of Dominguez’s attorney, Brian Bloom (Cornell 1999, Hofstra Law 2002):

Brian A. Bloom joined the New York Midtown office of Cozen O’Connor in March 2005 as an Associate in the General Litigation Department. He concentrates his practice in commercial litigation and intellectual property matters. Brian has represented various entertainers, musicians, and recording artists, including Eminem and (the Estate of) Tupac Shakur. Prior to joining the firm, he was a litigation associate at Fischbein Badillo Wagner Harding, LLP.

Tupac is probably turning over in his grave right now. Assuming he’s actually in it.

P.S. We’re guessing that Bloom and Dominguez are friends and that he picked up this matter as a favor to her (i.e., allowed her to refer to him as her attorney). But did he clear it with the powers-that-be at Cozen O’Connor, go through the requisite conflicts check, etc.?

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Adriana Dominguez (scroll down)

We’ve been enjoying the story of Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a nude video for Playboy TV. And based on the number of people who have been visiting ATL by Googling her, it seems that we’re not alone.

We’d like to “own” this story, covering every aspect of it, no matter how trivial (as we’ve been doing with the Aaron Charney case). If you have any firsthand information about Adriana Dominguez, even if not terribly exciting, please contact us (subject line: “Adriana Dominguez”).

Here’s one such tip we received:

“The New York Daily News keeps on referring to her as a ‘brainy blonde,’ but that’s not entirely accurate. First, it’s a dye job. Second, she’s not what I would call ‘brainy.’ I know someone who is in her International Law class, and let’s just say she’s not a star pupil. She should spend more time with her books and less time naked before the camera.”

After the jump, we’ve posted a screencap of her MySpace page. It’s not terribly revealing because access to her full profile is restricted to her friends. But for those of you who can’t get enough of her, check it out.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a video for Playboy TV. We’d like to get a more systematic handle on people’s views: