* Duke law grad Stanley Hilton, 60, sues San Francisco Airport (and some 500 others) for $15 million for ruining his life. The airport noise, which sounds like “bombs dropping in a war zone,” caused his marriage and career to fall apart, he alleges. [San Mateo County Times via San Francisco Chronicle]

* The Ninth Circuit rules that L.A. public defender is entitled to health benefits for his same-sex spouse. [Mercury News]

* ‘I don’t. Furthermore, I am pressing charges.’ New Jersey attorney Steve Hallett accuses woman of harassment after she runs a fake engagement notice. [Trentonian]

* Eric Holder still feeling the heat from his decision to try 9/11 masterminds in a civilian court. [Chicago Tribune]

* … Some questions about the trial that are actually interesting. [Concurring Opinions]

* Terrorist attorney Lynne Stewart is heading to jail. [Associated Press]

* Say it ain’t so, H&H. [Associated Press]

* John O’Quinn, the legendary personal injury attorney killed in a car accident last week, had over 800 cars worth more than $100 million. What happens to them now? [United Press International]

* Can political connections help Florida attorney Scott Rothstein stay out of trouble? [Miami Herald]

* Judge decides Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend and doctors will be tried in her drug overdose death of two years ago. [Los Angeles Times]

* Washington bans Kenya’s attorney general from traveling to the U.S. [Reuters]

* Eric Holder keeps secrets. [Bloomberg]

* The New York Times reviews Ford County, John Grisham’s new book of short stories, and gives it the thumbs up. [New York Times]

* As we noted last week, you can read one of Grisham’s stories without buying the book. [Daily Beast]

Last week, we posted a highly unusual motion from Arizona. Attorney Tajudeen “Taj” Oladiran filed a “Motion for a [sic] Honest and Honorable Court System” in his racketeering case against Suntrust Bank before the “dishonorable” Susan Bolton.

Taj was extremely disappointed in a ruling by Judge Bolton, calling her “a brainless coward.” He ended the motion with the following:

[M]any good lawyers in town told me the bank’s executives would never be deposed, and that the case would go nowhere. I stupidly stuck to the notion that everyone is equal under the law etc. Boy was I wrong…

My thanks go out to Larry Folks and Kathleen Weber [Ed. Note: opposing counsel] who both warned me that I would lose (I should have listened to them).

I apologize to all my clients. I know, I’m sorry does not repair the mess I made but, that’s all I’ve got.

To my family, words can’t express my apologies; please remember me kindly.

Finally, to Susan Bolton, we shall meet again you know where. :-)

Some readers of last week’s post worried that was a suicidal sign-off.

We got worried too when Taj failed to respond to our emails and phone calls of the past few days. Today, we sent him a Facebook message. When our phone rang with a strange number this afternoon, and the voice on the other end had a Nigerian accent, we were relieved.

Taj lives! He sent us a lengthy missive. Here’s an excerpt:

I hope my explanation will stop the jealous haters that sent me nasty comments from holding their breaths in anticipation of news that I’ve committed suicide. Sorry, no such plans. The Whistleblower Pleading is not about a suicidal lawyer, it is about how an out-of-state bank that made bad mortgage loans in Arizona was able to obtain a horribly biased ruling in its favor. An occurrence that I thought was impossible in the federal district court. .

Full statement, after the jump.

* A Las Vegas legal celebrity sighting: Can Attorney General Eric Holder make it rain in the club? [Main Justice]

* Professor Ann Althouse weighs in on the Obama Administration’s new approach to marijuana prosecutions. [Althouse]

* Additional proof that S&C’s Rodge Cohen is God. [Am Law Daily]

* Is the boundary between insider trading and legitimate market research fuzzier than some might think? [Professor Bainbridge]

* When our toilets are unclean, we blame Dealbreaker. [Gawker]

Last week we wrote about the move of prominent D.C. lawyers Lanny Davis and Eileen O’Connor from Orrick to McDermott Will & Emery. Am Law Daily described the jump as follows: “Lanny Davis, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer who supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and was a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, is taking his unique practice from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to McDermott, Will & Emery.”

It’s not the case, however, that the entire practice moved. As noted by one commenter, the rest of the legal strategic and crisis management practice remained with Orrick. Consistent with this, an Orrick spokesperson issued the following statement to ATL:

We wish Lanny and Eileen well, but Orrick’s law, policy, media, and crisis management practice remains vibrant and strong with continuing plans for expansion and will keep delivering its unique blend of legal, public relations and government affairs counsel to our clients around the world.

Remaining at Orrick are partners Adam Goldberg, who was co-chair of the practice with Davis, and Joshua Galper. Goldberg and Galper will head the practice going forward. In addition, the associates who work in and with the law, policy and media group are staying at Orrick.

As for clients, it’s not yet clear which ones will stay with Orrick and which will move to McDermott. “Thankfully, this is a practice where we’ve always had plenty of work, so that’s not an issue,” Galper said. (We’d guess, however, that certain clients closely tied to Davis — like CEAL, the Honduras business group supporting the coup in that country — will travel with him.)

Get to know Messrs. Galper and Goldberg, and read more about Orrick’s very interesting and unusual practice area, after the jump.

All three are finding new uses for the “tools of the Internet.” Here are three recent stories that caught our attention but didn’t warrant full posts:

1. The Justice Department now tweets. Last week, the DOJ revamped its website and joined Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter. If you want to stalk Attorney General Eric Holder, you can do that here.

2. UNC law held moot court in the virtual world of Second Life last month. It’s hard not to mock, said one tipster:

You have got to be kidding me. Here’s an idea: do one in real life! Everyone will be sitting at a computer at the same time anyway - why not just have them all sit in the same room, say the UNC mock court room that was built specifically for this purpose, and actually do it in person? I’m not planning on being a litigator, but from all those episodes of Boston Legal I’ve watched I’m pretty sure that speaking is a pretty significant part of the litigation process.

What good could possibly come from this? Learning how to type out pre-prepared questions without being distracted by the naked half raccoon man that inevitably will show up and streak across the courtroom?

We think real-life Playboy bunnies at UNC might prove more distracting.

3. Law school applicants are using social networking sites to cozy up to law school admission officers. According to Kaplan, 48% of law school admission officers surveyed say that they or a fellow admissions officer at their school have received a “friend request” on Facebook or MySpace from applicants. The officers did not reveal whether this helps or hurts applicants’ chances.

And with that, we urge you to keep it real, ATL readers.

Justice Dept. on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter [CNET]
Students Explore Mock Trial Options in Virtual World [UNC School of Law]

* Return of the Spitz? [New York Post via Daily Beast]

* Remember that Massachusetts proposal to put deferred Biglaw associates in unpaid secret court clerkships? We polled you about it in June and almost 90% of those surveyed were troubled by the proposal. Well, Chief Justice Robert A. Mulligan agrees with you. He’s scuttling the program. [Boston Globe]

* Attorney General Eric Holder is putting a renewed emphasis on civil rights. [New York Times]

* Former Nets star Jayson Williams plans to allege racial bias against the New Jersey prosecutor who tried him for manslaughter five years ago. [Associated Press]

* A 17-year-old girl read “The Purpose Driven Life,” converted from Islam to Christianity, and then ran away to Florida. Now her attorney says she shouldn’t be forced to return to her family in Ohio because they’re terrorists. More importantly, they live in Ohio. [Fox]

* BREAKING NEWS: Biglaw firms are cutting back on recruiting. [Chicago Tribune]

Will the mainstream media ever hold law firms accountable for their roles in the global financial crisis? Probably not. Relatively speaking, only a small sector of society understands that Biglaw firms played a significant role making “toxic assets” lucrative and legal. Without attorneys, bankers wouldn’t know their tranches from their enhancements.

Too few people can get their head around what actually happened to cause the market crisis. But the public — the average American citizen — can wrap its mind around the concept of bonuses. I think it goes something like this:

Bonuses, BAD. Wall Street, BAD. Pitchforks and Torches, GOOD.

Can the mainstream media latch onto that?

Baker & McKenzie, which held the #2 spot in terms of revenue for 2008, has taken a dip in 2009. The firm’s fiscal year ended on June 30, and AmLaw Daily reports that global revenue fell by 3% for the firm.

As noted in Morning Docket, profits per partner took a bigger hit, plummeting 17%, thanks to the recession:

Baker & McKenzie reported Friday that global revenue declined 3 percent to $2.11 billion and profits per partner fell a more significant 17 percent to $992,000 in fiscal year 2009, bringing an end to a four-year period over which the firm experienced consecutive double-digit revenue growth and an 85 percent increase in profits.

While Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie, which generated 66 percent of its fees outside the United States, highlighted the role currency exchange rates played in the falling benchmarks for fiscal year 2009, management admitted the economic downturn negatively impacted the firm’s financial performance.

As we’ve previously reported, Baker has been a leader in terms of outsourcing legal work. The new profit numbers should mean that the trend continues. More details after the jump.

Here at Above the Law, we appreciate and encourage openness from law firms. Law firms don’t have to make quarterly reports to the SEC. But partners, associates, staff, and prospective law students should have as much information as possible about the firms they work for.

So we honestly applaud Arthur Makadon, chairman of Ballard Spahr. He decided to communicate directly with his associates and partners. In the middle of a recession, Mr. Makadon seems to understand the importance of having open communication. We post the following not to make fun of Ballard Spahr, but to encourage other firms to do the same. Here is how Makadon starts off his firm-wide message:

With the year half over, and with significant changes taking place at Ballard, at other law firms and businesses, and, indeed, at virtually every enterprise throughout the country, you understandably must wonder how we are doing. And so I want to take the opportunity in this quarterly message to provide some perspective on where we stand in 2009 and where we expect to be six months from now, two years from now, and a decade from now. Not that any of us wants to skip ahead to this winter; at least here in the East, after sloshing through an unusually rainy spring and enduring a gray and rainy June, we are still waiting to see some consistent sunshine and feel the warmth (and in my case humidity) of summer.

This email is going to be great. More from it, after the jump.

Last week, we brought you our five finalists in the ATL Summer Associate Event Contest of 2009. The top two vote-getters are too close to declare one a winner, so we’re having a run-off.

Southeast firm Carlton Fields garnered almost 32% of the over 2,500 votes for taking its Tampa summer associates on a daylong fishing trip, with multiple swimming, beach, and bar stops along the way. IP firm Fish & Richardson captured 34% of the vote for “Harpdrygal IV,” an event shrouded in mystery revealed on the day of to be an all-female roller derby.

We checked back in with the firms and have some additional information about the events to inform your voting. We also have photos, but from the roller derby only. No Carlton Fields associates in bathing suits, though we can direct you to the summer associates’ photos and you can use your imaginations. After the jump.

* U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is considering a torture probe. [Reuters]

* The billable hour is still safely in place. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Nationwide Judge Shortage: Immigration courts are seriously overburdened. [Dallas News]

* Former Mayer Brown partner Joseph Collins found guilty in $2.4 billion Refco fraud case. [Reuters]

* Divorce lawyers say recession is forcing couples to postpone separation. [Wall Street Journal]

* Alleged Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk charged with 27,900 murders. [CNN]

* The Mass. A.G. is challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Memo to Obama/Holder: If you don’t have anything nice to say, this would be a good opportunity to STFU. [Law Dork 2.0]

* Would you rather blog or golf? The answer entirely depends on how much you need the money. Though, depending on your golf partners, golfing could be just as lucrative as blogging. [Drug and Device Law]

* Should cops be bawdy when testifying in court? Probably not. But how many euphemisms do you think your local patrolman knows for “public urination”? [Underdog]

* More attorney cuts in the U.K. I wonder if another Lend-Lease program would help get America out of the recession? [Am Law Daily]

* Some commenters think Shelly Sindland should have bought a new set of boobs to compete on Big Boobs Fridays. But would an advanced course in HTML have done the trick? [Law and More]

* How far can the NFL go with the Waterboy special, “Michael Vick is the devil” thing? [Social Science Research Network]

We’ve written before about the tragic, still unsolved murder of Robert Wone, a promising young Asian-American attorney in Washington. At the time of his death, Wone was the general counsel of Radio Free Asia and president-elect of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association in D.C. We never got to meet Wone during the time that we lived in Washington, but we did meet many friends and colleagues of his, mainly through APABA. Wone was universally praised as a talented attorney and an incredibly generous and decent human being.

Almost three years after the fact, Wone’s murder remains unsolved. The circumstances under which he was killed were strange, even bizarre. He was killed in an elegant townhouse in a nice part of northwest Washington (Kash and I lived in the area), supposedly by an intruder (as 911 was initially told). But there were no signs of forced entry, and at the time of the attack, there were other people in the house — three gay men (a D.C. power couple and their housemate), who reportedly live as a polyamorous family.

At first it seemed Wone had been stabbed. But the stab wounds were clean and symmetrical, showing no evidence of struggle, and a postmortem examination found the following: evidence of possible strangulation or suffocation; six premortem needle marks, suggesting Wone may have been injected with drugs prior to his death; and Wone’s own semen around his genitals and in his rectum, suggesting possible sexual assault.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post published a fascinating two-part series about the case. The articles are long, but well worth your time. (You can also read the WSJ Law Blog’s recaps, here and here.)

The Robert Wone story has a number of connections to the Biglaw world. Prior to joining Radio Free Asia, Wone was an associate at Covington & Burling. Former Covington partner Eric Holder, now the U.S. Attorney General, previously represented Wone’s widow, Kathy — who has filed a wrongful death suit against the three housemates. One of the trio, Joseph Price — who along with his housemates now faces obstruction of justice (but not murder) charges — was a partner at Arent Fox, until his recent resignation from the firm (after a lengthy leave of absence). Price was also active in the marriage equality movement, as former general counsel of Equality Virginia.

The Post’s articles are excellent — but reporter Paul Duggan is not the first writer to focus intensely on this case. Over at their superb blog, Who Murdered Robert Wone?, four gay D.C. bloggers — Craig Brownstein, David Greer, Michael Kremin and Doug Johnson — have been scrutinizing the case for months. Their site has played an important role in raising public awareness about the case.

To learn more about the Wone case, which is far too complex to be summarized easily here, check out the links below. To learn more about the Who Murdered Robert Wone site and the four enterprising citizen-journalists behind it, which is an interesting story in and of itself, see The Bilerico Project and Queerty.

Who Murdered Robert Wone? [main site]
The Robert Wone Stabbing: Anatomy of a Murder Case [Washington Post]
The Robert Wone Killing Remains ‘a Head-Scratcher’ [Washington Post]
The Robert Wone Murder: Little to Show Three Years Later [WSJ Law Blog]
The Robert Wone Murder: A Hard Look at the Evidence [WSJ Law Blog]
Who Murdered Robert Wone? [The Bilerico Project]
Robert Wone’s Grisly D.C. Murder Inspires Four Gay Men to Seek Out the Truth [Queerty]

* The legal battle over ownership of our genes is on. [New York Times]

* This is why you shouldn’t mess with tech geeks. The Pirate Bay owners have devised a scheme to bankrupt the law firm responsible for their prosecution. [Guardian]

* East Coasters will no longer have to trek west to bet on sports. Delaware becomes the fourth state to legalize sports betting. [ESPN]

* AG Eric Holder is getting those race relation discussions he wanted. But in the form of plaintiffs asking the DOJ to intercede in discrimination and civil rights lawsuits. [Washington Post]

* Yesterday, we told you Dechert CEO Barton Winokur was taking a $1 million pay cut. Apparently, there are 36 Dechert partners in total who have opted to whittle down their pay checks. [American Lawyer]

* Courts in New York and Wisconsin disagree when it comes to warrant-less GPS tracking devices on cars. [True/Slant]

* Kenya has emerged as the chosen venue to try piracy cases. This article is worth it just for the quotes from the Kenyan piracy lawyer. Just try to imagine how much cooler your life would be if you were a Kenyan Piracy lawyer instead of a Biglaw associate. [The New York Times]

* Florida Judge Thomas Stringer worked for years to establish himself as a trusted, competent man. “then last spring, the well-respected, married judge suddenly found his face splashed beside that of a troubled exotic dancer in a kimono,” including here at ATL, of course. Amazing. [The Associated Press]

* Attorney General Eric Holder dodged alternating attacks on Capitol Hill Thursday, with some Congressman telling him to release more documents on Bush-era torture, and some telling him to stop releasing them. [CNN]

Law school students with graduation less than a month away are understandably stressed. Finals loom. The Bar Exam soon awaits them. Law firms do not. They have mountains of debt, and law firms are telling them to go away for a year (with a paralegal-sized salary, if they’re lucky).

It seems like some 3Ls are going into serious meltdown mode. Earlier this week, a University of San Francisco gunner sent out a school-wide email of fury after being passed over for graduation speaker.

Now, we have another such email. This time, a 3L from Loyola University Chicago School of Law has snapped. Like many others, this student is looking back on the last three years of law school and asking, “Was it worth it?” When it comes to the business law course Accounting for Lawyers, the answer, according to this student, is a resounding “NO.”

The student wrote to Dean David Yellen, cc’ing members of the class:

After yesterday’s disaster of a panel discussion on the financial crisis of the nation, I am so angry, I can’t even sleep.

I am officially giving notice that I will refuse to answer any exam question that goes beyond the bounds of the course description and I fully expect to graduate 5 days later. I will be encouraging my fellow 3L’s to do the same. Should this letter or my course of action be answered by any negative action that would affect my graduating law school, I will send an open letter the the entire Chicago legal community explaining to the potential employers of future Loyola Law grads that professors at Loyola School of Law are given free reign to teach whatever they want despite the school’s official course catalog and descriptions.

That sounds like blackmail to me… though probably undermined considerably by this post. The letter writer goes on to lambaste the Accounting class and the professor who taught it, accusing him of “defraud[ing] students,” “misrepresent[ing] this class [with the] course description,” and “wast[ing] the proportionate amount of my tuition dollars (approx $3000).”

Read on, after the jump.

Lindsay Harrison at One First Street. Photo by Patrice Gilbert.

Earlier this year, we conducted an interview of Lindsay C. Harrison, an associate in the Washington office of Jenner & Block. In January, Lindsay had the privilege of arguing before the United States Supreme Court — in her first oral argument ever. We chatted with her about the argument she presented in what was then Nken v. Mukasey and is now Nken v. Holder: what she wore, how she prepared, who was mean to her at argument.

This morning, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case. And even though Lindsay took the “liberal” position, she prevailed — by a 7-2 margin, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the Court. Congratulations, Lindsay!

Here’s a summary of the decision, from the ABA Journal:

A court of appeals retains its traditional authority to grant stays in deportation cases, despite a 1996 statute that limited the circumstances in which courts may block the removal of aliens, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 7-2 opinion…..

The government had argued that a provision in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 limited the circumstances in which stays could be granted. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying the statutory provision — on injunctions blocking the removal of aliens — leaves intact the court’s traditional authority to grant stays….

Harrison says the decision is “a critical victory” for [Jean Marc] Nken. “It’s a case that could really literally mean life or death for my client,” she says. “If he were deported while his appeal was pending, he is likely to be killed or jailed or tortured in Cameroon.”

As Lindsay told us in our earlier interview, she and her colleagues at Jenner in D.C. have devoted hundreds — by now, thousands — of hours to the case (pro bono). It looks like the Chicago office of Jenner isn’t the only one that can burn the midnight oil.

(Digression: One tipster is skeptical of the claim that Jenner’s office in Chicago is busy round-the-clock: “Amusing article about a condo owner who can’t sleep because her new next door neighbor, Jenner & Block, leaves its lights on all the time. Every lawyer in Chicago knows that Jenner is faking it — it’s like the guy who slips into the office on Sunday for two minutes, just to be seen by anyone who happens to be there.”)

This afternoon, we caught up with Lindsay Harrison over the phone. Our interview, after the jump.

Last month, Philly-based midsized firm Wolf Block joined Thacher, Thelen, Heller, & Morgan & Finnegan as victims of the Great Recession. The firm officially dissolved on March 23.

The press release at the time said:

WolfBlock will remain in the practice of law for several months to protect the interests of its clients, employees and creditors. The decision to unwind was reached in view of a confluence of unfavorable factors: the economic recession, especially in the firm’s core real estate practice; the constriction of credit occasioned by the ongoing banking crisis; and the intended and anticipated departure of significant partners and practices.

We now know where some of those partners and practice groups went. Duane Morris is picking up 50 of 290 WolfBlock attorneys, including the firm’s Trial Practice Group, Employment & Immigration Practice Group, and Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring Practice Group.

It’s not a good time to be part of a Real Estate Group, but two Real Estate partners and one associate managed to make the jump.

From the Duane Morris press release:

“When this unique opportunity materialized to add such a prominent group of lawyers from a venerable institution, we acted immediately,” said John J. Soroko, Chairman and CEO of Duane Morris. “These lawyers bring an impressive level of experience, knowledge and business acumen that will integrate well with Duane Morris’ international platform. Our collective goal is to take their already significant practices to the next level.”

The lawyers will be joining Duane Morris’s offices in Philadelphia, Cherry Hill, N.J., and New York. See the full press release and the names of the saved, after the jump. As to the other 200+, WolfBlock attorneys, we’ve not seen any press releases as to their fates.

* Eric Holder is trying to restore confidence in the Justice Department. [Bloomberg]

* The Roberts court’s first major affirmative action case will happen later this month when they decide whether or not a group of 17 white firefighters were discriminated against because of their race. [The New York Times]

* A divorced Michigan couple went to court to fight over ownership of their dog’s semen. The couple bred bull mastiffs together, and even though they split custody of their six dogs in a civil manner—they have been bitterly fighting about who owns their dogs’ frozen semen. Judge Cheryl Matthews asked “Am I being punk’d?” No Cheryl, this is real. [The Los Angeles Times]

* “A Wisconsin appeals court was so angry with a lawyer’s sloppy work that it fined him $500, asked for an investigation into his conduct and gave him tips on proofreading.” [The Chicago Tribune]

* Florida’s attorney general sued a company that manufactures a Michael Vick dog toy, claiming the company never gave the proceeds to charity as promised. [The Associated Press]