This year we decided to dress up as Judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.), recently nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. If you’re a criminal, Judge Chin can be quite frightening — he sentenced Bernie Madoff to a whopping 150 years.
And where did we get the idea for our costume? ATL comments (see #2 and #17).
A slideshow of photos showing us in our Judge Chin costume, after the jump.
* You never know when your Halloween costume will come back to haunt you. [Siouxsie Law]
* Anti-blasphemy laws make Jesus cry. [Overlawyered]
* Hey, we’re in the middle of a recession. If you really want to avoid legal pitfalls, hire a lawyer. Please. [Double XX]
* Note to traffic cops: driving while not being able to speak English is not a crime. Not even in Texas. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Oh criminal conspiracy laws that mock common sense with reckless joy. Long may they reign. [Legally Unbound]
* I think I’m at the point where if I called the cops myself I wouldn’t say anything to them once they arrived. I would just hope that they figured out for themselves the nature of the crime I called them to prevent/investigate. [Underdog]
* A tangled web links the SDNY U.S. Attorney’s office with the bottom of a pool in Florida. [Main Justice]
* If Gawker was written by Percy Fitzwallace I believe they would have responded to Joanne Lipman with this line: “I’ve got some real, honest-to-God battles to fight, Leo. I don’t have time for the cosmetic ones.” [Gawker via Law and More]
Monday, October 26, 2009 9:23 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Has Justice Sotomayor put Clarence Thomas over the edge? While speaking at the University of Alabama, Justice Thomas said he wishes that the other justices would STFU during oral arguments. He also complained that there are too many Ivy Leaguers on the SCOTUS bench. [Associated Press]
* One of the beneficiaries at the top of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was found on the bottom of a pool Sunday. [New York Times]
* Who has the rights to the treasures of the Titanic? [Associated Press]
* Proposition 8 proponents have to turn over their campaign strategy documents. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* An anarchist social worker believes his constitutional rights were violated during the G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh. Police raided his home for breaking an anti-riot law via Twitter. [Wired]
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:27 AM - By David Lat
* SCOTUS has agreed to decide whether federal courts can order Guantanamo detainees to be released into the United States, which raises separation of powers issues (because the political branches are in charge of passing and enforcing immigration laws). [How Appealing (linkwrap)]
* A big loss for Exxon Mobil (and its lawyers at McDermott): a jury issues a $104.7 million verdict, after finding the company liable for poisoning NYC water wells. [Bloomberg]
* Weekend at Bernie’s: lawsuit alleges drug use and debauchery at the Madoff offices. [ABA Journal]
* The Galleon / Raj Rajaratnam insider trading case lands in Judge Rakoff’s court. Could this create complications for the SEC? [WSJ Law Blog]
* The FAA is investigating last week’s Balloon Boy incident. [CNN]
* Ben Roethlisberger’s lawyers want a Nevada court to sanction the attorney who brought rape charges against the Steelers quarterback. [The Huddle/USA Today]
* An E.U. court deals a blow to the environment. [New York Times]
* Google responds to the Justice Department’s concerns and will edit its Digital Books settlement. [The Recorder]
* The Patent Troll Tracker case finally settles. [IP Law & Business]
Thursday, September 17, 2009 6:07 PM - By Elie Mystal
A couple of days ago, an attorney sent in an email to the New York State Bar Association listserv. Like many people, the attorney was looking for a job. He decided to ask the listserv for some helpful tips:
Subject: [nysba-nonres] (somewhat) new attorney still seeking first FT position
From: [Redacted]
To: nysba-nonres@lists.nysba.org
Its a difficult time for new lawyers graduating with gigantic student loan debts and a bad economy. I’ve been searching for two years sending out hundreds of resumes and applying for an online jobs every chance I get but it now seems hopeless.
I’m a Fordham Law School graduate and have an internship working at a small bankruptcy/divorce/immigration firm and also have been doing debt collection in state court and attending 341 hearings as a per diem attorney. I also have an interest in criminal law and litigation and therefore took hands on courses in law school: civil litigation drafting, trial advocacy, fundamental lawyering skills, criminal procedure.
I want a full time position but contract work would be helpful also.
If anyone has any suggestion as to where to apply or what to do please advise.
Everybody tells you to network to find a job in this economy. But what if you don’t know anybody? One can understand how the state bar association listserv could seem like a viable option to a recent Fordgam graduate.
Were the employed attorneys helpful to the young Fordham ram? What do you think?
Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:13 AM - By Kashmir Hill
* Earlier this month, we reported that Sonnenschein had made cuts. Of the 30 let go, 10 were income partners. [National Law Journal]
* Republican Congressman Joe Wilson may be the most hated lawyer in the U.S. today after heckling President Obama during his healthcare reform speech. [CNN]
* NALP is forming a commission to review law firm hiring practices, including the current timetable for 2L OCI recruiting. [Am Law Daily]
* Bankruptcy judges are chastising mortgage servicers for their sloppy business practices and their poor communications. [New York Times]
* Associates who went to lower-ranked law schools tend to be happier and harder working in their BigLaw job. Why? For the same reason that ugly people are better in bed - they have to be. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Unemployment hits 9.7%. That is not funny. [New York Times]
* The 2nd Circuit reaffirms that wiretap warrants should only be granted to the government after a detailed explanation of why the wiretap is necessary. Then the court reinstates evidence acquired pursuant to a wiretap warrant that probably shouldn’t have been granted. [Threat Level/Wired]
* This is just not a good time to be Proskauer Rose. The firm is now being sued in Nevada on a malpractice claim that was rejected in Texas for improper venue. [National Law Journal]
* Could the SEC be sued for negligence in failing to properly investigate Bernie Madoff? [Time]
* Is Bernie Madoff about the try the Lockerbie terrorist defense? Does he have friends in oil rich countries that we don’t know about. [Dealbreaker]
* You can’t get rid of the LSAT until you come up with something better to replace it. I nominate tying up prospective law students and throwing them into a body of water of some kind. If they sink, we’ll know they have what it takes to depress the salaries of lawyers already in the system. [Miller-McCune]
* Now I know why the British left their islands to conquer the world. They were just in search of a little bit of sunlight. [Pink Tape via Blawg Review]
Frank DiPascali, the former CFO — chief fraudulent officer? — for Ponzi schemer extraordinaire Bernard Madoff, pleaded guilty today to a variety of charges, including securities fraud, falsifying records, and international money laundering.
* Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, signed off on a decision to drop a voter intimidation complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party. [Washington Times]
* Can’t we all just get along — with the help of beer? Today at a White House picnic, President Obama will drink a Bud Light, Professor Gates will drink a Red Stripe, and Sergeant Crowley will drink a Blue Moon. We told you Cambridge police officers were yuppies. [Washington Post]
* A San Francisco lawyer who interviewed Bernie Madoff may use the information obtained to pursue feeder fund managers. [Reuters]
* Advisers on the Microsoft-Yahoo ad partnership: Sheppard Mullin, Skadden, and Perkins Coie. [Am Law Daily]
* Just for Captain Canuck, we acknowledge that the differences between Canadian law and American law are about more than what you can legally do with a moose. [Legal Lad]
* The movement to ban anonymous commenters failed to gain another follower, but anonymous insults are still pretty wussy. [Simple Justice]
* Some dude hung out a shingle — on Craigslist — and now he’s making all the unemployed attorneys who are sitting around drinking until the economy turns around look bad. In middle school, this kid would have a hard time finding someone to sit with at lunchtime. [ABA Journal]
* Harry Markopolos — the Madoff Ponzi scheme investigator — fulfilled a mother’s worst nightmare about clean underwear. [Going Concern]
A certain big-time lawyer turned big-time fraudster — Marc Dreier, aka “Mini-Madoff” — will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars. He must miss his days of house arrest, when he got to hole up in 34C — not just a great bra size, but also a great apartment — at One Beacon Court.
That apartment is no longer his. The New York Law Journal reports:
The luxury midtown Manhattan apartment of disgraced attorney Marc S. Dreier was sold at auction for $8.2 million, about $2 million less than the $10.43 million he paid in 2007.
The sale of the condominium at 151 E. 58th St. came just one week after Southern District Judge Jed S. Rakoff sentenced Mr. Dreier to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a multi-year Ponzi scheme that fleeced more than $400 million from clients of Dreier LLP and investors to whom he sold bogus promissory notes.
Forty-six bidders registered for the auction held at Southern District Bankruptcy Court. In just five minutes, the price of Mr. Dreier’s 3,000-square-foot apartment in the Bloomberg Building at One Beacon Court rocketed to $8.15 million from an initial bid of $3 million.
Eight million isn’t chump change. But look at everything the buyer is getting!
* New York is considering the Madoff bill: making rich prisoners foot their own prison bills. No word as to whether tipping the prison warden is suggested during the holiday season. [Reuters via Daily Beast]
* Part of the U.S. DOJ is relocating from D.C. to South Carolina. [Associated Press]
* A porn star, who tested positive for HIV, is suing California health officials for violating her rights by demanding her medical records. [Courthouse News Service]
* Harvard Law prof Jonathan Zittrain is down on cloud computing. [New York Times]
The long (inter)national Marc Dreier nightmare is almost at an end. He’s been sentenced to 20 years for defrauding his clients and investors. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports:
Prosecutors had asked for a 145-year sentence, which harked back to the 150-year sentence U.S. District Judge Denny Chin readily handed down to Bernie Madoff, whose massive Ponzi scheme drained the bank accounts of countless investors. In both cases defense attorneys sought a fraction of that. Dreier’s attorney sought no more than 12-and-a-half years.
But Dreier drew U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who has been highly critical of the length of sentences under the federal sentencing guidelines, particularly in white collar crime cases.
Bernie Madoff gets 150 years, but Dreier only gets 20? Justice may be blind, but she’s certainly not deaf.
What’s your Halloween costume this year? A slutty nurse? A creepy Notre Dame 1L? Or something far more scary — maybe Bob from Human Resources, the Grim Reaper who takes your Biglaw job away?
Continue reading "Open Thread: Happy Halloween!"
(76) Comments
* SCOTUS has agreed to decide whether federal courts can order Guantanamo detainees to be released into the United States, which raises separation of powers issues (because the political branches are in charge of passing and enforcing immigration laws). [
* Naked shorting: it sounds hot, but it might just get you into trouble with the SEC. [
A certain big-time lawyer turned big-time fraudster — 
