Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

Katarina grabbed her oversized purse and tossed a long red scarf around her neck. Tyler noticed a copy of Atlas Shrugged peeking out of it. Alignment: Libertarian. And geeky. Only true bookworms manage to slog through all 1000+-pages of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus.

“So what kind of law do you want to practice?” Tyler asked as they walked. He groaned inwardly for asking such a stock question.

“Litigation, probably appellate,” she replied. “I’m especially interested in constitutional questions.”

Tyler sensed a liberal arts background and good grades in law school. “And what was your college major?”

“Archaeology. I have my master’s degree in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology from the University of Chicago.”

Precisely, thought Tyler.

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

ATL,

“I’m a law student with a record. Larceny by trick, we’ll call it. It happened a while ago. I have reasonable assurances from bar members in my state and my law school that if I disclose and explain (and obviously, don’t mess up again) that I will pass the character & fitness exam.

But does it matter? When I got to law school, I thought I’d be able to get a job. Almost three years later, there are no jobs. Is there any point for a guy in my position to even apply to Biglaw firms? My grades are good enough to get Biglaw, but will they just ignore me because of my past?”

Been Caught Stealing

Dear Been Caught Stealing,

I always wondered what became of the cool rich kids from my high school who smashed in people’s mailboxes and raced away in their Jettas to funnel beer in their parents’ basements. If Facebook is to be believed, they’ve traded in terrorizing friendless ninth grade transfer students with clear braces and an unfortunate Sun-In situation for wildly successful careers and loving relationships. And evidently, some of them become lawyers.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: the market for lawyers is a piece of garbage. But as long as you pass character and fitness, you’re in the same position as hordes of other unemployed recent grads. People usually don’t list “criminal” under their resume work experience; they wait until they’re filling out forms at the interview or they’re accepting the job to reveal their checkered past. It’s called “bait and switch,” which you’re probably familiar with. Because you’re a criminal. And that’s how you roll.

I think the world of Biglaw is closed to you for the moment. There is no reason that a swank firm would take someone with a record when they can easily get 300 other people without one to fill the spot. You’ll have better luck in smaller firms where the people are kinder and went to worse schools. Or try PI, where you’ll work amongst your brethren.

I hope this helps.

Your friend,

Marin

Are you sick of taking phone calls at 4:30 on Friday? Would you rather be the one making the phone calls? If so, this Job of the Week might be for you. As always the Job of the Week is brought to you by Lateral Link. Today’s job is another position with one of Lateral Link’s in-house clients. Over the last 4 months Lateral Link has placed more than a dozen attorneys in in-house positions throughout the United States.

Position: Vice President

Location: Orange County, CA

Description: With more than $750 billion of assets under management, and offices around the globe, this Investment Management company is one of the world’s foremost bond fund managers, overseeing more than 70 mutual funds invested in such financial instruments as corporate paper, emerging markets debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, and real estate investment trusts (REITs), as well as stocks. The company is seeking a Vice President, Attorney with a minimum of three to six years of experience in securities laws applicable to registered investment advisers, including the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work on cutting edge legal and regulatory matters, such as analyzing compliance and trading issues, drafting and reviewing compliance policies, negotiating agreements, including investment management agreements, participating in special projects, such as regulatory audits, litigation matters and general corporate work, and resolving legal issues in connection with expansion of its business model and development of new products.

If you are a candidate, please see Position #5567 on Lateral Link. If you are not a member you can sign up for free at www.laterallink.com. If you are an employer seeking top legal talent for your company, please contact Michael Allen, Principal of Lateral Link, at mallen@laterallink.com or 213.785.2344.

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here, writing from New York. Apologies for no new post for a few weeks. It was an extremely busy October, including multiple trips to NYC and Asia (and those trips are of course continuing, with two more NYC and one Hong Kong trip scheduled over the next few weeks).

For the die-hard AC readers, next week we plan to launch a new daily Asia blog over at kinneyrecruiting.com, so you can keep up with the Asia biglaw lateral markets and our goings on much more frequently.

I will be in Hong Kong again from November 21 to December 5, so feel free to reach out if you would like to meet up with me there. Of course, Alexis is there full time and available. For the law student readers out there, on November 19 I will be participating in a seminar in NYC sponsored by the China Business Lawyers Association and the Asia Law Society of NYU. The event’s target audience will be law students who are interested in future biglaw careers in Asia. While I don’t always have time available (I wish I did) to talk to each of the many law students that reach out to us about future potential careers in Asia, events like this can be very helpful for those interested. The event’s sponsors have done a great job of securing speakers / participants for the seminar, including a few law firm partners and myself.

It has been a solid past couple of weeks for us in Hong Kong, with one partner placement and three associate placements. There has also been a lot more interview activity recently in Asia, especially in HK / China, so we are expecting more results for our associate candidate clients in the short-term.

***More after the jump.

That’s the news we’re hearing out of Austin today. When Texas added a constitutional amendment in 2005 banning gay marriage, it may have actually banned all marriage, says attorney general candidate (and former Vinson & Elkins partner) Barbara Ann Radnofsky.

Fort Worth Star Telegram broke the story. Slate sums it up:

A Houston lawyer who is the Democratic candidate for attorney general claims that a 2005 Constitutional amendment that was supposed to ban gay marriages actually took the whole thing a bit further than anyone expected. The amendment states that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” So far, so good.

But then comes Subsection B: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” That was supposed to ban any form of civil unions or domestic partnership but may have put the legal status of all Texas marriages in doubt.

Texas: 3500 sq ft, a Lexus and babies out of wedlock?

As an editor of Above the Law, I find the headline below amusing. As a commenter on Above the Law, some of you will find the headline terrifying. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A single vulgar word cost a man his job on Friday.

Well, that’s putting way too nice of a spin on it. It’s not like somebody put in a vulgar comment and then the secret police crashed his cubicle and then kicked him out on the street.

No, the blogger who noticed and deleted the vulgar comment called the commenter’s employer:

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included.

Armed with the IP address, the IT people at the school quickly found out who posted the comment. The commenter was confronted and resigned.

Would I ever do something like that? No. Because I’m drunk with alcohol, not power.

Let me explain after the jump.

President Obama seems to have made up his mind about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed circus trial that will be coming to a New York courthouse near you. The Associate Press reports (gavel bang: ABA Journal):

Obama, in a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, said those offended by the legal rights accorded Mohammed by virtue of his facing a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

I’ve argued that Obama isn’t as cool as everybody makes him out to be, but that was certainly some cold-ass rhetoric. “[W]hen the death penalty is applied to him”? Damn brother, you sending in the Wolf too?

Of course, after the jump, the lawyer part of Obama’s brain kicks in and he backpedals like a professional cornerback.

A tipster just sent in this video from UCLA:

Berkeley students, take note. That is how you cause a ruckus.

The AP reports:

About 200 demonstrators are chanting and marching around a UCLA building where University of California regents are scheduled to vote on a 32 percent fee increase for next year.

Protesters from several UC campuses stayed overnight at a campus tent city to take part in a second day of demonstrations on Thursday.

UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton says 30 to 50 students also have staged a sit-in at an ethnic studies building and have chained shut the doors. They’re peaceful and are being allowed to stay.

Sadly, reports indicate that it is predominately college students that are involved in today’s shenanigans. Are all the law students already mentally beaten?

We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot - I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.

Get mad, but stay safe. Rubber bullets hurt like hell.

Protesters gather at UCLA to oppose UC fee hike [Associated Press]
UPDATE: UCLA student protest now in full swing [True/Slant]

Earlier: Berkeley Law Students, How Did the ‘Not Ironic’ Strike Go?

This week’s headlines from AsiaLegalBlog.com

1) Weekly Asia Legal Job Openings
Since 2001, Cypress has offered the most extensive and up-to-date job bank focused exclusively on associate and partner opportunities in Hong Kong (42), Tokyo (24), Beijing (38), Shanghai (33) and the Middle East (15)….

2) Obama Tours Asia with Focus on Opening Foreign—Markets
As part of President Barack Obama¹s current tour of Asia, he is sending the message that the US wants more open trade with countries like China. That message resonates strongly with US law firms and lawyers who are interested in pursuing business opportunities in China….

3) Asia-Related CLE Opportunites
Cypress has found the following courses for lawyers looking to increase their knowledge on the Asian legal market while also taking care of their CLE requirements….

4) Asia Deal Watch
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP has represented a Goldman Sachs International, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, JP Morgan Securities Ltd and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc as initial purchasers…

5) Partner Moves & Promotions
Allen & Overy has hired Mallesons Stephen Jaques¹s litigation partner Simon Clarke to its Hong Kong office. Clarke has 15 years of extensive experience in complex litigation andcontentious regulatory work in Asia which the firm is eager to use….

6) Trailing Spouses and Other Dependants
If you want to know how the international assignment is really going, ask the spouse. It is well known that the success or failure of a stint abroad can depend almost entirely on the level of contentedness of the trailing family members. We offer some personal insights…

This information is supplied by cypressrecruiting.com, the first and only US-based legal recruiting firm to specialize exclusively on law firm and in-house placements in the China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Middle East, and Russia legal markets. Click here to see our available opportunities.

Jeremy Haber’s star rose and and fell before we had a chance to draft a post. Haber is a first year student at Harvard Law School and recently made the finals in the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest. From the Harvard Crimson via ABA Journal:

Jeremy L. Haber, a first year student at the Law School, is one of four finalists remaining in the Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest, the winner of which will write 13 weekly op-ed columns on a topic of his choice.

Haber, who said he entered the contest on an impulse, has emerged from over 4,800 entrants to outlast six other finalists — including a Nobel laureate in physics, an assistant secretary of commerce in the Bush administration, and a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

These are the columns that got him into the final rounds. Unfortunately, some other finals got in the way of his punditry. He is a 1L and it is mid-November…

Ed. note: Welcome to ATL’s first foray into serial fiction. “My Job Is Murder,” a mystery set in a D.C. appellate boutique, will appear one chapter at a time, M-W-F, over the next few weeks. Prior installments appear here; please read them first.

Susanna Dokupil can be reached by email at sdokupil@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook.

The elevator opened again, and a flurry of blue uniforms quickly surrounded ken Thrax’s office and began marking it with yellow tape. Class: Fighter.

Tyler was a thinker, not a fighter. He left quietly, not wanting to get involved, especially if that yellow sticky note was one of Thrax’s last acts….

Tyler went down the hall to Katarina’s office. He spotted her head amongst the piles of books and case printouts. She was so engrossed in a volume of Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure that she hadn’t even noticed his entry. He smiled.

Tyler rapped lightly on the doorframe. Katarina jumped. “Sorry,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Want to get dinner?”

How would you like to be sitting in property class at Iowa College of Law, and realizing that you are in the same section as this guy? The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports:

An Iowa City man is accused of physically and verbally abusing his live-in girlfriend on Sunday.

According to Iowa City police, Alvin K. Seals, 35, choked the woman after an argument and caused her to hit a wall with her elbow. The woman scraped her elbow and also cut her finger during the struggle, police said.

A tipster reports:

Seals is a 1L at Iowa College of Law. Word on the street is he dropped one of the three doctrinal first-semester classes (property) already.

Alvin Kwesi Seals apparently has quite the temper. More urine soaked allegations, after the jump.

Many ‘08 law school grads are about to take a step up to second year associate level at Biglaw firms across the land. You’re feeling pretty proud? And lucky to have a Biglaw gig these days, right?

Well, eat your hearts out. Michael Edwards, Georgetown Law ‘08 grad, has already been appointed a judge. He took his seat on the bench in Indiana City Court on Tuesday. From WTHI TV:

The Indiana Supreme Court appointed a new attorney to become a temporary judge in a southern Indiana City Court. Michael Edwards is a Naval Academy graduate, former Marine, and now the city court judge in Bicknell.

A Georgetown classmate tipped us off to the news:

This is one of my friends from GULC’s class of 2008. Already a judge! Ridiculous!

So how’d Edwards come to the attention of the Indiana Supreme Court? Judge Edwards’ ascension to the bench is a result of malfeasance by a prior judge, but was also due in part to a pushed back start date at a Chicago Biglaw firm.

Panelists:
Jonathan Pan, Managing Partner, NYC Office, King & Wood
Toby Myerson, Partner, Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Puneet Arora (LLM, 2001) Principal/Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Evan Jowers, Kinney Recruiting, Author of the Asia Chronicles at Above the Law.com
Francis Zou, Senior Counsel, NYC Office, Allen & Overy LLP
Nan-I Chen, Senior in-House Counsel, Barclays Capital

Sensible shoes are for liberal chicks. Say hello to fabulous Federalist footwear!

As you may have noticed, from our two posts late on Monday night and one from Tuesday morning, we’re engaging in some after-the-fact blogging of last week’s Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention.

As in past years, the social highlight of the conference was the Thursday night banquet (black tie optional; and many availed themselves of the option, ‘cause that’s how conservatives roll). The speaker at the dinner was none other than Justice Samuel A. Alito, who delivered an insightful and hilarious speech that was a delight to listen to. Just as one might say of, say, a newscast by Jon Stewart, much of the entertainment value was in the delivery — Justice Alito is so dry and deadpan, and yet his remarks make you bust out laughing.

Interestingly enough, we haven’t come across many news accounts of Justice Alito’s speech. There was also no video recording allowed at the address. So we feel we can add some value with this write-up, despite its belated nature.

There may have been some confusion over the ground rules governing reporting about the speech. From the BLT:

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. spoke to the Federalist Society [last Thursday] night, but photos of him doing so are hard to come by. That’s because photographers other than the Federalist Society’s own were barred from the event. Keith Appell, a spokesman for the Federalist Society, said cameras were prohibited by Alito’s security detail….

Kathy Arberg, the court spokeswoman, said “The justice’s policy was that the event was open to still cameras and pencil press,” and that the Federalist Society was informed of that policy before the event.

Well, photos from the event aren’t hard to come by on Above the Law. Nobody told us that we couldn’t take photographs — so we did. And, as members of the “pencil press,” we jotted down notes in our reporter’s notebook. (We left the laptop at the hotel that night.)

Check out a slideshow of our pictures, along with a discussion of Justice Alito’s highly engaging and entertaining address, after the jump.

* Today is the NRA’s birthday! To celebrate, I’m heading to my local gun range (it’s called “the Bronx” if you’re not from New York) where I intend to pump a copy of the Second Amendment full of hot lead. [Jew with a Gun]

* Google gets into the Westlaw and Lexis business. [The Supreme Court of Texas Blog]

* Volokh looks at some aggravating circumstances that could possibly justify why 37-year-old Sandy Binkley was sent away for 12 years for banging a 17-year-old student. I still don’t think the punishment fits the porking. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* The Feds have the death penalty, but New York doesn’t. If Holder really wants to bomb Khalid Sheik Mohammad back to the stone age, it’ll be a tricky political situation. [WSJ Law Blog]

* What does it say when lawyers are lining up to defend Bill Belichick’s controversial decision to go for it on fourth down during the Patriots’ loss to the Colts on Sunday? It says “the amount of front runners who support teams like the Patriots, Yankees, Lakers, Celtics, and Steelers has reached epic proportions in this country. And soon the Dookies will be upon us. Everybody who did not grow up in New England needs to get off Tom Brady’s illegitimate child-having jock.” Ahh, that feels better. [Tax Prof Blog]

Ben Harper says that “what’s from the earth is of the greatest worth.” Yesterday, ex-U.S. attorney John McKay weighed in on the marijuana debate, and said that “what’s from the earth” shouldn’t be illegal.

Instructing federal agencies to ignore congressional laws is not a fix, said McKay. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

McKay faulted Congress for failing to take initiative on the issue. It is not the place of federal prosecutors or law officers to make policy, he said, nor should the White House go it alone.

In the end, he argued, marijuana should not be lumped in with cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin as part of the war on drugs. Marijuana law, McKay said, “should look a lot more like alcohol (regulations) and a lot less like cocaine and methamphetamine (laws).”

Colorado’s attorney general agrees… when it comes to state coffers. AG John Suthers says it’s okay for his state to tax medical marijuana.

A recent Marie Claire article made us realize that this is not just a question of theoretical interest to some of you. Apparently, there are Biglaw types out there toking up! One 29-year-old corporate attorney told the magazine that pot is essential for relaxation after getting chewed out by a partner.

The Above the Law inbox has been on fire all morning as disgruntled (former) Schulte Roth & Zabel associates share some bad news:

Yet more lay-offs: Two groups — 13 associates so far — real estate and business transactions.

Other tipsters have used the same ominous language: “13 associates, so far.” Are there more people that are going to get the bad news from Schulte today? The firm did not respond to our request for comment, so we suppose other Schulte associates will just have to wait and see.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before we worry about how many more pink slips might be handed out today, let’s take a moment to look at the 13 we know of that have already been let go.

Last night, the WSJ Law Blog previewed a new set of law school rankings. Today, we have the full list from SuperLawyers. The magazine, in association with Minnesota Law & Politics and Washington Law & Politics, has ranked law schools based on the number of Super Lawyers they produce.

Is it a little self-serving for a magazine to rank law schools based on how many of the school’s graduates end up in its own magazine? Sure. It’s a little like US Weekly handing out Oscar nominations based on how many times a star has appeared on its cover.

But at least it is an attempt to rank schools based on graduate outcomes. The Super Lawyers Blog explains the rankings this way:

Most law school rankings look at things like bar passage rates, professor-to-student ratios and the number of books in the library, but they ignore the end product — the quality of lawyers produced. We think it’s like ranking football teams based on athletic facilities, player size and equipment without considering who wins the games.

In the real world — the world of clients and juries and judges — no one cares about your GPA or LSAT score. All that matters is how good and ethical a lawyer you are. That’s the focus of Super Lawyers.

Schools are ranked according to the total number of graduates named to the state and regional Super Lawyers lists in 2009. In the event of a tie between schools, the cumulative peer evaluation and research scores of graduates are used as tie-breakers.

They care about how “ethical” you are in the real world? Who knew?

Enough with the preamble. Let’s explore the cream of the crop, the Super Lawyers top 20, after the jump.

On Friday, we gave you a sneak peek at the new rankings being developed by the Association for Corporate Counsel. The organization is asking its members to submit reviews about the law firms they work with based on a five star system.

We told you that the ACC rankings were still a work in progress, with many firms not having enough reviews to consider their rating significant.

Still, the ACC would have preferred to keep its list a secret from the general public. The ABA Journal reports:

The ABA Journal asked the Association of Corporate Counsel for comment. Media representatives pointed to an online statement and a blog post by ACC President Fred Krebs. “It is premature and inappropriate at this time to cite ‘rankings’ of law firms given the limited number of evaluations submitted thus far,” Krebs says. “The ACC Value Index is in the early data-gathering stage, and it will take time to develop a robust database.”

It seems that the ACC’s real problem is that it doesn’t want its rankings to be termed “rankings.”

Check out an email from the ACC to its members after the jump.