* Prosecutors prevail at the polls: former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (pictured) wins the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, and former state attorney general Robert McDonnell seizes victory in Virginia. Both are Republicans. [New York Times]

* Meanwhile, Maine voters reject a state law that would have allowed same-sex marriage. [Associated Press]

* Lawyers for John Allen Muhammad, the “D.C. Sniper” behind random shootings that killed 10 people, want the Supreme Court to stop his execution. [Washington Post]

* Former Day Casebeer lawyers, embroiled in messy disciplinary proceedings over discovery problems, claim their ex-client Qualcomm misled them. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Which three law firms are involved in the gigantic, $34 billion Berkshire Hathaway / Burlington Northern deal? [Am Law Daily]

* Police recover loot from the infamous celebrity-targeting burglary ring. [Popsquire]

* An Italian judge will soon issue his ruling in a trial over the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. [Associated Press]

* Have we learned nothing from the unfortunate tale of Adam “Bulletproof” Reposa? Don’t make an obscene gesture in front of a judge. [Chicago Sun-Times]

P.S. We worked for Chris Christie in the U.S. Attorney’s Office from 2003 until 2006. Congratulations on your hard-won victory, Chris!

* Reed Smith becomes the latest law firm to announce a move away from lockstep in favor of a “core competencies” model. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The Ninth Circuit grants the Obama Administration’s request for rehearing en banc of a case about the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. [How Appealing]

* A former Dorsey & Whitney partner, accused of illegally providing inside information about deals he was working on to a law school classmate, takes his own life. [Bloomberg via ABA Journal]

* Both sides gear up for the upcoming vote on Maine’s same-sex marriage law. [New York Times]

* Another $31 million in fees will be headed in the direction of Chrysler bankruptcy lawyers (primarily Jones Day). [Am Law Daily]

* This is why you hire Bob Barnett: Sarah Palin received $1.25 million for her eagerly anticipated new memoir, Going Rogue, even before leaving office. [AP]

* Legalize it! [New York Times]

Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

This column is a continuation of last week’s column, which you can read here.

After the departure of Elisa — who, I now have it on information and belief, is a bitch — I have the distinct sense that I have been sent to my room. “Go to your room!” I imagine her screaming at a petulant child, “and don’t come out until you’ve reviewed 68,000 documents!”

I want to ask one of my new colleagues for some guidance — an insider’s view of what to expect, and how things work in this strange ecosystem — but I am reasonably certain that my inquiry will be futile, since none of them can hear me: they are all wearing headphones. Even the carpal tunnel guy has retreated to the auditory solace of his own world, and is bobbing his head gently while he applies something pungent to his visibly swollen joints. I watch him pull a tattered plastic shopping bag out from under his desk and rifle through a collection of tubes, bottles, and jars, one of which he finally selects and opens, filling the room with the smell of menthol. I wonder if he is going to apply it directly to his forehead.

I start to flip through the review protocol, which seems inordinately complicated. The document tags appear to have been created by several different people who were not in the same room at the same time. Like anything produced by multiple lawyers (with multiple egos), it looks like the product of a stubborn refusal to compromise. Perhaps it will make more sense once I start reviewing actual documents, I think, opening the database. I am hoping that the fine points of the “review tool” will come back to me quickly.

Instead, looking at the screen in front of me, I am flooded with the memory of a case I worked on a few months before I was laid off. For a moment I am back at my desk in my old office, talking to the client on the phone about what we need to identify in the documents. I want to laugh at the absurdity of revisiting the nuances of Kroll Ontrack the way some people remember the details of an old relationship. In this scenario, Kroll would be the ex-boyfriend, which, I suppose, is not so far-fetched given how much time I spent with it.

Kroll would be a bad ex, I muse. Remember that restaurant we didn’t go to? The time we didn’t go for a walk together? Remember when I marked that document “privileged,” and then someone else marked it “non-responsive”? Remember how hard we didn’t laugh? I’m sorry we had to break up, Kroll, but you never wanted to do anything but talk shop and stay in on weekends. Yes, I remember when you said I’d be back, and I guess you were right. But I want you to know that I saw other documents — lots of other documents — while we were apart.

More after the jump.

*Some important notes about Cyber-Bullying from David Lat. [Portfolio]

* Senator Schumer has recommended that Obama choose his chief counsel Preet Bharara as Manhattan’s next U.S. attorney. [The New York Times]

* In other New York news, the state senate confirmed Judge Johnathan Lippman to replace Judith Kaye as chief judge. [Newsday]

* South Africa’s high court ruled that South Africans living abroad should get the right to vote, which could affect likely president Jacob Zuma. [The Los Angeles Times]

* Monday we wrote about extraordinary rendition; yesterday the House and Senate introduced bills that would limit the President’s “state secrets” privilege. [The Boston Globe]

* A state-ordered suspension of jury trials in New Hampshire to save money during the recession could prevent justice from being served. [Bloomberg.com]

* A-rod may not be the only outed baseball star, the California 9th circuit court will soon decide whether the list of 104 players that tested positive for steroids in 2003, will be admissible in court. [MLB.com]

* The Senate Judiciary Committee will discuss Obama’s nomination of Harvard law school dean Elena Kagan as solicitor general. [The Washington Post]

* Three federal judges in California ruled that the state must reduce its prison population by a third. [Los Angeles Times]

* Lawyers for the Obama administration surprised San Francisco by making the same state-secrets argument as Bush in the extraordinary rendition case. [The New York Times]

* The SEC makes a deal with Madoff. [The Washington Post]

* Meanwhile, the SEC chairman steps down after falling to the 50 billion dollar thief. [Bloomberg]

* 50 cent won a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend. “…this is a complete and total victory for 50,” one of his lawyers said. [Punk.BZ]

* The U.S. government may force GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy to ensure re-payment of the $17.4 billion bailout to taxpayers. [Bloomberg]

* A hearing today before the Ninth circuit in San Francisco will provide insight in to the administration’s views on extraordinary rendition—the secret transfer of a terror suspect from one state to another. [ABC]

* The Italian Senate will discuss a “Right-to-die” bill designed to keep an Italian woman on life-support. [The International Herald Tribune]

* When will the baseball steroid scandal ever end? Sportsfans are up in arms about reports that Alex Rodriguez used steroids in 2003. [Reuters]

* A new book “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,” sheds light on a forgotten hero in the civil rights movement and the legal fight to de-segregate busses. [The Associated Press]

* Need a job? Attorney Michael D. Hausfeld, who once represented Holocaust victims against Swiss banks, started a law firm that focuses on protecting businesses against global cartels. [The Washington Post]

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument in Arar v. Ashcroft, a high-profile lawsuit arising out of the U.S. government’s rendition of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, to Syria.

We interviewed DLA Piper partner Joshua Sohn (at right), co-counsel to Mr. Arar along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, about this interesting case and his firm’s work on it.

For readers who aren’t familiar with the case, what’s it all about?

It’s about the federal government’s extraordinary renditions program, which sends “people of interest” to sites around the world for indefinite detention and interrogation under harsh conditions — in this case torture. Mr. Arar, who is a computer engineer, Canadian citizen, husband, and father of two young children, was pulled out of the immigration line at JFK when he was attempting to change planes, but not enter the United States. Mr. Arar was interrogated at the airport, detained and interrogated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and ultimately flown by private jet in the dead of night to Jordan and delivered to Syria. Mr. Arar was never charged with a crime, was not allowed to consult with an attorney for many days when he was first detained and both he and his attorney were lied to about what was going to happen to him and the fact that he was being sent to Syria.

Mr. Arar made plain to those holding him that he feared being tortured in Syria and that he wanted to be sent to Canada-where he lived and was a citizen. Those pleas were ignored and Mr. Arar was sent to Syria where he was tortured and kept in a grave-like cell for almost a year. This case seeks to hold the federal officials who are responsible for Mr. Arar’s treatment, responsible.

Read the rest of the interview, after the jump.