Happy belated Halloween, ATL readers. We hope your holidays were fun and free of criminal activity.

Over 2,000 people checked in over the weekend to vote in our caption contest. The winner after the jump.

As tends to be the case every year, August and September were fabulously prestigious months here on the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. Three SCOTUS clerks were featured in this space during that period (two in the same announcement!), as well as a minor AutoAdmit celebrity, an astrophysicist, and Biglaw names like Cravath, Mayer, Jenner, and Covington.

Today, we’re asking readers to sort through all this excellence and choose the two most impressive couples of the bunch to advance to the Couple of the Year round.

After the jump, you’ll find recaps of our write-ups on each set of newlyweds, as well as two reader polls, one for each month. Voting ends on Thursday at midnight; we’ll announce the winners on Friday.

Our inaugural Law Firm Swag Contest was about quality rather than quantity. We had just four entries, but they were goodies.

Eschewing trinkets and baubles, K&L Gates took the high road, urging recruits to change their world through an innovative website. Perkins Coie went green, arranging for trees to be planted in honor of interviewees. And who doesn’t like a customized iPod, the swag doled out by Dobrowski LLP, the Texas litigation boutique?

But in the end, dear readers, you voted with your feet. Following in the footsteps of the “Sex and the City” gals, or maybe Imelda Marcos, you made it all about the shoes. The customized Nike footwear doled out by Mayer Brown scored a runaway victory, with over 55 percent of the 2,100 votes.

Props to the person in the Mayer recruiting office who came up with the brilliant idea for this Niketown summer associate event. If you’re looking for new running shoes — or, for that matter, the opportunity to do appellate litigation in New York — then sprint in the direction of Mayer Brown!

Earlier: Law Firm Swag Contest: The Finalists
ATL Contest: Best Law Firm Swag of 2009

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times. We received a whopping four (4) entries in our inaugural law firm swag contest. Is law firm swag, like subsidized soda or staff attorney programs, another casualty of the recession?

But if we cancel the contest, then the terrorists win. So, onward!

We realize, of course, that not everyone approves of swag. See, e.g., this comment:

This is fairly disgusting…. I find this article particularly untimely, given that most law students are struggling to find good jobs, and many practicing attorneys are struggling just to keep the jobs they have.

Jeez, commenter 58 — lighten up! Considering that we cover law firm layoffs in excruciating detail, to the point where many accuse us of doomsaying and fearmongering, we are aware of the tough job market. But, even in the Great Recession, some people are still getting offers — along with a little swag to sweeten the pot. So what’s wrong with some fun to balance out the gloom?

In defense of law firm schwag, here’s a trend worth noting: “going green.” Firms are trying to be environmentally conscious in their swag selections, as well as more socially responsible in general. This may make schwag less “disgusting” to its critics.

A second theme of swag this year: customization. In this age of individualism and/or narcissism, firms are letting swag recipients have a say in what gets given away. Just as firms are moving away from lockstep in terms of pay and promotion, so too are they allowing for greater tailoring in terms of swag.

Check out the finalists, and vote for the best law firm swag, after the jump.

Despite the grim economy — which we don’t think is recovering yet, despite all the “green shoots” talk — law firms continue to interview. And to make job offers. And, of course, to woo the lucky few who get offers with fabulous prizes: the nifty gifts and cute tchotchkes, often branded with the firm’s name or logo, that we collectively call LAW FIRM SWAG.

At the recent Lavender Law conference (coverage here and here), we were impressed by the level of interview activity at the job fair. To be sure, it’s not clear whether any hiring was going on; but it was nice to see law firms out in force.

And it was nice to see their swag. There were pens, courtesy of Seyfarth Shaw, and compact shoeshine discs, courtesy of Townsend and Townsend and Crew. (Leave it to an IP law firm to bring out the snazzy hardware.)

And what about Sullivan & Cromwell, giver of bonsai trees, and the historical king of law firm swag? What did S&C dole out at this year’s Lavender Law conference?

Find out — and, even more importantly, learn how to nominate your favorite Biglaw gift in Above the Law’s first annual LAW FIRM SWAG CONTEST — after the jump.

Thanks to the over 3,000 people who voted in our ATL Caption Contest. We now have a winner. Many of the proposed captions associated the shovels and bare soil with grave-digging, specifically the grave of Biglaw in the current troubled economic climate. But the winning caption tapped into a more evergreen joke in the world of law: screwing the client.

Here’s the winner:

ASSOCIATE: There’s a backhoe right there. Wouldn’t that be more efficient?
PARTNER: F**k that. We get paid by the hour.

Hats off — or not off, rather — to Austin attorney George Lobb (at far right) for crashing this photo of legal dignitaries and giving us caption contest fodder. More on that story here.

Did lawyer crash courthouse groundbreaking photo? [Austin American-Statesman]

Earlier: ATL Caption Contest Finalists: We Dig This
ATL Caption Contest: We Dig This

Last Thursday, we posted a photo of VP Joe Biden enjoying some good ol’ blueberry pie at his alma mater, Syracuse University College of Law. It was up to you to come up with a caption for the picture, and now it’s time to choose the best one. Here’s the photo once again:

After the jump, check out the finalists.

Time for an Eyes of the Law celebrity sighting. On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden visited Syracuse University. From the Syracuse Post-Standard:

Vice President Joe Biden talked with Syracuse students, teachers and parents Wednesday about his mission to strengthen the middle class.

Then, he rode in a limousine to a ballroom where people had paid $250 to have lunch and $1,000 to pose for a picture with him. After that, he rode the limousine a few more blocks to mingle with more people who had paid thousands of dollars to spend private time with him.

But staff members at Syracuse Law, the VP’s alma mater, got to meet with him for free. All it took was some homemade blueberry pie.

A picture of Vice President Biden getting his pie on, plus a caption contest, after the jump.

Over the long holiday weekend, Duke and Harvard duked it out in the ATL Douchiest Law School contest. Though many commenters argued that Duke Law School’s reputation was being unfairly influenced by that of its douchey undergrads, those Duke Law defenders were not persuasive enough to sway voters. Duke triumphed with 55% of the vote.

Duke is the Douchiest Law School!

Who was the star player in this match-up? A Duke Law School grad named Tucker Max. More on him, and a round-up of the choice comments explaining Duke’s douche dominance, after the jump.

Yesterday we brought you ATL Douche Madness, a competition to crown the douchiest law school in the land. This was inspired by GQ.com’s list of the Top 25 Douchiest Colleges in America.

What is a douche? We know lawyers thrive on precision, but this term resists an exact definition. To paraphrase Justice Stewart, you know a douche when you see a douche. For example, that guy in the photo to the right.

We started the contest with a field of 16 law schools, taken from the top of the latest U.S. News & World report rankings. The first eight match-ups garnered over 7,000 votes each. The field has now been narrowed to the eight douchiest law schools.

Check out the douches, and vote in the next match-ups, after the jump.

The cast for the latest season of Survivor, which premieres on September 17, has been announced. This season, the show’s nineteenth, takes place on the tropical island of Samoa.

Four of the 20 contestants, or a fifth of the field, are either lawyers or law students. Is appearing on a reality television show the best way to wait out the recession?

We believe this to be the highest number of law-related contestants in a single season. We reached out to Charlie Herschel — the former Survivor contestant and current Weil Gotshal associate, who has encyclopedic knowledge of the show — and he said that, as far as he knows, four would be a record. Herschel explained:

Lawyers are making a better showing than bartenders for once on Survivor! There was a lawyer on the first Survivor who sued producers for rigging the show. Word was that they avoided casting lawyers after that.

Also, it’s generally difficult for lawyers to drop everything at a moment’s notice for the casting process and also for the show (which is required), so they have trouble casting lawyers. Most of the lawyers on survivor dont practice anymore.

Perhaps you know one of these four. Let’s learn more about them, shall we?

Ed. note: Find the latest match-ups here.

GQ.com had a charming feature story this week: The Top 25 Douchiest Colleges. This is one of the few times that Kash’s alma mater - Duke (#2) - managed to beat Lat and Elie’s undergrad institution, Harvard (#4). Duke would have taken the top spot on the list but the GQ editors gave Brown that honor, saying:

Duke’s probably number one. But we’d rather not rank Duke number one at anything.

Since we didn’t have a Back-to-School feature planned, we’ve decided to riff off of this one. We’d like to invite you to help us determine the #1 Douchiest law school.

This will not be based solely on our editorial discretion. We’re taking the top 16 law schools from U.S. News & World Report and putting them into brackets, ATL March Madness style. We’ll let you vote on which is douchiest.

Check out the brackets and vote on the first eight match-ups after the jump.

Meet Ken Basin. This legal prodigy, just 24 years old, is an associate at Greenberg Glusker, one of the top entertainment law firms in the country. Basin graduated last year from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude and with a Sears Prize, at the tender age of 23.

Basin isn’t just a handsome legal genius; he’s also a trivia ace. Back in 2003, he made it to the semifinals of College Jeopardy (which, incidentally, his girlfriend won back in 2000).

On Sunday, Basin was back in the hot seat. He made it all the way to the million-dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

So how did things turn out for Ken Basin? Did he join the ranks of lawyers who have won seven-figure sums on television — e.g., Victor and Tammy Jih, of Harvard Law School and the Amazing Race, and Yul Kwon, of Yale Law School and Survivor?

Find out how he fared, after the jump.

Earlier this week, we showed you a photo of a protest before an undisclosed law firm, then asked you to suggest captions. We now have six finalists and would like you to vote for the best of the bunch. To refresh your recollection, here’s the photo:

And here are the finalists:

A. “Laid off associates try a new strategy after their restatement section 90 claims fail.”

B. “Firms run a risk of bad publicity when they lay off both labor lawyers and the print shop staff at the same time.”

C. “So you say they underpay their staff and associates, treat all employees poorly, and offer no medical or retirement benefits whatsoever? … Are they hiring?”

D. “What do we want?”
“Jobs!”
“When do we want ‘em?”
“No earlier than January 2011, economic concerns permitting!”

E. “Shame on Firm X for only laying off 2 employees. Doesn’t it realize we’re in a recession?”

F. “In a classic labor protest rookie mistake, the former associates wasted their budget on a fancy sign and failed to reserve funds for doughnuts, resulting in awkwardly low participation.”

Earlier: ATL Caption Contest: Shame on You

Are you a fan of the show Mad Men? We’ve only seen one episode, on an airplane, but we’ve heard great things. Television critics have praised it to the heavens. Our colleagues at Fashionista are also big fans.

So are many law students and lawyers. Meet Leo Mulvihill (below left), a law student at Drexel in Philadelphia, and Jon Rich (below right), a lawyer in New York:

Both have submitted their photos to the Mad Men casting call contest.

Find out how the contest works, after the jump.

Many of you are probably asking yourselves that very question. Especially if you are deeply in debt and/or without legal employment.

We decided to go to law school because, well, we didn’t have anything better to do. Law school has been described, quite accurately, as “the great American default option.”

If you’re in the same boat, or if you went to law school for some other less-than-inspiring reason (e.g., a desire for a six-figure salary), you may have a hard time relating to the clip below. It’s a promo for the “My Inspiration” video contest sponsored by Access Group, the non-profit student loan company, asking contestants to make videos explaining what inspired them to go to law school:

As was the case with last year’s video contest, the prize is a $10,000 scholarship to law school for the maker of the best video. In addition, five $1,500 honorable mention scholarships will be awarded.

Alas, if you were hoping to enter the contest yourself, sorry; the ten finalists have been chosen. Feel free to check out the finalists here, then cast your vote here. Enjoy.

Earlier: ‘What are your worries as a law student?’

It has been a long time since our last caption contest. In fact, we don’t believe we’ve done one since last year. So it’s time for a new one. The rules are the same as before:

[P]ost your caption entries in the comments. We’ll take our favorites, incorporate them into a poll, and allow you to vote for your favorite.

We present the picture below without comment or back story, so as not to limit your creativity. If you know the back story, please refrain from posting it.

We’ll tell everybody the real story behind the picture when the contest is over.

Please note that we have redacted the name of the firm in question, to prevent this thread from turning into a “Dump on Firm X” thread. So if you know the name of the firm, please don’t disclose it in the comments. When we inform you of the story behind the picture, we will inform you of the firm.

Here’s the photo. It’s a thumbnail, so feel free to click on it for a closer look.

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.

This year’s batch of summer associates are roughing it at Biglaw summer camp, with fewer meals out on the firm and less lavish events. To make matters worse, some summers are being told now that their future job will be deferred. Summer associates at Skadden and Ropes & Gray have been informed that they can’t come back to the camping ground until 2011. Tents can’t be repitched at Orrick until 2012.

This seems like a good time to focus on the light side of the summer associate experience. For the past month, we’ve been soliciting entries for our Summer Associate Event Contest of 2009. They came trickling in slowly, whether because there aren’t many events to brag about or because summer associates are too busy (or too scared) to email us. One SA was so fearful of “tipping” us that the announcement about the firm’s event was sent anonymously via snail mail. [FN1]

One ATL reader from a small firm had this to say about the environment at firms this summer:

Our firm does a lot of corporate bankruptcy work, so we’re faring better in this economic storm than most, but we had to scale back our summer associate program a bit. We do not have as many summer associates as we used to, and we are not having as many major, expensive events. No more big-ticket concerts; no more dinner theater on a river boat; no more renting out an entire movie theater for a pre-release movie showing….

Certainly, the difficulties of this economy are showing in the makeup of our summer class: because we have a summer program at all (unlike many law firms), we’re getting students from higher ranked schools. Most of them are from Top 20 law schools, all of them from Top 75 law schools, none of them from the fourth-tier local law school that usually supplies some of our summer class. And our summer associates are noticeably more stressed about the experience and their prospects than I’ve seen in the past 10 summers.

Despite the foregoing, we have a nice selection of events for the contest. We ask you to vote on the best one, plus offer a few honorable mentions (for events involving public urination and broken bones), after the jump.

The members of Dangerous Communication Device (Williams & Connolly), celebrating their victory.

Last night we reported on the Battle of the Law Firm Bands, held last week in Washington, DC. The evening raised over $80,000 for Gifts for the Homeless, a non-profit, all-volunteer organization supported by the city’s legal community to help the homeless.

Eleven bands competed, and one was victorious: Dangerous Communication Device, from Williams & Connolly. They won by raising more money than any other band: over $15,000. (The vote was conducted “Chicago-style,” with each vote requiring a dollar contribution to GFTH.)

Read our interview with the band, after the jump.