Newt, you've made the tiger angry.
* “Members of Congress are not above the law,” and that’s why the Senate will likely approve a ban on insider trading of non-public information by the end of the week. Say hello to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. [Boston Globe]
* Eye of newt tiger, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog. You see, Newt, you screw up one part of the witches’ spell, and you get sued for unauthorized song use on the Election 2012 campaign trail. [Bloomberg]
* Which Biglaw firms have the strongest brands in the country according to high-revenue clients? You’d think that those in the top five would be the firms leading the bonus market, but like most things having to do with money, you’d be wrong. [Am Law Daily]
* As Rutgers Law students take to the streets to protest the school’s merger with Rowan, nontenured faculty members are doing their damnedest to GTFO before all hell breaks loose. [Burlington County Times]
* GW Law will be launching a health care law and policy program next fall for the low, low cost of $5M, but the hordes of law school grads willing to pay top dollar for a useless LL.M. is priceless. [National Law Journal]
Tom Wallerstein
For some, the phrase “small law firm” implies certain stereotyped practice areas, clients, and attorneys. At its worst, the stereotype invokes unsophisticated clients and matters that are routine and uninteresting. I doubt the stereotype is wholly true anywhere. I know for sure it isn’t true in San Francisco or Silicon Valley.
I know many attorneys in small firms who have specialized, high-end practices. These specialized practices are often called boutiques, and they are perfectly suited to serve the entrepreneurial, high-tech client base that abounds in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Even in the down economy, a number of new ventures were launched in Silicon Valley. Geographically, the high-tech corridor also seems to be expanding, thanks to Twitter, Zynga, SalesForce.com, and the like setting up shop in San Francisco. You don’t even need a Visa or traditional office space to launch a startup anymore; now you can enjoy Peter Thiel’s “Visa-free entrepreneurship and technology incubator on an ocean vessel in international waters.”
It remains to be seen whether we’re experiencing a boom or just another bubble, but I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not an economist and I’m not making predictions. I am only remarking on some great practice opportunities for smaller law firms which exist here, maybe because we are fortunate to have so many imaginative, passionate, and savvy entrepreneurs working on exciting projects in so many different industries….
Continue reading “From Biglaw to Boutique: Beyond the ‘Small Law Firm’ Stereotype”
That's sexual harassment, but you probably want to take it.
* Listen up, internet pirates: if your license plate says “GUILTY,” it’s almost like you’re doing the DOJ’s job for them. More on this later. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Say cheese, because you’ll want to catch this first on camera. Sullivan & Cromwell is serving as lead counsel on Kodak’s bankruptcy case. [Am Law Daily]
* Protesting fail: looks like New York’s Occupy the Courts group won’t even be able to occupy the courthouse steps today. [Bloomberg]
* Stephen Colbert’s lawyer, Trevor Potter of Caplin & Drysdale, is now an internet celebrity. He’s a UVA Law grad, so pop your collars. [Chicago Tribune]
* Sexting extraordinaire Ken Kratz is fighting the suspension of his law license, because if he can’t practice as an “atty,” how can he be the prize? [Wisconsin State Journal]
* Apparently lots of DAs like to sexually harass their coworkers. Myrl Serra has been sentenced to one year for exposing himself at the office. [Denver Post]
SOPA is getting pwned. Yesterday, all the uber players with their epic gear hopped on Vent and raided the SOPA base, and now the newbie Congress people who sponsored the law are running scared. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act have “renounced” their law. The New York Times reports that Senators and Congresspeople are abandoning this thing like it was a campaign promise.
Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, all of the big internet corporations flexed their muscles — and oh, by the way, this is what it looks like when corporations use speech for speech, as opposed to pretending that anonymous corporate campaign contributions magically count as speech.
In the wake of this victory, here’s a question: Is this what we want? Yesterday, the internet used its power for good (though I fear the movie industry will strike back by making you watch full-length Kevin James movies before you can download the next Batman preview). But what if in the future “the internet” wants something bad, something that is more than the mere protection of freedom?
Continue reading “Should We Let the Internet Make Laws?”
Justice Kavanaugh has a nice ring to it.
* Searching for the perfect holiday present? Via Professor Glenn Reynolds: “As A Christmas Gift, Tell Your Friends and Relatives They’re Fat.” [Instapundit]
* If a Republican wins the White House in 2012, who might get nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court? Mike Sacks offers up a star-studded SCOTUS short list: the brilliant and genial Brett Kavanaugh, the fabulous Diane Sykes, certified superhottie Jeffrey Sutton, emerging feeder judge Neil Gorsuch, and star litigator Paul Clement. [Huffington Post]
* Another proposal on law school transparency. What is this “gainful employment” of which you speak? [Law School Transparency]
* If you can’t find gainful employment, well, maybe you can score a $500 reward from a concerned parent. [The Legal Satyricon]
* Speaking of Marc Randazza, here’s an interview in which he discusses “putting the nail in copyright holding company Righthaven’s coffin.” [WebmasterRadio.FM]
* A riddle from Eric Turkewitz: How is Indiana just like the old Soviet Union? [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]
* An interesting profile (by Peter Lattman) of Albert Foer — father of the three famous Foer brothers, and a celebrated and successful antitrust law crusader. [DealBook / New York Times]
Downward dog... kind of.
* Protip for Mark Hansen, AT&T’s lawyer: when you want a judge to save your merger plans, it’s probably not a good idea to demand that she make a ruling by a certain date. [Businessweek]
* What’s going on in Cooley Law’s defamation suit against Rockstar05 (other than discussion of whether the school’s attorney understands the tort’s defenses)? An appeal. [Lansing State Journal]
* Getting a prep school education in New York isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ask Philip Culhane, Simpson Thacher partner and name plaintiff in the Poly Prep sex abuse suit. [New York Times]
* America, f**k yeah! The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is suing the DMV over free speech rights they might not have had if they seceded from the union. [Fox News]
* Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury tried to sue his disciples for infringement of his moves, but he ended up getting it downward doggy style from the Copyright Office instead. [Bloomberg]
* “If you want a good grade, you need to have sex with me.” At the height of finals season, many law students wish this were an option, but apparently it only happens in college. [New York Post]
Just when you thought “revenge porn” couldn’t get worse, IsAnyoneUp came along. In addition to posting user-submitted nude photos — often sent in by someone’s angry ex — the site’s proprietor, Hunter Moore, includes a screenshot of the amateur porn star’s Facebook profile page, so that it’s clear exactly who the person is, where they live (and work), and how to contact him or her. It’s not the only porn website where those featured get “poked,” but the only one where visitors get to do the poking.
Those featured on the site have struggled to get their photos taken down — the most successful legal approach so far has been to claim copyright and issue a DMCA takedown notice. Now Facebook is bringing its legal power to bear. Facebook had its lawyers at Perkins Coie send the site a cease-and-desist notice, saying Moore was violating Facebook’s terms of service by harassing users and posting their content without their consent. Moore immediately posted a copy of the letter to his NSFW site, and was excited to send Perkins lawyer Joseph Cutler a response.
“I replied with a picture of my dick,” he told Gawker. Classy.
Continue reading at Forbes.com….
Cristina Fierro: not of age.
* Here’s something that’s actually worth crying over instead of your “meh” bonuses. Much like this year’s Cravath scale, Biglaw pro bono hours will likely be stagnant or cut altogether. [Fortune]
* What’s the point of fleeing if you’re just going to let yourself get extradited? Ex-Crowell & Moring counsel, Douglas Arntsen, will return to New York to face grand larceny charges. [New York Law Journal]
* Knock it off: the feds took down 150 sites selling counterfeit goods yesterday, alleging willful copyright infringement. So much for all of those too-good-to-be-true Cyber Monday deals. [Blog of Legal Times]
* It’s pretty much impossible for Gloria Allred to take a client who doesn’t have a vagina. Her latest litigant, 16-year-old Cristina Fierro, is suing Lawrence Taylor for sex trafficking. [New York Post]
* Finally, some Spider-Man drama that we can get behind, unlike that Turn Off the Dark crap. Tobey Maguire has settled his illegal poker lawsuit, and he didn’t even have to go all in. [CNN]
* Sorry, Chick-Fil-A, but no one is going to be confusing your “chikin” trademark with kale. Maybe like 3% of your customers even know what kale is. And that’s being generous. [Huffington Post]
Better as a redhead.
* You know you’re screwed when law school folks are coming after you. A University of Hawaii Law dean has jumped aboard the “sue Facebook for wiretapping” bandwagon. [The Republic]
* Walk like an Egyptian? Emory Law student, Ilan Grapel — who was detained by Egypt on espionage charges — may soon be released in an exchange with Israel. [NBC New York]
* Lindsay Lohan’s probation was revoked, and she’s facing up to a year in jail. Judge Sautner doesn’t like her, so here’s hoping that LiLo’s single and ready to mingle. [New York Daily News]
* Heather Mills is being sued by her hairdresser over $80K in unpaid bills. After getting $50M in her divorce, she can’t cry poverty — she wouldn’t have a leg left to stand on. [Daily Mail]
* Being sexy and using kinky props for a song entitled “S&M” aren’t options anymore, because David LaChapelle has settled his copyright suit against Rihanna. [Rolling Stone]
* Peter Mullen, executive partner during the M&A boom at Skadden Arps, RIP. [New York Times]
Would you like some doc review with that?
* How can you pick a side when it comes to fairness and the law? Can you straddle the fence? Don’t ask Justice Alito, because he’s still not really sure what the answers are. [New York Times]
* Paul Ceglia is finding out the hard way that court orders aren’t like annoying Facebook friend requests. You can’t just tell your lawyers to ignore them and hope they’ll go away. [Bloomberg]
* From occupying Wall Street to occupying the courts? 99% lawyers are threatening to clog up the courts if their demands aren’t met. At least they’d have a toilet to do it in. [New York Daily News]
* “If your choice is between going to Liberty Law or working a deep-fat fryer, you might as well go to Liberty, right?” Lat, I think we really need to have a chat. [Commercial Appeal]
* If I had a dollar for every dude who had an Asian adventure involving a Thai ladyboy, I’d be rich, but it doesn’t mean that The Hangover II was based on their exploits. [Hollywood Reporter]
* “The road to this day has been long”… and hard. That’s what he said. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has finally been put to bed, and the next logical step would be to ditch DOMA. [PostPartisan / Washington Post]
* “Citizens United has been good for gay rights.” Well, at least it’s been good for something. Are we allowed to like the ruling in this case now? Bueller? Bueller? No? Okay, just checking. [New York Times]
* And another one gone, another judge bites the dust. $43K wasn’t enough to keep Justice Joseph Covello on the bench. How many more will it take to get a decent raise? [New York Law Journal]
* The First Circuit turned it around on Joel Tenenbaum, reinstating a $675K judgment against him. Charles Nesson couldn’t comment on the decision because he was crying. [Boston Globe]
* Ten-year sentence edition: Samuel Logan’s dad wishes he was still a judge on the Tenth Circuit so he could benchslap the sh*t out of his son for trying to seduce a 14-year-old. [Kansas City Star]
* John Banzhaf continues to fight for coeds’ right to party at Catholic University, but it’s not looking good because it’s hard to immaculately conceive when boys live in the same dorm. [WSJ Law Blog]
It doesn’t take much to get people riled up about peer-to-peer file sharing and everything that goes along with it. Who is the RIAA is suing or not suing? Which Oscar-winning director thinks illegal downloading is maybe kind of OK after all? The list goes on and on.
Often file-sharing doesn’t much concern us here at Above the Law, but sometimes the P2P attorneys themselves become important and/or easily despicable characters within the always-hot topic. A few months ago, I wrote about an attorney named John Steele. A court found his methods of going after P2P porn downloaders to be unsound.
Last week, two more British attorneys were fined almost £200,000 and suspended from practicing law for their unacceptable Internet pirate-baiting schemes.
Let’s see who these guys are and what they did….
Continue reading “Two British P2P Lawyers Suspended for Being Bloody Wankers”
* A scam blogger hit it hard last week, calling Cooley out for policing the internet. Guess we know why s/he chose to go by “Rockstar.” [Detroit Free Press]
* Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to remember the life of slain Mercer Law School graduate, Lauren Giddings. Rest in peace. [Baltimore Sun]
* Other than the fact that this dude waited nearly a decade to sue, Facebook now says it has “smoking gun” evidence that Paul Ceglia’s case is a fraud. Like. [Bloomberg]
* The Innocence Project says that past DNA evidence is a “poor judge of character.” You’d say that, too, if you exonerated a future rapist. [New York Daily News]
* Lady Gaga is being sued for copyright infringement. Seriously? Get it straight, lady: Gaga only copies from Madonna. [Daily Mail]
* In this economy, to get a job you have to make believe you love the law. Career advice for old farts can be applicable for young lawyers, too. [Boston Globe]
* A jury found Warren Jeffs guilty of sexual assault, confirming that just because there’s grass on the field, it doesn’t mean that you should play ball. [CNN]
* John H. Ray III finally sued Ropes & Gray for treating him like the “token black associate.” That’s only funny on an episode of South Park. [Am Law Daily]
* Evidence in Shaquille O’Neal’s civil racketeering lawsuit has been sealed. Kazaam might have an attitude, but there’s no way he’d ever frame someone for child porn. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
* No wire hangers rent-controlled apartments ever! Faye Dunaway: “Can’t evict me, ‘cause I f**cking quit this place. I hope you have a terrible life.” [New York Times]
* Lil Wayne might have some trouble making ladies’ beds rock after being served with this $15M copyright infringement lawsuit. [The Juice / Billboard]
* Christian Louboutin won a small victory against Yves Saint Laurent in court. Maybe soon YSL will be as red with embarrassment as the soles the fashion house tried to copy. [Styleite]
* The DOJ is suing Alabama because of its immigration law, saying it interferes with federal law. To the extent that federal law won’t prosecute illegal aliens, they’re spot on. [Bloomberg]
* Floridians, grab your pitchforks, torches, and chloroform, because Casey Anthony has to return to Orlando for a year’s worth of probation on check fraud charges. [CNN]
* Like many a man before him, Charlie Sheen decided to pull out on his extortion lawsuit against porn star Capri Anderson. Winning? You be the judge. [New York Daily News]
* FYI: If a pretty design will make wiping your own ass easier, you probably can’t trademark it. Not even if you waste 675,000 pieces of paper to prove your case. [Mogulite]
* A photographer is suing over the use of her pictures on Project Runway. I bet if Tim Gunn told her to “make it work,” she’d drop it and offer up the rest of her photos on a platter. [Hollywood Reporter]
On Wednesday, white and nerdy musical genius Weird Al released “Perform This Way,” to his Twitter followers for free download, after Lady Gaga supposedly refused to approve it for inclusion on his upcoming album. The song parodies Gaga’s “Born This Way” and, while certainly no “Another One Rides The Bus” or “Rye or the Kaiser,” appropriately mocks the Gaga marketing machine with such gems as “got my straight jacket today / it’s made of gold lamé / no I’m not crazy, I perform this way.” The whole thing is kind of a meta-parody because “Born This Way” is really a low rent rip-off of Madonna’s “Express Yourself” and “Vogue.”
Here’s the background story:
Lady Gaga denied Weird Al the right to release his parody of BORN THIS WAY, only the second time in his career that he’s been denied. [Ed. note: The other refusal came from Prince.] But he recorded the track at her request as a part of the approval process… the first time any artist has made that request. She summarily passed without comment. So instead of selling a couple hundred thousand or a million copies… he gave PERFORM THIS WAY away for free to his 2 million followers on Twitter.
Really, Lady Gaga wants to throw down with Weird Al?
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Weird Al, Fair Use, and the Lady Gaga Saga”
It’s not everyday you get porn, file sharing lawsuits, amateur motions to quash subpoenas, and a federal judge quoting Shakespeare’s King John, all wrapped up in a nice legal bundle of joy.
Here we go, from the beginning:
Chicago attorney John Steele, whose firm website is located at www.WeFightPiracy.com, represents CP Productions, the filmmakers behind — wait for it — Cowgirl Creampie. The movie was part of their website, www.chicasplace.com (obviously NSFW; I can’t believe I just looked that up in Starbucks).
On behalf of his client, Steele sued 300 people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie via BitTorrent. No one actually knew, however, who these supposed downloaders were. The plaintiffs only had IP addresses — not names, phone numbers or mailing addresses.
Steele subpoenaed various Internet service providers to get the personal data. He spent months unsuccessfully trying to contact all of the defendants, who lived conveniently in a single Chicago apartment building all over the damn country….
Continue reading “Suing Hundreds of Anonymous People Will Not Make You Popular”
Lindsay Lohan
* Obama has created an indefinite detention system for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Because he’s too soft on terrorism to make it definite. [Washington Post]
* Utah’s new immigration laws will create a legal storm. El Niño! Spanish for The… Niño! [USA Today]
* Lilo finally starred in another movie, and former wet poodle perm enthusiast Marcia Clark is here to break it down for you. [Entertainment Tonight News]
* Hiring partners have entered the U.S. News rankings fray. Number 1? Yep, Cooley. [U.S. News & World Report]
Charlie Sheen
* Some New Yorkers are suing over a bike lane in Brooklyn. Four wheels good, two wheels bad! [New York Times]
* “Pow! Appeals court upholds comic con’s guilty plea.” [New York Post]
* Charlie Sheen’s attorney isn’t wasting any time fighting Tiger Blood’s dismissal from that show he starred in with Duckie and the lumpy kid. [Hollywood Reporter; New York City Employment Lawyer]
* Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Congress may take works out of the public domain and slap a copyright on them. I’m never going to fill this Zune up if I can’t score some free Stravinsky. [Wired News]
The crappy thing about being a martyr is that you have to die. Just ask Obama how the whole “savior” thing is working out for him.
The recording industry has set out to make an example out of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a woman guilty of illegally downloading 24 songs. We mentioned her third trial this week while talking about Professor Charlie Nesson’s speedy benchslap.
Thomas-Rasset was trying to reduce the amount of money she had to pay for downloading the songs. You know, since the material costs $2, max, one would think her penalty wouldn’t be significantly more than a speeding ticket.
But like I said, the recording industry really wanted to make an example out of her. And apparently our judicial system is happy to be the compliant lapdogs of corporate interests. So Thomas-Rasset is going to have to ascend the pyre, because the courts lit her up, again…
Continue reading “Sorry File Sharing Lady, Looks Like You Just Have to Take One for the Team”
