Our candidates for the coveted Lawyer of the Month title have been a bit tame for the past few months. This time around, we’ve chosen some lawyers and law students who represent our more prurient interests and our unabashed love for scandal.
This installment of the competition is the sex, violence, and stupidity edition. Check out our deadly and disorderly nominees for the month of September….
– a comment allegedly made to the police by University of Miami law professor D. Marvin Jones, upon being arrested for a prostitution-related offense last month.
(This is not the first time Professor Jones has been accused of such a crime. Back in 2007, we named him a Lawyer of the Day after he was charged with soliciting a prostitute. The charge was later expunged.)
Back in 2007, Professor D. Marvin Jones of the University of Miami School of Law was hit with a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a prostitute. We found it interesting that a criminal procedure professor was charged with, well, violating the criminal law. We bestowed Lawyer of the Day honors upon Professor Jones.
Yesterday’s Lawsuit of the Day — Jones v. Minkin, a $44 million lawsuit against yours truly, Above the Law publisher David Minkin, and Dead Horse Media (now known as Breaking Media) — has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff, University of Miami law professor Donald Jones.
There was NO SETTLEMENT in this case. Above the Law has made no changes to our prior posts, and we have paid no money to Professor Jones. The case was dismissed by the plaintiff without anything from our side, except a letter from our lawyer.
UPDATE (3:35 PM): We have offered Professor Jones a guest post on Above the Law in which to provide his side of the story, about either the lawsuit or the underlying facts. We have offered to keep the comments on that post closed or open, depending on his preference. (And we would have done this in the first place, had he made such a request.)
Comment from Randazza, plus links to the notice of voluntary dismissal and other news outlets and blogs — we will UPDATE continually, so do check back for fresh links — after the jump.
For the first time in over three years of operation, Above the Law has been sued. We feel the lawsuit has no merit, but we will not comment further on this ongoing litigation. To access the pro se complaint, coverage by other news outlets and blogs, and ATL’s prior posts about Professor Donald Jones, click on the links collected after the jump.
Please note that we have closed comments on this post, out of respect for the judicial process. Thank you.
UPDATE: We will be continually updating this post with links to news and blogosphere coverage. We have already added new links from the ABA Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and the Volokh Conspiracy, among other sources.
The fresh links will appear AFTER THE JUMP, so check them out there. Thanks.
We’ve written afairamount about D. Marvin Jones, the University of Miami law professor who has been accused of soliciting an undercover officer for sex. He allegedly offered her a tantalizing $20 for her services.
But a picture is worth a thousand words. And a picture is what’s been making the rounds among UM students and alumni, via email. The tipster who sent the graphic to us introduced it as follows:
I graduated from UM Law (embarrassing, I know)…. [But] I actually have a job.
I hate UM. After [redacted] for undergrad, UM Law was a joke. I’m embarrassed that I went here.
Anyway, this pic is amazing. Please publish it. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s awesome.
Now, we realize that Professor Jones is a popular figure on the UM Law campus. We acknowledge that he merely stands accused of wrongdoing; he hasn’t been convicted of anything. And we know that many ATL readers have rather delicate sensibilities, especially for the readers on an online legal tabloid. If you’re highly sensitive to criticism of Professor Jones, or if you are easily offended, then please stop reading here.
But if you have no particular attachment to Professor Jones, and if you have a reasonably high tolerance for irreverent, crass, politically incorrect humor, then check out what lies after the jump.
Now it’s in the Miami Herald. Most of the piece will be familiar to those of you who read ourcoverage. But the article does include some new material, including comment from the law school:
A law school spokeswoman declined to comment on the arrest Thursday, but the school’s dean, Dennis Lynch, told The Miami Hurricane student newspaper he was aware of the charge against Jones.
”He is a respected member of our law school community, and the validity of the charges will be determined through the appropriate judicial proceedings,” Lynch said, according to The Hurricane. “I mean, he’s only been charged.”
Jones pleaded not guilty to the solicitation charge last month and has requested a trial, court records show. If convicted of the second-degree misdemeanor, Jones would face up to 60 days in jail.
Dean Lynch, by the way, is stepping down (but related in no way to L’Affaire Jones). Considering the weird publicity the school has been experiencing lately — see examples collected here — we don’t blame him. We’ve been hearing about a fair amount of infighting over there, which we may report on in the future.
P.S. Speaking of UM, we’d love to interview the law students featured here and here. If you know either or both students, please convey our invitation to them. Thanks.
As we first reported yesterday, Professor D. Marvin Jones, who teaches constitutional law and criminal procedure (!) at the University of Miami law school, has been arrested for solicitation of a prostitute. Here’s an interesting tidbit, from Blogonaut:
Some of you asked for more details about the alleged conduct. We’ve gotten on our hands on the incident report, which appears below. Note the tension between (1) Professor Jones’s pimpin’ ride, a Mercedes SL500, and (2) his alleged offer of a mere $20 to the “undercover officer possing [sic] as a prostitute.”
Law professors don’t make as much as Biglaw partners. But surely the driver of a Mercedes could be a little more generous!
Several commenters to our recent post about the University of Miami law student who got benchslapped on the People’s Court pointed out another news development involving the law school: the recent arrest and arraignment of a popular professor, D. Marvin Jones, on a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a prostitute. See here:
Check out his bio (which rather pretentiously describes Professor Jones as a “public intellectual”). He teaches Criminal Procedure, of all things. If there’s any technical defect in his arrest, we’re sure the good professor will be able to get himself off.
Professor Jones: If you’re looking to score some ass, why not stick to the U. Miami student body? At least they won’t charge.
Alas, we don’t have the dirty details of this incident. If you know more, please email us. Thanks.
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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Our candidates for the coveted Lawyer of the Month title have been a bit tame for the past few months. This time around, we’ve chosen some lawyers and law students who represent our more prurient interests and our unabashed love for scandal.
