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?”

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.

Back at the office, Tyler reached for his case file. A yellow Post-It note on top read “Drinks at 5 p.m. Solstice. K.”

Tyler instantly e-mailed Katarina one word: Yes.

Then he noticed an e-mail from the managing partner announcing cuts in the recruiting budget. No reimbursements for associate lunches with summers. The firm has, however, negotiated a deal with Solstice such that all recruiting meals eaten there and paid for by corporate credit card are still fully reimbursable up to $7.00 per person. Tyler groaned audibly. Having to eat well-presented-yet-unflavored food every day was his personal hell.

An e-mail from Katarina appeared! His heart pounded as he read her reply: “?” He read it again and mentally administered severe self-flagellation for a divination attempt gone badly awry! Tyler wished vainly for a time reversal spell to recall that e-mail. Seeing none, he instead replied, “What is the answer to which the question is ‘dinner tonight?’” He crossed his fingers.

The Associated Press reports that John J. O’Connor III died today at 79 of complications arising from Alzheimer’s disease.

John and Sandra Day O’Connor met as law students at Stanford.

The O’Connors were married in 1952 and became a leading couple on Washington’s social scene when they moved from Arizona in 1981 following her confirmation as the first woman on the Supreme Court.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stepped down from the Supreme Court in 2005 in order to care for her husband as his Alzheimer’s disease worsened.

Husband of retired Justice O’Connor dies [Associated Press]
Justice O’Connor’s Husband Dead at 79 [BLT]
Sandra Day O’Connor’s Husband Dies [Washington Post]

We wanted to give people an opportunity to reminisce about John O’Quinn, the legendary personal injury attorney, who apparently died this morning in a car accident. The Houston Chronicle reports:

Prominent Houston attorney John O’Quinn was one of two men who died this morning when their SUV slammed into a large tree on Allen Parkway after the driver apparently lost control, police said. …

It wasn’t immediately clear whether O’Quinn or the other, still-unidentified victim was driving.

O’Quinn is a huge name in Texas and around the country. He made his mark in PI work:

O’Quinn, who made his fortune largely in personal injury cases, most notably in successful breast implant cases in the early 1990s, was a local philantrhopist. He gave money to the Harris County Children’s Assessment Center, the Houston Council on Alcohol and Drugs and various Texas Medical Center institutions including St. Luke’s Hospital, which has a tower bearing his name.

R.I.P., John O’Quinn.

Attorney O’Quinn killed in car wreck [Houston Chronicle]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: John O’Quinn

The dispute between Tremayne Durham and Rob Chambers started so innocently. Durham wanted to sell ice cream. Chambers makes ice cream trucks. Durham asked Chambers to make him an ice cream truck. Yay. Who wants a Bomb Pop?

But Durham changed his mind. He asked Chambers to refund him the $18,000 he paid to Chambers for the truck. Chambers demurred. Now Durham is suing Chambers for the money.

But suing Chambers wasn’t Durham’s first effort to recover his losses.

No, Durham’s first plan to get the $18,000 back involved kidnapping Chambers and his friend Adam Calbreath, holding Chambers hostage, and shooting Calbreath to death.

The lawsuit represents “Plan B.” KATU in Portland reports:

Durham still wants his money back, all $18,000 - even after he confessed to murdering Adam Calbreath. Calbreath was someone Chambers considered as a loyal friend. …

Durham is serving 30 years for murdering Calbreath and taking Chambers hostage while shoving a gun in his stomach.

“He had said, ‘Look at what you made me do,’” Chambers recounts. “He said, ‘I’ve been robbing and killing people to get to you.’”

Can you imagine if this guy had actually gone through with his plan to sell frozen treats to children? How would he handle a kid who stiffed him a quarter? “Look what you made me do, I had to bury your mother alive while I was looking for her purse.”

It’d be as if Mr. Softee were suddenly replaced by Pennywise.

This isn’t the first time Durham’s made news. Details after the jump.

Documentarian Michael Moore would have us believe that everyone in the Great White North is friendly and loving, leave their doors unlocked, and have no need for guns. Well, there are definitely some crazy, violent types residing in Canada. Like the Greyhound bus killer. And Ontario’s former attorney general.

Michael Bryant, a Harvard LLM graduate and youngest AG in Ontario’s history, had a minor collision with a 33-year-old bike courier, who then made the unwise decision to grab onto Bryant’s Saab. From the New York Times:

[P]olice received reports of a Saab convertible racing past the fashionable shops of Bloor Street with a man clinging to its side. Two construction workers doing repairs along the road told CTV, a Canadian television network, that the car accelerated, its tires squealing, before veering into oncoming traffic on the left side of the street.

The workers said that the motorist repeatedly mounted the sidewalk and drove near lampposts in what seemed to be an attempt to brush off the man hanging onto the side.

One of the workers said the driver was “yelling pretty loud and he sounded very, very angry.” The other worker said, “He meant to knock him off.”

Several witnesses said that the clinging man flew off of the car after striking a mailbox.

Sheppard — the bike messenger — did not survive the incident, and Bryant is now charged with criminal negligence in his death. Many media outlets have pointed out that as attorney general, Bryant championed laws making Canadian roads safer, namely banning street racing.

But what they don’t point out is that sometimes bike messengers are really crazy and scary. But that doesn’t justify slamming them up against things on the road and killing them. Just punch annoying cyclists in the face. It’s okay to do in New York.

Canadian Politician Charged in Death [New York Times]
Former attorney general says he’s innocent [Associated Press]
Driver Punches Cyclist in the Face After Blocking Bike Lane [Gothamist]

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) passed away shortly before midnight on Tuesday, while at home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He was 77. From CNN:

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” a family statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice.”

Kennedy, nicknamed “Ted,” was the younger brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was gunned down while seeking the White House in 1968. However, his own presidential aspirations were hobbled by the controversy around a 1969 auto accident that left a young woman dead, and a 1980 primary challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter that ended in defeat.

Senator Kennedy was a lawyer. He graduated in 1959 from the University of Virginia School of Law (where he won a moot court competition), became a member of the Massachusetts bar, and served as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County from 1961 to 1962. But he was more known for his long and distinguished political career than for his legal one.

Update: Over at True/Slant, Elie asks: “Could a 30 year old Edward Kennedy get elected to the Senate today? Would he have survived the scandals of his youth to become entrenched in the U.S. Senate?”

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy dead [CNN]
Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 [ABC News]
Senator Edward Kennedy, 77, dies [Reuters via Drudge]

Legendary entertainer Michael Jackson, aka the King of Pop, wasn’t a lawyer. But he certainly generated lots of work for them, thanks to his child molestation charges and financial woes. Not every pop culture icon has their own ATL category tag.

(Sure, MJ didn’t always pay his legal bills on time. But it’s the thought that counts.)

Michael Jackson was 50 at the time of his death. May he rest in peace.

Update: Read Marin’s thoughts on the Gloved One over at True/Slant (here and here).

Michael Jackson Has Beat It [True/Slant]
Michael Jackson Dies [TMZ.com]
Pop icon Michael Jackson is dead [Los Angeles Times]

We’ve reported on two suicides that have happened in the legal community after attorneys have lost their jobs. The National Law Journal reports on another apparent suicide that occurred in December at King & Spalding.

Is the recession economy pushing lawyers over the edge, or is it the just the general stress of the profession?

It is difficult to gauge whether these three recent deaths indicate a rise in attorney suicides; recent statistics are hard to come by. And it has been more than 20 years since the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety released a study that ranked lawyers fifth among workers in the frequency with which they commit suicide. Psychologists and attorneys, however, say factors in the profession that may contribute to suicide have likely grown worse, not better. Lawyers, they say, may be primed for depression because of their heavy workload and legal training that accentuates the negative.

“We really, as lawyers, are dunked into a bath of stress,” said Dan Lukasik, a trial lawyer whose Web site Lawyers with Depression has seen a 50 percent jump in hits in the past six months. “You’re sitting there stewing in your own stress chemicals and that goes on for years.”

After the jump, the ABA offers some resources for those who are confronting depression.

We’re not entirely sure of all the details, but there appears to be a very sad situation developing at Kilpatrick Stockton in D.C. today. Everybody in Kilpatrick’s building received this email this morning:

Good morning,

Please remain in our space until further notice. Metropolitan Police Department are currently responding to an unconscious male with a gunshot wound to the head on the 11th floor of Kilpatrick & Stockton. We are contacting building management to determine further information.

We will keep you posted. Thank you.

Kilpatrick is located at 607 14th Street, NW in D.C.

After the jump, we have another email from building management and a statement from the firm.

Update (1:54 PM): We also have reports from tipsters, after the jump.

We’d like to take a moment and acknowledge the great life and career of Professor Charles H. Whitebread. Professor Whitebread passed away Tuesday, in Santa Monica, California.

Professor Whitebread was a legend at the USC Gould School of Law, but most attorneys will remember him for his BAR/BRI Criminal Law lectures. We fondly remember the bow-tied professor for adding a bit of levity at a time when we were stressed beyond belief.

He is survived by his life partner, John Golden, and his devoted friend Michael Kelly.

The USC Gould School of Law will hold a memorial for Professor Whitebread at a date still to be determined. Donations to the Charles H. Whitebread Memorial Scholarship may be sent to the law school.

What a colossal d-bag. From the New York Daily News:

A Coney Island businessman is suing the city for damaging the Bentley he was driving when he killed a Brooklyn dad in a hit-and-run accident.

Harry Shasho, who pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, says the NYPD failed to safeguard the battered black 2005 Bentley GT luxury sedan that was impounded as evidence of the fatal crash. He’s asking for at least $190,000.

It sounds like Shasho needs a bit of a reality check:

Shasho says the Bentley was in “excellent condition … with no noticeable defects or damage” when he turned himself in, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The police report tells a different story. It describes the car as crumpled and the windshield “depressed and fractured” by the violent impact with [victim Louis] Couch that left his body parts strewn across the street.

The suit seeks damages from the city, the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

Not the kind of case you’d like to take to a jury.

Hit-and-run driver claims city didn’t take care of his Bentley after crash [New York Daily News]

From a tipster: “Wow. Losing her seat really made Judge Halverson go over the edge… Oh, wait, it’s not her. Sorry, honest mistake.”

At almost 1,000 pounds, Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, weighs about twice as much as Judge Halverson.

Half-ton woman indicted in slaying of nephew [CNN]

* Yesterday at the Supreme Court: South Africa damages case will go forward (because SCOTUS has no quorum — four justices recused); 8-1 ruling holds that federal magistrate judge may preside over jury selection in a felony trial, with defense counsel’s express consent; cert granted to appeal by Virginia death row inmate. [SCOTUSblog]

* Clear Channel buyout being renegotiated; litigation will settle. [DealBook / NYT; WSJ Law Blog]

* Emperors Club booker expected to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate travel in aid of racketeering. [New York Times]

* The shady business of litigation finance. [Daily Business Review]

* Jury selection begins in R. Kelly kiddie porn case. [CNN]

* Earthquake in southwest China leaves 12,000 dead, with thousands more still buried under rubble. [New York Times]

The rain in Spain falls mainly on… a**holes? Well, only if most Spaniards are like Tomas Delgado — and we’re guessing (and hoping) they’re not.

After all, since chutzpah like this doesn’t come along often. Our latest Lawsuit of the Day hails from Spain, via CNN:

A Spanish businessman withdrew a controversial lawsuit Wednesday against the family of a teenage boy he struck and killed while driving a luxury car.

Tomas Delgado had filed a suit asking the dead boy’s parents to pay him €20,000 ($29,400) on the grounds that the collision that killed their teenage son also damaged his Audi A-8.

After public outrage ensued, Delgado dropped the suit — but was none too happy about it:

The businessman had insisted in a recent television interview that he was a victim, too. He was not present for a court hearing Wednesday. His lawyer told the court that Delgado felt that the extensive publicity amounted to a public lynching.

A high-tech lynch mob for an uppity Audi driver. Who was reportedly driving 107 miles per hour in an area where the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. Who hit the boy from behind, according to the boy’s father, and “dragged [him] 106 meters (347 feet) along a rural highway.”

Read more in the full article (which includes an interesting digression about how quickly you need to file your notice of appeal in Spanish courts; their appeal periods make ours look like an eternity).

Driver drops bid to sue family of boy he killed [CNN]

* “T.Owes.” [ESPN]

* Rebates to $500? [CNN]

* AG Mukasey won’t label waterboarding. [MSNBC]

* Sen. McCain wins Florida, Rudy to bow out. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* Federal inquiry into stolen artifacts expands. [New York Times]

* Margaret Truman, only child of President Truman and author of mysteries set at the Supreme Court and the FBI, RIP. [AP]

* Resignation in Detroit text-message scandal (previously discussed here). [Detroit News]

* A proud American tradition unknown in the rest of the world: bail for profit. [New York Times]

* Legal luminaries at the SOTU. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Trial begins in alleged microwaving of infant. [CNN]

* TRO against Patriots’ Moss extended until after Super Bowl. [SI]

* Mortgage crisis may affect litigation departments. [WSJ Law Blog]

* U.S. jails Colombian FARC leader. [BBC]

* Top candidates turn to trial lawyers for support. [Washington Post]

* More recusal requests expected in WV Supreme Court. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Former NFL player’s wife files malpractice suit over surgery. [ESPN]

* Suffrage suffers in Mexico. [MSNBC]

* How to count primary delegates (and an explanation of the “superdelegates”). [New York Times; New York Times]

* “It’s just not realistic” to present major new initiatives, but the SOTU will still be on every channel tonight. White House speechwriters are not on strike. [CNN]

* Super-litigator Tom Barr of Cravath, RIP. [New York Times (death notice); WSJ Law Blog]

We wish we knew how to quit… finding legal angles to every story under the sun. One such story is the recent, tragic death of Heath Ledger, the celebrated young actor.

We’ve noted the news in passing. Now we offer more substantive, law-related discussion (beyond fleeting references to NYU law students who went from their seminars about Jesus to join the crowd of gawkers assembled outside Ledger’s apartment).

1. Rights to remains. Sometimes this can become an issue, as it did in the case of Anna Nicole Smith. Earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court heard a case about a law providing that body parts removed during an autopsy are classified as medical waste (which usually results in the incineration, rather than burial with the body).

It fortunately appears this won’t be an issue in Ledger’s case. Although additional blood and tissue testing still needs to be done, his family will be taking custody of his body, according to the NYT’s City Room blog.

2. Pending projects. Heath Ledger’s sudden passing raises issues with respect to projects he was involved with. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Of particular importance to Hollywood will be the future of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which had very recently begun shooting. After dealing with the shock of losing Ledger to unfortunate circumstances, the film’s producers and lawyers will have to consult with their production lawyers and the insurance firm that indemnified the film to decide whether to recast, restage and/or rewrite the film to work around Ledger’s absence, or whether Ledger’s death presents an irresolvable barrier to completion of the film.

More analysis, including discussion of insurance recovery issues, over here.

3. Funeral protestors. Exact funeral plans for Heath Ledger are not yet known. But when it does happen, it could get ugly. A tipster raises a legal question:

Check out this story [about how members of the antigay Westboro Baptist Church plan to protest at Heath Ledger’s funeral, because of his work in “Brokeback Mountain”].

Here’s my question. These [SOBs] are saying horrible, offensive, disgusting things. When does the fighting words doctrine come into play, and does the fighting words doctrine protect me if I punch out one of these bastards? Because I would really like to.

Feel free to opine in the comments.

Update: More about that Jesus seminar, from the WSJ Law Blog.

Heath Ledger’s Death Leaves Big Legal Question [THR, ESQ. / Hollywood Reporter]
Anti-Gay Church to Protest Ledger Funeral [ABC News]
What Are They Teaching at NYU Law These Days? [Traditional Notions]
Where Were You When? [Concurring Opinions]
The Passion of the Christ: The Trial of Jesus [NYU School of Law]

* Hot lawyers make more money. And we needed a study to tell us this? [Legal Blog Watch via ABA Journal; WSJ Law Blog]

* A truly insane murder case. And yes, Debra Opri — who has represented Michael Jackson and Larry Birkhead, among other boldface names — is on the scene. [DealBreaker; HedgeFund.net]

* Ann Althouse wonders: “We’ve already seen every possible permutation of Hillary, haven’t we?” (And this is why we adore HRC — she’s the Madonna of modern American politics, constantly reinventing herself.) [Althouse]

* When it comes to law firm partnership, breaking up is hard to do. Especially when criminal charges are involved. [National Law Journal via Blogonaut]