It’s hard to believe that another year has passed, but here we are. It’s December 31st, New Year’s Eve. The weather is turning cold, the Republican presidential contest is heating up, and it’s time to review this year’s biggest stories on Above the Law.
Consistent with past practice, we will refrain from offering our subjective judgments on the most important stories of the year. Instead, just as we did back in 2010 and 2009, we’ll identify the ten biggest stories of the past year as decided by you, our readers. With the help of our friends at Google Analytics, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten posts for 2011, based on traffic.
In terms of overall topics, the most popular category page for the year was Law Schools, for the second year in a row. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the year was an eventful one for the legal academy. It would be fair to describe 2011 as an annus horribilis for the law school world, with various forces laying siege to the ivory tower. The attackers include not just unemployed lawyers turned scambloggers, but the mainstream media, led by David Segal of the New York Times; plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have already sued several law schools (and have announced plans to sue at least 15 more in 2012); and even a tenured law professor calling for reform (Paul Campos, currently in the lead for 2011 Lawyer of the Year).
The second most-popular category at ATL: Biglaw. Although we’ve expanded our small-firm and in-house coverage dramatically here at Above the Law, adding multiple columnists in each space, our coverage of large law firms still draws major traffic and drives discussions.
Now, on to the ten most popular individual posts on Above the Law in 2011….
Continue reading “Above The Law’s Top Ten Most Popular Stories of 2011″
Those blinking lights are important. Seriously.
I’ve been writing about electronic discovery for almost three years now. I’ve learned that most of the time, it’s not worth trying to interest non-attorneys in the subject. My friends’, family’s, and girlfriend’s eyes glaze over pretty quickly when I started mentioning the EDRM model or document review.
So when I saw the story early this morning about big e-discovery news in the litigation following a tragic plane crash, at first I thought I had misread something.
On February 12, 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York, killing 50 people. Later that year, authorities blamed pilot error for the crash. Unsurprisingly, families of the victims have sued the airline for failing to provide trained, capable, and rested pilots. This week, attorneys for the families released internal company e-mails that appear to show Colgan knew the pilot of the doomed flight was having serious problems.
What do the e-mails have to say?
Continue reading “Airline E-mails Could Play a Big Part in Buffalo, NY Plane Crash Lawsuit”
* Hey, Preet Bharara, even Lady Gaga can read your poker face when you’re going all in on an allegation of Full Tilt Ponzi. Maybe Lederer and Ferguson will finally fold. [Wall Street Journal]
* You know what this country really needs? More doctors who don’t believe in science. Another stem cell research case is going up to the D.C. Circuit. [Bloomberg]
* The last 9/11 wrongful death suit has been settled. Lessons learned: airport screeners might not know what Mace is, but they sure can lift and separate your balls. [New York Times]
* Cooley Law held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus. We’re good at surviving natural disasters, but a tsunami of unemployed lawyers might break this profession. [Miami Herald]
* A group of drag queens in Florida got busted for thieving the essentials — bras, boas, and butt pads. As RuPaul would say, you better work. Or steal. You know, whatever. [New York Daily News]
* Guys in my high school middle school used to have the ACLU file lawsuits over breathalyzer tests all the time. It was no big deal. [MSNBC]
Hurricane Irene: She came. She saw. She blew. She sucked? In the wake of Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene, people have been expressing their displeasure with the way this natural disaster panned out. Apparently, we’re now so bitter as a society that we’re wishing greater harm upon ourselves. That’s a little sick, no?
After days of preparation, there is still a lot of damage to deal with in the aftermath of the storm. So, for all of you Irene naysayers, consider these facts. Across the Eastern Seaboard, millions of people are without power. As of this morning, at least 21 people have lost their lives. We’re looking at estimated property losses of $7 billion.
UPDATE (1:10 PM): The property losses could actually run as high as $13 billion, meaning that total economic losses could reach $14 billion to $26 billion (because “the rule of thumb is that total economic losses are equal to about twice property losses”). See this interesting post, entitled “How Irene Lived Up to the Hype,” by Nate Silver.
In the legal world, we know that it pays to be prepared, but there are some things that we just can’t work around….
Continue reading “A Recap of Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene”
Following a freak earthquake earlier in the week, the East Coast is now bracing for the impact of Hurricane Irene. From the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the boroughs of New York City, people are getting ready for another natural disaster that could prove to be devastating.
And speaking of natural disasters, we hear that some folks in North Carolina received their bar exam results today. Congratulations — you’re first to get your bar exam results this year, and you’re first to get ravaged by Irene.
Hopefully this will all blow over. But in case it doesn’t, it’s important to be prepared.
Let’s see how law firms and law schools are getting ready for Hurricane Irene….
Continue reading “How Is the Legal World Preparing for Hurricane Irene? Open Thread”
Don't 'defamate' me because I'm beautiful.
* With four states sounding their emergency alarms, will this weekend’s hurricane be the next natural disaster to rain on the legal world’s parade? [Los Angeles Times]
* Should we deregulate the practice of law? Do you want someone like me to be an actual lawyer? Easiest debate ever. I should’ve been on moot court. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Even if Justice David Prosser needed to choke a bitch, he’s not going to face criminal charges over it. That’s one way to address workplace safety. [Bloomberg]
* Want a Biglaw job? There’s an app for that! Don’t say Skadden never gave you anything for free (sorry, but the pizza doesn’t count). [DealBook / New York Times]
* Man, it must be nice to have so much money that you can talk bribe kids into skipping out on college. Are all Stanford Law grads so generous? [Reuters]
* Rapper Pitbull was shocked when he found out that Lindsay Lohan was suing him. See that suit and tie? He’s an upstanding gentleman. He’d never “defamate” a soul. [Houston Chronicle]
In the wake of the east coast earthquake of 2011, the legal world seems to be back to its regularly scheduled programming. Courts are back in session, law firms have reopened, and government agencies are fully functioning. While some got a welcome day off yesterday, others only received a temporary respite from work.
Thankfully, the damage to the capital region seems to have been limited. At first it was reported that we may have had a Leaning Tower of D.C., but it turns out that the Washington Monument is just cracked. In other monument news, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are closed for further inspection, and the National Cathedral has sustained “mind-boggling” damage.
We received a lot of tips from our readers about their earthquake experiences, but more importantly, we have the final results from our reader poll. We now know who we can blame for moving the earth and disrupting our day. And no, it wasn’t Obama’s Fault.
Find out who is responsible, after the jump….
Continue reading “The Aftermath of the East Coast Earthquake of 2011″
EARTHQUAKE!!!
Okay, I’m sitting on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and I just felt the ground shake. And we’re getting reports that it was felt in Boston and Akron, Ohio.
Television news reports are saying that a 5.8 earthquake just hit Washington, D.C. We also felt it here in New York.
UPDATE (2:07 PM): The quake has been upgraded to a 5.9.
The quake was reportedly centered around Charlottesville, Virginia. The White House has been evacuated.
What’s going on at your job? Also, West Coast readers, do you have any tips? We’re not used to the ground moving out here.
UPDATES, including a reader poll, after the jump…
Continue reading “The D.C. Earthquake of 2011!”
Here’s an open thread for discussing the July 2011 bar exam. We hope you attack it with all the gusto of Los Angeles lawyers at a deposition.
If you’ve just finished the bar exam, congratulations. We hope you’re taking a well-deserved vacation, perhaps involving some exotic travel (e.g., the traditional bar trip).
If you’re still in the middle of the big test, good luck. At least you’re done with the MBE, which some believe to be the hardest part of the bar.
Some of you may need all the luck you can get. This morning we told you about bar exam mishaps from this week. Unfortunately, since then we’ve heard about even more bar-related problems.
Let’s hear about the latest difficulties from around the country — and give you a place to talk about the test….
Continue reading “Bar Exam Open Thread: Have At It”
A slew of bar exams started yesterday, and the rest got underway today. And yet we already have stories about “crazy things” happening during the administration of the tests.
When things go wrong during the bar exam, most people will overcome the adversity and still pass the test. But those who end up failing the bar will remember these events forever.
So let’s take a brief stroll around the bar exams to look at the stories some test takers will be telling from now until February…
Continue reading “Bar Exam Disasters, And It’s Only Been One Day”
Yesterday, we devoted some coverage to the devastation down in Alabama due to the terrible storms there earlier this week. In the National Law Journal, Karen Sloan has an excellent report about how the tornadoes are affecting operations at the University of Alabama, including its law school.
It appears that the storms affected the college more than the law school. But we are hearing students at Alabama law complaining that Dean Kenneth Randall is pushing too hard to maintain a normal schedule.
We understand that finals at the college have been postponed indefinitely. But at the law school, tests are supposed to resume Monday.
Whether or not that is the correct decision, Dean Randall’s method for communicating his directives has rubbed some students the wrong way…
Continue reading “Alabama Law Dean: Efficient Manager or Callous Task Master?”
Tornadoes don’t get cute names like hurricanes. Unlike volcanoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes there’s really only been one cool disaster movie about tornadoes with halfway decent CGI — and it wasn’t a very good movie because you can’t be a good movie when your main star is Bill Paxton. And since tornadoes mostly strike in the middle of the country instead of densely populated coastal cities, many people take a “meh” approach to these devastating forces of nature. There’s a dismissiveness about these storms; maybe because they form and strike so quickly that it leaves little time for the media to stoke people into a “we’re all gonna die” lather, maybe because the aftermath shots aren’t gruesome enough.
Well, I lived in Indiana for 13 months and I know these suckers are not to be trifled with. Our brothers and sisters down South are dealing with major devastation after yesterday’s storms. People are dead, people are injured, and you need to be able to conduct photosynthesis to generate power.
We don’t know how all these storms are affecting the legal community, or law students (especially in Alabama) who are trying to prepare for finals. That’s the coastal bias right there, if it snows in D.C. there’s information all around about law students fighting off advancing glaciers with naught but Zippos and Bluebooks. But trying to ascertain how the legal community was hit by these storms is like trying is like trying to find a needle in a haystack that was blown over a two mile radius by a tornado.
So let us know how things are going down there. And stay safe.
On Tuesday we told you that McGuireWoods, Dewey & LeBoeuf, and Weil Gosthal were all contributing to the relief efforts under way in Japan. The response has been pretty great.
While some people seem to think Japan’s status as a rich nation means it doesn’t need any international aid, I don’t see how the country’s long-term ability to recover has anything to do with the immediate humanitarian crisis. Japan will undoubtedly be able to rebuild in the future, but its citizens need food and water today.
We’ve now received word that even more Biglaw firms are pitching in to do what they can. If you know of additional firms supporting relief efforts that we have not mentioned, please tell us in the comments to this post….
Continue reading “More Law Firms Contributing to Japanese Relief Efforts”
After the Haitian earthquake last year, we saw law firms step up in a big way to support relief efforts down there. Hopefully we will see the same reaction to the ever-increasing tragedy unfolding in Japan. Given an 8.9 a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a massive tsunami, and a nuclear disaster that is already the second-worst nuclear accident in history, you hope that Japan will get all the help that the world can provide.
If anything, the nuclear meltdown angle is obscuring the humanitarian crisis currently happening in Japan. We know that Americans can’t focus on something unless there is some tangential relationship to something bad that could happen here, but you’d think that the possibility of 10,000 deaths would be enough to trigger our humanitarian concern without obsessing about apocalyptic scenarios.
Thankfully, a couple of law firms aren’t waiting for Japan to start glowing before making efforts to help…
Continue reading “Biglaw Firms Poised To Help Japanese Relief Efforts”
Here in New York City, the headquarters of Above the Law, we’re still dealing with the aftermath of the Great Blizzard of 2010. Check out our slideshow for some images (like the one at right).
Although the snowstorm ended on Monday, and it’s now Wednesday night, many streets remain unplowed and many sidewalks uncleared. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, generally praised for his tremendous competence, is taking a lot of flak for the city’s inadequate response.
And that’s just in terms of politics and public relations. Wait until the lawyers get involved!
What possible causes of action could arise out of the snowstorm? Let’s discuss….
Continue reading “Will the Great Blizzard of 2010 Lead to a Storm of Lawsuits?”
Dealing with a frozen job market.
As I alluded to last week, today I was supposed to be getting some action down in sunny Florida. Alas, thanks to the massive blizzard that hit the East Coast last night, I’m stuck in my Manhattan apartment — after three consecutive flights got canceled on me.
I’m grumpy, but understanding (and enjoying a Glee marathon — finishing up season one). The snowstorm was epic, after all. It’s over now, but the effects linger.
Just check out the view from my window….
Continue reading “Snowpocalypse Open Thread”
As we mentioned this weekend, the BP oil spill has been capped (for the time being), and now we can fully focus on who needs to get paid. As with so many things, it’s Ken Feinberg’s world and we’re just living in it. Bloomberg reports:
Kenneth Feinberg, who is overseeing a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims from BP Plc’s oil spill, pledged to create a system “more generous and more beneficial” to spill victims than taking the company to court.
More generous than court? Ooohh, judicial system, Czar Feinberg is calling you out. You gonna just take that?
Continue reading “Ken Feinberg Offers Better Deals than Lawsuits”
A paralegal tries to cool himself off.
It’s getting hot in herre
So turn off all your lights.
I am… getting so hot…
I wanna turn my lights off! [FN1]
Here on the East Coast, things are heating up. Unfortunately, we’re not talking about the legal job market.
We’re speaking much more literally. For the past few days, New York, Washington, and places in between have been in the grips of a brutal heat wave. On Tuesday and Wednesday, temperatures in NYC broke record highs, entering triple-digit territory.
Today, mercifully, has been a bit better. In D.C., temps will top out in the mid-to-upper 90s this afternoon. As a Washington Post reader quipped, “Only in the mid 90′s today… better grab a jacket before leaving the house!”
They say lawyers are cold-blooded creatures — but we get hot too. How are law firms and law schools coping with the heat?
Continue reading “The Heat Is On! How Are You Handling It?”
Article II, meet Article III. Hope you enjoy the pwnage. CNN reports:
A federal judge has blocked a six-month federal moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Several dozen plaintiffs had sued the Obama administration, arguing the ban would create long-term economic harm to their businesses.
Well, think of it this way: the chances of another one of these rigs exploding and creating an environmental catastrophe that is beyond our ability to fix is like really, really small…
Continue reading “Deep-Water Drilling Is Back on the Table”
BP: 'Make us!'
Obama: 'Plug the damn hole.'
Not many people are happy about the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — with the possible exceptions of (1) Elena Kagan, whose confirmation to the Supreme Court is all but guaranteed (since everyone’s too distracted to oppose her); (2) the lawyers who are getting work out of this disaster (as discussed below); and (3) whoever is behind the fake BP Twitter account, which currently has over 167,000 followers.
But today brings some news that might make some people a little less angry at BP. Even though the government probably couldn’t have forced the oil giant to set up a $20 billion fund to pay oil spill claims, for the reasons explained by Professor David Zaring, BP is setting up such a fund voluntarily. The New York Times reports:
The White House and BP agreed on Wednesday that the oil giant would create an independent $20 billion fund to pay claims arising from the worst oil spill in American history.
Bowing to pressure from the Obama administration, the company also said it would suspend paying dividends to its shareholders for the rest of the year and would compensate oil field workers for lost wages.
There are actually several legal angles to the BP drama. For example, who will administer this massive fund? And which firms are getting a piece of all the defense-side action?
Continue reading “A BP Potpourri: Legal Links and Updates”
