Broward County has given us many, many Judges of the Day in the past. Now the county has earned the dubious distinction of our first ever “Courthouse of the Day” award. The central courthouse building is a disaster area.

From Courthouse News Service:

A 2-inch pipe burst on the second floor, courthouse communication center, damaging about 3,000 civil, family, traffic and misdemeanor files….

The building has broken elevators and tottering plumbing, air conditioning and electrical systems. Its mildew problem has led two longtime judicial aides to notify the county of their intent to sue. They say the mildew has given them severe pulmonary problems.

The courthouse’s Welcome Page indicates jurors (and assumedly attorneys and court staff) are not off the hook though. They are required to report as scheduled.

The Sun Sentinel has concerns about the effect of the decrepit courthouse on constitutional rights:

The constitutional access to courts is blocked because of aging water pipes, flooded rooms and a prior lack of urgency. Telecommunications into and out of the hub of our local legal system are downgraded to cell phones for judicial assistants and walkie-talkies for bailiffs.

That’s right. Because the phone lines are out, the court has posted cell phone numbers for all the judges. So if you were hoping to score the number of hottie former Judge of the Day Ana Gardiner (or at least her judicial assistant), now’s your chance.

Broward citizens deserve, demand working courthouse [Sun Sentinel]
Broward County Courthouse Is Falling Apart [Courthouse News Service]

Though law firms can’t practice in India, several firms have opened offices there to do support work and handle back-office functions. (Howrey got attention for this earlier this year.) Baker & McKenzie has had its eye on India for some time now (which scares Indian law firms); Baker’s India Focus Group has more than 200 lawyers working in over 70 offices.

Last week, a number of those attorneys were meeting in Mumbai, and found themselves in the middle of the terror attacks that killed at least 172 people. COO Greg Walters sent a firm-wide e-mail out on Thanksgiving. Here’s an excerpt:

We have now accounted for all of our Baker & McKenzie people who were visiting Mumbai. The majority of those are now together in a safe house in Mumbai. However the remaining two members of our group are still in one of the hotels.They are both in their hotel rooms and are not being held hostage (you may be hearing reports of people inside the hotel being directly held hostage). We are continuing to do everything possible to get them out of the hotel as soon as it is safe to do so. We are in constant contact with both of those individuals and their immediate families and are providing support and advice.

One of the Baker attorneys trapped in a hotel was Australian partner David Jacobs, who was staying at the Oberoi/Trident Hotel. He was meeting 10 other Baker attorneys there, but they were out to dinner when he arrived at the hotel Wednesday night. His bad luck— they got to a safehouse, while he spent the next two days surrounded by explosions and gunfire.

According to the Sunday Mail, his Blackberry was his savior, as were two security experts hired by the firm to advise him:

Mr Jacobs spent the next 46 hours, desperately keeping the lines of communication open with his family and two security advisers, hired by his firm, who were in contact with Indian authorities….

The security advisers from a private firm in the US maintained contact throughout the ordeal, telling him about the progress of the rescue team and what to do if there was a fire or if he came face to face with the terrorists.

They told him the best escape routes and passed on advice according to the latest intelligence.

“Should an unlikely scenario play out where you are located by a terrorist first, you are best suited to comply at the initial contact,” one email said.

“If you are taken by terrorists, you need to plan escape.”

How much do security advisers get paid to come up with that one?

Jacobs’ son reports that his father kept his spirits up by making unfunny dad jokes, like, “I’m getting pretty hungry but the room service in this hotel is terrible.” Full Baker e-mail from Greg Walters, and more from “Indiana Jacobs,” after the jump.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, the Houston legal community is getting back to work. WRAL news channel 5 reported that Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell expects to reopen Wednesday. Andrews Kurth has their attorneys working remotely. According to the WRAL report, an Andrews spokesperson said, “all of our BlackBerrys are working.”

Other Houston area firms were contacted by ATL directly. The most important news is that everybody is safe.

Mike Conlon, partner-in-charge of Fulbright & Jaworski’s Houston office, said:

[W]e have been able to assist all that have needed temporary housing. While our Houston office is closed today, our lawyers are working from remote locations, including our other offices in Texas. All computer support functions are operating, and other offices are providing additional support where needed, which is part of Fulbright’s disaster recovery plan.

Fulbright & Jaworski plans to be fully functional by tomorrow.

More news from Houston after the jump.

With the hurricane season upon us, residents of coastal states are watching the radar and making storm plans. While New Orleans residents are wondering whether it’s safe to go home after Hurricane Gustav, their attorney general wants to make sure it’s affordable to come home.

Louisiana Attorney General James D. “Buddy” Caldwell plans to crack down on price-gougers, after getting complaints about inflated prices for hotel rooms and gasoline. But who isn’t complaining about gasoline prices these days?

From The Daily Advertiser:

The attorney general said that under state law, owners, managers, employees and “anyone who participates in jacking up prices” is subject to a $500 fine and six months in prison on each count of price gouging.

“Like a rattlesnake, first we give a warning,” [“Buddy”] said. But if a business doesn’t comply with the law, “then we bite.”

What’s that sound? It’s the long rattle of the law.

Attorney general targets gougers [The Daily Advertiser]

As was widely reported in yesterday’s coverage of Hurricane Gustav, quick thinking and brute manpower relieved the pressure on a private levee in Plaquemines Parish. The levee protected a subdivision of a couple of hundred homes.

Nearly 400 people participated in saving the levee. Their ranks included residents, first responders, the Army Corps of Engineers… and an unconfirmed number of prison inmates who were pressed into service.

Most of the prisoners from New Orleans and surrounding areas were evacuated well ahead of Gustav’s landfall. In Orleans Parish, about 300 municipal prisoners were simply delivered out of bondage. Only violent municipal offenders were kept in custody and moved with the 2500 inmates held on more serious charges.

Yet there were still enough prisoners on hand to help out when the Plaquemines Parish levee weakened.

We spoke with Pam Laborde, a spokeswomen for the Louisiana Department of Corrections. She could not tell us which parish’s prisoners were involved in the levee saving efforts. However she was not surprised that there was extra muscle on hand.

It’s not unusual in those types of emergencies to hold a few people on a work crew back so that they are able to help perform certain functions keeping the city government working. Whether they run the kitchen or as a work crew for cleaning the roads or that type of thing.

It’s one thing to scrub a latrine, but prisoners who helped to save a levee that protected homes — and potentially saved lives — should merit a “get out of jail free” card.

Laborde did not know the specifics involving efforts of these particular inmates (or their crimes), but she said that generally no such special consideration is given for state prisoners who stay behind and in harm’s way. She did say that if they were municipal prisoners, any time off would be given at the discretion of the individual Sheriffs’ departments.

Not surprisingly, Plaquemines Parish Sheriff “Jiff” Hingle could not be reached for comment.

Lawlessness can be a common occurrence during natural disasters, but apparently not all of it is bad.

Concerns about New Orleans-area levee ease [CNN]

Tropical Storm Fay — what a beeatch! Doesn’t she know the job market is tough enough as it is?

The rising 2Ls at the University of Florida are really getting screwed because of Tropical Storm Fay. This thing hasn’t even hit land and is not even remotely near our school (but admittedly, probably is near the homes of some of the interviewers), yet the school has canceled the first three days of Early Interview Week OCI.

This is when many of the Biglaw / otherwise “good” employers come. All the firms are supposed to reschedule the interviews. But especially for the interviewers from non-Florida firms/offices, what [are the chances] that they’re going to make the effort to come back? Even if they do, by now they’ve probably started interviewing students from “better” schools.

Our correspondent wonders how other Florida law schools and law firms are dealing with the storm. If you have info to share, feel free to chime in.

Announcement emails from the career services office at UF, after the jump.

Apologies for the tardiness — this news is from last month. But it’s about the bar exam, which is still fresh in the minds of many, so it’s fair game.

Some of you who took the New York bar exam last week complained of a loud, distracting, feedback-type noise in one of the rooms at the Javits Center. There were also reports of cell phones going off during the test.

Wouldn’t you have liked a room of your own, quiet and distraction-free? Or maybe an extra day to take the bar exam? From the West Virginia Record:

West Virginia’s Board of Law Examiners printed its examination in big type for Shannon Kelly last year, gave him a room to himself and allowed him an extra day to complete the test, and he blames them for his failure.

Kelly sued the examiners July 21 in U. S. District Court at Charleston, demanding four days to finish an exam that most law school graduates finish in two days.

“He has severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming,” wrote his attorney, Edward McDevitt of Bowles Rice McDavid Graff and Love in Charleston….

Kelly received a score of 253 last year, 17 points fewer than he needed to pass the exam. He had asked for four days to take the exam, but the board had granted three.

We don’t mean to sound callous or, even worse, politically incorrect. But if one has “severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming,” one should perhaps explore professions other than law. Some people just aren’t cut out for it. E.g., Paulina Bandy (who failed the California bar exam thirteen times, before passing on try #14).

Meanwhile, in other complaints about bar exam administration:

Thought you might be interested. Prefer to be anonymous lest it sound like I’m whining.

One of the rooms of CA Bar test takers received five additional minutes as a consequence of the earthquake. This was the room with the metal grate and bakery. [Ed. note: Bakery???] Older male Caucasian announcer.

Ballroom A/B/C, with an older, white-haired, female Caucasian announcer, got no extra time.

To those of you who just took the bar exam, especially in California: Is the tipster’s complaint fair, or frivolous? Does it affect the fairness and integrity of the exam? Or is five minutes just too trivial to get worked up over? It’s certainly not as big a deal as getting an entire extra day.

Well, Californians, look on the bright side: here’s an even worse exam to have interrupted by an earthquake.

Student with disability sues after failing law exam [West Virginia Record]
L.A. quake catches Twitter user in ladyparts exam [Valleywag]

Our apologies to those of you who sat for the bar exam today. We forgot to wish you good luck, unlike the QuizLaw kids:

It’s a special day for the country’s future lawyers — over the next two to three days, thousands of recent law graduates will take the bar exam. Most will pass, some will not. Somewhere, in some state, at least one person will freak the fuck out during the exam. That person will then become part of bar exam lore, an anecdote passed down from bar taker to bar taker to make them feel better about their chances.

Could ATL’s failure to wish you good luck be responsible for the earthquake that hit California in the middle of today’s test? We hope not. Talk about “bar exam lore” — an earthquake certainly qualifies.

Anyway, we won’t make the same mistake twice. To everyone taking the bar exam this week, GOOD LUCK!!!

If you’re one of the poor souls going through the ordeal of the bar exam, and checking ATL between day 1 and day 2 — or maybe on the eve of day 1, for those of you in Wednesday - Thursday jurisdictions — feel free to tell us how you’re feeling, in the comments.

Earlier: Breaking: Earthquake Hits California on Day 1 of the Bar Exam!

Because the bar exam isn’t scary enough without the occasional act of God. This just in, from tipsters:

“Earthquake just hit LA and the epicenter was just next to Ontario, CA, where the CA bar exam is being administered!”

“I hope you are going to open a thread about those poor people taking the CA bar exam when the earthquake hit today. I’m curious to know how things were handled and if there were proctor freak outs!”

Read more, after the jump.

Washington, D.C. suffered a major power outage this morning, knocking out electricity in lots of downtown office buildings, including many a law firm. According to DCist, the power was out from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

We hear that some law firms closed their offices in the morning given the lack of air conditioning and D.C.’s intense summer heat. But WTOP caught up with a lawyer who was persevering in his work, despite the conditions.

During the outage, people milled about the streets, waiting for the electricity and air conditioning in their offices to come back on.

WTOP’s Kristi King has talked to a lawyer who took his laptop on to the street. He told her he still had to bill eight hours a day.

Sadly, said lawyer did not go on the record to make the quote. He missed his opportunity to be an ATL Lawyer of the Day.

Washington Post found some other lawyers to interview. It’s pretty easy in D.C. since it seems like one out of every two residents is an attorney. These two held a creative client meeting:

Two lawyers from the firm Williams & Connolly, holding expandable folders, sat down with a client in one of three plush chairs dragged out into the courtyard. “Welcome to the law firm,” one of the lawyers said, laughing, as the meeting began

Skadden was one of the firms affected by the outage. An associate there tells us that the firm has reopened the office for the afternoon, but that “‘power restored’ does not include ‘AC restored.’”

Here’s an open thread where perspiring D.C. attorneys can complain and others can tell us how their firms have dealt with natural and other disasters. Happy Friday the 13th!

Electricity restored after massive D.C. power outage [WTOP]
Two Metro Fires, Power Outage Disrupt Downtown [Washington Post]

Some people question whether large law firms do enough to make the world a better place. These people wonder: Are Biglaw partners letting Third World babies die, just so they can enjoy their Ferraris?

Or is the “Baby vs. Ferrari” choice a false dichotomy? Here’s another way of looking at it. Lawyers at large law firms, by providing top-notch legal services to large corporations — corporations owned not just by fat cats but also by ordinary Americans, through mutual funds and similar investment vehicles — create value that otherwise would not exist. Some of this surplus value makes its way into the pockets of partners (and their Ferrari dealers). But some of it makes its way to charitable causes (as well as federal and state government coffers, in the form of tax revenue).

Last week we commended the firms of Dewey & LeBoeuf and Heller Ehrman for their generous donations in support of China earthquake relief efforts. And it seems that supporting relief organizations, just like raising associate salaries, may be contagious within Biglaw.

Several other leading law firms have donated to support China earthquake relief efforts (and a number of these firms, including Orrick and Weil, acted within a few hours of last week’s ATL post). Here are some that we know of:

1. Allen & Overy: $80,000 contribution + matching donations.
2. Kirkland & Ellis: $100,000 contribution + matching donations.
3. McDermott Will & Emery: $10,000 contribution.
4. Morrison & Foerster
5. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe: matching donations, up to $100,000.
6. Sullivan & Cromwell: $100,000 contribution.
7. Weil Gotshal & Manges: $50,000 contribution.

We commend the foregoing firms and their employees for their generosity. If your firm has taken action and isn’t mentioned above, feel free to post a shout-out in the comments.

For those of you who are curious — perhaps your firm would like to start a similar initiative, and you’d like to lift some language for the announcement — the Orrick and Weil memos appear after the jump.

Props to our friends over at Dewey & LeBoeuf. Sure, Denim Day is great at all, and their wine-and-cheese events sound like a lot — maybe too much — fun.

But DL also thinks of the less fortunate. From an internal email that went around recently:

As news of the devastation in China and Myanmar spreads, and in support of our colleagues and clients in Asia, we recognize a responsibility to support and assist the many thousands of individuals and families in need at this time. Current news reports suggest that the massive earthquake in the Sichuan province of China has already claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people, with numbers that could soar to as many as 50,000. The deadly cyclone of the Myanmar delta region has already claimed over 75,000 lives, with more than 55,000 people still missing and over 1 million people in need of aid.

The firm will match all donations made by our lawyers and administrative staff up to $200,000 to the following four funds designated for relief in China and Myanmar….

Perhaps other law firms are undertaking similar efforts? If your firm is, feel free to note that in the comments.

The complete Dewey & LeBoeuf email, including links to four relief organizations that you can support, appears after the jump.

Update: As noted in the comments, Heller Ehrman is one of the firms stepping up to the plate. The firm is matching employee donations to the Red Cross up to a total of $50,000. Memo after the jump.

Emergency kits, like the ones doled out by Davis Polk, are nice. But billable-hour credit during an emergency is even nicer.

From a curious correspondent:

Here’s a question you may want to pose to your readers: How has your law firm dealt billable hour requirements when the office if officially closed due to an emergency / disaster?

I ask this question in connection with the recent southern California wildfires. I’ve heard that many law firms in So Cal had to close shop for the entire week last week due to the wild-fires. I’ve also heard that many of these shops are giving associates billable hours credit for the days the office was closed.

I’m curious how often firms do this sort of thing. What did law firms do after 9/11? Or Katrina? Or any of the major CA earthquakes? It wouldn’t seem right for a firm to tell attorneys not to come in for a week and then hold them accountable for that week at the end of the year.

But what about telecommuting? Is the ability to work from home a double-edged sword? Now that everyone has a laptop and a Blackberry, can attorneys be expected to fiddle (with merger agreements), while California burns?

More after the jump.

* Mistrial in case against Muslim organization; retrial likely. [AP; New York Times]

* California wildfires lead lawyers to flee from their homes and offices… [The Recorder via Law.com]

* … and may give rise to insurance battles, too. [CNN]

* Ex-stripper convicted in “Last Seduction” trial. [MSNBC]

* White House accused of doctoring environmental testimony. [MSNBC]

* Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) retracts her expressions of concern over the prosecution of an L.A. councilman. [Washington Briefs]

During past disasters, such as the steam pipe explosion and the subway flooding in New York, ATL served as a clearinghouse for interesting stories about how lawyers and law firms were dealing with those emergencies.

Today the headlines are dominated by news of the devastating California wildfires, which have burned 269,000 acres and caused the evacuation of an estimated 500,000 people. From a reader:

San Diego is burning, and Los Angeles is not far behind. I’d be interested to hear the impact on law firms in those cities and what, if anything, they’re doing to help their employees and clients.

A good suggestion — we’d like to give the West Coast equal treatment. If you can respond to this reader’s query, and if you’re sitting in front of your computer rather than evacuating, please share your experiences in the comments.

Massive evacuations ordered as onslaught of fires spreads [Los Angeles Times]
Calif. Fires Destroy Hundreds of Homes [AP]

We often miss New York, where we lived for five years before moving down to Washington. But not all the time. We didn’t miss it last month, for example, when there was that huge steam pipe explosion.

Or today, when the city was thrown into chaos by massive rains and flooding. From a Gotham tipster:

Did you hear that the subways in much of NYC were flooded out this morning, due to a fierce rainstorm very early? It was coming down in torrents when I went to the gym this morning at 5:30, my usual time, although it had basically stopped by the time I headed for the subway at 8 a.m.

I ended up walking over 2 hours to get to school…. Might be a fun thread to ask how biglaw folks in NYC got to work today.

So, how about it — any insane tales of commuting? Or bizarre summer associate projects related thereto?

(Go ahead, vent — it’s okay. We care, we really do!)

Flooding Cripples Subway System [City Room / New York Times]
New York City Transit System Is Crippled by Flooding [New York Times]
MTA MAYHEM [WCBS via Drudge Report]

Although located uncomfortably close to the site of yesterday’s steam pipe explosion, Davis Polk & Wardwell has some of the nicest offices around. When we were in law school, Davis was known as “Land of the Beautiful People.” They had the most gorgeous offices, and the best-looking associates (and summer associates).

DPW also seems to have great — or at least distinctive and unique — perks. First we heard about their marriage bonus. And now, in the wake of yesterday’s calamity, we get this news:

I am an associate at Davis Polk, a few blocks from the explosion in midtown [yesterday] afternoon. We were evacuated and I took the firm-provided emergency kit as I left. No real news from the evacuation but here is something that came up as I was walking home.

A friend from White and Case was having a drink at a nearby bar and I stopped on my way home. She saw my emergency kit and asked what it was. I said “you know the emergency kit that all the firms give you on your first day.” Well, needless to say she was pissed that White and Case has no such kit!

I think this would be another fun “perks” thread. So kicking it off, the Davis Polk kit has a flashlight, glow stick, emergency blanket, battery powered radio. But the real kicker is that we have this hood that you can wear in a smoke-filled room and still breathe for about a half hour.

So if a “dirty bomb” goes off in New York City someday (God forbid), bet on the Davis Polksters to emerge alive. Along with a few Milberg Weiss partners cockroaches.

Update: From our original DPW source:

“By the way, forgot to mention that besides the f’ing awesome smoke hood, the safety kit also has potassium iodide tablets to prevent radiation poisoning.”

“Suck it Wachtell!”

A steam pipe exploded on Manhattan’s East Side, right in the middle of evening rush hour. One person is dead and more than twenty are injured. Eyewitnesses describe it as “the scariest thing I’ve seen since 9/11” — a scene of mass hysteria, with “thousands running fearfully” through city streets.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving a briefing right now. In the real-time coverage of these events on the New York Times’s excellent City Room blog, there’s a shout-out to one of your favorite law firms:

6:55 p.m. | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a large law firm with offices at 425 Lexington Avenue, at East 43rd Street, was one of many companies to evacuate their workers.

“It sounded at first like thunder, but it just didn’t end. It was a really loud, deep, sustained explosion,” said Andrew T. Frankel, a partner at the firm, who works on the 23rd floor. “We all looked out the window and saw black smoke just billowing up 43rd Street. It was pretty frightening, more for the unknown than anything. Nobody waited for the evacuation warning. Everybody headed for the stairwell and headed out of the building. People were tense, but calm.”

“We did floor sweeps and there’s nobody left in the building except the emergency response team in the lobby,” said an operator who answered calls to employees at the firm.

Not even WP? You know something is up when a Biglaw shop is deserted by 7 PM. On a Wednesday.

If you witnessed this evening’s events, please share what you saw, in the comments.

Steam Explosion Jolts Midtown; One Person Is Confirmed Dead [City Room / New York Times]
One Dead After East Side Explosion [WNBC.com]