At the end of a wild week that included Blue Monday, terrible (or terrific) Tuesday, and corporate-overlord Thursday (sponsored by Justice Anthony Kennedy), we bring you an unusually strong January edition of LEWW.
It features six lawyers in a wide range of practices: public sector, teaching, Biglaw, nonprofit — even personal injury (or “accident law,” as they apparently call it these days). Here are the lucky finalists:
Duke Law School dominated our Douchiest Law School contest earlier this year, beating out Harvard to take home the title.
At the time, some complained that Duke Law and Duke’s undergrad population were being conflated. [Ed. note: As a Duke '03 grad, Kash is mildly offended by that argument.]
One commenter wrote:
Does no one understand that Duke law is way way way way different than Duke undergrad!?!?!? WTF … I went to Duke undergrad and hated just about every person there; however, Duke law students are a pretty cool and laid-back bunch. ATL readers are pretty dumb if they don’t get the difference.
This is a fairly abstract claim. How do you define a douche? How do you determine who is “douchier” or compare “douchiness”? Is the concept captured by what Justice Stewart said about hard-core pornography — you know it when you see it?
An ATL reader was kind enough to send us concrete photographic evidence with which to judge. Exhibit A from the Duke Law library, and a poll, after the jump.
Can you get to the bottom of whether this is a hoax? I assume it is, given how ridiculous the motion and response are. On the other hand, it’s Texas.
It’s a challenge to be an out-of-state attorney in some courts. It may be even more difficult to be an out-of-country attorney.
Here’s the motion from the District Court of Travis County, Texas:
The prosecutor is British (and a Duke Law ’02 grad). His bloody funny response explains that he has already acceded to one of the Defendant’s concerns by wearing cowboy boots, but will not be dropping his accent.
Earlier this month, we wrote about Duke 2L Andrew Blumberg. He scored an appearance on the Food Network Challenge because he is a “Simpsons superfan.”
He was teamed up with a professional cake designer to advise her on making a Bart Simpson cake that was faithful to the original character. Blumberg was an excellent cake consigliere; his partner won the challenge. (We now have photos of their winning creation, after the jump.)
According to Duke Law News, Blumberg’s superfandom is rooted in more than just watching tons of Simpsons episodes. He also worked on a project incorporating Simpsons clips into a lesson on contracts law.
We’ve found out that Blumberg’s Simpsons obsession goes even further. Guess which firm he’s summering with? Punchline, after the jump.
Duke University 2L Andrew Blumberg is a “Simpsons Superfan,” a designation that got him an appearance on the “Food Network Challenge” this past weekend. The challenge was to create a cake inspired by the Simpsons episode, “Last Tap Dance in Springfield”. Four “superfans” were paired with professional cake designers to ensure character fidelity in the final creations.
Blumberg was paired with a professional cake designer to craft a Bart Simpson cake. Almost anyone between the ages of 20 and 55 would likely claim the mantle of Simpson fan. How do you qualify as a “superfan”? From Duke Law News:
Qualifying as one of the show’s four “superfans” took more than just logging hours in front of the television, though. “One of the things I said that I think resonated with them was that I incorporate the Simpsons into the rest of my life,” Blumberg says.
Take, for example, the project he has been working on with Duke Law Professor Barak Richman to create a DVD that explains contracts using clips from Simpsons episodes. “That was one of the things that made me stand out from the crowd,” he says.
Mad points for any ATL reader who remembers the name of the stripper character that appeared in just one Simpsons episode (no Googling).
So how did Blumberg do on the show?
Supreme Court clerks continue to flood the NYT wedding pages this month, creating grim LEWW odds for mere-mortal Cornell grads and Skadden associates. Like Troy playing Florida or North Texas playing Alabama, these folks are welcome to suit up, but the only question is how bad their whuppin’ is going to hurt.
Here are your three finalist couples for the week:
Over the long holiday weekend, Duke and Harvard duked it out in the ATL Douchiest Law School contest. Though many commenters argued that Duke Law School’s reputation was being unfairly influenced by that of its douchey undergrads, those Duke Law defenders were not persuasive enough to sway voters. Duke triumphed with 55% of the vote.
Duke is the Douchiest Law School!
Who was the star player in this match-up? A Duke Law School grad named Tucker Max. More on him, and a round-up of the choice comments explaining Duke’s douche dominance, after the jump.
This week’s Vows column is a jaw-dropper. Twelve-year-old girl has crush on doorman (“‘He looked like the guy from Tiger Beat,’ she recalled”), stalks doorman for over a decade, and finally marries him. And he’s still the doorman!
Also, don’t miss this Skadden associate’s unorthodox proposal: He had his girlfriend served with a “complaint” while he was in the men’s room.
On to this week’s couples:
This seems like a stressful time to be enrolled at Duke Law School. The news of firms pulling out of on-campus interviewing at the school continues to grow. The latest big name firms to partially pull out of Duke recruiting are DLA Piper and Kirkland & Ellis. Here’s the email Duke students received late last week about DLA:
We received notification from the employer, DLA Piper (Austin, Dallas, CA offices), that they will be canceling interviews. You will not need to contact them as we have forwarded your resume on file to them (unless you wish to send an updated resume). In addition, they have posted a resume collections via Symplicity for your convenience. They will review your resume and contact you if they are interested in speaking with you further.
There is nothing else that you have to do at this point. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused and wish you well in your other interviews. You will be removed from this interview and your interview schedule will reflect this change.
At least they can still interview for DLA New York.
But today, Duke students found out that K&E was also dropping them. K&E Chicago never signed up to recruit on-campus. K&E D.C. dropped out today:
Unfortunately, Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington, DC, office just contacted us to say they will be canceling their on campus interview schedule. We know this news is frustrating for you. They have posted a position and are soliciting resumes on Symplicity, and we strongly encourage you to apply.
To reflect the change, you will soon see the firm removed from your interview schedule. As you plan and conduct both your on-campus interviews and outreach to employers, please stay in close touch with the Career Counselors so we can help you maximize your success.
But as summer opportunities continue to dry up, Duke Law students are still trying to figure out whether they’ve made it onto law review. And once again, what should be a simple notification process seems totally screwed up.
More details after the jump.
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
The proper hair styling product might just be the only thing standing between you and your dream job. And the best way to find what works for you is to try the best stuff on the market. Join Birchbox Man for $20 a month and you’ll get customized shipments of the best grooming and lifestyle gear on the market every month—everything from haircare and shaving supplies to style accessories and tech gadgets.
As the leading discovery commerce platform, Birchbox is redefining the retail process by offering consumers a unique and personalized way to discover, learn about, and shop the best grooming and lifestyle products out there. It’s a full 360-degree process: try, learn, buy. Once you sign up and fill out your profile, head over to Birchbox Man’s online magazine to find article and video tutorials on how to get the most out your monthly box products. Pick up full-size versions of anything you like in the Birchbox Shop and earn points for every purchase.
We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
