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:

1. Rebecca Mancuso and Andrew Brunswick

2. Erin Gustafson and David Curtiss

3. Kathleen Devine and David Newman

Evaluate these newlyweds, 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:

1. Florence Davis and Anthony Gooch

2. Alexandra Seggerman and Stephen Poellot

3. Marin Levy and Joseph Blocher Jr.

Read all about this week’s featured newlyweds, after the jump.

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.

Just last week, Ballard Spahr was sending around inspirational messages to its associates. Today, the firm has decided to cancel its 2010 Summer Program.

Thompson Hine has also decided to cancel its 2010 Summer Program. If nothing else the move should give Rogue Associate an opportunity to comment.

It’s one thing to cancel your entire summer program. But what is surprising about Ballard Spahr and Thompson Hine is that the firms did not make any formal, official announcement about the decision. Instead, students learned the information from their respective law school recruiting offices.

Update (1:04): Now Squire Sanders is also canceling its 2010 Summer Program. More details after the jump.

Here’s the Ballard Spahr “announcement” (via Penn Law School):

Dear Students, As we near the close of bidding, we wanted to provide you with an update on schedule changes that we received so far today. Akin Gump went from 40 interview slots in NYC and 40 interview slots in DC to 20 interview slots in NYC and 20 interview slots in DC.

Paul Weiss went from 80 interview slots to 60 interview slots.

Ballard Spahr will not have a 2010 summer program and, as such, has canceled on campus interviews.

All of this information is updated in Symplicity. Please note that we will continue to provide you with updates as is feasible. However, it may not be possible for us to email you with all changes so please be sure to check Symplicity before bidding closes tomorrow, July 21st at 11:59 p.m.

After the jump, we see that Duke students were the first to learn about the Thompson Hine cancellation.

If you are a current Duke Law student who applied to one of the school’s journals, you have probably emailed Above the Law in the past two hours. You can stop now, we’ve heard you, please step back from the ledge.

The system for notifying students of whether they had been accepted to journals was flawed. Some people were told they were accepted by a journal when, in fact, they were not. Others were given placement on journals they didn’t apply for. Everybody is pissed.

The email from Duke Law School’s Director of Publications, after the jump.

Swine flu has struck firms. It has struck a district attorney’s office. Even though it’s summer, the nasty virus has now invaded at least one law school.

This year, a few Duke University Law School students are summer camp counselors instead of summer associates. Spending the summer with little kids instead of the BigLaw boys, and raking in four figures instead of five, must hurt a little. On top of that, these legal Blue Devils now have to deal with swine flu. From the Charlotte Observer:

There are 14 confirmed flu cases among campers and camp counselors at Duke University, campus officials say. Those 14 cases are probably the H1N1, or swine flu virus, officials said. More than a dozen other people have cases that are not yet confirmed.

It looks like a Duke Law student might be to blame for the outbreak. From a tipster:

A number of law students that are RAing for professors over the summer are working as supervisors of the [Talent Identification Program] and also teaching classes on the criminal justice system to the TIP students.

We received this email today:

“Dear All, I write to inform you that a Law School student was seen by Duke Student Health Services this morning with symptoms that closely match those experienced by individuals with H1N1 Flu. An actual diagnosis will not be available until Monday, at the earliest. The student is at home recuperating from his symptoms and following recommended isolation procedures for those with H1N1-like symptoms.

We have contacted all individuals who were in a class with this student to alert them to a possible H1N1 exposure…”

Read the full e-mail after the jump. And an UPDATE (12:25 p.m.) on patient zero.

Due to a glitch in the NYT’s online weddings section last week, today’s edition is a double feature. Trust us — it’s worth the wait! We have three choice entries, two of which feature scions of some of America’s most notable families.

1. Rian Balfour and Russell Marcus

2. Allison Circle and Robert Sassower

3. Maeve Townsend and David McKean

Marvel at the prestige of these couples, after the jump.

The winter wedding announcements are often a prestige wasteland, but we’re actually quite pleased with the caliber of the couples we’ve been able to round up for the first 2009 edition of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch (which admittedly includes some entries from late 2008).

Here are your contestant couples:

1. Bella Sewall and David Wolitz

2. Daniela Jampel and Matthew Schneid

3. Jaime Teitelman and Howard Wachtel

Click on the link below to read more about these newlyweds.

We’re back with our second installment of the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch in as many days. Enjoy, and have a happy, happy Friday.

Behold, the most outstanding legal lovebirds from the past three weeks:

1. Brenda Zelin and Kyle Williams

2. Alyssa Greenwald and Edward Wittenstein

3. Erik Hyman and Max Mutchnick

4. Jamie Bartholomew and Steven Aller

Evaluate the worthiness of these couples, after the jump.

Ridiculum brings us the story of Tiffany Shah. A fictional Duke 2L (we hope) who never learned the Major League lesson about celebrating when the guy next to you just died.

Not that there aren’t many real life Tiffany Shah’s out there. This excerpt could be about any number of 2Ls who need to reassess their lives.

A typical conversation goes something like this: ‘Hello. Is this SULLIVAN AND CROMWELL? Yes, SULLIVAN? Great! I have an OFFER to come back and I’d LOVE to schedule an interview.’ And not only does she place emphasis on the firm name but she turns around and looks at the whole freakin’ room while doing it.

Some of you know this person. Some of you are this person. She’s the reason why God made vegetables perishable.

Student Loudly Schedules Her Multiple Callbacks in Law School Common Area [Ridiculum]

As some of you have noticed, we tend not to remark negatively on the innate physical attributes of our Legal Eagle contestants. There are several reasons for our reticence, but the most basic one is simply this: LEWW believes that prestige is beautiful. LEWW believes that every bride can look gorgeous on her special day if she has the right law degree. LEWW believes that a JD from HLS is like a great bra; it looks flimsy and has a jaw-dropping price tag, but it will support you and make you look better than you deserve.

Having made much of our reluctance to comment disparagingly about our subjects’ appearance, we’ll promptly depart from our own custom and announce that this is Hotness Disparity Week on LEWW. All of our grooms are decent-looking but undeniably average Joes, and we submit to you that all of them have married up.

See if you agree with us. Here are the couples:

1. Uma Amuluru and John Theis

2. Dena Fayad and David Guggenheim

3. Courtney Gregoire and Scott Lindsay

Click on the link below to read about these couples.

From a student at Duke Law School:

I had to laugh out loud at Kramer Levin’s use of the daylight savings time maxim, “spring ahead/spring forward,” to suggest that we could do the same for our careers by coming to their firm. See the flyer below, which they seem to have sent to the entire 1L class.

Actually, we think it’s kinda cute! Check out those otherworldly tulips:

And it’s a helpful reminder for overworked law firm associates. If you have a conference call scheduled for, say, this Sunday morning at 10, you don’t want to miss it.

The Legal Eagle Wedding Watch is kicking off 2008 with a few leftovers from 2007. But we think you’ll agree that these offerings are worth savoring. These couples have got a little bit of everything: brains, looks, athletic ability, and (something that never goes stale) lots and lots of money.

Here are the contenders:

1.) Ellen Zajac and Teddy Schwarzman

2.) Stephanie Alperin and Eric Biderman

3.) Erica Greenbaum and Mark Gerson

4.) Katherine Van Loon and Jon Steitz

More about these couples, after the jump.

Down at Duke Law School, they have a highly regarded new dean: David F. Levi, former Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California. But maybe what they really need is to create a new position: “Cyber-Security Czar.”

It appears that their website has been hacked. Visitors to the site see the message at right.

In addition, a security breach has compromised the safety of the personal information of some applicants to the law school.

Emails sent to current Duke law students and applicants to the law school, after the jump.

This email message, from Professor Erwin Chemerinsky to Duke law school faculty and students, went out ten minutes ago.

Also, here’s some coverage from the Los Angeles Times.

————— Forwarded message —————
From: “Erwin Chemerinsky”
To: [redacted]
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:07:53 -0400
Subject: news

It is with excitement and sadness that I am writing to tell you that I have accepted the position to be the founding dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at the University of California, Irvine. After meeting with Chancellor Michael Drake at length this weekend, I accepted his renewed offer. He provided me the greatest possible assurance of academic freedom for the dean and all faculty.

It has been one of the strangest and most difficult weeks of my life. I cannot possibly express my thanks for all of the support that I received from the law school’s faculty, administrators, and students. I am sad to be leaving this wonderful supportive community, though excited about the new challenges ahead.

Chemerinsky to return as UC Irvine law dean [Los Angeles Times]

Who knew that such a little man could generate such big controversy?

In a nutshell (see the links collected below for more):

Erwin Chemerinsky, the brilliant but controversial professor of constitutional law at Duke, accepted an offer to serve as inaugural dean of UC Irvine’s new law school. But then Professor Chemerinsky’s deanship was yanked as quickly as it was offered, based on the administration’s discomfort with Chemerinsky’s political views.

One tipster reminds us: “For those who took BarBri, Chemerinsky is the Con Law professor who can recite the entire lecture (2 days if I recall) from memory, without consulting his notes.”

Does anyone have a copy of, or know the contents of, Chemerinsky’s employment contract with U.C. Irvine? If so, please contact us by email. Thanks.

Also, you can take our reader poll about the controversy, which appears after the jump.

New UC Irvine Law School Hires Chemerinsky as Dean, Then Fires Him for Political Reasons
[Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports]
The O.C. — Law School Edition [WSJ Law Blog]
Could This Be True??? [PrawfsBlawg]
Chemerinsky says UC Irvine rescinds offer to become law school dean [Los Angeles Times]

Even in these dark days, as an anxious nation awaits the latest dispatch from the associate salary wars, the wedding machine grinds on. We salute the brave couples who choose to go ahead with their ceremonies in the face of all this uncertainty — after all, how crushing would it be to return from your honeymoon and find your employer on someone’s List of Shame!

Honorable mention this week goes to this couple. (The father of the bride, William Barr, was once Attorney General under George H.W. Bush.) Unfortunately, those two did not make the cut. Here are the lucky lovebirds who did:

1. Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert

2. Eliza Harrington and Minor Myers III

3. Jennifer Merzon and Christopher Evans

More on this week’s couples, after the jump.

The mini-scandal that erupted after it was reported that Fulbright & Jaworski partner uttered “the n word” during a recruiting event at Duke Law School has pretty much blown over.

Much wind was taken out of the racist sails when it came to light that the partner said the magic word while “recount[ing] a story about Leon Jaworski’s defense of an African-American man in a murder trial in Waco, Texas in the 1920s.” The partner uttered the racial epithet “in an effort to display the depth of racial hostility that Jaworski and his client faced.”

In case you’re still interested in this story — and we understand completely if you’re not — an account of yesterday’s meeting, between Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers and law students at Duke, appears after jump.

When we first posted about a Fulbright & Jaworski partner using “the n word” in a recruiting event at Duke Law School, we left open this possibility:

[U]nless the story was about, say, the partner’s pro bono representation, in a civil action for damages, of a hate crime or police brutality victim who was attacked and called “the n word,” it was hugely inappropriate….

We’re glad we left ourselves that escape hatch. We now have more context about the incident, thanks to an email from the Fulbright & Jaworski executive committee:

Dear Colleagues:

Because you may hear about or be asked about a recent situation at a law school where attorneys participated in training interviews of students, we want to bring it to your attention. One of our lawyers recounted a story about Leon Jaworski’s defense of an African-American man in a murder trial in Waco, Texas in the 1920s. During the retelling, in an effort to display the depth of racial hostility that Jaworski and his client faced, the attorney used a racial term that characterized what the district attorney in the case said about the defendant. After review of the situation, all involved concluded that such terms, although recounted without ill intentions, are inappropriate for our firm, which values diversity and strives for inclusiveness.

We are addressing the situation, and Steve Pfeiffer and other senior partners are en route to meet with the students. One of the other attorneys who participated in the training session acted immediately when the incident was called to his attention and responded with an electronic letter of explanation and appropriate apology. Any inquiries should be directed to the firm’s Hiring Partner, Gerry Lowry.

Executive Committee

Here’s some further evidence suggesting that the Duke law school community may be overreacting. Per a current law student at Duke:

This partner was relating what another person said in the context of telling a story. Now everyone is piling on him. The student [who voiced the complaint] has been goaded on by some super liberal professors.

Interesting. As we’ve previously stated, we welcome any and all information about this incident. Thanks.

Earlier: Breaking: Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops the N-Bomb During A Recruiting Interview!
Stepping in Deep Duke-y: More Details, Please