Yesterday we wrote about Paulina Bandy, that poor creature who failed the California bar exam thirteen times, before finally passing it on try #14. Her story seems to have freaked out some of you who are sitting for the bar exam later this month next week.
Relax. Take a deep breath. You won’t wind up in a 365-square-foot shack in your mom’s backyard. We think.
Chances are, you will pass. And even if you fail the bar once or twice, you’re still not on your way towards Paulina Bandy-dom.
As it turns out, a number of well-known individuals — some famous for their accomplishments in law, and others for different reasons — didn’t pass the bar on the first (or even second) try.
To get the ball rolling, here’s a short list of a few bar exam failures. Check it out, after the jump.
We realize we’re rather late in writing about this. But considering our extensive coverage of her past exploits, we really must share this information with you, however tardy.
Here’s the big news:
EMILY PATAKI HAS PASSED THE BAR EXAM!!
Guess the second time’s a charm. Congratulations, Emily!
P.S. If you’re wondering why we’re bothering to write about this event, please read this post. Or click here, and scroll down through our Emily Pataki archives.
P.P.S. Some words of advice to first-year associates not-yet-admitted legal interns working at large law firms (e.g., White & Case, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan): If you’re ever seized by the desire to send a firm-wide email, JUST SAY NO. Otherwise you’ll regret it in the morning. We promise.
But if you decide to go ahead with that blast email to hundreds of your beloved colleagues, please cc your friends at ATL. We love nothing better than to receive (and post) career-destroying, or at least highly embarrassing, office-wide emails. Thank you. Former Gov. Pataki’s eldest daughter passes bar exam [Associated Press] Passing Candidates from February 2007 (O-R) [New York State Board of Bar Examiners] Earlier: Political Kids and the Bar Exam: What Gives? Additional ATL coverage of Emily Pataki (scroll down)
* Maryland becomes the latest state to temporarily halt lethal injection executions, this time because of procedural issues with the way the lethal injection protocol was adopted. [Washington Post via How Appealing]
* Church burners expected to plead in Alabama [CNN]
* No good deed goes unpunished in Libya. [Jurist]
* First the minimum was too much, and now 10 years is not enough. Why doesn’t the appellate court just go ahead and sentence the child-renter?. [CNN]
* And in more bad parenting news…. [CNN ]
Brian T. Valery is our hero. He figured out a way to save $100K on a legal education — namely, by not getting one. From Law.com:
Brian Valery is under fire for his pro hac vice appearance in a 2005 complex litigation case heard in Stamford, Conn. His motion to appear, which went unopposed, was based on his affidavit stating he was an attorney in good standing at the New York City firm of Anderson Kill & Olick. He also claimed to be a member of the New York Bar with no history of discipline.
As it turns out, Valery not only isn’t a member of the Bar, there’s no record that he ever applied or sat for the bar exam in New York or even set foot in a Fordham Law School classroom, which he told Anderson Kill partners he was doing at night to advance his career beyond that of a paralegal, Connecticut grievance officials say….
Valery, after working at Anderson Kill [as a paralegal] since 1996, told the firm in 2004 he had passed the New York Bar. Partners at the 132-lawyer firm have conceded to Connecticut grievance authorities that they regrettably took Valery at his word.
* Emily Pataki, the attractive and accomplished daughter of New York governor George Pataki, failed the New York bar exam — and sent around an office-wide email about it. The story was broken by the mainstream media.
* We heard from some of Emily’s law school classmates about the incident. In a reader poll, you opined that emailing her White & Case colleagues was unwise.
* The Democratic takeover of the Senate could make things tough(er) for the White House’s judicial nominees.
* Despite the sea change in Washington, President Bush resubmitted six controversial judicial picks to the lame duck Senate. Getting all of them confirmed is probably impossible, but getting two of them through might happen.
* The White House has not yet submitted nominees for the two vacant Fifth Circuit seats. (Texas’s Solicitor General, conservative legal superstar R. Ted Cruz, is said to be uninterested.)
* Borat-related litigation shows nosigns of abating.
* O.J. Simpson: He’s back — and he’s still looking for his wife’s killer. Except this time, he’s looking in the mirror.
* Some bad ideas from the past week: getting frisky on an airplane; setting your ex-girlfriend’s kittens on fire; having sex with a deer (even if it’s dead); eating at Burger King or Taco Bell; and getting married without a prenup (if you’re a filthy rich Hollywood celebrity).
* Over the past few days, we’ve been spending some quality time with the Federalist Society. More reports on the proceedings — including lavish photography — will appear in the coming week.
Both Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes have a “message recall” feature. Of course, it’s a bit late for Emily Pataki to invoke it, so as to retract the office-wide email she sent to her White & Case colleagues about failing the New York bar exam.
But if Emily agrees with the majority of you, she probably wishes she had never sent that e-mail. Here are the results of our ATL reader poll:
We’re a bit surprised at the tally; we expected the vote to be closer. We didn’t think so many of you would disapprove of her handling of the situation. But this is your verdict, for what it’s worth.
Maybe the best advice can be found in this reader comment: “Repeat after me: an office wide email is never, ever a good idea.” Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Emily Pataki (scroll down)
I’m disappointed to see that someone forwarded this to David Lat, and that he chose to publish it. The July 2006 New York Bar Exam pass list is not yet public, and while I might expect someone online to pick through the list when it is, pointing out people who were known to have taken the bar yet not passed, to publicize a single person’s failure and her reaction to it is a particular kind of bad taste that I hadn’t expected of either White & Case employees or of Above the Law.
Reprinted below is the comment that we left on De Novo in response:
I actually can’t take credit for breaking this story. I actually first learned about it in a mainstream media blog, the WSJ Law Blog:
But the Wall Street Journal didn’t break this story either. The source with the scoop was actually ANOTHER MSM blog, the New York Observer’s widely read politics blog, The Politicker:
So, PG, please don’t hang this all on me just because I’m a blogger (and we bloggers are such easy targets, especially on matters of journalistic ethics). I only touched this story after two MSM organs did — even though I had the email much earlier.
Of course, once the Wall Street Journal and the New York Observer decided to cover this story — a story which, you must admit, lies squarely within the territory of Above the Law — I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines.
PG posted a response to our response; if we get around to it, we’ll offer our rebuttal later today. Bad Judgment at White & Case and ATL [De Novo]
As we discussedyesterday, Emily Pataki — daughter of lame duck New York governor George Pataki, a graduate of Columbia Law School, and now an associate a supervised legal intern at White & Case — did not pass the New York bar. This fact became widely known after Emily sent around an office-wide email about the matter.
We’re taking a reader poll to obtain your thoughts on whether or not this was a wise move. We’ll close that poll soon; if you’d like to vote, click here. Several of you also discussed the issue in the comments (where opinions were all over the map).
Also, some of Emily Pataki’s law school classmates responded to our request for firsthand information about her. We’ve collected these responses, which you can read after the jump.
Failing the New York State bar exam. And emailing her White & Case colleagues about it.
We’ve already covered this story; click here. But since it’s what everyone is buzzing about today, we’ll give in to your appetite for more discussion. Two requests for your assistance:
1. If you work at White & Case, went to Columbia Law School or Yale College with Emily Pataki, or are otherwise acquainted with her, we’d love to hear from you.
What’s Emily like in person? Any thoughts on why she didn’t pass? How are people at the firm reacting to her email? If you have information to share, please email us.
2. We’re curious about whether other people think it was wise or unwise for Emily to send out that mass email to her White & Case colleagues about her failing the New York bar exam.
So please share your views in the comments to this post. And cast your vote in this reader poll:
The late JFK Jr. failed the New York State bar exam twice, before passing it on the third try. And now Emily Pataki, the highly attractive daughter of outgoing New York governor George Pataki, is halfway towards matching that feat.
Here’s the email message that Emily, an associate a supervised legal intern at White & Case in New York, sent to her colleagues yesterday morning, shortly after bar exam results were released:
From: Emily R. Pataki Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 10:05 AM To: NY All Subject:
There are many things I have been blessed and graced with in this life.
I am blessed to work at a brilliant place like White and Case. Although failing the Bar Exam is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, it is something I have to accept at this point in time.
I do not know all of you personally, and I may not ever get to know you all, but for those of you I’ve had the pleasure of working with and getting to know, I hope you know I did my very best, and have come to a crossroads where my best just was not good enough, the first time around.
I’ll try and keep my chin up and will work even harder to earn the respect of you all, please know already that you have mine.
Sincerely, Emily Pataki
Hmm… Emily, a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School, has impeccable academic credentials. She has obviously aced many a test in her life. So in the weeks leading up to the bar exam, was she spending too much time partying, and not enough time at BarBri?
But look, it’s a lovely and gracious e-mail. We commend Emily for her damage control skills. It’s a wise move to get in front of a story like this one, to manage the bad news (which would have gotten out sooner or later).
We’d also tell Emily not to be too hard on herself. In not passing the bar exam the first time around, she could very well be in good company.
P.S. While we have your attention, Emily: Please convince your dad not to pursue a doomed bid for the presidency. Thank you.
P.P.S. As is always the case here at ATL, please note that our merely linking to something does not constitute an endorsement or acceptance of the content we’ve linked to. The internets contain all kinds of crazy rumors. First Setback [New York Observer via WSJ Law Blog] Emily Pataki: Republican Babe of the Week [JerseyGOP.com] Guessing Game Results: The Cokehead Daughter [Wonkette]
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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;
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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?
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