* Kenya has emerged as the chosen venue to try piracy cases. This article is worth it just for the quotes from the Kenyan piracy lawyer. Just try to imagine how much cooler your life would be if you were a Kenyan Piracy lawyer instead of a Biglaw associate. [The New York Times]

* Florida Judge Thomas Stringer worked for years to establish himself as a trusted, competent man. “then last spring, the well-respected, married judge suddenly found his face splashed beside that of a troubled exotic dancer in a kimono,” including here at ATL, of course. Amazing. [The Associated Press]

* Attorney General Eric Holder dodged alternating attacks on Capitol Hill Thursday, with some Congressman telling him to release more documents on Bush-era torture, and some telling him to stop releasing them. [CNN]

* Eric Holder is trying to restore confidence in the Justice Department. [Bloomberg]

* The Roberts court’s first major affirmative action case will happen later this month when they decide whether or not a group of 17 white firefighters were discriminated against because of their race. [The New York Times]

* A divorced Michigan couple went to court to fight over ownership of their dog’s semen. The couple bred bull mastiffs together, and even though they split custody of their six dogs in a civil manner—they have been bitterly fighting about who owns their dogs’ frozen semen. Judge Cheryl Matthews asked “Am I being punk’d?” No Cheryl, this is real. [The Los Angeles Times]

* “A Wisconsin appeals court was so angry with a lawyer’s sloppy work that it fined him $500, asked for an investigation into his conduct and gave him tips on proofreading.” [The Chicago Tribune]

* Florida’s attorney general sued a company that manufactures a Michael Vick dog toy, claiming the company never gave the proceeds to charity as promised. [The Associated Press]

* The recession has turned 21st century America in to Victorian England with the reinstatement of debtor’s prisons. You’ve got to love a good recession trend story. [The New York Times]

* Emboldened by the recent coup in Iowa, activists push for the expansion of gay marriage rights in New England. [The New York Times]

* Between Guantanamo, Senator Stevens, and the mysterious 2006 dismissal of 9 US attorneys, Attorney General Eric Holder has been busy cleaning up after the last administration. [USA Today]

* Madonna returned home this weekend after her request to adopt a second child from a Malawi orphanage was denied. [Los Angeles Times]

* Watch this wicked, hilarious SNL skit about Madonna and Angelina and their love of adopting “exotic babies.” [Morninpaper.com]

* The lawyers arguing the criminal case over Brooke Astor’s fortune just can’t seem to get along. [The New York Times]

* AIG turned in the list of bonus recipients to New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday—let the games begin. Just kidding, I too fear for the safety of heavily compensated AIG executives—there is nothing scarier than an angry progressive. [The Los Angeles Times]

* Dispensers of medical marijuana have room to breathe after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that federal authorities would cease raiding their operations. [The New York Times]

* Attorney General Eric Holder issued guidelines to federal agencies after The White House advised them to release their records to the public. [The Washington Post]

* A 3-judge federal appeals panel is considering whether or not to re-instate Madoff’s bail—springing him from jail until sentencing in June. [Newsday]

* Albert Hu, a Silicon Valley hedge fund manager conned clients by saying he was represented by prominent law firms like Heller Ehrman and Shaw Pittman; he was arrested in Hong Kong, and charged with defrauding millions from investors. [The National Law Journal]

* Another sad tale of an associate whose offer has been put on hold—his employer Latham & Watkins is asking incoming attorney’s to defer their start dates. [The National Law Journal]

* SCOTUS will look at the separation of church and state when they decide whether “a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.” [The Los Angeles Times]

* Lawyers say Madoff must have had help with his Ponzi scheme. [Bloomberg]

* Attorney General Eric Holder visited Guantanamo yesterday to see what is needed to close the prison. [The Associated Press]

* Meanwhile, a Pentagon official who inspected Guantanamo at Obama’s request is under fire from human rights activists for filing a report (which declares Gitmo humane) that is little more than good public relations for the administration. [The New York Times]

* What do you do when your boss gets indicted for securities fraud? You get another job. A team of seven bankruptcy lawyers left Dreier LLP for Epstein Becker Green. [EBG]

* A federal judge encouraged the Obama administration to decide whether to keep pursuing a case against 11 Vietnam War Veterans accused of trying to overthrow Laos’s communist government. [The Associated Press]

* Judge says: UBS must respond to the U.S. lawsuit seeking disclosure of 52,000 names of people who allegedly used Swiss accounts for tax evasion. [Bloomberg]

Yes We Can…. Hire lots and lots of Supreme Court clerks?

In prior posts (here and here), we reported on the impressive legal team that President Barack Obama has assembled to staff key positions in his administration. Like many of the Bush Administration lawyers they’re replacing, the Obama lawyers have impressive pedigrees: degrees from top law schools, often with honors and/or law review experience; impressive clerkships, including many SCOTUS clerkships; and stints at leading law firms (but with WilmerHale and Williams & Connolly replacing Gibson Dunn and Kirkland & Ellis as the feeder firms).

Several legal superstars are making big financial sacrifices to go into government service. They can expect low six-figure salaries as government lawyers, a far cry from the seven figures that some of them — not the law professors, but the Biglaw partners — earned in the private sector. As reported by Ken Vogel over at Politico:

Eric Holder, President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, will get a separation payment from his firm, Covington & Burling, of between $1 million and $5 million, plus a share of the firm’s profits from this year “based on work performed through date of separation,” and a repayment of between $500,000 and $1 million from the firm’s capital account…. [Holder] earned $3.3 million last year as partner.

Jeh Johnson, Obama’s nominee to be the Pentagon’s top lawyer, would get a severance of between $1 million and $5 million from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, an international law firm. He’ll also get his $200,000 capital investment back from the firm, which paid him $2.6 million last year as a partner.

For more details — e.g., how much Eric Holder and Jeh Johnson’s retirement plans and pensions might be worth — see Politico.

In our earlier hiring round-ups, we missed a few names. Many tipsters came forward to fill in the blanks.

Learn about the latest legal eagles to land in the Obama nest, after the jump.

The confirmation hearings for Eric Holder as attorney general just started.

We’ll try to keep an eye on it for you and update you with interesting news and notes. Especially when the Specter in the punch bowl speaks up.

So far Holder has said the word “independent” twice and now we’re going through the list of black people who were shot in the sixties.

Update (10:31): Let me paraphrase question 1:

LEAHY: Waterboarding mutherf***** do you believe in it?
HOLDER: Waterboarding is torture.
LEAHY: Gonzales! Are you named GONZALES?
HOLDER: Waterboarding is torture.

Update (10:56): Round 1 of Specter v. Holder involved both fighters feeling each other out. Lots of clenching, no haymakers:

SPECTER: Let me remind everybody who Marc Rich is and why he’s a terrible person.
(time passes, seasons change …)
Mr. Holder, did you know about this?
HOLDER: Nope. My bad.
LEAHY: Time!

Score the round 10-10.

Meanhwhile Sen. Herbet Kohl (who also owns the Milwaukee Bucks) wants to know if Holder can ball with Obama. As commenter #5 might point out “that question would never have been asked if Holder was white.”

More updates after the jump.