Oh, to be a newborn babe. A bright Cherub of innocence and hope who opens his eyes for the first time to look upon the world as if it were new. Oh, to be a administrator at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta and see a brave new world with such people in it.
Yes people, today is the day that John Marshall Law School set up its very own Facebook page for prospective students. Yes, yes, we are dealing with veritable scions of forward thinking. Early adopters all!
Just listen to the glory of having a school Facebook profile, as explained by those same innovators at John Marshall…
Facebook goes on the offensive to protect its founder from a man it says is a scammer
When Facebook called Paul Ceglia, the man who claims to have a contract with Mark Zuckerberg for half of Facebook, an “inveterate scam artist,” Ceglia’s lawyers at DLA Piper replied that the company had no facts to back that claim up. “We are prepared to move the case forward into discovery and our client looks forward to his day in court,” said DLA.
Facebook is ready for discovery too: their lawyers at Gibson Dunn have filed to expedite it. Their attached memorandum of law makes a strong case against Ceglia. Facebook’s hoping to give Ceglia his day in court, but it’s hoping that it’s a criminal court.
Facebook wants the original version of the contract that Ceglia claims Mark Zuckerberg signed and the emails that Ceglia said were exchanged regarding that contract. Facebook says they’re as fake as that app that claims to let you see who your Facebook stalkers are. To support their claims, they’ve dug into the dark corners of Ceglia’s past, mentioning again his drug and fraud convictions as well as disclosing a land scam that Ceglia has allegedly been running for years, that had not previously been discovered. Note to self: do not sue huge corporation with any potential skeletons in the closet.
If the allegations Facebook’s lawyers make are true, Ceglia could end up with prison time instead of a hefty chunk of Facebook stock.
Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg respond to Paul Ceglia, the wood chipper who claims to own half of Facebook
Now that the Winklevoss twins have been sent packing by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (with a kick in the ass on the way out the door from the rest of the Ninth Circuit), with a 0.00% chance of the Supreme Court taking their case, Facebook’s lawyers can focus on the latest “Actually, I Own Facebook” lawsuit.
Paul Ceglia claims to have a contract with Mark Zuckerberg that entitles him to half of the company. Zuck supposedly signed away a stake in Facebook in 2003 while a Harvard undergrad in exchange for $2,000 in seed money from Ceglia.
In an amended complaint filed in April (with the help of DLA Piper), Ceglia claimed to have some damning emails from Zuckerberg where they discussed “the face book” project at length. Ceglia said the emails showed that Zuck deceived him, allegedly telling him the site was not very popular with the Harvard kids, and asking him if he would like his $2,000 back — at the same time as Zuckerberg was moving out to California to ramp up operations.
Lawyers at Gibson Dunn filed Facebook’s response to Ceglia’s lawsuit this week, calling him a scam artist and saying that the contract he claims to have is “doctored” and that the evidence he has produced is “fabricated.” Here’s the scorching opener to the answer, which was certainly written as much for the media as for the judge….
File this one under “Disappointing, but not really surprising.”
According to a new study, it turns out that quite a few law students not only break the law, but also post the evidence on Facebook. We’ve already covered why this is a bad idea.
For some reason I keep hoping Facebook has been around long enough that people –- at least those of us older than 16 –- would stop doing stuff like this and this. But I guess I’m just naive.
Lawyers love to talk about how technology always moves faster than the law. Nowhere is that tension more apparent (and sadistically fun to observe) than within the mean streets of Facebook. We’ve covered legal standards surrounding Facebook before — and it never gets old.
This week, a defense attorney in a personal injury case learns that just because you ask to be someone’s Facebook pal, that doesn’t mean they have to say yes. Even if you ask through the court system and your would-be “friend” happens to be suing your client for car-crash injuries.
A shocking revelation, right? Details after the ol’ jump.
Although I’m no longer an editor here at Above the Law (*tear*), you know my byline occasionally still pops up to bring you news of lonely lawyers and goings-on in the world of privacy. This week, I asked Elie and Lat if they were interested in a lawsuit against a computer rental store accused of spying on its customers via webcam. (Most shocking aspect to me: People actually rent laptops?) Or the recent reminder from the Seventh Circuit that looking at porn at work — even if just for 67 seconds — can get you fired (at least he got the job done quickly).
Instead, Elie saw that I’d recently written about WikiLeaks founder (and dancer extraordinaire) Julian Assange — who’s still kicking it in England — calling Facebook “the most appalling spying machine ever invented.” Elie asked, how is that guy not in a jail in Sweden by now? And why have no major banks bitten the WikiLeaks bullet since we last heard from the white-haired wonder?
An update on the Julian Assange – WikiLeaks saga, after the jump…
* Kesha’s publicist really needs to talk to Kesha’s lawyers about filing lawsuits that make Kesha Ke$ha look lame. [Thomson Reuters]
* You don’t really think you’re going to get a law school to roll over and pay $40 million to snookered students like a cooking school would? Crappy law schools might not be training great lawyers, but they can certainly afford to hire some. [Inside Scoop SF]
* How to subpoena information put on Facebook, or as I like to call it: “How to ruin it for everybody.” [An Associate's Mind]
* “A less gilded future”: an overview from The Economist of the state of the legal economy. [The Economist]
* Chief Judge Kozinski isn’t the only one who loved the new movie Atlas Shrugged. [Dealbreaker]
* Monica Goodling gets a public reprimand by the Virginia state bar. In other completely pointless actions, I just high-fived a Mexican for Cinco de Mayo. [Virginia Lawyers Weekly]
* Speaking of which, I’ve had too many tequila shots today to get hyped up about the Confederate flag. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Seriously guys, take the hint, it’s Cinco de Mayo — it’s okay to sneak out from work and have a drink with friends… assuming you still have friends. Here are some fun facts and music to get you in the mood. [Christian Science Monitor]
I’m done whining about Facebook privacy issues. Everyone should know by now that Facebook and privacy are basically mutually exclusive.
But every once in a while, someone does something stupid relating to Facebook privacy in a new, exciting way — like stealing a computer and posting photos of yourself on the owner’s page, or uploading placenta pics from your nursing-school class. We enjoy mocking covering such special occasions. It’s even better when Facebook bungles have larger implications.
Last week, an emergency room doctor in Rhode Island got reprimanded and fined $500 by the state medical board. (She had been fired from her hospital last year.)
Why? She posted information about a patient on Facebook….
* House Speaker John Boehner and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, now at King & Spalding, have joined forces to fight marriage equality by defending DOMA. Talk about two people who will not be taking their talents to South Beach. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
* The tax returns of Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been made public. Notes Professor Paul Caron: “It’s amazing how much more politicians give to charity in years in which they know their tax returns will be released to the public (although Biden still tosses around gifts to charity like manhole covers).” [TaxProf Blog]
* DLA Piper promotes 53 lawyers to partnership. For the blue wedge, name all the offices that are getting new partners. [Am Law Daily; DLA Piper (press release)]
* If you were underwhelmed with OCI at your law school, a new service — JD Match, founded by law-firm consultant and blogger Bruce MacEwen — wants to try to match you up with employers ready to hire. [WSJ Law Blog]
* People keep acting like their law firms are hunting for associates expressing discontent. But law firms aren’t as paranoid as Roger Ailes. [Gawker]
* It’s always nice when our nation’s legal system comes to the defense of punk bands. [Los Angeles Times]
* It’s almost time for the anniversary of the historical basis for Texas thinking it’s better than everybody else. [The Defense Rests via Blawg Review]
* Happy Passover to everyone. Don’t forget your blowtorches. [Wall Street Journal]
Thanks to Ben Mezrich, David Fincher, and Aaron Sorkin, we all feel like we know the backstory of the creation of Facebook (shameless plug: please like the ATL Facebook page). It goes something like this: Mark Zuckerberg was a shady little brat, who screwed over his one friend while he was building what would become a multi-billion-dollar company. Roll credits.
Legally, just yesterday it seemed that Zuckerberg and Facebook were finally in the clear. The Ninth Circuit told the amazingly privileged Winkelvoss twins to go away, and it appeared that everybody could go back to masturbating to Facebook friends without worrying about who really owned the thing.
But not so fast. There is another outstanding Facebook lawsuit that has recently been amended and refiled in federal court. We’ve reported before on the claims of fraudster Paul Ceglia. Now he’s back, and he’s got some explosive new evidence to support his claims to 50% ownership in Facebook — as well as new counsel.
Is the evidence credible? It depends: do you trust DLA Piper?
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!
Oh, to be a newborn babe. A bright Cherub of innocence and hope who opens his eyes for the first time to look upon the world as if it were new. Oh, to be a administrator at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta and see a brave new world with such people in it. 
