* If an armed society is a polite society, then Nelson, Georgia has the most polite motherf**kers in the country. [Constitutional Daily]
* Professor X is breaking the law? You know, he really should have seen that coming… [Law and the Multiverse]
* Speaking of people who should have seen it coming, Dionne Warwick, former spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network, has filed for bankruptcy. [Celeb Legal Issues]
* Incest is best when kept in the family. So go ahead and adopt your girlfriend. [Lowering the Bar]
* “Your Honor, I’d like my dong stricken from the record.” [OC Weekly]
* A slick recap of how completely screwed the legal industry is right now, by Axiom Law (via Bruce MacEwen). [Adam Smith, Esq.]
* On a personal note, as a debate coach myself, congratulations to everyone involved with the Emporia State debate team for becoming the first team ever to win both national championship tournaments (by way of analogy the “U.S. Open” and “The Masters”) for the same year. [Associated Press]
Authorities suspect that a family law attorney practicing in suburban Denver was murdered, and her body was found by cleaning staff in her office building.
Marriage can be a tricky business, especially when it comes to an end. Just ask the former Skadden partner whose remarkable departure memo has everyone talking. Both his former and current marriage have attracted a lot of attention.
And at least his marriages were between one man and one woman. When same-sex unions fall apart, things can get especially complicated….
* Should the mentally disabled receive the death penalty? Neither SCOTUS nor Georgia’s Supreme Court stayed Warren Lee Hill’s execution, but the Eleventh Circuit saved the day. [Washington Post]
* If you’re looking for a mishmosh of Biglaw news, from new offices to new hires to new firm leaders, then look no further. If only this list were in alphabetical order! [Law Firm Insider / U.S. News & World Report]
* Dewey know why this partner who was sued by Barclays in the U.K. over his capital loan is suing the bank in the U.S.? It involves an alleged fraud and Joel Sanders. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* So much for that “silly sideshow”: Judge Richard Sullivan of the S.D.N.Y. hasn’t made a ruling in the Greenlight case yet, but he says David Einhorn may have a “likelihood of success on the merits” if the matter proceeds further. [Bloomberg]
* One of the partners at this small law firm apparently watched Secretary a few too many times, and he’s now accused of threatening to “whip” his ex-assistant into shape because she was a “bad girl.” [New York Post]
* The University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law named an interim successor to former dean Hiram Chodosh, but we can’t say he’s a law dean hottie. He looks like Van Pelt from Jumanji. [Salt Lake Tribune]
* The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law will house the first clinic in the nation devoted to pardons and the law. It figures that a religious school would focus on legal Hail Marys. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Career alternatives for law school dropouts: mining magnate and financier of the Titanic II. Much like the value proposition of going to law school for today’s generation, this idea is unsinkable. [New York Times]
* Prosecutors have upgraded the charge against Oscar Pistorius to premeditated murder, and one could now say the track star doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to being released on bail pending trial. [CNN]
* D is for… divorce? Sesame Street is talking about divorce in a way that children can understand, but alas, the series neglects important topics like “why mommy is a whore” and “why daddy drinks.” [Law Firm Newswire]
I think if you can dye your hair or fix your nose, you can change your name.
– Raoul Felder, the high-profile divorce lawyer, commenting on the trend of divorcées making up completely new names for themselves upon getting divorced.
(Continue reading for Felder’s harsh indictment of legal education.)
She’d just had her divorce finalized, and she was celebrating. I’d never thought about that before—celebrating divorce. So, I thought, why not do something special for Valentine’s Day? You can’t find a new love before you close the chapter on the old.
– Walter H. Bentley III, a Michigan lawyer, explaining how he came up with the idea to hold a contest with the grand prize of a free divorce in honor of Valentine’s Day. If you’d like to submit an entry, you can do so here.
(Continue reading for some video coverage on Bentley’s competition.)
If Law & Order were still around, this would make for a good episode. A Manhattan lawyer was accused by his sister-in-law of sexual assault. But now the lawyer has filed a countersuit claiming defamation. He says that he and his sister-in-law engaged in a consensual sexual relationship as he was trying to help her conceive.
Why does he say he did it? Because he respects her husband (his brother-in-law) so much!
You’ve got to love the self-importance of Manhattan attorneys….
* Let’s be honest, if it wasn’t for 9/11, we’d already be allowed to leave our cellphones on during flights because before 9/11 we weren’t beaten and cowed by the rights abusing airline industry. [The Legal Satyricon]
* “The Child Support Lady” is the lady that helps Dads avoid paying child support by representing fathers. I think I’d prefer the child support lady who helps Dads avoid paying child support by passing out condoms. [Miami Herald]
* Check out his warning label on a doormat. [Overlawyered]
* Christmas isn’t a deadweight economic loss, because sometimes people surprise you. [Daily Beast]
* And now for the obligatory “look how lawyers would ruin Christmas if they could” posts. First, the oldie but goodie. [Tax Prof Blog]
If you pour this into a cup of coffee, it doesn’t taste as bad.
* Dear New York City, you can take my caffeine when you want to become “the city that sleeps sometimes and charges rents that can be earned while working only eight hours a day.” Not a moment before. [Reason]
* They want to put Lenny Dykstra in jail, but the Wilpons get to run around free. [Dealbreaker]
* Fracking might never have developed without our unique “subsurface” property rights. In a different life, understanding this stuff is why I thought it’d be good to go to law school. Studying law > Practicing law > Paying for your legal studies. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Okay, hear me out. How about every owner who won’t make their building wheelchair accessible for “aesthetic” reasons has to contribute every year to help fund research in the design of a wheelchair that can also climbs steps. Then they have to contribute to the fund that will get these new “chairsteppers” out to all the people who need them. Think about it, disabled people would get a better product, and ramps would be a thing of the past. Don’t tell me the tech is beyond us, if we can make amphibious attack vehicles/tour buses, we can make a wheelchair that climbs steps. [Simple Justice]
* Do it yourself divorces now coming to Texas for indigent clients with no children. So, to recap, when gay people want to get married in Texas, it’s an affront to God and traditional America. But when childless heterosexuals want to get divorced, it’s just a simple legal matter that shouldn’t require a lawyer. [Tex Parte Blog]
* Thanks to Cision Blog for including us in their rankings. [Cision Blog]
* In a move to “end the vacancy crisis,” one week after being reelected, and one day after the Senate returned to session, Barack Obama nominated seven people for open seats on federal district courts, including two S.D.N.Y. slots. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Dewey know how much the Los Angeles Dodgers will have to pay the now defunct firm for its work on the team’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case? About $13M — the equivalent of their pitcher’s salary, or 62% of their first baseman’s pay. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Which Biglaw firms in the Am Law 200 are the most LGBT friendly? Overall, of the 145 firms that participated in the Human Rights Campaign’s survey, 71 received perfect scores. Absolutely fabulous! [Am Law Daily]
* The American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education wants to know what should be done about law schools. This is a time to keep it simple, stupid: change EVERYTHING! [National Law Journal]
* The New York Court of Appeals invoked the Major Disaster Rule for the first time ever, allowing out-of-state attorneys to perform pro bono services for Hurricane Sandy victims. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* William Adams, the Texas family court judge who got caught beating his daughter, returned to the bench yesterday after a year-long suspension. At least he won’t get physical abuse cases, anymore. [Fox News]
* John Coffey, Senior Status Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, RIP. [Journal Sentinel]
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.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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.
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!
* If an armed society is a polite society, then Nelson, Georgia has the most polite motherf**kers in the country. [Constitutional Daily]
