* “It seems no one can use dirty words, except Steven Spielberg.” Well, sh*t, I’ll be damned. Is Elena Kagan going to be the voice of reason in the Supreme Court’s FCC profanity case? [Los Angeles Times]
* Ken Cuccinelli filed an emergency motion to get Virginia’s primary ballots printed. You can’t wait three days for Perry’s hearing? It’s on Friday the 13th. You know how that’s going to go. [Bloomberg]
* The Tenth Circuit upheld a ruling to block an Oklahoma law barring the consideration of Sharia law in court decisions. If this pisses you off, go and watch Homeland. You’ll feel better. [MSNBC]
* Dewey want to join the Magic Circle? Bloody hell, of course! Clifford Chance has snagged two mergers and acquisitions partners from Dewey & LeBoeuf. [DealBook / New York Times]
* What will an LL.M. get you in today’s job market? Not a whole lot. And if you’re counting that extra year of loan debt as something of value, then you’re just a masochist. [National Law Journal]
* Heather Peters, the former lawyer suing Honda in small claims court, may be SOL because of a SOL issue. Stay tuned for the results at her second hearing later this month. [Huffington Post]
Kim Kardashian
* With AT&T’s T-Mobile deal falling apart, in-house lawyer Wayne Watts could be heard singing, “it’s my merger and I’ll cry if I want to,” before more whining to the FCC. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Build us a border fence, and then get the f**k over it. Arizona lawmakers are soliciting the public for donations to keep out the people who would work at low cost to build it. [New York Daily News]
* Ever wonder what’s preventing greater diversity in the law? Apparently the problem is pre-law counselors with advising skills that are crappier than minority LSAT scores. [National Law Journal]
* ‘Til death (and billable hours) do us part: British firms are paying for employees’ divorces. Biglawyers await the day this gets picked up America. [Press Association]
* The star of this year’s Black and Blue Friday was the not-so-wise Latina who decided it was a good idea to pepper-spray her Xbox competition. Best deal ever? No charges brought. [CNN]
* It looks like Kim Kardashian got her Christmas wish early this year. Her soon-to-be ex-husband will not be suing her for $10M over his portrayal on her new reality show. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Isn’t it annoying when the YouTube video you’re watching just stops loading right in the middle? Or when your Skype connection suddenly starts sucking in the middle of a video conversation?
Well, it turns out that in Europe, sometimes stuff like that doesn’t happen accidentally. Internet Service Providers intentionally “throttle” certain kinds of web traffic.
The European Union is sick of this. On Tuesday, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda threatened new legislation and public humiliation for companies that don’t allow consumers easy access to a free and open Internet. That’s right, kids; the net neutrality debate is hot in Europe, too….
Continue reading “Just Like Us, Europe Isn’t Sure How to Handle Net Neutrality”
Ted Cruz
A new year, a new job. That seems to be the thinking of many within the legal profession, based on the proliferation of professional moves we have to report (and not just out of Howrey).
We’ll start with one move that’s aspirational rather than actual. Legal and political superstar Ted Cruz — the Morgan Lewis partner who heads the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, and who was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past 25 years — will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the good senatrix Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Check out the announcement on his website, or read this BLT post.
Like many lawyers turned politicians, including our current president, the 40-year-old Cruz is a Harvard Law grad (and one of The Elect — Rehnquist / OT 1996). Graduates of HLS’s rival to the south, Yale Law School, tend to take more quirky paths.
Yul Kwon
That brings us to the second move of the day. YLS grad Yul Kwon — a former Second Circuit clerk and McKinsey consultant, the first Asian-American winner of Survivor, and one of People’s “sexiest men alive” (in 2006) — has left the Federal Communications Commission. Kwon served as deputy chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau at the Commission.
Instead of working at the FCC, Kwon, 35, will be regulated by it: he’s going to be the host of a new television series on PBS, America Revealed (which sounds pretty cool). Read more from the FCC (press release), Bloomberg, and the Washington Post.
More moves — a Cravath partner’s jump over to Wall Street, and the defection of many McDermott energy lawyers to Cadwalader — after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Legal Celebrities on the Move
(Including the energy lawyers going from MWE to CWT.)“
Reed E. Hundt, who served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997, will be joining Skadden Arps. He most recently served as a senior advisor on information industries to McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm. (For a more detailed description of Reed Hundt’s illustrious career — Yale College ’69, Yale Law School ’74, partnership at Latham & Watkins, etc. — see the biography on his personal website.)
Hundt made the announcement this morning at the YLS alumni reunion, where he was serving on a panel on the regulatory process. Professor Thomas Merrill, moderator of the panel, introduced Hundt as a senior adviser to McKinsey. Hundt interjected to note that he’s moving to Skadden — and joked that this was a good opportunity to plug his new practice. He didn’t specify which office he’ll be based out of, but we’re assuming D.C.
It doesn’t seem that the move was public before this morning (at least based on Google News, a search of the Skadden website, and a search of Law.com). But it is now.
Congratulations and good luck, Chairman Hundt!
Alumni Weekend – Schedule of Events [Yale Law School]
We know you can’t use the f-word as a verb or noun on television. Just to be clear, you can’t use it as an adjective either. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Supreme Court is giving tentative approval to government regulation of the use of even a single curse word on live television.
Somehow, this is all Bono’s fault. Bloody hell.
But the SCOTUS ruling wasn’t a complete loss for free speech advocates:
But the court, in a 5-4 decision Tuesday, is refusing to pass judgment on whether the Federal Communications Commission’s “fleeting expletives” policy is in line with First Amendment guarantees of free speech. The justices say a federal appeals court should weigh the constitutionality of the policy.
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority.
Court Upholds FCC ‘Fleeting Expletive’ Rule [Wall Street Journal]
* The Volokh Conspiracy wins Best Law Blog. Congrats to the VC crew! [The Weblog Awards 2006 via 2nd Place Winner How Appealing]
* F&@% you, FCC!. [CNN.com]
* And in my-home-state-is-not-completely-backward news… [Jurist]
* If he sold it, Ron Goldman wants the money. [AP via FindLaw]
* Internet illiterate NY Mom, who doesn’t know “a kazaa from a kazoo,” is dropped from recording industry’s suit against her children. [AP via lexisONE]
* The FCC has eliminated the requirement for Amateur Radio Operators to know Morse code. That is the actual headline of this blog entry, for those of you who complain of the wasted five seconds it takes to click on a link, only to realize you were completely misled. [Jim N Texas!]
* I never understood the reality of a record being “sealed” anyway… If that hilarious yet illegal adolescent escapade is in an official record, sealed or not, it’s not going anywhere. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via How Appealing]
* Do not worry, I will not indulge in any sue/Sioux homonym fun. For the record, it’s absurd that we haven’t ridden ourselves of such disrespectful team names, nicknames and logos that also recall a less-than-glorious history. [AP via Yahoo! News]
* The Italian legislature has decided average consumers/modelling agencies/fashion folks can’t decide for themselves what is or is not attractive, thus depriving underweight 16-year-olds from achieving world domination. [Reuters via MSNBC]
* Authorities have a suspect in custody for the Ipswich prostitute murders. So if you’re a prostitute in Ipswich, you can breathe a sigh of relief. (At least with respect to a serial killer; we hate to break it to you, but you don’t exactly have the safest job in the world.) [The Times]
Near the top of the NYT “Most E-Mailed Articles” list sits a piece entitled So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet. And, oddly enough, there’s a legal angle to the story:
At the end of [a recent] skit [on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien"], in a line Mr. O’Brien insists was ad-libbed, he mentioned… www.hornymanatee.com.
There was only one problem: as of the taping of that show, no such site existed. Which presented an immediate quandary for NBC: If a viewer were somehow to acquire the license to use that Internet domain name, then put something inappropriate on the site, the network could potentially be held liable for appearing to promote it.
In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy, NBC bought the license to hornymanatee.com, for $159, after the taping of the Dec. 4 show but before it was broadcast.
Congratulations to NBC on its latest acquisition. If you develop any comedic material inspired by the meme of the horny manatee, please email it to conan AT hornymanatee DOT com.
So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet [New York Times]
HornyManatee.com [official site]
Video footage? Still photographs? We’d like to see the record on appeal in this case:
Lawyers for CBS Corp. argued Monday that singer Janet Jackson’s breast-baring at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 was unintended, took place without the knowledge of the network, and should not be considered indecent.
CBS is suing the Federal Communications Commission in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, challenging a $550,000 fine issued by the agency over the stunt, which created a national furor.
Third Circuit clerks: lucky dogs. They get to ogle celebrity breasts and call it “research.”
(Yeah, this news is several days old. But it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, so the bar is set pretty low. Our posts today are going to be even more random than usual.)
Update: The Third Circuit subsequently vacated the FCC fine.
CBS Suing FCC Over Janet Jackson’s Boobgate [Access Hollywood]
Howard Bashman offers a preview of the upcoming Supreme Court Term at Law.com. And based on the cases on the oral argument calendar so far, October Term 2006 isn’t looking terribly exciting. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Here’s our irreverent digest of Bashman’s lengthier analysis:
Lopez v. Gonzales, Toledo-Flores v. United States: Question presented: What kind of drug crime can get a guy booted back to Mexico? (If this sounds familiar, it should; every Term the Court has some Latino-surnamed case raising a variant of this issue.)
Ornaski v. Belmontes: Question presented: How early in the Term can Judge Reinhardt get reversed?
MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. Question presented: In order for a patent licensee to litigate the validity of a patent, can they merely flip the patent holder the bird, or do they actually have to go ahead and breach the license agreement?
BP America Production Co. v. Watson: Question presented: Have you ever heard of the federal Mineral Leasing Act — and if so, do you care? (We didn’t think so.)
More case summaries, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Upcoming SCOTUS Term: More of the Same”
