The fact that they can’t get married in Texas is a legislative issue. It’s not really our issue.
–Paul Key, a Texas lawyer who successfully convinced a judge to enforce a “morality clause” in his client’s divorce decree barring his kids from visiting their mother because she’s unmarried and lives with her lesbian partner. If the couple could marry, the clause would not apply, but… Texas.
* Justin Bieber has apparently abandoned his 20-week-old monkey, Mally, after having her confiscated because he couldn’t comply with animal control laws in Germany. Now in a shelter somewhere in Germany, there’s one more lonely girl. [Lowering the Bar]
* Ann Althouse posted FOUR TIMES about Barack Obama’s umbrella over the weekend. Somebody is really putting off grading those papers. [Althouse]
* Alabama judge faces $25 million lawsuit alleging he improperly took a case from another judge and issued damaging rulings. This is the judge who ran against Chief Justice Roy “Don’t Remove the Ten Commandments From the Courthouse” Moore. The moral of the story is: don’t use the Alabama judicial system. [Legal Schnauzer]
* The FBI may be looking into whether lawyers conspired to have opposing counsel arrested on DUI charges by using a “comely paralegal” to get the lawyer drunk and then ask him to drive her home. [Tampa Bay Times]
* Statewide Virginia Republican candidates are no friends of the libertarian wing of the conservative movement. On the other hand, are there viable conservative candidates not named “Paul” that are friends of the libertarian wing of the conservative movement? [CATO at Liberty]
* The IRS scandal gets the SNL treatment courtesy of Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. Video after the jump…
So, you may recall that as a part of Judge Otis Wright’s Prenda sentencing, he ordered that a copy of the ruling be submitted in every other case involving Prenda:
For the sake of completeness, the Court requests Pietz to assist by filing a report, within 14 days, containing contact information for: (1) every bar (state and federal) where these attorneys are admitted to practice; and (2) every judge before whom these attorneys have pending cases.
In one Prenda case (involving AF Holdings again) in the Northern District of Georgia, the defendant, Rajesh Patel, and his lawyer, Blair Chintella, submitted Judge Wright’s ruling themselves to the court in the case. As pointed out by Fight Copyright Trolls, Prenda’s local counsel in Georgia, Jacques Nazaire has filed one of the most ridiculous filings we’ve ever seen yet in all of the Prenda filings. It argues that the court should not allow Judge Wright’s order to be entered into the docket because California recognizes gay marriage and Georgia does not. I’m not joking…
* “It’s a fine line society walks in trying to be fair.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke earlier this week on the perils of racial profiling with respect to the Chechen suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Were we fair here? [Associated Press]
* What keeps in-house counsel awake at night — aside from the tremendous piles of money they’re rolling around in? Apparently they’re expecting an “onslaught” of food labeling and data breach class actions. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* Susan Westerberg Prager, known for being the longest-serving dean ever at UCLA School of Law, will take up the deanship at another illustrious institution, Southwestern Law School. [National Law Journal]
* The February results for the New York bar exam are out, and with the highest number of test-takers ever, the pass rate was brutal. We may have more on this later. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Rhode Island just got a little more fabulous. The Ocean State legalized gay marriage yesterday, making it the tenth state to do so, and uniting New England in marriage equality for all. [Bloomberg]
* Back in December, we told you about an alleged “well-dressed” groper — an unemployed lawyer, as it were. Well, now there’s nothing alleged about it, because that guy just pleaded guilty. [New York Post]
Just married civil unioned!
* Underneath this jurist’s robe you’ll find a sling. Justice Stephen Breyer had to have shoulder replacement surgery this weekend thanks to his latest bike accident, but he’s expected to make a full recovery. [Associated Press]
* A Ninth Circuit judge has ruled that an assistant federal public defender and her wife are entitled to federal health benefits. Take that, DOMA. [Courthouse News Service]
* Judy Clarke, one of the nation’s best capital defense lawyers, will be joining Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s legal team. She’s pretty good at keeping people alive, but we’ll see how this one goes for her. [Bloomberg]
* The ABA may do away with faculty tenure requirements for accreditation. No security of position? It looks like there’s a storm coming, law professors, so go get your bread and milk! [National Law Journal]
* Prospective law students are being counseled to take advantage of the smaller applicant pool, but it won’t look so small when they can’t get jobs. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]
* “Gay marriage? Hell no, let’s make all marriages civil unions.” Minnesota senators want to put couples on an even playing field — one that isn’t recognized by the government. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
Justices Scalia and Thomas
The Supreme Court seems divided over same sex marriage. The liberal justices favor it, while the conservatives oppose any lifelong sacred union between two men — unless, of course, it’s Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
– Conan O’Brien, host of the White House Correspondents dinner, poking a bit of fun at one of the Supreme Court justices who was in attendance at the event.
* The National Labor Relations Board, now with fewer recess appointments! Partners from Arent Fox and Morgan Lewis were nominated to fill seats necessary for the board’s quorum. [National Law Journal]
* Shearman & Sterling seems to be bucking the Biglaw system. The firm is cutting pay for high earners and increasing it for lower-ranking attorneys. We’ll probably have more on this later today. [Reuters]
* Dentons (formerly known as SNR Denton) recently poached a six-partner team led by Stephen Hill from Husch Blackwell to bolster its white collar practice. Welkom too teh furm, guise! [Am Law Daily]
* “It is technically more legal to screw a walrus than to get gay married.” You know you live in a very sad place when not only do article headlines like this exist, but they’re also CORRECT. [Death and Taxes]
* An American Eagle pilot is facing attempted drunk flying charges. Yes, that’s a thing, but come on now, anyone who’s seen the movie Flight knows you can fly a plane while you’re wasted. [Bloomberg]
* Lindsay Lohan blew off a deposition in Los Angeles yesterday. Cut the girl some slack; she had to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman, which was way more important. [Contra Costa Times]
* Thieves made off with 5.5 tons of Nutella. Damn you Danny Ocean! [CBS News]
* Don’t try to play Baseketball in Canton, Ohio. [Legal Juice]
* The SEC finally allows companies to distribute disclosures via social media. Welcome to the 21st Century, SEC. [IT-Lex]
* Speaking of the SEC, Mary Jo White was confirmed by the Senate. [Fox Business]
* Chief Judge Alex Kozinski: “Can I get an oy vey up in here?” [COLLive]
* Kentucky is just all kinds of screwy. Lawyer jailed for not turning over documents/running drug ring. [AP]
* Energy law was number two in law firm activity this quarter. For the billionth quarter in a row, Third Amendment law failed to crack the top 10. [AOL Energy]
* Ha! “Thus, it seems that (as has so often occurred in IP law) the focus on the problems of copyright and patent has allowed trademark law to engage, unsupervised, in a great deal of mischief.” [Law of Fashion]
* Just a reminder: Legalizing gay marriage does not end discrimination. [National Law Journal]
* The Kardashians are suing their father’s widow for allegedly trying to exploit his diary — because the Kardashians object to anything exploitative. [Courthouse News Service]
* Judge Edward Korman ruled that the FDA must stop requiring those under 17 years old to present a prescription for the morning after pill. MTV’s programming executives plan to appeal. [Huffington Post]
* Wow. A partner at Alston & Bird decided to take to Facebook to troll a solo practitioner. Because that’s not douchey at all. [Rowland Legal]
* Do litigators really need instruction not to scream at witnesses? [Roll on Friday]
* A school in Massachusetts privatized school lunches, and then that company told its workers to dump the food of students who were in default on their lunch tickets. America! F**k Yeah! [Lawyers, Guns and Money]
* Illegalities sums up the malaise of being a Biglaw associate with this reblog. [Illegalities]
* Target learns the value of editing after labeling plus-sized dresses with the word “Manatee.” [Forbes]
* After the jump, watch Elie discuss his take on Democrats just coming around to supporting gay rights. Maybe McKayla Maroney rubbed off on Elie during their interview, because in this segment, he’s not impressed….
Who is the Judy Garland of Biglaw?
What makes someone a gay icon? I’m tempted to fall back on Justice Potter Stewart’s famous quotation: “I know it when I see it.”
But such instinctive judgments still rest upon criteria. Regarding gay icons, Wikipedia advises: “Qualities of a gay icon often include glamour, flamboyance, strength through adversity, and androgyny in presentation. Such icons can be of any sexual orientation or gender; if LGBT, they can be out or not. Although most gay icons have given their support to LGBT social movements, some have expressed opposition, advocating against a perceived homosexual agenda.’”
So you don’t have to be gay or pro-gay-rights to be a gay icon — which brings me to a partner I hereby dub the Judy Garland of Biglaw. She has a most interesting skeleton in her closet, which might explain her staunch opposition to gay marriage….
Continue reading “Cleta Mitchell of Foley & Lardner: An ‘Anti-Gay’ Gay Icon?”
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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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.
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