* Our Law School Dean hotties contest is now underway. Vote on the women here, the men here, and the alternate male candidates here.

* Do you know anyone who is currently clerking for Justice Alito? If so, we'd like to hear from you.

* If you're in law for the money, we recommend Korean transactional practice, at a big firm. You'll probably make more than you would as a solo practioner or small firm lawyer.

* If money is your top priority, then don't bother with the law; go work for Goldman Sachs . Partners there take home an average of $7 million a year. And still find time to beat up on small businessmen.

* ATL readers: Not as rich as Goldman Sachs partners. But pretty damn smart.

* Creative ways to get yourself criminally charged: (1) walk around your office buck naked; or (2) walk out of a restaurant without paying (after concluding that your seafood pasta dish was short on the seafood).

* But protesting while topless, that's okay.

* Lori Alvino and Matthew McGill: We are not worthy. The happy couple tied the knot earlier this month. Their wedding guests included two sitting Supreme Court justices, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit, and two SCOTUS short-listers. (Yes, we've categorized this under Nauseating Things.)

* Some dispatches from the New Yorker Festival: Justice Breyer, with Jeffrey Toobin; legendary criminal defense lawyer Gerald Shargel, along with other experts on the Mafia; and some guy named Jon Stewart.

* There's a new kid on the ATL block: Meet Stella Q. Welcome, Stella!

We attended several other New Yorker Festival events in addition to Justice Breyer's talk with Jeffrey Toobin (which we discussed here and here). One of these was a fascinating panel about representations of the Mafia in popular culture, entitled TV, Movies, and the Mob.

The panel, moderated by Jeffrey Goldberg, was star-studded. It included the magnificent Lorraine Bracco, aka Dr. Jennifer Melfi of "The Sopranos"; Paul Haggis, who won the best screenplay Oscar for "Crash" (and is working on a new TV series about the criminal underworld); Harold Ramis, director and co-writer of "Analyze This" and "Analyze That"; and Frank Vincent, who plays Phil Leotardo on "The Sopranos."

But the panelist of the greatest interest to us was a lawyer: Gerald Shargel, one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the country. Shargel has represented numerous high-profile defendants, including the Mafia boss John Gotti and various members of the Gambino family. As Goldberg drily described Shargel during the introductions: "He's the sort of lawyer you got to when you have BIG problems. Not just regular-size problems...."

A more detailed discussion of the panel, after the jump.