* Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried by a military commission at Guantanamo, but John Yoo is still not satisfied. He wants to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial proof that the Obama Administration can conduct terror trials successfully. Obviously, the elegant solution is to make KSM live in Yoo’s basement until one of them begs for an impartial arbiter. [Ricochet]
* If you ever read the warnings on your prescriptions, I think this is what you’ll see (by Jeremy Blachman). [McSweeney]
* There is an epidemic of people slamming automobiles into legal structures. [ABA Journal]
* Stephen Colbert interviews a former Cravath attorney, Roy Den Hollander. I wish Colbert would do a “better know a law firm” series. [The Careerist]
* From Skadden to Dickstein Shapiro to stay-at-home mom. [But I Do Have A Law Degree...]
* This April Fool’s Blawg Review is no joke. [Fools in the Forest via Blawg Review]
* How would you describe a typical day in the life of an associate? (Hint: it’s a trick question.) [YouTube via Schola2Juris]
That’s the question essentially posed in a barn-burning op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, written by Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn. Burlingame is the sister of Charles Burlingame III, pilot of the American Airlines plane that was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11; Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Burlingame and Joscelyn begin their opinion piece, Gitmo’s Indefensible Lawyers, by discussing Paul Weiss partner Julia Tarver Mason (who, by the way, is rather attractive; she looks like a cross between Kristin Davis, aka Charlotte from Sex and the City, and Andie MacDowell). The WSJ op-ed writers claim that Mason improperly used “legal mail” — “privileged lawyer-client communications that are exempt from screening by security personnel” — to provide one of her clients, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, with inflammatory propaganda from Amnesty International (a brochure, written in Arabic, depicting alleged abuse against Arabs and Muslims by Americans).
Writes one of several ATL readers who brought this article to our attention:
Wow. I didn’t know that Paul Weiss was involved in such potentially dubious acts.
But did Paul Weiss actually do anything wrong? Let’s discuss….
Continue reading “Is Paul Weiss in Bed With Terrorists?
Leading law firm attacked in controversial WSJ op-ed.“
* Good news: There’s going to be lots of in-house hiring. Bad news: It’ll probably lead to Biglaw firing. [Corporate Counsel]
* Sounds like this guy was thinking with his cock instead of his noggin. [Courthouse News Service]
* Liz Cheney attacks Eric Holder’s “Department of Jihad” for harboring terrorist sympathizers, i.e., attorneys who argued on behalf of Guantanamo detainees before the Supreme Court. [True/Slant]
* I like old people. Elie doesn’t. After we debated law firms’ mandatory retirement policies, we polled you; Elie’s position is winning with a narrow lead. Ashby Jones is on my side when it comes to law firm partners, but thinks federal judges should get booted at 85. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Early birds get the worm. Late birds get jail time? [Royal Oak Daily Tribune]
* Beware the overeager paralegal. [Boston Globe]
* Former AIG general counsel Anastasia Kelly quit after the U.S. pay czar insisted on pay limits for the financial giant. Now, she’s going to check out the merit-based model at DLA Piper. [Business Week]
* Hurt, indeed. The staff seargeant who inspired the Playboy article that inspired Hurt Locker’s screenplay has filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit for misappropriation of name and likeness; invasion of privacy; breach of contract; infliction of emotional distress; fraud; and negligent misrepresentation. [The Wrap]
The rumors circulated back in August, but now it looks like it’s finally happening. From Marc Ambinder, shortly before 11 on Thursday night:
Sources in government say that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has decided to resign, and that the president’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer, will take his place. A formal announcement is slated next week, though word might drop tomorrow.
Looks like that announcement is getting sped up. More after the jump.
UPDATE: Greg Craig’s resignation letter, also after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Greg Craig Out as White House Counsel, Bob Bauer In”
* At the Supreme Court, much ado about a cross. [Washington Post (Robert Barnes); Washington Post (Dana Milbank)]
* Former Heller Ehrman partners deny that the firm was insolvent in 2007. [Am Law Daily]
* The new Honduran government, which came to power through a coup, has hired lawyers and law firms — including Lanny Davis, who recently moved from Orrick to McDermott — to defend its legitimacy. [New York Times]
* And there may be more work for antitrust lawyers, thanks to a new Justice Department invesitgation of IBM. [Reuters]
* Key Democratic lawyers agree to allow Guantanamo detainees to be transferred to the U.S. for trial. [Washington Post]
* Prosecutors drop one victim from the case, but Judge Herman “Who Needs A Spanking?” Thomas still faces charges dozens of counts related to 14 other victims. [CNN]
* No, it’s not your imagination: Gov. Jon Corzine’s campaign commercials are making fun of former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (pictured) for being fat. (Disclosure: We worked as an AUSA under Christie from 2003 until 2006.) [New York Times]
We like to highlight examples of Biglaw associates who get to do especially interesting or high-profile work. E.g., Lindsay Harrison, the Jenner & Block associate who argued a case — and won — before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Most lawyers tuned in to Congress yesterday were listening to Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings (even if day 4 was less than thrilling). But over on the House side, one young lawyer was talking rather than listening. Jason Pinney (pictured), a (rather handsome) sixth-year associate at Bingham McCutchen, got to testify before lawmakers.
Pinney addressed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, specifically, the Subcommittee on International Organization, Human Rights and Oversight. He spoke about his work as part of a Bingham legal team representing a group of Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay. The Bingham lawyers obtained the release of two Uighurs in 2006 and four more Uighurs last month.
(As explained by the AP, “[t]he Uighurs, a Turkic minority from China’s far west, were sent to the U.S. facility in Cuba after their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year that they were not enemy combatants.” Oops!)
Congrats to the Bingham lawyers on their successful representation of their clients — and to Pinney on his congressional testimony. To download a copy of the testimony, click here.
Today in Congress: July 16, 2009 [Washington Post]
Lawmakers want investigation into Uighurs at Gitmo [AP]
Jason S. Pinney [Bingham McCutchen]
Pinney Testimony [PDF]
* Republicans slam Obama for his “empathy” standard for his SCOTUS nominee, citing an earlier speech on the Senate floor emphasizing a different standard. [The Washington Post]
* Speaking of Obama, is he “the best lawyer to occupy the U.S. presidency since William Howard Taft”? [Foreign Policy]
* The Yankees held a moot court in a room off the clubhouse. Would you want to face a jury of Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon? [The New York Times]
* The Justice Department has arranged for the first Guantanamo inmate to be tried in a New York court. [The Washington Post]
* Shuttered Chrysler dealers may have a tough time fighting their closures in court, due to the freedom that bankruptcy laws give courts to tear up contracts. [The Wall Street Journal]
* Immigrants are being deported in the middle of their court cases. [The Los Angeles Times]
* A word of advice to the new summer associates: Paralegals can’t be trusted. [Legal Intelligencer]
* SCOTUS dismissed the lawsuit that sought to punish top Bush officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, for detaining Muslims that were not involved in 9-11. [Christian Science Monitor]
* Military commission trials for Guantanamo detainees present many of the same challenges that the Bush administration faced, in spite of Obama’s facelift. [New York Times]
* The White House passed on an opportunity to bring a case involving gays in the military to the Supreme Court. Are they stalling and playing politics or are they right to say that the law should be changed in the legislature and not the courts? [Wall Street Journal (subscription)]
* What do potential SCOTUS nominees and ambulance chasers have in common? Uh, hopefully nothing…[Esquire]
* The court will hear a case against Sarbanes-Oxley in the fall term–is this the time to question too much oversight? [Washington Post]
* SCOTUS will look at the separation of church and state when they decide whether “a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.” [The Los Angeles Times]
* Lawyers say Madoff must have had help with his Ponzi scheme. [Bloomberg]
* Attorney General Eric Holder visited Guantanamo yesterday to see what is needed to close the prison. [The Associated Press]
* Meanwhile, a Pentagon official who inspected Guantanamo at Obama’s request is under fire from human rights activists for filing a report (which declares Gitmo humane) that is little more than good public relations for the administration. [The New York Times]
* What do you do when your boss gets indicted for securities fraud? You get another job. A team of seven bankruptcy lawyers left Dreier LLP for Epstein Becker Green. [EBG]
* A federal judge encouraged the Obama administration to decide whether to keep pursuing a case against 11 Vietnam War Veterans accused of trying to overthrow Laos’s communist government. [The Associated Press]
* Judge says: UBS must respond to the U.S. lawsuit seeking disclosure of 52,000 names of people who allegedly used Swiss accounts for tax evasion. [Bloomberg]
* Obama made the order to close Guantanamo within a year and former U.S. attorney David Iglesias has been hired to prosecute suspected terrorists held at the prison. [The Associated Press]
* Caroline Kennedy withdrew her Senate bid, so all that press was much ado about nothing. [The New York Times]
* The Chinese court sentenced two to death and one to a life prison sentence for their role in the tainted milk scandal. [The International Herald Tribune]
* SCOTUS refused to reconsider COPA Wednesday, and agreed that a Massachusetts family could sue the school district for sex discrimination.[The Associated Press]
* A Bank of America shareholder is accusing the bank of withholding information about Merrill Lynch’s $15.3 billion in losses before the shareholders voted on its acquisition. [Bloomberg]
* Civil rights leaders reflect on Martin Luther King. [ABC]
* The E.U. slammed Microsoft in an antitrust case. [The Washington Post]
* At least ten percent of the Guantanamo population has been deemed innocent, further calling the prison’s legitimacy in to question. [The New York Times]
* SCOTUS added 6 new cases to the docket Friday. Among their upcoming decisions, is whether states should be able to enforce their own non-discrimination lending laws against national banks. [The Washington Post]
* A San Francisco federal judge’s decision revives discussion about the legality of Bush’s wiretapping program. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Kirkland & Ellis will advise billionaire Paul Allen’s Charter Communications Inc. on potential bankruptcy. [Bloomberg.com]
* The Madoff case will garner lawyers lots of money in fees. “This is a financial 9/11 for our clients” said a Proskauer Rose litigation partner, licking his lips. [Bloomberg.com]
* Meanwhile, the U.S. is challenging the New York Judge’s decision to keep Madoff free on bail. [Bloomberg.com]
* Legislators in Maine are introducing a bill that would recognize same-sex marriage. [The Boston Globe]
* Obama and Biden will visit the Supreme Court this afternoon to meet with the Justices and get a tour. The elephant in the chambers: Obama and Biden voted against Roberts’ confirmation. [The Washington Post]
* Al Franken asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to let him get to the Senate without waiting for the resolution of opponent Norm Coleman’s legal challenge. His lawyers argue that Senator’s will need Franken for comic relief in the midst of our trying times (just kidding). [The Associated Press]
* Dozens of suspected terrorists released from Guantanamo have returned to terrorism says the Pentagon (gulp). [CNN]
* If you don’t have hooters you can’t work there. Hooters discriminates against men by refusing to hire them, a class action argues. Get over it sissies, and grow some boobs. [Courthouse News Service]
* In less pressing news…President-elect Barack Obama will issue an executive order to close Guantanamo within days of entering the White House according to senior advisors. [BBC News]
* Annoyed by your loud neighbors? At least you don’t live on 64th and Lexington next to Berny Madoff (well actually you probably do, I bet those apts. are sweet) His neighbors are incensed by yesterday’s decision to keep Madoff out on bail. Meanwhile, Fairfield Greenwhich has been sued three times by Madoff investors. [Bloomberg.com]
* I served my country, and all I got was special judicial help. An Illinois county is launching a special court to try veterans who commit non-violent crimes. [The Associated Press]
* Obama asked Congress for the second-half of the bailout money so he can stabilize the economy. [The International Herald Tribune]
* London-based law firm Linklaters was the leading law firm in mergers and acquisitions this year, taking the number 1 title from Sullivan and Cromwell. [Bloomberg]
* Former UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith says the UK should take in prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp if it will help the U.S. close the prison. [BBC News] Australia is not likely to take any prisoners says prime minister Kevin Rudd. The U.S. has asked a 100 countries to help clear the prison. [BBC News]
* Guinea pigs may smell bad but should you go to jail for owning one? Probationers in California could end up in jail for failing to report owning harmless pets like hamsters or goldfish thanks to a ruling by the California Supreme Court. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* A chinese court convicted 11 people for running a counterfeiting ring that “manufactured and distributed pirated Microsoft software throughout the world.” [The New York Times]
* Associates were not the only people in the legal community that were displeased with compensation this year. Federal judges lost their request to Congress for a pay raise to account for inflation. Chief Justice John Roberts says the frightfully low pay for judges threatens the quality of the court. [The Los Angeles Times]
* Life at law firms is not looking good for 2009, sorry to say. Lay-offs and lower bonuses will likely continue in the New Year. On the bright side–less work could help you meet that New Year’s resolution to go to the gym. [The Chicago Tribune]
* Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo Bay, but what is going to happen to the most dangerous inmates? Should they be released anyway? What legal basis can the U.S. use to keep them captive? [Bloomberg.com]
* Roman Polanski — the Academy Award-winning director of Rosemary’s Baby, who admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in Jack Nicolson’s house in 1977 — has asked a judge to dismiss his case. Polanski fled to London 30 years ago to avoid a prison sentence and has been a fugitive ever since. [Los Angeles Times]
* The Republican victory in Georgia of Senate incumbent Saxby Chambliss means that the Democrats will not have a flibibuster-proof majority of 60 in the Senate. The Democrats now hold 58 of the 100 senate seats. The Minnesota senate race is still undecided. [The Guardian]
* A Massachusetts couple’s suit over their public school’s response to their five-year old’s complaint of sexual harassment on her school bus has raised some interesting constitutional questions for the U.S. Supreme Court. [New York Times]
* The SCOTUS also sent a murder case back to the Ninth Circuit for reconsideration. The case involved a 16-year-old robber who killed a gas station attendant in a robbery that garnered him $150. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* For love of the law…and video games. A 26-year-old lawyer at Sheppard Mullin manages a 20-person team that deal with mergers, licensing contracts, and other legal transactions that fuel the game industry. Imagine how fun it would be to crash one of their office parties — there is nothing sexier than a lawyer who loves video games. [Los Angeles Times]
* Mukasey is going to be okay. He’s telling jokes and talking to the President. A GW doctor said “”The attorney general is conscious, conversant and alert.” [CNN]
* Do you feel sorry for sex offenders? The California 4th district court does. They ruled that Jessica’s law, a law that prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feel of a school or park constitutes “banishment under another name.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
* “A U.S.-triggered spate of global carmaker-bailout proposals may spark trade disputes over whether the Americans are unfairly trying to subsidize their industry or just making up for state aid foreign rivals already enjoy.”[Bloomberg]
* Meanwhile, the EU’s antittrust chief says the EU should resist an auto-industry bailout. [Bloomberg]
* On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the release of five Algerian prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [Los Angeles Times]
* If you’ve been following Proposition 8, you may want to watch an upcoming gay marriage case that will be coming before the Iowa Supreme Court. [Iowa City Press Citizen]
A clear winner emerged from the 2499 votes on ATL’s Tighty-Whities caption contest:
“And now my junior partner has something he’d like to say…”
The man in the photo is David Remes, a partner at Covington & Burling — but not for long, as reported by the Legal Times. From the WSJ Law Blog:
David Remes, who made Law Blog headlines last week for removing his pants at a news conference in Yemen, is leaving the firm, according to the Legal Times, which reported the news over the weekend. Remes will reportedly devote himself exclusively to human rights litigation.
Last week, we reported that Remes (Columbia, Harvard Law), who’s representing 15 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, removed his pants at a news conference in Yemen. Remes was attempting to demonstrate what he feels are the inappropriate body searches that detainees are undergoing several times per day.
“At the press conference in Yemen — this is a society where the rule of morality is so strict — I wanted to drive home the degree of humiliation that these searches cause by illustrating a typical body search,” Remes told the LB.
Biglaw doesn’t like seeing those kinds of briefs.
Remes Resigns from Covington & Burling [BLT]
David Remes, Who Dropped His Pants in Yemen, to Leave Covington [Wall Street Journal Law Blog]
Earlier: ‘Tighty-Whities’ Caption Contest Finalists
We’re currently running a caption contest for the photo at right. We’re not the only ones with an ongoing legally-themed caption contest. If one flips to the back of the current infamous New Yorker issue, the cartoon for their caption contest (Contest #153) is set in a courtroom. We’ll keep an eye on that contest, and issue an opinion on the finalists when they are announced.
We prefer not to give you the context for caption contest photos, but the background on this one is as exposed as the lawyer in the photo. It’s up on Yahoo! News, the WSJ Law Blog, and the ABA Journal, among other places. It got more publicity over the weekend, with the news that David Remes, the pants-dropping partner in the picture, is leaving Covington & Burling (as reported by the Legal Times; see also the WSJ, via New York magazine).
We’re pushing on with the contest, since we had over 200 entries. These are our finalists:
A. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief…”
B. “Million Dollar Pants Lawsuit: Part 2″
C. “Ya know, John, I think the school board had something else in mind when they asked for an assembly on the how the penal system works.”
D. “Having been found guilty of malpractice, the lawyer literally had his pants sued off.”
E. “Another unsuccessful effort to get ‘junk’ science before the jury.”
F. “And now my junior partner has something he’d like to say…”
G. “[Y]our honor, i thought you said you wanted to take a closer look at the briefs.”
H. “You think that jury was hung?”
I. “Counsel, the phrase ‘may it please the court’ is NOT a literal request.”
J. “Other Van Winkle Law Firm partners have expressed concern that Joe represented his favorite extracurricular activity a little too enthusiastically in his ‘Meet Joe’ bio photo.”
Earlier: ATL Caption Contest: Tighty-Whities
Here’s a quick follow-up to our prior coverage of the mysterious Under Armour briefs that somehow made their way into the hands, and onto the loins, of Guantanamo Bay detainees. From Reuters:
The U.S. military has ended an inquiry into who smuggled unauthorized underwear and a bathing suit to two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without learning the source of the contraband skivvies, an attorney said on Wednesday.
The investigators concluded more vigilance was needed to prevent contraband from entering the camp that holds 330 suspected al Qaeda operatives, said Capt. Pat McCarthy, the military’s chief lawyer for the detention operation at Guantanamo.
Is the inability to solve the Riddle of the Briefs a sad commentary on the state of military intelligence? Or is this perhaps a mystery that they didn’t want to be solved?
Mystery underwear stymies Guantanamo investigators [Reuters]
Earlier: Guantanamo Bay Perk Watch: Under Armor Briefs!
Life for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, while difficult, isn’t 100 percent grim. From yesterday’s Washington Post:
Undergarments from Under Armour, the sports apparel line, offer “all-day performance, delivered in a lightweight compression fit,” at least according to the company’ s promotional material. While “unprecedented” in its ability to deliver comfort, Under Armour underwear is not standard issue for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So when two men in detention there were found to possess the contraband briefs, the Navy attorney contacted their attorneys. One of the detainees in question is Shaker Aamer, whose release the British government wrote to request from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in August.
But before turning to the larger question of whether Aamer will stay or go, there’s the question of what he’s wearing. And as the recent exchange between the Navy lawyer and Aamer’s attorney Clive Stafford Smith illustrates, in the legal wrangling over detention, even details on intimates can lead to contentious debate…
You read excerpts from the hilarious correspondence, which showcase the dry British wit of Clive Stafford-Smith, over here.
But for those of you who like to look at original documents — and we know that, since you’re mostly lawyers, you love yourselves some primary docs — we’re pleased to present the complete correspondence (with original letterhead, signatures, etc.). Just click here (PDF). Enjoy!
Correspondence Between Staff Judge Advocate, U.S. Navy, and Clive A. Stafford-Smith [PDF]
An Incursion of Briefs at Guantanamo [Washington Post]
