Harvard Law School

Law of Attraction: Meet Allison Leotta, Novelist and Federal Prosecutor

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I don’t want to step on Oprah’s toes, but I have a book recommendation for you: Law of Attraction. No, it has nothing to do with this law of attraction. Yes, you will enjoy it.

This Law of Attraction is a novel by Allison Leotta, a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. It’s a fun, fast-paced read; I could hardly put it down, finishing it in two sittings. I concur with the blurb by Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz: “I loved this novel. Law of Attraction is realistic, gritty, and filled with twists and turns. Allison Leotta’s female lawyer character is compelling and engaging. This is a great read for anyone who loves legal thrillers, cares about domestic violence, or wonders how lawyers can live with themselves.”

(Disclosure: I also enjoyed Law of Attraction because it contains an Above the Law cameo. After the protagonist, assistant U.S. attorney Anna Curtis, gets in trouble, her misadventures wind up on ATL (pp. 217-18). The novel even contains fictionalized comments from the peanut gallery of Above the Law commenters — which are hilarious.)

I spoke with Leotta recently, while she was in New York to meet with her agent and do a book reading. We discussed such subjects as why, and how, she wrote her novel; the Department of Justice review process for the book; how she juggles her day job as a prosecutor, her writing career, and being the mother to two kids; and her advice to lawyers who want to become writers.

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Harvard Club Rejects Eliot Spitzer (aka Client No. 9)

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Eliot Spitzer: Harvard Club reject

In April, we reported that Eliot Spitzer — former governor and attorney general of New York, until he resigned from office in the wake of a prostitution scandal — was applying for admission to the Harvard Club of New York. Spitzer graduated from Harvard Law School in 1984.

Well, the jury has reached a verdict for the ex-prosecutor — and the news for Spitzer is not good. His application was rejected earlier this year, according to an article by Sewell Chan and Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times.

So what did Spitzer, famously known as Client No. 9, have to say about his rejection?

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Harvard Law School Will Now Hide GPAs (Or At Least Force Employers to Buy a Calculator)

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Let’s close the loop on the latest changes to the Harvard Law School grading system. Last month, we reported on stealth grade reform at HLS. The school decided to attach numerical values to all of its grades — and place students numerical GPAs on their transcripts.

That was a big deal because Harvard made a big show of moving away from letter grading just last year. What’s the point of having no letter grades if your GPA can still be easily reduced to a four point scale?

Well, there is no point. And the latest changes confirm that the school’s experiment with no letter grades was just a useless and annoying show. The most recent changes will remove the GPA calculation from the students’ transcripts — but most employers should still be able to figure it out, provided they understand basic math…

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Green Day

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First, a couple of notable non-legal nuptials: Kelly McGillis (of Top Gun and Witness) married her long-time girlfriend. Short ceremony, long write-up.

There’s also perhaps the most painfully stylish wedding we’ve ever come across. The bride is the daughter of modernist architect Richard Meier, who keeps his homes “very relaxed and casual but everything has to be perfect” — “[e]ven the Snapple bottles are lined up perfectly in the pantry.” (Oh . . . so not really relaxed and casual at all.) Watch the slideshow of the uber-posh wedding, and take note of those origami flowers; you’ll be seeing poorly executed versions in weddings near you for the next few years.

Now, our legal eagle couples. Here are the finalists:

1. Nicole Moen and Michael Skoglund

2. Jennifer Ain and Russell Lippman

3. Anne Green and Leonard Braman

Marvel at these couples’ résumés, after the jump.

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Greg Giraldo, Comedian and Former Lawyer, Dead at 44

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The news has been all over the place over the past 20 hours, but it seems like a lot of people want to talk about the passing of Greg Giraldo. The comedian died yesterday. TMZ reported that he died of an apparent drug overdose.

What many people didn’t know was that before his comedy career, Giraldo graduated from Harvard Law School and was a lawyer at Skadden.

UPDATE: Lat here. Giraldo also graduated from my alma mater, Regis High School. I’ve heard from a number of fellow Regians who knew him at Regis and/or Columbia; they describe him as a great guy. (Speaking of Regis, I hope to see some of you at the Regis Bar Association reception next month, on October 19.)

Apparently this biographical information has surprised many people, to the point that we’ve received a number of emails asking us if it’s true. Is it that hard to believe that an HLS grad and Skadden associate decided to do something radically different with his life?

I knew about Giraldo’s past, even though he never really talked about it…

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Harvard Law School to Stealth Grade Reform

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Last year, Harvard Law School abandoned letter grading and went to a High Pass/Pass/Low Pass/Fail system. The news was greeted with much fanfare, as it seemed like HLS was trying to become a kinder, gentler academic environment — one that wouldn’t be dominated by cutthroat competition to beat the curve. You know, something like a mega-Yale.

But it appears that soft grading just didn’t appeal to the lords of HLS. This semester, a more traditional grading scale is back. The letter grades are still gone, but now the grading distinctions at Harvard Law will conform to the tyranny of numbers. The Harvard Law Record reports that students will receive a point value for each grading distinction — five points for each Dean’s Scholar Prize credit, four for each Honors credit, three for per Pass credit, two for a Low Pass credit, and zero for a Failing grade — and those numerical values will be transmitted to employers.

And unlike last year’s grade reform, which was wildly publicized and discussed both inside and outside HLS, students only learned of this new grading system if they bothered to read the student handbook….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Spreading the Love

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We’ve decided to tweak the format of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch a bit. Beginning today, we’ll be bringing you all the lawyer weddings featured in the New York Times.

This, admittedly, is the kind of everyone’s-a-winner feel-goodism that we normally abhor. Alas, to be frank, we’re sick of the constant death threats from couples who don’t make our column. Don’t worry — we’ll keep the focus on our brilliant featured couples, as always. But starting with today’s installment, you’ll also be able to check out the honorable mentions (and others) at the end of each post.

Also, congratulations to Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado, who edged out Caroline Lopez and Nicholas Miranda in our last reader poll for Couple of the Week.

This week’s featured couples are:

1. Meredith Osborn and Christiaan Highsmith

2. Claire McCusker and Michael Murray

3. Emily Keifer and Jordan Barry

More about these couples — and a list of all the NYT’s recent legal eagle matings — after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Badgered

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Before we go hard-core with the lawyerly nuptials, we must mention a couple of recent Vows columns that are worth a look. First, this offbeat pair had three children together before finally deciding, at the ages of 63 and 39, to tie the knot. And the geriatric groom sounds way too horny: “I lusted after Nina, and still do, in a very primal way.” Yuck. If you’re over 40 and not John Slattery, Pierce Brosnan, or Captain Jean-Luc Picard, we don’t want to hear about your primal lust.

Then there’s this uncomfortable write-up, in which the couple cheerfully airs a story that makes the groom sound like a massive cad at best (he “shacked up” with someone else while she was studying abroad and failed to mention that detail in the cheesy love letters he was sending her). “I’m still pretty incredulous that she’s with me,” says the wannabe-player groom. So are we.

On to this week’s slate of newlyweds, which we believe sets a new record for number of Harvard and Yale degrees:

1. Anne Catherine Savage and Zachary Podolsky

2. Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado

3. Caroline Lopez and Nicholas Miranda

4. Alexandra Denniston and Caleb Schillinger

Read more about these couples — and vote for your favorite — after the jump.

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Date Harvard Men Without Streetwalking Down Mass Ave.

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You know the old joke: How many Harvard men does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one; he holds the bulb in place while the world revolves around him.

Many a Harvard man takes that approach to household maintenance, professional endeavors, and even dating. You’re not going to believe this, but some people who graduate from Harvard are real douchebags. Some of them think that just by dint of having gone to Harvard, people will love them, respect them, and shower them with jobs and money. They even make up special phrases for mentioning where they go/went to school, like “dropping the H-Bomb.”  Good God, get over yourselves. I’m sure glad my own blazing Harvard credentials, which I keep in special pouch around my neck, have never once prevented me from interacting with the little people in a way that makes them feel like we are all the same species. I’m magnanimous like that.

In all seriousness, there are of course enormous, self-important jackasses who graduate from Harvard, but there are also more than enough people who gladly buy into the Harvard mystique. Now there’s a dating site dedicated to bringing the Crimson and their sycophants together. As they say in Wicked, “they deserve each other.”

Let’s take a closer look….

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Jamaican Me Crazy: Harvard Law Hottie Wins Jamaican Beauty Pageant

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Poor Dalmatians....

It looks like Wyclef Jean can’t run for president of Haiti. But elsewhere in the Caribbean, visitors from the mainland are being welcomed with open arms. A reader at Harvard Law School reports: “A member of the Class of 2010 was just crowned Miss Jamaica World 2010. Not sure if she had an offer or is deferred or what.”

(Although she’s a freakin’ beauty queen, note how the tipster immediately turned to discussion of her law firm employment status. Welcome to HLS!)

The news is true: Chantal Raymond, who graduated from Harvard Law a few months ago, is the new Miss Jamaica World. As noted in the Jamaica Observer, Raymond will represent the island nation at the Miss World competition later this year, in Sanya, China.

Yes, we know: pics or it didn’t happen.

We have the pictures. And yes, of course the pageant included a swimsuit competition….

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Lawyer of the Gay, Er, Day: Ken Mehlman

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Ken Mehlman: Yup, he's gay.

Back in June, we wrote about the fabulous Chelsea apartment snapped up by prominent Republican lawyer Ken Mehlman. Although his résumé is strewn with achievements — he’s a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School (just like President Obama), a former partner at Akin Gump, and a current executive vice-president at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (ka-ching!) — Mehlman is most well-known as former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Because Mehlman settled in Chelsea — and took up residence in the Chelsea Mercantile building, home to such A-list gays as Marc Jacobs and Lance Bass — we couldn’t resist a little innuendo. Despite his status as a leading official of the Republican Party, which hasn’t always been down with the gays, Mehlman has long been dogged by rumors that he is a homosexual.

Now we don’t have to worry about Mehlman suing us for defamation — and litigating the interesting issue of whether calling someone a big old nelly queen constitutes defamation per se in New York. Mehlman just publicly admitted that he’s gay, in an interview with Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic. (The publication of the interview may have been accelerated, thanks to a nudge from Mike Rogers of BlogActive.)

Let’s take a closer look at the pink elephant in the room….

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The Real World: Corporate Law Edition

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I have been writing for Above the Law since March of 2008. This Monday, though, will be my last day as a daily contributor. I am heading over to Forbes to write about privacy, law, social media, and technology (aka The Not-So Private Parts). For those who will miss my daily presence on ATL, please feel free to check me out there, or to friend me on Facebook, or to follow me on Twitter. I’ll also be writing a weekly column for Above the Law.

Lat, Elie, and I are going to be getting drinks after work at The Ninth Ward to help numb the separation pain. Please feel free to join us if you’re in New York. Though only if you’re not a weirdo. (You know who you are; but to clarify, weirdos are not those who would show up, but are among those who voted this up.) We’ll be there from six to eight p.m.

As many of you know, unlike my co-editors, I’m not a lawyer. I’m just a little journalist. I appreciate that, despite this moral and educational failing on my part, all of you lawyers and law students have put up with my writing about your profession. Professors Lat and Mystal have offered excellent legal lessons, as have the real law professors I have had the pleasure of interviewing. Plus, I date spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out with lawyers outside of work, and so have a solid appreciation for the terror of living under the reign of the billable hour.

I also did some hourly billing myself way back when; my first job out of college in 2003 was as a paralegal in the D.C. office of Covington & Burling, an experience that convinced me not to apply to law school (despite having rocked the LSAT). During my first summer in D.C., I lived in a five-bedroom apartment in Van Ness with four summer associates — from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Georgetown. We were five corporate law strangers picked to live in a house (vacated by the Georgetown law student’s roommates for the summer). That was where I picked up some useful stereotypes about students from these elite law schools. I came away from the summer with a strong dislike for HLS kids…

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