As Clarence Darrow once said, "Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet." Indeed, many lawyers harbor frustrated creative ambitions. Sure, they went to law school, and now they're out practicing. But they could have been novelists, or painters, or pastry chefs.

Or successful jazz musicians. From NJ.com:

Joshua Redman is quite the brainy guy, who very easily could have been some hot-shot attorney -- or judge, perhaps?-- living lavishly in New York City.

But the music bug took a big bite out of the summa cum laude Harvard grad, who scored a perfect 180 on his Law School Admissions Test to earn entrance into Yale Law School.

"I had moved to New York City and was on my way to law school," Redman says. "But during that year I had this incredible opportunity to play with some great musicians. The encouragement and support I got from them motivated me to continue. So, I decided not to go to law school."

And he's never looked back:

Almost 16 years later, it isn't a decision the acclaimed saxophonist has regretted.

"I probably wouldn't have been such a good lawyer," he jokes. "At the time, I essentially went to law school because, like others, I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do."

We can relate -- and we're guessing that many of you can, too. Law school was once described to us by Tony Kronman, then the Dean of Yale Law School, as "the great American default option." He added that law school is a popular path for smart and motivated young people "who can't stand the sight of blood."

So why did you go to law school? Are the reasons that you articulated for going -- in, say, your law school application essays -- ones that continue to motivate you today? Are you happy with your decision?

He's smart enough to skip law, and choose music [Hudson County Now via NJ.com]
Do You Believe in Life After Law? [New York Observer]

We apologize for the tardiness of this edition of LEWW. We've been in the thick of a real estate transaction and various related matters, and we haven't been able to devote our usual amount of attention and energy to wedding criticism. But fear not -- the nuptial machine grinds on, and we have three impressive couples to examine this week:

1. Catherine Holahan and Christopher Murphy

2. Susan Green and Adam Greene

3. Melanie Forbes and Jason Goins

More about our featured couples, after the jump.

We're bummed that we can't write this week about the groom who arranges music for Yo-Yo Ma and Jay-Z. Or the one who's associate counsel for the NBA.

But lawyer-lawyer couples abound, and we know those are the pairings ATL readers crave. Here are our finalists:

1. Lisa Kutlin and Alexander Goldenberg

2. Shauna Burgess and Jonathan Friedman

3. Elizabeth Frieze and Matthew Prasse

More about these legal lovebirds, after the jump.

You know the drill. We're still taking summer associate stories; if you have one to share, please review our submission guidelines, and then email us.

Here's the latest:

1. Superhero name: The Vanimal
2. Special power(s): Ridiculous self-aggrandizement; creeping out female colleagues; writing erotic correspondence.
3. Summered: Balch & Bingham, "several summers back."
4. Claim to fame: From our tipster:

"The Vanimal was an odd duck from [law school redacted] who liked to talk about himself in the third person and refer to himself as 'The Vanimal.' E.g., 'the Vanimal doesn't drink' -- which was pretty out of place at a traditional southern firm. [Ed. note: The origins of this bizarre 'Vanimal' moniker will have to remain obscure; to say more would risk revealing his identity.]

"In addition to calling himself the Vanimal and speaking in the third person, he would make a V with his fingers -- like a peace sign, but palm inwards -- which he held up while he talked."

You're dying to find out what the erotica writing is about, right?

Find out, after the jump.

We're posting this on Friday the 13th -- hardly anyone's lucky day. But last Saturday was 7-7-07, and couples all over the world rushed to the altar (and the gambling tables) to take advantage of the auspicious date.

And sevens weren't the only thing we saw multiples of in the NYT weddings section. We've got four grooms this week, and all four are named John!

If that gives you chills, just wait till you check out their credentials.

Here are this week's finalists:

1. Zina Gelman and John Bash III

2. John Alexander and John Lipsey

3. Anne Ho and John Griggs III

More on these couples, after the jump.

[Bonus wedding note: Check out this correction and ponder how annoyed this bride is.]

LEWW is delighted to bring you the first all-Jewish edition of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch! The MOT really represented this week. Mazel Tov to all the happy couples and their proud parents!

Here are the finalists:

1. Rebecca Kristol and Elliot Silver

2. Talia Milgrom-Elcott and Aaron Dorfman

3. Lisa Gordon and Michael Kanner

More about these couples, after the jump.

Once again, the wedding pages were chock-full of lawyers last weekend. Without further ado (because LEWW has other things to post today), here are your candidates for Couple of the Week:

1. Jenny Huang and Roger Hong

2. Melissa Epstein and Jason Mills

3. Celeste Sharpe and Peter Brown

Continue reading about these couples, after the jump.

Our condolences to Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. Dean Kagan, who was under consideration for the president of Harvard University, was passed over for the job in favor of historian Drew Gilpin Faust (aka "Dr. Faust").

But maybe it's for the best. As Harvard president, it can be tough not to make enemies. See, e.g., Larry Summers.

(Unless you want to be kinda boring and ineffectual. See, e.g., Neil Rudenstine.)

And enemies are not what a possible Supreme Court nominee wants. Especially a nominee who, like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, generally plays well with others -- even those who hold divergent ideological views.

From a Princeton tipster:

The most recent edition of the Princeton Alumni Weekly has an interesting tidbit about Anne-Marie Slaughter and Elena Kagan (who have creepily similar resumes):

"'Elena has an extraordinary talent for not making enemies,' says Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, who became friendly with Kagan when both were Sachs Scholars at Oxford (Kagan coxed the boat in which Slaughter rowed), and later taught with her at Chicago and Harvard law schools."

How hot is that??? Perhaps you could create a "fantasy legal academic crew team," with, e.g., Charles Fried as stroke (naturally -- he's quite the gym bunny) and Bruce A. in bow. Think of the Photoshop head-pasting potential!

We are well aware of Dean Kagan's hotness (since she was nominated in our law school deans hotties contest). But we had no idea she was also an athlete.

How neat! Dean Kagan, you can yell "Stroke!" at us anytime.

A ‘Rebellious Daughter’ to Lead Harvard [New York Times]

Lots of interesting moves, both actual and rumored, to report upon today.

Possible promotion:

* Elena Kagan, the popular (and hot) dean of Harvard Law School, is being considered for the presidency of Harvard University.

In government:

* New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is on a hiring spree (just like his successor as AG, Andrew Cuomo). Lloyd Constantine, who currently heads a 40-lawyer firm, will serve as a senior advisor to Spitzer. Debra Bachrach, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, will direct the state's Medicaid program. Joseph Baker, bureau chief for health care under AG Spitzer, will take over as deputy secretary for health and human services.

"You're Fired":

* Former Apple in-house lawyer Wendy Howell was discreetly discharged, late last year, for her role in the options backdating fiasco.

Reunited and it feels so good:

* Structured finance lawyers William Cullen, Janet Barbiere and Bola Oloko, to Thacher Proffitt & Wood, from Sidley & Austin. The trio left Thacher Proffitt together in 1997 (back when Barbiere and Oloko were still associates; they were recently promoted to partnership at Sidley).

Other lateral moves:

* Bankruptcy lawyer Steven Wilamowsky, to Bingham McCutchen, from Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Headhunters at Harvard May Pick a Woman [New York Times]
NY Bankruptcy Partner Switches Firms [NYLawyer.com]
NY Trio Returns to Firm They Left in the '90s [NYLawyer.com]
Spitzer Taps Three NY Lawyers to Fill Key Positions [NYLawyer.com]
Apple Quietly Canned Lawyer Who Backdated [The Recorder via Law.com]

From the same Tony Mauro column that discussed Chief Justice Roberts's new summer house comes this update on the SCOTUS cert pool:

[T]he Supreme Court’s two newest justices have decided, at least temporarily, to stick with the Court’s clerk-pooling arrangement.... [B]oth Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. said they will stay in the “cert pool,” as it is called, for the current term.

Roberts said he will participate on a “year-to-year basis,” and Alito said the same....

The use of the certiorari pool does, by the way, increase the power of law clerks at the Court:

In a 1997 speech when he was in private practice, Roberts said he found the pool “disquieting” in that it made clerks “a bit too significant” in determining the Court’s docket. During his confirmation hearings in January, Alito said he was “aware of the issue” surrounding the pool. He added: “We cannot delegate our judicial responsibility. But . . . we need to find ways, and we do find ways, of obtaining assistance from clerks and staff, employees, so that we can deal with the large caseload that we have.”

One could quibble with Justice Alito's description of the SCOTUS caseload as "large." The Court hears fewer than 100 cases each Term, and the number has been decreasing over the years. And the cert pool may actually be contributing to that decline, as Lyle Denniston suggests.

But we heart Justice Alito, so we won't quibble.

Another consequence of the pool:

In their new book on the Court’s clerks, Sorcerers’ Apprentices, authors Artemus Ward and David Weiden chart the history and impact of the pool. At the same time the pool has increased the power of clerks in the gatekeeping function, they say, it has made clerks less candid and more timid in their recommendations. “The pool writers are going to be less candid than they would be with their own justice,” says Ward in an interview. “It has a chilling effect.”

It would be interesting if another justice were to join Justice Stevens in declining to participate in the cert pool. But would that make a clerkship with that justice less desirable? Clerks to that justice would have to spend more of their time doing mind-numbing cert review work, getting down into the factual weeds of lower-court records -- instead of working on the sexy, pure legal issues presented by merits cases.

Maybe there's a collective action problem here. Who would be willing to go first? Cf. Harvard ending early admissions.

Interesting -- but not our problem. Shrug.

Courtside by Tony Mauro: Pool Party [Legal Times]
Commentary: The Court's caseload [SCOTUSblog]
Cert Pool [Wikipedia]

* Justice Department lawyers have lost their Federal Circuit appeal in their long-running class action suit for overtime pay. Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be DOJ attorneys. [Washington Post]

* The Ninth Circuit has ruled against a freelance journalist and blogger who refused to testify to a grand jury or turn over video footage he took of a violent protest at last summer's G8 summit. The journalist, Josh Wolf, will seek an en banc rehearing. [New York Times]

* The latest news in Spitzer v. Grasso: Dick Grasso's looking for a new judge, baby, a new judge. Eliot Spitzer is looking for a way to make his eyes look less beady. [Wall Street Journal via WSJ Law Blog]

* The fellow we mentioned yesterday, who had sex with his 14-year-old sister, has lost his suit to keep his identity off Virginia's online sex offender registry. [Washington Post via How Appealing]

* Not directly related to the law, but interesting: Harvard University is ending its early admissions program next year. (And it has an indirect connection to the law, insofar as it might affect the educational paths of future lawyers.) [Wall Street Journal]

David Lat is the editor in chief of Above the Law. He previously served as editor of Wonkette, the widely read politics blog, and he founded Underneath Their Robes, the judicial news and gossip website.

Prior to that, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

David graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Yale Law School, where he served as book reviews editor of the Yale Law Journal.

You can reach David at: dlat AT abovethelaw DOT com.

SCOTUS Watch [New Yorker]
He Fought the Law. They Both Won. [New York Times]
David Lat Takes on the Legal World One Post at a Time [Legal Times]