Warning: The penis-to-vagina ratio in this week’s column is quite high. If you’re already on the mailing list for Rick Santorum 2012, you may want to avert your eyes — or go make fun of sissy-boy John Kerry for helping plan his daughter’s wedding.
Our fabulous finalist couples:
1. Sebastian Dungan and Lavi Soloway
2. Adam Levine and Janson Wu
3. Alisha Bhagat and Mark Egerman
Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.11: Five Guys”
There has been quite a bit of coverage on how the recession is affecting the august Harvard University. For example, the undergraduates aren’t getting hot breakfast anymore.
Meanwhile, over at Harvard Law School, things have gotten so bad that HLS is looking to sell off some naming rights to wealthy donors. Tax Prof Blog reports:
The following list provides a representative sample of named gift opportunities. In addition, several naming opportunities exist in the Law School’s Northwest Corner building project currently under construction.
* $25,000,000: International Graduate Student Fellowship Program, The Low Income Protection Plan Program
* $10,000,000: The Harvard Law Library Reading Room, Research Program (Academic/Clinical)
* $5,000,000: Combined Professorship and Research Fund
* $4,000,000: Professorship
* $2,000,000: Visiting Professorship
* $1,000,000: Research Fund
* $250,000: Scholarship/Fellowship Fund
* $100,000: Financial Aid Fund
* $10,000: Revolving Loan Fund
Remember, Harvard is only called “Harvard” because John Harvard had a nice library.
Maybe graduates of Harvard Business School can still afford to make lavish $25,000,000 gifts; alas, graduates of Harvard Law School probably don’t have that kind of flow anymore. But why should they be iced out of the naming game?
After the jump, let me suggest some low-cost naming rights that HLS could sell.
Continue reading “Hard Up For Cash, Harvard Sells Naming Rights”
Commenters often complain that we feature too many Biglaw associates in this space — uninspiring young people who’ve drifted through college and law school and are now drones at soulless firms. We’re delighted that this week, Biglaw associates make up only one-third of our couples. Rounding out the field are a soulless-drone partner and a former associate who abandoned Biglaw for the classic refuge of the disillusioned JD: law teaching. Enjoy this foray into the unexpected!
Our couples:
1. Caroline Dougherty and Marc Packer
2. Patricia Wencelblat and Richard Cooper
3. Tania Tetlow and Gordon Stewart
Get the details on these newlyweds and vote for your favorite couple, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.4: Meet Packer”
The stalk-and-eventually-marry-your-doorman phenomenon continues to enthrall the NYT weddings editors. This week they shine the spotlight on yet another bride — this time a producer at CNN — who found love in the lobby. LEWW encourages female Biglaw associates to embrace this trend. You’re in and out of office buildings all day, ladies — open your eyes to the lusciousness perched behind those security desks!
And now, this week’s finalist couples:
1. Monique Mendez and Graham O’Donoghue
2. Ashlee Conley and Andrew Veit
3. Anne Claiborne and Andrew Grotto
Read all about these newlyweds, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.27: 31 Flavors”
Law firm mass emails can be a bitter pill to swallow. Nobody wants to be publicly accused of, say, taking craps on the bathroom floor. In that instance, a simple multiple-choice survey on bathroom habits followed by a marksmanship competition would have sufficed. One legal administrator recently learned the hard way that sending inflammatory mass emails is rarely the route to popularity or success. Or is it?
Jordan Reid (née Berkow) is your typical NYC born and bred jerkhat. She went to Dalton private school and then moved on to Harvard, where she got her undergrad degree in cognitive neuroscience. (Ed. note: that’s in the psychology department, nice try.)
Perhaps prompted by her voice coach and by a successful run in a summer camp production of “The Pajama Game,” Jordan went to L.A. to seek fame and fortune. After a few small roles and the requisite appearance on Law & Order, she abandoned ship and returned to NYC, where her she lived in an apartment partially paid for by her parents. As a matter of course, her mom, who worked in a law firm, hooked her up with a job as a legal administrator there. It’s not clear exactly where she worked, but Jordan describes the firm as “a fairly depressing” place, where she sobbed at her desk. If this sounds like your office, join the club email us at tips.
A flip-flop and an email, after the jump.
The Harvard Law Record reports that HLS will be cutting back on perks:
On September 4, an email by Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove detailed the reduction in perks students would begin to notice at HLS, where, under the tenure of former Dean (and now Solicitor General) Elena Kagan ’86, free food for events and even some classes had become common, free coffee abounded from morning until noon, and a logo-emblazoned skating rink animated Jarvis Field during the cold winter months.
The lifestyle changes students face are not stark: the free coffee has not been completely cut, as was rumored, but will be served in fewer locations, and is expected to last only until 10:15. A survey later sent to the student body by Cosgrove asked whether students would share in cost-cutting efforts by providing their own mugs rather than relying on the paper cups the school now buys. Likewise, free food will be rarer at events, and the hours of the dining facilities at Harkness Commons will be reduced depending on demand.
Everybody needs to tighten their belts during the recession. And this new “only limited free coffee” policy should better prepare Harvard Law grads for the rough and tumble employment environment that they’ll face after graduation.
Conference cutbacks are on the way too.
Oh, how times have changed. Back in May 2008, Massachusetts was contemplating an excise tax on university endowments. This proposed tax law change would have imposed a 2.5% annual assessment on Massachusetts colleges with endowments over $1 billion. (Cough cough, Harvard.)
Alas, Harvard doesn’t need any help from the government when it comes to dissipating its endowment. For the fiscal year ended in June, it’s looking at a decline in its endowment of about 30 percent.
The university — home to the legendary Harvard Law School, arguably the nation’s finest law school — isn’t taking these losses sitting down. Instead, it’s bringing in new talent to help manage its money.
Read more, and discuss, over at Dealbreaker.
He Was Wearing My Harvard Tie. Can You Believe It? [Dealbreaker]
What’s better than a Boston cop emailing a newspaper specifically to call a black man a “banana eating jungle monkey”? Well when that same cop turns around and sues the police department for a civil rights violation. The Boston Globe reports:
Justin Barrett, the Boston police officer suspended from the force for his e-mail likening Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., to a “banana-eating jungle monkey,” has filed a lawsuit against the Police Department, police commissioner, and mayor, saying the city violated his civil and due process rights.
You know what would make this story perfect? If the cop who used racist slurs against Henry Louis Gates Jr. turned around and claimed intentional infliction of emotion distress:
The 18-page lawsuit accuses the three parties of “conspiring to intentionally inflict emotional distress and conspiring to intentionally interfere with the property rights, due process rights, and civil rights of the plaintiff.”
I. Just. Love. America.
Let me gather myself after the jump.
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Bananas Cop Sues Police”
At a press conference today, Lucia Whalen spoke out about her 9-1-1 call and her role in the Gatesgate fiasco.
She said that she supports the Cambridge police and respects Professor Gates. She’s happy that the police released the actual tapes of her call to the police.
She also clarified that she only spoke to Sergeant Crowley briefly at the scene. While she wouldn’t speak about the police report specifically, she indicated that she did not say the “black males … with backpacks” line that was in Crowley’s police report.
As I said Monday, I feel bad for this woman. Her voice was shaking and she’s clearly been traumatized by the scrutiny of her actions. I totally apologize for jumping to conclusions about this woman based on the police report.
I just hope that Crowley feels bad for her too.
911 caller in Gates case speaks publicly [MSNBC.com]
Gatesgate: Let’s Go To The Audio Tape [True/Slant]
Earlier: Gatesgate: Caller Disputes the Police Report
The current online front page of the NYT weddings section is worth a click. The head blurb leads with “Despite their differences in age . . . ” underneath a picture of a 20-something bride embracing a “groom” who appears to be about nine years old. “Differences in age,” indeed. Somebody alert Morality in Media! (Of course, when you click on the link, you learn that the real groom is 40-something. Still yucky, but not illegal.)
Our spotlighted weddings this week feature couples who are well-matched not only in age, but in accomplishments. Here they are:
1. Robyn Maslynsky and Paul Goldschmid
2. Stacy Humes-Schulz and Matthew Frazier
3. Courtney Dankworth and Russell Capone Jr.
Read more about these couples, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.19: Editorial Indiscretion”
All the attention recently showered upon Harvard celebrity professor Henry Louis Gates since his arrest earlier this month has resulted in the discovery of tax problems at a foundation he created and oversees.
Read more and comment over at Going Concern.
Henry Louis Gates Can’t Catch a Break [Going Concern]
The Cabbed Caller, who reported Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to the police, now disputes the police report about what she told them in her 9-1-1 call. Instead, the caller — who has now been repeatedly identified as Lucia Whalen — contends that she did not know the race of the two people attempting to enter the house. According to the Boston Globe:
Lucia Whalen, saw the backs of both men and did not know their race when she called 911, said Wendy J. Murphy, a Boston lawyer from New England School of Law. Whalen phoned police, Murphy said, because she was aware of recent break-ins in the area.
Well, I guess I was wrong. On Friday, I questioned whether or not the woman acted appropriately in sicking the Cambridge police on Professor Gates while he was attempting to enter his house. Previously, I questioned whether Gates’s blackness prevented this woman from assessing the situation rationally.
Assuming the woman is telling the truth, then you can’t really fault her. You can fault the Cambridge police, for injecting race into a call where race wasn’t even mentioned.
More from Whalen’s side of the story, plus the 9-1-1 tape, after the jump.
Continue reading “Gatesgate: Caller Disputes the Police Report”
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
It has been a busy past several weeks for our Asia team at Kinney Recruiting. Evan Jowers was in Boston earlier this week, participating in Harvard Law School’s Market Series. This is the first year they are including Asia markets in the program and Evan was asked by Harvard to be their exclusive recruiter representative for those markets. Evan will work with Harvard’s office of career services and be available to its law students who seek advice on the Asia markets and US and UK firms in Asia, where they may 2L summer and / or start as a 1st year associate. If you are a law student from another top JD program and have questions about the Asia markets, please feel free to reach out to us as well, at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com. Of course, we can’t place law students at firms (that is what on-campus recruiting is for), but we are happy to provide advice and begin positive long-term relationships.
In late April and earlier this month, Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney were working out of our Hong Kong offices for a couple of weeks, meeting with various law firm and attorney candidate clients. Also, in late March and early April, Evan Jowers and Yuliya Vinokurova were working out of our Hong Kong offices for a few weeks. Alexis Lamb is of course based in Hong Kong full time.
In mid April, from our Asia team, Evan Jowers, Robert Kinney, Alexis Lamb, Yuliya Vinokurova, Danielle Cyr, Peter Gutensohn, and Josh Carr were all in Austin, Texas for the annual NALP conference.
Please note that Evan Jowers will be in Beijing for most of July.
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Exam Tip from Author Mary Basick: When studying, it is important to know the subtle distinctions between similar concepts and rule nuances, such as the ones in this week’s question, as these are a favored testing area for bar examiners. In creating WK Bar Prep, we carefully analyzed actual bar questions. As a result, these prep materials are high quality and succinct, but thorough, and full of practical tips.
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