Today is Friday, so this news is timely. Some of you may recall the case of Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy. Norman Schoenfeld, an observant Jewish lawyer who once worked in A&O's New York office, sued the elite "Magic Circle" law firm, alleging that it discriminated and retaliated against him as a result of his observing the Sabbath.

For counsel, Schoenfeld retained Anne C. Vladeck, the superstar plaintiffs-side employment lawyer who successfully represented Anucha Browne Sanders in her sexual harassment case against Isiah Thomas and MSG. After Vladeck and Sanders won at trial, the parties settled the case -- including all appeals -- for a cool $11.5 million.

Back to the Schoenfeld case. Sources close to the case inform us that the parties have resolved the case, and it will be formally closed in the near future. It hasn't been dismissed yet, as you can see when you check the S.D.N.Y. docket (1:07-cv-11431-HB), where the last entry is the pretrial scheduling order. But the parties have an agreement in principle to settle, and it will be papered up soon.

We reached Todd Girshon of Jackson Lewis, counsel to Allen & Overy, by phone. He offered a "no comment" (although we detected a faint hint of amusement in his voice as he said it). We've left telephone and email messages for Anne Vladeck, counsel to Norman Schoenfeld. We haven't heard back from her yet, but we'll let you know if and when we do.

We must confess that, although we're happy to see the parties resolve their differences, we're sad that we won't get to write more about this case. As you may recall, when the story first broke, we thought that it might turn into "the Jewish version of Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell." It looks like that won't be happening. No tales of "bending over," boiled hard drives, or boasts of representing Nazis -- just a quiet settlement. What began with a bang has ended with a whimper.

In other Allen & Overy news, the New York office has a new managing partner. Congratulations to Kevin O'Shea, who assumed leadership of the New York office effective May 1. Presumably he's glad to have this lawsuit behind the firm as he takes the reins at A&O - NY.

Update: The firm has confirmed news of the imminent settlement. See here.

Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: The Jewish Version of Charney v. S&C?
Schoenfeld v. Allen & Oy-vey-ry: We've Got Close to Bupkis
Schoenfeld v. Allen & Oy-vey-ry: A&O's Answer

Indiana lawyer Tony Zirkle is making a run for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat. There is a general rule for political candidates that involves not being photographed in front of Hitler's portrait.

Apparently, Zirkle missed that one:

A congressional candidate is defending his speech to a group celebrating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, saying he appeared simply because he was asked.

Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Indiana's 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.

"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle said Monday. "I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta."

Zirkle compares talking to a white supremacist group to talking to African-Americans. Nice. We wonder if he discussed his segregation plans during the radio appearance.

Zirkle has the following "defense" up on his campaign website:

I've been getting a flood of e-mails and phone calls, some of which include death threats, about my attempt to raise awareness of how the great porn dragon inspires Jews into pornography and prostitution and then, like the snake he is, turns the public against the Jews.... Let's save our Jewish brothers and sisters from this tyrant king porn dragon before we get to another world-wide pogrom after a war with Iran or some other conflict and after the Jews get blamed again.

Cuckoo. The tyrant king porn dragon sounds like something out of a dirty version of The Lord of the Rings.

Candidate speaks at Hitler birthday party [The Times via Respectful Insolence]
Tony Zirkle's Segregation Plan: Crazy Enough To Work? [Wonkette]

The Magic Circle law firm of Allen & Overy, defendant in Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy, has just filed its Answer (PDF). They're hoping to make Norman Schoenfeld's claims disappear. Schoenfeld, an observant Jewish lawyer who once worked at the firm, alleges that A&O discriminated and retaliated against him as a result of his observing the Sabbath.

We contacted the firm for comment. Here is their statement:

Allen & Overy denies all allegations of discrimination. This person's employment was terminated based solely on performance within his orientation period, a trial period of time mandated for all employees. He also failed to disclose to Allen & Overy the fact of his previous employment at another law firm.

Our firm has a strict written policy prohibiting any form of discrimination, and we provide all new employees and partners training in both diversity awareness and harassment prevention. Over the past several years, we have also instituted live diversity training for all of our existing attorneys and managers. We will vigorously defend our proud reputation of diversity and inclusion and are confident of a positive outcome for Allen & Overy with respect to these allegations.

More discussion, including interesting information from tipsters, after the jump.

Update (5/9/08): The case is settling. See here.

Back in December -- around the holidays, so many of you may have missed it -- we wrote about Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy. It's a lawsuit brought by Norman Schoenfeld, an observant Jewish lawyer who once worked in the New York office of Allen & Overy. Schoenfeld claims, among other things, that A&O discriminated and retaliated against him as a result of his observing the Sabbath.

Since then, we've received many requests for updates. This message is representative:

"Is there any news on this lawsuit? As a Sabbath observant 2L, this is of interest to me and many of my friends. A post on ATL providing an update would be appreciated. Love the site. Thanks."

We're not aware of any procedural developments in the case. And we sadly didn't receive much in response to our request for firsthand information about Norman Schoenfeld or Allen & Overy in New York. Here's the most interesting tip we received -- some opinions from an A&O associate:

"That this suit goes on is beyond anyone here at A&O. I did not know this Schoenfeld guy much for the five minutes he worked here and don't know if his complaint has merit. I will say this though: associates don't want to work with Mark Wojciechowski and are asking not to work with him."

"He told A&O he was bringing associates from Mayer Brown; MB associates refused to come work with him. Better to stay on a sinking ship like MB NY than work for a nightmare like Mark Woj...."

"No one can understand how firm management let this happen (rumor is that A&O already fired their first outside counsel). Recruitment of NY lawyers is badly affected and we just wait to see how much this costs the firm in damages (and associates of course since all s**t gets passed down - you know the partners won't take the hit in their pocket)."

We contacted the firm for comment, but they didn't have anything to add.

If you have any firsthand information to pass along about the events in question, please email us. Thanks.

Complaint: Norman Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy (PDF)

Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: The Jewish Version of Charney v. S&C?

We have to step out for a bit (company holiday party). We've only skimmed this Complaint (PDF), just filed in the Southern District of New York, by a Jewish lawyer against his former employer, Allen & Overy.

Check out the Complaint for yourself, by clicking here (PDF), and offer your thoughts in the comments. We look forward to reviewing your reflections when we return.

P.S. A special request: nicknames for this lawsuit, a la "Brokeback Lawfirm" for the Aaron Charney case, are especially welcome.

Complaint: Norman Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy (PDF)

Update: Here is the firm's statement, emailed to us by a spokesperson:

Allen & Overy denies all allegations of discrimination. This person's employment was terminated based solely on performance within his orientation period, a trial period of time mandated for all employees. He also failed to disclose to Allen & Overy the fact of his previous employment at another law firm.

Our firm has a strict written policy prohibiting any form of discrimination, and we provide all new employees and partners training in both diversity awareness and harassment prevention. Over the past several years, we have also instituted live diversity training for all of our existing attorneys and managers. We will vigorously defend our proud reputation of diversity and inclusion and are confident of a positive outcome for Allen & Overy with respect to these allegations.

We'll write more about this later. If you have any firsthand information to pass along about the events in question, please email us. Thanks.

The firm of Dewey Ballantine was never known for being particularly PC. From a 2004 article by Anthony Lin, for the New York Law Journal:

Nearly one year after lawyers at Dewey Ballantine infuriated members of the Asian-American community by performing a stereotype-laden parody song at their annual dinner, the law firm is again dealing with allegations of racial insensitivity....

On Monday, an employee sent a firmwide e-mail advertising the availability of some puppies for adoption. Douglas Getter, a London-based American who heads Dewey Ballantine's European mergers and acquisitions practice then sent a firmwide reply.

"Please don't let these puppies go to a Chinese restaurant!" Getter wrote in his e-mail.

Now Dewey has merged with LeBoeuf Lamb. Happily, it appears their firm cultures are a good match. Check out this email exchange appearing below -- and note that partner Stephen Best came from the LeBoeuf Lamb side of the marriage.

From: Ralph C. Ferrara
To: DL All Attorneys - US
Cc: Ferrara, Ralph C.
Sent: Mon Dec 17 11:00:29 2007
Subject: German Translation - Completed

Dear All,

Thank you for your many quick responses [to a request for translation of a German document]. The translation has been completed.

Regards, Ralph
______________

From: Stephen A. Best
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 11:02 AM
To: Ferrara, Ralph C.; DL All Attorneys - US
Subject: Re: German Translation - Completed

Zieg Heil!!!!!!

Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld

Oh, the perils of Blackberrying! If you respond to a firm-wide email on your Blackberry, be EXTRA careful about not hitting "reply all" (unless that is truly your intention).

Of course, the "Zieg Heil" response would have been inappropriate even if sent to a smaller group of recipients. As noted by Wikipedia, uttering the phrase "Sieg Heil" in Germany is "a criminal offence punishable by up to three years of prison."

Two emails of profuse apology, issued within an hour of the offending message, after the jump.

Is this litigation kosher? You bet. From Vos Iz Neias (Yiddish: "What's News"):

A New Hampshire prison inmate's file drove a federal judge to rhyme to express himself.

A prison inmate protesting his [non-Kosher] diet attached a hard-boiled egg to documents sent by mail to U.S. District Court Judge James Muirhead.

"I do not like eggs in the file. I do not like them in any style. I will not take them fried or boiled. I will not take them poached or broiled. I will not take them soft or scrambled Despite an argument well-rambled," Muirhead wrote in his response to inmate Charles Wolffe.

Wolffe, 61, says he is an Orthodox Jew and has accused prison officials of refusing to feed him a kosher diet. He is seeking... proper foods and $10 million from the state. His case has been scheduled for a trial.

More discussion, plus the full text of Judge Muirhead's order, after the jump.

We're probably about to open a big ol' can of worms. We've been procrastinating on writing this up for a while. But what the heck -- opening up cans of worms is our job.

This past Sunday, the New York Times Magazine had a very interesting essay by celebrity law professor Noah Feldman. Here at ATL, he and his wife, fellow Harvard Law School prof Jeannie Suk, have reached a level of Brangelina celebrity that has entitled them to their own mono-moniker: Feldsuk (which you voted on, so you're estopped from complaining).

Here's the lede of Professor Feldman's piece:

A number of years ago, I went to my 10th high-school reunion, in the backyard of the one classmate whose parents had a pool. Lots of my classmates were there. Almost all were married, and many already had kids. This was not as unusual as it might seem, since I went to a yeshiva day school, and nearly everyone remained Orthodox. I brought my girlfriend. At the end, we all crowded into a big group photo, shot by the school photographer, who had taken our pictures from first grade through graduation. When the alumni newsletter came around a few months later, I happened to notice the photo. I looked, then looked again. My girlfriend and I were nowhere to be found.

I didn’t want to seem paranoid, especially in front of my girlfriend, to whom I was by that time engaged. So I called my oldest school friend, who appeared in the photo, and asked for her explanation. “You’re kidding, right?” she said. My fiancée was Korean-American. Her presence implied the prospect of something that from the standpoint of Orthodox Jewish law could not be recognized: marriage to someone who was not Jewish. That hint was reason enough to keep us out.

Not long after, I bumped into the photographer, in synagogue, on Yom Kippur. When I walked over to him, his pained expression told me what I already knew. “It wasn’t me,” he said. I believed him.

Since then I have occasionally been in contact with the school’s alumni director, who has known me since I was a child. I say “in contact,” but that implies mutuality where none exists. What I really mean is that in the nine years since the reunion I have sent him several updates about my life, for inclusion in the “Mazal Tov” section of the newsletter. I sent him news of my marriage. When our son was born, I asked him to report that happy event. The most recent news was the birth of our daughter this winter. Nothing doing. None of my reports made it into print.

Many readers emailed us about this piece. The reactions of three of them appear after the jump.

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.

Congratulations to the Columbia Law Revue crew for putting on a great show, which we attended on Thursday night. We were lukewarm about some of their prior efforts, but our opinion has changed entirely.

Check out this great clip, a parody of this SNL video, which is currently #61 on YouTube in today's Top Favorites for Comedy:

Additional videos are available here. Enjoy!

P.S. Despite their video-making prowess, the CLSers are still a lost cause when it comes to the coolest law school competition. They're getting a beating at the hands of UVA (which, to be fair, also makes excellent video parodies).

A Special Finals Care Package [YouTube]
Columbia Law Revue [official website]

Our recent post about Aaron Charney and his well-to-do family background generated tons of discussion (about 90 reader comments). We'd like to pass along two pieces of additional information on the subject.

From a tipster who went to the same temple in the Syracause area (Temple Adath Yeshuran) as the Charney family:

"The Charneys do quite well for themselves with their stores. They never seemed to be wanting for cash, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that he's got a trust fund."

If Charney does come from such an affluent background, it may explain his willingness to "roll the dice" by pushing forward with his lawsuit against S&C. Someone from more modest means might have taken a more modest settlement, then moved on to a job at another firm. But someone with family money to fall back on might be more willing to shoot for a seven-figure payday, knowing that he could ride out even a lengthy period of unemployment with parental help.

But our source also has this to add:

"I'm not sure if Aaron Charney's father is the only owner of the clothing store chain. The business may be a family business with more than one owner."

We looked back at Bob Kolker's profile of Aaron Charney for New York magazine. Kolker identifies Charney as "[t]he only son of an owner of a small chain of men’s clothing stores in the Syracuse area." The indefinite article -- "an owner," rather than "the owner" -- leaves open the possibility of multiple owners.

So this might dilute Charney's patrimony, if other branches of his extended family also have their fingers in the dynastic till. Unlike, say, a chunk of the Wal-Mart fortune, multiple heirs from multiple families could be quite dilutive of Aaron's share.

Does anyone know if Aaron Charney's father is the sole owner of the Charney chain of stores? Anyone care to estimate what the chain's annual revenue might be?

As always, if you can shed more light on any of this, please drop us a line.

Earlier: Brokeback Lawfirm: Aaron Charney's Doing Just Fine, Thank You

* The Guber Downward-Facing Dog Trial coming soon. [De Novo; MSN]

* If you don’t know who’s the “real lawyer” at the table, it’s you. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Kosher-ness may be inapplicable to porn, but I would not want to venture a guess as to Mr. Cohen’s idea behind his trademark. [Likelihood of Confusion]

* Another reason hedge funds are shady? You don’t say. [Professor Bainbridge]

It's not as awful as being recorded on video using racial epithets. But this must still be pretty embarrassing for comedian Jerry Seinfeld:

Supreme Court Justice Rolando T. Acosta has ruled that Seinfeld must pay a real-estate broker a commission of at least $98,750 for the $3.95 million townhouse he and his wife purchased in 2005.

Seinfeld had testified that the broker, Tamara Cohen, did not deserve the payment, as she had not been available when he and his wife, Jessica, wanted to see the West 82nd Street home. The Seinfelds also testified that they did not know that the reason Cohen did not return their calls was that she was an observant Jew and observed the Sabbath.

Acosta held that, notwithstanding Cohen's failure to immediately return the Seinfelds' calls, "[T]he evidence clearly indicates that she served as the Seinfelds' real estate broker."

It's too bad "Seinfeld" isn't still on the air. We could easily see this scenario -- a real estate broker failing to return calls promptly because she's a Sabbath observer -- turning into a plot line.

(Actually, we wouldn't be surprised to see it turn up in the next season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." This is something we could totally see Larry David getting irate over. 'Cause he gets irate over everything.)

Comedian Seinfeld Ordered to Pay Real Estate Broker Fee [New York Law Journal via Law.com]

Because of Bonusmania, we've fallen behind a little in Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. In this post, we discuss lawyer weddings from the weekend of December 2-3.

The most high-profile wedding that week was between media heiress Anne Hearst, sister of Patty Hearst, and novelist Jay McInerney (announcement here). But there were also three marriages involving attorneys:

1. Rebecca Benjamin, Joshua Rikon

2. Randi Harari, Jonathan Mason

3. Lisa Kaplan, Brad Sherman

Our scores and commentary, after the jump.

* A unanimous Supreme Court overturns a Ninth Circuit ruling in a criminal (habeas) case. In other news, this morning the sun rose from the east. [New York Times; Washington Post]

* Enron's Jeff Skilling may get to pass "Go" on his way to jail after all. [WSJ Law Blog]

* BCS vs. the Electoral College: Is the controversy over Florida or Michigan playing Ohio State the college football version of Bush v. Gore? Or perhaps that was the LSU/USC split of 2003-04? [National Journal via MSNBC]

* "Float driver in S.C. Christmas parade charged with drunken driving." [AP]

* Christmas trees are back up in the Sea-Tac airport. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky has said he won't file a lawsuit. But if somebody else does, the Seattle airport authorities will have to throw in a menorah, a Kikombe cha Umoja, and a snowman. [Seattle Times]

* Congrats to Troy Smith on winning the Heisman. As always, there's a legal connection, which this time involves Ohio State, the Heisman, Archie Griffin, and Woody Hayes. [WSJ Law Blog]

* All Christmas trees have been removed from the Seattle airport, after a rabbi threatened to sue unless an eight-foot menorah was put up. [King5.com]

* Finally, Cedar Point is standing up for students' rights, by lobbying the government for longer summer vacations. [Associated Press]

* Wish they all could be California... prisons? Unlikely. [New York Times]

* The Williams sisters are in court. No word yet on how they were served. [CNN]

Recently we asked you for juicy gossip about gigantic legal fees. We didn't expect to receive a response so quickly. From the WSJ Law Blog:

NYU Law School professor Burt Neuborne worked for nearly eight years to help Holocaust survivors win a $1.25 billion settlement from Swiss banks accused of helping the Nazis steal Jewish property. He then submitted a bill for $4,760,000. The rest, as they say, is controversy.

New York magazine has a feature on the fee flap. A group of Holocaust survivors are furious with Neuborne for charging so much money for his services. Many say they thought Neuborne had taken the case pro bono and that he had said so many times. The executive director of the World Jewish Congress calls the bill a “moral disgrace.” Neuborne already made $4.4 million in a similar suit against German industry.

This got us thinking about other law professors who handle litigation or serve as consultants on the side -- and get paid handsomely for it. A few examples off the top of our head: Laurence Tribe, of Harvard Law School (litigation, esp. appellate litigation); Alan Dershowitz, also of HLS (helping to get rich people out of deep doo-doo); George Priest, of Yale Law School (consulting, expert witness service); Dean Dan Fischel, of the University of Chicago (law and economics consulting).

In the comments to this post -- or by email if you prefer -- please share with us any dirt on this subject. The more specific the information -- dollar figures if you know them (or can guess) -- the better. Thanks!

The Neuborne Fee Flap Takes Center Stage [WSJ Law Blog]
Getting His Due: NYU Law Professor Burt Neuborne Was Hailed as a Hero. Then He Submitted His Bill [New York Magazine]

Earlier: Legal Fee Voyeurism: Seeking Submissions

* Bill Childs disses AEI's parties. He just doesn't appreciate a good formal gala. [TortsProf Blog]

* FAA regulations: comply with weirded-out flight attendant at all times, no matter how irrational she is. [Prettier Than Napoleon]

* Apple claims right to word "podcast"; next: all soundwaves between 4500 and 6000 MHz. [Overlawyered]

* Blogs can be used against you in court. Duh. [Boston Globe via Elefant]

* Soon to be issued to all incoming associates. [The Billable Hour]

* The first judicial citation to CuteOverload.com. [Volokh]

* Two new books attack string theory; class action lawsuit against Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time" inevitable. [New Yorker]

* "I keep forgetting how women are disadvantaged by having to write a research agenda, but I am sure they have to be. Somehow. Always disadvantaged." [Kate Litvak comment on PrawfsBlawg]

* Dom Deluise is not only still alive, but can legally sue his litigious ex-daughter-in-law's lawyer. [Overlawyered]

* Weird Al Yankovic also alive, has aspirations of Jeremy Blachman-dom. [Overlawyered]

* Some might call it clever marketing of E. coli lawsuits, but I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it. [Wall Street Journal]

* It's not too late to download my law review article, and move me higher on the dowload rankings. [SSRN]

* Protest demands recognition of zombie legal rights: "What do we want?" "BRAINS!" "When do we want it?" "BRAINS!" [Boing Boing]

* Upcoming deadline #1: The statute of limitations for suing Merck over Vioxx expires for many many putative plaintiffs today. Court clerks will be busy as attorneys forum shop. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Upcoming deadline #2: The Days of Awe end Sunday, and Yom Kippur starts Sunday night. Stephen Colbert offers a toll-free number, 1-888-OOPS-JEW, if you wish to atone to him. The recorded disclaimer alone (and Colbert's addendum afterwards) makes it worth it, but you get what you pay for. [News From Me]

* It has nothing to do with the law, but how can we avoid mentioning this important press release on Kazakh-Uzbek relations? [Borat.tv]

Good morning. David Lat is in Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand for the weekend for what has been euphemistically called "elective surgery." Rest assured, D-Lat will return Monday, safe, sound, and happy to blog, if having to sit on a comfy pillow to do so, and we should all be supportive of the very difficult decisions involved.

In the interim, Lat has asked me to fill in a few posts this Friday, and I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Ted Frank. Some fifteen years ago, I correctly identified the sequence at which Victoria, William, Xavier, Yolanda, and Zachary were seated at a circular table, filled in all corresponding ovals correctly, and was rewarded with a wheelbarrow of money to attend law school in a variety of bad neighborhoods in Connecticut and Massachusetts and Illinois. Because law interested me as a public-policy mechanism, I picked up a copy of The Economics of Justice while I was in a Chicago bookstore visiting that school, and smitten enough to decide to go there on what they called a "Public Service Scholarship." A year of clerking and a dozen years of BigLaw taught me that litigation incentives actually create miserable public-policy results, and I've been writing about this problem on Walter Olson's Overlawyered blog since 2003 and the Point of Law blog since 2004. In 2005, the American Enterprise Institute invited me to run their Liability Project directing research on the tort system and its effects; it's a pay-cut, but the issue is important to me, and then there's the whole Jewish guilt thing over not yet having done the public service I had hypothetically been awarded a scholarship for. And all of this has culminated in today's guest-blogging opportunity on Above the Law, surely the highlight of my career, and worth a tenth of a point if Lat ever scores my wedding. More after the jump.

For those of you in the New York area, our current location -- we're up visiting from Washington, DC -- here's an event next month you might be interested in:

Sunday - Tuesday, October 22-24, 2006
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Three-day conference: "Jews and the Legal Profession", at 55 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street.

Participants include Alan Dershowitz, Stuart Eizenstat, and many others. For more information and registration, please e-mail xxx@yahoo.com or call 212-xxx-xxxx.

Other conferences you might enjoy:

-- "Japanese Chefs and Sushi Preparation"

-- "Koreans and the Dry Cleaning Industry"

-- "Filipinos and the Domestic Arts"

We're sticking to the Asians 'cause, well, that's what we are.*

Here is the conference's website. We suggest that the organizers reach out to the "Jews and Web Page Design" crew.

Jews and the Legal Profession [Cardozo Law School]

* Three notes of preemptive defense: (1) it's not "racist" to note that certain racial or ethnic groups make up a disproportionate percentage of a particular profession or industry; (2) this is less objectionable than a lot of material you'd see on The Daily Show, SNL, etc.; (3) we are not commenting, negatively or positively, on the contributions Jews have made to the legal profession. We're merely suggesting that, in the grand scheme of things, there are more urgent topics out there to hold conferences about. Thank you.