The fabulous Elizabeth Wurtzel — the bestselling and critically acclaimed writer, who graduated from Yale Law School and is now a litigatrix at the powerhouse known as Boies Schiller — has a bone to pick with the bar exam. In a recent post on the blog of the Brennan Center — an organization that we won’t try to describe, since some of you objected vigorously to our last attempt — Wurtzel questions the value of the bar exam as a gatekeeping mechanism for lawyers. (Those of you frantically cramming for the test right now might agree with her.)
Wurtzel begins by noting how Kathleen Sullivan — the noted constitutional law scholar, former dean of Stanford Law School, and current name partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan — didn’t pass the California bar.
Wurtzel then argues….
Continue reading “Elizabeth Wurtzel: Not A Fan of the Bar Exam”
Update: Check out Part 2: The Conservatives.
As we were planning Above the Law’s Elena Kagan confirmation coverage, we got to thinking (always a dangerous thing around these parts): What if Supreme Court nominees didn’t have to defend themselves to the American public? What if the U.S. Senate’s constitutional privilege of “advice and consent” was revoked? What would the Court look like if the nominees didn’t have to even pretend to be moderate?
It’s a thought experiment that we’re sure has been done countless times before. But we’ve never done it, so we’ll plunge ahead.
Here are the rules: (1) The nominee should be unconfirmable. (2) The nominees on the right should make Elie angry; the nominees on the left should make Lat uncomfortable. (3) Mealy-mouthed moderates need not apply.
We decided to keep the five-four ideological balance of the current Court. Sure, we know that some people think that without the Senate, Presidents would nominate apolitical justices who have no discernible political slant. Sadly, apolitical justices = yawn.
In this post, Elie picks four pinko commie scumbags. In a future post, Lat will select five right-wing fascist nutjobs. Should be fun…
So, who are the SCOTUS nominees in the administration of President Elie Mystal?
Continue reading “The Unconfirmable Supreme Court (Part 1): The Liberals”
Despite her death back in February 2007, Anna Nicole Smith (aka Vickie Lynn Marshall) continues to make headlines. From the Ninth Circuit comes bad news for her former lawyer (and lover) Howard K. Stern, and her daughter, Daniellynn. From E! Online:
[A court] said today that the estate of Anna Nicole Smith is not entitled to the $300 million-plus judgment previously awarded from her late oil tycoon hubby’s billion-dollar estate.
The court battle over Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II’s millions has been ongoing since 1995.
You can download the opinion from the Ninth Circuit here [PDF]. You’ll see a familiar name on the list of counsel.
Kathleen Sullivan, new name partner at Quinn Emanuel, filed an amicus brief in the case for the Washington Legal Foundation, arguing in support of the decision by the Texas probate court that originally denied Smith’s claim to Marshall’s $1.6 billion fortune.
This could make for an appropriate last act in the forthcoming Anna Nicole Smith opera.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Dechert partner G. Eric Brunstad, the veteran Supreme Court litigator who represented the victorious estate of Pierce Marshall in this case. (Brunstad was also Lat’s bankruptcy law professor at Yale.)
Remember All Those Millions? Anna Nicole’s Estate Can Kiss ‘Em Bye-Bye [E! Online]
SF Appeals Court Denies Anna Nicole Smith Estate’s Claim To Millions [KTVU]
In re: VICKIE LYNN MARSHALL, Debtor. ELAINE T. MARSHALL v. HOWARD K. STERN
[U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]
The elevation of Kathleen Sullivan to name partner at Quinn Emanuel symbolized some serious change in the world of Biglaw. Diversity in the partnership ranks is growing. Sullivan is likely Biglaw’s first openly LGBT name partner, and she appears to be the first female to get her name on the door at an AmLaw 100 firm.
We raised the gender milestone question last week, asking our readers if they knew of any that came before her.
We think it is now fair to award her this distinction in Biglaw lore. After all, the next day, the American Lawyer declared it definitively: Quinn Emanuel Becomes First Am Law 100 Firm to Have a Female Name Partner.
But our readers did raise the names of some other notable females who deserve asterisks next to their names in the legal history books…
Continue reading “Update: Notable Notes on Kathleen Sullivan and Other Female Name Partners”
An ATL favorite, Quinn Emanuel, is making a change to its firm name. From the Quinn press release:
John B. Quinn announced today that the firm he and Eric Emanuel founded 25 years ago will change its name, and henceforth be known as Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. The decision to add Kathleen M. Sullivan as a name partner was made in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the firm and the profession. Sullivan is a partner in the firm’s New York City office and heads the firm’s national appellate practice.
Congratulations to former Stanford Law School dean Sullivan.
Of course, now that she’s a name partner, we are eagerly awaiting for the ATL community to honor Kathleen Sullivan with her own meme. John Quinn doesn’t use capital letters. Bill Urquhart … really likes capital letters. We can’t wait to see what Sullivan comes up with.
Read the full press release, plus an UPDATE with some observations from Lat, after the jump.
Continue reading “CHECK YOU FIRM NAME: Quinn Emanuel Adds Kathleen Sullivan to the Stationery”
Greetings from the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. We’ve been having a great time schmoozing with federal judicial celebrities, here in lovely (but surprisingly chilly) Monterey.
Yesterday we participated in an excellent panel discussion about the future of journalism, together with some boldface names: Linda Greenhouse (moderator), former Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times; Nina Totenberg, of NPR; Judge Robert Lasnik, chief judge of the Western District of Washington; and Hal Fuson, Executive Vice President, Copley Press. We got to play the role of blogger-barbarian at the gate, which was fun.
We’ve also enjoyed attending the excellent educational programs and speeches. Two of the early highlights: a review of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recently completed Term, by the noted constitutional law scholar and former Stanford Law School dean, Kathleen Sullivan (top right); and a speech by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (center right). We got to meet both Dean Sullivan and Secretary Napolitano — both of them possible Supreme Court nominees, both of them fabulous — and it was thrilling.
(We even got Secretary Napolitano’s business card. Who knew that Cabinet members got business cards? Does President Obama have a business card?)
We were planning to write up both of these events, until we saw the excellent accounts of Articleman over at dagblog. We refer you to his delightful write-ups (links below).
The Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Dean Kathleen Sullivan Speaks on the Supreme Court [dagblog.com]
The Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Secretary Napolitano Speaks About Our Security [dagblog.com]
P.S. If you’d like to see our rough notes on Dean Sullivan’s SCOTUS round-up, click here to download (Word document). But these notes are very rough, not converted to polished prose; you’re much better off with Articleman’s elegant summary.
New lawyers to lead the nation are sending in their résumés. Already, UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley has received a choice position as part of Obama’s transition advisory board. (I wonder if he’s accepting resumes from his students?)
Here’s an interesting choice for Edley and the rest of the transition team that will be picking the next Solicitor General. According to the Legal Times:
No woman has ever served as solicitor general, but a number have been mentioned as candidates for the job in an Obama administration. Stanford Law School professors Kathleen Sullivan and Pamela Karlan and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan are possibilities, as well as Morrison & Foerster partner Beth Brinkmann and MetLife litigation counsel Teresa Wynn Roseborough.
They could also be considered to lead of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which produces legal opinions on complex matters for the attorney general and the president. Lawyers who have held both positions have gone on to become Supreme Court justices. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justices Stanley Reed and Thurgood Marshall were solicitors general. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist and current Justice Antonin Scalia once headed the Office of Legal Counsel. That experience could come in handy should one or more Supreme Court justices step down in the next four years.
Speculation has also centered on prominent African-American attorneys who may be ready to step forward:
Valerie Jarrett (Stanford, Michigan Law): Jarrett is a longtime Obama adviser, who’s now one of three people heading his transition team. She told the WSJ that blacks won’t be pigeonholed into “historically conventional” roles, such as secretary of housing and urban development or assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Other high profile positions after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Stars of the New Administration”
We aren’t the only ones having fun with the story of the Quinn Emanuel recruiting junket to Deer Valley. Check out this cartoon, over at The Recorder.
As noted by some commenters, Quinn Emanuel just launched a new, upgraded website. Sadly, the “Day in a Life of an Associate” video — which featured a fictional associate, a Yale and Stanford Law-educated hottie named “Ivy” (geddit?) — appears to have been pulled. (The site says that the video is “coming soon.”)
Some of the speculation about why the video was pulled is amusing. Check it out, after the jump.
Continue reading “Quinn Emanuel: No Video for You”
Has Quinn Emanuel’s unorthodox approach to the callback process ruffled some feathers? Maybe. Why does the firm brass keep on sending out emails about it?
Last Thursday, firm founder John Quinn sent out this email. Then, on Friday, name partner Bill Urquhart chimed in:
From: “A William Urquhart”
To: “Attorneys”
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:38:28 -0700
Subject:
We have received several questions about the recruiting weekend at Deer Valley. Here are some answers.
Question: Who is attending the weekend?
Answer: There will be approximately 20 lawyers from the firm–both associates and partners. There will be lawyers from all the firm’s four offices.. There will be law students from Texas, Chicago, Harvard and Yale. All of them will have received call backs. As you know, the vast majority of those students invited back to our offices receive offers. If the on campus interview processes operates as intended, this number should be close to 100% because nobody should be invited back unless they meet our minimum objective standards. They should also have met our more subjective standards.
Question: How did you choose these schools?
Answer: These were the schools whose interviews were late in the recruiting season. If this experiment is successful, we may decide to have two such events next year–one in late September for the students of the schools which schedule interviews early (e.g. Columbia, Stanford, U Va, NYU, etc.).
More discussion, after the jump.
Continue reading “What’s Up With That Deer Valley Trip? A Quinn Emanuel Q-and-A”
Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Quinn Emanuel’s innovative approach to callback interviews:
From: “John Quinn”
To: “Attorneys”
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:46:53 -0700
Subject:
reproduced below is an email which we sent yesterday to chicago students who received call backs. it describes an experiment we are going to try this year with the call backs from law schools whose on campus interviews are late in the season (chicago, yale, harvard and texas). instead of having them come back to the firm for interviews, we are inviting them to come to a weekend at a resort in utah. aside from attempting to distinguish ourselves from other law firms, the reasons for trying this are described in the email below. we think those reasons are compelling. however, the proof will be in the pudding.
we have a limited amount of space available for students, partners and associates. we can not invite everyone we would like to. certain of you will be invited to attend the weekend. the invitations will be sent out shortly.
[Aaron Charney is very upset he wasn't invited. Expect to hear from his lawyers shortly.]
the recruitment weekend has generated a lot of buzz on some law blogs already. you may be asked questions by the students who will be coming through the office in the next few weeks. please tell them that this is an experiment. if it is successful, we may decide to expand it next year to two events. also, please be sure to state that the firm will be absorbing all expenses associated with the weekend.
We should hope so. As one commenter noted, “Why Deer Valley in the summer? That’s like going to Vermont in March to see the leaves changing.” What sane law student would shell out his own dough to schlep out to Utah this time of year — other than, say, someone applying to clerk for Judge Michael McConnell (10th Cir.)? (Actually, we hear that Judge McConnell might come out to the East Coast to interview clerkship applicants.)
Anyway, the email sent to the Quinn Emanuel callback-ees appears after the jump.
Continue reading “it looks like john quinn reads this blog”
The fall recruiting process. Some firms mess things up; some firms live it up.
We’re hearing through the grapevine that this year, for students at schools with late on-campus interview weeks, Quinn Emanuel isn’t doing the whole callbacks-at-their-offices thing. Instead, they’re inviting the students they like in the on-campus interviews on a weekend trip at a resort in Deer Valley, Utah, to get a better feel for the firm and its attorneys.
Apparently former Stanford dean Kathleen Sullivan will be on the trip, to make a pitch to the students. There will also be DVDs with virtual tours of the offices, in case some interviewees want to know what their office would look like if they chose to work there.
It appears that Quinn is trying this out as a pilot program this year, with the late OCI schools (e.g., Harvard, Chicago, Yale). If it works well, then they might expand its use.
This strikes us as a cool and fabulous junket. But on the other hand, maybe people wouldn’t want to spend this much time on an extended callback. Thoughts?
Update: More details about the experiment are available here.
Yesterday we wrote about Paulina Bandy, that poor creature who failed the California bar exam thirteen times, before finally passing it on try #14. Her story seems to have freaked out some of you who are sitting for the bar exam later this month next week.
Relax. Take a deep breath. You won’t wind up in a 365-square-foot shack in your mom’s backyard. We think.
Chances are, you will pass. And even if you fail the bar once or twice, you’re still not on your way towards Paulina Bandy-dom.
As it turns out, a number of well-known individuals — some famous for their accomplishments in law, and others for different reasons — didn’t pass the bar on the first (or even second) try.
To get the ball rolling, here’s a short list of a few bar exam failures. Check it out, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Bar Exam: A List of Famous Failures”
