Kids

The Provider

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Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon (affiliate link).

Every guy with a family feels the urge to pack a bag, get in the car, and drive. At least, sometimes.

A client told me that – a straight guy with kids. I don’t think it’s a straight thing, though. It might not be a guy thing, either. It can be a lawyer thing. Any lawyer with loans experiences the impulse to hit the highway.

When you’re “The Provider,” you do constant battle with the itch to hightail it out of town.

Who’s “The Provider”? It’s someone you morph into. A character from an Updike novel… or maybe it’s Cheever. Maybe it’s Mad Men. You become a cliché from 1950′s or early 60′s tv shows: Dad, who arrives home, pecks the wife on the cheek, tousles the kids’ hair, then collapses into a La-Z-Boy and reads the paper while the golden retriever fetches the bedroom slippers.

Except it sucks bad enough that you’re feeling the urge to pack a bag, get in the car and drive….

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Would You Hire An Attorney Who Needed To Bring Her One-Year-Old To Work?

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It’s a dilemma that women have faced for a long time: some of them need to work and take care of their children at the same time. During the recession, the problems for working mothers have been exacerbated. There are fewer jobs, but day care is just as expensive as ever. What are you supposed to do when caught in that bind?

On Craigslist, there’s an attorney trying to find work — which is difficult enough in this economy. But she’s carrying extra baggage: she’s got a one-year-old baby that she says she needs to bring into the office with her every day. She claims she was able to bring the baby into work at her previous office, without a problem. And if there are firms that provide on-site day care, it obviously wouldn’t be a problem.

But if a firm doesn’t have those facilities (either because it is too small or because it decided not to care about such things), then would the firm even give this woman a shot? I mean, we’re talking about a one-year-old, germ-infested, bundle of bawling, in a legal office. Does anybody want a piece of that?

I sure hope this lady is one hell of an attorney…

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Federal Judge Benchslaps Plaintiffs’ Counsel: Stop Being Tools

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Judge Eric Melgren (D. Kansas)

A trial was scheduled to start in Kansas federal court on June 14, 2011. Defendants moved for a short continuance because one of their lawyers is expecting his first child on July 3. (The lawyer in question, Bryan Erman, is quite cute — check out that chin dimple.)

Plaintiffs’ counsel objected to the continuance — strenuously. This took Judge Eric Melgren by surprise. And not in a good way.

Judge Melgren granted the continuance — and took the opportunity to benchslap the lawyers who refused to consent….

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Size Matters: A Bankruptcy Associate Finds Small-Firm Nirvana

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Size Matters, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.

Last month I received an email from Cameron McCord. McCord is a fifth-year associate at a boutique bankruptcy firm in Atlanta, where she’s been having “a great experience.”

“I am in court all the time and have started handling my own trials,” McCord wrote. “I have worked here since my second summer and am able to have a good work/life balance. I have an 11-month-old and a four-year-old, and my husband is a full-time student. I think it is important for people to realize that you can be successful without working at [Biglaw].”

Upon reading her email, I knew I had to feature her and her firm. I mean, she reads my column! And, I suppose, a firm that affords its attorneys the opportunity to maintain a life outside of work is, well, awesome.

Here is what goes down at Jones & Walden LLP….

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Matt Kluger, Ex-Biglaw Associate Charged With Insider Trading, Is A Gay Dad — and Once Sued Fried Frank Over It

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Matthew Kluger aka Big Gay Matt

“Aww, Matt, why do you have to go around giving us a bad name?”

Ever since Matthew Kluger was charged in a massive insider trading case, involving an alleged conspiracy that spanned 17 years and generated more than $32 million in profit, the foregoing question could be asked by many groups: Cornell grads, NYU law grads, Cravath lawyers, Skadden lawyers, and Wilson Sonsini lawyers.

Tonight we can add more groups to the list: Fried Frank lawyers, and gays — specifically, gay dads.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier tonight, Matt Kluger worked at yet another major law firm: Fried Frank. After he was fired by the firm in 2002, he sued, claiming that partners there discriminated against him because he’s gay — and a father of three, with parenting responsibilities.

Just when you thought this case couldn’t get any weirder, it just did. Matthew Kluger is gay. And a dad. With three kids. Thanks for sending America such a positive image of LGBT parents, Matt!

Let’s take a closer look at Kluger’s suit against Fried Frank — and additional details about Matt Kluger’s complicated personal life, gleaned from ATL tipsters….

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Morning Docket: 04.06.11

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Justice Barbara Lenk

* On the same day that Lady Kaga wrote her first dissent, Governor Deval Patrick nominated Barbara Lenk, an openly gay woman, to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Big week for… uhh, female judges. [New York Times]

* The prosecution in the Barry Bonds case rested their case yesterday, and the judge is considering throwing out previous testimony about Bonds’s shrunken testicles. National League something something small ball. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* This mob lawyer was allegedly just a mob mobster. [New York Law Journal]

* Fordham Law School hosted a conference on Bob Dylan and the law, featuring “law professors, a Dylan historian, a disc jockey and a guitar player.” Then she opened a book of poems and handed it to me. Written by an Italian jurist from the 20th century. And every one of Scalia’s words rang true and glowed like burning coal. [City Room / New York Times]

* White O’Connor, the Hollywood entertainment-law firm, is merging with “NYC white-shoe powerhouse” Kelley Drye. [Deadline.com]

* A mother has sued the Chicago public school system and her daughter’s teacher after the teacher posted the daughter’s picture on Facebook and mocked her hairstyle. The hairstyle featured an assortment of Jolly Ranchers. Sweet. [ABA Journal]

* The people of Wisconsin have spoken! And as of this morning, it’s still not entirely clear what they’re saying. The race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat is too close to call. [Politico]

Hate Crime Laws Applied in Increasingly Stupid Ways

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I’m on record as being somewhat uncomfortable with hate crimes legislation. I’m just not wild about the government punishing people for what’s in their thoughts. But I do see why society might want to make racial animus an aggravating factor in crimes.

It’s complicated, and that makes me think that prosecutors should show some flex when it comes to slapping a hate crime designation on top of a crime. But reasonable people will disagree, and I get that.

What I don’t get is how any rational human being could legitimately think that a small child is guilty of a “hate crime.” I don’t even see how a 6th grader — an 11-year-old kid — has the mens rea to commit a hate crime. Eleven-year-olds don’t commit hate crimes, they throw temper tantrums.

But New York City is going to try to stick a hate crime on a little kid from Staten Island…

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Tiger Mom Triumphant: Her Cub Got Into Harvard!

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Yale law professor Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has received a great deal of criticism — and, to be fair, book royalties — since her controversial parenting memoir’s publication in January. Many observers criticized her harsh, so-called “Chinese” parenting style as excessive, even abusive.

You can criticize all you want, but you can’t argue with success. Above the Law has confirmed that Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, the oldest daughter of Amy Chua and fellow YLS professor Jed Rubenfeld, received her Harvard acceptance earlier this week. Sophia has already made up her mind that Harvard is where she’ll attend college. (Can you blame her for wanting to trade New Haven for Cambridge?)

UPDATE: Please see the update added to the end of this post. Sophia hasn’t officially accepted her Harvard acceptance (as her Yale professor mom insisted to the Yale Daily News). She is also considering Yale.

Some readers of Amy Chua’s book wondered whether it was premature of her to “end a parenting story when one child is only 15,” in the words of Elizabeth Chang of the Washington Post. Well, now we know how the story ends — very, very happily. As I previously observed, speaking from my own personal experience, “to Asian parents, sending a child to a top college is the ultimate vindication.” And colleges don’t get more “top” than Harvard (which is #1 in the current U.S. News rankings; but even if it weren’t this year, it would still be #1 in the minds of many Asian parents). [FN1]

Of course, it shouldn’t be shocking that Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, who’s now 18, got into Harvard….

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In Five Years, Will the Endless March Of New Lawyers Finally Stop?

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Negrodamus sees a future where only people who actually want to be lawyers go to law school.

A reader sent in an encouraging list from the New York Times. Well, encouraging to me and others who want the demand for legal education to decrease to levels the legal economy can sustain.

According to this story, the Times asked 18 high school seniors in San Diego to predict their futures over the next ten years. None of them saw themselves as lawyers. They saw themselves as doctors and nurses and scientists, but not attorneys….

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Non-Sequiturs: 03.15.11

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Ann Althouse

* The town of Sedgwick, Maine, has declared “food sovereignty,” giving its citizens the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing,” without regard to state or federal law. Preemption? The Supremacy Clause? Eat it. [Food Renegade]

* Speaking of chaos, Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse wonders: “Who will win and who will lose in the recall madness?” [Althouse]

* Elsewhere in the Midwest, a blogger who didn’t commit defamation is nevertheless held liable under alternative theories that media law professor Jane Kirtley describes as “trash torts.” We no like. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune via Consumerist]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: birthday girl.

* A young couple that has been fined for their noisy kid might take legal action against their homeowners’ association. Do they have a toddler’s leg to stand on? [MyFoxDFW.com]

* Happy Birthday, Justice Ginsburg! You don’t look a day over 78. [Vault]

* We previously mentioned the ATL contest for NCAA picks — click here, join the group “Above the Law Blog” with the password “abovethelaw”, and fill out a bracket — but we also encourage you to join the Dealbreaker contest (which has much nicer prizes). [Dealbreaker]

Morning Docket: 03.15.11

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Get it into the Ivy League, or die trying.

* The GOP is right — September is a totally arbitrary deadline to re-write No Child Left Behind. Really, why would we need a new education law by the time school starts up again for the year? [Washington Post]

* Protip: if your client is suing a preschool over its TTT curriculum, you probably shouldn’t guarantee that her kid will get into an Ivy League school before she’s out of her Pull-Ups. [New York Daily News]

* “This lawsuit takes the cupcake. It’s all sprinkles and frosting until somebody files a lawsuit.” I think the title of this news story just gave me diabetes. [NBC Los Angeles]

* Charles Munger is donating $20 million to Michigan Law — which just moved up to #7 in the latest U.S. News rankings, by the way — so students in the Lawyers Club can have classier dorm rooms. It’s never too soon to instill the “models and bottles” mindset in young lawyers. [Bloomberg]

* Deval Patrick thinks he’s going to be saving Massholes $48 million by cutting 2,000 attorney jobs. What he’s really going to be doing is bringing tears to the eyes of fourth-tier law grads — er, make that second-tier law grads — and doling out more welfare checks. [MetroWest Daily News]

* Good news, everyone! NALP says that law students are going to be slightly less f*cked when it comes to getting a job. [ABA Journal]

* Too bad Latham didn’t hire a “social media guru” sooner — maybe they would have responded to our request for comment on their new Boston office. Throw us a freakin’ tweet here. [Legal Blog Watch]

Lawyers Are Just Hype Men

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Tonight America comes together to celebrate its most important holiday. Whether you’re Christian or other, tonight you will plop down on the couch, crack a beer, wait with bated breath for the first commercial break, likely have a heart attack, and definitely beat all holy hell out of your wife.

Some say football is America’s national religion. And if that’s so, A.J. Daulerio is its… sorry, I didn’t really think this metaphor through. Perhaps you already know who A.J. Daulerio is. Perhaps you read the profile of him in GQ or read the article last fall in the Times. Or, if you’re anything like me, you have Deadspin bookmarked. If it’s that last one, you probably already know what this is about.

This is about what happens when lawyers stop being polite… and start getting real. Oh, and it’s about The Sanchize, Mark Sanchez, or El Sucio Sanchez if you’re not into the whole brevity thing…

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