Kirkland & Ellis

Non-Sequiturs: 05.23.13

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* Congratulations to Sri Srinivasan on his unanimous confirmation to the D.C. Circuit. Fun Fact: Sri Srinivasan played high school basketball on the same team as Danny Manning. No joke there, it’s just a random fun fact I know about him. [USA Today]

* Should health care cover sex for people with disabilities? Sure, but spring for the Cadillac plan so you don’t get stuck with Helen Hunt. [PrawfsBlawg]

* The federal government has almost $5 billion invested in law schools. That’s around 4.4% of the total federal investment in higher education. So screw you future microbiologist, we need moar lawyerz! [Law School Cafe]

* Skadden covertly recruited its lawyers and staff best versed in Star Wars to sort through the intellectual property rights to 209 characters to make sure Disney successfully acquired the proper rights for every core character. If they had any decency they’d just let Jar Jar go. [Hollywood Reporter via ABA Journal]

* Law school to reconsider applicant it dinged the first time around. As Paul Caron notes, “Money quote from Dean: ‘we wanted to make sure that we weren’t taking advantage of them.’” How magnanimous of you to reconsider taking their money. [Tax Prof Blog]

* Judges manipulated the system to promote a vendor they personally operated on the State’s time. That’s one way to pad that judicial salary. [Washington Times]

* Kirkland and Ellis associate Roy Cho is mulling a run for Congress in New Jersey. It’s not official yet, but he has set up a campaign-ready Twitter account, and in politics that’s like changing to “In a Relationship” on Facebook. [NJ Herald]

* Zachary Cohn, age 6, drowned after becoming entrapped in the drain of his family’s swimming pool. The Connecticut Superior Court recently finalized a combined settlement of $40 million to Zac’s estate. Now his parents have taken all of the net proceeds from the case to establish The ZAC Foundation to tackle the nationwide issue of pool suction entrapment in private and public pools and to improve overall water safety. [Daily Business Review]

* The gender and age discrimination suit between Pat Martone and Ropes & Gray settled. [Thompson Reuters News & Insight]

* The Times Publishing House is suing a 22-year-old law student for defamation. A newspaper suing a new media reporter with the very laws that land them constantly in court? *Cuts off nose to spite face* [Spicy IP India]

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Morning Docket: 05.13.13

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Ted Ullyot

* Given the name and origins of the Tea Party movement, it actually makes perfect sense that their groups got grief from the IRS. [Washington Post]

* Wachtell Lipton weighs in against the practice of shareholder activists offering special compensation to director nominees. [Dealbook / New York Times]

* A law professor, Joshua Silverstein, argues that schools should embrace grade inflation. (But haven’t most of them done this already?) [WSJ Law Blog]

* Facebook shareholders might not “like” this news, but Ted Ullyot plans to step down as general counsel after about five years. We’ll have more on this later. [Corporate Counsel]

* The Brooklyn DA’s office is reopening 50 murder cases that were worked on by retired detective Louis Scarcella (who looks oh-so-savory in the NYT’s photo of him). [New York Times]

* In news that should shock no one, Nicholas Speath’s dubious discrimination case against Georgetown Law has been dismissed. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]

* Not long after leaving Cravath for Kirkland, Sarkis Jebejian is putting together billion-dollar deals for private-equity clients. [Am Law Daily]

* Professor Jeffrey Rosen reviews an interesting new book, The Federalist Society (affiliate link), authored by Michael Avery and Danielle McLaughlin. [New York Times]

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.01.13

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* We know you’re all excited about the new RANKINGS, but tonight is also the LAST NIGHT to vote for Law Revue finalists. [Above the Law]

* “It’s totally reasonable to spend $75 just for a shot at an unpaid internship,” said no one ever. [Craigslist] UPDATE: The crafty employer took it down already. But they didn’t count on me getting a screenshot and transcribing it. Check it out after the jump!

* Kirkland & Ellis (or any Biglaw firm) handing out advice on women and “work/life balance” should elicit exactly this response. [UChiLawGo]

* Reading Above the Law can make you money. Sure, it’s only by boosting your severance package, but… [A Paralegal's Life]

* Several law school professors were recruited from prison. So if you’re hoping to get tenure… [Dallas Blog]

* Pirate Bay is still out there hopping around the Caribbean to avoid prosecution. Just like real-life, well, you know. [IBTimes]

* Running over a bicyclist? Accomplishment unlocked for some real-life GTA players. [Legal Juice]

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An Interview with Steven Harper, Former Kirkland Partner and Author of ‘The Lawyer Bubble’

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If you follow the world of large law firms, then you are probably familiar with the incisive and candid commentary of Steven J. Harper. Over at his blog, The Belly of the Beast, Harper offers excellent insights into the world of Biglaw.

Harper knows so much about that world because he spent his entire legal career in it. He joined Kirkland & Ellis after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979. He practiced litigation at the firm for about 30 years, until his retirement in 2008, at the early age of 54 (which you can afford to do when you’re an equity partner at a firm as lucrative as K&E).

In addition to blogging, Harper has written four books. I spoke last week with Harper about his latest book, The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis (affiliate link), and about his views on the worlds of Biglaw and legal education….

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Morning Docket: 03.28.13

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* Based on the justices’ reactions during oral arguments in Windsor v. U.S., there was no defending the Defense of Marriage Act. Not even Paul Clement, the patron saint of conservative causes, could save the day. [New York Times]

* Alas, the David Boies and Ted Olson Dream Team stole much of the spotlight from Roberta Kaplan, the Paul Weiss partner who argued on behalf of Edith Windsor in an effort to overturn DOMA. Seriously, you go girl! [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Dude, you’re getting a Dell! Alston & Bird and Kirkland & Ellis are the latest firms to join the Biglaw sharks (including Ho-Love, Debevoise, Wachtell, SullCrom, and Simpson Thacher) circling this major tech buyout. [Am Law Daily]

* It looks like it’s time for JPMorgan to face the music for its investments in Lehman Brothers, because a federal judge just ruled that the bank cannot “dispatch plaintiff’s claims to the waste bin.” [Reuters]

* An alleged killer’s sense of mortality: James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado movie theater shooting, offered to plead guilty and spend life in prison in order to avoid the death penalty. [CNN]

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Morning Docket: 03.06.13

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* Dewey was quick about getting its Chapter 11 plan confirmed, but all of these unfinished business claims are taking a little longer to resolve than previously hoped. But hey, at least Paul Hastings settled. [Am Law Daily]

* Because sometimes profit sharing isn’t enough: Theodore Freedman, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner, pleaded guilty to tax fraud after underreporting his partnership income by more than $2M. [New York Law Journal]

* Here are some tips if you’re trying to get off a law school’s wait list. Apparently it’s wise to wait patiently instead of being a complete gunner from the get go. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Imagine a land filled with millions of little Honey Boo Boos. That’s what the great state of Arkansas is going to look like if the legislature passes the most restrictive abortion law in the country. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Not only do the Mavericks suck, but Mark Cuban’s luck in court does, too. His bid to toss an insider trading case was denied. He’d probably jump over the bench and have a fit if he could. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Dawn Clark Netsch, beloved Illinois pol and one of the nation’s first female law profs, RIP. [Chicago Tribune]

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Caption Contest Winner: For Want of a Biglaw Banana

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Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

On Monday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest….

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Morning Docket: 02.26.13

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‘Best court-ordered pajama party ever! Yay!’

* Our own Elie Mystal isn’t the only one who’s capable of fanning the flames of race baiting — it seems that Supreme Court justices can do it, too! We’ll probably have more on Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s benchslap later today. [The Two-Way / NPR]

* Patience is obviously one of this judge’s virtues, because this took a looooong time. After waiting more than a year for people to put their petty political pandering aside, the Senate confirmed Robert Bacharach to the Tenth Circuit. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Mary Jo White, the nominee to lead the SEC, will probably face her confirmation hearing in March. Her legal wranglings at Debevoise may be of interest to some, but really, who cares? She’s so cute and tiny! [Reuters]

* Mayer Brown and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year: gross revenue is up overall at most Biglaw firms, but not this one. In 2012, Mayer Brown’s revenue dipped 3.7 percent for a six-year low. [Am Law Daily]

* Kirkland & Ellis, now the fifth-largest Biglaw firm in the nation, is leading the market in terms of top dollar merger-and-acquisition deals. Now, if only the firm could get some bananas. [Crain's Chicago Business]

* Orderly liquidation authority may be a legitimate exercise of power under the Bankruptcy Clause, but as far as these states are concerned, it’s just another reason to hate the Dodd-Frank Act. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Remember Peggy Ableman, the judge who ordered lawyers to attend a course on remedial civility in their “jammies”? She’s now at McCarter & English, so mind your manners. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* An “astronomically stupid” legal loophole? Unpossible! Gun trusts are seeing the limelight because Chris Dorner claims he used one to purchase his paraphernalia without a background check. [New York Times]

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Caption Contest Finalists: For Want of a Biglaw Banana

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Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

Let’s have a look at what our readers came up with, and then vote on the finalists….

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Caption Contest: For Want of a Biglaw Banana

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What would you do if your Biglaw firm wasn’t providing you with the kind of nutritious breakfast foods that you oh so desperately need in order to sit in front of a computer all day and troll the comments on Above the Law draft documents? You’d probably whine and moan about your first-world problems to all of your similarly situated friends before even deigning to consider that you could bring your own damn bananas to work.

That’s exactly what everyone’s bitching about at one Biglaw firm, which to be quite frank, is bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S!)….

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