Labor / Employment

A secretary is suing her former boss, an in-house attorney who gives terrible bosses a bad name…

* Of course no one likes the new pro bono requirement for would-be New York lawyers. But it is also an abuse of regulatory discretion? Maaaaybe… [Ricochet] * Attorneys settle a personal injury case for $350,000, just minutes before jury returns a $9 million verdict. All hell breaks loose, Satan rides in on a chariot pulled by dragons, all the light bulbs explode, and now they are arguing over whether to retry the case. [The Recorder] * Texas bar exam results are out! [Texas Board of Law Examiners] * The jury judge has spoken. Woe and mockery to those in Pennsylvania’s 49th Judicial District who fail to use the Oxford comma. [Constitutional Daily] * Do robots dream of electric anti-Semitism? A new lawsuit filed by a French antidiscrimination group apparently thinks so. The group is not happy that Google apparently suggests “Jewish” as an autocomplete result if you look up celebrities such as Rupert Murdoch and Jon Hamm. I wonder if Godwin’s Law applies to computers. [Daily Dolt] * The Ninth Circuit says John Yoo, author of the so-called “torture memos,” is immune from a lawsuit filed by an American who was allegedly tortured. [Thomson Reuters] * Interesting employment law tidbit: you might be able to destroy a surprising amount of your employer’s property before you get fired (gavel bang: Amar’e Stoudemire). [Dealbreaker]

* Paul Clement is a beast, is basically what it comes down to. [The Daily Beast] * This is probably the grossest, most pornographic employment discrimination/sexual harassment/defamation lawsuit I’ve seen. Maybe fans of 50 Shades of Grey (affiliate link) might find it compelling. The writing in the lawsuit is probably better… [Courthouse News] * Predictive coding is good. Now it’s bad. Now it’s good. Make up your mind! [Law Technology News] * A touching obituary about a first-year Reed Smith associate who recently took his own life. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] * Elie was on Fox News late last night (video embed after the jump). He brought the funny. The hosts of the show… not so much. They did bring the racist, though. [Red Eye] * If you ever get in trouble for tweeting or blogging about jury duty, Davis Oscar Markus is the guy to call. [Miami Herald] * LexisNexis recently unveiled its new, ginormous legal e-book library. It’s just like a normal law library, except you don’t have to ask the pesky law librarian for help. [LexisNexis] (Embedded Elie, after the jump.)

Is there no legal way to make old people go away?

* Alexander Wang says that he wasn’t running a sweatshop and that the former employee making the allegations was actually mean to all the other indentured servants workers. [Fashionista] * We’re well into the phase of the Trayvon Martin investigation where people are trying to blame the victim, but until they show me a guy […]

It's been revealed that some of the orange-shirted support staff at this Florida firm may have been protesting after all. Almost half of them have lawyered up. But what, exactly, were they protesting?

A dozen law firm staffers in Florida had been fired because they wore orange shirts to work, and people really want to know more about this apparent fashion “faux pas.” What happened?

Remember Yolanda Young, who alleged that Covington & Burling relegated minorities to a "staff attorney ghetto"? Whatever happened to her lawsuit against the elite D.C. firm?

Are you interested in working for a "legal baller"? Well, do you happen to be a "[y]oung attractive hip female"?

Stress can be just as deleterious to your health when working at a regional firm as it is when you work for a truly huge firm. This week, we've been fielding a bunch of reports about an associate who passed away at home after working what some tipsters report as maniac hours at his regional law firm the week before. It's a sad story, one that some accuse the law firm of trying to cover up, but it's another opportunity for us to remind readers to take care of themselves even when work seems overwhelming....

There’s no Valentine’s Day exemption to the sexual harassment laws. — Labor and employment attorney Steven Palazzolo, commenting on what not to do in the workplace on Valentine’s Day.

When I was a kid, before many of you were born, there were ads during Saturday morning cartoons for a program called “RIF” -– an acronym for “Reading is Fundamental.” Started in 1966 in Washington, D.C., it is supposedly one of the oldest non-profit educational programs in existence. I mentioned RIFs in my last column, […]

I recently participated in a Room for Debate forum for the New York Times on the controversial subject of unpaid internships. Critics of these positions argue that such exploitative arrangements contribute to “constricted social and professional mobility, growing inequality, and an economy whose top tier is becoming less and less diverse” (in the words of […]

This week, Lateral Link Director Scott Hodes gives us some insight into the increase in lateral hirings in the Empire State of the South. Atlanta has emerged as one of the best lateral associate markets in the country. While 2009 was slow as in most markets, 2010 signaled a comeback, and 2011 confirmed the upward […]

It appears that Gregory Berry's "superior legal mind" failed to impress Justice Eileen Bransten of New York Supreme Court. Ruling from the bench, she dismissed his entire case, with prejudice. But that's not all. Her Honor was displeased when Berry walked out of her courtroom before the hearing was over, while she was still putting her ruling on the record....

* There’s a new chief legal officer at Morgan Stanley: Eric Grossman, a former Davis Polk partner, replaces Frank Barron, a former Cravath partner (who joined Morgan Stanley not that long ago; if you know more about this odd situation, email us). [Bloomberg Businessweek] * Will anybody be surprised if it turns out that Ron […]

Tim Tebow is a God in Florida, and he was sitting there in the draft when Jacksonville passed on him. Now, the Jacksonville Jaguars have a new owner. Coincidence? The Jaguars seem to be a terribly run organization. Even the Jags' lawyers can't get it together. The new owner removed the team's general counsel for something that looks like an unforgivable error for a lawyer to make....

Remember how everyone used say, “Don’t post anything on Facebook you wouldn’t want your boss to see. But if you do, just make sure you set your privacy settings so that your boss can’t see.” Well, things have changed. Now, when companies enter workman’s compensation or personal injury litigation, courts will sometimes order discovery on […]

Four months ago, you revised your company’s policy on employees’ use of social media. The policy said all the right things: When employees use social media, they should respect the rights of others and treat people with dignity; obey the company’s code of business conduct; maintain corporate confidences; and so on. Unbelievably, some recent communications […]

What do Proskauer Rose and Ropes & Gray have in common (besides the seven shared letters in their firm names)? They are both leading law firms. They both have major presences, their two biggest offices, in New York and Boston. They both have blue and gray in their logos. And they are both involved in […]