The U.S. employees of Dewey & LeBoeuf received a letter today that many of them have been expecting for a long time.
It was a note warning people to prepare for the worst. It was a letter finally admitting to firm employees that “it is possible that adverse developments could ultimately result in the closure of the firm.”
So, now we’re on notice…
Dude. CHILL OUT.
Earlier this week, we learned about an epic departure memo sent to an allegedly terrible boss (or a great boss, depending on who you ask).
Well, it is turning out to be a bad week for all kinds of terrible bosses. On Wednesday, a senior in-house attorney at a global financial services firm was sued by his former secretary for gender discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. Or in layman’s terms, allegedly being an über-jerk, and then some. We have snippets from the suit after the jump, but first, quiz time:
According to the lawsuit, this in-house boss from hell allegedly flung which of the following at his hapless former secretary:
A) a cup of hot tea
B) yogurt
C) degrading verbal insults
D) all of the above
Answers, as well as some expletive-laden invective from the lawsuit, below….
Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: This General Counsel Is Allegedly A Teabag-Throwing Terror”
* Of course no one likes the new pro bono requirement for would-be New York lawyers. But is it also an abuse of regulatory discretion? Maaaaybe… [Ricochet]
* Attorneys settle a personal injury case for $350,000, just minutes before the 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 anti-discrimination group 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 rules that John Yoo must be granted qualified immunity in 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. [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.)
It's a terrible thing when you have to wait too long for your chance to rule.
The entitlement reign of the really old will not end soon. With advances in modern medicine, advances that the Supreme Court will tell us how we’re allowed to pay for, today’s old people will live and work longer than any previous generation on Earth.
Or at least take up space.
While a family might be able to shove Grandpa into a nursing home, modern businesses are having a really tough time getting septuagenarian or even octogenarian partners to go away, and leave their clients behind. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that Kelley Drye owes one of its partners over half a million dollars for trying to push him into retirement, and it opens a wide door for old people to hang onto to their offices and their clients well after they can no longer chew the leather.
Maybe it’s the right thing to do, but it’s got to be annoying for the Prince Charles-esque 60-year-old “up and comer”….
Continue reading “Kelley Drye Case Makes It Even Harder to Tell Old People to 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 who was killed by a pack of Skittles, I really don’t think we’ve learned anything new. [New York Daily News]
* A sports agent tells all. [Legal Blitz]
* You don’t think your Skype chats at work are private, do you? In fairness, who still thinks anything they do at work is private? If you want to keep your privacy, you best work in disguise. I mean, you don’t really think I’m a large black man who talks about race all the time, do you? [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]
* Defending child pornographers. Somebody has to do it, and I’m so glad it’s not me. [Underdog]
After the jump, we’ve got some video footage of Lat dancing around like heathen as he throws fresh dirt on Dewey’s grave….
When we last checked in with the support staff at the law firm of Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A., we discovered that more than a dozen of them had been fired because they wore orange shirts to work. Their excuse: they all wore orange on payday so they’d look like a group when they met for happy hour. Management didn’t buy it — they thought that members of the support staff were protesting something, and fired them on the spot.
As one commenter on our last post on this issue intelligently noted, “CHECK YOU PERCEIVED CONCERTED ACTIVITY.” One week later, it’s been revealed that some of the support staff may have been protesting after all. Almost half of them have lawyered up. But what, exactly, were they protesting?
Continue reading “The Plot Thickens: Some ‘Orange Workers’ May Have Been Protesting After All”
Which t-shirt will get you fired?
Yesterday in Morning Docket, we mentioned that more than a dozen law firm staffers in Florida had been fired because they wore orange shirts to work, but the tips kept rolling in. We’re going to give you what you want. Better late than never, right?
Given that orange is popping this spring in designers’ color palettes, people really want to know more about this apparent fashion “faux pas.” Because if looking like a walking traffic cone is wrong, then some people don’t want to be right.
But if it means that they’re going to get fired, then they might just reconsider staying on trend this season….
Continue reading “Orange: A Color That Can Get You Fired in Florida”
Yolanda Young probably isn't smiling today.
Litigation against law firms: it’s all the rage right now. Earlier this week, Sara Randazzo of Am Law Daily did a round-up of over a dozen lawsuits in which law firms have been named as defendants.
Such lawsuits come, and such lawsuits go. Let’s look at the “going” side of the ledger. A federal judge just dismissed the high-profile lawsuit filed by Yolanda Young — a pundit, published memoirist (affiliate link), and Georgetown-trained lawyer, as noted on her website bio — against the elite D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling….
Continue reading “Covington Prevails in Discrimination Suit Brought by Yolanda Young”
If so, and if you happen to be a “[y]oung attractive hip female,” keep reading….
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
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