A Biglaw traveler checked in with us from Minnesota airport:

I almost spat out my Caribou Coffee when I saw this ad next to my gate. Apologies for the pic quality—a little blurry from combination of crappy phone pic and shaky hands from said latte.

Here’s said ad:

Which firm is breaking down its lawyers’ nutritional value?

Stephen Snyder is a Maryland trial attorney who has been called “one of the nation’s top litigators.” When you surf into Snyder’s website (www.snyderwins.com), it contains a warning:

Please note: This website may, at first blush, strike you as a bit over-the-top. But it’s not designed to give you pause, or scare you away. It’s simply a reflection of Stephen L. Snyder, the man. His unique personality, creative imagination, and willingness to take risks, has resulted in multiple $100 million-plus recoveries for his clients.

If creating an animated movie featuring yourself as a legal superhero might be considered “a bit over-the-top,” then yes, “Snyderman” is guilty as charged.

“Stephen Snyder, Litigator for Hire,” Website

I don’t think there are a lot of people who have been working in Biglaw for only four years and are sitting on a portable book of business. But, if you are, this Craigslist posting may be for you:

ATTORNEYS WITH BOOK OF BUSINESS ONLY! NYC (Midtown)

I am starting my own law firm, and will be soon opening my law firm based in downtown NY, I am currently the head of a corporate group at a large fim and I seek entrepreneurial attorneys (attorneys ONLY) to join as either potential partners or for Of Counsel positions to help establish presence in New York, and other major markets. Only attorneys already admitted in NY may apply.

The law firm is seeking lawyers with experience in a range of different practice areas, principally in Securities, Capital Markets, FINRA Arbitration and Securities litigation, also including, but not limited to, general corporate, real estate, tax, energy, tort , intellectual property (including patent, trademark, copyright and technology licensing), white collar criminal defense, litigation, commercial litigation, international and/or labor & employment law.

Successful candidates will have self-sustaining practices as well as a strong desire to work in a collegial, collaborative, flexible and entrepreneurial environment law firm or become part of building their own firm as Of Counsels or join our starting firm benefiting from large marketing, the ability to show prospective clients that they are with a large firm rather than sole practitioneers and cross refer business clients and retain their relations with their clients and increase their portofolio.

Don’t you usually look for a professional headhunter to fill a position like this? I just can’t imagine a person with a self-sustaining practice looking to lateral over Craigslist.

Then again, check out the minimum qualifications. The candidate this firm is looking for might not exist.

Remember Jane Allen Clark? She’s the Texas attorney who originally used the quasi-racy photo on the left for her lawyer profile on the state bar website. After we wrote about it, she replaced it with the more staid portrait on the right:

But where did that first photo come from? An eagle-eyed reader drew something to our attention….

Last month, we linked to the Texas Bar profile for Jane Allen Clark. At right, it was racier than most of the bar association photos we come across.

We wrote at the time:

We called Jane Allen Clark to ask about the photo, and how she chose it. “I just liked it,” she told us. “We all want to look like L.A. Law, I guess.”

After getting our call, she speculated that “maybe [she] shouldn’t have used that particular photo.”

After the Above The Law post, she decided to get rid of this particular photo.

See the replacement after the jump. In our opinion, it’s much worse.

On Monday, we reviewed the new website of Ballard Spahr. The firm rolled out a new name: it’s just Ballard Spahr LLP now, and not Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll LLP. While it shaved some names from its moniker, it upped its photo count: attorneys had to take two photos for their bios, a head shot and a full-body shot.

We created a poll and asked whether it’s acceptable for your firm to ask you to take a body shot for the website. Almost 70% of you said no.

But Ballard’s not the only firm making its attorney do body shots. Commenters on the Ballard thread pointed us to another firm that requires both body shots and a bit of acting.

They do it bigger and better in Texas. A San Antonio-based law firm, Cox Smith, makes its attorneys take three photos for their firm bio pages.

A selection of the Cox “triple threat” photos — along with reader-provided captions, some of them irreverent, so consider yourselves warned — after the jump.

Ballard Spahr has revamped its website. It’s clean, it’s fresh, and it has lots of stock photos and little comment pop-ups. One ATL reader urged us to take a closer look:

You guys have to check out the new Ballard Spahr website, it is hysterical. Click on any attorney, there are two pictures, face and body. It looks like a model portfolio or comp card for actors.

We did some clicking in Ballard Spahr’s “People” section, and we can confirm there’s some amusement value to the head shots paired with full body shots.

While we perused, we wondered whether it’s reasonable to ask associates, special counsel, and partners to go beyond the head shot. Some looked happier about it than others. Check out some of our favorite Ballard body shots and take our poll, after the jump.

An ATL reader sent along a link to an attorney profile at the Texas State Bar website, with the following request:

Please find out if this is for real.

The photo on the State Bar of Texas website that prompted the reader’s plea to us, plus the backstory behind the picture — after the jump.

Before the recession, this would have surprised me. Now, it seems relatively pedestrian. The Joplin Globe reports (via the ABA Journal):

BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. — Lawyers Chris Meek and Nathan Coleman are taking it on the road. They have turned a 2002 Volkswagen Rialta into a mobile law office.

“It’s a convenience factor for our clients,” Coleman said of the recreational vehicle, sometimes called a Winnebago Rialta.

If an ambulance leaves Manhattan, KS, traveling at 75 mph, and a mobile law office leaves Baxter Springs, KS, traveling at 50 mph, at what point do the two vehicles collide and open a portal to another dimension heralding the apocalypse?

Baxter Springs and Joplin law partners bring office to clients [Joplin Globe]
Lawyers Turn a 2002 RV into a Mobile Law Office [ABA Journal]

Yesterday we told you about the firm Trial Lawyers For Justice asking job applicants to send in some non-standard information. Among other things, the firm asked potential employees to send in a family photograph.

We asked Nick Rowley — who wrote the ad asking for applicants to send in their personal story and political beliefs along with their picture — to explain how these factors affect his decision making process for new hires.

He furnished Above the Law with a full response. We’re publishing it full after the jump. Let Mr. Rowley know if you agree with his reasons in the comments.

We all know that it is difficult to get a job in this legal market. But an advertisement posted on the Minnesota state bar website makes it look like we are just one step away from genetic testing for junior associates. At least in Iowa.

The request for new talent starts off very earnestly:

DECORAH, IA plaintiff firm is seeking a brilliant hardworking lawyer who would rather do research and writing than be in court. Firm practices catastrophic injury, medical malpractice, and wrongful death and is seeking a lawyer licensed or in the process of becoming licensed in Iowa and/or Minnesota willing to get licensed in both with a possibility of Wisconsin and California, who is willing to relocate to Decorah, IA. Position will be handling of the firm’s law and motion, discovery, legal research, and appeals (to work 50 hours per week, full time inside the office to prepare the firm’s trial lawyers who travel and spend most of their time in court). One month paid vacation per year, salary is negotiable and commensurate with experience and qualifications, the firm may be willing to provide housing in Decorah, IA. Writing samples, resume, and examples of briefs and projects worked on is required.

But then this plaintiff’s firm ad becomes … kind of creepy:

Much thought is going to be put into who will fill this very important position with the firm. Persons who are interested are requested to email a personal story of who the applicant is, what his or her political beliefs are, and what they believe about justice and personal injury litigation along with a recent personal and/or family photograph.

Political beliefs? A family photo? You know, this is one time where a little “X law firm is an equal opportunity employer …” tagline would be comforting.

What law firm put this advertisement together? Details after the jump.

A reader sent this Craigslist ad along, noting the “uninhibited freedom of expression afforded to smaller firms” in their advertising as opposed to “uber-processed biglaw ads.” Yes, MidLaw and SmallLaw, thank you for providing the fuel for our Adventures in Lawyer Advertising series.

The advertising California-based firm, Le Pelletier, has one of the strangest websites we’ve ever seen. There is only one attorney listed: the firm’s managing partner, Erin Carlstrom Pelletier. Her LinkedIn profile says she is a Yale undergrad, Pepperdine Law ‘08 grad, who apparently started her own firm.

In case you can’t read it, here’s an excerpt from the ad:

Do you need a stealthy warrior specially trained in the unorthodox arts of law? How about a team that can sneak under the cover of darkness to silently assassinate your debt? Le and Pelletier, LLP can be your ninja! We will stalk your enemies like a shadow and strike before they ever knew what hit them.

The rest of the text and some gems from the firm’s site, after the jump.

If it wasn’t for places like Texas, we wouldn’t have lawyers like Nelson Skinner.

Regulators, mount up!

Displaced 3Ls who haven’t been able to line up a job for the fall might want to give this woman a call:

I wonder if she’s hiring junior associates?

Have a nice weekend.

Are you a Lawyer? Probably Not. [Funny or Die]

We’ve seen a lot of interesting law firm websites in our time, but the MySpace page for the “Law Office of Mark Meisinger” is in a class of its own [hat tip to The Young Texas Lawyer]. The Law Office is “single,” and interested in “Networking, Dating, Serious Relationships, Friends.” Appropriately, the current mood for the Dallas-based Law Office is “adventurous:”

According to the “About Me” section, “representing those who mess with Texas” means taking on clients charged with DWIs, drug possession, probation violations, and traffic offenses. Other important bits about “The Law Office of Mark Meisinger:” it used to be a juvenile delinquent, it was a member of Phi Delta Theta, it has worked “with all kinds of different government agencies, and it “interned for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District Of Nebraska and prosecuted several federal cases.”

When we first came across it, we doubted that the MySpace page would effectively attract prospective clients, but Meisinger is quoted in a post on Criminal Defense Lawyer saying that it does:

“The people I’m going after [as clients] are on MySpace,” says Meisinger, who graduated from Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Neb., in 2004, and office shares at Gioffreddi & Associates in Dallas. “A whole bunch of people who party, who drink, whatever, those are the people on there who want to be my [MySpace] friend… I have gotten cases off there [MySpace]; there’s no doubt. One month, I got four DWIs off of there. It’s way more than the phone book’s doing for me.”

So… the screw-ups on MySpace are the clientele he’s targeting. Nice. He also friends hotties, judging from the posts on his wall:

T-shirts(!) and more, after the jump.

Hi all, this is Billy Merck once again (for those regulars out there who already hate know me, check out the link anyway, ‘cause the site’s been revamped), mostly filling in for today and tomorrow, though Lat is probably going to poke his head in a time or two.

We’re going to be continuing Non-Top-Tier Law School Week, but first this morning we have a bit of biglaw advertising. Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP want you to know that they’re real trial lawyers who, you know, like, actually go to trial and stuff. The creative way that their advertising agency came up with to express that idea follows the jump.