Lawyer-politicians from Illinois are a mixed bag. One is Time's person of the year and will be installed in the White House by the end of the month. Another has disgraced the governor's office with federal corruption charges and the threat of impeachment. Today's Lawyer of the Day was appointed by the latter to fill the seat of the former, and the Howard University law grad is adamant about filling that Senate seat.

As Rod Blagojevich might say, Roland Burris has got something f***in' golden, and he doesn't want to give it up for f***in' nothin'.

Today, Burris is going to the opening session of the 111th Congress and he wants his seat. His sheer audacity might be enough to qualify him for the ATL Lawyer of the Day honor, but Burris has even more going for him: a death mausoleum. From CBS News:

The 71-year-old has built a mausoleum listing his achievements. The granite structure, with two columns supporting a covered area and three tablets, list his political and business accomplishments -- "First African-American in Illinois" to become the attorney general, state comptroller, vice president of Continental Illinois National Bank, etc. -- with the term "Trail Blazer" chiseled in large type above.

Burris is hoping to add "U.S. Senator" to the list (and there is room in the granite for it), but there are several roadblocks on the way to Capitol Hill.

More on Burris' fight for the Senate, and our suggestion for his mausoleum, after the jump.

The Saturday night antics of two Florida lawyers have the makings of a great episode of the Jerry Springer show. Alleged sex in a bathroom, a girl-on-girl fighting match, and legal misrepresentation.

Lawyer-lobbyist Lawyer Aimee Marie Dias, 35, was at a swanky restaurant in Tampa on Saturday night. When she went to use the bathroom, she discovered a man and woman allegedly doing the Tampa tango. We don't understand the sequence of events from this point, but apparently Dias threw a punch at the copulating duo. This led to a brawl between the women that spilled out into the restaurant with the ladies on "the floor rolling around exchanging punches, pushes," according to the ABA Journal.

Labor and employment law attorney Brent Warren Yessin, 44, was waiting for the valet when police arrived. He decided to enter the fray, telling police he represented the parties involved. Though Dias and the rest denied this, Yessin was insistent. Apparently, very insistent:

[Yessin] was wrestled to the ground by four officers after he kept insisting that he represented one of the suspects and refused repeated requests to leave the restaurant, the Times reports.

Yessin was charged with obstructing an officer without violence, and apparently jailed for four hours until he posted $1,000 bail. Both Dias and Jacolow were initially arrested for battery, but agreed to drop the charges against each other.

A few lessons here: if you're going to have sex in a public restroom, do it in a stall. If you walk in on public sex, don't throw punches. If you're waiting for valet, don't try to pick up clients mid-brawl. If you live in Tampa, move away. Far, far away.

[Ed. note: Aimee Marie Dias has no relation to Aimee Marie Diaz whose profile we linked to originally.]

Best. Fracas. Ever. [The Legal Satyricon]
Female Lawyer in Fistfight, Male Lawyer Arrested in Wild Restaurant Scene [ABA Journal]
Report's Topics: Bathroom Sex, Lawyer's Arrest, Fight [Tampa Tribune]

Eric Holzer is was a tax attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP. But he's been caught up in a $4.8 million insider trading scheme along with a bunch of day traders, a1994 Playboy Playmate; and Lee Corbin, a partner at Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever LLP, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription).

(Corbin is being spared the ignominy of Lawyer of the Day, as he is only a "relief defendant" in the case. He is not charged with wrongdoing, but is being sued for ill-gotten gains as he acted on the advice of his son, one of the day traders.)

Sadly, Holzer threw his career away for just a little more than one year of a junior Biglaw associate salary. From the SEC press release:

Eric Holzer, age 34, Devlin's friend and a tax associate in the New York City office of an international law firm, traded in at least three of the transactions. Holzer reaped profits of $175,000 in his own accounts and two accounts controlled by his father. Holzer gave Devlin cash, some of which came from shares he had his father buy on Devlin's behalf.

According to The New York Law Journal, the scheme was led by Matt Devlin, a Lehman Brothers rep whose wife was a Brunswick Group partner. He referred to her as a "golden goose" and used information gleaned from her work to advise his friends on investments. When Devlin got caught, he helped bring his friends down.

More after the jump.

Lawyer fight! The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that competition for clients is heating up in the bayou:

Two attorneys competing for clients, prestige and a bounty of legal fees opened a hearing at Orleans Parish Civil District Court on Monday with a schoolyard brawl that shocked the buttoned-up crowd and ended with one led away in handcuffs on charges of contempt.

The best thing about lawyer fights are the clever euphemisms that the combatants use to explain just how badly they got their asses kicked. Remember this Louisiana throw down between attorneys who were also in-laws?

"I said, 'You just bought yourself a ticket to a bar (association) complaint.' He grabbed me by the neck and started swinging me back and forth. .¤.¤. He hurt me substantially. I became woozy and fell."

This time, both battling attorneys (Madro Bandaries and J. Robert Ates) offered competing explanations as to how they were so easily and quickly defeated.

The case of Glass Joe versus Captain Inaction continues after the jump.

Now that we're nearing the end of the year, it's a good time to put things in perspective.

While recent posts have focused on what Elie calls "the four hoursemen of the economic crisis" (layoffs, salary freezes, low bonuses, and dissolution), we should always remember that there's crushing debt, too. ATL can also be a place for hope.

Just last year, a "skinny kid with a funny name" was nominated for ATL Lawyer of the Year . . . and lost to an ATL commenter-prophet with a not-so-funny view of his career prospects.

In honor of that improbable victory by Loyola 2L, today's ATL / Lateral Link survey calls for nominations for this year's Lawyer of the Year.

Last year, your nominees included luminaries like Barack Obama (because "I mean, did you see the Obama Girl videos?"), Hillary Clinton ("She's fabulous."), Alberto Gonzales, ("Exemplifies why lawyers are so mistrusted in this country."), Aaron Charney, ("For both the attention focused, success of action, and for the visibility [he] brought to the secondary issue of partner/associate relations (but not those kinds of relations)."), and, of course, the winner, Loyola 2L ("He's generated the most thoughtful discussion of law school. That, and perhaps the publicity will help him get a job.").

Submit your nominations for this year's Lawyer of the Year below.

Also, in honor of Loyola 2L's victory, we're adding a bonus question (which may be the only bonus some of you get this year): we're accepting nominations for the ATL Commenter of the Year, so you can tell us who's "First!" in your heart.

Of course, even though there's a spot for you to nominate a Commenter of the Year, you can also still feel free to nominate a commenter for Lawyer of the Year, too. Or, as one commenter in particular might put it, there are . . .

TWO! TWO PLACES TO NOMINATE COUNT LAYOFFULA!!! AH AH AH!!!!!

--
Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this survey.

This story is salacious, but not at all funny. Anthony Ottaviano, an attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, was shot to death by a man who was obsessed with his girlfriend:

After fatally shooting Anthony Ottaviano, musclebound madman David Krieg kidnapped the white-shoe lawyer's girlfriend, Edythe Maa, a Long Island native who goes by the name Jade Vixen in fetish circles.

Ottaviano and Maa happened to be into S&M, but it appears that the couple's sexual predilections have little to do with Ottaviano's murder:

The violence began when Ottaviano, 40, and his girlfriend returned to her Philadelphia home after a cozy dinner, police sources said.

Krieg, a former client of Maa's who had been stalking her for months, was waiting for them in a parking lot near her home, police said.

The tattooed lunatic shot Ottaviano and then forced Maa into his car.

Ottaviano's friends and colleagues at Paul Weiss were understandably sadden:

"It's a terrible tragedy," said Jack Baughman, a partner at Paul, Weiss ...

"He was a really nice guy. He was a hard worker. He was conscientious. He was careful."

Our hearts go out to all of Ottaviano's friends and family.

Lawyer's Deadly Secret [NY Post]

Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Adam Yanoff just started his job as prosecutor in August. But maybe he should have been a public defender.

Yanoff was busted over the holiday weekend carrying 1.3 grams of crack cocaine and about $20 worth of weed:

The cop observed Yanoff empty the cocaine from a small bag onto a magazine, and then use a straw to snort the substance.

Field research?

In any event, we can likely add another lawyer to the list of those recently out of a job:

Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham, said Yanoff has been suspended without pay. His case will be handled by the state attorney general.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug.

Assistant D.A. jailed on drug charges [Philadelphia Daily News]

Jason John Jingleheimer Schmidt Keller is a full service criminal defense attorney. He's there for you at your arraignment, at your trial, and even when you get the shakes:

According to court documents, Keller, 34, on at least three separate occasions this year, allegedly smuggled heroin, a cell phone and cell phone charger into the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail.

Well, what was he supposed to do? Not provide his clients with a reliable hook up? Obviously he gave his clients all the means to acquire this precious substance on their own and only stepped in when nobody else would mule them the needed medication.

Keller's clients don't sound like the kind of guys you say no to:

Some of the inmates are members of a violent criminal street gang, the Mexican Mafia, and at least one is known to be Keller's client, the Arizona attorney general's office said.

Hopefully, the Mexican Mafia saved some of their contraband to share with Mr. Donkey Esquire.

Defense attorney faces prison contraband charges [East Valley Tribune]
Attorney charged with smuggling heroin, phones into jail [KTAR]

Attorney Kevin Napper got busted in a Tampa prostitution sting. It wasn't a Spitzer-esque high-end call girl thing. Instead Napper tried to solicit a $40 blow job (from an undercover police officer) in a local red-light district. Classy.

Surely Napper could have afforded higher-end services. He rolled up to the undercover officer rocking a gold Mercedes E500.

Still, Napper did manage to buy himself a motherload of hypocrisy for his forty bucks. Napper is married to Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Katherine Gail Essrig. She must be so proud.

Maybe Napper's wife could have seen this coming. Napper received his J.D. from the University of North Dakota. But in a deliciously cheap twist of fate, he received his B.A. from Moorhead State.

Napper's excuse after the jump.

It seems that things have been going pretty well for Gabriel Schwartz. A 2004 graduate of the University of Denver College of Law, the 29-year-old is already the founder of a law firm, Sandomire & Schwartz. He's president of his own company (PDF). And he was selected to be a Colorado delegate to the Republican National Convention.

But, at the Convention, he went home with a random new lady-friend -- and now he's the fodder for this headline, "GOP delegate's hotel tryst goes bad when he wakes up with $120,000 missing." From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed.

And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered.

When he awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings... The haul included a $30,000 watch, a $20,000 ring, a necklace valued at $5,000, earrings priced at $4,000 and a Prada belt valued at $1,000, police said.

Apparently, Denver attorneys can do pretty well. More on this bling-blinging Lawyer of the Day, after the jump.

Oklahoman attorney Lewis Moon and Oklahoma County public defender David Bedford got a little wild at a Whataburger on Friday. After being arrested for drunkenly driving through the drive-through backwards, the two decided to mix it up with the coppers. From KTUL 8:

Police say Moon spit on an officer and produced a badge and claimed to be a deputy.

He was arrested on complaints of actual physical control of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, impersonating a law officer, resisting arrest and placing bodily fluids on a law officer.

Sheriff's spokesman Mark Myers says the badge is not official but is a keepsake given to people who support the sheriff's department.

We started to issue a sad little "awwww" at the idea of someone presenting the cute little keepsake badge and then spitting on the officer... but then we were distracted thinking about "placing bodily fluids on a law officer" existing as its own charge. That's an embarrassing one to have on your record. As if you spit in your hand and then rubbed it on the officer. It would sound much more respectable if it were "assaulting a law officer with bodily fluids." But we digress...

The lawyers kept behaving badly after they were taken into the station and it was caught on film. You know things have gone horribly wrong when "Geek Lawyer" is mocking you.

Two Attorneys Arrested In Warr Acres [KTUL 8]
Wasted lawyers behaving badly [GeekLawyer]

The folks across the pond were fodder for posts yesterday on judicial fashion and invention of the Ipod. We return to news from the Brits with our lawyer of the day: Peter Fitzpatrick, a former partner at Muirhead Buchanan in Stirling, England.

Like disgraced Legal Aid attorney Peter Barta, Fitzpatrick wanted to catch a looksie at female colleagues in the buff. This peeping Peter was not as clever in hiding the camera though:

[Fitzpatrick] was caught when a 24-year-old secretary noticed a circular hole had been cut in the side of one of several cardboard boxes in the [toilet] cubicle and was pointing towards the lavatory seat...

The sheriff, who has previously been criticised over controversial rulings, told Fitzpatrick, 49, that she could avoid imposing a jail sentence because any woman should have noticed the device...

Kate Mulligan, prosecuting, said a secretary noticed that one of the holes in one of the boxes had been enlarged. She added: "She picked it up and it felt heavy. On opening the box she found a video cassette recorder with a tape in it."

Not too clever, Mr. Fitzpatrick. The judge ruled that the attempt was so bad it qualified as a cry for help, and gave him just three years probation.

But regardless, ladies, be warned. Watch out for mysteriously heavy cardboard boxes with holes that suddenly appear in the loo.

Lawyer films women in lavatory with secret camera [Telegraph]

Our Lawyers of the Day are do-gooders by day, but public-urinators and face-spitters by night. Brendan Relyea and Michael Pate hail from the Legal Aid Society of New York; their bad behavior at a Brooklyn bar made its way into the pages of the New York Post:

A Legal Aid defense lawyer dropped his briefs in a Brooklyn bar and made a motion to relieve himself - sparking a brawl that landed him and a colleague in legal trouble of their own, The Post has learned.

We almost stopped reading after that terribly punny lede paragraph, but we managed to persevere. Relyea has been charged with public urination, and both are charged with assault, menacing and harassment.

Details of their wild night in Brooklyn, after the jump.

Sadly, I don't own a Kevlar vest. If I did, I would be coming to you live from Detroit today, because it appears that today is the day that they finally remove Kwame Kilpatrick's feeding tube.

Mayor Kilpatrick has become an embarrassment to his city, a nearly impossible task given that he represents Detroit. Kilpatrick had an affair with his chief-of-staff, lied about it under oath, and allegedly paid off a police officer to keep it quiet. If Michigan could beat Utah, perhaps Kilpatrick could have flown under the radar, but in this charged political climate the mere appearance of gross incompetence and corruption is enough to get a man in trouble.

The fact that Kilpatrick has held onto his job for this long is a testament to the people of Detroit and their utter hopelessness.

At 10:00 a.m. eastern time, Judge Robert Ziolkowski will rule on whether Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has the authority to fire the embattled mayor. That ruling should set up a very interesting 2:00 p.m. hearing on the mayor's sexual perjury case. Reports are flying that Kilpatrick will take a deal prior to the latter hearing, in order to avoid jail time.

Most observers believe that Granholm does have the authority to remove Kilpatrick from office under established principles of Michigan law. Kilpatrick's main defense appears to be that he doesn't have time to mount a credible defense. The man is busy trying to stay out of jail, how can he possibly focus on serving the citizens of Detroit?

Complicating Kilpatrick's defense are five lawyers that Kilpatrick wanted to testify on his behalf. They will not, apparently because they enjoy being lawyers and are afraid of losing their law licenses by associating in any way with Kilpatrick.

Granholm has already scheduled an ouster hearing for Wednesday.

Hearings loom as plea talks stumble [Detroit News]
Stakes high today in Kilpatrick legal drama [Detroit Free Press]

Earlier: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Indicted

Although Barack Obama is just days away from accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination (acceptance song speculation here), some Hillary Clinton supporters refuse to give up. From the Philadelphia Daily News:

Barack Obama's presidential campaign has faced so many false rumors about his family history that it has put his birth certificate on the Internet: he was born in Honolulu, nearly two years after Hawaii became a state, making Obama a U.S. citizen by birth.

But that hasn't stopped Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg from challenging Obama's qualifications to be president.

Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, announced he's filing a federal lawsuit today, claiming that Obama lost his citizenship when his mother relocated the family to Indonesia when Barack was a boy.

Under the law, however, moving to a foreign country does not negate an American's citizenship.

Bad enough for Rule 11? In Berg's defense -- or maybe not -- he makes other claims, too (e.g., that Obama was actually born in Kenya). You can check out the full complaint by clicking here.

Raining on Barack's Parade [Philadelphia Daily News (fourth item)]
Berg v. Obama: Complaint (PDF)

The Olympics draw to a close this weekend, and soon we shall all forget how excited we were about weird sporting events like the hammer throw, the trampoline, and synchronized swimming.

Two lawyers made a good showing today in one-of-those-sports-we-barely-knew-existed-but-now-we're-really-excited-about: the men's Modern Pentathlon! Lithuanian attorneys Andrejus Zadneprovskis and Edvinas Krungolcas won the silver and bronze medals.

These lawyers are well-rounded guys. The Modern Pentathlon is an all-day event that involves shooting, fencing, swimming, riding, and running. From Reuters:

Modern pentathlon was designed to simulate what a soldier delivering a message under duress would go through. Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Games, created it as a test of strength, technical ability, concentration and endurance....

The idea behind the sport is that a soldier is sent to deliver a message. He faces an enemy with a gun and shoots, then duels against others with a sword, swims across a river, rides an unfamiliar horse and then runs cross-country to his destination.

That's impressive. If these two want to practice law in the States, Stoel might be interested in them, especially if they can throw some freestyle running into the mix.

P.S. It's not just Lithuania that's turning out lawyer-athletes; the United States is too. Fencer Sada Jacobson, who snagged a silver medal in the women's individual sabre competition, is heading to law school in the fall, at the University of Michigan.

Russian Moiseev wins gold in men's modern pentathlon [Reuters]
Upon Returning from Beijing, Fencing Champ Will Be Law School Bound [WSJ Law Blog]

Here's an idea for how Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft -- America's Firingest Law Firm™, which laid off 35 lawyers in January, and then 96 more last month -- can keep its surviving attorneys (plus all those incoming first-years) gainfully employed.

Have them work on the litigation over managing partner Robert Link's Hamptons house.

Cadwalader Managing Partner In Hamptons Real Estate Squabble [Am Law Daily]
Robert O. Link, Jr. v. Richard Sarcona: Complaint (PDF) [Am Law Daily]
3 Halsey Path, Southampton, NY [Zillow]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Robert Link (scroll down)
Prior ATL coverage of CWT (scroll down)

Here's the second half of the "head-to-head" round of ATL Idol. If you're not up to speed on what's going on, background information is available in this prior post (or just scroll down the front page).

You can check out the second half of the head-to-head round, featuring the blogging of FROLIC AND DETOUR, SOPHIST, and MARIN, after the jump.

Welcome to the first half of what we're calling the "head-to-head" round of ATL Idol, the reality-TV-style talent search for Above the Law's new editor. The second half will published later this afternoon.

To refresh your recollection, here's how this round will work:

We'll publish the contestants' different takes on the same story (actually, a pair of comparable stories -- the contestants can choose). The head-to-head round is designed to show how the bloggers all tackle the same or similar stories, to eliminate any advantage one might derive from an extra-juicy set of facts.

This is also the round that will be reviewed by ATL's panel of celebrity judges: Ann Althouse, Tom Goldstein, and Dahlia Lithwick.

Check out the first half of the head-to-head round, in which ALEX and EXLEY write about the same story, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is by SOPHIST, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the "reality blogging" competition that will determine ATL's next editor. It is marked with Sophist's avatar (at right).]

Nebraska's Attorney General Jon Bruning might want to call OnStar before he files his next lawsuit.

In January, Bruning filed suit to stop the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska from constructing a casino on their reservation lands. Unfortunately for Bruning, the Ponca Tribe planned to build their casino in Iowa. In papers filed Friday, the DOJ argued that Bruning lacked standing to block the casino's construction. The Government could have pointed out that Bruning's lawsuit is also entirely redundant, given that the Attorney General of Iowa has already filed an appropriate action. How many state Attorneys General does it take to fight off the natives and their tricky card games?

In response to the DOJ's clever Google maps defense, Bruning refused to bow to any "juris-my-diction" flak. In an email to the Omaha World-Herald, Bruning defended his lawsuit by noting that gamblers might drive through Nebraska to get to the Ponca casino. It will be fun when Bruning claims lordship over Las Vegas, another destination that is hard to get to from Iowa without passing over or through Nebraska.

Posturing lawsuits of this nature are part of a pattern for Killjoy Jon. His other career highlights include leading the charge against salvia, the psychotropic sage that briefly made YouTube fun again. Not surprisingly, his attempt dramatically increased sales of the drug. Bruning did not let the legislature's refusal to act stop him from enforcing the non-existent statute. On March 10, 2008 a salvia purveyor was arrested for what some would describe as selling a substance we'd very much like to control someday.

To the extent that Bruning's grandstanding (not my word) distracts him from protecting Nebraskans against thieving crows and other heartland menaces, his reasons are understandable. Like so many attorneys, he is absolutely desperate to get out of the legal profession. Bruning, a Republican, started running for Chuck Hagel's Senate seat before Hagel even announced his retirement. Having aborted that campaign, Bruning now casts a lascivious eye towards Democrat Bob Nelson's seat in 2012, or a future gubernatorial run.

Whatever his ambitions, it is unlikely the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska will stand in his way, since the Ponca's problems, of course, are with Iowa.