Music

Every Day This Lawyer’s Hustlin’ — And Rapping, Too

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He’s on a motherf**king boat.

It’s beginning to feel like a large chunk of the lawyer world, in an alternate universe, would be professional musicians. In addition to our annual Law Revue contest, we’re hearing day after day about lawyers with secret musical talent (or, uh, passion).

Today, we heard about a young Canadian lawyer who’s been hustlin’ for some time now. He landed a sweet gig at a Bay Street firm. To celebrate, he released a swanky new hip hop video featuring Lamborghinis, luxury boats, beautiful women, and some dope lawyerly rhymes.

Not too bad. Not too bad at all….

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Hey I Just Met You, and This Is Crazy, But Your Lawyerly Music Videos Are Not Good

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Occasionally, lawyers send us awesome music videos that they have created. Sadly, we get less appetizing ones much more frequently. It turns out being an attorney does not automatically turn you into the Lonely Island.

We’ve got two painfully funny / bad / uncomfortable lawyer-produced clips today. Normally, I wouldn’t seek out clips like this to write about, but both of these were submitted to us by their creators. So, I guess, be careful what you wish for.

After the jump, check out the mid-size California firm that hopes you’ll call them, maybe, and a war crimes lawyer turned comedienne who sings a love song to Mitt Romney — while wearing a bikini, of course…

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Yo! ATL Raps

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Mahbod Moghadam of Rap Genius

F. Scott Fitzgerald once opined that there were “no second acts in American lives.” Similarly, Biz Markie once opined “’cause we all pick our boogers sometime every day.” If you’re already lost, allow me to explain. This is the story of a former Biglaw attorney and his second act. He and his friends started a website devoted to rap lyrics. The website annotates rap lyrics, and it’s this system of annotation that the founders of the website hope will take over the web (including legal research). The website was recently funded by venture capitalists, and the resulting hype has ping-ponged across the web at a pace so rapid that you’d be excused if you made like Steinski and wondered, “What does it all mean?” (affiliate link).

The interviews that have fed the myriad profiles of the site’s founders have been nothing short of entertaining. Just last week, Gawker was prompted to write a guide to the site, rapgenius.com, which managed to sound both condescending and wildly equivocating and which did nothing but illuminate the author’s squeamishness. This promises to not be like that. I don’t know if Rap Genius is going to be Wikipedia or Pets.com.

What I do know is that a Biglaw dropout just ganked $15 million from Marc Andreessen and wants to edge out Westlaw and Lexis (good luck with that).

Keep reading to find out where he went to law school and what firm he worked at. And if you want to see his shirtless YouTube diss track (no homo)….

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.15.12

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Kim Koopersmith

* A firm allegedly said “F**k you” (literally) to a disabled veteran, then suggested his wife should divorce him, called him a crummy soldier, and said he should have died. I can’t imagine this is going to end well. [Simple Justice]

* How do criminal defense attorneys defend those people and sleep at night? [Katz Justice]

* Well, sometimes, those people just might be innocent. Errol Morris wrote a new book (affiliate link) on one such case. I interviewed the Oscar-winning filmmaker about it last month, and Morris just published another grim update. [New York Times]

* Congratulations to Kim Koopersmith, who has been chosen to succeed Bruce McLean as the new leader (and first female chairperson) of Akin Gump. [Thomson Reuters]

* In a further display of total isolation from reality, music publishers have now sued websites that post lyrics to popular songs. Because God forbid fans sing along to their favorite tunes. [IT-Lex]

* By the way, did you know those folks who illegally share music also purchase significantly more music than everyone else? Like, with real money. Something to chew on for a minute or 15. [TorrentFreak]

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Mr. Legal Entertainment: Hitler Bad, Vandals Entertainment Law Good

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Ed. note: This column will be about entertainment, the law, and the intersection of those two things. If you know of a law-related personality you’d like to see interviewed here, please contact us.

Staci here. This week, Sam was lucky enough to chat with the bassist from The Vandals, one of my favorite bands from my teenage years. It’s likely that only former punk rock aficionados will understand where the title of this post comes from.

This bassist, Joe Escalante, isn’t just a member of a band — he’s a lawyer, too! In fact, you may remember that he ran for a judgeship in Los Angeles County this summer. Escalante is currently the host of Barely Legal Radio, a syndicated entertainment legal advice radio call-in program.

So what’s the best advice that can be given to people who want to become entertainment lawyers, aside from graduating from an Ivy League law school? Let’s find out what Escalante thinks….

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So They Think They Can Dance: Students And Alumni Of A Top Law School Make A Cute Music Video

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Yale Law School

In the latest law school rankings by Princeton Review, Yale Law School, U.S. News’s usual #1 school, got shut out of the top ten for “Best Career Prospects.” Ouch. I guess being a law clerk en route to becoming a law professor is not considered much of a “career.”

Presumably the Princeton Review folks were referring to career prospects in the legal profession. Fortunately for YLS, its graduates possess many other talents besides drafting motions in limine and negotiating software licenses.

Do singing and dancing count as “employed upon graduation”? Let’s check out the latest efforts of these Elis…

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.03.12

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Mahbod Moghadam

* VC heavyweight Andressen Horowitz is investing in Rap Genius, the hip-hop brainchild of Stanford Law grad Mahbod Moghadam. Yadadamean? [Rap Genius]

* If your fraternity has to hire a lawyer to hold a press conference to deny allegations of butt-chugging, and an extraordinarily uncomfortable video of the press conference makes its way online… you’re probably up s**t’s creek without a wine bottle paddle. [Outkick the Coverage]

* There’s no crying in baseball, and, in other creepily homoerotic collegiate news, there shall be no drunken teabagging in college football, either. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

* Professor Richard Sander’s new book (affiliate link) argues that affirmative action actually hurts the students it intends to help. Release the partisan bickering! [The Atlantic via ProfessorBainbridge]

* An interview with law prof Jay Wexler, who also released a book (affiliate link) earlier this year. His is slightly less serious. Absurdist legal humor for the win. Check out this podcast interview, too! [Constitutional Daily]

* The fifth annual She Leads Conference on Women in the Law is this Friday at American University Washington College of Law. Go forth and be educated! [Ms. JD]

* U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz of Connecticut, RIP. [Connecticut Post]

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Comment of the Week: What? OKAY! Yeeeeeah!

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When we posted video of Lil Wayne’s deposition earlier this week, we knew the epically rude (and vaguely threatening) clips would lead to comment gold.

Because nothing leads to jokes and jokes and jokes like one of the most absurd personalities in hip-hop culture thrown into a room with a buttoned-up lawyer.

The post had quite a few quality entries, like DoctorChimRichalds’s suggestion that Weezy should have pleaded “the Fizzifth.” Dr. Richalds was good, but not quite the best this week. What?

But we do have a Comment of the Week winner. Yeaaaaaah! Shall we see who it is? OKAY!

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The Circus Goes to Washington: Insane Clown Posse Sues the FBI Over Gang Designation

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FOIA requests: how do they work?

As our resident Juggalo columnist mentioned in August, the minions of crazed rednecks who worship at the altar of Violent J and Shaggy2Dope — otherwise known as the Insane Clown Posse — are not at all happy that the FBI has labelled them a gang. To defend their honor, as well as their right to get wasted and throw absurd parties in the middle of nowhere, the Juggalo nation has decided to launch a Faygo attack on the Pentagon sue the FBI.

Looks like these clowns aren’t clowning around….

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Lil Wayne Is Quite Possibly the Best Deponent of All Time

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Depositions usually aren’t very exciting, but every now and then, you get a gem that’s worthy of public fanfare from the legal world. Take, for example, a deposition that we came across last year, in which a lawyer asked the deponent whether his “jurisprudential hymen [was] being ruptured.”

Today, we’ve got some deposition fun for you with the assistance of rap artist Lil Wayne, and it turns out that he’s just as entertaining in a legal setting as he is on stage — and by “entertaining,” we mean he acted like a complete tool. He’s currently suing Quincy Jones III over a documentary about his life, claiming that he was portrayed in a “scandalous” manner.

Let’s check out the clips from his leaked deposition….

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