Stealing Swiss Miss from your law firm's kitchen is not a good idea. If you're a summer associate, it's a recipe for getting no-offered.

And stealing food from the law firm refrigerator is also unwise. See here (and note the "FYI" postscript).

Does anyone care to guess -- or actually know -- the law firm where this sign was posted?

Reasons Not To Steal Food From the Company Fridge [Midtown Lunch]

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

Kevin and Marcia Hansen recently filed suit against the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain after Kevin found a big-ole clump of pubic hair hidden in his ribeye. Yes, pubic hair.

The lawsuit came after the restaurant's now infamous improvisational cook, Ryan Kropp (pictured below), pleaded guilty to a felony charge of placing foreign objects in edibles on June 19th.

According to the complaint, the Hansens were living the American Dream, eating steak at one of the chain's Wisconsin locations last February. Kevin Hansen's steak was a little overcooked, though.

When restaurant service manager Michael Liberatore stopped by the table, Hansen told him the steak was cooked medium, not medium rare.

Hansen declined an offer of a new steak, but Liberatore persisted and offered a new steak he could take home, the complaint said.

Encountering a teachable moment, the manager then took the half-eaten, overcooked steak and showed it to Kropp and another cook. Kropp, apparently inspired by the demonstration, endeavored to make Hansen's next steak real' special.

Kropp later told police he was angry because he believed Hansen was "just trying to get free stuff," so he cut a slit in the center of the steak and inserted his facial hairs, according to the criminal complaint.

But Ryan Hetzel, the Hansens' attorney, said Friday that another cook told police that Kropp was cleanshaven that day and said, "These are my pubes" before putting the hair into the steak.

Hansen discovered the pubic hair while he was choking down the big piece of meat on the following day. The complaint is silent on whether the steak was medium-rare.

The Bodies Exhibition has caused quite an uproar since it started touring the U.S. in 2005. Beyond it being kind of gross, one of the controversies is that the bodies may have come from executed Chinese prisoners.

Now, Congress is getting involved. From ABC News:

Republican Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri introduced the bill that would prohibit the importation of any "plastinated" human body part into this country. Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions uses "unclaimed" Chinese bodies infused with silicone through a process called "plastination" for display across the nation in an exhibit called, "Bodies...The Exhibition."

"This is a human rights issue about affording human dignities to people around the world," said Rep. Akin, adding that he is concerned that the Chinese people in the exhibit did not give permission for their bodies to be on display. "We cannot verify the source of each body coming from China, so we decided the best approach was to say that in our country, you cannot import plastinated bodies," he said.

Congress is not weighing in on the grossness factor. Home-grown plastinated bodies would still be okay. The issue is whether legal consent was given.

California and Pennsylvania state representatives have introduced bills requiring the exhibitions to provide documentation proving that each body on display comes from a person who legally consented. The Pennsylvania bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee while the California bill is on the State Senate floor.

Guaranteeing plastination for American cadavers: a blow in the fight against outsourcing?

Lawmakers Call for Crackdown on Bodies Exhibits [ABC News]

New Yorker Kelly DeBrocky took her family to the aquarium in Norwalk, Connecticut. Her kid stepped in poo.

Now DeBrocky has filed a seriously sh**ty lawsuit against the city, seeking reimbursement for new shoes and the price of admission and parking. Maybe she's part of the secret movement trying to get everyone in the world to hate New Yorkers.

From the Stamford Advocate:

A New York woman who took her family to visit the Maritime Aquarium has filed a $100 claim against the city, saying her child's shoes, along with the entire outing, were ruined when her 1-year-old stepped in dog feces early last month outside the Maritime Garage.

Norwalk officials will deny the claim, city attorney M. Jeffry Spahr said.

"The official response is her claim is denied and poop happens," he said.

Awesome quote. City attorney M. Jeffry Spahr sounds like the man. Another great Spahr quote: "I'm also having a tough time picturing why [the child] had to be bathed after stepping in this unless he thought it was some kind of poop sandbox."

DeBrocky says it's no laughing matter and that she's "really skeeved." Well, we're really skeeved that your kid played in a poo sandbox and that you're suing someone for it.

P.S. Things could have been much worse for DeBrocky. What if the poop had been dumped on her stoop?

City: Mom's claim stinks [Stamford Advocate]

Hiring partners and recruiting coordinators at Wachtell and S&C, it's time to break out the champagne:

CRAVATH HAS BEDBUGS!!!

Yes, that's right. The Worldwide Plaza headquarters of Cravath, Swaine & Moore -- perhaps the country's most prestigious law firm, and one of its most profitable -- has some unwelcome visitors. And no, 2L interview season ended months ago.

Here's what we've learned, from multiple sources at CSM:

1. An email was sent around Cravath last week about the presence of bed bugs at the firm.

2. A few bedbugs were found on two floors, the 21st floor and the 41st floor, which are being fumigated.

3. Two employees had bedbugs in their apartments and told the firm, which caused the firm to investigate.

4. The 21st floor is a paralegal / administration floor, but the 41st floor is a litigation floor -- which means that one of the two employees may be a lawyer.

6. Both of the employees are still with the firm (i.e., they have not been fired, like the poor soul at Cadwalader who, rumor has it, got canned after self-reporting).

7. The email about the bed bug problem was protected against forwarding or copying.

Apparently Cravath and Cadwalader have something in common other than the Bear Stearns deal. [FN1]

As you may recall, in June 2007, Cadwalader reported a bedbug problem. A few months later, they announced lawyer layoffs.

Are associate layoffs like bedbugs? Will they start off at relatively less prestigious firms -- we say "relatively," since Cadwalader is still plenty prestigious (#26 on the Vault 100) -- and move all the way to the top of the list? Will Rodge Cohen and Ed Herlihy be scratching themselves furiously as they negotiate the next big bank merger?

Words of wisdom to incoming Cravath summer associates: go to as many events as you can, and spend as little time as possible at the Death Star. May the force be with you.

We contacted Cravath, which declined comment through a spokesperson. If you have anything to add on the situation, please feel free to email us. Thanks.

[FN1] The bedbug email went around Cravath before the JP Morgan Chase / Bear Stearns deal was initiated. So there would be no merit to a conspiracy theory that Cadwalader gave the cooties to Cravath by sneaking them into a box shipment destined for Worldwide Plaza.

Earlier: Breaking: Cadwalader Overrun By Bed Bugs!!!

The legal connection to this story is tenuous, but not non-existent. Criminal charges could be filed. And maybe there's a products liability case against the toilet manufacturer.

Anyway, it's such a great story -- and no, it's not from The Onion -- that we're going to link to it. From the AP:

A 35-year-old woman who apparently spent two years in her boyfriend's bathroom in Ness City had become stuck to the toilet seat, authorities said Wednesday.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body. It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself," Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said in a telephone interview, adding that it appeared her body fat had grown attached to the seat.

Authorities planned to present their report to the county attorney later Wednesday to see if any charges should be filed against her 36-year-old boyfriend, Whipple said.

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Is this woman a lawyer by any chance? Stick a Concordance-equipped computer in front of her, and let the doc review begin. She'll bill 3000 hours without breaking a sweat.

So, who has the movie rights? If they can make a feature film about a guy who took up residence at JFK Airport, surely they can do something with this amazing tale. Casting suggestions?

Sheriff: Woman sat on boyfriend's toilet for 2 years [Associated Press]

We realize we're late to the party on this one. The WSJ Law Blog wrote about it last week. We linked to it today in Morning Docket, but based on the email we've received about it, clearly many of you have more to say about it.

News flash: Wal-Mart is cheap. From the Law Blog:

Before any more law firms match the latest bump in associate compensation, they may want to take stock of this memo issued yesterday by Wal-Mart. [T]he memo raises concerns about the recent increase in associate starting pay to $160,000.

“The salaries that law firms choose to pay their junior associates are none of our concern,” writes Miguel Rivera Sr., associate general counsel for the retail chain.

Oof! But Rivera continues, “Based on the size and frequency of the rate increase requests that we have seen over the past three years, it appears that many of the requested increases are largely attributable to the steady, nationwide increases in junior associate salaries.”...

“We are today announcing a moratorium on across-the-board rate increases. Until further notice, we will only consider reasonable, individual requests for rate increases for those attorneys in your firm who are performing at an exceptional level and whose experience and knowledge is adding substantial value towards meeting Wal-Mart’s legal objectives.”

Update: Due to your requests, we've placed the rest of this post -- which includes a rather disgusting picture of diseased feet, so consider yourself warned -- after the jump.

Well, not in Illinois. In Cavel International v. Madigan (PDF; via How Appealing), the Seventh Circuit upheld an Illinois law making it unlawful to "slaughter a horse if that person knows or should know that any of the horse meat will be used for human consumption."

It's a quirky and interesting case. Howard Bashman provides a concise summary and more discussion over here.

Don't miss page 11 of Judge Richard Posner's slip opinion, which features a photograph of a "birthday cake" made of horse meat. YUM!!

Cavel Int'l v. Madigan (PDF) [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit]
Horse meat was until recently an accepted part of the American diet [How Appealing]

Remember the "spicy pony head" comedy sketch that we linked to earlier this week?

Maybe defense lawyer Robin Shellow should some friends over for a Labor Day barbecue. And serve up spicy goat head.

P.S. Fans of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah might get a kick out of the random expert quote that closes the article.

Severed goat head left at law office [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Many summer associate programs are over, but our series of SA stories is not. If you have one to share, please review our submission guidelines, and then email us.

Connoisseurs of urolagnia will enjoy this latest tale:

1. Superhero name: Golden Shower
2. Special power(s): Urophilic voyeurism.
3. Summered: the Dallas office of a large Texas law firm, summer 2005.
4. Claim to fame: From our tipster:

"One night, some of us, including [Golden Shower], were invited to a partner’s house for dinner. Another summer associate brought his girlfriend."

"The partner’s house didn’t have locks on the bathroom doors. When the girlfriend went to the bathroom, she was followed inside by [GS]. She was embarrassed, but assumed he had walked in by accident."

"But instead of leaving, he asked her if he could watch her pee. When she protested and told him to leave, he begged and said that it 'wasn’t a big deal.' He finally left only when she made it clear that she was about to scream."

Poor Golden Shower. So he likes to watch -- is that so wrong? We can be so puritanical sometimes. Why not live and let live, pee and let watch?

The conclusion of this story, after the jump.

We resume our series of fun summer associate stories. If you have an anecdote you'd be willing to share, please check out the submission guidelines, and then email us.

Today's story is more embarrassing to the partner than the summer associate. But that doesn't preclude it from inclusion here. After all, the tale of the Clifford Chance Lolita was arguably bad for both the partner and the SA.

Also, today's story -- even if not focused on the summer associate -- is pretty funny. Here you go:

1. Superhero name: Partner's Best Friend
2. Special power: Uncanny timeliness when using the restroom
3. Summered: Shearman & Sterling, summer 2006
4. Claim to fame: We quote from an email that previously appeared on another blog, You Can't Get Arrested for Being Awesome:

"I discovered the ultimate way to get on the good side of a partner today. I go to use the restroom, and when I walk in, someone is cutting gigantic farts. I mean, the type that shake the stall walls. So, I suppress my laughter -- and out walks one of the senior partners of litigation."

"He's stopped in my office twice today to say, 'Hi.' At my firm, partners just do not drop in to say 'Hello.' I think he was truly embarrassed and is attempting 'the nice routine,' in order to make sure I don't spread the story of my bathroom experience."

It's a little late for that.

5. What happened to him: The partner could have gone nuclear and killed his offer, to keep him quiet. But he got the offer and will start as an associate there this fall.

(Consistent with our general rule, we're keeping the participants in this bathroom episode anonymous. Please do not name them, or even speculate as to their identity, in the comments -- which, of course, are the legal responsibility of the commenters (not ATL). If things get out of hand in the comments, we'll have to close the thread, and we'd rather not do that. Thanks.)

Firm Life [You Can't Get Arrested for Being Awesome]

LEWW salutes Laura Marshall Worth, a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall, who celebrated her wedding last weekend. Laura wasted a great law-school admissions essay and became a teacher, so this hat-tip is all she gets.

Here are our three lucky finalist-couples:

1. Rebecca Ingber and Anton Metlitsky

2. Alexandra Flood and Samuel Alcoff

3. Devon Powers and David Bennion

More about these couples, after the jump.

Maybe blood oaths work in the Mafia. But outside organized crime circles, they may be harder to enforce. From the AP:

A Nietzsche-quoting judge said a promise penned in blood by a businessman was not an enforceable contract. Superior Court Judge Corey S. Cramin ruled Monday that Stephen Son could not be forced to repay Kim Jin-soo more than $140,000 that Kim provided to Son's companies, not to Son himself.

Son punctured his finger and drafted the promise in a restaurant after his companies accepted cash from Kim but failed to turn a profit.

Son was not required to guarantee those transactions, the judge said.

"Blood is the worst of all testimonies to the truth," Cramin said, paraphrasing German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

To all ATL readers currently studying for the bar: Whaddya think? How would you argue in favor of holding the blood contract enforceable, despite the apparent absence of consideration?

Judge: Blood promise can't be enforced [Associated Press via Yahoo! News]

Working as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice offers many advantages over toiling as a law firm associate. Greater responsibility. Better hours. Nicer bosses (with some exceptions).

But working for the DOJ has disadvantages too. Lower pay. Less support staff. No Aeron chairs working pens.

And maybe rats snacking on your toddler. From a tipster:

Cadwalader may have bed bugs, but the Justice Department's child care center has rats. The center is... managed by a board of directors, mainly middle aged DOJ lawyers.

Here's an email making the rounds. My favorite line is "They will stay upstairs for play the rat of the day."

Check out the email, after the jump.

We hear that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is a tough place to work these days. Over the past few years, CTW's profits per partner have skyrocketed -- but such growth has come at a price.

Today the firm is much more of a business, and much less of a partnership. Collegiality is down, and billable hours -- as well as associate dissatisfaction -- are up.

But these aren't the only problems plaguing Cadwalader. A source forwarded us an internal CWT email, with this introductory squib:

Just received this from a friend over there. As if the crushing leverage and abuse weren't enough, CWT has BED BUGS....

Don't believe us? The office-wide email, sent out about an hour and a half ago by firm chairman Robert O. Link Jr., appears after the jump.

On the subject of Paris Hilton's recent release from jail, Entertainment Tonight reports:

L.A. County Sheriff Spokesperson STEVE WHITMORE told reporters that due to "medical issues," the heiress had been "reassigned" at about 2:00 a.m. Thursday and would finish out her sentence on house arrest....

Sources close to the Hilton family tell ET the medical reason was actually a rash she developed on her body.

Mention of a bodily rash provides support for this ATL reader comment:

My friend's brother (who works with [Sheriff Lee] Baca's assistant sheriffs) told me that Paris was released due to a severe, "stress-induced" herpes outbreak. He also said that he heard that the blisters had apparently spread to her anus and had taken on abcess-like features that required more serious medical attention. Thus, after taking into account jail overcrowding, the increasing liability that Paris presents, and Paris's lesions, all things weighed in favor of her being put on home confinement.

Was a case of anal herpes a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for Paris Hilton?

More discussion, after the jump.

Today's Lawsuit of the Day comes to us from Davenport, Iowa, courtesy of the Quad-City Times (via How Appealing):

First came a puddle of vomit and a fall, then a classified advertisement and now a lawsuit against Wal-Mart.

June and James Medema of Blue Grass, Iowa, filed the suit May 22 in Scott County District Court, alleging that negligence led to June Medema suffering severe personal and permanent injuries in a June 13, 2005, fall at the Wal-Mart SuperCenter on West Kimberly Road in Davenport. The couple is asking for at least $5,000 in damages, according to the suit.

The facts, while colorful -- think puke green -- are pretty straightforward. What we really enjoyed were the amusing reader comments appended to the original news article.

Check them out, after the jump.

* Strippers always have day jobs, so this is no small victory. [Des Moines Register]

* Why the premium you pay for Fiji water ("untouched by man until you unscrew the cap") is worth it. [Trentonian]

* (Commercially successful) hipster writer gives it away for free, but will anyone want it? [Sivacracy.net]

* But you still have to read everything. Did you ever get to the five commercial outlines and study guides you bought for evidence? [Discourse.net]

* How mooning can bite you in the ass. [St. Petersburg Times via How Appealing]

"And I'm going to mention it in my restaurant review -- 'cause if you sue me, your chances of prevailing are low."

That's the gist of this interesting NYT article by Adam Liptak. Money quote:

These rulings, from about a dozen over the past three decades, were all in favor of the reviewer.

¶ “Trout à la green plague”? Ruling: “An ordinarily informed person would not infer that these entrees were actually carriers of communicable diseases.”

¶ “The fish on the Key West platter tasted like old ski boots”? Ruling: “Obviously, that was hyperbole used to indicate that the reviewer found the fish to be dry and tough.”

¶ Peking duck pancakes “the size of a saucer and the thickness of a finger”? Ruling: “An attempt to inject style into the review rather than an attempt to convey with technical precision literal facts about the restaurant.”

¶ “Bring a can of Raid if you plan to eat here”? Ruling: “The techniques of humor and ridicule were protected.”

Harsh, yes. But we're not sure if any of them are as bad as what A.A. Gill had to say about Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Asian restaurant in Tribeca, 66:

Mr. Gill likened the shrimp and foie gras dumplings at 66 to ''fishy, liver-filled condoms'' and called them ''properly vile, with a savor that lingered like a lovelorn drunk and tasted as if your mouth had been used as the swab bin in an animal hospital.''

Ouch. Seems like Mr. Gill was trying too hard. We dined at 66 once, and we found it perfectly pleasant -- not as impressive as Mr. Vongerichten's other culinary outposts, but certainly not worthy of such vitriol.

(And yes, we did try the dumplings. We enjoyed them -- as did William Grimes of the Times, who listed them as a recommended dish.)

Serving You Tonight Will Be Our Lawyer [New York Times]

What is it about being 30,000 feet in the air that makes people so horny? First this. Then this. And now, this disturbing news story:

An off-duty Northwest Airlines employee was arrested after a woman on a flight from Seattle complained that the man had ejaculated on her.

The FBI identified the man as Samuel Oscar Gonzalez, 20, of Lakewood, Wash. He was charged in federal court with simple assault, a misdemeanor.

It happened on the redeye Monday morning from Seattle to Minneapolis. The woman was headed back to college.

Near the end of the flight, the FBI said Gonzalez sat next to the woman as she was trying to sleep. He touched her, which she described as spooning, lifted her shirt and then got up and left. Court documents said she felt a warm fluid on her back, clothes and seat after he walked away.

Nasty. Well, at least he wasn't a state court judge.

The woman told the flight attendants about the incident. They moved her to another seat and called police from the air. The crew also moved the man to a seat near the front of the plane until the end of the flight.

He just wanted to sit in first class. Is that so wrong?

Or maybe he was just having trouble falling asleep on the red-eye flight. We're sure that he slept quite soundly after this encounter.

Off-Duty NWA Worker Charged With Assault On Flight [CBS via Drudge Report]
United States v. Gonzalez: Criminal Complaint [PDF]