Paul Bergrin
This case is about a lawyer who used his law license to disguise the fact that he was a drug dealer, a pimp, and a murderer.
– Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gay, describing defendant Paul Bergrin during opening statements in the New Jersey criminal defense attorney’s murder-racketeering trial.
What I find controversial is the Third Circuit’s adoption of Judge [Stanley] Chesler’s conclusion that there is one rule of law applicable to inner-city phrases and street language, and a different rule for language and phrases used by white people in the suburbs.
– Phil Chronakis, a lawyer who represented Shadrach Winstead at the trial court level in his copyright infringement case against rapper 50 Cent. The Third Circuit recently upheld the dismissal of Winstead’s complaint.
Judge Lorna Schofield (S.D.N.Y.) looks like my mom. Is she as divalicious? Let’s hope!
* How much could going over the fiscal cliff cost midlevel to senior associates whose bonuses get paid in January? Here’s an estimate. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Congratulations to the newest member of the S.D.N.Y. bench: former Debevoise partner Lorna Schofield, the first person of Filipino descent to be confirmed as an Article III judge. [AABANY]
* Judges in my home state of New Jersey are always so fair-minded. Here’s a great recusal motion, directed at Judge Carol Higbee in the New Jersey Accutane mass tort case. [Reed Smith via Drug and Device Law.]
* Make sure you don’t murder any babies before signing up to meet Nancy Grace. [Charity Buzz]
* Check out Advisable, an innovative new service for helping lawyers connect with clients; it’s free and easy to join. [Advisable (description); Advisable (application form)]
* If you’re looking for a stocking stuffer (affiliate link) for a young lawyer in your life, look no further; Dan Hull has a great recommendation. [What About Clients?]
If you’re interested in Judaism, Supreme Court clerks, or both, there’s a video for you after the jump….
“Sucked balls can make millionaires” — Powerball management and/or Hugh Hefner
In the wake of a record-breaking $580 million Powerball jackpot that none of us won, we all returned to our soul-crushing legal jobs and forgot about the dream of owning an island or riding a partner around the office like horse until the next big jackpot.
But some lawyers are making a living off the lottery. One law firm in New York, Certilman Balin, has even registered the domain name thelotterylawyer.com to tout their expertise in estate planning for lottery winners. That’s some quality SEO. Professional legal advice for lottery winners is a growing cottage industry as the public becomes more familiar with jackpot winners squandering their money.
But estate planning isn’t nearly as entertaining as the crying and gnashing of teeth from litigation. And lotteries have spawned some wild cases because wherever there are deep pockets and petty people there are legal fees just waiting to be collected.
* Better late than never: congratulations to everyone who passed the New Jersey bar exam. You’re just in time to get in on some Sandy class-action litigation. [New Jersey Board of Bar Examiners]
* Congratulations to all honorees from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association conference in D.C. last weekend — including, but not limited to, the Best Lawyers Under 40. [NAPABA]
* And congrats to Professor Sherrilyn Ifill, incoming president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. [Concurring Opinions]
* Does every bra made in America have Gloria Allred’s phone number sewn into it? [WSJ Law Blog]
* Who is “Portfolio Manager A” in the latest major insider-trading scandal? [Dealbreaker]
* You don’t need to be a dog lover to find these allegations abhorrent. [Alabama Live]
* Want to avoid dating Democrats (or Republicans)? There’s an app — okay, two websites — for that. [Jezebel]
* After the jump, Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz discuss Obamacare….
Chris Christie, that redundant rotundity, has taken a vicious beating this week. The party of personal responsibility has personally held him responsible for Mitt Romney’s defeat. And it’s easy to see why. Instead of traveling to Pennsylvania to stump for Romney, he stayed behind in New Jersey so he could spoon some more with President Obama. What does it profit a man who gains a friendship with Bruce Springsteen, but loses his party the presidential election? Hell if I know.
Loads of people are saying that Christie blew his chance at ever being nominated by the Republicans because of his a-hugging and a-kissing on President Obama. I don’t know about all that. The fact is, Christie has and had about as much a chance at the Republican nomination for president as Rudy 9-11 before him. Just as that lisping vampire couldn’t have won a nationwide nominating process if the excess saliva in his mouth depended on it, so too was Christie doomed. The sort of abrasive politics that Christie practices may have found its level in the New Jersey governorship. And that’s probably okay.
Let’s talk sports….
Continue reading “Sports Law, Spaw, Lorts: Chris Christie Edition”
The East Coast clean-up from Hurricane Sandy is well underway. When reached for comment, the city of New Orleans said, “Clean-up? You guys need a wet-vac and you’ll be fine.”
In all fairness, you just have to look at the news to see how Sandy hammered the Northeast, especially New Jersey. Havoc abounds, and law schools in the Garden State are not immune from the disaster…
Is it more dangerous to jump in front of this, or to go to law school?
Would you jump onto train tracks in front of an oncoming train if you were a Seton Hall Law student?
Oh, I mean to save another person. Would you jump in front of an oncoming train to save somebody else?
Well, if you didn’t jump, you might be liable under my groundbreaking theory of Good Samaritan liability (mwahaha, making criminals of people who don’t help, or help stupidly). But if you would jump onto train tracks to save an elderly woman, you’d be as good of a person as James Baber, Seton Hall Law student and PATH train hero….
Continue reading “Law Student of the Day: A Good Samaritan Hero”
Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:
Earlier this week, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest…
Continue reading “Caption Contest Winner: Spelling For Dummies Lawyers”
Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:
Let’s have a look at what our readers came up with, and then vote on the finalists….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Finalists: Spelling For Dummies Lawyers”
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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