New York Times

Thomas Friedman’s Semi-Coherent Thoughts on Lawyer Layoffs

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thomas friedman.jpgThomas Friedman of the New York Times has a comically predictable pattern for his columns. He usually starts with a little anecdote from his humdrum life and then launches into a ground-shaking, earth-shattering revelation about global politics.
Sometimes we wonder if Friedman has created a custom Madlib for crafting his columns. This week, he opines on our poor education system being the reason for the Great Recession. In a spot in the column that called for a ‘noun for lawyers’, he decided to throw in “untouchables.”
No, he’s not talking about contract attorneys. See Friedman’s explanation for lawyer layoffs after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: August and September Couples of the Month

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champagne glasses small.jpgAs tends to be the case every year, August and September were fabulously prestigious months here on the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. Three SCOTUS clerks were featured in this space during that period (two in the same announcement!), as well as a minor AutoAdmit celebrity, an astrophysicist, and Biglaw names like Cravath, Mayer, Jenner, and Covington.
Today, we’re asking readers to sort through all this excellence and choose the two most impressive couples of the bunch to advance to the Couple of the Year round.
After the jump, you’ll find recaps of our write-ups on each set of newlyweds, as well as two reader polls, one for each month. Voting ends on Thursday at midnight; we’ll announce the winners on Friday.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.11: Five Guys

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champagne glasses small.jpgWarning: The penis-to-vagina ratio in this week’s column is quite high. If you’re already on the mailing list for Rick Santorum 2012, you may want to avert your eyes — or go make fun of sissy-boy John Kerry for helping plan his daughter’s wedding.
Our fabulous finalist couples:

1. Sebastian Dungan and Lavi Soloway
2. Adam Levine and Janson Wu
3. Alisha Bhagat and Mark Egerman

Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.4: Meet Packer

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champagne glasses small.jpgCommenters often complain that we feature too many Biglaw associates in this space — uninspiring young people who’ve drifted through college and law school and are now drones at soulless firms. We’re delighted that this week, Biglaw associates make up only one-third of our couples. Rounding out the field are a soulless-drone partner and a former associate who abandoned Biglaw for the classic refuge of the disillusioned JD: law teaching. Enjoy this foray into the unexpected!
Our couples:

1. Caroline Dougherty and Marc Packer
2. Patricia Wencelblat and Richard Cooper
3. Tania Tetlow and Gordon Stewart

Get the details on these newlyweds and vote for your favorite couple, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.27: 31 Flavors

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The stalk-and-eventually-marry-your-doorman phenomenon continues to enthrall the NYT weddings editors. This week they shine the spotlight on yet another bride — this time a producer at CNN — who found love in the lobby. LEWW encourages female Biglaw associates to embrace this trend. You’re in and out of office buildings all day, ladies — open your eyes to the lusciousness perched behind those security desks!
And now, this week’s finalist couples:

1. Monique Mendez and Graham O’Donoghue
2. Ashlee Conley and Andrew Veit
3. Anne Claiborne and Andrew Grotto

Read all about these newlyweds, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.20: Maddening

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We suppose it’s fitting that on Yom Kippur, when our Jewish friends are fasting at home, today’s Legal Eagle Wedding Watch is a total WASP-fest. (Last weekend was Rosh Hashanah, which explains the unusual dearth of Jewish nuptials in the NYT announcements.) We look forward to receiving plenty of tasteful feedback about how there are “too many gentiles” this week.
Here are your six finalists — all Biglaw associates, as it happens:

1. Elisabeth Madden and Wesley Mullen
2. Ann Parker and Robert McKeehan
3. Emily Harris and Matthew Mauney

Read all about these couples and evaluate their credentials, after the jump.

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Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress on Mayor Bloomberg

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Bloomberg Hizzoner.JPGSo, it’s possible that the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has a low grade eating disorder. A New York Times expose chronicles the Mayor’s body image issues:

As a billionaire in one of the dining capitals of the world, he can eat anything he wants. But he is obsessed with his weight — so much so that the sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides.

Okay, so the Mayor’s skin isn’t quite as thick as mine. But having just acknowledged that Bloomberg can be put into an anorexic state by looking at pictures of himself, what does the Times do? It runs a full slide show of him doing nothing but eating. As our friends at Dealbreaker put it:

Basically Hizzoner binge and purges constantly and on really bad days looks in the mirror and thinks “you don’t deserve a third term because you’re a fat fat fattie fat.” The crescendo of the piece is the accompanying slideshow, entitled “The Mayor In Snack Mode,” in which the Gray Lady presents us with close ups of Mikey Boy literally shoving food in his mouth (chicken wings? pizza? don’t mind if I do!) …

Is the Times going out of its way to hurt the Mayor’s feelings? Are they subtly endorsing Bill Thompson? The last thing local restaurateurs need is a cranky billionaire with political power on the war path against calories. Bloomberg’s emotional distress could spell the ruin of the NYC economy.
Under The Right Conditions, Imagine How Masterfully This Guy Could Massacre A Food Eating Challenge [Dealbreaker]
Mayor Doesn’t Always Live by His Health Rules [New York Times]

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.13: Devine Inspiration

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Supreme Court clerks continue to flood the NYT wedding pages this month, creating grim LEWW odds for mere-mortal Cornell grads and Skadden associates. Like Troy playing Florida or North Texas playing Alabama, these folks are welcome to suit up, but the only question is how bad their whuppin’ is going to hurt.
Here are your three finalist couples for the week:

1. Rebecca Mancuso and Andrew Brunswick
2. Erin Gustafson and David Curtiss
3. Kathleen Devine and David Newman

Evaluate these newlyweds, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.6: The Point Is Probably Moot

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LEWW’s memory isn’t what it once was, but we can’t recall a stronger week in legal nuptials than this one. All six of our featured newlyweds are truly impressive, and a few are even interesting! And not to give anything away, but if you love SCOTUS clerks (and oh, we do!) prepare to curl your toes in ecstasy.
Here are our finalists:

1. Lee Bickley and Martin Carr
2. Betsy Anderson and David Gottlieb
3. Karen Dunn and Brian Netter

Join us in evaluating these couples, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 8.30: The Usual

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This week’s Vows column is a jaw-dropper. Twelve-year-old girl has crush on doorman (“‘He looked like the guy from Tiger Beat,’ she recalled”), stalks doorman for over a decade, and finally marries him. And he’s still the doorman!
Also, don’t miss this Skadden associate’s unorthodox proposal: He had his girlfriend served with a “complaint” while he was in the men’s room.
On to this week’s couples:

1. Florence Davis and Anthony Gooch
2. Alexandra Seggerman and Stephen Poellot
3. Marin Levy and Joseph Blocher Jr.

Read all about this week’s featured newlyweds, after the jump.

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Supreme Court Retirement Watch: More on Justice Stevens

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Justice John Paul Stevens.jpgJust a quick follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of whether Justice John Paul Stevens’s failure to hire a full complement of law clerks for October Term 2010 might shed light upon his retirement plans. In today’s New York Times, Adam Liptak has an excellent article on the subject. It begins:

A Supreme Court clerkship is a glittering prize and the ultimate credential in American law, one coveted by the top graduates of the best law schools. Until recently, though, only connoisseurs of ambition and status followed the justices’ hiring process closely.

It turns out those hiring decisions may be a sort of early warning system for hints about the justices’ retirement plans. “We’ve started tracking Supreme Court hiring in real time,” said David Lat, the founder of Above the Law, a legal blog.

Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Liptak! When it comes to being “connoisseurs of ambition and status,” we plead guilty.

Justice David H. Souter’s failure to hire clerks this spring accurately signaled his decision to step down. On Wednesday, the court confirmed that Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 89, has hired only one clerk, instead of the usual four, for the term starting in October 2010. That ignited speculation that Justice Stevens may be planning to step down next summer.

Some thoughts on what’s going on here, after the jump.

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The New York Times: They Stand Corrected

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New York Times screaming headline.jpgWe thought something was off about the discussion of the recruiting situation at Yale Law School in last week’s big New York Times article about the tough legal job market.
It turns out we were right. Check out this correction, which appeared in yesterday’s paper:

An article on Wednesday about a cutback in hiring by law firms misstated several firms’ recruitment decisions involving Yale Law School. Two firms — Baker & McKenzie and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy — did not register for the program in 2009; another, White & Case, registered but dropped its registration before scheduling any interviews. None of the firms “canceled interviews in New Haven.”

The errors were brought to the attention of the Times by a YLS spokesperson, who explained that the school was never contacted by the reporter and had no idea as to where he obtained his information.
“No students were ‘stunned’ by the canceling of any interviews,” the spokesperson explained to ATL. “That just simply did not happen.”
Downturn Dims Prospects Even at Top Law Schools [New York Times]
Earlier: All the News That’s Fit to Recycle