* Who, Exactly, Is A Journalist? [Concurring Opinions]
* Law Student May Have Shot At Textbook With Assault Rifle [JournalGazette]
* Nixon Peabody Links Up With Boutique for London Launch — Everyone’s A Winner! [Law.com]
* Man gets life in ‘Curious George’ killing [CNN]
* “I’m not a morning person.” Child Abuse Excuse Riles Judge [New York Times]
* Courts and the Law: Justice’s Blind Trust [CQ Weekly]
* Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: When They Were Young [New York Magazine]
* The Carnival of the Capitalists #211 includes law blogs this week.
Nixon Peabody
Are you concerned about diversity (or the lack thereof) at America’s top law firms? Have you been wishing for a handy resource that would rank the Biglaw shops by their performance on diversity metrics, as well as other measures, such as billable hours and pro bono work?
Well, you’re in luck. Later today, Building a Better Legal Profession will be issuing just such a report. Here’s a blurb for their upcoming press conference:
Over one-third of all large law firms in Manhattan don’t have a single African-American partner. Nearly half of all large law firms in Washington, D.C. don’t have a single Hispanic partner. One firm doesn’t have a single LGBT partner or associate in either office. On October 10, find out who.
Building a Better Legal Profession, a national grassroots coalition of law students, will release its first report on the status of the legal profession. The groundbreaking study compares the largest law firms in each of the top six legal markets (New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Northern California, and Southern California) by various metrics. The report ranks firms by billable hours, pro bono participation, and demographic diversity (percentages of partners and associates who are female, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, and LGBT).
On hand at the press conference will be statements of support from Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, and Prof. Deborah Rhode, former chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Media: Please contact Andrew Bruck or Prof. Michele Landis Dauber for more information and sample rankings.
To get a sense of the rankings, click here (PDF), for a report card showing how D.C.’s top law firms stack up on diversity, or here (PDF), for the New York law firm diversity rankings.
The leading firm for diversity in Washington (with an overall grade of B+; almost all the firms earn C’s or worse): Nixon Peabody! Remember, they hired lots of minorities to sing their theme song (mp3).
For those of you here in D.C., consider attending today’s press conference (we’ll be there):
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 — 12:30 p.m.
National Press Club
13th floor, Zenger Room
529 14th St. NW
Washington, DC
Very exciting. Congratulations and thanks to Building a Better Legal Profession!
Law Students Building A Better Legal Profession [official website]
Diversity Report Card: D.C. [PDF]
Report on Big Law Firms [National Press Club]
The Human Rights Campaign has some answers. HRC, which is the largest national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, recently released its annual list of Best Places to Work. And law firms were prominently represented:
[T]he Human Rights Campaign Foundation released a report showing that numerous large U.S. law firms are providing important benefits and protections for their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) attorneys and staff. In this year’s report, which is part of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s broader Corporate Equality Index, 30 law firms earned the top rating of 100 percent. 80 law firms earned scores of 80 percent or above.
You can see the list of top firms by clicking here (PDF; scroll down to page 48). Alas, no 100 percent rating for Sullivan & Cromwell, of Charney v. S&C fame — despite their generous gifts of Kiehl’s products at LGBT job fairs.
But our friends at Nixon Peabody earned a perfect score. Will they commission a theme song to celebrate? Like “Everyone Loves Gay People at Nixon Peabody”?
CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post, we linked to (and reprinted info from) this page on the HRC website. But an HRC rep has informed us that the page hasn’t been updated from last year, and still reflects scores from the 2007 report.
HRC Corporate Equality Index — 2008 [Human Rights Campaign (PDF)]
Yesterday we were away from the blogosphere. We had several meetings to attend in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, we did a webcast for ABC News. We spoke with Mary Fulginiti, the former AUSA who now covers legal affairs for ABC News, about L’Affaire Nixon Peabody:
(The last time we did a webcast for ABC News, some of you opined that we looked too shiny. And you were right. So this time around, we stopped at the make-up department before entering the studio. Thanks for the constructive criticism!)
Law Firm Celebrates ‘Fortune’ With Odd Song [ABC News]
Earlier: Still More on Summer Associates
Congratulations to Nixon Peabody. All of the “winners” at that venerable law firm are winners once again. VH1′s Best Week Ever just named the firm’s non-theme-song song its Favorite Jam of Summer ’07!
We kid you not. See here:
“Everyone’s a Winner at Nixon Peabody” is officially our Favorite Jam of Summer 07! The type of tune that makes you want to get out the Bartles & James, brush n’ braid your long gray hair, tear off your stirrup pants and miniature horse cardigan, and make out with your 77-year-old husband on a nude beach somewhere in Pueto Vallarta.
You can read the full post here. Once again, congrats to NP!
Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s Never Too Late for a Hot Summer Jam, Courtesy of Blood-Sucking Law Firm [Best Week Ever]
- Bad Ideas, Copyright, Music, New York Times, Nixon Peabody, Peter Lattman, Videos, WSJ Law Blog, YouTube
Nixon Peabody ThemeSongGate: A Synopsis
By David LatRight now some of you are probably thinking: “Enough already about Alberto Gonzales and Michael Vick! Isn’t there anything else you can write about?”
Of course. Let’s go back to the story of Nixon Peabody, and its ridiculous law firm theme song!
(In preemptive response to those of you who are sick and tired of this story: relax. It’s on its last legs. But if the New York Times writes about us, of course we’re going to acknowledge it. Capice?)
For those of you were on vacation last week — and we know many of you were, based on all the “Out of Office AutoReply” messages we received — you missed a fun story here at ATL.
But don’t worry. If you don’t have time to read our voluminous coverage of the Nixon Peabody theme song, here are some cheat sheets.
You can read this New York Times story, by Michael de la Merced, which nicely summarizes the saga. Or this post, by Peter Lattman, over at the WSJ Law Blog.
Best of all, for those of you who can watch videos — some of you can’t, ’cause you don’t have a private office — check out this awesome video. It appeared over the weekend, but we’re reposting it, because many of you don’t visit ATL on the weekend (and it would be a shame for you to miss it).
Unauthorized Enjoyment of Song Irks Law Firm [New York Times]
Everyone’s a Winner at Nixon Peabody! [WSJ Law Blog]
Re: Nixon Peabody [YouTube]
Please see the short parody video posted below. Is this a casebook-ready example of “fair use,” or what?
To ChurchHatesTucker, who produced the video: You are a genius and a god.
(Please note that we had no hand in making this video. ChurchHatesTucker acted sua sponte, after reading this Techdirt story.)
Update: Blawg Review, quoting from Nixon Peabody’s own Copyright & Internet Law Glossary, explains why the video is fair use over here.
Re. Nixon Peabody [YouTube]
- Bad Ideas, Blogging, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Music, Nixon Peabody, Rank Stupidity, Ridiculousness, YouTube
Nixon Peabody ThemeSongGate: A Linkwrap
By David LatSadly, the humorless crew over at Nixon Peabody has had their fabulous law firm song — which, mind you, is NOT a theme song — pulled from YouTube. See here.
Even if it’s gone from YouTube, you can still access “Everyone’s A Winner” as a plain-vanilla MP3 file. Just click here. We incorporate by reference all of our prior commentary on the song.
This memorable tune will also live on in the blogosphere. Numerous fine websites and blogs picked up on the story of the Nixon Peabody song controversy. Here are a few links:
1. Law Firms, the Blogosphere, and Unexpected Attention [Volokh Conspiracy (Orin Kerr)]
2. That ridiculous Nixon Peabody “theme song” was for real [Daily Intelligencer / New York Magazine]
3. Wow. Big law is so lame. With a capital “L” [Legal Antics (Nicole Black)]
4. Nixon Peabody Throws Fantastic Tantrum: Threatens Blogger Over Leaked Song [Keeping Up With Jonas]
5. Blogger contends posting silly leaked law firm song is fair use [ZDNet (Denise Howell)]
6. Everyone’s a Winner (or, Friday Music Blog) [PrawfsBlawg (Liz Glazer)]
7. Sorry, but no one involved is a winner [IPTAblog (Andrew Raff)]
8. Best/Worst Law Firm Song. Ever. [the (non)billable hour (Matt Homann)]
9. OMG…The Worst Song Ever [Two Guitar Heroes and a Cat]
10. Everyone Is A Winner At Nixon Peabody [The Dish Daily]
11. Nobody Is Above the Law [Galley Slaves (Jonathan Last)]
If you know of a link that’s missing, feel free to email us, and we can add it. Thanks!
Update: Additional links:
12. Sure, your firm just gave you a $25k raise, but do you have a theme song? [Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog]
13. Law Firm Going Crazy to Keep Its Corporate Song Off the Internet [The Startup Lawyer]
14. Law Firm Freaks Out That Ridiculous Corporate Song Leaked Out To Blogs [Techdirt]
15. Re. Nixon Peabody [YouTube (ChurchHatesTucker)]
Everyone’s A Winner at Nixon Peabody (mp3 file)
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Nixon Peabody (scroll down)
Our most recent post about Nixon Peabody — which has a song, but NOT a theme song — is about to scroll off the ATL front page. And we couldn’t allow that, now could we?
So here’s an update. A few brief points:
1. Some of you have described a fabulous video that accompanied “Everyone’s A Winner at Nixon Peabody.” Sadly, we’ve never seen this video. If you have a copy, please send it to us.
2. We received the song, from multiple sources, as an MP3 file. It was being widely disseminated by email (“FW: FW: FW:”). As far as we know, it was not sent to us by a disgruntled ex-Winner (contrary to the quasi-paranoid speculation of NP brass).
3. As of now, the song remains on YouTube. It has been viewed almost 14,000 times and garnered several accolades, including #26 – Most Viewed (Entertainment) and #11 – Most Linked (Entertainment).
4. In case the song gets yanked from YouTube, you can now access it directly on ATL, as an MP3 file. Just click here. Enjoy!
5. Some of you have inquired into the identities of the NP representatives with whom we spoke yesterday. These individuals expressly asked not to be identified by name (quelle surprise), and we agreed to that request. But we can tell you that they were in-house reps, not external PR people. One is a firm spokesperson, and one works on the business side of the firm. As far as we know, neither is a lawyer.
We haven’t heard more from the firm since yesterday afternoon’s phone call. If we do hear from them again, rest assured that we will let you know.
Everyone’s A Winner at Nixon Peabody (mp3 file)
- Blogging, Fashion, Immigration, Judge of the Day, Linda Greenhouse, Music, Nixon Peabody, Non-Sequiturs, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns
Non-Sequiturs: 08.23.07
By David Lat* The best argument for immigration reform: qualified (i.e., hot) fashion models are being kept off American runways. [Fashionista]
* What rating does ATL get — e.g., G, PG, R, etc. — using this tool? To give you context, NBS is a PG-13. [Nasty, Brutish & Short]
* What blogs does Linda Greenhouse read? [My Times ("Journalist's Picks") via Romenesko]
* What blogs do judges read? [May It Please the Court]
* And what blogs should they read? [Blawg Review]
* Speaking of judges, here’s our Judge of the Day — possibly offensive, and wrong on the law too. [AP via NYT]
* The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last, on the Nixon Peabody non-theme-song: “Some things you just can’t un-hear.” [Galley Slaves]
-
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