* Since a dropped debt doesn’t exactly put a developing country in the black, Bono presumably is counting his pennies to continue to benefit the world’s poorest countries. Or maybe that memorabilia was all that they couldn’t leave behind. (More wordplay abounds. Why is it that even a non-fan like me can think of several puns off the top of her head? Damn that catchy U2 pop.) [MSN]
* Speaking of debt, can you believe it’s almost Christmas/Hannukah/Festivus? Catch this new documentary at a film festival near you, before you break out the plastic. [Consumer Law & Policy Blog]
* Remember when just a good idea could make you a paper millionaire? It’s safe to say that these days, you need a bit more than just a few scrawls on a cocktail napkin. But you’re still going to need this guy to inflate that bubble once again. [Wall Street Journal via Blawg Review]
* This time it’s the passenger suing the airline. And it’s breastfeeding, not alleged sexual acts. Not that we would never equate the beautiful and natural act of a baby pressing its face against the boob area to the less beautiful but equally natural act of a grown man pressing his face against the vaginal area. [Associated Press via MSN]
Non-Sequiturs
- Bonuses, Dick Grasso, Fashion, Martin Lipton, Money, Nauseating Things, Non-Sequiturs, NYSE, Pets, Prisons, Wachtell Lipton
Non-Sequiturs: 11.14.06
By Stella Q* In the 7th grade, we abided by the “one best friend” law, so we could totally pledge our loyalty to just one dog who also definitely wouldn’t steal our boyfriend. [New York Times]
* German Chancellor Angela Merkel admits to an incident of youthful “corruption,” but would you have rather she bartered sexual favors for her driver’s license? We’re letting this slide too. [The Times]
* We hear freshmen housed in state school dorms are joining the lawsuit. [Los Angeles Times]
* Since all of my disposable income after rent, I-Pod upgrades and therapy goes to clothes, I for one can say that status is one of the more noble causes a person can embrace. I mean, honestly, without fashion, 90% of third world kids would be unemployed. [University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog]
* Honor among greedy bastards: Corporate greedy bastards deserve their obscene paychecks, says greedy bastard M&A lawyer Martin Lipton. [Reuters]
[Ed. note: Please note that this post is signed by Stella Q. Some of us were very happy to receive obscene paychecks courtesy of Mr. Lipton. (And if Wachtell Lipton's midyear bonuses are any indication, year-end bonuses at the firm will be especially obscene this year.)]
- Biglaw, Canada, Eliot Spitzer, Football, Harvard Law School, Non-Sequiturs, Politics, Skadden Arps, Tax Law
Non-Sequiturs: 11.10.06
By Stella Q* A rather innocuous profile of New York’s new first lady, ex-attorney Silda Wall Spitzer (who was an up-and-coming corporate superstar at Skadden, but aren’t they all). She was previously married to a Harvard Law classmate for 29 days. Another HLS classmate, Jim Cramer, thinks she’s pretty, and the journalist probably does not understand the notion of billable hours. [New York Times]
* They’re much stricter about using office services for personal use up north. [The Globe and Mail]
* A headbutt is fined $15,000, and a groin-kneeing $25,000. If I were a pro athelete, I’d say that was an extra $10,000 well spent. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
* You can still stand firm and refuse to hand over your taxes. After all, you have balls and they don’t. [Washington Post via TaxProf Blog]
- Celebrities, Crime, Cyberlaw, Defamation, Gambling, Nauseating Things, Non-Sequiturs, Pets, Religion, Sex
Non-Sequiturs: 11.09.06
By Stella Q* It’s not slander if you call him a balding pervert. Or her an opportunist (and probably a desperate one at that — this is really scratching the bottom of the barrel, honey). [Page Six]
* Quakers like to keep their lawsuits confined to townhouse meetings. If you think you knew this because you saw Witness, you are guilty of lumping together all the religious denominations of rural Pennsylvania, and that’s just wrong. [Point of Law].
* The most obscure Baldwin brother, Daniel Baldwin, steals a car — and then some. (Volokh Conspiracy]
* Mitchell Stein, Esq., is one unhappy dog owner. And if you were him, you wouldn’t want
* While Gawker seems obsessed with the social-climbing aspiration of ex-Skaddenite Melissa Berkelhammer, hopefully we’ll soon find out what makes her any worse than the others. [Page Six via Socialite Rank]
* Denmark let the little mermaid stay, and yet they won’t let foreign-born spouses of Danish nationals cross the “Love Bridge.” [Bloomberg].
* Lovin’ might be a mistake, but it’s worth making. (Sorry we didn’t cover the Hilary Duff stalker story, but there are some celebrity stories even we don’t care about.) [AP via Yahoo! News]
* Something(s) undoubtedly went down, but it couldn’t have been as bad as this. Please, Dr. Huxtable, say it ain’t so. [AP via NY Lawyer]
- Britney Spears, Celebrities, Copyright, Deaths, Divorce Train Wrecks, Family Law, Intellectual Property, Music, Non-Sequiturs, Perverts, Politics, Sex
Non-Sequiturs: 11.07.06
By Stella Q* It’s becoming a trend. Another member of the bar takes his own life after being accused of sexual misconduct. [New York Times]
* Let’s keep it light, shall we? Yup, Britney has finally wised up. The bad news is that she lost her lawsuit against US Magazine; the court held that Britney asked for it. No word on what the judge thought of that other infamous video. [Defamer]
* Will feckless music heirs, like Hugh Grant’s character in About a Boy, actually have to get jobs? Even though Courtney Love recently sold part of her stake in Nirvana’s song catalog, I think Frances Bean is still pretty safe. [Lessig Blog]
* Take a cue from Chelsea Clinton, who was up and ready to vote before 6 a.m. today! Wow, celebrities ARE just like us. (Well, no, not like me, since I, like most BigLaw attorneys, straggle in, like, around 10 a.m.) [Empire Zone]
* I didn’t realize that it has been at least four years since people have been writing for nothing but personal satisfaction. Well, Happy Birthday, Legal Reader! [Legal Reader]
* I haven’t made up my mind regarding voter irrationality, but I know this is why I hate politics (and why those swayed to vote by Rock the Vote are perhaps the only ones who really should stay home tomorrow). [Cato Unbound via Marginal Revolution]
* Who saw Borat this weekend? You’d think that everyone would be in on the joke by now, but apparently not. A human rights group is suing Sacha Baron Cohen himself, and a woman says she got fired because of his antics. Let’s hope this guy doesn’t sue. [USA Today: On Deadline]
* Another day, another political/religious sex scandal offender. Unfortunately, being a hypocrite isn’t illegal, but what slogan would you want to see on his t-shirt anyway? [AP via Herald Tribune]
- Election Law, Feminism, Media and Journalism, Non-Sequiturs, Old People, Politics, Racism, Real Estate, Television, White-Collar Crime
Non-Sequiturs: 11.03.06
By Stella Q* You KNOW you were thinking of “White Castle” as a substitute building name. [WSJ Law Blog; DealBreaker]
* Lawbeat is a new blog that “watches the journalists who watch the law.” Because, you know, not every legal news outlet can be as scrupulous as ATL. [Lawbeat via How Appealing]
* My “authentic self” is that of a party-whore with a Scarlett Johansson rack. But I am forced to “cover” the girls (figuratively and literally) in the workplace, and last night, Partner X made me stay at work until the wee hours — when he knew my sort should be out gallivanting in the Meatpacking District. Were my civil rights assaulted? [Black Feminism]
* Greatest Donatella Versace impersonator ever, Maya Rudolph, and director Paul Anderson are suing over bedbugs infesting their Soho loft. And who knew that Maya Rudolph’s baby daddy is the dude who once dated Fiona Apple? [Associated Press via NYLawyer.com]
* In preparation for Election Day, HBO just premiered
* If it’s about avoiding an intimidating environment, there should be a “No Hot People” rule. What’s wrong with grunting if it doesn’t involve intermittent moaning? [Althouse (prior ATL post here)]
* Professor Le comments on a recent Northwestern University study of different ethnic groups’ views of affirmative action. Sometimes things are black and white. Or Asian and Hispanic. More or less. [C.N. Le: The Man, the Myth, the Blog]
* My advice for post-exam conferences if you’ve bombed the exam: Wear something tight, or learn to cry on cue. (No hate-mail, please… this is gender-neutral advice. And a joke.) [PrawfsBlawg]
* Disclaimer: Rape is never funny. But here, it provides the context for the all-too-frequent absurdity of classroom dialogue and the unfortunate extension of said absurdity into the real world legal system. [Quizlaw]
* It’s not like she mooned the President. Geez. [AP via MSNBC]
-
Sponsored Content
Virtual Canary in the Digital Mine #3: Total Pre-Cull (Part 1 of 3), Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Predictive Coding
Presented by AccessData
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
Keep reading »Sponsored Content
The Grooming Goods You Need to Crush the Interview
Presented by Birchbox
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!The proper hair styling product might just be the only thing standing between you and your dream job. And the best way to find what works for you is to try the best stuff on the market. Join Birchbox Man for $20 a month and you’ll get customized shipments of the best grooming and lifestyle gear on the market every month—everything from haircare and shaving supplies to style accessories and tech gadgets.
As the leading discovery commerce platform, Birchbox is redefining the retail process by offering consumers a unique and personalized way to discover, learn about, and shop the best grooming and lifestyle products out there. It’s a full 360-degree process: try, learn, buy. Once you sign up and fill out your profile, head over to Birchbox Man’s online magazine to find article and video tutorials on how to get the most out your monthly box products. Pick up full-size versions of anything you like in the Birchbox Shop and earn points for every purchase.
Gift with Purchase: Use code TRYFECTA1 at checkout when you spend $40+ in the Birchbox Man Shop. Includes a stylish Areaware bottle opener, a sample of TOWELDRY’s Paste Styler, and a sample vial of Atelier Mistral Patchouli cologne.
Keep reading »Sponsored Content
The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE
Presented by Kinney Recruiting
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 » Video Profiles for Job Seekers
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
