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Morning Docket: 06.19.13

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Lauren Giddings

* You think you know Justice Clarence Thomas, but you have no idea. Here are several myths about the silent Supreme Court star that he was capable of busting in just this term alone. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* According to the CBO, the immigration reform bill being considered in the Senate would allow eight million immigrants to gain legal status and lower the deficit by billions. But alas, dey still terk er jerbs! [NPR]

* Google is doing its best to try not to be evil by asking the FISA court to ease up on gag orders preventing the internet giant from telling the world about what it’s required to give to the government. [Washington Post]

* Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff will withhold 20% of equity partners’ pay, a move that made some lawyers cry. The firm is apparently planning to save the cash for a rainy day. [Daily Business Review]

* Paul Mannina, an attorney with the Labor Department charged with sexually assaulting a coworker, was found in his cell with his throat slashed. Police are investigating the death. [Washington Post]

* FYI, your aspirational pro bono hours — or complete and utter lack thereof — will now be public record in New York, and you must report them on your biannual registration forms. [New York Law Journal]

* Coming soon to a law school near you: really old books from the 13th century that’ll probably turn into dust if you dare try to read them. You can find this nerdgasm over at Yale Law. [National Law Journal]

* The family of Lauren Giddings, the slain Mercer Law graduate, has filed a $5 million wrongful death suit in federal court against accused killer Stephen McDaniel in the hopes of finding her remains. [Telegraph]

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Which Biglaw Summer Associates Are Happiest With Their Firms?

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Yesterday, some summer associates watched kitten videos on YouTube.

It’s the middle of June, the sun is shining, and Biglaw summer associate programs are in full swing. An old joke: Satan offers incredible wealth to a man in exchange for his soul. The man replies, “B-b-b-but, won’t I have to go to Hell?” Satan says, “Oh, don’t believe what you’ve heard, Hell isn’t that bad. Here, take a look.” And it’s all cocktail receptions and long lazy lunches at fancy restaurants. So he sells his soul. Later, when he dies, he goes to Hell, and sure enough, it’s all flames, pitchforks and eternal agony. The man protests to Satan, who replies – “Oh, that was our summer program.”

The joke smells a bit like 2006 or so, when Biglaw summer programs were at their largest and most extravagant, and most firms barely pretended any substantive work was part of the equation. Yet even though summer associate classes have been significantly downsized post-recession and the perks aren’t as lavish, the summer associate experience certainly retains much of that Bizarro world detachment from the actual realities of practice.

Summer programs have traditionally served as bait-and-switch recruitment tools used to woo rising 3Ls with wine tastings, sporting events, theater outings and boat rides. Since the recession, many firms have begun to emphasize “real work” as central to their summer associate programs (e.g., here and here). But these claims need to be taken with an ocean of salt. As the Dothraki say, “it is known” that newbie lawyers just aren’t ready to do any real work.

In any event, let’s take a look at the top-rated Biglaw summer associate programs, according to the ATL Insider Survey.

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Non-Sequiturs: 06.18.13

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* As we noted last week (third item), Judge Rosenbaum recognized that the government was bound to have phone records of the defendant since they were dragnetting the whole friggin’ country. Now the government has responded and predictably claims that this is all classified. [Southern District of Florida Blog]

* Speaking of follow-ups, remember how NYU Law was using non-profit slush funds to pay for housing for professors? Well, they also provided sweetheart loans for summer houses. [New York Times]

* The battle rages over the admissibility of audio expert witness testimony in the George Zimmerman trial. At least Howard Greenberg isn’t going to be there to call them all whores. [The Expert Institute]

* With the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy about to get smacked down in federal court, it’s important to remember there’s nothing wrong with “stop and frisk” — just every single way that it’s been applied for over a decade. [Vocativ]

* For our law professor readers, cognitive psychology says you get more fair results if you grade exams by question rather than grading the whole exam at once. It also means you’re not as likely to find 15 whole exams missing and fail to grade one student’s exam for weeks on end (in fairness, I ran into Professor Winkler and he assures me he eventually graded that exam). [Concurring Opinions]

* Communications between Superman and a minister in Man of Steel would likely be shielded by Kansas law. A better question is what law are we going to use to prosecute Superman for wontonly demolishing a city? [The Legal Geeks]

* If you’re living the Bitcoin lifestyle, you’re probably about to get taxed. [TaxProf Blog]

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Working for the Kings Is Like Going to Law School: You’re Investing Time in a Lackluster Product

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I had just finished preparing for my first interview, and I got this email from Vivek [Ranadivé]. I was thinking, “Wow, I think I need to do a lot more.” I proofed everything on the flight over, and then when I landed, I went to a Kinko’s in Palo Alto and made copies. I pulled an all-nighter. I felt like I was back in law school.

– Pete D’Alessandro, the new general manager of the Sacramento Kings, reflecting on what he had to do to prepare for an intensive interview process with one of the team owners. D’Alessandro graduated from the Nova Southeastern Law Center in 1994.

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Videos of Waffle House Chairman Smothering Housekeeper With His Gravy Violated Privacy

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If you don’t live in the South, you may never have been to a Waffle House. Before anyone points out that Waffle House has a number of locations in the North these days, you’re wrong — anywhere with a Waffle House is automatically the South. It’s the new Mason-Dixon line.

In any event, the Waffle House is a chain of greasy spoons that consumes more lard than most countries and offers trainee positions to law students.

The Chairman of Waffle House, Joe Rogers Jr., is in a Georgia courtroom because his housekeeper accused him of demanding sex acts from her over the course of her eight years of service. Rogers has admitted to the affair — which was a gimme because nothing associated with a Waffle House has been cleaned since 1985 — but denies that he forced his maid to give him a half and half with his coffee.

While the case is not over, Rogers has scored a critical victory…

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Cuts Like a Knife

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We love baby name trends almost as much as we love weddings, so we’re always interested to watch different names wax and wane among our brides and grooms. Remember back when everybody’s baby sister was named Caitlin? Now those little Caitlins are getting married in droves. Jordan was another popular name for boys and girls (there’s a Jordan among our contestants today).

It makes us feel a bit old to watch the last decade’s parade of Ashleys and Jennifers in their strapless dresses give way to the Caitlins and Jordans in their lace-backed gowns. When the little Olivias and Aidens start tying the knot, we’ll know we’ve got one foot in the grave.

Here’s our latest group of newlywed contestants:

Emily Kuo and Michael Chu

Alice Beauheim and Andrew Borene

Jordan Fasbender and Christos Papapetrou

More on these couples, their résumés, and their registries — after the jump.

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Applications So Shockingly Low That Law Schools Are Now Admitting Newborn Babies

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Day by day, law school applications continue to tumble. As of May 31, applicants were down 13.2 percent and applications were down 18.6 percent from last year. As we’ve mentioned previously, this is the third year in a row that there’s been a double-digit percentage drop like this. Welcome to the reckoning.

Law schools are understandably scared by the precipitous drops in applications. While some are handing out admissions offers like candy, others are exploding scholarship offers to entice prospective students to join their ranks. Still others have been forced to think outside the box to come up with innovative ways to fill their incoming classes.

Have you heard of the “Just Diapers to Juris Doctors” program yet? We’ve got to hand it to this school, because it’ll be at least two decades before this new admissions program turns into “Just Debt”….

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Musical Chairs: Notable New Names at Davis Polk, Paul Hastings, and Orrick

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Over its long and storied history, Davis Polk & Wardwell hasn’t hired many lateral partners. Most of its partners are homegrown, joining the firm right out of law school and spending their entire careers there (like the two most recently promoted partners).

But this has started to change over the past few years, as managing partner Thomas Reid discussed in an August 2011 interview with Am Law Daily. In the August 2010 to August 2011 period, DPW hired a half-dozen prominent lateral partners.

And the lateral hiring spree continues (although not without the occasional snag). Let’s hear about Davis Polk’s latest high-profile hire, a new lateral partner at Paul Hastings, and an addition to the leadership of Orrick….

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Irony Alert: Former NBA Union Director Billy Hunter May Get Locked Out of Chosen Venue

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Venue disputes aren’t normally entertaining. But then again, venue disputes don’t normally involve professional basketball players, embarrassing emails, a smattering of Biglaw firms, and delicious, delicious irony.

Former National Basketball Players Association Executive Director Billy Hunter, whose management of the union representing the NBA’s players is blamed by some for dragging out the NBA lockout that nearly derailed last season, may soon get kicked out of the venue where he filed a multimillion dollar suit last month. He’ll finally understand how the players felt.

His adversary, NBPA President Derek Fisher, has filed a motion alleging that Billy Hunter chose the venue because of his close personal relationship with the presiding judge.

It would be a shame for Hunter if they had emails to prove it.

Uh oh, Billy…

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A Great Response to a Cease and Desist Letter

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In case you don’t know by now, many lawyers — maybe even you — enjoy writing cease and desist letters in a foreign language called legalese. This exotic tongue often contains Latin phrases, SAT vocabulary words, and various here-and-there words (e.g., herein, heretofore, hereinafter, hereunder, thereof, thereto, therewith, thereunder, therefor, thereon, and therefrom).

A person unfamiliar with legalese may become frightened and run to another attorney for help in deciphering this mystical language of lawyerly legend. The lawyer who has been tasked with translating legalese to English may then become annoyed, and issue a scathingly funny letter in return.

For an example of how to write a great response to a cease and desist letter, keep reading…

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A Biglaw ‘Red Wedding’: Could It Happen At Your Firm?

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General Spoiler Alert: You may not want to read this column if you have not yet finished reading “A Storm of Swords” (affiliate link) or finished watching season three of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Care has been taken to eliminate any spoilers, but by definition spoilers are personal, and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the books or show.

Imagine a conference room. Filled with lawyers, in this case an Am Law 100 law firm’s D.C.-based bankruptcy practice. Fifteen lawyers in total. Four partners, two senior counsel, and nine associates of various experience levels. All came to the firm four years ago, when the then-nascent mega-firm picked up an entire D.C.-centric firm in a merger. The bankruptcy guys decided to go with the new outfit, choosing to remain with old colleagues and hoping for some exposure to the new mega-firm’s promised synergies. Business has been okay, even as the current year has been a little soft. In their minds, it also would have been nice to have more fellow bankruptcy practitioners in other offices, but despite their relative isolation (in geography and practice area), the group has managed to pick up a big matter or two via referral from other groups. Things are plodding along.

The head of the practice is about to turn the reins of the meeting over to one of the associates — who will be summarizing some recent case law out of Delaware. It is a spring Tuesday, and everyone is eating, drinking, or doing the smartphone stare. All of a sudden, the door swings open. In marches the office managing partner, flanked by the office manager/HR liason, and one of the D.C.-based members of the executive committee — who closes the door and locks it….

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When Buying Off A Litigant Is Also Buying Off A Competitor

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Here are three true statements:

(1) Monopolies are generally illegal.
(2) Like baseball, patents make monopoly laws get a little funky.
(3) Courts really really really like to encourage settlements.

So, when two companies get together, and work out a settlement that makes a whole patent infringement lawsuit go away, and the only objection is that pesky Federal Trade Commission complaining that the settlement is anticompetitive, you can understand why a federal court could meditate on points (2) and (3) and dismiss that FTC complaint.

Yet, in FTC v. Actavis, the Supreme Court yesterday made it harder to settle some patent infringement suits, saying that sometimes a settlement of a lawsuit can be an antitrust problem.

How?

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