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Who Wants To Be a Millionaire Embarrassed?

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Going on game shows offers up the possibility of great reward or eternal humiliation in the form of YouTube’s infinite archives. An Oregon lawyer by the name of Paul Galm experienced the latter, when he appeared on “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” in 2006. (This is admittedly old, but sometimes we like to exhume Internet classics.)

Galm started off by telling Meredith Viera about how he and his wife — both attorneys — quit their jobs and blew their savings traveling around the world, and how he was appearing on WWTBAM hoping to get his nest egg back. Instead, he epically wound up with egg on his face:

Says the tipster who sent it along: “This guy must have gone to a TTT.”

Well, we did a little research. As it turns out, Paul Galm went to a top ten law school.

Which prestigious institution popped him out, and where is he now?

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Lawyer of the Day: Divorce Lawyer Snatches Playboy Publicity

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It’s common for a spouse to claim that a divorce lawyer left him with nothing but the shirt on his back. But it is the rare divorce attorney who returns the favor and takes her shirt off. We’ve extensively documented the briefs and bustline of the well-endowed Corri Fetman. But today we’ve got a divorce lawyer whose résumé isn’t quite so inflated.

(Warning: This should go without saying, but in case there is a freaking idiot out there, the next link is NSFW — Not Safe for Work.)

Meet Playboy’s “Employee of the Month” [NSFW] for July, Kimberly Kourt. Ms. Kourt — I’ll go on a diet if that’s her real name — says she’s a family lawyer, but real classy-like:

“I pride myself on always being professional and appropriate, right down to what I wear in the courtroom,” says sexy trial lawyer Kimberly Kourt. “But on my own time, sexy clothes are fair game.”

Nothing says “professional and appropriate” quite like posing for Playboy.

So, pictures or it didn’t happen….

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Summer Associate Email Etiquette: The Four Commandments?

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email e-mail small message microsoft outlook Above the Law.JPGThere are many big questions in life. For example, email etiquette. “To” or “dear” or just a name? “Best” or “best regards” or “sincerely” or just your initials? Instant response or tasteful 15-minute delay?

Like many of the big questions, it’s hard to come up with definitive answers. But one summer associate has a core belief system that he thinks all fellow lawyers and law students should embrace:

The summer intern season / horror show is winding down. For the sake of next year’s crop of law student summer interns/associates, could you please post a commentary on annoying email habits? Maybe something similar to George Costanza’s rules for workplace behavior. Anyways, I was fortunate to work at least three years before heading back to school and learned some useful lessons about email etiquette. Apparently, these lessons do not reach most of my over achieving, nobody-has-ever-told-me-no-before law school classmates who come straight from undergrad.

- Chester Copperpot

Copperpot has brought Four Commandments back from the digital mountaintop. We blaspheme against some of them after the jump….

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The Burqa Ban: Law Professors Discuss

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I’ve already shared with you my views on the burqa (views that weren’t popular with some of our more politically correct and/or sensitive readers). And you’ve already voted in a reader poll on efforts to ban the burqa, showing that 60 percent of you are wimps do not support France’s effort to ban the burqa.

Now some law professors have weighed in on the burqa ban. In a piece earlier this month for the Opinionator blog of the New York Times, University of Chicago law professor Martha Nussbaum offered a thoughtful critique of the burqa ban.

Over the weekend, two other prominent law professors — Richard Epstein, Nussbaum’s colleague at U. Chicago, and John Yoo, of Berkeley — jumped into the fray….

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Ken Feinberg Offers Better Deals than Lawsuits

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As we mentioned this weekend, the BP oil spill has been capped (for the time being), and now we can fully focus on who needs to get paid. As with so many things, it’s Ken Feinberg’s world and we’re just living in it. Bloomberg reports:

Kenneth Feinberg, who is overseeing a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims from BP Plc’s oil spill, pledged to create a system “more generous and more beneficial” to spill victims than taking the company to court.

More generous than court? Ooohh, judicial system, Czar Feinberg is calling you out. You gonna just take that?

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Morning Docket: 07.19.10

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* The U.S. has some serious intelligence problems. [Washington Post]

* Alberto Gonzales sets up shop at an Austin law firm, but he’s not working there. [Dallas Morning News]

* A summer thaw for Weil in London. [Legal Week]

* Racism is complicated. [New York Times]

* White & Case gets brain power from Alston & Bird in D.C. [BLT - The Blog of the Legal Times]

* Lindsay Lohan + Robert Shapiro = LiLoRoSha? [Philadelphia Inquirer]

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Weekend Non-Sequiturs: 07.18.10

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* The DUI of an MD from UBS results in Bess Levin’s field trip to Beamers Cafe, “Stamford’s premier strip club.” [Dealbreaker]

* Georgetown law prof Patrick Glen: “[A] candidate who received his or her legal education [at a school other than Harvard or Yale] should lower their aspirations. They may very well attain a seat on a federal appellate court, or perhaps a state supreme court, but if past is prologue, they will have no hope of setting up an office in the Marble Palace.” [Economix]

* Speaking of law schools, if you’re thinking of going, this is the kind of analysis you should undertake. [Advise-In]

* An analysis of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in the appeal brought by Wesley Snipes. [White Collar Crime Prof Blog]

* How to avoid sending annoying firm-wide emails asking for precedents and templates. [Above the Law (sponsored content)]

* Are BYU law students allowed to use the Harold B. Lee Library? It sounds pretty awesome — check out the video, a clever parody of this Old Spice commercial, AFTER THE JUMP….

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Weekend Docket: 07.17.10

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Jay Bybee

* An interesting look at the role played by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and his S.D.N.Y. colleagues in the recent Russian spy swap. [New York Times]

* The government’s obscenity case against porn purveyor John Stagliano has climaxed… in a dismissal. [Politico via First One @ One First]

* Now that the damn hole is plugged, at least for the time being, all eyes are on BP compensation fund czar Kenneth Feinberg. [New York Times]

* The Justice Department has launched the largest health-care fraud sting in U.S. history. [Washington Post]

* Still on the DOJ, here’s the interesting backstory on how Jay Bybee came to head the Office of Legal Counsel. [Main Justice]

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Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: The Official List for October Term 2010

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Earlier this month, we provided you with a fairly complete listing of Supreme Court law clerks for October Term 2010. The OT 2010 clerks are starting up at the Court this month, staggered over a few weeks. To get a sense of what they’ll be working on this summer, see this SCOTUSblog post, by Lisa McElroy.

If you had any doubts about the accuracy of our list of OT 2010 clerks, consider them dispelled. The Public Information Office of the Supreme Court has kindly provided Above the Law with the official list of incoming law clerks, and the list is consistent with what we’ve previously reported. There’s just one name that we didn’t previously have: the law clerk to retired Justice David H. Souter.

Find out who he is, and check out the official list — we know you’re dying to learn the middle initials of the newest members of “The Elect” — after the jump.

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.16.10

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Carte Goodwin

* Studying for the bar? Here are the top 10 people you want to kill. [Legally Noted]

* Are the Mel Gibson tapes admissible in court? Here is one lawyer’s opinion. [Blogonaut]

* Goldman Sachs won’t take a tax deduction on its $550 million settlement with the SEC. [TaxProf Blog]

* Holy Hotties, Batman! West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin will appoint his hunky ex-GC, Carte Goodwin, 36, to the Senate seat formerly held by the late Senator Robert Byrd. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Rod Blagojevich’s crassness has been established beyond a reasonable doubt — but what about his alleged corruption? [Chicago News Cooperative]

* The courthouse is not a boxing ring. Except maybe in Scranton. [Allentown Morning Call]

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Albie Manzo v. Seton Hall Law School?

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Real Housewives of New Jersey son Albie Manzo may be slow, but he’s determined. He flunked out of Seton Hall law school, but he still wants his law degree, and met with a lawyer in the show’s last episode to figure out how he can get it.

Manzo says that the culprit behind his poor law school performance — reflected in his GPA of 1.9 — is a learning disability that causes him to take three times as long as normal people to absorb information. Some may question whether LDs and JDs go together. Said one ATL commenter:

If he has a learning disability, he really shouldn’t be a lawyer. It takes him three times as long to absorb information? Are clients going to be ok with paying him three times as much to get something done? The legal professions is a skilled profession and requires a certain amount of intellect. If one doesn’t have the required intelligence, then it is not right for them… it would be like making exceptions and giving special treatment so ugly people can be supermodels.

But his mom told him he should go for it anyway, become an attorney, “and show Seton Hall the mistake they made.” In the show’s last episode, Manzo met with a lawyer who told him he needs a letter from the school attesting to the fact that they made a mistake. Otherwise, Manzo has to wait two years to reapply to law school….

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A Passive-Aggressive Craigslist Ad

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A reader drew our attention to a mildly amusing “help wanted” ad on Craigslist. Says our source: “Now that I’m a lawyer myself, who previously worked for an a**hole boss, I find this ad for a new legal assistant pretty funny. You can tell he thinks his boss is an anal-retentive douche, but doesn’t know how to say that.”

“I also like that he wants the applicant to send a photo and résumé but redact all personal information except the phone number — isn’t the entire résumé personal info? Also note the e-mail address…. Anyway — enjoy.”

So here’s the ad….

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