Are layoffs becoming daily news in Biglaw once again? Today marks the fourth consecutive day that we have news of reductions to report.
The latest layoffs involve both lawyers and staff, based out of two large legal markets, New York and Washington, D.C….
Continue reading “Nationwide Layoff Watch: Negative News From New York and D.C.”
* In the Western District of Arkansas, judges have to forfeit judicial immunity to go to the bathroom. So if you want to sue a judge, you need to catch them when their pants are literally down. [Hercules and the Umpire]
* Bowman v. Monsanto… in GIFs! [EffYeahSCOTUS]
* Cooley boy makes good! President Obama nominated Christopher Thomas, a Cooley Law School grad and professor, to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. [White House]
* A judge threw out the fine against a New York artist as unconstitutionally harsh. The artist took an antenna from the trash and cops impounded his car and fined him $2,000. [Thompson Reuters News & Insight]
* The Ninth Circuit struck down Arizona’s “Fetal Pain” Abortion Ban. Sounds like a viable decision. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Work/life balance is when lawyers with kids throw their childless colleagues under a bus. [Slate]
* If you’re reading transcripts of old trials and think the lawyers of yesteryear were smarter, you’re probably right. Western civilization has gotten dumber since the nineteenth century. The reason is summarized by the video after the jump….
This morning, the New York Times published an op-ed by actress Angelina Jolie discussing her decision to get a preventative double mastectomy.
Jolie is being hailed as an inspiration for coming forward with this story, which marks an amazing turn-around for a woman who used to make out with her brother and carry vials of her then-husband’s blood around her neck.
The actress decided to take the preventative measure after genetic testing determined that she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.
Now, Jolie is a movie star married to another movie star, so the decision to undergo an expensive procedure did not deter her like it will many women in the United States.
Not the mastectomy. Insurance usually covers that if the patient presents such risks. No, the expensive procedure is the initial genetic testing. And the Supreme Court might be able to do something about that in the next couple of months…
Continue reading “Yes, It Is Worth Making A Federal Case Over Angelina Jolie’s Boobs”
* Joseph Rakofsky has lost his case against, well basically everyone. Including ATL. [Popehat]
* EDNY Judge Edward Korman is earning accolades for his sassiness. [Jezebel]
* The Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Monsanto case. Reading the decision is not exhausting. Get it? [Patently-O]
* Happy Mother’s Day from Kobe Bryant! Black Mamba takes his mom to court. [Legal Blitz]
* Sammy Hagar can’t be held liable for defaming a woman. He also can’t drive 55. [Courthouse News Service]
* Stealing $100 worth of cigarettes may seem crazy, but $100 worth of cigarettes in Texas would net something like $480,000 in New York City. [Legal Juice]
* Intellectual property run amok. And it doesn’t involve Prenda in any way! [Dealbreaker]
* As we reported before, being a divorce lawyer is not just for nailing your clients anymore. [Jezebel]
Earlier this week, we discussed L.A.-based patent attorney Andrew Schroeder. For those who missed out on the first go-around, Schroeder penned a couple of blistering assaults on the quality of the USPTO’s work that were brought to the attention of University of Missouri Law Professor Dennis Crouch, who posted them on Patently-O.
But the story does not end there. Yesterday, I received an email from Andrew Schroeder pointing me to his blog post responding to Crouch (and, to a lesser extent, me). I found Schroeder’s original work to be professionally over the line — and at times a little offensive — but also very funny, so I was excited to see what the maestro of meltdown letters would say to his critics.
He did not disappoint…
Continue reading “The Return of the Mad-As-Hell Patent Attorney [WITH PICS]“
* A patent infringement suit filed over the “hairy visor.” The best idea for combatting hair loss since SNL’s Chia Head. [Lowering the Bar]
* The Hong Kong legal community is split over the continued donning of wigs. It’s nice how China allows them to think they have a choice on such matters. [Wall Street Journal]
* Crooks are decoding remote signals for keyless entry to cars and police are encouraging drivers to manually lock and unlock their cars. Screw that. I’m an American and a small risk of losing a car is not worth spending an extra 3 seconds unlocking a door like a schnook. [Legal Juice]
* Former U.S. Judge Paul G. Cassell called for a U.S. House of Representatives panel to ask the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn to explain why it “appears” to be engaging in “on-going violations of important federal crime victims’ statutes.” Jeez. You let a few tens of millions in white collar crime go unpunished and suddenly everyone’s jumping down your throat. [WiseLawNY]
* A sexual harassment suit can go forward against a supervisor who exposed himself to a subordinate. In his defense, she DID make the accusation that he “didn’t have any balls,” so she very technically asked for it. [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* Fordham Law professor Thane Rosenbaum has a new book entitled Payback: The Case for Revenge (affiliate link). I thought they already wrote that book and called it “Game of Thrones.” [Thane Rosenbaum]
* Our very own People’s Therapist on TV! He’s chatting about the new poll identifying Associate Attorney as the unhappiest job in America. Check it out after the jump… [HuffPost Live]
There’s something beautiful about watching someone have a full meltdown. There’s a primal insanity that spews forth during a complaint-filled rant. It’s what makes movies like Network and Falling Down such enjoyable romps.
Attorneys aren’t immune to meltdowns, but they usually reserve them for a legal secretary, hapless associate, or beleaguered co-counsel. Anything to keep the episode shielded from the prying eyes of ATL.
Which makes a patent attorney’s public freakout on the USPTO itself so much more entertaining.
Prepare a Bingo card for the over-the-top references you expect to see in these rants (yep, plural). Here’s a freebie for the center square: mocking the Special Olympics…
Continue reading “Patent Attorney Mad As Hell and Not Going To Take It (From the USPTO) Anymore”
It doesn’t have to be this way.
If someone asks you whether they should go to law school, here is a very safe response: “Sure, provided that you get into a top law school and can go for free.” Even the biggest critics of legal education would admit that, assuming you want to be a lawyer, going for free to an elite law school is not a bad idea. See, e.g., Professor Paul Campos, Don’t Go To Law School (Unless) (affiliate link).
How can this be achieved? It’s not impossible. As we’ve mentioned before, more than 10 percent of law students graduate with zero debt, and another 5 percent or so graduate with less than $20,000 in student loans. Some of these students receive generous scholarships from their schools; others have savings or come from well-to-do families.
But there are other options. For example, does your employer offer tuition reimbursement?
* “I don’t believe judges should be filibustered.” Tell that to the rest of your Republican pals, Senator Hatch. D.C. Circuit nom Sri Srinivasan faced little drama at the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. [Bloomberg]
* A bipartisan gun regulation deal has been reached in the Senate, and of course the NRA is opposing it — well, except for the parts that expand gun rights. The group really likes those parts. [Washington Post]
* Trolling for patent partners? Bingham recently snagged five IP partners from DLA Piper’s Los Angeles office, including the former co-chair of DLA patent litigation department. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Time well spent: while Detroit hangs on the precipice of bankruptcy, local politicians are worrying about whether retaining Jones Day poses a conflict of interest for their emergency manager (Kevyn Orr, formerly of Jones Day). [Am Law Daily]
* NYLS — or should we say “New York’s law school” — is revamping its clinical program to kill two birds with one stone (e.g., fulfilling pro bono hours and boosting job prospects). [National Law Journal]
* For all the talk of his being a hard ass, Judge Rakoff is a nice guy after all! The judge gave an ex-SAC trader permission to go on a honeymoon after his release from prison. [DealBook / New York Times]
* If you’ve ever wondered how Lat spends his free time, sometimes he’s off writing book reviews for distinguished publications. Check out his review of Mistrial (affiliate link) here. [Wall Street Journal]
* “Lindsay Lohan is the victim.” What the Heller you talking about? LiLo’s lawyer thinks there’s a conspiracy among the prosecutors on her case that’s resulted in leaks of information to TMZ. [CNN]
Patricia A. Martone
“You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit.”
– Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (affiliate link)
Take this famous line and replace “man” with “law firm partner,” and you’ve captured the gist of the lawsuit against Ropes & Gray brought by Patricia Martone, who alleges age and sex discrimination by her former firm. (Martone, a former IP litigation partner at Ropes, is now a Morrison & Foerster partner.)
When I broke the news of this lawsuit back in 2011, I expected a speedy settlement. Would Ropes really want to go toe to toe with a pair of high-powered litigatrices, namely, Martone and her formidable employment lawyer, Anne Vladeck?
But here we are, two years later, and the battle rages on. Ropes has hired a third leading litigatrix to defend itself. Let’s learn the latest news….
(Note the multiple UPDATES at the end of this post.)
LexisNexis and OverDrive®, the digital library solutions provider chosen by 22,000+ libraries, schools and colleges worldwide, have joined forces to provide a library management solution that suits evolving legal research requirements mobility, simplified library management, and space and budget reductions.
Reduce your library costs and extend the budget.
With LexisNexis® Digital Library, overhead and administrative costs for maintaining a print library are reduced dramatically. Adopt an easy-to-use platform that requires minimal staff resources so your organization can make the most out of your library budget. Plus, multi-year purchase options let your library lock in savings.
Empower your librarians.
Your firm’s librarians will have more time to conduct value-added research. They’ll have greater insight into what resources the staff actually uses so they can make adjustments to the collection quickly using a single website. Librarians can gain greater control, which can lead to better library utilization and increased strategic value to the firm.
Sign up for a quick, complimentary Webinar: June 19, 2–3 P.M. ET
Keep reading »
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
Your years in law school were filled with the promise of making a difference.
But sometimes the reality of running your own practice gets in the way of your true passion.
That’s why we created LexisNexis Firm Manager®.
Built with input from solo and small-law attorneys, it helps you service your clients, track your billables, stay on top of deadlines, organize your practice, and more.
We sweat the small stuff for you, so you’re free to focus on the big picture.
So stop dreaming about what your practice could be, and make it happen.
Follow Your Dreams Here »
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!
