Privacy

  • American Bar Association / ABA, Attorney Misconduct, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Bonuses, California, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Federal Judges, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Money, Morning Docket, Munger Tolles & Olson, Partner Issues, Patents, Privacy, SCOTUS, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court, Travel / Vacation, United Kingdom / Great Britain

    Morning Docket: 02.18.13

    Ed. note: Due to the Presidents’ Day holiday, we will be on a reduced publication schedule today. We will be back in full swing tomorrow. We hope that you will enjoy your day off, but please feel free to lament your lack thereof in the comments.

    * “[T]hey don’t want to hear nothing.” Vedel Browne, the man accused of robbing Stephen Breyer at machete-point while the justice was vacationing in his home in the Caribbean, now claims that he’s innocent, mon. [St. Kitts-Nevis Observer]

    * You know what, the farmer in the Super Bowl commercial probably didn’t have to deal with bullsh*t like Monsanto’s seed patents, but today’s farmers do, and they’ll argue their case before the Supreme Court this week. [New York Times]

    * “I’m a betting man. And I would bet and give odds that Sullivan & Cromwell has never said that publicly.” Who dares question S&C’s stance in the hot mess that is Herbalife? None other than Carl Icahn. [Am Law Daily]

    * Here’s an important Biglaw math lesson that’s been provided to us via California-based firms like Irell & Manella, Munger Tolles, and Orrick: a little revenue minus a lot of partners equals profitability. [Recorder]

    * Amid a flurry of filings on Valentine’s Day, love must’ve been a battlefield for the embattled Dewey & LeBoeuf refugees who were in desperate search of their once promised 2011 bonuses. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * From the department of things that suck: having to defend your office’s alleged “underhanded tactics” in a $150 million wrongful conviction case while you’re trying to get re-elected as district attorney. [New York Times]

    * We got bitches in the office lawyerin’ on, and they ain’t leavin’ till six in the mornin’ — unless they want to be fired. An ex-Travers Smith trainee claims she was canned for leaving the firm “early”… at 6:30 a.m. [Telegraph]

    * If it weren’t for Cosmo, this woman wouldn’t have known her landlord was an alleged creeper. A Maryland lawyer now faces criminal charges for allegedly filming his female tenants in the nude. [Washington Post]

    * “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious!” The ABA officially put Florida A&M on notice that its law school accreditation may be in jeopardy if they don’t shape up in terms of bar passage. [Orlando Sentinel]

    * What do you do the second you step off a cruise ship that’s been described as “a floating toilet, a floating petri dish, a floating hell”? You grab the very first lawyers you see, and sue! [Nation Now / Los Angeles Times]

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  • Biglaw, Blank Rome, Books, California, Confirmations, Defamation, Lateral Moves, Lindsay Lohan, Morning Docket, Musical Chairs, New York Times, Partner Issues, Privacy, Prostitution, SCOTUS, Secretaries / Administrative Assistants, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court

    Morning Docket: 01.30.13

    * Justice Sotomayor’s memoir made the NYT’s best-seller list, and in terms of sales, she’s officially beating the pants off other Supreme Court justices who’ve released books of a similar nature. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * In case you were sleeping under a rock yesterday when this happened, John Kerry was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of state. Don’t think we’ll be getting a Texts From John Tumblr, though. [New York Times]

    * Despite having a “pretty spectacular” year, Blank Rome’s legal secretaries may soon find themselves blankly roaming in search of new employment. Better hurry up, the buyout offer expires on Friday! [Legal Intelligencer]

    * Straight up now tell me, do you really wanna sue me forever? Corey Clark once claimed he had an affair with American Idol judge Paula Abdul, and now he claims MoFo and Gibson Dunn defamed him. [Am Law Daily]

    * In this round of musical chairs, we learn that Orrick hoovered up three energy and project finance partners from Bingham, one of whom will co-chair the firm’s U.S. energy group. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * Remember the Zumba prostitution ring? Now we know you can’t be prosecuted for secretly filming Johns in the act in Maine, because there’s no expectation of privacy in “bordellos, whorehouses, and the like.”[Wired]

    * Energy drink makers are facing class action suits over claims made about their products. Fine, Red Bull may not give you wings, but it tastes like piss, and that’s gotta count for something, dammit. [National Law Journal]

    * Much like herpes, Lindsay Lohan’s legal drama is the gift that just keeps on giving. Her longtime lawyer Shawn Holley wants out, and her new lawyer, Mark Heller, isn’t even licensed to practice in California. [CNN]

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  • Associate Bonus Watch 2012, Benchslaps, Bonuses, Canada, Labor / Employment, Media and Journalism, Non-Sequiturs, Privacy, Shameless Plugs

    Non-Sequiturs: 12.04.12

    * Judicial benchslap catfight over administrative orders. Man, I didn’t think I could make the word “catfight” sound so unsexy, but there you go. [The Chief Jester] * Is it a federal crime to read Above the Law at work? If so, download the app. [Workplace Law Prof Blog] * Speaking of apps, te “App from Hell” would be more interesting if it were actually an app. But hiring Professor Dan Solove to teach your colleagues about privacy is still a good idea. [Teach Privacy] * A dean of the University of Ottawa Law School wrote an op-ed defending Canadian law schools (which aren’t even as bad as U.S. law schools). Remember when deans didn’t have to defend law schools because there were “jobs” for “new attorneys”? [Canadian Lawyer] * Here’s an article about Formula 1 racing that you don’t need Google translator to read. [Dealbook] * Bonus podcast! I mean, Lat did a podcast with the ABA Journal about bonuses, not that there’s a podcast you can listen to in order to get a bonus. [ABA Journal] * Bonus Lat! I mean, here’s a story about David Lat and the changing coverage of law firms and the legal profession. [Details]
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  • 2nd Circuit, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, California, Cellphones, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Facebook, Federal Judges, Gay Marriage, Gender, Morning Docket, Privacy, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Technology

    Morning Docket: 11.26.12

    * Will it be DOMA or Prop 8? The countdown until Friday starts now, because everyone’s waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will grant cert on one of the five same-sex marriage cases that has come before the high court. [UPI]

    * Walk like an Egyptian — or, in this case, you can protest like one. Judges and lawyers are on strike and filing legal challenges to President Mohamed Morsi’s “unprecedented attack on judicial independence.” [New York Times]

    * Dewey know when this failed firm’s bankruptcy plan will be approved? Team Togut is hoping for a February resolution, but the rascally retirees may throw a wrench in things with their committee’s continued existence. [Am Law Daily]

    * Even though the Northern District of California has a historic all-women federal bench — a courthouse of their own, if you will — there’s probably no need to tell them that THERE’S NO CRYING IN LITIGATION. No crying! [The Recorder]

    * New technology + old laws = a privacy clusterf**k. This week, a Senate committee will contemplate whether the Electronic Communications Privacy Act needs to be updated to get with the times. [New York Times]

    * The New York State Bar Association may oppose it, but Jacoby & Meyers’s challenge to the state’s ban on non-lawyer firm ownership shall live to see another day thanks to the Second Circuit. [New York Law Journal]

    * An Alabama Slammer is both a dangerous cocktail and a term for what happens when your Southern law school refuses to cut its class size and you’re left woefully unemployed after graduation. [Birmingham News]

    * Casey Anthony finds relevancy again! Girls in my high school used to search for “foolproof suffocation” on Google and later get acquitted of murdering their daughters all the time; it was no big deal. [USA Today]

    * Dean Boland, aka Paul Ceglia’s gazillionth lawyer in the Facebook ownership case, will soon find out if can withdraw as counsel. He’s got other things to deal with, like a $300K child porn judgment. [Wall Street Journal]

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  • Admin, Bankruptcy, Clerkships, Federal Judges, Holidays and Seasons, Law Schools, LSAT, Mergers and Acquisitions, Morning Docket, Politics, Privacy, Technology

    Morning Docket: 11.22.12

    * We’ve discussed this trend before, and it continues: administrations of the LSAT plunge further, reaching their lowest level since 1999. [Economix / New York Times]

    * We’ve discussed this trend before, and it continues: judges are still offering unpaid clerkships (even though the days of law firm deferrals are behind us). [Salon]

    * We’ve discussed this trend before, and it continues: law schools sometimes discriminate against conservatives, as jurors from the Teresa Wagner trial told Iowa’s leading newspaper. [Des Moines Register]

    * Are you mooching off of someone else’s wireless internet? If so, consider yourself warned. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Are you a lover of Twinkies? If so, consider yourself warned (although it’s possible that a buyer might snap up the Twinkies brand). [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Seven Am Law 200 firms are saying YES to work on a billion-dollar deal. [Am Law Daily]

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  • Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Deaths, Federal Judges, Food, FTC, Google / Search Engines, Money, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, Privacy, Venable

    Morning Docket: 11.19.12

    * Billable hours in Biglaw are down 1.5 percent, and 15 percent of U.S. firms are planning to reduce their partnership ranks in early 2013. Thanks to Wells Fargo for bringing us the news of all this holiday cheer! [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * Hostess may be winding down its business and liquidating its assets, but Biglaw will always be there to clean up the crumbs. Jones Day, Venable, and Stinson Morrison Hecker obviously think money tastes better than Twinkies. [Am Law Daily]

    * How’s that “don’t be evil” thing working out for you? Google’s $22.5M proposed privacy settlement with the FTC over tracking cookies planted on Safari browsers was accepted by a federal judge. [Bloomberg]

    * Greenberg Traurig and Hunton & Williams face a $7.2B suit from Allen Stanford’s receiver over a former attorney of both firms’ alleged involvement in the ex-knight’s Ponzi scheme. [Houston Business Journal]

    * Perhaps the third time will be the charm: ex-Mayer Brown partner Joseph Collins was convicted, again, for helping Refco steal more than $2B from investors by concealing the company’s fraud. [New York Law Journal]

    * H. Warren Knight, founder of alternative dispute resolution company JAMS, RIP. [National Law Journal]

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  • Cars, Crime, Election 2012, Non-Sequiturs, Police, Privacy, SCOTUS, Supreme Court

    Non-Sequiturs: 11.06.12

    * If you’re sick of waiting in line to vote, just become a SCOTUS justice. NBD. [DCist] * Now cops are even being awarded massive privacy invasion settlements — against other cops. [Threat Level / Wired] * If you simply have to steal a car, you should probably jack one that works. [Legal Juice] * As election day winds down, here’s more scary s**t to maybe be worried about. [Salon] * Lat talks to the WSJ about the uneasy rise of virtual law firms. [Wall Street Journal]
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  • Animal Law, Biglaw, Bloomberg, Kids, Marijuana, Non-Sequiturs, Privacy, Technology, Texas

    Non-Sequiturs: 10.26.12

    * L.A. city council voted in favor of banning pet stores. Because walking your dog contributes to childhood obesitywaitwaitwhatthehell? [LA Times via Overlawyered] * If marijuana gets legalized, will there be a Green Gold Rush? [Daily Beast] * A Texas high school won’t let students vote for Homecoming unless they wear an electronic tracking chip around their neck. I didn’t realize Minority Report took place in Texas. [CNET] * A special Halloween version of scary s**t on the internet you maybe should be afraid of. [IT-Lex] * A bunch of alternate mottos for legal blogs, ATL included. Ours stars — who else? — the Commentariat. Nice work gang. [Legal Blog Watch] * After the jump, Lee Pacchia speaks with Dan DiPietro of Citibank, and has watchlist of the Biglaw firms that may fail in the near future….
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  • Abortion, Election 2012, Law Schools, Non-Sequiturs, Politics, Privacy, Rape, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns

    Non-Sequiturs: 10.24.12

    * Thomas Jefferson School of Law dean Rudy Hasl responded to those serious allegations of employment stat falsification by calling them a “crock of crap.” OK then! [ABA Journal] * All the Republicans claiming their flagrantly sexist, diabolically anachronistic comments were simply “misinterpreted” need to stop misinterpreting the word “misinterpret.” [The Fix / Washington Post] * BC Law appointed a professor specifically to help students deal with the “real world.” Not sure whether this is exciting or unbearably depressing. [WSJ Law Blog] * A judge who gets caught sending shirtless photos of himself to other government employees is serious business. Not taking said business seriously is even more serious business. [Detroit Free Press] * This new fashion blog is so offensive and it violates your privacy and it’s bad for America and I’m totally going to start reading it. [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes] * This man’s lawsuit claims Justin Bieber stole his credit card and used it to buy a penis enlargement, among several other weird purchases. No, ATLCommentBot, I am not the plaintiff in this case. Sorry to disappoint. [Consumerist] * A Seton Hall University Law School student saved an elderly woman’s life in dramatic fashion. Well done, sir. [Jersey Journal]
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