Judge Judy… she’s gangsta. You gotta give her that. That’s a plus.
– a man on the street in response to a question — “What do you think about Obama’s decision to appoint Judge Judy Sheindlin to the Supreme Court?” — posed by a reporter from the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.
(Keep reading to see some of the other entertaining answers people gave in response to this question, and to watch the ridiculous clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live.)
* BREAKING: Law enforcement appears to have cornered Chris Dorner in Big Bear. Two injured in a shootout. [NBC News]
* Ranking the rankings? Who’s a bigger joke: National Jurist or Cooley? If only we had a ranking system for rankings. Hmm, that gives me an idea… [Brian Leiter's Law School Reports]
* A 2009 Harvard Law grad and Proskauer associate Megha Parekh just took over as the General Counsel of the Jacksonville Jaguars. She’s a much better hire than Blaine Gabbert. [Big Cat Country]
* Looking for a clerkship in the present state of anarchy in the post-Clerkship Scramble world? This new website can help. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Papal resignation is a little more complex than you’d think. But what’s all this stuff about Benedict XVI having to “take the Black” and move somewhere called “The Wall?” [Volokh Conspiracy]
* When is a blogger a journalist? This question becomes pretty important when a state boasts a shield law for journalists. [Simple Justice]
* The profiled study here asks whether judges prefer plain language or legalese? Unfortunately, it doesn’t consider the fact that some judges prefer neither. [Associate's Mind]
* After the jump, watch some video of what happened when hackers hit the Montana emergency alert system and said zombies were taking over….
Remember Judge Wade McCree? How could you not! He’s the Michigan jurist who received our Judge of the Day honors back in April for sending nearly-nude photos of himself to one of his female bailiffs via sext message. When confronted with the issue, McCree told a Fox Detroit reporter he had “no shame in [his] game.” When confronted by the Michigan Supreme Court, McCree was issued a censure for bringing shame to the judiciary, if not himself.
Now, you’d think that the good judge would clean up his act after a brush with the law, but of course, you’d be wrong. We wonder if he’s got any shame in his game now that his alleged affair with a litigant has been exposed for all the world to see.
And you really won’t believe where this woman claims they got it on, repeatedly….
First amongst weird creation myths is that of the Mbombo god, who is said to have vomited up pretty much all of our world. Similarly, the story of how this website has been… thrown up is worthy of retelling. At its essence, it goes like this: A boy blogs about very sober legal issues in an incredibly earnest way and then the governor of New Jersey tells him to start Above the Law, The End. I may have missed some crucial details and got others flat-out wrong, but I think the kernel of truth is still in there somewhere.
At any rate, that boy was working for the United States Attorney’s office in Newark at the time. Doing anything on the internet, even if it was super-serious and incredibly sincere, could be considered controversial because of the position. The lawyers tasked with working in such a high-profile prosecutorial role must be seen as impartial, lest the cases they take on get tainted by their online presence.
Which is what makes it all the more surprising that history is repeating itself down in New Orleans, where two assistant United States attorneys have become embroiled in scandal after being caught commenting on not just the law in general (like our own dear leader), but the specific cases that came through their office.
It’s almost as if the New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s office is trying to outdo David Lat in some way. Which, I mean, trick please…
It’s really hard giving up things you like — things like cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs — but when the time comes, and that time will come, you’ve got to do it, and sometimes you won’t even have choice in the matter. Perhaps you don’t have the money to finance your vices anymore. Perhaps you’ve decided you have an addiction, and it’s time to seek help. Or maybe you’re facing jail time, and a judge is offering you a way out.
But again, it’s really hard giving up things you like. Like really, really hard. So hard, that when pressed to give up, say, smoking pot, you’d ask a judge if you could have one more joint before you quit. Come on, judge, it’s just one more, what’s the big deal?
Well, contrary to popular belief, it is a big deal when you ask a judge’s permission to smoke weed when you’re in her courtroom on a drug trafficking charge….
* Google asked Gregory Sidak and Judge Robert Bork to write a report on its antitrust investigations. [Criterion Economics]
* Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom just caught a tough break, courtesy of the government of… Gabon? [Threat Level / Wired]
* Marco Delgado, lawyer and former trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, is accused of laundering half a billion dollars for a Mexican drug cartel. [Post-Gazette]
* I’m very, very uninterested in getting tangled in racial debates after the election. But this stuff is messed up and scary. [Gawker]
We’ve covered odd judicial penalties now and again, and there’s a legitimate debate as to the appropriateness of public humiliation as a legal remedy for wrongdoing.
Or, as we see next week in Cleveland, a woman forced to wear an “idiot” sign on the corner where she was caught busting some Crazy Taxi moves — in order to get around a school bus filled with children.
And of course, we have video of this gonzo driver, so you can see for yourself if her punishment was warranted….
* So you want to be the next top legal scholar? Step 1: find some better friends. [lawprofblawg]
* Clean your room! Otherwise you might not get into Harvard Law School. Seriously. [Greedy Associates / FindLaw]
* What’s the absolute worst-case bank-robbery scenario, from the robber’s perspective? The teller who says, “Oh hello, Ms. Robinson. Would you like to make a deposit today?” [Consumerist]
* Apple unveiled a new mini-iSomethingOrOther today. I wonder who they’re gonna sue next? [Bits / New York Times]
* Back in the day, David beat Goliath with a slingshot. In modern times, underdogs use Twitter. [IT-Lex]
* I hated Moby Dick, but historical legal and literary documents are always cool. [Lowering the Bar]
* If you’re planning on attending a law school — or heck, law firm — Halloween party, here are some costume dos and don’ts. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Meanwhile, Professor Kyle Graham wonders: How would Judge Posner review Moby Dick, Fifty Shades of Grey, and other classic literature? Incredibly, that’s how. [noncuratlex]
* This attempt at using a disguise to commit ID theft was so pathetic, I almost feel bad for the guy. And yes, there is a photo. [Lowering the Bar]
* A longtime Arby’s employee fled when a knife-wielding robber broke into the restaurant in the middle the night. And then Arby’s fired her. At least unemployment > dying alone in an Arby’s. [Consumerist]
* Models, runway shows, and confidentiality agreements, oh my! [Fashionista]
There are many worrisome aspects of online privacy — or the lack thereof. But on the upside, poor privacy protections do come with certain benefits. For example, stupid criminals more often expose themselves to prosecution — and public ridicule. Yesterday, we mentioned some teenagers who broke into a man’s house, threw a party, and then threw the photos on Facebook, where the man saw them and called police.
Today we have a more violent but similar story, this time from Philadelphia. Police posted security footage of several teenagers beating up a middle-aged man inside a supermarket, only to discover the assailants had also apparently posted footage of the crime on YouTube.
At least the alleged assaulters have a firm grasp on search engine optimization…
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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.
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.
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Judge Judy… she’s gangsta. You gotta give her that. That’s a plus.
