Okay, kids, it’s official. We’ve reached Labor Day weekend, and summer is pretty much over. Officially summer doesn’t end until next month (September 23, to be exact). But at law firms, the summer fun is done.
Summer associates are heading back to law school (if they’re not back already). For permanent associates, who got to tag along on lavish meals with the summers, the conventional wisdom is back in force: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
To commemorate the change of the season in the world of Biglaw, we’d like to bring you stories of some of the most stupid, funny, or embarrassing things that summer associates did while at your law firm this summer. As usual, we need your help. Please send us such tales by email, to tips(AT)abovethelaw.com (subject line: “Summer Associate Stories”).
Please send us stories from this summer. We know all about the summer associate stories from years past, the ones that have become the stuff of legend. Like the Sullivan & Cromwell summer who got rip-roaringly drunk and started hitting on the hiring partner’s wife, before puking his guts out all over the restaurant. Or the summer who, without authorization, blew his firm’s cash on round-trip business class travel to London (and a pair of snazzy sunglasses). Or the summer caught having sex with his girlfriend late at night in the ladies’ bathroom. (That guy probably got an offer — the partners love it if you can satisfy all your needs without leaving the building.)
So send us your craziest summer associate stories. We’ll read through your submissions, pick out the best ones, and share them in these pages. If we get enough good ones, maybe we’ll even have a contest in which you can vote on your favorites.
It’s the Friday afternoon before Labor Day weekend. What the heck are we still doing here?
Rank Stupidity
- Attorney Misconduct, Bad Ideas, Biglaw, Pranks, Rank Stupidity, Sullivan & Cromwell, Summer Associates
Low-Hanging Fruit: Summer Associate Stories, Please
By David LatEarlier this month, we gave Nevada attorney William Caramagno a Lawyer of the Day award. What did he do to merit this honor? He showed up to court late — and, even better, drunk — to defend a client facing a kidnapping charge. A charge with a potential life sentence.
How was the lawyer’s drunkenness detected? By a breathalyzer test, ordered by the judge, and administered in open court. Caramagno tried to get out of it, protesting that there was “no probable cause for me to blow.” But Judge Michelle Leavitt stood her ground, ordering him to “just go ahead and blow.”
Which he did. The result? A blood alcohol level of 0.075 — just shy of the legal limit for driving while intoxicated (0.080).
When we wrote about this incident previously, we had only read news accounts of it. But now we have audiovisual evidence of the encounter. Judge Leavitt sounds a lot like a high school guidance counselor, her voice full of concern mixed with toughness. Just listen to the way she says this line (at around 3:45 in the video): “You gotta blow good… You gotta blow good, I’m confident you know that…”
Here’s the video. Check it out for yourself:
(Gavel bang: Concurring Opinions.)
Earlier: Above the Law Lawyer of the Day: Joseph Caramagno
KIDNAPPING CASE: Alcohol test on lawyer stirs mistrial [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
A Lawyer’s Bad Morning [Concurring Opinions]
Is Litigating While Drunk A Crime? I Say Yes [Concurring Opinions]
Thank God for the rule of law. It’s great that we have courts and judges to resolve disputes like this one:
How many meows does it take to make a misdemeanor? Jeannette District Judge Joseph R. DeMarchis will make that determination in 90 days.
He heard testimony Tuesday in the case of a city teenager who allegedly said “meow” repeatedly to a neighbor. Michael Loughner, 14, of 108 Harrison Ave., was charged with harassment by Jeannette police after a July 23 incident.
And what was the alleged harassment?
Alexandria Carasia, 78, of 106 Harrison Ave., said that was the day she finally called police.
“I’ve had to put up with this for three years,” Carasia said. “As I walk by, I see Michael and his mother. He got on the porch and hid behind the bamboo screen and starts meowing. If I don’t make this stop now, they’re going to keep doing this to me. I shouldn’t have to worry about walking out of the house and being harassed by this young kid.
“Every time he sees me, he meows,” Carasia testified.
Get a grip, Alex. Would you prefer that he bark at you?
Old. People. So. Crazy.
Neighbors’ catfight ends up in Jeannette court [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
Here at ATL, we love ourselves a good tempest in a teapot. And one’s brewing right now over at the EPA:
[S]everal 1930s murals of the Old West [in the EPA headquarters] have become a flash point in a debate over negative stereotypes and artistic censorship.
The mural that’s sparking the most debate depicts Indians brutally scalping and murdering white settlers. All the women are naked, including one who’s on all fours as a male Indian stands behind her, seizing her hair.
Called “Dangers of the Mail,” the 1937 mural was painted by Frank Mechau, a prominent Western artist.
Lawyers representing EPA employees have made their concerns about the murals known to the agency. For the time being, the EPA has decided to cover ‘em up, a la John Ashcroft and Breastgate:
For now, screens block the EPA’s Mechau mural and partially obscure a few others. The search for a permanent solution has been slowed by the fact that the General Services Administration is the EPA building’s landlord, and the GSA is hamstrung by rules that govern changes to historic buildings such as the EPA’s headquarters.
Here’s our take on the situation. Regardless of the political incorrectness of the mural, it’s just not up-to-date. It should reflect Native American communities as they are today.
GSA: Please replace the controversial mural with one showing Indians driving around in brand new Cadillacs, purchased with profits from their lucrative casinos.
Murals in Federal Building Spark Debate Over Censorship [McClatchy]
Ariel Rios Murals [GSA]
One of our favorite features over at NYLawyer.com are the advice columns. There’s Advice for the Lawlorn, a column by Ann Israel, a legal recruiter based in New York. And there’s Crossroads, in which job consultant Linda Laufer offers insights on career direction and job transition.
In a typical column, some clueless correspondent writes in to Ann Israel, says that he has a 2.3 GPA from a fourth-tier law school, and asks if he can land a job at Davis Polk. Sensibly enough, Ann tells him he has a better chance of being in a three-way with Petra Nemcova and Madeleine Albright. She then suggests that he hire a well-regarded headhunter — someone like herself, say — to help him get a paralegal position at a personal-injury firm somewhere on Long Island.
Ann’s advice is often sound, especially when it relates to her area of expertise: how to land a Biglaw job. But sometimes she’s off the mark — and sometimes she seems more interested in shilling for legal recruiters than offering actual insight.
So we’ve decided to offer our own version of an advice column here at Above the Law. We’ll take questions submitted to “Advice for the Lawlorn” or “Crossroads,” then offer our own unique take on them.
Here’s this week’s request for advice:
Dear Ann:
While on an interview with a BigLaw firm, the question came up about whether I was an attorney and passed the California Bar in July. The truth is that I passed in February; but I just agreed that I passed in July. The interview went really well otherwise and I expect an offer any day. I had no intention to not tell the truth – I just got caught up in the heat of the moment. What do I do if I am hired? I really need this job!
Our reponse to this legal Pinocchio, after the jump.
Continue reading “Advice for the Lawlame: Said I Loved You But I Lied”
Lawyer of the day? Hell, let’s give Joseph Caramagno the whole week:
After a lawyer due to defend a man against a kidnapping charge showed up to court late and smelling of booze last week, a Clark County District Court judge ordered the attorney to take a Breathalyzer test in open court, then declared a mistrial when the test confirmed her suspicions.
In a remarkable exchange captured by the courtroom’s video camera, District Judge Michelle Leavitt ordered defense attorney Joseph Caramagno to submit to the test after she smelled alcohol on his breath.
The result indicated that Caramagno’s blood-alcohol level was 0.075. In Nevada, it is illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or higher.
C’mon, Judge Leavitt, lighten up! The practice of law isn’t that hard. Defending a guy against kidnapping charges is much easier than driving — especially if the car’s a stick-shift.
And that’s not all; the story gets even better. Here’s a three-word teaser: black halter top. Check it out, after the jump.
Continue reading “Above the Law Lawyer of the Day: Joseph Caramagno”
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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.
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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.
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