* Dreamboard is a pretty sick concept for a child porn website, but pedophiles are pretty sick people. At least we busted most of them. [CNN]
* The reports of a possible settlement in the Robert Wone case turned out to be true. Too bad we’ll never know the terms of the deal. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Casey Anthony doesn’t have to return to Orlando because it’s about as dangerous for her to be there as it was for a toddler to be in her home. [People]
* As it turns out, a lawyer was behind the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of Arkansas. I guess that’s an accomplishment he can stick on his résumé. [Arkansas News]
* Sorry, Faye, but sometimes washed up movie stars get threatened with eviction. Even if their rent-controlled apartments are “really quite gross.” [Reuters]
* Thanks to a January incident at Osgoode Hall Law School, SlutWalk is coming to San Francisco. Say it loud, we’re sluts and we’re proud! [Huffington Post]
* Does this explain Boies Schiller’s great media coverage? Their PR person is in bed with the media. [Gawker and AllThingsD]
* Speaking of romantic entanglements, here are six rules for law firm dating, in case you don’t follow Rule #1: Don’t. [Sweet Hot Justice]
* McDermott isn’t the only law firm switching digs. The folks at Ropes always struck us as Prudential people. [Ropes & Gray]
* The defendants in the Robert Wone civil case have moved for a gag order — which isn’t surprising, since they have a thing for gags. [Who Murdered Robert Wone?]
* A nice round-up of reactions to Snyder v. Phelps, aka the Westboro Baptist Church case, and the Pincus Family Law firm’s controversial website. [Infamy or Praise]
* Do WestlawNext and Amazon use the same design firm? [Law Riot]
* A “cite-checking battle” actually sounds… kinda fun. [Laws for Attorneys]
* There’s a motion for leave to amend the complaint in the Robert Wone civil case. [Who Murdered Robert Wone?]
* Why your job is making you depressed. Maybe because it sucks? [CNN]
* Women of Biglaw: think you have it bad? Your sisters on Wall Street may be even worse off. [The Careerist]
* Speaking of women in the legal profession, nominations are now being accepted for InsideCounsel’s Transformative Leadership Awards, which “honor women general counsel and law firm partners who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the empowerment of women in corporate law.” [SuperConference]
If you are superstitious, then the house shown at right (click to enlarge) — 1509 Swann Street NW, Washington, DC — is not the house for you. It is the house in which promising young lawyer Robert Wone — a former associate at Covington & Burling, and general counsel for Radio Free Asia at the time of his death — was murdered.
The murder took place almost four years ago, on August 2, 2006. Three former residents of 1509 Swann — former Arent Fox partner Joseph Price, his domestic partner Victor Zaborsky, and their lover, Dylan Ward — were recently found not guilty, after a bench on trial on obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges (but not murder).
Their former house is currently on the market. Says our source:
Get a peek inside the house. For $1.6 million, I would expect my home to not have been the scene of a murder — but then again, nothing surprises me in DC real estate.
The house’s history may be troubled, but there’s a lot to like about it….
In August 2006, Robert Wone, a promising young Asian-American attorney, was murdered while staying at a friend’s house in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. Wone, then general counsel for Radio Free Asia and a former Covington & Burling associate, was stabbed to death. The housemates claimed that Wone had been attacked by an intruder, but the crime scene seemed to suggest that was not the case.
The unsolved murder inspired the birth of the site WhoMurderedRobertWone, which has tracked the progress of the investigation in excruciating detail. Prosecutors charged the three housemates, including former Arent Fox partner Joseph Price, with conspiracy, obstruction, and tampering, but not for his murder.
The verdict in the four-and-a-half week trial came today.
We’ve written before about the tragic murder of Robert Wone, a promising young Asian-American attorney in Washington. At the time of his death, Wone, 32, was the general counsel of Radio Free Asia; prior to that, he was an associate at Covington & Burling.
We would have written more about the Wone murder, but one problem is that there hasn’t been much to write about. Years after the August 2006 murder, the case remains unsolved.
But now, with trial looming — a trial on charges of conspiracy, obstruction, and tampering, but not murder — there are some new developments to report. And some of them are deeply disturbing.
We’ve written before about the tragic, still unsolved murder of Robert Wone, a promising young Asian-American attorney in Washington. At the time of his death, Wone was the general counsel of Radio Free Asia and president-elect of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association in D.C. We never got to meet Wone during the time that we lived in Washington, but we did meet many friends and colleagues of his, mainly through APABA. Wone was universally praised as a talented attorney and an incredibly generous and decent human being.
Almost three years after the fact, Wone’s murder remains unsolved. The circumstances under which he was killed were strange, even bizarre. He was killed in an elegant townhouse in a nice part of northwest Washington (Kash and I lived in the area), supposedly by an intruder (as 911 was initially told). But there were no signs of forced entry, and at the time of the attack, there were other people in the house — three gay men (a D.C. power couple and their housemate), who reportedly live as a polyamorous family.
At first it seemed Wone had been stabbed. But the stab wounds were clean and symmetrical, showing no evidence of struggle, and a postmortem examination found the following: evidence of possible strangulation or suffocation; six premortem needle marks, suggesting Wone may have been injected with drugs prior to his death; and Wone’s own semen around his genitals and in his rectum, suggesting possible sexual assault.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post published a fascinating two-partseries about the case. The articles are long, but well worth your time. (You can also read the WSJ Law Blog’s recaps, here and here.)
The Robert Wone story has a number of connections to the Biglaw world. Prior to joining Radio Free Asia, Wone was an associate at Covington & Burling. Former Covington partner Eric Holder, now the U.S. Attorney General, previously represented Wone’s widow, Kathy — who has filed a wrongful death suit against the three housemates. One of the trio, Joseph Price — who along with his housemates now faces obstruction of justice (but not murder) charges — was a partner at Arent Fox, until his recent resignation from the firm (after a lengthy leave of absence). Price was also active in the marriage equality movement, as former general counsel of Equality Virginia.
The Post’s articles are excellent — but reporter Paul Duggan is not the first writer to focus intensely on this case. Over at their superb blog, Who Murdered Robert Wone?, four gay D.C. bloggers — Craig Brownstein, David Greer, Michael Kremin and Doug Johnson — have been scrutinizing the case for months. Their site has played an important role in raising public awareness about the case.
To learn more about the Wone case, which is far too complex to be summarized easily here, check out the links below. To learn more about the Who Murdered Robert Wone site and the four enterprising citizen-journalists behind it, which is an interesting story in and of itself, see The Bilerico Project and Queerty. Who Murdered Robert Wone? [main site] The Robert Wone Stabbing: Anatomy of a Murder Case [Washington Post] The Robert Wone Killing Remains ‘a Head-Scratcher’ [Washington Post] The Robert Wone Murder: Little to Show Three Years Later [WSJ Law Blog] The Robert Wone Murder: A Hard Look at the Evidence [WSJ Law Blog] Who Murdered Robert Wone? [The Bilerico Project] Robert Wone’s Grisly D.C. Murder Inspires Four Gay Men to Seek Out the Truth [Queerty]
* There has been plenty off talk about potential Supreme Court nominees, but how about the conservative groups gearing up to oppose them? [The Washington Post]
* Two highly qualified lesbians, Virginia Linder and Kathleen Sullivan, are apparently on Obama’s Supreme Court short list. [ABC News]
* The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Sessions, says that an openly gay Supreme Court nominee should be treated fairly “regardless of what kind of persuasion they may have.” [Fox News]
* Meanwhile Specter has lost his seniority on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will become the chairman of the subcommittee on crime and drugs. “What we don’t want is an angry former Republican during a Supreme Court hearing,” said a Democratic staffer. [Washington Post]
* Police continue to investigate mysteries surrounding the death of Robert Wone, a Washington lawyer who was murdered in 2006. [The Blog of Legal Times]
* Did you know there was an elite “Public Integrity Section” in the Department of Justice tasked with probing corruption charges of public officials? [The New York Times]
North Korea now has nukes. Happy Columbus Day!
A number of you — e.g., federal government employees — are probably enjoying a day off right now. But for those of you who are stuck in the office and looking for distraction, you can always count on us to provide it.
* A California appeals court has ruled that prosecutrix Joyce Dudley must be disqualified from a rape case that may have served, at least in part, as the basis for a crime novel she wrote. If you can judge a book by its cover, Dudley’s book — Intoxicating Agent — is kinda schlocky. Current Amazon sales rank: #1,591,294. [New York Times; The Recorder]
* For more highbrow reading by a lawyer-turned-writer, check out Brad Snyder’s new book, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports — just reviewed quite favorably by David Margolick for the New York Times. Current Amazon sales rank: #2,235 (and climbing). [New York Times]
(Disclosure: Brad Snyder, who manages the impressive feat of being simultaneously brilliant and super-cool, was our law school classmate. He’s also a former Ninth Circuit clerk, for Judge Dorothy Nelson.)
* Some advice for aspiring federal judges (at least as long as the Senate stays Republican): Steer clear of those lesbian commitment ceremonies. [Grand Rapids Press via How Appealing]
* Paula Rieker — the attractive, Starbucks-savoring former Enron-ista (see photo) — gets a break at sentencing: two years of probation, instead of ten years in prison. Caramel macchiatos all around! [Associated Press]
* Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Deanell Reece Tacha — who is a woman, and whose last name is pronounced ” TAH-ha” — has been appointed to the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, a top policy-making body for the federal courts. [Topeka Capital-Journal via How Appealing]
* More details emerge about the Robert Wone murder in Washington, DC. Wone was a prominent, promising young Asian-American attorney — general counsel at Radio Free Asia, and a former Covington & Burling associate — who was murdered under highly suspicious circumstances this past summer. [Washington Post]
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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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