* With the advanced state of medical technology, it won’t be long before some pol subjects every pregnant woman to a recording of her fetus pleading, “Please, Mommy, don’t kill me!” [MSN]
* What on earth was he planning on doing with all that money? I’m thinking a tragic Gatsby-esque scenario. [ABA Journal E-Report]
* Did Craigslist receive a threatening phone call from the Starbucks legal department? I’ve never been a barrista, but even I could not help but shake my head in amusement and utter, “So true, so true.” [Starbucks Gossip]
* In law school, I stuck to those guys in the backrooms of dive bars, who lent me tuition money on a handshake. Now that’s honest business… Of course, now they’ve pimped me out to a law firm. [New York Times]
Rudeness
- Abortion, Attorney Misconduct, Craigslist, Law Schools, Money, Non-Sequiturs, Rudeness, White-Collar Crime
Non-Sequiturs: 03.23.07
By Stella Q- Books, Education / Schools, Hair, Law Professors, Law Schools, Movies, Nauseating Things, Non-Sequiturs, Nude Dancing, Rudeness
Non-Sequiturs: 03.16.07
By Stella Q* Strippers always have day jobs, so this is no small victory. [Des Moines Register]
* Why the premium you pay for Fiji water (“untouched by man until you unscrew the cap”) is worth it. [Trentonian]
* (Commercially successful) hipster writer gives it away for free, but will anyone want it? [Sivacracy.net]
* But you still have to read everything. Did you ever get to the five commercial outlines and study guides you bought for evidence? [Discourse.net]
* How mooning can bite you in the ass. [St. Petersburg Times via How Appealing]
Remember the Michigan Supreme Court benchslappery that we wrote about earlier today? We left out the best part.
Justice Maura Corrigan argues that it would be embarrassing, petty, and just plain silly for a justice to explain each and every recusal decision. She employs a little “reductio ad absurdum” to make her point:
WOW. And you thought YOUR mom was embarrassing!
P.S. As for Daniel Corrigan Grano being “very handsome,” you don’t need to take Justice Corrigan’s word for it. As a city councilman, Daniel Grano is a public figure, and his picture is readily available on these internets.
We’ve posted it at right — what do you think? He’s not a bad-looking fellow, in our opinion. But maybe he could do something more interesting with his hair?
Earlier: Back to the Sandbox: The Michigan Supreme Court
Yes, we linked to it previously. But we love this video clip so much, we’re going to link to it again. Check it out here.
Speaking of hilarious depositions, we’d like to solicit your funny stories about depositions gone awry. Please submit them to us by email (subject line: “Deposition Story”).
Most of the depositions that we attended back in the day were pretty boring affairs (and once we fell asleep in one). But lately we’ve heard some amusing deposition anecdotes.
We heard an especially good one involving a Cravath partner who couldn’t keep her hands to herself. Or maybe she could — and that was precisely the problem….
Anyway, check it out, after the jump.
Forget about the proverbial “Girls.” The justices of the Michigan Supreme Court have “Go[ne] Wild,” according to the Detroit News (via How Appealing).
It’s a long and tortured saga. The upshot is that Justice Elizabeth Weaver believes that when a Michigan Supreme Court justice recuses herself from a case, she is obligated to explain the reasons for her recusal. A number of Justice Weaver’s colleagues disagree — vociferously. And they have traded benchslaps over it.
You can read their dueling statements here (PDF). Some highlights (all emphases added):
– Justice Robert P. Young, Jr., asks Justice Weaver to give the recusal issue a rest: “It is well past time for Justice Weaver to end her siege and begin to again devote her energies to the work of this Court rather than the destruction of her colleagues and the reputation of this Court.
– Justice Maura D. Corrigan — who, as Jan Crawford Greenburg reveals in Supreme Conflict, was considered by the Bush Administration as a possible SCOTUS nominee (but withdrew from consideration) — cattily kicks off her opinion by quoting the lyrics to a Broadway show. She quotes Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics for “Comedy Tonight,” which she brings back near the end of her opinion, by imploring Justice Weaver to “cut the comedy.”
– Justice Corrigan addresses Justice Weaver by her first name (yeah, we’re LOVING it): “Betty, can’t we stop wasting the taxpayers’ money on this frolic and detour?… Whatever your goal, this low comedy of your making can only end in tragedy: the public’s loss of respect for this Court and for our state’s judicial branch.”
– And there’s more. In the final paragraph of her opinion, Justice Corrigan calls upon Justice Weaver, “my one-time friend and still colleague, to rejoin the fold of ordinary mortals with the other six of the people’s justice, doing the people’s important work.”
“One-time friend”? OUCH. It’s très playground, but deliciously so.
Justice Corrigan to Justice Weaver: “We are NOT BFFs. And gimme back my fruit roll-up, bitch!”
Mich. top judges go wild [Detroit News]
Feuding justices spar as they work [Detroit Free Press]
People v. Parsons (PDF) [Michigan Supreme Court]
[All links via How Appealing (hefty linkwrap).]
Earlier: Benchslapped: Michigan Supreme Court Justices — Why Can’t They All Just Get Along?
In response to our coverage of “Sectiongate” up at Harvard Law School, one commenter wrote:
To see how dumb this topic is, imagine replacing “Harvard” with “Boston University.”
Yes, that would be dumb. Because Boston University School of Law has its own stupid pseudo-scandal, and it’s not Sectiongate. Say hello to… Bagelgate!!!
From: BU Law Student Affairs
Reply-To: BU Law Student Affairs
Subject: Journal issue
To: [1L, 2L and 3L classes at BU]Dear Students,
We wanted to ask your help with an issue that may seem minor but is causing understandable frustration. Our law journals often collect dues from the members for certain things such as refreshments for the morning since they spend so much time in the journal offices putting out the journal books.
Unfortunately, one of the journals which has an office in room 545 has noticed that often students who are not journal members find their way into the office and take refreshments that the journal members have purchased with their journal dues for journal members. This may reflect a misunderstanding on non-journal members’ parts, in that students might think the school is paying for the refreshments.
However, that is not the case — they are paid for out of journal member dues and are only for the journal members. We greatly appreciate your assistance in refraining from going into the journal offices and partaking of refreshments that are for the journal members and paid for by their dues.
Many thanks!
In other words: Thank You For Not Stealing.
Before some of you start railing against the caste system that unfairly separates law review members from the rest of the class — showering the former with lucrative law firm jobs, coveted clerkships, and free breakfast food, while shafting the latter — we should note that the bagel-raid victim was not THE law journal, i.e., the Boston University Law Review. We’re told it was the Journal of Science and Technology Law.
So there is no broader social lesson to be drawn here — other than that law students like free bagels.
(We realize that Bagelgate, like Sectiongate, is “dumb” — and that’s why we like it. We have a weakness for the ridiculous, the petty, and the inane — especially when law schools are involved. See, e.g., the mystery smell in the NYU Law library, and the sex-in-the-stacks scandal at Washington University Law School.)
- Cyberlaw, David Hoffman, Free Speech, Media and Journalism, Racism, Rudeness, Sexual Harassment, Technology, Washington Post
Here Is Some Interesting Reading Material
By David LatWorth your time: this article, from the front page of today’s Washington Post, and this post, by Professor Dave Hoffman (who is quoted in the article).
Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web: Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks [Washington Post]
Article on Xoxohth and Legal Gossip [Concurring Opinions]
- Federal Government, Gregory Craig, Hillary Clinton, Paul Weiss, Politics, Rudeness, Williams & Connolly
Et Tu, Attorneys? Democratic Lawyers Bite the Hands That Fed Them
By David LatNow it’s time for a post about one of our favorite subjects: the magnificent Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. First, check out what’s currently gracing the front page of the Drudge Report:
The audio clip is pretty awesome. To listen, click here.
Second, we’d like to take this opportunity to chastise any and all lawyers who enjoyed top government posts during the Clinton Administration, but now refuse to support Senator Clinton in her bid for the White House.
Here are two prominent examples. With apologies to Stephen Colbert, who isn’t exactly a Hillary supporter, a “Wag of the Finger” to:
Craig is doing this despite his close personal ties to the Clintons; the fact that he held multiple posts in the Clinton Administration, at the White House and State Department; and the alma mater he shares with the Clintons (Yale Law School — rival to Obama’s Harvard Law).
Whatever happened to gratitude? To loyalty? To standing by your friends? Apparently there is no honor among thieves — or, for that matter, political fund-raisers.
Messrs. Craig and Johnson, you may live to regret your decisions. After Senator Clinton tramples “Obambi” in the Democratic primaries, you may try to get back into her good graces. But Senator Clinton has a long memory. And you have placed yourselves on the wrong side of it.
We hope you enjoy private practice. — ’cause you shouldn’t expect a return to government anytime soon.
Kentucky Fried Hillary [iFilm]
Clinton ally, a Washington superlawyer, switches allegiance to back Obama [Chicago Sun-Times]
In Clinton’s Backyard, It’s Open Season as an Obama Fund-Raiser Lines Up Donors [New York Times]
- Civil Rights, Department of Justice, Federal Government, Kids, Litigatrix, Rudeness, Shanetta Cutlar
A Digression from Aaron Charney: An Update on Shanetta Cutlar
By David LatWe’ll get back to Aaron Charney and Sullivan & Cromwell in a minute. Here’s a quick update on our coverage of Shanetta Cutlar, the embattled fantabulous chief of the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section.
After our last post, we received some interesting tips:
“When SYC brought her sons into work, one walked around the floor, popping into attorneys’ offices. He would say: ‘My mom tells you what to do. My mom can fire you.’ He was about six. Now, one has to think, where does a six-year-old get something like that?”
“Another time when SYC brought her sons in, a beloved security guard was making small talk with the boys. She turned to him and said, in a condescending tone: ‘Do you think they don’t have a Daddy? They already have a father. There is no need for you to speak to them.’”
“At [a recent] staff meeting, SYC gave orders for her troops to drum up Access to Reproductive Health Clinics and Places of Religious Worship, and Religious Exercise of Institutionalized Persons (FACE & RUPLA) cases. Apparently the Section has an underwhelming amount…. Pretty thin for statutes touted as part of the section’s mandate.”
“SYC and her loyal Principal Deputy positioned their offices so each exit from the building would be covered. A favorite pastime is to monitor the comings and goings of the staff. If anyone tries to slip out early or take a long lunch, they are called on the carpet and asked for a leave slip. Who says there’s waste in government? We pay an SES [Senior Executive Service -- a highly paid federal govt. official] to watch out the window!!”
“Apparently your coverage of SYC is the talk of DOJ managers, even those in other Divisions. Front office insiders expressed “concern” over the coverage at a recent lunch. They were appalled at the behavior and the fact that it’s public.”
That last item is especially interesting — but it makes us nervous. Please, front office people: Keep your hands off our Shanetta!
In addition to the foregoing comments, we received the exit questionnaire of another former SPL employee — one who hasn’t been in touch with us before.
It contains some good stuff. We’ll be posting excerpts in the near future.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of the Special Litigation Section under Shanetta Cutlar
Last month we wrote about how Docket Review is conducted over at the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section (SPL). Attorneys who have worked under Shanetta Cutlar, chief of the section, have described Docket Review with her as an excruciating experience.
Since then, we’ve received some more information about the process. A recent email from a former SPL employee begins:
Many, including myself, are so grateful for your Shanetta Cutlar coverage. Many are able to vent and tell their true stories — or shall I say nightmares.
Your coverage has been lighthearted in tone. But with all due repect, the unprofessional mental, emotional and physical cruelty inflicted by Shanetta is indeed a FACT. This is a cry for help.
Many staff members, including deputies, have complained of physical illness related to the toxic stressful working environment within the Special Litigation Section. Some SPL staff have complained of severe headaches, viomitting and diarrhea.
Continued commentary, including a behind-the-scenes look at “Docket Review,” after the jump.
Continue reading “More About Docket Review With Shanetta Cutlar”
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