* I hope you’ve all got your taxes finished. Here’s a fun fact: most tax cheats live in the South and the West. The two areas of the country filled with people who think taxes are evil cheat more? Go figure. [NBC News]
* A detailed look at how the Federalist Society became so powerful in American law schools. Unfortunately, it neglects the “they tend to order better pizzas for their events” gambit. [Chronicle of Higher Education]
* Remember the new, depressing, public domain Happy Birthday song? The sponsor of that contest, WFMU, is at it again with a new contest to create modern, entertaining covers of public domain ditties. Despite my ragging on the birthday song, this is a pretty cool idea. [Free Music Archive]
* Are you a young lawyer complaining about your lot in life? You’re at this site, so statistically you are. Well, quit your bitchin’! [Associate's Mind]
* The Texas Supreme Court does not value emotional attachments to dogs. This is surprising because I can think of at least 10 country songs on this very point. [Law and More]
* Mocking law school couples with a GIF from Veep? Get out of my head, UChiLawGo! [UChiLawGo]
As you have probably heard by now, multiple explosions just went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The situation remains in flux, but early reports from the Boston police claim that at least two people have been killed and 23 people have been injured. You can follow the latest news about this tragedy at Boston.com, Fox 25, the New York Times’s Lede blog, and social media.
The Boston Marathon is one of the greatest events in American running and, for that matter, all of American sports. Lawyers and law students have performed very well in it over the years, as we noted back in 2007.
Please keep the Boston marathon victims in your thoughts and prayers.
UPDATE (8:00 p.m.): At least 100 people have been injured, according to Boston.com.
* I’m not usually the editor to comment on the appearance of shirtless men, but this Aaron Tobey kid looks fine. And righteous. [Wired]
* That sound you hear could be the student loan bubble starting to burst. [FICO]
* The Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling will have an impact on immigration reform. I’m kind of interested to see what happens, given that the Court contains at least four conservatives who are immune to the rising electoral power of Hispanics and gays. [Buzzfeed]
* Recruiter Scott Love offers tips on lateral partner hiring. Here are mine. Step one: throw money at them. Step two: Hire a prostitute to make love to them on a beach, then take pictures you can threaten to send to their spouses. Hey, it worked for Bendini, Lambert and Locke. [Attorney Search Group]
* John Quinn (of Quinn Emanuel fame) wrote a great article about running in Roppongi. I had to Google that. Apparently “running” is a forward locomotion that people do for fun or fitness. [Wall Street Journal]
* There’s still room to meet with ABA president Laurel Bellows and talk about women’s issues like “how am I supposed to get a job in this f**king economy.” That’s not to be confused with men’s issues like “dude, how am I supposed to get a f**king job in this economy.” [Ms. J.D.]
DSK wants to know: since when is having a libido a crime?
* What effect will the Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama, striking down life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders, have in the real world? [New York Times]
* Coming out of the First Circuit, some good news on attorneys fees for civil rights lawyers. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Speaking of fees, which firms are raking them in as emerging market companies starting emerging onto the M&A scene? [American Lawyer]
* You’ve got to fight… for your right… to teach legal writing at the University of Iowa. At least if you’re a conservative. That’s the allegation by an aspiring academic, Teresa Wagner, which hits a courtroom this week. [Houston Chronicle]
* Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn wants to know: is enjoying the occasional orgy such a crime? [Gothamist]
* Career alternatives: Mary Wittenberg — chief executive of New York Road Runners, which puts on the New York Marathon — is a Notre Dame law grad and former Hunton & Williams lawyer. [New York Times]
* Former Senator Arlen Specter, an active participant in historic Supreme Court nomination battles, RIP. [Philadelphia Daily News]
Here in New York, we’re in the midst of the JPMorgan Corporate Challenge, a race sponsored by JPMorgan that raises money for the Central Park Conservancy. An ATL reader at a major New York law firm described the race (which is really two races; it’s now run over two consecutive evenings, due to the large number of participants):
[The Challenge] is a 3.5 mile race in Central Park that took place yesterday and will finish tonight. See here. Last year, there were over 6,500 finishers — a number of whom ran on “teams” for BigLaw.
While this particular race is NYC-centric, I think a story about how difficult it is to stay even semi-fit as a BigLaw attorney would strike a chord with your readers.
Indeed. Although many lawyers are avid runners, including marathoners, balancing training with billing hours isn’t easy. But some manage to find the time, as our source points out….
This year we decided to dress up as Judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.), recently nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. If you’re a criminal, Judge Chin can be quite frightening — he sentenced Bernie Madoff to a whopping 150 years.
And where did we get the idea for our costume? ATL comments (see #2 and #17).
A slideshow of photos showing us in our Judge Chin costume, after the jump.
The New York City marathon happens this Sunday. We know many lawyers who will be running it, and we wish them luck.
The marathon did not impose a minimum age until 1981 (16, raised to 18 in 1988). Pegged to the upcoming marathon, the New York Times had a fascinating article earlier this week about child marathoners, focusing on Wesley Paul, Scott Black (pictured), and Howie Breinan:
The adventures of Paul, Black and Breinan offer a glimpse into a forgotten aspect of the running boom of the late 1970s. Preternaturally self-disciplined, they were among about 75 children (ages 8 to 13) who tackled the early years of the New York City Marathon in a time of novelty and naïveté….
With no conclusive study, physicians still debate risks to children who compete in marathons, like muscular-skeletal injuries, stunted growth, burnout, parental pressures and the ability to handle heat stress.
Another risk: going on to become a securities lawyer. Two out of the three child marathoners profiled by the Times now practice in that field.
Scott Black is a senior trial lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York (after several years at Wachtell Lipton, where he worked with Lat on a number of cases). Wesley Paul is a partner at Michelman & Robinson, where he practices corporate and securities law.
We touched base with Black and Paul to ask about possible connections between their running and legal careers. Read more, after the jump.
Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.
After my 30 Rock-induced crying jag, sleep settles over me for a few precious hours. But in the middle of the night, I wake up suddenly, feeling deeply disoriented. It takes me a moment to realize that I am at T.J.’s, in his roommate’s bed, and when I do I am convinced that it is early December. I sit up, tangled in a cobweb of confusion and fighting the vaguely panicky sense that I have to do my Christmas shopping. After looking out the window, I spend a few baffled seconds wondering what happened to the blanket of snow I expected to see covering the ground.
As the fog of sleep clears, I piece together the evening and realize why I am so confused. The last time I stayed at T.J.’s was before Christmas, the weekend of a huge snowstorm. I remember waking up to find everything buried under cottony snow, the streets silent and empty. T.J. and I bundled up and, charmed by the novelty of playing mountaineer, trekked to the deli on our skis. When I close my eyes, it is December again, and I am immersed in the feeling of suspended reality, the simple pleasure of finding a familiar landscape transformed, and the childish delight of a snowy day. That was probably the last time I felt so carefree, I think sadly. That was before I lost my job.
I lie in bed, trying to hold on to the memory. Eventually, I doze off, dreaming that it is December, and that I will wake up to another snow day and the momentary relief from responsibility granted by awesome meteorological events. I will have no choice but to make snowballs and throw them at T.J., stopping only to eat dessert. Then I will go to work and bill lots of hours, and the managing partner will call me into his office to tell me to stop working so hard. “Roxana,” he says in my half-dream, “when do you have time to sleep? Listen: things are a little lean right now, but we think a ginormous bonus is in order.”
Unfortunately, reality intrudes on my dream. Perhaps even more unfortunately, reality seems to be adapted from of an episode of the old TV show “Land of the Lost,” in which the daughter, Holly, encounters her future self while trying to save her family from fearsome lizard people. But, while Holly’s future self comforts her, giving her enough courage to face the task ahead, future Roxana is decidedly cranky and unsupportive. She calls December Roxana (who is frolicking in the snow) inside, and then serves her a steaming bowl of acrid soup, which (I determine later) is an uninspired dream metaphor for disappointment. “Get used to it, Rox,” she says. “There’s more where that came from. And, by the way: you might want to scrap the snowman-building and focus on learning to make your own clothes.” The dream dissipates. I wanted to sleep until things got better, I think irritably. Why does future Roxie have to be such a downer?
More after the jump.
I previously wrote (here and here) about Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic hopeful who was ruled ineligible to compete in the Beijing Games by the International Association of Athletics Federations (“IAAF”) because he uses Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetic legs. With help from Dewey & LeBoeuf (disclosure: my previous employer) as his pro bono counsel, Pistorius recently challenged the IAAF’s ruling in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
On Friday, a three-person arbitration panel ruled in Pistorius’s favor, finding that Pistorius’s prosthetics do not provide him with “an overall net advantage” in violation of IAAF Rule 144.2(e). This opens the door for Pistorius to compete in South Africa’s Olympic trials using his prosthetics. The panel reserved the right to change its ruling if new scientific evidence emerges.
With this matter resolved for now, let’s take a look at the big winners and losers from the litigation: Big Winners Oscar Pistorius: Finally eligible for South Africa’s Olympic trials, the Blade Runner is a step closer to competing against the world’s finest. In addition, he is also a step closer to earning the kind of endorsement dollars that would make even Dan & Dave envious. Ossur HF Company: The Iceland-headquartered supplier of the Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetics is gaining all kinds of free publicity. Most of us have now heard of the Cheetah Flex-Foot. Can anybody name a competitor prosthetic? I didn’t think so. Dewey & LeBoeuf: Forget the goodwill that comes with pro bono representation. By winning this case, Dewey & LeBoeuf has expanded its sports-law footprint across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as opened the door to secure new business in international sports arbitration. Debevoise & Plimpton: Real kudos goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for their gutsy and articulate 18-page decision that does not pull its punches with the IAAF. David W. Rivkin, a partner in the New York and London offices of Debevoise & Plimpton, was one of the three named arbitrators in this dispute. His work could only look good for the firm.
Read the rest, after the jump.
[Ed. note: This is the second column by ATL's new sports columnist, Marc Edelman. You can read more about Marc, and check last week's inaugural column (in case you missed it), by clicking here.]
Twenty-one year old South African runner Oscar Pistorius had his heart set on running the 400-meter event at the 2008 Summer Olympics. However, on January 14, the International Association of Athletics Federations (“IAAF”) ruled that Pistorius was ineligible to compete because he has artificial legs.
According to the IAAF, Pistorius’s j-shaped carbon-fiber prosthetics (sometimes known as “cheetahs”) give him an advantage over runners with natural legs. As a result, the IAAF put the kibosh on what should have been the feel-good story of the 2008 Beijing games.
The story of Oscar Pistorius is truly remarkable. Born with a congenital disease that prevented the fibula in his legs from forming properly, Pistorius, at the age of 11 months, had both of his legs amputated below the knee. A few years later, he was fitted with his first prosthetics.
Read the rest of the column, after the jump.
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
* Thoughts go out to all those in Boston. [CNN]
