“Oh, What a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive,” said Judge Guy Anthony, quoting Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion, as he sentenced British Biglaw attorney Francis Bridgeman to 12 months in prison on Friday. The former Allen & Overy (A&O) and Macfarlanes partner, who had already had his membership of the latter firm’s limited liability partnership terminated, then collapsed in the dock.
Until recently, Bridgeman, 43, was just another hotshot Biglaw equity partner enjoying a millionaire’s life-style. Educated at Oxford University, he joined Magic Circle firm A&O in the early 1990s and rose through the ranks so quickly that he made partner in 2000, aged just 32. Having got married, he bought a big house in the countryside outside London and became a governor at a local school. Three years ago, he capitalised on his success by moving to boutique financial law firm Macfarlanes, where profit per equity partner is still high for U.K. standards (last year it came in at £752,000) but the hours and stress are generally considered less than at the likes of A&O.
Then, on April 6 2010, everything changed for Bridgeman, in the most unexpected and surreal way….
Continue reading “Letter from London: Prison for Biglaw Partner With Fabricated Kidnapping Story”
John J. O'Brien
Last August, John J. O’Brien, who was once a highly regarded and well-liked partner in the celebrated M&A practice of Sullivan & Cromwell, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor tax offenses. The charges of conviction were mere misdemeanors, but the amounts involved were large, as you’d expect from a well-paid partner at S&C.
O’Brien was accused of failing to file income-tax returns for tax years 2001 to 2008, on almost $11 million in partnership income. In the end, he pleaded guilty to failing to file taxes relating to $9.2 million in partnership income, for tax years 2003 to 2008.
Earlier today, John O’Brien was sentenced. The sentencing hearing provided some interesting additional information about why O’Brien acted as he did.
So is O’Brien trading Biglaw for the Big House? And if so, how long a sentence did he receive?
Continue reading “Former S&C Partner Gets Sentenced for Tax Offenses”
* Rod Blagojevich is sentenced to 14 years but his hair will be out in seven if it behaves. [Sentencing Law and Policy]
* Jerry Sandusky was re-arrested. This dude needs to be put in the Hannibal Lecter cell. Can’t you hear this guy saying, “A pizza boy tried to deliver to my house once. I S’ed his D after luring him with jellybeans and a Good & Plenty.” [Deadspin]
* Has the Leveson Inquiry into News of the World been “hijacked” by celebrities? Aren’t they the only ones that matter? [Lady of Law]
* The RIAA is about as neutral as a spider regarding something it’s caught in its web. [Simple Justice]
* Should being a world-renowned liar get you barred from practicing on character and fitness grounds? [Reuters]
* When going to the dentist feels like going to the spa, you might be spending too much time in the law school library. [Life in the Law School Lane]
* Obama’s pivots on tax cuts show why he’s the Republican frontrunner for the 2012 nomination. [Going Concern]
* Should the Supreme Court be forced to televise oral arguments? Yes, but only on the condition that we get spin-off shows called Wise Latina Justice and Ruthie’s Law. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Rod Blagojevich won’t get leniency during sentencing. He’ll spend the next week lamenting the fact that can’t brush his beautiful hair like Marcia Brady while in prison. [Bloomberg]
* Brynee Baylor, a D.C. attorney, has been charged with fraud by the SEC. Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get yourself a pair of Jimmy Choos. You go girl. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Plan B, the morning-after pill, may soon be available on drugstore shelves thanks to the FDA. But so what? Plan A, keeping your legs closed, is a much cheaper alternative. [New York Daily News]
* Pakistani actress Veena Malik is suing FHM for $2M. She only wanted to go topless on the cover, but she claims they made her look full on nude. Have at it, pixel inspectors. [New York Magazine]
Rima Fakih: should she go to jail?
* Close, but no cigar? The ABA has updated the way that it will collect graduate employment and salary data from law schools, but the new method could still use a few tweaks. [National Law Journal]
* Kilpatrick Townsend is expanding into Saudi Arabia. I don’t really have anything witty to say about this, but now the “Arabian Nights” song from Aladdin is stuck in my head. [Atlanta Business Chronicle]
* British barristers behaving badly: Kevin Steele, a former Mishcon de Reya partner, was convicted of fraud and forgery charges in connection with a $28M loan scam. They don’t serve tea and crumpets in jail. [Legal Week]
* Joshua Monson, the serial defense attorney stabber, was in court yesterday for sentencing. Still no word on whether he was wheeled in on a Hannibal Lecter-esque gurney to prevent more stabby behavior. [CNN]
* No, Ophelia, when you’re a transgender prisoner in Virginia, the state is not going to pay for your sex change operation, no matter how many courts you appeal to. [Houston Chronicle]
* Will Rima Fakih, 2010′s Miss USA, have to do jail time in Michigan for reportedly being a “super-drunk”? Check back after we get the results from the swimsuit competition. [MLive.com]
'She was just asking me for directions, officer.'
* Three days after arguing that an alleged Sandusky victim’s lawsuit lacked any factual basis, Second Mile decided to settle. Better strike while the iron is hot (and the wallet is open), lawyers. [Bloomberg]
* So much for that “real shot,” huh? After a failed bid for bail, Galleon Group’s Raj Rajaratnam will begin serving the longest insider trading sentence ever come Monday. [DealBook / New York Times]
* A memo to all Biglaw bachelors: if your game is anything like that of Kenneth Kratz’s, then it’s not just ethics boards who will think you have an “offensive personality.” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
* In Tampa, purchasers of prostitutes’ services will now have their cars impounded. Good thing Miami isn’t adopting this law, eh, Professor Jones? (Allegedly, of course.) [St. Petersburg Times]
* Law school is really tough, so the GMU Law administration has some advice for you: the best way to avoid becoming an alcoholic basket case is to play with cuddly puppies. [Washington Post]
To me, a failure to distinguish between people who look at these dirty pictures and people who commit contact offenses lacks the nuance and proportionality I think our law demands.
– Professor Douglas Berman, commenting on the case of Daniel Enrique Guevara Vilca, a 26-year-old who was just sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for child pornography possession.
(The reaction of Paul G. Cassell, former federal judge and victims’ rights expert, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quotes of the Day: Way Harsh”
Close, Lindsay, but no cigar.
* Rajabba is appealing his insider trading convictions and prison sentence, but someone needs to suffer for this outrage. Where are Solo and the Wookiee when you need them? [Bloomberg]
* PETA is suing SeaWorld on Thirteenth Amendment grounds for enslaving killer whales. Oh, so the only marine animals you’ll help have to be black and white? Racists. [Washington Post]
* It’s not just black Biglaw associates who get called “token,” but now it’s law professors, too. Kellen McClendon is suing Duquesne Law for race discrimination. [Courthouse News]
* Lindsay Lohan is getting a full spread in Playboy’s January issue, but won’t be doing any spreading of her own. Contract negotiation just ain’t what it used to be. [Los Angeles Times]
* When you sue for age discrimination, you probably shouldn’t discriminate against your judge, no matter what his age. At least this violinist can play his own sad song. [New York Daily News]
Give me a break. I 'raised' 23 foster kids.
* Members of the Occupy Wall Street brigade were allowed to continue to be dirty hippies living in a park without toilets this morning. So fresh and so clean! OMG, yippee! [Wall Street Journal]
* French prosecutors have dropped another yet another rape charge lodged against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Seriously? It looks like nothing sticks to this man except money. [CNN]
* Recognizing that it’s really hard to get someone to pick up a partner from the drunk tank when there’s a Blackberry outage, DLA Piper is thinking about switching to iPhones. [Reuters]
* RajRaj was literally the biggest target in the Galleon case, but one of his buddies was sentenced, too. On Wednesday, Michael Kimelman got 2.5 years at the luxurious Club Fed. [Daily Record]
* It took Michele Bachmann seven years to graduate from law school (whereas most graduate in three). She can get things done, but apparently only on her own time. [New York Times]
* Food fight! Things are getting really dirty in this Food Network lawsuit. Guy Fieri not only likes to cook with alcohol, but he allegedly speaks like an angry drunk behind the scenes. [City Pages]
Find out how much he got over at our sister site, Dealbreaker.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Raj Rajaratnam
One of the interesting concepts in Professor Rosenbaum’s book (affiliate link) is that the law lacks a soul. The law lacks tenderness. The law is objective and cold and inhumane. The law abhors emotion. I don’t think that’s true.
Every time I sentence a defendant, there is a lot of emotion. I think there is a lot of humanity in the law.
– Judge Denny Chin (2d Cir.), quoted in an interesting New York Times article focused on his sentencing practices (back when he was an S.D.N.Y. judge).
Ed. note: This post was written by Matt Levine, the new editor on our sister site, Dealbreaker, and Elie Mystal.
Matt here. You might think that Dealbreaker HQ exists only metaphorically in virtual space, or maybe in the fan fiction you’re hiding in your desk, but in fact Bess and I share a real physical garrett both with our sibling sites Fashionista and Above the Law. Occasionally we even talk to each other. “Talk,” in this context, normally means that Above the Law editor Elie Mystal shouts at us about some outrageous political position. In order to quiet him down a bit, we’ve decided to take it to the internet, thus spawning the first – and maybe last! – Above the Law / Dealbreaker Debate Society.
I have been set the task of defending a proposition like “white-collar criminals should not get anything near the jail time they get.” (We are pretty casual with our resolutions here at the Breaking Media Debate Society.)
Fortunately I believe that, so here goes…
Continue reading “An Above the Law / Dealbreaker Debate: Insider-Trading Sentencing”
We live in a country where some states have the death penalty. Capital punishment. The “ultimate justice,” people like Rick Perry say with a smirk, as if justice that ends in death is somehow preferable to justice that respects the dignity of human life.
Do you not know what those sanitized words mean? Do you not know what the death penalty is?
We live in a country that sanctions murder of supposed criminals. That’s what we’re talking about: murder. It’s not “self-defense.” Death row inmates are locked down, strapped down, and would be in jail for the rest of their natural lives but for our societal decision to kill them first.
And the people we kill, we suppose they are criminals. We have a system that spits out a verdict that a person is guilty. It’s a flawed, imperfect system. In any given case, witnesses, counsel, judges, or the jury could be wrong, stupid, or both. We, as a society, take their word for it because it’s the best way for dispensing justice that we’ve come up with so far.
But since we have this flawed system, and we do kill people, then it is inevitable that occasionally we’re going to murder the “wrong” person. To support the death penalty is to support the occasional murder of innocent people. That’s been true since the first barbarian hunter-gatherer thought it’d be a good idea to gather the whole tribe together to watch the death of another defenseless person who claimed innocence.
So my question is, why the hell are people so worked up over Troy Davis?
Continue reading “Did America Just Learn That We Have The Death Penalty In Some States?”
NBA Commissioner David Stern
* The NBA is suing its players for failing to negotiate in good faith. Funny, I think the players are acting with the same “good faith” NBA owners do when they steal teams from loving fan bases or hold cities hostage until they build new arenas. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Having a drunk woman angrily spray breast milk on you is probably not as alluring as it sounds. [Sentencing Law & Policy]
* In other sentencing news, a guy got six weeks in jail for getting his ass kicked by Rupert Murdoch’s wife. [Gawker]
* This is funny because it’s kind of true. [Washington Fancy]
* To win, sometimes lawyers need to be quiet? Man, am I glad I got out of that racket. [Underdog]
* Lawyers should be happy to know that good writing requires doing it over and over and over again. [What About Clients?]
* The market apparently doesn’t like the debt ceiling deal. [New York 1]
In a New York Times op-ed, mentioned previously in Morning Docket, Professor Zachary Shemtob and I argue that executions should be made public. More specifically, we argue that executions should be broadcast live or recorded for future release, on the web or on television.
Public execution has some unsavory connotations, perhaps dating back to the days when hangings took place before rowdy crowds in the public square. But when you stop and think about it, the idea really isn’t all that crazy….
Continue reading “Should Executions Be Televised?”
Brian Schroeder
No, this post isn’t about Elie and his continuing struggles with debt. It’s an update on Brian Schroeder, the Harvard Law School graduate who set fire to a memorial housing the remains of unidentified 9/11 victims, on Halloween 2009 (after a night of heavy drinking).
As you may recall, Schroeder previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges in connection with the fire. He received no jail time but was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and pay restitution.
Now there’s a problem with Schroeder’s ability to pay restitution, which could potentially land him in the slammer….
Continue reading “Could a Harvard Law Grad Go to Jail for Failing to Pay What He Owes?”
First, I just want you all to know that I hate you guys for making me follow this story. Seriously, I even wrote wrote a song about it.
Anyway, Casey Anthony has been sentenced for lying to the cops. She’s getting four years. BUT, she’s getting credit for her time already served. That means she could be out by late July or August.
I’ll now pause for you to express your collective outrage….
Continue reading “Casey Anthony: The Sentence”
A blow-up doll: Is there anything you could do with this that would be an act of terror?
Am I the only person who remembers what it was like to be a teenager? Am I the only freaking person up in here that values a good prank? Am I the only person left on this go***mn planet who doesn’t think teenagers who commit pranks should go to jail regardless of how much somebody overreacts to the prank?
Kids these days don’t need a school nurse; they need a school lawyer. Because the minute somebody scrapes a knee is the minute a parent, teacher, or official starts looking for somebody to blame and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Kids should be freaking Mirandized before they answer any questions posed by school officials.
Sorry, let me bring you up to speed on this latest example of a teen acting like a teen while the adults act like children….
Continue reading “They Want To Send This Child Prankster To Jail, And Nobody Even Killed Themselves Over It”
Judge Philip Kirk
On Monday, Judge Philip Kirk of Wisconsin sentenced Delton D. Gorges, a 71-year-old former bus driver, to seven years in prison. Gorges was convicted on charges of sexually assaulting boys, after pleading no contest.
Judge Kirk had some odd words for the defendant at sentencing. Most notably, he told Gorges: “I think you were born gayer than a sweet-smelling jock strap.”
(I’m sorry, but is anyone else finding this transcript a little titillating? Maybe even Judge Kirk?)
Judge Kirk — today’s Judge of the Day, naturally — also expressed skepticism toward Gorges’s claim of heterosexuality: “I think that if anyone believes that in the last 10 years or 15 years all of a sudden you developed an interest in homosexuality and young boys, then I must have looked ravishing in my prom dress this year.”
(Well, Your Honor, you do wear a little black dress — well before the start of cocktail hour.)
Okay. Can we get some context up in here?
Continue reading “Judge Calls Defendant ‘Gayer Than a Sweet-Smelling Jock Strap’”
Molly Wei, the pretty ex-Rutgers student who was charged with two counts of invasion of privacy in the Tyler Clementi case, has reached a deal with the prosecution. Wei, 19, has been admitted to a pre-trial intervention program that could result in the charges against her being dismissed.
What does Wei have to do as part of the PTI program?
Continue reading “Wei To Go (and Testify Against Dharun Ravi)”
