Apparently, breeding doesn't evolve from meeting a person you like, going out to dinner, having a drink or two, and letting nature take its course. It comes from a woman's eyes signaling that she "desperately want[s] to be laid on the boardroom table as soon as [a man gives] the word." Or so says a Russian judge.

A 22-year-old sued her employer for sexual harassment after being locked out of her office for refusing to get it on with her boss. After reading this story (which we mentioned in passing the other day), we conclude that Russia sucks for women. From the Daily Telegraph:

"If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children," the judge ruled.

Since Soviet times, sexual harassment in Russia has become an accepted part of life in the office, work place and university lecture room.

According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Women also report that it is common to be browbeaten into sex during job interviews, while female students regularly complain that university professors trade high marks for sexual favours.

We beg to differ with the judge. Forcing your assistant to have sex with you to keep her job is different from the decision to procreate with a consensual partner.

But if this sounds like the place for you, have we mentioned that Firestone Duncan is hiring? The only downside is getting beaten by the police and hospitalized.

Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules [Daily Telegraph]

It's hard pleasing everyone at Kirkland & Ellis. Sure, K&E offers oodles of prestige, cutting-edge work, and above-market bonuses. When we asked our associate readers what firm other than their own they'd most want to work for, Kirkland took third place.

But people will always find something to be upset about -- and often there's a political component to the K&E complaints. For example, some people think Kirkland tilts too far to the right, thanks to its association with prominent conservatives like Ken Starr and John Bolton.

Others think the firm tilts too far to the left, bowing down before the forces of political correctness. These critics object to the firm's Diversity Networking Forums, its Big Gay Cocktail Parties.... and, most recently, its just-circulated "Diversity Census," asking lawyers for their demographic data.

From a tipster:

Many of us at K&E find this [Diversity Census] offensive. Clients who inquire about the race or sex of the attorneys working on their matters should be told it's none of their business and that the firm does not staff its matters in accordance with the racist or sexist quota requirements of its clients. If a client asked that no blacks work on its matters, presumably the firm would fire the client, but when the shoe is on the other foot, K&E partners are all too happy to oblige.

But is this really the purpose of the Diversity Census? No, according to the firm. We contacted Walt Lohmann, co-chair of the Firmwide Diversity Committee at K&E, who explained that "participation in the Kirkland Diversity Census is voluntary and anonymous (unless a respondent chooses to self-identify for purposes of receiving materials and event notifications)." Furthermore, "responses are not used in staffing decisions."

Fair enough. But what if they were -- would that be problematic? As reported last year by the American Lawyer:

Over the last few years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and others have raised the stakes for outside counsel, pressing firms to increase diversity in their ranks or risk losing clients. In one case... Wal-Mart dumped an outside firm that didn't adequately adhere to the company's diversity program.

Do efforts like Wal-Mart's merit commendation or condemnation? Feel free to opine in the comments.

More information about the K&E Diversity Census, plus a copy of the Census, below the fold.

Although many tipsters emailed us about it, we never wrote about this buzz-generating Wall Street Journal article, reporting on how many older lawyers are displeased by the overly informal, even sloppy attire of their younger colleagues. We didn't write about it earlier because we felt preempted: the piece received lots of online attention, from such widely read outlets as the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog, where it generated heavy comment traffic.

But now we have a new angle on it. Focus on these portions of Christina Binkley's WSJ article:

[Winston & Strawn D.C. managing partner Thomas Mills] says he is partial to well-fitted Brioni suits for himself. He notes that the going rate for new associates in New York, Los Angeles and Washington is $160,000 a year -- enough to buy suits while paying down school loans. Yet all too often, associates show up at work in jeans -- attire that he doesn't condone "unless it's moving day."

Winston & Strawn brought in a personal shopper from a local department store last year to address associates on how to shop and dress for work. Mr. Mills says that when some associates do make an effort to dress up, they seem to base their look on Hollywood. "You get the TV-woman lawyer look with skirts 12 inches above the knee and very tight blouses," he says. "They have trouble sitting and getting into taxis."

These remarks apparently didn't go over too well back at Winston:

W&S DC office's managing partner comes off as a total a**. His comments re: his custom suits are one thing. But his comments re: the way women in the office dress have created a stir....

People are seriously pissed, particularly the women. Man comes off as a total pig.... Read the article, you'll see why.

This is prime ATL material. Firm has called impromptu associates meeting for 9:30 Monday, no topic given. But the guess is it is damage control.

The guess was correct. More about the meeting, after the jump.

We love tales of misbehaving DAs. And this one is a doozy. From the Houston Chronicle:

New e-mails released Tuesday show District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal sent and received racist jokes and strategized with political consultants and colleagues about his re-election campaign on his county e-mail account.

Also within the correspondence obtained Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle were numerous sexually explicit images. It was unclear, however, if Rosenthal ever forwarded those files.

Those were just for his personal wank collection.

Among e-mails that concerned Woodfill were video clips of nudity and sex acts and a racist joke forwarded by Rosenthal that compares former President Bill Clinton to a black man. The e-mail says Clinton played the saxophone, smoked marijuana and gets a check from the government each month.

Pot always struck us as more of a white person's drug, but whatever.

Also included within the e-mails is heavy traffic between Rosenthal and Sam Siegler, Rosenthal's physician and the husband of Kelly Siegler, who is running for district attorney. In one e-mail from Sam Siegler to Rosenthal, an attached video shows women having their breasts exposed after men forcibly pulled down their blouses in public. The video called the act "sharking."

Kelly Siegler dismissed her husband's e-mails. "He cusses like a sailor and his sense of humor is crude, to put it mildly," she said. "It's his computer and what he does at work is his business. He's the boss."

Stand by your man, Kelly. As long as there's no kiddie porn in those emails, it's all good.

Oh, and Rosenthal also sent "intimate e-mails to his executive secretary." More details, after the jump.

If she hadn't already gotten a shout-out in Morning Docket, we might have named Karyn McConnell Hancock our Lawyer of the Day. She's the pregnant Ohio attorney who, as reported by the AP, disappeared for four days, then made up a story about being kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to Georgia. According to her husband, she had "a meltdown."

Instead, since Hancock's story has already gotten lots of MSM coverage, we'll bestow today's prize upon New York lawyer Thomas Decea. From a story in the New York Law Journal by Anthony Lin (who's on a roll lately; two words: Charlene Morisseau):

A New York judge has ordered court supervision of a lawyer for "objectionable conduct" toward a female opposing counsel who he said had a "cute little thing going on" during a deposition.

According to transcripts of the deposition, Thomas B. Decea of Danzig Fishman & Decea in White Plains also called Michelle A. Rice of Arkin Kaplan & Rice "hon" and "girl" and asked her why she was not wearing a wedding ring.

It's interesting to note that Michelle Rice, alleged possessor of the "cute little thing," is a name partner in the law firm of legendary litigator Stanley Arkin -- who's renowned for his toughness.

The underlying litigation is also noteworthy. It involves Lowenstein Sandler, one of New Jersey's largest and most profitable law firms (Rice's client).

More excerpts and discussion -- including an attempt to explain away Decea's calling Michelle Rice "hon" as a reference to "Attila the Hun" -- after the jump.

There's news to report in the lawsuit filed by two female Yale Law School students over various allegedly defamatory and threatening comments posted about them on AutoAdmit.com. The amended complaint, which was delayed in arriving, has finally been filed. You can check it out here.

For some thoughts on the amended complaint by Professor Dave Hoffman, who has established himself as the expert on all things AutoAdmit-related, see here. As Hoffman notes, the most significant change is the dropping of Anthony Ciolli as a defendant.

In response to this news, Ciolli issued this statement:

I am pleased to see that the Plaintiffs have voluntarily dismissed me from this suit. Including me in the suit in the first place was legally unsupportable. I never posted a single defamatory or invasive statement. I told the plaintiffs that from the start, and I provided them with a sworn declaration to that effect.

Had I remained as a defendant, the only theory could have been rooted in a desire to overturn Section 230. As I was merely an employee of AutoAdmit, leaving me in the suit would have been akin to suing a Google employee for anything found on a web page hosted by that company - even if Google was not responsible for the content. The weakness of that theory was apparent to me from the beginning, as were the ramifications of its unlikely success — an explosion of liability for every internet service provider in America.

You can read the whole thing over at Professor Marc Randazza's blog, The Legal Satyricon. Congratulations to Ciolli and to Professor Randazza, who was representing him, on the good news.

Former Penn Law Student Dropped from Autoadmit Lawsuit [Concurring Opinions]
Anthony Ciolli Dropped from Auto Admit Lawsuit [The Legal Satyricon]
Doe v. pauliewalnuts et al. [Amended Complaint (PDF)]

Earlier: What the Heck Is Going on with Doe v. Ciolli?
Has AutoAdmit Been Pwn3d?

She probably wouldn't be very happy with her law firm. From the Minority Law Journal:

[N]owadays most associates don't plan on spending their entire legal career at one law firm. But some associates are more likely to head for the exits than others. Nearly half of all white male midlevel associates say that they expect to be working at their current firm in five years, according to our Minority Experience Study. Just over 40 percent of minority male midlevels said the same. Of the minority female midlevels, though, fewer than a third planned to stay put.

Minority women seem to have more reason to want to leave big firms, according to our findings. [The study] showed women of color experiencing less satisfaction and more obstacles at large firms than their peers, including men of color.

You can read the full article -- replete with numerous quotes from "diversity advisers, "diversity consultants" and "diversity officers" -- over here.

P.S. Yes, the Wanda Sykes reference is pretty random. We just think that she is hilarious, and we try to mention her at every opportunity. We also think she bears an uncanny resemblance to one of our favorite jurists, Judge Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Cir.; see photo at right).

P.P.S. And have you seen -- or rather, heard -- Wanda Sykes in the new Applebee's ads? The restaurant chain has hired her to serve as the voice for their new "spokesapple." Genius.

Why Are Minority Female Associates Leaving Law Firms? [Minority Law Journal]

We are not easily offended, nor are we very politically correct. Sometimes we write things that upset or antagonize people (sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not).

But this discussion of women lawyers, while certainly provocative, is a bit too inflammatory for our taste. We won't post excerpts here (because finding a portion that isn't offensive is difficult).

It's generating discussion and making the rounds by email, however, and people have brought it to our attention. We're passing it along for your consideration, so you can see what all the fuss is about. But please keep in mind that we agree with Jeff Jarvis's linking philosophy: “A link is not necessarily an endorsement, but a way to say ‘you go judge for yourself.’”

What A Girl’s Job Tells You [Roissy in DC]

Remember the lawsuit filed by two female Yale Law School students over various allegedly defamatory and threatening comments posted about them on AutoAdmit.com? The plaintiffs are in the process of amending their complaint, and they've sought extra time in which to do so. From a tipster:

[T]he third motion for an extension of time was requested October 4, and it asked for 30 days. I can't imagine them going to a fourth motion, so the deadline should be fast approaching around this weekend.

That said... it appears from the first couple of motions they didn't have any real leads and were still investigating, and now they may have a real lead.

Doe 1 et al v. Ciolli et al [Justia]

Earlier: Has AutoAdmit Been Pwn3d?

Andrew Bruck takes a question at Wednesday's press conference.

Every now and then, we leave our apartment. We did so on Wednesday, to attend the press conference of Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession, where the organization unveiled its law firm diversity rankings (accessible here; Los Angles Times article here).

It was quite informative. For those of you who might be interested -- and we're guessing there are a number of you, judging from the robust commentary on our earlier post -- read more, after the jump.

He likes PD butts, and he cannot lie. From the New York Daily News (of course):

When a local judge laughingly said in open court that criminal defense lawyer Ruth Boyer had "a nice butt," she was not flattered.

The sexist comment by LaGrange Town Justice Edmund Caplicki, made in July 2005, was reported to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which yesterday publicly scolded the jurist for his "inappropriate" remark.

Caplicki, 62, told the watchdog group he was merely parroting the comments Boyer's client - a man accused of theft - had made about the lawyer's backside. But the panel noted the jurist not only quizzed three other male defendants on whether they agreed with the evaluation, but then mentioned it again to Boyer....

Boyer's supervisor at the Dutchess County Public Defender's office had the incident reported to the commission. Friends described Boyer, 42, as being anything but thin-skinned. "She has a very cordial, respectful and diplomatic approach to everything," an assistant at Boyer's law office, Larry Clark, told the Daily News. "It's very hard to get a rise out of her."

"But apparently not so difficult to get a rise out of Justice Caplicki," as one of you notes.

Someone should put the Ed Caplicki in touch with Peter Barta, another connoisseur of court-appointed ass. And keep His Honor away from Ursula Ungaro at judicial conferences.

Public censure for judge who said lawyer had 'nice butt' [New York Daily News]

Here are some of the comments appended to our recent post about Gibson Dunn's snazzy new website:

"I like the pictures on the main directory. Those are the best part. Except that they don't have too many women, and one of the women is in a very high school girl peek-a-boo around the brick wall pose. They'd never put up a picture of a man doing that."

"I agree... Shame on you, peek-a-boo posing Asian woman!"

"Uh, that 'peek-a-boo posing Asian woman' is Debra Yang, the former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, whom GDC allegedly paid a $1 mil signing bonus. She can peek-a-boo around whatever the hell she wants to peek-a-boo around."

"Debra Yang's picture's been taken down."

"Wait, the peek-a-boo is still there. Now spotted in the mix over at Practices. Please, GDC, put up a different picture of Ms. Yang."

Curious to see what all the fuss is about? Check out the controversial photo of Gibson Dunn partner (and former U.S. attorney) Debra Wong Yang, after the jump.

This email exchange, between two law students at Washington University Law, took place late last month. It's reminiscent of that Greenberg Traurig email exchange from the other day -- which, in our book, is high praise.

Some background, from our tipster:

I'm an avid reader of ATL. Although I don't see much law school coverage on your site, I thought you might find this email string between a couple Washington University in St. Louis law students amusing.

Note that the email string starts as a solicitation sent to the entire school, marketing a washer/dryer for sale. The proceeding communications are also copied to the ENTIRE school of law (including professors, deans, etc.).

Check it out, after the jump.