If such a shoe exists, the parties have not pointed to it, there is no evidence that Already has dreamt of it, and we cannot conceive of it. It sits, as far as we can tell, on a shelf between Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Perseus’s winged sandals.
– Chief Justice John Roberts, remarking in a recent opinion on the specific degree of fabulosity that would be required for Nike to renege on its covenant not to sue Already LLC for trademark infringement. The Supreme Court opinion can be found here.
If you’re not familiar with Wendy Williams, we’ll tell you a thing or two about her: this “shock jockette” claims to be the “Queen of All Media,” she has her own syndicated talk show, she’s been known to pull her insider information about the stars she interviews out of her own rear end, and she’s even got a few rappers dropping beats in an attempt to shut her up. And because nothing says classy like purchasing fashion goods hawked at 3 a.m. on TV, we’d be remiss if we forgot to mention Williams’s line of shoes and other accessories, sold exclusively by QVC.
As it turns out, Williams is having a bit of legal trouble with the Chinese manufacturing firm that’s likely gluing her new shoe line together with the tears of underpaid children. It seems that Williams’s Chinese cobblers would like to get paid, so much so that they’re fiercely protesting and even taking hostages, all over some peep-toe shoes with heels dangerously high enough to qualify for instant stripper status in most polite social circles.
Staci Riordan, a partner at Fox Rothschild who runs the firm’s Fashion Law Blog (and who also spells her name in the most fabulous of ways, might we add), is representing manufacturer Max Harvest, in their shoe problems against the media queen, while Ken Schulman of Pryor Cashman is representing Williams. And unfortunately for Williams, “things don’t work in China the way they work in the United States….”
* Oh, by the way Dewey & LeBoeuf partners, the little contribution plan you signed that received court approval last week might not protect you from your former landlord’s claims for back rent. Hope you’ve all got an extra $45 million sitting in the bank. [Am Law Daily]
* Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson will finally get to claim her seat as chief justice of the state’s high court after official judicial recognition — on both the state and federal level — that the year 1994 does indeed come before 1995. [Bloomberg]
* No matter how hard law school administrators wish it were so, or how much they beg Jim Leipold of NALP, he’s never going to be able to describe the current entry-level legal job market as “good.” [WSJ Law Blog]
* NYU Law School is changing its third-year program in the hopes of making a “good” market materialize. If you ship students to foreign countries for class, maybe they’ll get jobs there. [DealBook / New York Times]
* “[W]e’re determined to do everything we can to help them find jobs and meaningful careers.” We bet Brooklyn Law’s dean is also determined to avoid more litigation about employment statistics. [New York Law Journal]
* Has the other shoe finally dropped? After the Second Circuit ruled that YSL could sell monochromatic shoes, the fashion house decided to drop its trademark counterclaims against Christian Louboutin. [Businessweek]
After more than a year of litigation, fellow fashionistas can finally rejoice, because thanks to the Second Circuit, French fashion house Christian Louboutin is officially entitled to trademark protection for its signature red-soled shoes. It seems that the epic judicial shoedown against Yves Saint Laurent is at its end.
But not so fast, ladies. Before you shake your Loubooties on the catwalk at Fashion Week, you may be interested to know that this was only a partial victory for everyone’s favorite luxury shoemaker.
The Second Circuit made a rather important distinction in its opinion today — one that seems a bit antithetical to Louboutin’s desires, considering the fact that it’s what prompted the underlying lawsuit in the first place….
* What happens if a Supreme Court clerk violates the Code of Conduct and leaks information to the press at the behest of a justice? At worst, he’d probably be forced to wash dirty socks from the SCOTUS morning exercise class. [National Law Journal]
* “[T]he great expectations when he was elected have not come to fruition.” Making judicial nominations wasn’t a high political priority, so President Barack Obama will be ending his term with just 125 lower-court appointments in the federal judiciary. [New York Times]
* If there’s anything that Paul Ryan’s good at, it’s soliciting money from lawyers and Biglaw firms. Alston & Bird tops the list of legal campaign contributors, with Patton Boggs in a close second. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]
* Apparently the female reproduction system shuts down to prevent conception upon rape. This improbable tidbit from a man who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. [Wall Street Journal]
* But a great way to take some of the heat off of the “legitimate rape” dude is to break news about another Congressman’s nude swim in the Sea of Galilee while in Israel. Excellent work on this distraction. [POLITICO]
* What crisis? Despite a steep decline in applicants, the average law school’s tuition will climb by more than double the rate of inflation this fall. It’s really heartwarming how they put students first. [National Law Journal]
* Customs agents in Los Angeles seized 20,457 pairs of faux Christian Louboutins that would’ve been worth approximately $18M. For this heinous crime of fashion, the offending shoes will undergo a trial by fire. [CNN]
* Karma sure is a Blitsch. Matthew Couloute, the alleged lawyerly Lothario who got slammed by his exes on LiarsCheatersRUs.com, is now being slammed by someone else: his soon-to-be ex-wife. [New York Post]
* Beauty school dropout, no pube hair trimming days for you! Seventeen female plaintiffs have alleged that a cosmetology instructor subjected them to less-than-sanitary lessons in a federal suit. [New York Daily News]
Beth Shak
For some women, designer shoes are like works of fine art. With soles that can warm any fashionista’s soul, designer shoes are things to be cherished, nay, worshipped. And if you’re wise, you already know better than to mess with a woman’s shoe collection — especially a woman whose million-dollar shoe fetish inspired her to brand her groin area with a red-soled Louboutin tattoo. But unfortunately, some men still haven’t gotten the memo.
In a hand that professional poker player Beth Shak probably wishes she hadn’t been dealt, her ex-husband has decided to go all in with claims made in a new lawsuit against her. Hedge fund manager Daniel Shak, of SHK Asset Management, isn’t hedging his bets when it comes to allegations that his ex-wife hid a costly collection of designer assets in a “secret room,” thereby shielding her from forking over the big bucks in their divorce settlement.
What does this pretty poker player’s ex-husband seek, and just how many pairs of shoes does Beth Shak own?
Yesterday, we brought you a story about Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s lack of interest in reducing its class sizes based on a “perceived benefit to society.” If you haven’t been paying attention, that “perceived benefit” could mean improved employment opportunities for Cooley Law graduates in a challenging legal job market. But perhaps the school’s administration could be convinced to change course when they catch wind of this purported graduate’s entrepreneurial employment situation.
We recently received a tip from a fellow who claims that he graduated from Cooley Law in 1993. It would seem that even as a graduate of the second-best law school in the nation, the job market was so tough that when someone told him to get his shine box, he took the phrase literally. He says he’s been working as a shoeshiner ever since.
We know that this seems absolutely wild, but to be honest, we couldn’t tell if we were being legitimately trolled, if only because he claimed to be a graduate of Cooley Law. We’ve provided our correspondence with this fellow after the jump….
As a new summer associate, you must have heard many a horror story about your predecessors, including tales of fashion disasters. For example, do you remember the boozy Milbank SA who supposedly showed up to events wearing an Olympic jumpsuit? How about the girl who wanted to march around her firm with a $9,000 Birkin bag? As this year’s summers descend upon Biglaw firms across the country, we thought that we might be able to offer you some assistance to prevent you from committing comparable crimes of fashion.
To accomplish this feat, we’ve teamed up with none other than Anna Akbari, the “thinking person’s stylist,” to help you make it through the summer. You don’t want to wind up as a bullet point on Weil Gotshal’s “unacceptable” list….
Continue reading “Summer Associates: Please Don’t Dress Like Fashion Victims”
* Rob me once, shame on you; rob me twice, shame on me? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed for a second time, but this time as the victim of a burglary on May 4. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Dewey know when this ship is finally going to capsize (so we can stop making these puns)? Two of D&L’s Hong Kong partners have decided to defect to DLA Piper, and more may be joining them soon. [Asian Lawyer]
* He might’ve been a “bad husband,” but that doesn’t mean he’s guilty. The jury in John Edwards’s campaign finance trial will begin deliberating today. Let’s see if they convict him of being more than an adulterer. [CNN]
* After his citizenship stunt, Eduardo Saverin can look forward to being defriended by the United States — not like that’s a bad thing, because to be honest, the movie version of him is much cuter. [New York Daily News]
* And this is why lawyers shouldn’t try to be funny. Safeway’s General Counsel, Robert Gordon, is being branded a sexist for telling a recycled joke about pigs and D.C.’s most powerful women. [Corporate Counsel]
* A three month suspension has been recommended for a former Treasury Department attorney who attempted to steal ties from Nordstrom. What, he couldn’t spring for a Neiman’s run? [National Law Journal]
* If you bought those stupid ass Skechers Shape-Up shoes in the hope that your booty would look like Kim Kardashian’s, you can get a piece of the $40M settlement. Not bitter, not at all. [Los Angeles Times]
Not frilly and girly enough!
It’s not often that one associates high fashion with female lawyers. And if such an association is to be made, it usually comes in the form of an Elle Woods / Legally Blonde joke. Instead, one is quick to conjure visions of boxy ’80s power suits with shoulder pads thick enough to warrant a cringe.
You’d think that with the sheer number of fashion sense for the workplace seminars, women would have stopped making the faux pas of dressing like they were anywhere but at a David E. Kelley-created law firm — but apparently, you’d be wrong.
So let us spell it out for all of our lovely lady lawyers, as the Wall Street Journal so eloquently did last night: “The power suit is over.” These days, power looks for women contain frills, ruffles, and even hints of (gasp!) pink.
While the power suit may be a fashion no-no, is it acceptable to wear these emerging trends to work?
Continue reading “Attention Fashionistas: The Power Suit Is So Last Season”
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.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
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.
Keep reading »
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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