* Blogs: Changing life as we know it — or just giving law students a respite from those pesky casebooks. [Balkinization]
* Guess this is more than playful alteration by a bored junior associate, like dropping the “l” from “public offering,” or the “cl” from “Class A common stock” in a prospectus. [National Review via Instapundit]
* Expect some “National Pork Board”/ “Chauvinist Pig” wordplay on a t-shirt soon. [Feminist Law Professors]
* We repeat: Blogging does not pay the bills. And Salon is not exactly old-establishment, so relax already — and edit your bookmarks, because Glenn Greenwald is moving February 8. [Unclaimed Territory]
* Young NYC graffiti artists, or just anyone ages 18-21 with a need for spray paint and broad-tipped markers, are free at last. [AM New York]
Shopping
- Allen & Overy, Bad Ideas, Biglaw, Debevoise & Plimpton, McKee Nelson, Money, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Shopping, Skaddenfreude
Attention Boy Associates: Here’s How To Piss Away Your Pay Raise
By David LatWe’ve been providing salary news updates in the comments because, due to technical difficulties, it’s more reliable than trying to do so here on the main page. For your reference, here are links to the latest announcements:
1. Allen & Overy: Confirmed. Memo is here.
2. Debevoise & Plimpton: Confirmed. Memo is here.
3. McKee Nelson: Confirmed. Memo is here.
(We will spare you the details of the boring debate over whether they should be considered a DC firm with a very large New York office, which is the obvious preference of McKee Nelson’s media relations people, or a firm that’s roughly split between the two cities. How many D.C. associates can dance on the head of a pin?)
4. Schulte Roth & Zabel: Confirmed. Transmittal email for PDF memo is here.
****************************
Paging Biglaw boys: Is the retroactive portion of your pay burning a whole in your pocket? Are you trying to figure out how to spend $1,000 in found money?
Fret not. Have we got an idea for you:
For the High-End Bathroom, Something Unexpected [New York Times]
- Enron, Latham & Watkins, Media and Journalism, Money, Pictures, Romance and Dating, Sean Berkowitz, Shopping
“And You Say He’s Just a Friend…”
By David LatLast year, Jesse Oxfeld — formerly of Gawker, now of New York Magazine — delivered this fun scoop:
Bethany McLean, the Enron-busting Fortune reporter who co-wrote The Smartest Guys in the Room, is dating the man who put Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling away. The fetching, recently divorced McLean, who covered the trial, is now seeing the lead prosecutor in the case, Sean Berkowitz, an assistant U.S. attorney from Chicago. “They started dating after the trial concluded, and after Bethany’s coverage of Enron was complete,” a Time Inc. spokeswoman e-mailed in response to an inquiry to McLean.
None of her fellow Enron-trial reporters question McLean’s professionalism, but post-trial, the relationship did seem unusually chummy. One notes that McLean attended Berkowitz’s birthday party in Chicago, held ten days after the verdict, and she was considered to be notably sympathetic to the prosecution’s case.
If you question the characterization of their relationship as “unusually chummy,” then check out the photograph that appears after the jump.
We swear we had the idea before reading this Greedy NY item. Truth be told, we didn’t steal it from the message boards. We stole it from DealBreaker:
In business journalism, there are certain kind of articles that get written and rewritten every year. There’s the “How To Behave At An Office Party” article that always comes with the holidays. There’s the “Office Romance” piece which usually hits around Valentine’s Day. And, of course, there are those “How To Spend Your Bonus” articles that have been popping up all week.
We’re not going to write one of those. (Unless you count this.) Instead, we’re asking you to write one. Well, not a whole article. But we’d like to hear your ideas for bonus purchases. We’re interested in everything from the mundane (paying off your student loans) to the ostentatious. Imagined or real-life stories welcome. We’d just really like to hear what you are or would shell out for with your hard earned bonus bucks.
If Biglaw bonuses were as huge as Wall Street bonuses, then ideas like these might be on the table. But they’re not (even at Wachtell). So you’re probably thinking along more modest lines:
– a flat-screen TV?
– a Mini-Cooper (great for parking in Manhattan)?
– something to improve your flagging sex life?
We’re eager to live vicariously through your purchases of Louis Vuitton luggage sets, your blow-out dinners at Masa, your summer rentals in the Hamptons. You worked your tail off for that bonus; now, savor it. Since you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Please make your consumption conspicuous, in the comments to this post. Thanks — we think…
Bonus Consumption: You Decide! [DealBreaker]
ABC Knows Six Things You Aren’t Going To Do With Your Goldman Sachs Bonus [DealBreaker]
Bonus Spending? [Infirmation / Greedy NY]
Earlier: ATL Reader Poll: Are You Happy With Your Sex Life?
Prior ATL coverage of bonuses (scroll down)
- Crime, Deaths, Intellectual Property, Kids, Murder, Music, Non-Sequiturs, Patents, Pets, Sex, Shopping, Violence, White-Collar Crime
Non-Sequiturs: 12.15.06
By Stella Q* It helps the People’s case when an alleged polygamist doesn’t look like Brad Pitt or, you know, anyone non-creepy. [AP via Yahoo! News]
* “Low blood sugar” is to an opera singer what “exhaustion” is to an anorexic poppet du jour. [International Herald Tribune]
* What would the holidays be without a child left in a car while his mother picks something up at Neimans? Don’t even think of invoking the “Last-Minute Shopping Hysteria” defense — she brought along the dog. [East Valley Tribune]
* Necessity may be the mother of invention, but obviousness is its eccentric aunt. I don’t know if that makes sense, but check out the proof of what you knew all along — that you’re completely expendable. [Temporary Attorney]
* Sad, senseless deaths. One would think that such risks would exist only in the world of criminal defense, prosecution, and maybe divorce law. [WSJ Law Blog]
A recent meme of the legal blogosphere: neckties.
We find this subject hard to resist, since it lies at the intersection of two of our favorite topics: fashion and law. Because of the staid fashion standards of the legal profession — dark suits, white or blue shirts, black shoes (or brown if you’re wild ‘n crazy) — one of the few ways male lawyers can express themselves sartorially is through their ties.
Here are a few quick links and thoughts:
* One of the more random things we’ve heard of ex-practicing-lawyers going into. But it’s probably more fun than document review, or two-hour conference calls in which nothing is accomplished. [WSJ Law Blog]
* An excellent taxonomy of neckwear, from Raffi Melkonian of Crescat (who, as we know from his food-related posts, knows how to live the good life). [Crescat Sententia]
We agree with Raffi’s endorsement of Zegna ties (and own about half a dozen ourselves). But we also have a weakness for the Hermès school of ties in fun patterns — and would add Ferragamo to this grouping.
One of our favorite ties is a red Ferragamo, with a zany print of dancing Asian coolies (pictured at right). Back in our law firm days, when we sometimes felt like a highly-paid coolie, we’d wear this necktie as a form of silent protest. A $120 tie, emblazoned with dancing coolie workers, was the perfect embodiment of the Biglaw predicament.
* Finally, here are some necktie thoughts from Professor Glenn Reynolds. Brooks Brothers makes some nice ties, but they can be a little unexciting. So the Instapundit wisely balances these out with printed ties from museum shops. [Instapundit]
P.S. The best personal necktie collection we know of is owned by the Justice Department’s Office of Sartorial Counsel (aka Ryan Bounds, Chief of Staff for the Office of Legal Policy).
- John Paul Stevens, Milberg Weiss, Morning Docket, Prisons, Shopping, Supreme Court, Tobacco / Smoking
Morning Docket: 11.28.06
By B Clerker* Happy Anniversary, Justice Stevens. [Associated Press via How Appealing]
* Our low low prices on handmade office furniture are cruel and unusual! [MSNBC]
* The Court lights one up for Big Tobacco. [Law.com]
* Milberg Weiss’s judgment day: January 2008. [New York Times]
To those of you who have just returned from the Thanksgiving holiday, hoping that a venti coffee with an extra shot of espresso will bring you out of your food coma: Welcome Back. We hope you had a delightful holiday.
The sight (or mere thought) of turkey probably makes you nauseous at this point. But if that’s not the case, here is a picture of the Thanksgiving turkey that our mother prepared this year:
Maybe you weren’t at your computer on Black Friday, choosing instead to fuel the economy with your consumption. But we were, diligently churning out posts for a non-existent audience. If a blog post is published and nobody is around to read it, does it make a sound? (Scroll down the page to see what you missed.)
Like you, right now we’re engaged in some post-holiday catch-up (with news, email, etc.). If you have any funny, law-related Thanksgiving stories — yeah, we know, a tall order — please share them with us.
Hey, What Are You Doing Here? [ATL]
Thanksgiving turkey, white background [stock.xchng]
- Colbert Report, Divorce Train Wrecks, Feminism, Jews, Merck, Non-Sequiturs, Oy, Parties, Ridiculousness, Sex, Shameless Plugs, Shopping, Ted Frank
Non Sequiturs: 09.29.06
By Above the Law* Bill Childs disses AEI’s parties. He just doesn’t appreciate a good formal gala. [TortsProf Blog]
* FAA regulations: comply with weirded-out flight attendant at all times, no matter how irrational she is. [Prettier Than Napoleon]
* Apple claims right to word “podcast”; next: all soundwaves between 4500 and 6000 MHz. [Overlawyered]
* Blogs can be used against you in court. Duh. [Boston Globe via Elefant]
* Soon to be issued to all incoming associates. [The Billable Hour]
* The first judicial citation to CuteOverload.com. [Volokh]
* Two new books attack string theory; class action lawsuit against Stephen Hawking’s “Brief History of Time” inevitable. [New Yorker]
* “I keep forgetting how women are disadvantaged by having to write a research agenda, but I am sure they have to be. Somehow. Always disadvantaged.” [Kate Litvak comment on PrawfsBlawg]
* Dom Deluise is not only still alive, but can legally sue his litigious ex-daughter-in-law’s lawyer. [Overlawyered]
* Weird Al Yankovic also alive, has aspirations of Jeremy Blachman-dom. [Overlawyered]
* Some might call it clever marketing of E. coli lawsuits, but I say it’s spinach and I say to hell with it. [Wall Street Journal]
* It’s not too late to download my law review article, and move me higher on the dowload rankings. [SSRN]
* Protest demands recognition of zombie legal rights: “What do we want?” “BRAINS!” “When do we want it?” “BRAINS!” [Boing Boing]
* Upcoming deadline #1: The statute of limitations for suing Merck over Vioxx expires for many many putative plaintiffs today. Court clerks will be busy as attorneys forum shop. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Upcoming deadline #2: The Days of Awe end Sunday, and Yom Kippur starts Sunday night. Stephen Colbert offers a toll-free number, 1-888-OOPS-JEW, if you wish to atone to him. The recorded disclaimer alone (and Colbert’s addendum afterwards) makes it worth it, but you get what you pay for. [News From Me]
* It has nothing to do with the law, but how can we avoid mentioning this important press release on Kazakh-Uzbek relations? [Borat.tv]
- Ann Althouse, Bill Clinton, Blog Wars, Blogging, Fashion, Feminism, Gender, HP, Non-Sequiturs, Shoes, Shopping
Non-Sequiturs: 09.20.06
By David Lat* We’re several days late on this; but it’s just as well. We’re not touching this controversy (see photo below) with the proverbial 10-foot pole. [Althouse; Feministing; Althouse; Feministing]
But just out of curiosity, ATL readers, what’s your first reaction to this photo of Bill Clinton and a group of bloggers? Please place your responses in the comments to this post.
* HP looked into having spies infiltrate the offices of CNET and the Wall Street Journal by posing as clerical employees or cleaning crew members. This scandal gets more insane by the day. [DealBreaker]
* Have an iron stomach? Looking for a quick way to make $75,000? [TortsProf Blog]
* We agree with Professor Dimino’s students — we’ll take a statutory class over Con Law any day of the week. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Lawyers don’t have a monopoly on mumbo jumbo. [Securities Litigation Watch via DealBreaker]
* It’s about time: Washington women get on the footwear bandwagon. [Washington Post]
-
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