Mitt Romney’s unfortunate comment at the most recent presidential debate, in which he boasted about receiving “binders full of women” while trying to build a diverse cabinet as Governor or Massachusetts, has become a wildly popular internet meme. If you’re looking for some good laughs, check out this Tumblr or this slideshow.
Happily, there’s a Biglaw connection to all of this. At which leading law firm can you assemble your own “binder full of women”?
“I don’t know…I can’t figure out any differences between these guys.”
Last night, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared off in a town hall debate, a format specifically designed to sway undecided voters because the political media seems obsessed with the idea that low information voters are super awesome and totally deserving of their role driving the political discourse of the most powerful nation on the planet.
As I watched it last night, it struck me that this town hall format is the political equivalent of the jury trial. The process is driven by staunchly undecided people culled from the local population with a moderator on hand primarily to facilitate the flow of information to the pool of lay observers.
But the two Harvard Law grads seeking the highest office in the nation failed some of the cardinal rules of jury trials.
Continue reading “Obama and Romney Square Off In Political Jury Trial”
I had the pleasure of being at Hofstra University last night to watch the presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I wasn’t actually in the venue where the debate itself was held, but in overflow seating with a bunch of Hofstra people. I had been invited earlier in the day to participate in a student debt discussion at Hofstra Law, and they let me hang around for the rest of the day.
I already know who I’m going to vote for. Everybody I spoke to already knew who were they going to vote for. If there were people there who were still unsure about who they were going to vote for, I didn’t notice them, probably because “undecided” voters are too stupid to walk around campus and talk and not choke on their own saliva. In any event, it was fun to watch the debate with a diverse group; everybody hears what they want to hear. Republicans heard Romney’s five-point plan to fix the economy and piss off China. I heard this:
But I’d like to think everybody heard the same thing from both candidates when it comes to student loans: a load of bullcrap….
Continue reading “At The Hofstra Debate, Both Candidates Dodge Student Debt Issue”
* Check out the absurd rules governing tonight’s presidential debate. Should make for some awesome boring-as-hell television. And yes, of course the rules document was signed by lawyers. [Gawker]
* Chinese politics is starting to adversely affect American law firms. Next thing you know, attorneys will be hiding out in the woods, drinking deer blood. Oh wait, that kind of already happened. [Asian Lawyer]
* Despite the passage of time, mentioning torture at a Guantanamo hearing is still about as awkward as… some generic Family Guy-style non sequitur. [Thomson Reuters News and Insight]
* This is a newly released video of NYPD kicking the ever-loving sh*t out of a homeless man, who was inexplicably charged with assaulting the officer who, again, beat him up on video. Inside a synagogue. Where the man was sleeping. With permission. Can’t wait to see the lawsuit that comes out of this. [Gothamist]
* SCOTUS has agreed to review the Arizona voter law. Oh goodie. [WSJ Law Blog]
Arlen Specter was always a fighter. From his days stamping out corruption as a prosecutor in Philadelphia to his three decades of service in the Senate, Arlen was fiercely independent — never putting party or ideology ahead of the people he was chosen to serve.
– President Obama, remembering former Senator Arlen Specter, who died yesterday at age 82. Specter played a central role many controversial Congressional legal battles, including his aggressive questioning of Anita Hill and helping defeat Robert Bork’s SCOTUS bid.
Judge Richard Cebull
Americans expect the courts to be fair, impartial, and open to all. Cebull clearly demonstrated that he does not have the temperament to serve as a federal judge, period.
Cebull may hope that taking senior status before the misconduct review concludes will help him avoid sanction. But he should be held accountable by the 9th Circuit regardless of his status.
Taking senior status is a half-measure that allows Cebull to continue hearing cases. That’s not appropriate. He should resign or retire immediately.
– Josh Glasstetter, Research Director of People For the American Way, responding to news that District Judge Richard Cebull, who sent that infamous, racially charged email about President Obama, will take senior status in March 2013.
‘What is this? A law school for ants?’
* According to a CNN poll, 67 percent of people who watched the debate thought Mitt Romney won, while only 25 percent thought Barack Obama won. Well, either way you slice it, there was definitely one loser: poor old Jim Lehrer. [CNN]
* If Barack Obama could’ve had his way, he would’ve put Osama bin Laden on trial to display American due process and the rule of law. We suppose that now he’ll just have to take credit for being the man who ordered the kill shot. [WSJ Law Blog]
* A handful of Biglaw firms advised on the T-Mobile and MetroPCS merger, but Telecommunications Law Professionals, a boutique firm, showed up to prove it could hang with the big boys. [DealBook / New York Times]
* From boutique to Biglaw? Joseph Bachelder, an executive compensation expert, shuttered his 10-lawyer firm in favor of joining McCarter & English as special counsel in New York. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Remember Ellen Pao, the former Cravath associate who sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination? She now claims that the VC firm fired her. Of course, like everything else, KPCB denies it. [Bits / New York Times]
* A J.D. isn’t a hoax, but if law schools keep admitting huge classes, the degree will become one. The dean of UC Hastings Law thinks law schools should’ve reduced their class sizes a long time ago. [Huffington Post]
In a few hours, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will meet in Denver, Colorado, for the first of three presidential debates (though the second is a town hall debate; are those really “debates?”). As lawyers, you likely possess more than a passing interest in the events of the evening.
You are also Above the Law readers, which means you likely possess more than a passing interest in reckless self-destruction through the massive consumption of alcohol.
As a lawyer, drinker, and college debate coach who gets way too into these things, I have constructed a drinking game to shepherd you through the process of viewing tonight’s debate….
Continue reading “A Lawyer’s Guide To Getting Drunk During Tonight’s Presidential Debate”
From buying their family’s love to buying luxurious lawyerly lairs, attorneys at the nation’s largest firms do a lot of things with their wallets — and now they’re voting with them, too. Earlier this month, we brought you a story about Obama v. Romney in terms of which presidential candidate was leading in the race to collect campaign contributions from the wonderful world of Biglaw.
At present, Obama has an advantage over Romney, with $1.9 million pouring in from America’s 20 biggest firms, as opposed to just over $1 million for his opponent. When we last wrote about this important issue, lawyers from DLA Piper proved to be Obama’s greatest supporters, while Kirkland & Ellis showed up strong for Romney. But what we really want to know is which other firms are opening their hearts wallets for these political adversaries.
With only a little more than a month until Election 2012, let’s take a look at the firms that are making some of the largest (and smallest) political donations….
Continue reading “Which Biglaw Firms Are Opening Their Wallets to Donate to Obama and Romney?”
How many times do we have to go over this?
I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection. I do think the factual record could be supplemented.
– Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, defending a citizen’s formal effort to keep Barack Obama’s name off the Kansas ballot, over concerns about the President’s birth certificate that just won’t die.
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.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
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?
Keep reading »
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