Bloomberg

* NY Attorney General investigating fast food restaurants for shorting their employees. This is a worthwhile cause, but what he should be looking into is who ate the bones? [CNN]

* Two schools, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and York College of Pennsylvania admit they gave false information to U.S. News resulting in better rankings. Those were their BETTER rankings? [TaxProf Blog]

* To keep “misleading statistics” in perspective, the Department of Education leveled one of its steepest fines on Yale for covering up multiple “forcible sex offenses” to keep its campus safety statistics down. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* A measure of resource governance finds the U.S. has the second best governance of its oil, gas and mining sectors. Give yourself a hand regulators. And we’re gunning for you Norway! [Breaking Energy]

* The Honorable Felicia Mennin does not grasp how time works. Thinks artist should have been more conscious of the public fear surrounding the Boston bombings… back in February. [New York Times]

* Congratulations readers for helping the profile of a White House petition to reform student loan policy. Here are a couple more if you feel like making more reforms to the process… or at least more suggestions for reforms that will sit on someone’s desk. [Whitehouse.gov and Whitehouse.gov]

* Is political intelligence practice too risky? Is political intelligence an oxymoron? An interview with Robert Walker of Wiley Rein LLP after the jump [Bloomberg Law]

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Non-Sequiturs: 05.17.13″

Morning Docket: 05.16.13

You never really get away with anything in this world. You can’t outrun life in a Bronco.

* Schools with the most racially diverse law school faculties didn’t do well in the U.S. News Rankings or the ATL one. [New York Law Journal]

* Jodi Arias news. Something about the death penalty. I didn’t really read the article. Remember, every time you click on something about Jodi Arias, God kills a kitten. [USAToday]

* Obama merely fired the acting IRS chief, Steve Miller. He didn’t execute him in Times Square with his bare hands, so cable news outlets will still have something to bitch about. [CNN]

* How happy is Bloomberg that between the IRS and the DOJ their ridiculous scandal is kind of flying under the radar? [Reuters]

* The Juice, is loose, on the witness stand. Not really loose, he’s in shackles and way too fat now to fit gloves of any kind. [ESPN]

* And now it’s time for the House Republicans to be confronted with their own hypocrisy. In response to the DOJ subpoenas Obama wants to pass “media shield” legislation which would protect reporters from this sort of thing. But will the House GOP pass something that actually limits the power of the government to spy on people? Will the House pass any legislation that the President will actually sign these next four years? Dilemmas, dilemmas. [Wall Street Journal]

Rock concerts are more fun than closings.

A fair number of lawyers or law school graduates work in creative fields. Over the years, “recovering lawyers” have worked as writers, actors, and even painters (such as Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky).

But you won’t find many lawyers who are rock stars — and I’m not talking about tax or securities law “rock stars,” but actual, literal rock stars. The free-association creativity needed to make music goes against the inside-the-box thinking prized in the legal profession. Music also involves math, and we all know that lawyers — even lawyers for the IRS — are “not good at math.”

There are, however, exceptions to every rule. A few folks with legal training have entered the music world — including Julio Iglesias, Rubén Blades, and today’s “stealth lawyer,” an attorney turned rock star….

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Over the years, I’ve met a fair number of ministers who have become lawyers and lawyers who have become ministers. Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising, given the commonalities between law and organized religion. Both fields are built around rules, give great weight to precedents and higher authorities, involve age-old institutions, and are generally dominated by men.

So maybe it’s not shocking to hear about someone who went from being a Biglaw partner to a minister and university chaplain. But it’s still quite interesting and unusual.

Let’s learn how one lawyer went from working for The Man to working for The Man — Upstairs….

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Friendly reminder: Mother’s Day is this Sunday. If you haven’t done so already, you should buy your cards or gifts — and make your brunch reservations — NOW.

In honor of this occasion, we bring you an interview with a working mother whose professional journey is nothing short of remarkable. She went from working as a law firm switchboard operator to becoming the first woman partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore….

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Earlier this week, President Barack Obama reiterated his interest in shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay: “I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively, and I’m going to reengage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not in the best interests of the American people.”

President Obama isn’t alone in being troubled by goings-on at Guantanamo. This morning I attended an interesting panel discussion where a retired admiral, the former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, spoke out in favor of closing Gitmo….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Is It Time To Close Guantanamo Bay?”

We know how much our readers enjoy greeting cards. Our annual holiday card contest here at Above the Law is one of our site’s most popular (and positive) features.

But what about cards for other occasions? So many of them are clichéd or lame. And the number of events that they speak to is definitely underinclusive.

A former Biglaw associate is here to help….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Greeting Card Maker”

* Yesterday, we shared Paul Caron’s plan to end the sequester by forcing government officials to experience delays due to air traffic control furloughs. Well, Congress voted to end the furloughs. We should have known that once the sequester inconvenienced a member of Congress this would end. [Reuters via Yahoo!]

* Ken Langone does not agree with Richard Farley of Paul Hastings. And tells him so. Loudly. [DealBreaker]

* If you’re looking for CLE credits in Houston, check out this event where you can win a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun for your trouble. And it counts for Ethics! [NRA Blog]

* “Izadi suggested she could pay her law school tuition by turning tricks.” Is a pimp really that much worse than Sallie Mae? [Las Vegas Review Journal]

* Overlawyered is now part of the CATO Institute. Enjoy working for the Koch brothers! I hear they’re really easy to work with over there. [Overlawyered]

* Getting tossed from a case for “bad behavior”? That’s the Chicago way! [Chicago Tribune]

* An interview with American Lawyer Editor-in-Chief Robin Sparkman about the newly released Am Law 100 law firm rankings, after the jump….

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Do you know the difference between a delicatessen and an appetizing shop?

No? Well, today’s stealth lawyer can tell you all about it. He’s a Georgetown Law grad who walked away from litigating to take over the family business, founded by his grandfather, and in the process kept a Lower East Side mainstay successfully rolling into the next generation….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Appetizing Shop Owner”

The stereotypical lawyer is risk-averse. But every stereotype has exceptions. Some lawyers — perhaps you? — have ideas for innovations that they leave the law to pursue.

Are you interested in leaving the practice of law to pursue an entrepreneurial venture? Maybe you can learn some lessons from the experiences of today’s lawyer turned businessperson….

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