You take my … money you better get a federal law agency like the F.B.I. on the case. You will hear about me and read about me. I promise that.
— Roy Lee Conger Jr., complaining about a lien placed on one of his bank accounts after his divorce train wreck. Conger had been involved in child support proceedings with his ex-wife, and his motion to reduce payments was denied earlier this month.
You didn’t think we’d just get one day out of the Gregory Berry story, did you?
Since we posted about Berry, the former Kasowitz Benson associate who is suing the firm for $77 million, Above the Law readers have been sharing their opinions about working with him.
Some of our readers went to Penn Law School with Berry. Others worked with him when he was busy “conquering” Silicon Valley. They remember an interesting guy.
Why your 3,500 sq ft wife shouldn't be driving a Lexis.
* Maybe we need law school law firms in the first place because law school professors — the ones who drill law into our heads for 3 years — are “incapable of practicing law.” [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* “Boss, I’m stuck in traffic. No, I’m literally stuck.” Driving your car into wet concrete is a pretty great way to perpetuate the stereotype that women can’t drive. Thanks for that. [Daily Mail]
* Star Wars Old Republic ships in November, so clients better get used to the old, “I’m too busy playing video games to attend to your matter” automated message. [Legal Profession Blog]
* If you’re Asian American and you want to be a lawyer, according to Lat it would be a good idea to have some social skills (not just study skills). [Northwest Asian Weekly]
* If you’re still thinking of taking the LSAT in October, get a leg up on the competition by getting inside the mind of one of the nerds who helped write questions for the test. [LSAT Blog]
* Proofreading is probably something that we here at Above the Law could stand to actually do every once in a while. [What About Clients?]
Our last post on law-related vanity license plates was about two weeks ago. We’re always looking for more photos, so if you’re a fan of the Law License Plates series, please send some in via email (subject line: “Vanity License Plate”).
Today, we are writing about legal professionals who are so proud of what they do that they’ve slapped their titles on their license plates. If this isn’t an invitation to get rear-ended, then I don’t know what is. These submissions come to us from New York, Ohio, and Tennessee, proving that stupid lawyer tricks know no bounds across state lines.
Let’s take a look at what these legal eagles are advertising on their license plates, shall we?
If you’re not interested in this story, nobody is forcing you to read our coverage (which we tend to put up after regular business hours anyway). But if you are as interested in this fascinating case as we are — and our traffic stats suggest that you are very, very interested — then read on for the latest developments….
Our last post on law-related vanity license plates was on Tuesday. We received so many great photos that we couldn’t resist writing another one this week. We are always looking for more, so if you’re a fan of the Law License Plates series, please send in your photos via email (subject line: “Vanity License Plate”).
So, on Tuesday, we wrote about Massholes. Today, we’re writing about a different kind of a-hole: criminal and DUI defense attorneys. These submissions came to us from Texas and Ohio. While these states are far apart, they seem to have one thing in common. Defense attorneys in both states are making straight cash, homey.
After looking at these plates (and the cars they’re attached to), you may want to consider changing your practice group….
* Cozen O’Connor is caught between the parents and lesbian partner of a deceased attorney in a death benefits war. Lawyers’ fees will eat through that profit-sharing plan in no time. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
* Because everything’s bigger in Texas, they’ve got the seventh-largest lawyer surplus in the country. Wrangling a job at the employment rodeo is going to be tough this year. [Texas Lawyer]
* The Betty Ford worker suing Lindsay Lohan for $1M claims she isn’t in it for the money. She just wants to teach LiLo a lesson. I don’t think she needs a lesson in how to write a check. [Radar Online]
* Think you’re getting screwed at your job? Carroll Shelby’s alleged liquor ‘n porn run grope girl definitely has you beat. [Fox News]
* In his second lawsuit this month, Jersey Shore’s Situation is being sued because he refuses to wear things from his own clothing line. DILLIGAF? [Riptide 2.0 / Miami New Times]
It’s been almost a month since our last post on law-related vanity license plates. We got a great response to our call for photos, but we could always use some more. So, if you’re a fan of the Law License Plates series, please send in your photos via email (subject line: “Vanity License Plate”).
Both of these submissions came to us from my current home state: Massachusetts. In case you didn’t know, this will be my fifth year in the good old Commonwealth, land of some of the worst drivers in the world. And after seeing these vanity license plates, I am even more excited to leave.
Looking at these plates was a bit like looking into a crystal ball. Are you ready to see your future?
Before you’ve been through 1L Torts, this story is shocking. After you’ve been through 1Ls Torts, it’s not that surprising.
In 2009, two Good Samaritans saw a Hummer crashed off the side of the road. The car was on fire. The two men sprang into action, ran down a snowy embankment, and pulled a woman from the burning wreckage.
They saved her life.
Which is interesting, considering that it turns out the woman was allegedly trying to kill herself.
The men suffered injuries, and now they are suing….
I love to talk about truck nuts, probably for the same reason that racists love to talk about crime rates in the ghetto. Regardless of why, I just can’t get enough of the phenomenon of people affixing plastic testicles to their motor vehicles.
Obviously, I think people should be free to do pretty much whatever they want when it comes to decorating their vehicles. So I find the truck nuts story circulating around the blogosphere very disturbing. Apparently, a South Carolina woman was given a $445 ticket for her truck’s nuts. Her story is making news, because she’s secured a jury trial to protest the ticket.
So, for those playing along at home, South Carolina will defend to the death your right to display the Confederate Flag, the symbol of a regime committed to slavery and racial oppression, but plastic testicles is a bridge too far.
Yes, like most obscenity cases, this one is turgid with hypocrisy….
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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.
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