Andrew Meyer — the University of Florida student who coined the phrase “don’t tase me, bro” — was only tased one time, but his screams were heard around the world thanks to YouTube. And as far as we know, he didn’t sue over the incident.
But how many times do you think the average person would have to be tased before he marched his ass to the closest law firm? Two times? Five times?
How about 11 times? At that point, we’d be surprised if the poor guy could even remember his name, let alone the fact that he might have a cause of action….
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has produced an extremely useful chart for people trying to figure out where to start their Biglaw careers. They’ve listed the cities that give you the most bang for your buck if you land a high paying Biglaw job.
And boy, are New York City associates going to feel stupid.
The NALP “buying power index” sets New York as the baseline. It takes the median starting salary for the class of 2010 and the NYC cost of living index and sets that figure at 1.00. Cities with a better purchasing power than NYC have a value greater than 1.00.
New York ranks #42.
Most of the high-ranking cities also have the benefit of warmth….
At this point in the Courtship Connection Chicago series, I’m shocked that Chicago made it to the Final Four for coolest city for lawyers. I have to assume that those voting weren’t taking the dating scene into consideration. Perhaps Above the Law could start a fund to transplant Big League from D.C. to Chicago, so that she could train her colleagues in how to have an exciting first date. (Step 1: Drink rye whiskey. Step 2: Visit a strip club.) My Chicago daters keep going on “pleasant” dates with “good conversation.” Descriptors like “nice guy” abound in their write-ups. Why do all have to be so darn… Midwestern?
Inspired by ExRated.co, moving forward, I’m going to force nicely ask lawyers in the Windy City to rate their dates (out of five stars), and list their legal eagle match’s best and worst qualities. Should the date not lead to a bedding, it can at least lead to a bettering.
The latest Chicago pairing involved two lawyers in their 20s. Asked why he agreed to be set up by a random legal blogger, our male lawyer, who described himself as “kinetic, adventurous, and faux-angsty,” said, “regardless of the outcome, it’ll probably be a good story, which is generally the important thing.” He asked to be set up with someone “outgoing and hilarious.” Our female lawyer volunteered that she has “HUGE brains.” That seemed like a decent match.
It wasn’t. Emo Lawyer thinks it’s because Mars Attacks didn’t drink enough. Meanwhile, she explained why: she couldn’t stand a second round with him….
Last month, federal law enforcement officials accused an Illinois attorney, Jason W. Smiekel, of trying to put a hit out on a former client — who also happened to be the ex-husband of Smiekel’s fiancée. That’s quite an allegation, isn’t it?
And that’s not the end of the story. Some sources blamed this fiancée — a very beautiful woman, described to us by a tipster as a “hot hot hot blonde” (“HHHB”) — for the downfall of Jason Smiekel, ruining his marriage and taking him from a successful career in law to a life outside it. But others came to her defense, describing HHHB and Smiekel as “very much in love, and good people.”
Alas, if they are in love, their love may have to wait, thanks to the latest bad news for Jason Smiekel….
Sadly, the percentage of Courtship Connection blind dates that lead to second dates is far lower than the percentage of ladies at One First Street, though it’s higher than the ratio of Supreme females to Supreme males dating back to the Court’s beginnings. Barely.
One of the couplings that did beat the odds included two New York lawyers paired because of their shared love of My Cousin Vinny. Seeing that two Chicago early-twenty-somethings had named Vincent Gambini as their fave legal fictional character, I sent these two yutes out on a date, hoping to replicate that success.
She self-described as a “cute fun firecracker” looking for a “hilarious (like really ridiculously funny), goal-oriented, and tall” legal dude. He said he was a “gunner w/sense of humor” whose type is “good-looking, smart, intense but funny.”
Firecrackers + gunners should make for a fiery night, right?
Chicago sounds like a tough town for romance. Check out the first Courtship Connection date that went down in the Windy City. Let’s hope that future dates go better.
Chitown was also the venue for Serafin v. Leighton. In this lawsuit, a lovely young lawyer, Lauren Serafin, sued her handsome ex-fiancé, Sidley Austin associate Robert Leighton, for “breach of promise” to marry. Serafin alleged that Leighton cheated on her during his Las Vegas bachelor party, with a woman named “Danielle,” and then broke off the engagement — saddling Serafin with almost $63,000 in wedding- and honeymoon-related expenses.
Courtship Connection blew into the Windy City on the tail end of the summer. (You can still sign up here, single Chicagoans.) This week marks the city’s first two Courtship dates. One couple will go out tonight (good luck!). I’m hoping they have a better time than the two lawyers who met each other in front of a closed restaurant on Monday night.
The two Biglaw associates said there wasn’t “a spark.” Instead of a spark, there was a big height difference. It’s hard out there for the tall lady lawyers….
We have the makings of a trend: inappropriate contacts between participants in jury trials. These contacts can be problematic because a jury trial constitutes a delicate ecosystem, in which contacts and communications between actors are regulated strictly to ensure the fairness of the proceedings.
We recently mentioned a case where a juror got sentenced to community service after trying to friend the defendant on Facebook. Well, at least he didn’t try to “poke” her (although perhaps a desire to poke her is what prompted the problematic friend request).
Now we bring you news of, er, more intimate contact between a witness and a lawyer — which culminated in a mistrial….
UPDATE (11:00 AM): Photo of massage therapist Liudmyla Ksenych, a petite and pretty brunette, added after the jump.
It’s not every day that a lawyer is accused of murder for hire. But that’s what happened earlier this month, when Illinois lawyer Jason W. Smiekel was accused of trying to put a hit out on a former client — who also happened to be the ex-husband of Smiekel’s current girlfriend (or fiancée).
Last week, the feds unveiled the indictment against Jason Smiekel (who was originally charged by complaint). At his arraignment last Wednesday, Smiekel pleaded not guilty to seven counts of using interstate facilities in a murder-for-hire scheme.
Since his arrest, we’ve heard from friends and colleagues of Jason Smiekel, 29, who claim that he’s getting a bum rap. They claim that blame for this unfortunate series of events should be located… elsewhere.
“How come no one is talking about his ‘girlfriend’?” asked one reader. “She needs to be questioned as well.”
So, let’s talk about that girlfriend — the one that an ATL tipster described as a “hot hot hot blonde”….
There are many kinds of journalism: investigative, advocacy, tabloid, service… Okay, there are four kinds of journalism we can currently think of. Above the Law’s Courtship Connection is in the service journalism camp. It’s our attempt to help over-worked, under-socialized, but ultimately lovable legal types, both lawyers and law students, to find romance. Or, failing that, inform them through a candid appraisal of a blind first date how they’re going about it all wrong.
So far, we’ve set up a Big Apple bushel’s worth of legal types in the city that never sleeps, and we’ve brought about quite a few political alliances in the nation’s capital. The third season of this series is debuting in Chicago, per readers’ choice.
If the Windy City has left you cold and lonely, and you’re willing and able to put your love life in ATL’s hands, I’ll do my best to set you up with a fellow legal eagle who doesn’t seem like a completely awful human being. If you’ve read past columns, you should know that I’m setting that bar low for a reason.
The survey, plus advice on how to prepare for a blind first date, after the jump…
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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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Andrew Meyer — the University of Florida student who coined the phrase “don’t tase me, bro” — was only tased one time, but his screams were heard around the world thanks to YouTube. And as far as we know, he didn’t sue over the incident. 
