Class Actions
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Antitrust, BAR/BRI, BP, Copyright, Family Law, Intellectual Property, Kids, Law Schools, Lunacy, Morning Docket, New Jersey, Rankings, SCOTUS, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, Supreme Court
* Victoria Espinel, chief IP counsel to the White House (better known as the “copyright czar”), has stepped down. A tech or trade company will snap her up in 3… 2… [Corporate Counsel]
* Child custody train wreck alert: Baby Veronica of SCOTUS fame was in the news after her father was arrested for refusing to return his child to her adoptive parents. [ABC News]
* Rather than watching people pump gas, BP is watching people pump out lawsuits against the company at a rather alarming rate as a result of its 2010 oil spill. [Businessweek]
* Cynthia Brim, the Illinois judge who was reelected despite the fact that she was legally insane, finally had a complaint filed against her by the state’s judicial board for being just a little bit too kooky for court. [Chicago Tribune]
* Your degree might not be worth a million dollars, but if you went to one of these schools, you probably got a good bank for your buck. We’ll have more on this later. [The Short List / U.S. News & World Report]
* The fight over attorneys’ fees in the antitrust lawsuits filed against BARBRI continues rage on, and class members still haven’t received a penny — which is all they’d really get, anyway. [National Law Journal]
* Congratulations to Newark Mayor and Yale Law alumnus Cory Booker! Last night, he handily won the New Jersey Democratic primary election for the late U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg’s seat. [CBS News]
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Alston & Bird, Biglaw, Celebrities, Facebook, Federal Judges, Law Firm Mergers, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Musical Chairs, Police, Privacy, Racism, Ted Frank
* In the latest round of musical chairs, Skadden Arps managed to scoop up products liability queen and top woman litigator Lisa Gilford from Alston & Bird. Congratulations! [The Recorder (sub. req.)]
* Is merger mania a thing of the past? With pocketbooks tighter than ever, “pseudo-mergers” are starting to look great. No one will complain about more lawyers with less liability. [Legal Intelligencer]
* Man, it’d be great if you could represent plaintiffs in a class action suit and keep all of the settlement funds without having to pay your clients a cent. Oh wait, you can actually do that? [New York Times]
* “It shows he’s adventuresome and he’s got good taste.” Peter Zimroth, the lawyer appointed to oversee the reform of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policies, married very, very well. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]
* The ABA approved Texas A&M’s acquisition of Texas Wesleyan’s law school. Hello to the Texas A&M Johnny Football School of Law! We hope to see the Heisman of employment stats. [National Law Journal]
* A judge says the woman who sued Paula Deen for racial discrimination was nothing more than an “accidental victim.” And like that, her race-based claims have melted away like butter, y’all. [ABC News]
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KINNEY’S EVAN JOWERS IN HONG KONG TODAY THROUGH MARCH 4
Kinney’s head of Asia recruiting, Evan Jowers, is in Hong Kong today through March 4 and has some slots still available for meetings on this trip. Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you would like to set up a meeting with Evan. His next trip to Hong Kong will be in late March.
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California, Job Searches, Law Schools, Quote of the Day, Student Loans
Are Degrees From This Law School Considered ‘Defective’?
The law school litigation movement is still alive and well in California.
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Baseball, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Non-Sequiturs, Sports
* The Mars Curiosity rover played “Happy Birthday to You” to itself on the first anniversary of its landing on the Red Planet. It takes about 13 minutes for transmissions from Mars to reach the Earth. Time Warner sued NASA 14 minutes after Curiosity’s performance. [io9]
* Fans of the Colorado Rockies… fans? Huh, okay! Anyway, the case posits that Rockies ticket holders should be allowed to sell them on the secondary market. If they can’t unload Rockies tickets, they may be forced to watch a team 11 games out of first place flounder. [Forbes]
* Paul Rampell, Donald Trump’s lawyer, advocates for replacing marriages with leases with defined terms. It gives new meaning to “trading in for a new model.” The thrice married Trump nods approvingly. [Washington Post]
* The Rumpus interviews Dean Frank H. Wu of UC Hastings. Turns out he’s writing “a bad trashy novel.” So it probably won’t make the 25 Greatest Law Novels ever list. But then again, they put The Fountainhead on that list, so don’t give up hope, Dean Wu! [The Rumpus]
* Poetry Corner: Kenneth Branagh Prepares Evidence For Trial. So long as he’s not preparing to direct another awful Thor movie, I’m fine. [Poetic Justice]
* Just what do Americans even want from an energy policy? That Cuisinart fusion reactor from Back to the Future, that’s what. [Breaking Energy]
* A defendant called a judge “Hon,” and it did not go well. I wonder what Judge Montes gets called at the club? [Sun Sentinel]
* Anthony Weiner once explained that he was “inspired” by a book about a lawyer who wants to cheat on his wife. Indeed. [BuzzFeed]
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Lawyer Suing Apple Is Banking On Millions of People Being As Stupid As He Was
This class action lawsuit rests on the theory that iTunes is too difficult to figure out.
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Bankruptcy, Bar Exams, BAR/BRI, Biglaw, Crime, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Facebook, General Counsel, Morning Docket, Social Media, Social Networking Websites, Twittering
* The makeup of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is very homogeneous. Out of 14 judges who served this year, 12 are Republican and half are former prosecutors. Some diversity please? [Reuters]
* Dewey know how much Judge Martin Glenn shaved off of Togut Segal & Segal’s $8.8M fees and expenses in the latest D&L payout approval? Just $167.76 for subway fare and meal overages. [Am Law Daily]
* Ted Boutrous of Gibson Dunn is a very busy man, but he’s been categorized as a “Twitter freak.” The man is a self-professed news junkie, and he follows @atlblog, so you know he’s cool. #winning [Bloomberg]
* Facebook has named a new general counsel. We wish a very warm welcome to Colin Stretch, a man who’s a Harvard Law graduate, a former Kellogg Huber partner, and a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Breyer to boot. [Facebook]
* If you’re waiting for your check to come for the BARBRI class action suit that was settled back in 2007, then keep waiting. But hey, at least the law firms are starting to get paid. [National Law Journal]
* Ariel Castro, a man you might’ve eaten ribs with, is looking at additional indictments in the kidnapping case against him. Thus far, he’s pleaded not guilty to all of the 329 charges he currently faces. [CNN]
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Antonin Scalia, Constitutional Law, Elena Kagan, Guns / Firearms, John Roberts, Prostitution, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court Provides Aid To Disaffected Teenagers And Groups Working With Prostitutes
Today the Supreme Court issued three opinions. Listen up if you’re a disaffected teenager, a felon with a gun, or someone who has signed an arbitration agreement.
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Bar Exams, Crime, Gay Marriage, In-House Counsel, Law School Deans, Minority Issues, Morning Docket, Racism, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
* “It’s a fine line society walks in trying to be fair.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke earlier this week on the perils of racial profiling with respect to the Chechen suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Were we fair here? [Associated Press]
* What keeps in-house counsel awake at night — aside from the tremendous piles of money they’re rolling around in? Apparently they’re expecting an “onslaught” of food labeling and data breach class actions. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* Susan Westerberg Prager, known for being the longest-serving dean ever at UCLA School of Law, will take up the deanship at another illustrious institution, Southwestern Law School. [National Law Journal]
* The February results for the New York bar exam are out, and with the highest number of test-takers ever, the pass rate was brutal. We may have more on this later. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Rhode Island just got a little more fabulous. The Ocean State legalized gay marriage yesterday, making it the tenth state to do so, and uniting New England in marriage equality for all. [Bloomberg]
* Back in December, we told you about an alleged “well-dressed” groper — an unemployed lawyer, as it were. Well, now there’s nothing alleged about it, because that guy just pleaded guilty. [New York Post]
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California, Job Searches, Law Schools, Quote of the Day
Me Get Part-Time Job? That’s Unpossible!
When all else fails, just insult the plaintiffs’ intelligence. That won’t make you look bad…
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Job of the Week: General Counsel Position in South Florida
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2nd Circuit, Billable Hours, Blog Wars, Blogging, Books, Citigroup, Holidays and Seasons, Judge of the Day, Law Schools, Non-Sequiturs, Securities Law, Sex, Sex Scandals, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, Wall Street
* To those of you who celebrate it, Happy Easter! Welcome the holiday by voting in the ABA Journal’s fifth annual “Peeps in Law” contest. [ABA Journal]
* If law firm brackets aren’t your thing, check out Professor Kyle Graham’s brackets for (1) law school classes and (2) law blogs. I’m thankful for ATL’s #1 seed but terrified by who we’re up against (because they’ve ripped me a new one before). [noncuratlex]
* Sorry, Judge Steiner, you wuz robbed; you should have been our Judge of the Day. It’s tough to top “allegations of a sexual quid pro quo with a female lawyer and the eye-opening confiscation of carpet from [chambers] for forensic analysis.” [OC Weekly]
William Shatner
* “William Shatner’s Seductive Powers Don’t Create a Fiduciary Duty.” Robyn Hagan Cain explains why. [U.S. Second Circuit / FindLaw]
* Citi settles securities cases for $730 million. Matt Levine is not impressed. [Dealbreaker]
* And Ted Frank is incensed by Bernstein Litowitz’s nine-figure fee request. [Point of Law]
* If you’re already depressed by public ignorance about the Supreme Court, don’t look at the responses to question 9 of this opinion poll. [Penn Schoen Berland]
* Steven Harper — author of a new (and very good) book about the legal profession, The Lawyer Bubble (affiliate link) — offers thoughts on the billable hour in the wake of the DLA Piper overbilling allegations. [New York Times]
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Adoption, B for Beauty, Depositions, Hair, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Ted Frank
* The latest update on the law school litigation front represents good news for New York Law School. [National Law Journal]
* Should summarizing a one-day deposition transcript really cost $90,000? Even DLA Piper might blush at such a bill. [Point of Law]
* Ropes & Gray isn’t backing down in the discrimination lawsuit brought by former partner Patricia Martone. (We’ll have more on this later.) [Am Law Daily]
* No, silly polo mogul, you can’t adopt your 42-year-old girlfriend to shield your fortune from litigation. [ABA Journal]
* Replacing “barbers” with “beauty culturists”? This is Indiana and not California, right? [WSJ Law Blog]
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Biglaw, Blank Rome, Books, California, Confirmations, Defamation, Lateral Moves, Lindsay Lohan, Morning Docket, Musical Chairs, New York Times, Partner Issues, Privacy, Prostitution, SCOTUS, Secretaries / Administrative Assistants, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court
* Justice Sotomayor’s memoir made the NYT’s best-seller list, and in terms of sales, she’s officially beating the pants off other Supreme Court justices who’ve released books of a similar nature. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* In case you were sleeping under a rock yesterday when this happened, John Kerry was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of state. Don’t think we’ll be getting a Texts From John Tumblr, though. [New York Times]
* Despite having a “pretty spectacular” year, Blank Rome’s legal secretaries may soon find themselves blankly roaming in search of new employment. Better hurry up, the buyout offer expires on Friday! [Legal Intelligencer]
* Straight up now tell me, do you really wanna sue me forever? Corey Clark once claimed he had an affair with American Idol judge Paula Abdul, and now he claims MoFo and Gibson Dunn defamed him. [Am Law Daily]
* In this round of musical chairs, we learn that Orrick hoovered up three energy and project finance partners from Bingham, one of whom will co-chair the firm’s U.S. energy group. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Remember the Zumba prostitution ring? Now we know you can’t be prosecuted for secretly filming Johns in the act in Maine, because there’s no expectation of privacy in “bordellos, whorehouses, and the like.”[Wired]
* Energy drink makers are facing class action suits over claims made about their products. Fine, Red Bull may not give you wings, but it tastes like piss, and that’s gotta count for something, dammit. [National Law Journal]
* Much like herpes, Lindsay Lohan’s legal drama is the gift that just keeps on giving. Her longtime lawyer Shawn Holley wants out, and her new lawyer, Mark Heller, isn’t even licensed to practice in California. [CNN]
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Facebook, Privacy, Social Media, Social Networking Websites, Technology
Facebook Sends Most Of America An Offer To Settle A Class Action Lawsuit For $10
Did you get an email from Facebook about its class action settlement?
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Attorney Misconduct, Benchslaps, Federal Judges, Legal Ethics, Litigators, Partner Issues, Screw-Ups
Benchslap Update: Skadden Partners Learn Their Fates
Remember the two Skadden partners who got hit with a big benchslap, an order to show cause why they shouldn’t be sanctioned? What punishment did they get from the court?
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Attorney Misconduct, Benchslaps, Federal Judges, Legal Ethics, Litigators, Partner Issues, Screw-Ups, Sheila Birnbaum
Benchslap of the Day: Skadden, Smacked, Eats Crow
Responding to a big-time benchslap by a federal judge, a high-profile Skadden partner issues a giant mea culpa.
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10th Circuit, Barack Obama, Cars, Confirmations, Federal Judges, Guns / Firearms, Health Care / Medicine, Kids, Masturbation, Morning Docket, Politics, Reader Polls, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Television, Travel / Vacation
* Justice Sonia Sotomayor just ruined Hobby Lobby’s new year by refusing to block the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptives mandate. All of the members of the company’s legal team will have to scrapbook and crochet for hours to get over this loss. [Reuters]
* Harvard Law graduate Barack Obama is being feted as CNN’s “Most Intriguing Person of 2012,” but he’s currently trailing in fourth place in the most important year-end poll of all: Above the Law’s Lawyer of the Year competition. Get out there and vote! [CNN]
* Federal district court judges aren’t being confirmed as quickly as they once were, and it’s partly because our president isn’t submitting nominees as quickly as those who came before him. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* But even if the president nominated judges more quickly, he’d continue to face harsh opposition from the NRA, which matters because the gun group has an entire party in its pocket. [Opinionator / New York Times]
* A legal problem and a journalism problem wrapped up in a little pretty bow: David Gregory of NBC’s “Meet the Press” is being investigated for displaying an alleged 30-round magazine on the air. [Washington Post]
* One of New York’s most prestigious private schools agreed to settle the sex abuse suit brought against it by former students. Simpson Thacher partner Phil Culhane must be doing a victory dance. [New York Daily News]
* You got a fast car, and now this case will pay all our bills. Toyota settled a class action suit over unintended acceleration, and it’s touted as one of the largest product-liability settlements in history. [New York Times]
* Ay dios mio! You know that you’re never going to enjoy another vacation when you catch a hotel employee spreading his seed all over your clothes. But what did you expect? It’s Mexico. [Courthouse News Service]
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Canada, Deaths, Gay, Gay Marriage, Job Searches, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Movies, Sexism, Technology, Women's Issues
* Another year, another round-up of the year’s legal highlights from the National Law Journal. Perhaps after a year that was wracked with destruction for this supposedly noble profession, we’ll actually see some substantial change in 2013. [National Law Journal]
* Meanwhile in Iowa, failure to sleep with your horndog boss is “like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it,” so if he’s irresistibly attracted to your exotic lady parts car, you better be ready, willing, and able to find yourself a new job. [Washington Post]
* People were so pissed off about Instagram’s new terms of service that someone filed a class action suit. The app’s litigation filter must make exasperated attorneys and wasted dollars look shiny and happy. [Reuters]
* “It is not the perfect path to wealth and success that people may have envisioned.” As we’ve been stating here at Above the Law for years, being a lawyer is no longer the golden ticket that it once was. [Bloomberg]
* ASU Law will now offer a North American Law Degree that’ll prepare graduates to practice in the U.S. and Canada. Yes, ship your jobless grads north where there’s an articling crisis, great idea! [Associated Press]
* Still thinking about applying to law school? That’s a funny joke. But if you’re interested in being a punchline in three years, follow this application season timeline. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]
* Jack Klugman, noted actor whose roles included that of Juror #5 in Twelve Angry Men, RIP. [New York Times]
* Richard Adams, a plaintiff in the first suit seeking federal recognition of gay marriage, RIP. [New York Times]
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BREAKING: Dismissal of Class Action Suit Against New York Law School Is Affirmed
An appellate court affirmed the dismissal of the suit against New York Law School over its allegedly fraudulent employment statistics.
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Attorneys Weigh in on the Serial Podcast and Adnan Syed
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