I think we all know how I feel about things like this. I just wanted to give the ATL community a place to talk about their thoughts on today’s tragedy in Connecticut.
I’d like to think that we could do something a little more substantial than praying for the families of victims, but I’ll pray too.
Feel free to discuss.
You know what they say, you never see it coming.
There is a bizarre story developing on the streets of New York. A law student walked out of a hotel in broad daylight in midtown Manhattan and was murdered by a silent assassin who then, coldly, got into a getaway car that politely stopped at a red light overlooking the body.
I’m going to go on and assume that this homicide didn’t happen because of outstanding law school debts. Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe….
Continue reading “Law Student ‘Whacked’ In Midtown Manhattan”
So, when I was in college, a guy laced some drinks with acid and I drank it and starting tripping balls, but I’d had some “experience” with that before, so I kept my stuff together (relatively speaking), and didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything. Other people at the party were not as “experienced,” and did have to be hospitalized. And even though I knew who did it, I didn’t tell anybody, because I’m not a snitch. Al Pacino would be proud of me, hooha.
True story. And I share it now because even when I was in college and on acid, I knew that tricking somebody into doing drugs was illegal. I’m not saying that I knew it was “wrong,” I’m saying I knew it was “illegal” long before I received any formal training. It’s just common sense, and I wasn’t a dumbass.
So, even when I was 19 and high, I was a foot smarter than these dumbasses in Colorado who baked pot brownies for their entire class and their professor….
Continue reading “Colorado Did NOT Say You Could Trick Your Classmates Into Eating Pot Brownies”
Oh look, somebody executed a prank, the victim of the prank killed herself, and now the world is outraged. Where have I seen this before?
Last week, the world was shocked when nurse Jacintha Saldanha killed herself after being prank called by Australian DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian. Saldanha was not the nurse who dished private details about Kate Middleton’s pregnancy to the duo, she’s just the nurse who put the call through. But since she killed herself, the world needs somebody to blame, and “Mel and MC” are it.
For those playing along at home, I think the world reaction has gone something like this:
The DJs have been taken off the air, and the radio station is trying to cover its ass. Needless to say, I’m unimpressed by: the outrage, the excitement, the baby, the prank, the royals, the U.K., Australia, and blaming people when others commit suicide.
Let’s focus on that last point. Because trying to find somebody to blame when a person commits suicide has really got to stop. The Terminator may not be able to self-terminate, but us humans are fully capable of self-harm….
Continue reading “Dear World: Prank Calls Do Not ‘Cause’ Suicides”
At a bachelor party a few weeks ago, traveling around the city, my friends and I discussed in detail various survival strategies should someone fall onto the subway tracks. We all agreed that trying to climb back up onto the platform was the most dangerous move. You want to go into that middle area so trains are rushing past you on either side. Or you want to book it down the track, because just inside the tunnel there are stairs for workers.
Of course, in the heat of the moment, if I actually were pushed in front of an oncoming train, I’d probably turn and yell at it and be very surprised when it didn’t stop to listen to what I had to say.
It’s really not an uncommon conversation for New Yorkers, because falling onto the tracks is kind of a persistent nightmare in this city. Much more real than getting hit by a falling air conditioner or being hit by a taxi cab. The reason why jumping back up onto the platform is a bad idea is because the track is much deeper than it appears, so you can’t standing-jump that. And so then you’re in a situation where you need to do a half-pull up and… not everybody can do that.
It’s hard to pull yourself back up without help. And in NYC, you can’t count on help. Which of course brings us to Tuesday’s tragedy on the tracks….
The ‘well dressed’ alleged groper.
Our long national nightmare is over. Law enforcement authorities claim that the so-called “Well-Dressed Groper” or “Gentleman Groper” has finally been caught.
For those outside the New York area who don’t understand how a man who is accused of sexual assault earned the aforementioned monikers, I don’t know what to tell you. I think it probably has something to do with the New York media not being particularly interested in the sexual assault that happens to working-class women all across this city, but this guy was allegedly grabbing the asses of educated women, and he doesn’t wear a hoodie, so… WELL DRESSED GROPER.
The other interesting twist is that this time the police believe they have the right man. Which means that there was a time when they caught and accused the wrong man.
The innocent man was well-dressed, but not a struggling attorney, so I always thought that bust was fishy…
Continue reading “‘Well-Dressed’ Alleged Groper Is A Lawyer Without A Job”
* Just in case you haven’t seen enough responses to the Case Western Law dean’s New York Times op-ed, here are some more. (Plus, with this, you’re getting the additional bonus of an incredibly sad letter from a young lawyer.) [Associate's Mind]
* Oh mon dieu! Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal team is now denying that that there was ever a settlement in the hotel maid’s sexual assault suit civil suit, and especially not a $6M settlement — because that’s apparently “flatly false.” [Slate]
* You’ve probably led a sad and lonely existence if you’re laying on your death bed and worrying about who will inherit your iTunes library. Don’t worry, they’re headed to a “legal black hole,” anyway. [Legal Blog Watch]
* The Supreme Court might be taking the phrase “don’t judge gay people” a little too literally. [WSJ Law Blog]
* And in other news, some teenagers are so obsessed with their tech gadgets, like cellphones, that they’d allegedly be willing to kill their family and pry the damn thing from their cold dead hands. [Legal Juice]
* Please remember to vote for your favorite law blog (coughcough Above the Law coughcough) in the Blawg 100 in the News/Analysis category, and all the rest of the sites you read in other categories, too! [ABA Journal]
* After the jump, Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia speaks with law firm consultant Tim Corcoran of the Corcoran Consulting Group about the future of rainmaking and business development in Biglaw….
* On the even of the Supreme Court’s conference that will determine whether a gay marriage case will be on the docket in 2013, a federal judge ruled that Nevada can ban the practice in the state. Not fab. [BuzzFeed]
* A bankruptcy judge gave Dewey & LeBoeuf’s unsecured creditors the go-ahead to sue the pants off Joel Sanders and the Steves (a moniker for what likely would’ve been an extremely orange band). [Am Law Daily]
* Hostess Brands received final approval to wind down its business and begin selling off its Twinkies to satisfy its creditors, but not before $1.8M in bonuses payouts were authorized. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Foul balls: as if his public tiff with Lance Armstrong and indecent exposure sentence weren’t enough, Clark Calvin Griffith is facing bar discipline over his pervy predilections. [Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal]
* UCLA School of Law recently announced its plans to offer an LL.M. in Law and Sexuality. Now, recall that just one month ago, Justice Scalia advised students not to take “law and _____” courses. [National Law Journal]
* Dominique Strauss-Kahn agreed to settle a suit brought against him by a hotel maid who accused him of rape. We still don’t know the dollar amount, but we bet he kept his aggravated pimp hand strong. [Bloomberg]
* A day in the life of Lindsay Lohan includes an arrest for assault in New York, followed by charges related to a car crash in California. Her legal drama is almost as bad as Liz & Dick. [Daily Dish / San Francisco Chronicle]
* Jerry Finkelstein, former publisher of the New York Law Journal, RIP. [New York Law Journal]
* George C. Kern Jr., Sullivan & Cromwell’s M&A maven, RIP. [New York Times]
* Enjoy your Biglaw bonuses now, because according to managing partners, layoffs and de-equitizations may soon be making their return. Oh, only in Pennsylvania? Woohoo, break out the bubbly! Just kidding, that really sucks if it’s true. [Legal Intelligencer]
* The Environmental Protection Agency has temporarily banned BP from entering into future U.S. government contracts because of the company’s “lack of business integrity,” aka the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Ouch, super sick burn, EPA! [National Law Journal]
* Considering going to law school? Then you should also take into consideration the fact that you’ll have to become a lawyer if you want to stand a remote chance of ever being able to pay off your loans. [Fox Business]
* Paul Ceglia pleaded not guilty to fraud charges yesterday in federal court. If only he actually owned half of Facebook as he claims, he probably wouldn’t have a court-appointed attorney representing him. [Bloomberg]
* “No matter how many high-priced lawyers and publicists she employs, she has been exposed for what she is.” Jill Kelley’s lawyer is on the offensive, and his targets are none too pleased about it. [Associated Press]
* Avvo has decided to sell its health business to focus entirely on providing services to lawyers and legal customers. Now the company will be able to do the law justice. (SWIDT?) [Puget Sound Business Journal]
* Allowing abortions only in cases where the life of the mother is at stake doesn’t actually protect the life of the mother. [Slate]
* Chief Justice Roberts decided that living in a glass house shouldn’t prevent him from throwing a few stones. [Atlantic]
* It’s that time of year when we start seeing lists of things to buy for the lawyers in your life. [Constitutional Daily]
* You realize that people aren’t actually going to pay these loans back, you know. [Economix / New York Times]
* Wow, there was a whole day in New York City where nobody got shot, stabbed, or raped. [Reuters]
* While you contemplate living in a dangerous city, check out this list of most dangerous campuses. [Business Insider]
* Hopefully you guys have noticed Above the Law in the News category on the ABA Blawg 100, but don’t forget to look at all the different sections and vote for your favorite sites. [ABA Journal]
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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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 »
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