* Is this a new way of protecting taxpayers? In early 2012, Bank of America is going to start charging $5 a month for debit card purchases. Thanks Dodd-Frank, thanks a lot. [Wall Street Journal]
* Bob Morse of U.S. News wants to know if the ABA will “take more steps . . . to ensure data integrity” in light of the latest admissions data scandal. Aww, you’re so cute. [ABA Journal]
* The DOJ wants Raj Rajaratnam’s medical information, but they probably don’t need it. Just pick some of the usual fat people diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure. [Bloomberg]
* If I only had a brainheart lower recidivism rate. A serial shoplifter is probably going to lose out on a heart transplant because her health insurance doesn’t cover inmates. [New York Daily News]
* “The road to this day has been long”… and hard. That’s what he said. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has finally been put to bed, and the next logical step would be to ditch DOMA. [PostPartisan / Washington Post]
* “Citizens United has been good for gay rights.” Well, at least it’s been good for something. Are we allowed to like the ruling in this case now? Bueller? Bueller? No? Okay, just checking. [New York Times]
* And another one gone, another judge bites the dust. $43K wasn’t enough to keep Justice Joseph Covello on the bench. How many more will it take to get a decent raise? [New York Law Journal]
* The First Circuit turned it around on Joel Tenenbaum, reinstating a $675K judgment against him. Charles Nesson couldn’t comment on the decision because he was crying. [Boston Globe]
* Ten-year sentence edition: Samuel Logan’s dad wishes he was still a judge on the Tenth Circuit so he could benchslap the sh*t out of his son for trying to seduce a 14-year-old. [Kansas City Star]
* John Banzhaf continues to fight for coeds’ right to party at Catholic University, but it’s not looking good because it’s hard to immaculately conceive when boys live in the same dorm. [WSJ Law Blog]
* DADT may be back on the table after yesterday’s DOJ request. For real? Whoever wants to serve our country should be able to do so. End of story. [Bloomberg]
* This Emory Law student took the Beastie Boys a little too seriously. The fight for his right to party reached the Georgia Supreme Court this week. [ABA Journal]
* Know what sucks for this Sidley Austin attorney? Finding out she cheated on her husband with a man who cheated on (and allegedly murdered) the wife she didn’t know existed. [Daily Mail]
* If this “promising young college student” had heard of TNAFlix, obtaining Purdue’s protection for the alleged downloading of Illegal Ass 2 wouldn’t be an issue. [Journal and Courier]
* Anyone remember the “pants on the ground” song? This is the lawsuit remix. I guess saggy pants on a plane are worse than snakes. [NBC Bay Area]
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fate of Guantanamo Bay. The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The rise of WikiLeaks. The raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound. The conflict in Libya.
On these and many other critical national security legal issues, one of the most important advisers to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Barack Obama’s White House has been Jeh C. Johnson, General Counsel of the Department of Defense. In light of his role as senior legal adviser to the largest government agency in the world, responsible for the work of over 10,000 lawyers, it is no understatement to describe Johnson as one of the powerful and influential lawyers in the entire federal government.
I recently went down to Washington to interview Johnson in his office at the Pentagon. If you think security at your law firm is tight, visit the Pentagon. I had to pass through a metal detector and multiple security checkpoints before arriving at Johnson’s office, located on the E Ring within the mammoth structure — the world’s largest office building by floor area, with over 6.5 million square feet housing over 25,000 employees. (I was accompanied at all times by a member of Johnson’s staff, which prevented me from getting lost inside the maze-like complex.)
Before entering Johnson’s private office, I had to surrender my Blackberry – the office is a SCIF (pronounced “skiff”), or “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.” This means that it is specially designed to prevent eavesdropping, thanks to walls and doors of specified thickness and the use of jamming technologies. The windows of Johnson’s office, tinted a yellowish green, are blast-resistant and designed to preclude visual surveillance.
Once I made it to the inner sanctum, I was in for a treat. My wide-ranging discussion with Jeh Johnson covered his remarkable career path, which has included service as a federal prosecutor, partnership at a top law firm (Paul Weiss), and his current post as GC of the Defense Department; the virtues of public service, as well as the growing challenges for lawyers interested in it; and Johnson’s advice for law students and lawyers who aspire to careers in government (hint: keep your nanny on the books)….
* Was it Anthony Weiner’s wiener that went out over Twitter? The congressman isn’t saying. [Daily Caller via Instapundit]
* Professor Sasha Volokh floats the intriguing idea of prison vouchers: “What would the world look like if, instead of assigning prisoners to particular prisons bureaucratically, we gave them vouchers, good for one incarceration, that they were required to redeem at a participating prison?” [Volokh Conspiracy]
Julie Kamps: her lawsuit against Fried Frank continues.
* Thanks Senate, but gay servicemembers now get to play another waiting game. How long will the certification process take? Don’t ask, because the administration isn’t going to tell. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal; Washington Post]
* This weekend, our oh-so-prominent managing editor will be rockin’ around the Christmas tree with a karaoke mic in hand. Here are some song recs for you, Lat! [National Law Journal]
* What a Masshole. An ex-magistrate forced women to have sex in the courthouse. Karma’s a bitch — better watch your back in the slammer. [Boston Globe]
* 60% 61% of the time, it works every time. Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has shown considerable favor for business interests. [New York Times]
* Remember Julie Kamps? Hell hath no fury like a lesbian with a law degree. There’s nothing like showing the partners who’s boss to get you in the holiday spirit. [New York Law Journal]
* A Japanese woman is suing Google for showing her panties on Street View. Don’t they sell used panties in vending machines in Japan? What a puritan. [CNET]
* Joe Miller goes to the Alaska Supreme Court in another attempt to alter reality. Please stop beating this dead horse, Joe. It’s getting pretty sad. [New York Times]
Here’s a nice surprise on this otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon in late December. The Senate just voted to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the legal ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. The vote to repeal the law was 65-31, with eight Republicans joining the Democrats.
For additional discussion and analysis, see the links below.
* A lawyer named Conn created a 3D commercial for potential clients. Too bad his target audience will be purchasing new hips before 3D televisions. [Florida Times-Union]
* “And then I felt a sharp jabbing pain into my rectum.” That’s what she said. Actually, that’s what he said. What’s with the NYPD and sodomy? [Wall Street Journal]
* Another day, another “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” lawsuit. Yes, I just totally dropped a DADT bomb after a story about sodomy. I went there, that happened. [Washington Post]
* You’d think that the Calorie Commando would hire some healthier hobos to kill his wife, but these guys just wanted pizza, beer, and tequila. [CNN]
* You better not question Rahmbo’s amended 2009 tax return. He will f**king end you. You will never even see it coming, motherf**ker. [NBC Chicago]
It was either a pic of Jenn Sterger or a vampire squid.
* The lawyer tasked with defending Obamacare paces hallways, muttering to himself. Good to hear Asperger’s is not a death sentence anymore. [New York Times]
* Three New Orleans cops were convicted of, well, going Lord of the Flies on some poor guy in the aftermath of Katrina. [CNN]
* Jenn Sterger says she won’t sue if the NFL suspen… you know what? Just click the link. [New York Post]
* So apparently federal prosecutor is a tenured position? [USA Today]
* Wake me up when DADT is actually repealed. Actually, don’t. If I’m sleeping, I doubt I need to be woken up just to find out that DADT has been repealed. That’s an insane reason to be woken up. [Washington Post]
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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:
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The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
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* Now that DADT has been repealed, the Ninth Circuit has tossed the Log Cabin Republicans case. How does that Paula Abdul song go? Two steps forward, two steps back? [Los Angeles Times]
