Today we’ve got some somber news out of Washington, D.C., where Paul Mannina, a Labor Department attorney who worked in the Division of Plan Benefits Security, was found dead in his jail cell. This isn’t your everyday lawyer death. Mannina was being held because a judge found him to be a danger to the community — you see, this labor lawyer was accused of brutally beating and sexually assaulting his coworker, a fellow attorney.
Authorities have not yet classified Mannina’s death as a suicide, but just hours prior to his death, he was denied release from jail to seek mental health care. Continue reading for some additional details about the underlying case and the grisly scene in Mannina’s jail cell…
* You think you know Justice Clarence Thomas, but you have no idea. Here are several myths about the silent Supreme Court star that he was capable of busting in just this term alone. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* According to the CBO, the immigration reform bill being considered in the Senate would allow eight million immigrants to gain legal status and lower the deficit by billions. But alas, dey still terk er jerbs! [NPR]
* Google is doing its best to try not to be evil by asking the FISA court to ease up on gag orders preventing the internet giant from telling the world about what it’s required to give to the government. [Washington Post]
* Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff will withhold 20% of equity partners’ pay, a move that made some lawyers cry. The firm is apparently planning to save the cash for a rainy day. [Daily Business Review]
* Paul Mannina, an attorney with the Labor Department charged with sexually assaulting a coworker, was found in his cell with his throat slashed. Police are investigating the death. [Washington Post]
* FYI, your aspirational pro bono hours — or complete and utter lack thereof — will now be public record in New York, and you must report them on your biannual registration forms. [New York Law Journal]
* Coming soon to a law school near you: really old books from the 13th century that’ll probably turn into dust if you dare try to read them. You can find this nerdgasm over at Yale Law. [National Law Journal]
* The family of Lauren Giddings, the slain Mercer Law graduate, has filed a $5 million wrongful death suit in federal court against accused killer Stephen McDaniel in the hopes of finding her remains. [Telegraph]
* With the Supreme Court’s term winding quickly to a close, it’s likely that conservative justices will write for the majority in some of the most closely watched and controversial cases. Uh oh. [Washington Post]
* Judge Edward Korman, the man who slapped around the FDA like it owed him money in a ruling over access to the morning-after pill, is actually a very soft-spoken, kind-hearted fellow. [New York Times]
* Wherein a Chicago Law professor and a Vedder Price partner argue that instead of cutting law school down to two years, financial aid should be given out like candy. Hey, whatever works. [Bloomberg]
* Brooklyn Law’s got a whole lot of drama these days: Their president is stepping down, their dean is apparently still a full-time partner at Patton Boggs, and a law professor is suing over alleged ABA violations. [New York Law Journal]
* That’s not the only New York-area law school awash in scandal. Chen Guangcheng has received the boot from NYU Law due to alleged harm done to the school’s relationship with China. [New York Times]
* When questioned about the need for his school, Indiana Tech’s dean says the lawyer oversupply and lack of jobs don’t matter. It’s about the quality of the graduate. Good luck with that! [Journal Gazette]
* This came too soon (that’s what she said). The alleged porn purveyors at Prenda Law will close up shop thanks to the costly litigation surrounding their copyright trolling. [Law & Disorder / Ars Technica]
* Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hassan won’t be allowed to use a “defense of others” strategy in his murder trial, because not only does it fail as a matter of law, but it’s also ridiculous. [Associated Press]
* Harvard Law grad Cate Edwards, daughter of disgraced pol John Edwards, took a dramatic step away from her father’s tabloid-esque pubic interests by opening her own public interest firm. [WJLA ABC 7]
* Judge Thomas Jackson, well-known for his antitrust ruling against Microsoft, RIP. [New York Times]
Left to right: Eric Cuellar, Hazhir Kargaran, and Justin Teixeira (click to enlarge).
Lawyers and Las Vegas are a dangerous combination. Just ask the lawyer who allegedly inflicted almost $100,000 in damage on a suite at the Encore Hotel.
Sin City seduces law students too. We’ve extensively covered the sadstory of how three Berkeley law students, while visiting Vegas on spring break, killed a helmeted guinea fowl named “Turk” at the wildlife habitat of the Flamingo Hotel.
Two of the students, Eric Cuellar and Hazhir Kargaran, already pleadedguilty. So it should come as no surprise — with his co-defendants having cut deals, and with reported video footage of the incident as possible evidence — that Justin Teixeira copped a plea as well.
What kind of sentence did Teixeira get? It doesn’t sound that bad to me….
Partners make the Biglaw world go ’round, and when a partner dies, especially in a manner as brutal as this, the Biglaw world weeps.
Today, we’ve got some sad news out of Minneapolis, where Nancy Sullivan, a Barnes & Thornburg partner who practiced ERISA and employee benefits law and served as the pro bono coordinator at her firm’s office, was shot and killed by her boyfriend as she tried to move out of the home they shared together. Also wounded were Sullivan’s daughter, Kathleen Fay, and Fay’s boyfriend, Tony Brown.
Suspected shooter Johnny Simpson also died, but police are not yet calling this a murder-suicide…
The classic version of lawyer suicide (and yes, it happens so often in this profession that there are “classic” representations of the problem) is the big-city lawyer who sold his soul, and possibly his ethics, who kills himself when the authorities come circling. Another tired trope is the hyper-stressed lawyer working in a high-rise who jumps out of a window when he loses a big case or a big client. Or maybe you think of the over-achieving law student who throws himself in front of a train or off of a bridge during exam season.
Lawyer suicide is so common that I think a disproportionate rate of early, self-inflicted death is just considered part of the price of doing business. Maybe hazard pay should be built into lawyer salaries like it is for race car drivers or test pilots.
But the longer I cover the legal profession, the more I learn that lawyer suicide is happening more than I think, in places where I wouldn’t expect it. Today’s sad piece is about a rash of lawyer suicides in a small state…
We’ve got some sad news today out of Philadelphia, where Julia Law, a young paralegal, was found dead in her employer’s bathtub. That may seem odd, but as it turns out, Law had been dating her boss, well-known defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr., for a month or two, and she had a key to his condo.
Law was supposed to be celebrating her 27th birthday today, but instead, we’re awaiting her autopsy results. Law was reportedly texting with coworkers until 1 a.m. on the day of her death, lamenting the lack of “scented bubble bath” at Peruto’s home. That was apparently enough to invoke police suspicion.
At this time, the cause of Law’s death is unknown, but some observers wonder if the beautiful young woman may have been murdered….
* Let’s get ready to rumble! Some of the Supreme Court’s most controversial opinions yet are expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks — and maybe even today. Stay tuned for news. [CNN]
* Let’s see what happens when Obama nominates three judges at once to the D.C. Circuit. How many of them will be confirmed as quickly as Sri Srinivasan? Probably not many. [New York Times]
* White House counsel and leading litigatrix Kathryn Ruemmler is best known for her fabulous shoes, but this week, she’s taking some flak for her involvement in the IRS scandal. [New York Times]
* “I don’t know whether the Lord Himself could get confirmed at this point.” It looks like poor Attorney General Eric Holder doesn’t have very many people left to turn to thanks to executive and congressional inaction. [Bloomberg]
* When it comes to recent diversity efforts in Biglaw there’s an ebb, but not really a flow, and it’s all being blamed on the recession. Also, “diversity fatigue” is apparently a thing now. [New York Times]
* The $200 million gender discrimination suit filed against Greenberg Traurig over the firm’s alleged “old boys club” has been settled for an undisclosed amount. You go girl! [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* According to Judge Murray Snow, Arizona’s most beloved sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has been violating the constitutional rights of all of the Latinos whom he supposedly “hadn’t” been racially profiling. [Reuters]
* My, how things change: David Blankenhorn, a man who once testified as an expert witness in support of Proposition 8 at trial, has come forward to condemn anti-marriage equality laws. [Los Angeles Times]
* Stewart Schwab, the dean of Cornell Law School, will step down in June 2014. Perhaps the next dean will crack down on the number of cam girls pleasuring themselves in the law library. [Cornell Chronicle]
* Law schools tend to be “bastions of liberalism,” which makes it hard for students to find intellectual diversity. It’s a good thing we’ve got the Federalist Society to balance things out. [Washington Times]
* People who think Washington needs another law school propose one for students “who can’t afford to … go into debt … to get their legal degree.” This won’t sit well with the legal academy. [News Tribune]
* With Lindsay Lohan stuck in rehab, Amanda Bynes decided it was her turn to go wild. The retired actress says she’s suing the NYPD for unlawful arrest and sexual harassment. [New York Daily News]
* Alton Lemon, the Supreme Court plaintiff behind the eponymous Lemon test, RIP. [New York Times]
Ed. note: This is the second installment of Righteous Indignation, our new column for conservative-minded lawyers.
In Pennsylvania earlier this week, the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell drew to a close. Gosnell, a West Philadelphia abortion doctor, is accused of murdering four children who were allegedly born alive after Gosnell’s efforts to abort them. The jury now considers four counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the children, along with one count of third-degree murder for the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a Bhutanese refugee to whom Gosnell allegedly gave a lethal overdose of Demerol. He also faces twenty-three counts of performing illegal late-term abortions. If convicted of first-degree murder, Gosnell faces the death penalty.
Trial witnesses, including clinic workers, offered gruesome testimony. Some of the allegations: the lethal drug Gosnell injected into the babies in utero failed to stop their hearts, and they emerged from their mothers’ birth canals breathing, wriggling, even crying; Gosnell then “snipped” the backs of the babies’ necks with scissors, severing their spinal cords; and Gosnell joked about the size of the “fetuses” whose spinal cords he cut, including a baby who he said was big enough “to walk me home.”
A mother of another of Gosnell’s alleged victims reportedly delivered her baby into a toilet while waiting for Dr. Gosnell. A clinic worker testified that the child made swimming motions in the toilet bowl before another employee snipped the child’s neck. Prosecutors dubbed Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic a “House of Horrors”….
Ed. note: Apologies for the technical difficulties that have prevented us from posting until now. Thanks for your patience!
* Attention prospective law school applicants: affirmative action, at least as we currently know it, may not be long for this world. A decision in the Fisher v. University of Texas case is expected as early as this week. Stay tuned. [Reuters]
* Justice Stephen Breyer had to get shoulder replacement surgery after having yet another bike accident (his third, actually). Please — somebody, anybody — get this man some training wheels. Justice is at stake! [New York Times]
* “We’re not going to take it, goodbye.” That’s what retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wishes the high court would have said when it came to the controversial Bush v. Gore case. [Chicago Tribune]
* Thanks to the sequester, the Boston bombings case may turn into a “David and Goliath” situation. Sorry, Dzhokhar, but your defense team may be subject to 15 days of furlough. [National Law Journal]
* George Gallantz, the “founding father” of Proskauer’s sports law practice, RIP. [New York Law Journal]
* Leo Branton Jr., the defense attorney at the helm of the Angela Davis trial, RIP. [New York Times]
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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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.
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