Depressing Things

Autopsy Inconclusive In Death Of Skadden Associate, But Toxicology Report Is Clean

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Back in June, we wrote about Lisa M. Johnstone, a corporate associate in the Los Angeles office of Skadden who passed away in her home.

At the time, we didn’t have the autopsy report (as we noted in our story). But I, and some of Johnstone’s Skadden colleagues, used her passing as an occasion for reflecting on nature of working in Biglaw.

The autopsy is out now. While the cause of death is inconclusive, the toxicology report found no trace of drugs….

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An Interview With the 2L Who’s Advertising Himself on Google

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Yesterday we brought you the story of a 2L at Cardozo Law School who has taken out Google ads promoting himself, in an attempt to find a summer associate job. Here’s what his ad looks like (as displayed to an Above the Law reader who alerted us to his campaign):

We reached out to Eric Einisman to ask him: What was he thinking?

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Morning Docket: 11.10.11

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* Herman Cain’s got Wood over all of these sexual harassment accusers. No, seriously. He hired Bryan Cave defector L. Lin Wood to handle his possible defamation claims. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Sad and depressing old man news: Joe Paterno’s legal innocence was irrelevant. Instead of letting him retire at the end of the year, the Penn State Board of Trustees fired him last night. [New York Times]

* A woman from Idaho with some real backwoods charm. What to do when your husband — a lawyer — plots to kill you? Stand by your man and blame the corrupt government. [ABC News]

* Tired of getting screwed? Mayor Bloomberg makes nice with the OWS people, congratulating them for “generally . . . not break[ing] the law.” What a sad great accomplishment. [New York Post]

* And this is why you don’t play games with your résumé, folks. Here’s some proof that next time you lie about being covered in Ivy, you’re going to get a wicked bad rash. [Boston Herald]

* If assignments like this appeared more often, I bet people would stop procrastinating so much and do their homework all day, every day (and then do it again for extra credit). [Arizona Republic]

* Have the Biebs’s lawyers learned nothing from Bill Urquhart? Always CHECK YOU EMAILS to avoid a public Maury Povich-esque paternity problem. [New York Daily News]

One 2L’s Innovative Approach to Job Hunting

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A reader alerted us to the following Google ad, which showed up in a Gmail sidebar next to a law-related email chain:

Whoa! Is this for real? Is a second-year student at Cardozo Law School actually advertising himself via text ads on Google, promoting himself as “[a] great choice for Summer Associate”?

Are Cardozo law students truly this desperate? Is this why the career services dean quit to teach yoga? Should Cardozo focus less on teaching students how to walk and more on teaching them how to conduct job searches?

Or is this too harsh an assessment? Let’s learn more about the 2L behind this unusual ad.

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Facebook Spoliation Costs Widower and His Attorney $700K in Sanctions

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When a tipster sent us an e-mail with the subject, “Court awards $700,000+ in sanctions for destruction of FB page,” I thought it sounded like it might be interesting. Because hey, that’s a lot of money.

I didn’t realize it would also be one of the most depressing legal news stories I’ve read since this tragic murder-suicide.

The three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar sanction award was levied against the widower of a woman killed in a car accident and the widower’s lawyer. The ruling was an abrupt table-turn for Isaiah Lester, who had previously won a $10 million wrongful death suit against the driver whose truck overturned and killed his wife.

Keep reading for the depressing details….

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Is the Legal Job Crisis Spreading to Canada?

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I recently received an email from an old friend asking for advice on behalf of a relative who is thinking about applying to law school. I was about to respond with a warning about the dangers of taking on massive student loans to get a degree that just might put you on the fast track to unemployment, but then I reread the email and noticed that the young woman in question is thinking about applying to law schools in Canada (she’s Canadian).

O Canada! Their legal education system is different — and, by some accounts, better than ours. At least if you define “better” in terms of “better at getting law school graduates into legal jobs.”

But could things up north be changing — for the worse, eh?

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An Update on the Sam Friedlander Family Murder-Suicide

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In mid-October, we brought you news of a tragic family murder-suicide that took place in Westchester County, New York. The apparent perpetrator, solo practitioner Samuel Friedlander, an alumnus of Western New England University School of Law, reportedly beat his wife to death and then shot and killed his two young children, before committing suicide.

As we noted in Morning Docket last week, there was some speculation as to whether the massacre had been premeditated. Today, we bring you an update on the slayings, including information on possible premeditation and additional background regarding Friedlander’s employment history.

Which major law firm did Sam Friedlander once work for?

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The Growing Trend of Staff Layoffs: Fulbright and Goodwin Announce Cuts

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Over the summer, we wondered: what can law firms do to prepare for a possible double-dip recession?

One obvious answer: firms can “right-size” themselves, by making sure that they are as lean and as mean as they can be. And this seems to be what has been happening over the past few months.

We haven’t seen much in terms of lawyer layoffs lately, but staff layoffs are another story. In fact, on the staff side, we seem to be looking at a trend of firms reducing their permanent staff positions in favor of outsourcing.

Since August, we’ve learned of staff layoffs at O’Melveny & Myers (75 positions) and Paul Hastings (45 positions) — both as a result of domestic outsourcing to outside service providers. In addition, Pillsbury Winthrop announced that it might have to cut staffers who aren’t willing to relocate to its new Professional Services Center in Nashville. This prompted us to ask: Is On-Shore Outsourcing the Biglaw Wave of the Future?

The answer seems to be yes. Today we bring you news of additional staff reductions, at Fulbright & Jaworski and Goodwin Procter, both involving outsourcing….

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Quote of the Day: Zombies Can Do Document Review Too

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Lawyers, journalists, investment bankers — they are liabilities, not leaders, in the zombie-infested world….

In the zombie apocalypse, your J.D. is worthless — which is actually not so different from the real world of recent years.

– Torie Bosch, in a thought-provoking Slate article entitled First, Eat All the Lawyers, arguing that the boom in zombie-related entertainment reflects, and is fueled by, the economic anxieties of white-collar workers.

Loyola Law – L.A. Tries to Placate Disgruntled Recent Graduates

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On Friday, we told you about the angry recent law school graduate who emailed a scathing letter to the alumni officers at his alma mater, Loyola Law School – Los Angeles. The graduate, whom we nicknamed “Loyola 6L,” called out the school’s career services office and the dean, Victor Gold.

Loyola 6L sent out his letter on Tuesday of last week. Last Thursday, alumni services decided it was time to have an alumni mixer.

Coincidence?

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A Recent Law Grad’s Attempt at Revenge on His Law School

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La vengeance se mange très-bien froide. Or as a Klingon might say, “revenge is a dish best served cold.”

I’m pretty sure that the administrators at Loyola Law School of Los Angeles didn’t think they were walking into a smackdown when they sent out an email to alumni asking them to update their employment statuses. But smacked they were, down on their heads, as one student’s epic, slightly rambling response to the innocent request just tore up the school for its behavior towards recent graduates.

And this comes from a student who seems to be doing well, despite the challenging economy. You want to know the best way to “get back” at your law school, if you so desire? Send them an email that says: “I am going to be very wealthy here, and I will not be giving a dime to Loyola.”

Time for the cold revenge of living well?

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Western New England Law Alum in Tragic Family Murder-Suicide

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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we really do not like to write about murders, suicides, or murder-suicides here on Above the Law. The loss of human life is tragic, and it is even more so when there are children involved.

But that being said, we have news today that Sam Friedlander, an alumnus of my alma mater, was involved in a dispute with his estranged wife late Monday night — one that led to her bludgeoning and the shooting of his two young children — before he decided to turn the gun on himself.

If you think the story can’t get any sadder, wait till you see how the law school handled it….

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