Ask this man for tips on romantic one-liners.
Google me.
— Henry Silverman, billionaire and former CEO of Cendant Corporation, upon meeting yoga instructor Karen Hader, who is now his fiancée.
(A New York judge, Laura Drager, recently barred Silverman from using scientific evidence to prove his “innate genius” in court, in litigation against his ex-wife, Nancy Silverman. A creative way to try to get around the lack of a prenuptial agreement, don’t you think?)
Sad fact of the day: about fifty percent of marriages in America end in divorce. Of course, many of you already knew that, because you’re divorced yourself, the child of divorced parents, or a divorce attorney who is rolling around in money. But however you slice it, some of the best divorce train wreck stories are born of child custody battles.
Parents going through a divorce are willing to fight over anything when it comes to the custody of their children (“How dare you feed little Suzie pasta that isn’t organic and gluten-free?!”). Even when a divorce is finalized, sometimes parents are still willing to pull the trigger on any issues that arise. In some cases, though, custody modifications are warranted.
And in this case, an Oregon mother is actually fighting to keep another woman from pulling the trigger on her teenage sons, because she’s done it before….
Continue reading “A Killer Custody Arrangement, and Mom Isn’t Happy About It”
Dads, please don't set yourselves on fire.
I’ve said before that the word “literally” is overused and misused in our culture. I’m guilty of it, and so are many others. It’s not a big deal, except for the fact that when you really need the word, its meaning has been diminished.
But guys, today we have a story about a man who literally and successfully set himself on fire on the courthouse steps and died. To quote a tipster: “If burning yourself alive to protest the court system isn’t sensational enough to merit a mention on ATL, I don’t know what is.”
No doubt.
But why self-immolation? Well, let’s take a look at the man’s 10,000 word suicide note….
Continue reading “Man Literally Sets Himself On Fire On The Courthouse Steps”
If you already know what I’m talking about, I’m sorry — I don’t have very much to add. The deposition is so damn short, the transcript doesn’t contain case-identifying information, and the pdf has been stripped of its metadata. Really, I only know what you know: a hilarious deposition took place earlier this month.
For those who are in the loop, there’s been this deposition making the rounds on various lawyer listserves. From what we can tell, it’s a real deposition in what appears to be a divorce or some other type of family-law proceeding. The deponent is named Kevin Phillip Gartner; of all the Kevin Gartners in Google, we can’t be sure of which one. The lawyer taking the deposition appears to be Denise Watson, a Jacksonville area lawyer. When I tried to contact her, I was told she is “unavailable, this week.” The lawyer valiantly trying to represent Kevin Gartner and defend the deposition is known only as “Mr. Dorsey.”
That’s all I got: a name, a no-comment, and the mysterious Mr. Dorsey. Normally, that wouldn’t be enough for a full post. But you’re going to want to see the depo transcript for yourself….
Matt Kluger
* Baker & McKenzie is being sued for $600 million. First they were the inspiration for Philadelphia. Then they gave me a cold offer. Now this? Horrific mistakes, all. [Sports Money / Forbes]
* Meanwhile, Bingham McCutchen is preemptively suing Frank McCourt for letting them screw him over so badly. [Los Angeles Times]
* The middleman in the Matthew Kluger brouhaha, Kenneth Robinson, has pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges. No word yet on whether he is a gay dad. [Bloomberg]
* The Ninth Circuit ruled that the most controversial parts of the Arizona immigration law will remain blocked. [Washington Post]
* A man was fired from his job as a part-time urine monitor because he was born a woman. He’s suing (with help from Gibson Dunn), but has already found new employment. As a package handler. [New York Times]
* Speaking of packages, this employment discrimination lawsuit filed against a Dallas law firm is struggling with penis ID. [ABA Journal]
* NFL owners and players have been ordered into mediation by a federal judge. Who gives a sh*t? It’s a great band, it’s a bad band. It’s like pizza, baby! [ESPN]
Judge Marjorie Rendell (former First Lady of Pennsylvania).
There’s lots of law-related news coming out of Philadelphia right now.
The lead story on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website today is about the latest Villanova Law scandal, regarding falsified admissions data being submitted to the ABA. (The article contains a shout-out to ATL, which we appreciate.)
The trial of Gerald Ung, the Temple Law student accused of shooting another young man, is getting underway in Philly this week. Opening arguments are set for this morning. (If you have any tips on the Ung story, please contact us.)
And then there’s the news that has all tongues wagging in the City of Brotherly Love: the split of a big-time Pennsylvania power couple (and a pair of Villanova Law grads, by the way).
Former Governor Edward Rendell, who left the governor’s mansion just last month, and Judge Marjorie Rendell, a prominent judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, are going their separate ways. They announced their separation, after 40 years of marriage, in an email sent to friends….
Continue reading “Separation of Powers: Governor Rendell and Judge Rendell Split”
Full disclosure: Gilbert Arenas is one of my favorite basketball players. Sure, he’s a selfish, me-first player. And he seems to be one of the gun-nut whackos I would never want as a neighbor. But the man is the author of one of the best quotes of all time.
Check out Deadspin for Gilbert’s full thoughts on shark attacks. Here’s the kicker:
So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.
A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack.
Arenas is a gunner on the court and off the court, and he would certainly be one in the legal classroom.
So who knows, maybe he would make a great lawyer? He can’t be much worse than the lawyers at Trope and Trope. That’s the name of the law firm representing Arenas’s ex-girlfriend in legal proceedings against the star athlete.
And thanks to Trope, we know everything the woman is alleging against Arenas. Apparently Trope can’t keep its documents in order….
Continue reading “Law Firm Screw-Up Reveals Allegations About Gilbert Arenas”
Donald Verrilli
* Obama plans to nominate Don Verrilli as the next Solicitor General. He’s currently working a former partner at Jenner & Block, currently working at the White House. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Through his attorney, Judy Clarke, a smiling and nodding Jared Lee Loughner pleaded not guilty today to charges arising out of the Tucson shootings. [Washington Post]
* Just like Justice Elena Kagan, Vice President Joe Biden was called for — and quickly dismissed from — jury duty. [Delaware Online]
Hannibal didn't need a college degree.
* A divorce lawyer points out that Amy Chua’s parenting techniques would likely break down if she got divorced. [Huffington Post]
* This is easily the best thing I’ve read about the situation in Tunisia. Call the country a casualty of the higher education “bubble” — and consider yourself warned. [NetNet / CNBC]
* A cyberlaw-centric Blawg Review, on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the first Apple Macintosh sales. [Cyberlaw Central via Blawg Review]
Kenneth Denti
The accusations against disbarred New Jersey lawyer Kenneth Denti — who allegedly falsified time sheets, slept with a client he was representing in her divorce, and got reimbursed by his firm for dinner dates with women he met on the internet — have been covered extensively throughout the legal blogosphere. We previously linked to a post on the Legal Profession Blog about Denti, and his story was also written up in the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog.
But the 94-page decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Review Board contains some juicy tidbits — about money, sex, and other good stuff — that haven’t been mentioned in prior coverage.
So let’s take a closer look….
Continue reading “Disbarred Partner Blames Trampoline for Female Divorce Client’s ‘Soreness’”
Steven Simkin is too cool for a necktie.
Being married to a Paul Weiss partner is nice; getting divorced from a Paul Weiss partner is even nicer. Thanks to the prestigious firm’s eye-popping profits, getting divorced from a PW partner should give you a seven-figure payday (assuming the Paul Weiss partner has been a partner for a while and is the “monied spouse” — a pretty safe assumption, unless you work at, say, Goldman Sachs).
But when you get that gigantic payment — like winning the lottery, but without all the taxes — can you feel confident in its finality? Or do you have to worry that your ex-spouse, a partner at a firm known for its aggressive and brilliant lawyering, will find a clever way to get some of that money back from you, years later?
Consider the tale of Steven Simkin, a Paul Weiss partner of almost three decades, and his ex-wife Laura Blank, who works in education. It involves a multimillion-dollar marital estate, residential properties in Manhattan and the tony suburb of Scarsdale, and an investment account with one Bernie Madoff.
And yes, for your voyeuristic pleasure, the tale comes with hard numbers, lots of numbers…
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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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 »
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?
Keep reading »
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