Parenting can be an extremely difficult task, but an even more difficult task is proper helicopter parenting. It’s got to be an intense job to keep an eye on your child’s every move, day and night, wherever he may roam. In fact, some people have started to call these people lawnmower parents — after all, why choose to hover overhead when you can destructively mow down all obstacles that you perceive to be in your child’s way on the road to success?
Today, we’ve got a story about an attractive California couple who stand accused of being textbook examples of the worst kind of lawnmower parents, and they just so happen to both be lawyers. Daddy is (or was) a securities litigation partner at a midsize firm, and Mommy is a graduate of top law school. Trust us when we say that you do not want to mess with their kid, because you may wind up facing drug charges….
* It’s not just media groups that are urging the Supreme Court to allow live coverage of the announcement of the ACA decision. Senators Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee have joined the club. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Dewey know whether this failed firm’s former partners will be settling their claims any time soon? Team Togut hopes to reach a deal in the next six weeks, and claims that cooperation will absolve D&L’s deserters of all future liability. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]
* From Biglaw to the big house: former Sullivan & Cromwell partner John O’Brien, who is serving time for tax evasion charges, has been suspended from practicing law in New York. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* A Stradling Yocca partner and his wife, a Boalt Hall graduate, stand accused of planting drugs on a school volunteer who supervised their son. Looks like the only thing they’re straddling now is jail time. [OC Register]
* Dharun Ravi was released early from jail yesterday after completing a little more than half of his 30-day sentence. Funny how bad behavior got him into the slammer, but good behavior got him out of it. [CNN]
* “Why would somebody so smart do something so stupid?” Kenneth Kratz, the sexting DA from Wisconsin, claims that the answer to that question is an addiction to sex and prescription drugs. [Herald Times Reporter]
* Jay-Z’s got 99 problems and this bitch is one. He’s been accused by Patrick White of plagiarizing parts of his own best-selling memoir, “Decoded,” and slapped with a copyright infringement suit. [New York Daily News]
Ahh, “sh*t law.” In case you aren’t familiar with the term, it’s what some lawyers rudely and condescendingly call legal practice outside of Biglaw. From traffic tickets to personal injury, you name it, and it’s apparently a derivative of “sh*t law.”
Back in March, we brought you a story about Joseph Neal Jr., the apparent king of one of these so-called “sh*t law” practices in Augusta, Georgia. Neal, a prominent personal injury attorney, earned our Lawyer of the Day title after he and his ex-wife racked up criminal charges for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting the family babysitter. Neal later went on to earn 21% of the vote in our March Lawyer of the Month competition.
Now, just a few short months later, Neal has been sentenced after accepting the terms of a plea bargain. The deal reduced a felony rape charge to two misdemeanors. Neal will serve three years of supervised probation, and he’ll also commit to a term of community service that some would call a bit of poetic justice….
* Dewey have some novel issues for our bankruptcy lawyers, or what? As we noted last night, now that D&L has filed for Chapter 11, they’ll have to deal with bank debt, and bondholders, and possible criminal proceedings, oh my! [New York Law Journal]
* And did we mention that Dewey’s defectors and their new firms might get screwed out of millions thanks to the recent Coudert decision? You really should’ve tried to finish up your business before the firm flopped. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Our SCOTUS justices’ summer plans don’t include debating the results of their landmark health care and immigration cases. They’ll be off to fabulous destinations to teach by the first week of July. [Associated Press]
* A federal judge in Brooklyn doesn’t like what seems to be happening in the “game of grams” when it comes to mandatory minimum drug sentencing. Perhaps the DOJ will heed his call for reform. [New York Times]
* Facebook’s IPO was an epic fail, but it’s been great business for plaintiffs lawyers. Twelve securities class action firms are gathering leads and getting ready to sue, and two have already sued. [National Law Journal]
* This wasn’t exactly well planned: if you’re involved in state politics, it’s probably not a good idea to fake a legal internship with a state representative so that you can graduate from law school. [Concord Monitor]
* In happier news, a New York Law School graduate walked across the stage to receive her diploma with the help of her seeing-eye dog. The pooch hasn’t lifted a leg on her law degree… yet. [New York Daily News]
... and so do folks down under.
* “Brothels are never going to be a vote winner.” But even so, if you’re looking to get it in down under, a plan to build Australia’s largest cathouse may soon gain approval if lawyers are able to do their work quick and dirty. [Bloomberg]
* Thanks to this case, stupid teenagers in New Jersey who send texts to others that they know are driving can now revel in the fact that they can’t be held liable for injuries that may occur thanks to careless driving. [New Jersey Law Journal]
* This NYU Law professor’s apparent hypocrisy makes me want to chew on gravel. Seems like he has earned the digital tar and feathering he’s getting. [Inside the Law School Scam]
* So, Facebook went public today. The life of Facebook’s GC is about to change in big, big ways. [Corporate Counsel]
* The city of Boston filed a complaint against an attorney representing local firefighters for his allegedly offensive, sexist behavior at the negotiating table. How do ya like them misogynist apples? [Boston Globe]
* An allegedly intoxicated woman arrested for driving 90 miles an hour in a construction zone justified her speeding by saying she was late to her child’s birthday party. I imagine little Timmy was more upset that his mother not only missed the party but also spent his birthday in the slammer. [Legal Juice]
* Speaking of people you never want to see on the road, a Bay Area attorney was arrested today on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and manslaughter. Police say the attorney, who has two recent, unrelated speeding tickets, is suspected of striking and killing a bicyclist with his brand-new Mercedes. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* An argument as to why the United States, on a policy level, should become more “420 (and other illegal drug) friendly.” Most stoners might argue their case by saying, “Dude, just chill. Just chill bro.” But this is slightly more complex. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Stab your lawyer with a pencil once, shame on you. Stab him a second time, shame on me. Stab him a third time, they will strap you to your chair with a “stun cuff” so it doesn’t happen a fourth time. [Legal Blog Watch]
* (Crack) cocaine is a hell of a drug. [Legal Juice]
* A first-person account of why you don’t ever, ever want to end up in central booking. [The Crown]
* Telling opposing counsel you hope she “sleep[s] with the fishes” is mean and inappropriate. But on top of that, what the heck do you even stand to gain from saying that sort of thing? [Minneapolis StarTribune]
* If you want to complain about racial profiling at airports, there’s an app for that! [Prawfsblawg]
* To catch (an alleged) law school predator. Icky. [Delaware Online]
* Seriously? This “Is it Kanye or the LSAT?” quiz is surprisingly tricky. [LSAT Blog]
Depending on which state you’re licensed in, you may have to do a certain number of pro bono service hours in order to keep up with your ethical obligations. In general, doing pro bono work is a great way to get that happy feeling deep down inside.
But one lawyer in Georgia may have a different idea about how to achieve that sense of inner nirvana. He’s allegedly more interested in getting serviced pro boner than offering pro bono services.
That being said, let’s meet our Lawyer of the Day, a man who stands accused of trading contraband for peep shows from prisoners at the local jail….
* Dewey need to take a look at the Biglaw industry in general before more firms implode? Hell yes, says an author who’s written on the economics and management of law firms. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Wal-Mart was served with its first shareholder suit over its alleged bribery scandal, because the only thing on rollback this week is the price of the company’s stock shares. [Reuters]
* Does diplomatic immunity give you a free pass for getting handsy with the maid? Guess we’ll see next week, when a judge rules on DSK’s motion to dismiss his civil suit. [New York Daily News]
* As long as you’ve got money, the TSA will totally look the other way if you’ve got suitcases filled with drugs. Vibrators, on the other hand, are simply out of the question. [Bloomberg]
* As of yesterday, Connecticut became the seventeenth state to kill the death penalty. But not so fast, death row inmates. You still get to die. Isn’t that nice? [CNN]
* Franchise agreements be damned, because even judges can understand that sometimes, you just need to eat a delicious sandwich while you’re getting a lap dance. [KTVN]
* Say sayonara to the Buffett Rule. Senate Republicans were successful in blocking the 30% tax on millionaires proposed by Democrats. And thank God, because that trickle down thing is totally working for us right now. [Wall Street Journal]
* Rich lawyers keep getting richer because they keep increasing their fees. That being said, where the hell are the bonuses? Come on now, SullCrom, are you seriously going to make us all wait until June? That’s really not very nice. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Well, that was quick: one minute men abound in the George Zimmerman circus. Mark O’Mara filed a motion to get Judge Recksiedler off the case, and the media filed a motion to get access to sealed records. [CNN]
* A federal judge presiding over the John Edwards campaign finance trial dismissed 47 potential jurors. Dude gets around, because apparently he had slept with all of them. Nah, he wishes, though. [Bloomberg]
* As a law school, it sure is easy to claim that just under 100% of the class of 2010 was employed nine months after graduation, especially when you were the one employing them. [National Law Journal]
* Seems like the New York Times has finally caught on to the ADA troll trend. Lawyers are recruiting clients to file suits against noncompliant businesses, but at least the disabled reap the rewards. [New York Times]
* Prospective welfare recipients in Georgia have a few more months to blaze before they’ll have to pass a drug test to receive benefits. Smoke two joints before you prepare for all the incoming lawsuits. [Washington Post]
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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.
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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Parenting can be an extremely difficult task, but an even more difficult task is proper helicopter parenting. It’s got to be an intense job to keep an eye on your child’s every move, day and night, wherever he may roam. In fact, some people have started to call these people lawnmower parents — after all, why choose to hover overhead when you can destructively mow down all obstacles that you perceive to be in your child’s way on the road to success?
