In one of his ballads, Jim Croce warned that there are four things that you just don’t do: “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape/ You don’t spit into the wind/ You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger/ And you don’t mess around with Jim.” He could have added a fifth warning to that list: “And you don’t let pistol-packing mother catch you naked in her daughter’s closet.”
* Today’s court session is business as usual for SCOTUS, because the justices always seem to save the “best” for last. And now I’ll have that stupid Vanessa Williams song stuck in my head all day. Sorry if I got it stuck in yours, too. [National Law Journal (reg. req.)]
* Meanwhile, over at the White House, the air was thick with the sound of silence on the eve of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act. More than willing to bet that President Obama probably didn’t sleep too well last night. [Los Angeles Times]
* “If she dies and Romney wins, the Supreme Court will be the most conservative in history.” Oh, please. Stop giving Ruth Bader Ginsburg flak for being too old, and learn to respect your elders — she’ll quit (or she’ll croak) when she damn well feels like it. [New York Times]
* Peter Madoff will plead guilty to two federal charges at the end of the week. He’ll probably serve ten years in prison. In the long run, that’s nothing compared to big brother Bernie’s 150-year sentence. [Bloomberg]
* Reason #11ty-billion why we <3 Flori-duh: a judge rejected the DOJ's request to block Florida's voter purge, and Governor Rick Scott, of course, was pleased as punch, calling it a "common-sense decision." [POLITICO]
* Megaupload wins again: a New Zealand court ruled that the search warrants used to raid Kim Dotcom’s mansion were illegal because they failed to “adequately describe the offenses to which they related.” [Reuters]
* Loan debt will allegedly make you do some pretty crazy sh*t. Jason Bohn, the law school grad featured in an NYT article about the perils of law school, now stands accused of murdering his girlfriend. [New York Post]
* The ABA Journal wants to know if you think your law school’s name and reputation affected your career path. Well, the first comment on my first post was “the what what school of where now,” so you tell me. [ABA Journal]
She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.
– Indianapolis resident John Gross, who says an Orlando TSA agent opened the jar containing his grandfather’s ashes — in violation of the TSA’s official policies — and spilled it on the airport floor.
This is one law professor you don't want to trap in a closet.
As we mentioned in Morning Docket, there’s an interesting ongoing brouhaha at Nova Southeastern between the school and a professor who claims he was fired after the school misinterpreted some of his jokes. Jokes about shooting people, but jokes nonetheless.
Now it seems to me that any professor who actually decided to teach at Nova Southeastern would eventually contemplate things he could do with a gun. But I imagine even students willing to go to Nova Southeastern would think twice about it if they had to dodge a hail of bullets while sitting in class. So I guess they have to take even jokes about this very seriously.
And, hey, for the rest of us, it’s an opportunity to see exactly what you have to do to get fired after you get tenure….
* Yesterday, we talked about Professor Jonathan Turley being butthurt over the criticism he received from Ann Althouse and others. Today, Althouse responds. I’m keeping my powder dry till Thursday, when I will undoubtedly have a full mental breakdown as SCOTUS overturns a healthcare plan I didn’t really like in the first place. [Althouse]
* Woman gets raped. Woman gets morning after pill. Woman reports rape to police. Police arrest woman on outstanding, unrelated warrant. Warden confiscates pill because that’s what Jesus would have wanted. Do I have to explicitly say this happened in Florida, or did I give you enough context clues? [The Daily Dolt]
* Hedge fund manager who faked his own death has thoughts on famous murders. [Dealbreaker]
* Some other ways for law firms to compete for clients beyond offering the lowest price. [What About Clients?]
* I think if this Miami Heat owner insists on proceeding with this lawsuit, then we should all get to Champagne Bukkake him when he loses. [The Legal Satyricon]
* Check out this awesome podcast I was on last night. Not only did I get progressively more drunk while taping, I think I also said that Roberts “isn’t so bad” and then named my favorite Justice appointed by a Republican. [Recess Appointment]
So, lawyers are people. Despite the importance of work, especially in Biglaw, sometimes personal life probably should take precedence over practicing law. Perhaps a wedding, a funeral, or maybe a particularly important religious holiday should win out.
But what about a defense attorney who wants to suspend a capital murder-for-hire trial to attend a look-alike contest for one of the greatest authors in American history? The short answer is: no dice. The slightly longer answer is a hilarious ruling from a federal judge denying the request….
* Dewey still have some folks who owe us money? Yes we do. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Facebook will change its terms of service, specifically regarding the way it handles “sponsored stories” in order to settle a large lawsuit [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* A man opposing a Virginia attorney in a child custody hearing shot at the lawyer outside the courthouse. Luckily, he missed. [Gettysburg Times]
*The Fifth Circuit said yes, the law firm of Smith & Fuller is on the hook for $30,000 for accidentally releasing its client’s secret information. [ABA Journal]
* Recently released interviews with George Zimmerman tell his side of the death of Trayvon Martin. [New York Times]
* Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, has a very lawyerly license plate — and expired tags, too? [Deadspin]
* In other sports law news, Darren Heitner says at least one football helmet manufacturer should be afraid, be very afraid, of concussion litigation. [Forbes]
* A pop culture blogger, Jenni Maier, is rudely awakened to the boring, sexless, receding-hairline-filled real world of jury duty. [Crushable]
* A pair of former Lawyers of the Day, Michael Tein and Guy Lewis, are in trouble again — this time for allegedly acting “recklessly and unprofessionally” twowards the judge in a wrongful death case they were handling. [Miami Herald]
* The Minnesota Supreme Court rules that a Mortuary Science student was legally flunked for making fun (on Facebook) of the cadaver she had to dissect. Chalk up another point to the Facebook Fun Police. [City Pages]
* Senior U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher, the oldest serving federal judge, died at 99 in California. [Associated Press]
When it comes to Nadya Suleman, aka Octomom, we’ve only mentioned her in passing, and that’s probably because no one actually cares about the woes of a mother of 14 children (holy crap) — come on now, she doesn’t even have her own reality TV show. But it’s hard to feed so many mouths, so back in April, Suleman claimed that she would consider taking any job, as long as the price was right.
Unfortunately for Octomom, dignity was too costly an option. Instead, she’ll be starring in her own [link is quasi-NSFW] masturbation film — set for online release on June 20, and sadly not entitled “Octopussy.” And she’ll be stripping at a Florida venue the second week of July.
Well, she was supposed to show off her sexy C-section scars in mid-July, but she apparently decided to pull out of her contract. If only she hadn’t undergone in vitro fertilization, this would have been great joke fodder.
Now Suleman may be facing an epic lawsuit, but to be honest, we’re surprised that it took this long for someone to threaten to sue her….
* The Justice Department dropped the remaining charges against John Edwards. That’s an anti-climax for the record books. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Gina Chon, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose sensuous e-mails with Brett McGurk, a U.S. ambassadorial nominee, were released last week, resigned her job at the paper. But temporary unemployment is no match for true love (or super hot sex, for that matter)! [Washington Post]
* UMass Law is now the first accredited public law school in Massachusetts. Thank God, because our law school reserves were running dangerously low. [Boston Globe]
* JPMorgan’s CEO admits, “I was dead wrong.” Congratulations, I hope that makes you feel better. Now why don’t you give us taxpayers all our money back? [Gothamist]
* The attorney for FunnyJunk is totally befuddled by the Oatmeal’s hilarious response to his legal threats, as well as the internet at large’s response to the response. Come on man, loosen up and feel the lulz. [Gawker]
* Congratulations to Andrew Schilling, the former top civil prosecutor at the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, who is joining BuckleySandler as a partner. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* I get stopped at the airport because some TSA agent thinks my belt buckle looks like a bomb or something, but this guy becomes a commercial pilot??? I just don’t get it. At all. [Wall Street Journal]
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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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In one of his ballads, Jim Croce warned that there are four things that you just don’t do: “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape/ You don’t spit into the wind/ You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger/ And you don’t mess around with Jim.” He could have added a fifth warning to that list: “And you don’t let pistol-packing mother catch you naked in her daughter’s closet.”
