The first day I took up my place behind the counter was the last day I practiced law.
– Mark Russ Federman, a Georgetown Law graduate, commenting on his experience at his family business, Russ & Daughters, one of the last Jewish appetizing shops in New York. Federman is the author of a new book, Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House That Herring Built (affiliate link).
Chief Judge Merrick Garland
Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since last week, is dreading March 1.
With heavy stress on “not,” Chief Judge Garland said he does “not look forward” to the potential sequester because he knows that it would mean cuts and that he would have to make them.
Garland, along with fellow D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith and Senior Judge Laurence Silberman, spoke Saturday at the Georgetown University Law Center, as part of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society’s annual conference. I attended the panel presentation.
One positive of the new job for Garland is that he can make more writing assignments. Like Justice Breyer, he was a longtime junior judge. Translation: He had to take what he was given to write.
“The public has seen [Garland’s] last opinion on energy law,” Griffith predicted.
Read more about the panel, including Silberman’s jabs at the recess appointments decision, Griffith’s magical (?) clerk gift, and Garland’s limited edition headgear for a court party, after the jump….
Continue reading “New D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Dreading the Sequester”
Another busted barrister: Archie Leach (John Cleese).
People can argue about whether or not Indians — of the South Asian variety, not the Native American variety — are or are not “Caucasian.” I take no position on that issue, having been burned before (see the comments to this post).
I will say this, though: in my opinion, South Asians share in common with East Asians the ability to pass for much younger than they really are. (It’s generally a blessing, although not always; in a discussion at the recent Penn APALSA conference, some panelists talked about how looking young can complicate dealing with clients and opposing counsel.)
So how much younger can South Asians claim to be? One India-born lawyer, who graduated from a top 14 law school, finds herself in litigation for allegedly lying about her age — amongst many, many other things.
And the whole thing smells worse than Ghazipur landfill….
Continue reading “Lawyer Busted Barrister of the Day: Liar Liar, Wig on Fire?”
Here’s a little fact that’ll make some of our readers feel old: Facebook, the world’s largest social media conglomerate, celebrated its ninth birthday yesterday. Being that it’s almost been around for a decade, the site’s been there with some of our younger readers throughout college, law school, bar exam hell, law jobs (or the lack thereof), engagements, weddings, babies, and more.
In celebration of Facebook’s birthday, the good people over at BuzzFeed did some stalking research on the site’s very first users, all 25 of them. As it turns out, some of them went on to become lawyers. But where did they go to law school, and which firms are they at today?
Let’s do something Facebook would never do — invade their privacy — and find out….
Continue reading “Some Of Facebook’s First Users Work In Biglaw, But Where?”
A critically acclaimed television drama, Breaking Bad, tells the story of a high school chemistry teacher who turns to a life of crime: making and selling methamphetamine. The show’s premise suggests that criminals and drug dealers come from all walks of life.
That apparently includes the legal profession. Last night brought word of a promising young law student who just got sentenced to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to selling meth. Better call Saul?
And this student didn’t turn to drug dealing because he was terrified about his post-graduation employment prospects. They were probably fairly bright, since he had an above-average GPA at a so-called top 14 or “T14″ law school….
Zhang Ziyi
* I don’t fully understand this story, but it involves the beautiful and deadly Zhang Ziyi and a SLAPP suit. [Techdirt]
* I’m interested in who Andrew Cuomo appoints to the New York Court of Appeals, just because I’m interested in how Cuomo picks judges. You know, just because 2016-2020 could be an interesting time when it comes to shifting the balance of power on the Supreme Court. [WiseLaw NY]
* A Holland & Knight partner is leaving to start teaching an “Indigent Defense” class at Georgetown. I’m not sure who is teaching the companion class: “Blood From A Rock: How To Get Fees Out Of Indigent Clients.” [Legal Blog Watch]
* I swear I was absent the day they explained that the NRA is the fifth branch of government in civics class. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Mmm… negative liberty. [Josh Blackman's Blog]
* This seems like a good time to say that I watch This Week with George Stephanopoulos instead of Meet the Press. But I really think that DCPD has better things to do than investigate David Gregory’s ammo clip prop. [Slate]
Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:
On Monday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Winner: Getting Hot and Heavy Between the Stacks”
Shakira, Shakira!
* When it comes to the art of law firm valuation, you may be surprised when you find out which Biglaw firm is worth the most. Here are a few hints: it’s not Baker & McKenzie, and it’s not DLA Piper or Skadden, either. [American Lawyer]
* Remember back in July when this Judge of the Day was busy clicking on hardcore porn sites while in chambers? As it turns out, now he’s busy crying in court while battling to keep his judicial career intact. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* Evening students are capable of doing more than ruining your class rank. Jacob Lew, once a night student at Georgetown Law, is now the White House chief of staff assisting with fiscal cliff negotiations. [New York Times]
* For now, the only thing that’s keeping Florida from gaining another law school is a lack of square footage in the real estate rodeo. But that’s probably a good thing, because adding a twelfth law school would be more than a little ridiculous. [Daytona Beach News-Journal]
* Samsung’s trying to get out of paying $1.05B to Apple, and their lawyers are trying to pin knowledge of the jury foreman’s misrepresentations on their technological nemesis to get the verdict thrown out. [Bloomberg]
* Shakira’s hips don’t lie, but her contracts allegedly do. The sexy singer’s ex-business partner (who’s also her ex-boyfriend) is suing her for $100M to “recover his share of past and future partnership profits.” [Billboard]
So you think you’re pretty funny? If you have an excellent sense of humor that you feel is going unappreciated within the stuffy legal profession, you should apply to work for us here at ATL.
But there are other avenues that comedically inclined counselors can explore. For example, you can ditch your Biglaw job to try and make it as a comedian.
Check out the latest installment of the Career Alternatives video series being produced by our friends at Bloomberg Law. It features a prominent comedian, one you may recognize from his many television appearances, who in a prior life worked as a lawyer….
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Comedian”
Natalie Khawam and Jill Kelley
Yeah yeah yeah, we know, we’re not supposed to be making a federal case out of an affair. But this one’s just so juicy that we couldn’t resist.
On the one side, we’ve got national security analyst, author, and side piece Paula Broadwell sending harassing emails to social liaison and “honorary consul general” Jill Kelley, telling the party planner to butt out of her relationship with former CIA Director David Petraeus. On the other side, we’ve got Jill Kelley exchanging hundreds of “flirtatious” emails with General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
And stuck in the middle of this gigantic hot mess (aka the Petraeus Pentagon) is Jill Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie Khawam, who just so happens to be a lawyer — a lawyer who’s been characterized by a judge as “psychologically unstable.”
How can this possibly get any better? It’s like we’re watching a new Real Housewives series play out in real life. Attractive women (and twins!), sex, scandal… the only thing that’s missing is money.
Well, we know how our readers love money, so we’ve got the dirt on Ms. Khawam’s cash (or lack thereof)….
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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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:
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