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Morning Docket: 01.25.12

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SLU Law's Raven Akram

* Time for a Biglaw battle: William Baer of Arnold & Porter is the front runner to take over the DOJ’s antitrust division, but could he lose the spot to one of O’Melveny’s finest, Richard Parker? [Blog of Legal Times]

* It’s about time people remembered there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, but in case you forgot, Google is here to remind you. Say hello to the company’s latest plan for internet domination. [Washington Post]

* Welcome to New Jersey, a lovely place where Governor Chris Christie thinks that gay people are qualified to be state supreme court justices, but completely unqualified for marriage. [Businessweek]

* Indiana Tech is breaking ground on the law school nobody wants, and St. Louis University is moving the law school everyone hopes will attract more NFL cheerleaders. [National Law Journal; St. Louis Business Journal]

* Pamela Anderson has settled a lawsuit over her alleged failure to promote the sale of condominiums. Because people would totally buy a condo after a pair of boobs told them to do it. [Winnipeg Free Press]

* Two men from West Virginia claim that they were sexually assaulted by Andy Dick in a nightclub. The long and short of this lawsuit: Andy Dick has been accused of allegedly acting like Andy Dick. [Toronto Sun]

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Should We Let the Internet Make Laws?

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SOPA is getting pwned. Yesterday, all the uber players with their epic gear hopped on Vent and raided the SOPA base, and now the newbie Congress people who sponsored the law are running scared. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act have “renounced” their law. The New York Times reports that Senators and Congresspeople are abandoning this thing like it was a campaign promise.

Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, all of the big internet corporations flexed their muscles — and oh, by the way, this is what it looks like when corporations use speech for speech, as opposed to pretending that anonymous corporate campaign contributions magically count as speech.

In the wake of this victory, here’s a question: Is this what we want? Yesterday, the internet used its power for good (though I fear the movie industry will strike back by making you watch full-length Kevin James movies before you can download the next Batman preview). But what if in the future “the internet” wants something bad, something that is more than the mere protection of freedom?

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Morning Docket: 01.18.12

By

Laura Kaeppeler

* The Fourth Circuit denied Rick Perry’s Virginia election law appeal in about four seconds flat. Not like it matters. He’s probably going to be out of the race come Saturday. [Washington Wire / Wall Street Journal]

* Women are having trouble making equity partner in Biglaw firms, and not because of the glass ceiling or other imposed barriers. No, apparently women are just making bad choices. [Chicago Tribune]

* Laura Kaeppeler, the new Miss America, plans to use her $50K pageant scholarship to go to law school. Well, at least one year of law school, since that’s all she’ll be able to afford with so little cash. [WHBL]

* Her Royal Hotness, Pippa Middleton, has hired Harbottle & Lewis to stop harassment from the paparazzi. As long as they allow more pictures of her ass, we won’t have a problem. [Daily Mail]

* Lindsay Lohan got a glowing report at her latest probation progress hearing from a pleased Judge Sautner. Maybe LiLo really did give the judge a signed copy of her Playboy spread. [CNN]

* End piracy, not liberty. Do you like the Internet the way it is? Got something to say about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act? Sign this petition and make your voice heard. [Google]

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SOPA Protests Will Make Tomorrow Super Boring

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Hey! Who turned out the lights?

Tomorrow is going to be the most boring day in the recent history of the Internet. For 24 hours — on January 18 — several high-profile websites will go dark, to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act.

No one will be able to research potentially fake facts about their favorite celebrities, discover the newest nerdy memes, or upload photos to social media sites.

It’s true, the frightfully unpopular bill is losing legislative steam, but the Internet’s collective rage is still hot, hot, hot.

So who’s shutting down tomorrow?

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.11.12

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* Being 15 minutes early to crucial meetings is not all that it’s cracked up to be. [The Ying-a-Ling]

* Law school fiction: possible comic gold, possible Shakespearean tragedy. Check out excerpts from Cameron Stracher’s work in progress. [The Socratic Method]

* The key for women getting ahead in 2012: working for companies that don’t discriminate against women. I mean, it’s underwhelming advice, but voting with their feet is a big thing women can do to improve gender equality in the legal marketplace. [The Glass Hammer]

* It’s a point worth emphasizing: working a full-time job while in law school and doing well at said law school are basically incompatible goals. At least in this day and age. Maybe law school was easier for the Boomers because there was less competition (from, I don’t know, women and minorities). [Constitutional Daily]

* Note that this decision in support of federalism, the subject of a new article by Professor Ilya Somin, came from a unanimous Supreme Court. It’d be nice if Republicans could remember that this election season, instead of calling every progressive a devotee of centralized authority. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* Is anybody still using Google Plus? Any lawyers? Bueller? Frye? [Legal Blog Watch]

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The Practice: The Definitive (All You Need To Know) Guide (This Is It) To Social Media For Lawyers

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Sorry to disappoint the snake-oil salesmen, but in this small post I will buck the trend, and debunk the fallacy of non-practicing lawyers who write books about social media for lawyers. Here, today my friends, I will tell you everything you need to know about the complicated and scary topic of: how to talk to people on the internet like a normal person.

Facebook

If you think Facebook is code for “high school,” you’re correct. But if you live in the same town you went to high school, why not connect with your loser friends who have some mid-level job? They need lawyers. Yes, as part of reconnecting with your past you’ll experience the joy of seeing that girl you wanted to date has moved to some small crap town and married Jim, who’s prematurely bald but “an awesome husband,” but so what?

Do not post every single picture you take of your kids, dogs, in-laws with your kids, kids with your dogs, the 189 pictures of your vacation, or “fake” complain about the first class service on some airline. You’re practicing law, not creating a family scrapbook.

Do not have a Facebook fan page for your law firm. No one should ever be a fan of a law firm. You are not a “rock star” and even if you were, rock stars do not ask people to be their fans. It just happens with good music. Asking people to be your “fan” may also violate your state bar ethics rules, if that kind of nuisance interests you — you know, ethics rules….

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New Piracy Bill Could Lead to National Censorship Nightmare

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As we mentioned in yesterday’s Non-Sequiturs, congressional hearings for the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act began yesterday. People are really not happy about the bill.

Google’s CEO called SOPA, as the bill is known for short, “draconian.”

Time’s Techland blog ran the headline this morning, “SOPA Won’t Stop Online Piracy, Would Censor Everyone Else.”

What is going on here, and why is everyone freaking out? Let’s find out….

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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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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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One Law School’s Guerrilla Advertising Campaign Makes It Look Kinda Silly

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Fun and games with Google Earth.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are all sorts of restrictions on what lawyers can do to advertise to the general public. Law schools have no such concerns. They can say pretty much whatever they want, wherever they want — and when they get sued for their alleged misrepresentations, they can just kick blame to the American Bar Association.

Maybe law schools have this whole game rigged, and there’s nothing we can really do about it.

Except laugh. For instance, it’s pretty funny how Thomas M. Cooley Law School will pop up on your Google Earth search results for things that are definitely not Cooley Law School….

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