A while back, we wrote an article about Cody Wilson, the University of Texas law student on a quest to use the new technology of 3D printing to design assault weapons that can be constructed in the comfort of your own home, evading normal regulations.
Wilson has made major inroads since that article, as revealed in a short new documentary featuring his design project, his interaction with federal authorities, and a demonstration of his homemade, printed AR-15…
* If you’re looking for an easy résumé line, then consider joining the Supreme Court bar, an elite organization that doesn’t check to see if its members are still alive. All you need is three years of practice, two signatures, and $200. [Associated Press]
* Stanley Chesley, the master of disaster himself, was disbarred for his “shocking and reprehensible” conduct in a fen-phen case. His wife, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott of the Southern District of Ohio, must be oh so pleased. [Courier-Journal]
* Howrey like dem apples now? Some of Howrey’s former partners, including ex-chairman Robert Ryuak, all lined up to make deals to delay lawsuits from the firm’s bankruptcy trustee, Allan Diamond. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* This Biglaw firm’s future was just a little bit dimmer in 2012, with a 4.9 percent dip in profits per equity partner. This is unexpected from Milbank, a number 3 seed in our March Madness competition. [Am Law Daily]
* The NRA’s New York affiliate filed suit challenging the state’s new gun laws, claiming that a ban on assault weapons violates the Second Amendment — because this is clearly what the founders intended. [Reuters]
* Raj Rajaratnam’s younger brother, Rengan Rajaratnam, was indicted yesterday in a federal insider-trading scheme tied to the Galleon case. You can’t fault the guy, he was just trying to keep it in the family. [Bloomberg]
* Sorry, Dean Boland, but you’re not going anywhere. A judge denied the attorney’s request to withdraw from Paul Ceglia’s Facebook case. He must be wishing there were a dislike button now. [Law 360 (sub. req.)]
* I’ve got a feeling “Bart Simpson” isn’t going to get a fair trial from this judge. [Lowering the Bar]
* The Supreme Court strikes a blow for copyright sanity by telling publishers that they can’t go after people reselling books published overseas. Now the only incentives to move your publishing operation overseas are the cents per hour wages and the lax health and safety standards. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is… the same bad guy with a gun. [Legal Juice]
* Following up yesterday’s link to Professor Richard Epstein’s AMA, Ken White of Popehat exposed himself to the same onslaught. [Reddit]
* About 11 years too late, the NFL rescinded its ridiculous “Tuck Rule,” which was always hard to understand, but basically ruled that an otherwise obvious fumble allowed the player to ditch his actress baby momma and marry a Victoria’s Secret model. [USA Today]
* This guy is VERY specific about what gigs he’s willing to play. And he’s also, apparently, a registered sex offender. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]
* A former general counsel has settled a case with the SEC alleging a slew of backdated options. It was suspicious when all the options were backdated to October 30, 1929. [ABA Journal; The Recorder]
* “If Microsoft Shuts Down Google Maps In Germany, How Does That Benefit The Public?” Um, it makes it harder for them to find Poland! Duh. [TechDirt]
* Senator Ted Cruz is having a rough go of it in the Senate. He’s already been publicly ripped by fellow Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Then he raised the ire of Senator Diane Feinstein, who has exactly zero patience for his crap. [Jezebel]
* Based on the description, HLN is licking its chops. [Craigslist]
* Supreme Court bobbleheads! I’m particularly impressed by Justice Brandeis riding the railroad. [Justices For Sale]
* To get yourself wound up for March Madness, here’s a fictional lawyer bracket from Constitutional Daily. Jack McCoy didn’t even make the field so this won’t be a repeat of the Above the Law winner. [Constitutional Daily]
* Republican Senator Rob Portman announces his support for gay marriage after learning that his son is gay. Yay! Let’s all celebrate him for meeting the lowest threshold of human decency once he found a purely selfish reason to change. [ABC News]
* A Southern District of Florida clerk is named one of Southern Florida’s most eligible bachelors. Our bachelor “claims to be the other white meat” and to “have a lot in common with Christian Grey.” He doesn’t sound douchey at all. [Brickell Magazine (jump to page 91)]
* Comparing Chicago Law faculty to Game of Thrones characters produces surprisingly accurate results. [UChilawgo]
* With law schools raising tuition and the profession shrinking… more people need to rush to law school. Keep sipping that sweet, sweet Kool-Aid, buddy. [Daily Princetonian]
* GW Law’s Barrister’s Ball — $2500 fee for vomiting! [GW Law SBA]
* Watch Elie talk about Wayne LaPierre and guns. [HuffPost Live]
* University of Oregon Property professor doesn’t understand “property,” snatches student’s phone. Click through the jump to see more video of what happens when law professors and hippies clash! [Photography Is Not a Crime]
Earlier this week, Judge William Sylvester, the Colorado state judge presiding over the James Holmes trial, ruled that prosecutors are allowed to apply “truth serum” to Holmes if/when he decides to plead not guilty by way of insanity.
Holmes, you may remember, is the jackhole who allegedly (to the extent he has not yet entered his own plea) murdered 12 people and injured 58 others in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. He’s expected to cop an insanity plea, citing a bunch of troubling facts, including the fact that he was obsessed with the Joker, leading him to dye his hair orange, which, when you think about it, undermines his obsession claim since the Joker clearly has green hair.
But the decision to forcibly inject Holmes with so-called “truth serum” to test his insanity claims, not only sounds like a plot device from a really terrible Bond movie (let’s just assume Die Another Day), but it also seems like a genuinely terrible legal ruling….
* A full run-down of the suspension of a 7-year-old for brandishing a danish shaped like a gun. He was loaded for bear… claw. [Lowering the Bar, Part I; LTB, Part II]
* U.S. drones are helping out the French in Mali. Jeez, drones are getting used everywhere from here to Timbuktu. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Do you need to report to the SEC if your company gets hacked? Probably… if you don’t tell them about possible violations how would they ever know? [IT-Lex]
* Someone wants help finding a WordPress theme for their law firm. Totally Best Magazine, bro. That’s hawt. [Yahoo Answers]
* Just a reminder, Ms. JD’s Fellowship applications are due March 8. [Ms. JD]
* Our own Elie Mystal isn’t the only one who’s capable of fanning the flames of race baiting — it seems that Supreme Court justices can do it, too! We’ll probably have more on Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s benchslap later today. [The Two-Way / NPR]
* Patience is obviously one of this judge’s virtues, because this took a looooong time. After waiting more than a year for people to put their petty political pandering aside, the Senate confirmed Robert Bacharach to the Tenth Circuit. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Mary Jo White, the nominee to lead the SEC, will probably face her confirmation hearing in March. Her legal wranglings at Debevoise may be of interest to some, but really, who cares? She’s so cute and tiny! [Reuters]
* Mayer Brown and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year: gross revenue is up overall at most Biglaw firms, but not this one. In 2012, Mayer Brown’s revenue dipped 3.7 percent for a six-year low. [Am Law Daily]
* Kirkland & Ellis, now the fifth-largest Biglaw firm in the nation, is leading the market in terms of top dollar merger-and-acquisition deals. Now, if only the firm could get some bananas. [Crain's Chicago Business]
* Orderly liquidation authority may be a legitimate exercise of power under the Bankruptcy Clause, but as far as these states are concerned, it’s just another reason to hate the Dodd-Frank Act. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Remember Peggy Ableman, the judge who ordered lawyers to attend a course on remedial civility in their “jammies”? She’s now at McCarter & English, so mind your manners. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* An “astronomically stupid” legal loophole? Unpossible! Gun trusts are seeing the limelight because Chris Dorner claims he used one to purchase his paraphernalia without a background check. [New York Times]
I think I’m supposed to like this story: A man was walking along the street, enjoying a legal activity. He was stopped and harrassed by a police officer, and instead of giving in, he used his legal training to argue with the officer and defend his rights. Truly one of the best uses of a law degree is intellectually defending yourself “when they come for you” as it were.
Normally, I’m a fan of this kind of thing.
But the “legal” activity this guy was “enjoying” was walking around with a firearm. And his way of talking to the police officer sounded less like Atticus Finch and more like a punk bitch.
And I can’t shake the feeling that if this guy were black, if this was an African-American male strutting around with a firearm who then got mouthy with the police and refused to show ID, he be sitting in The Tombs right now.
For most, the irony of the Oscar Pistorius — the double-amputee Olympic runner nicknamed “Blade Runner” — alleged murder of his girlfriend is this now infamous Nike ad:
Yeah, it’s all fun and games until the potential of domestic violence rears its ugly head.
For lawyers, the irony is of Pistorius’s arrest is that he’s a famous client of the now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf. That’s a firm that knows a little something about a fall from grace. But in a world where sports icons seem to be competing to become the biggest disappointment, the story of Pistorius and his model/lawyer girlfriend seems to win the race to the bottom…
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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.
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A while back, we wrote an article about Cody Wilson, the University of Texas law student on a quest to use the new technology of 3D printing to design assault weapons that can be constructed in the comfort of your own home, evading normal regulations.
