* One of the reasons that members of Congress are so filthy rich is because they’re only technically breaking the law, but Scott Brown wants to try to curb Congressional “insider trading.” [CBS News]
* In other Congressional news, pizza is now considered a vegetable. And fat people the world over rejoiced by stuffing their faces and continuing to clog their arteries. But not me, because goddamn do I hate pizza. [MSNBC]
* MMA fighters sue, saying the ban on fighting in the state of New York is unconstitutional. If beating someone’s face in is an art form, then Anderson Silva is this generation’s Picasso. [New York Daily News]
Find out whose face the Spider should beat next, after the jump….
* People seriously need to stop complaining about alternative careers for attorneys. Having a JD can lead to a fulfilling career outside of the law, assuming you can make partner at Cravath first. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Due to a decline in filing fees on the killing of the American dream, the Florida court system had to take out a $45.6M loan. It’s kind of like they have their own unpayable mortgage now. Gotta love karma. [Miami Herald]
* The ABA Journal really wants to know how hard it is for recent law school graduates to find a job. Maybe if we flood them with responses, the ABA will give a sh*t. Ugh, I’m way too optimistic. [ABA Journal]
* If you’re willing to move to Iowa, here’s a niche practice alert for you: stripper law. Who thought that you could find work in limiting boob exposure? And why would you want to? [Des Moines Register]
* We all know Michael Jackson was bad, but was he bad enough to drink his propofol straight up? Conrad Murray’s defense team may have changed its tune. [CNN]
* Did a judge seriously think he could arraign someone with close ties to the Wu? He’s lucky True Master didn’t let the killa bees out on his ass. [DNAinfo]
* Elsewhere in Yale Law School news, congrats to YLS student Vanessa Selbst, who successfully defended her title at the North American Poker Tour championship at Mohegan Sun. How much did she win this year? [Law Shucks]
* Selbst won her money in person — which is lucky, because the feds just brought the hammer down on online poker. [New York Times]
* Speaking of money, here are some ideas for how to spend your spring bonus money. [Vault]
* There are too many wives conflicting judicial authorities in this litigation involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. [Salt Lake Tribune]
* Some tips for young lawyers looking to get active online. [An Associate's Mind]
* Instead of adopting humane practices, Iowa farmers and ranchers would rather cover up the way they kill animals and slaughter the First Amendment while they’re at it. [Legal Planet]
* When extreme pro-life views turn monstrous, they reduce women to mere vessels, who exist only as incubators. Check out this Indiana woman who is being charged with murder for attempting to kill herself while pregnant. [Feministe]
* Okay, we’ve extracted our pound of flesh from Professor Stephen Bainbridge. Can we please move on now? [The Daily Bruin]
* Justice Kennedy on the “quiet revolution” wrought by information technology with respect to coverage of the Supreme Court. [Josh Blackman]
* Don’t forget: the deadline for the ATL Law Revue Contest is this SUNDAY, APRIL 17, at 11:59 PM (Eastern time). [Above the Law]
Who says the Midwest is more laid back than the coasts? Who says Midwesterners are more polite than people who live in big cities? Who says working in a place like Iowa affords a higher quality of life and a better work/life balance than working in a place like Chicago?
Not United States District Court Judge Mark Bennett. No sir.
We’ve written about Judge Bennett before. He’s a funny guy. The last time we saw him, he was expressing his personal bias against “East Coast law firms,” in part because he think big city lawyers possess “unsurpassed arrogance.”
But Judge Bennett might be selling himself short. I don’t think the average East Coast lawyer’s arrogance even approaches what His Honor rolls with…
* You know, I think the National Organization for Women should just try to pretend that Hooters doesn’t exist. The restaurant is just going to piss them off; who needs the aggravation? [ABA Journal]
* If you trust legal advice you receive over Twitter, you’ve already lost. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Apparently, Iowa lawmakers see no use in having three independent branches of government. [WSJ Law Blog]
All things considered, I’m feeling pretty good this morning. It’s a lot easier to tear something down than to build something up. For over a year, the Tea Party has been like the developmentally disabled kid in kindergarten whose main talent is knocking over other people’s Lego creations. Now that they’ve got their own house of government, we’ll get to see what they can actually build. Seriously, let’s see them govern. Let’s see the actual legislation they pass. Yesterday was a loss for progressives, but it was also a loss for moderate Republicans. Obama can now continue to ignore his left, the TBD Republican nominee will be pulled to his or her right. Let’s see how that works out for the GOP in 2012.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Christine O’Donnell, I know the difference between winning and losing. If you hate gay people and pot why do you live in California? I feel like Justice Anthony Kennedy went to Wisconsin and personally executed Russ Feingold. But at the end of the day, I live in New York. Cuomo, Schumer, Gillibrand, new A.G. Eric Schneiderman, I mean if Boehner and friends get too annoying we could always secede.
There’s only one result from last night that seems totally idiotic. The good people of Iowa ousted all three of the judges targeted by out-of-state, anti-gay groups. Way to go Iowa, nice of you to let your random dislike of gay love to motivate you all the way to the polls…
Dear God, please allow the IRS to attack my church, so I can take them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
– Iowa pastor Cary K. Gordon, who is campaigning against three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted for same-sex marriage, even though tax-exempt churches are prohibited from campaigning for or against specific political candidates.
We know how our readers are obsessed with toilets. Over the course of this week, a couple of stories came in about bathroom shenanigans, and we’ll deal with them both here. We’ve got a steamy bathroom (or maybe not, see correction below) and a stinky bathroom from Iowa and UCLA Law, respectively.
First up, Iowa. Land of same-sex marriage and judges getting kicked around because of same-sex marriage. With everybody hot and bothered over gay love in the corn state, you’d think there wasn’t any good, clean, traditional-values sex happening in Iowa. Well the Des Moines Register tells us that Iowa is still safe for heterosexual couples:
A Waterloo lawyer who allegedly had sex with a client in the law library of the Black Hawk County Courthouse faces a possible suspension of his license.
The Iowa Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Board alleges that Clovis M. Bowles had sexual relations with one of his female clients on several occasions in 2007 and 2008.
Clearly, if we let the “gay agenda” have its way and ruin the traditional definition of marriage, this kind of grotty, bathroom hetrosex will be a thing of the past. And that’ll make Jesus angry…
When I worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I’d sometimes hear colleagues joke about handing over their Justice Department credentials along with their driver’s license if pulled over for a moving violation. It was a joke because it was generally understood that trying to get out of a speeding ticket by flaunting one’s status as law enforcement was a bad idea (setting aside the ethical issues). The police officer might give you a free pass, or he might get ticked off at your attempt to take advantage of your position. You could end up with a scandal on your hands — the kind of scandal that could derail career ambitions.
This is a lesson that Iowa attorney Lisa Jones-Hall learned the hard way. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports:
A woman on track to become a Linn County prosecutor lost that chance after police pulled her over in Marion last month for having tinted windows. New dash cam video police released today shows Lisa Jones-Hall called the officer names and tried to use her new job to get out of the ticket. The officer asked Jones-Hall to sign a ticket because he said her windows were illegally tinted. But, she initially refused to sign it, called the officer names and then brought up the job she was supposed to start the following week.
“Ok. I want you to arrest me for having tinted windows. I start with the Linn County Prosecutor’s Office next Tuesday. I want you to arrest me for not signing this,” Jones-Hall told the officer.
After hearing about this incident, the Linn County Prosecutor’s Office decided not to hire Jones-Hall.
Ouch. Jones-Hall should have read our earlier post about how lawyers should handle traffic stops (which also involved the offense of overly tinted windows).
The police video is actually quite mortifying — the article doesn’t do it justice….
But Judge Bennett is making waves of his own in his Iowa courtroom. He’s decided that he wants lawyers to participate in an auction to determine who will get to serve as lead counsel in some consolidated antitrust cases.
And he informed lawyers of this with a curious email. The subject line alone is not something one expects from a federal judge:
Waterman v. VS Holding Co. et al (10cv4038) – consolidated antitrust actions – “going once, twice, sold to the lowest bidder” – ready to rumble?
Not only is this judge “ready to rumble,” he’s also ready to insult lawyers from East Coast law firms…
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: [email protected].
Since late last year, things have been booming in Hong Kong / China in cap markets, especially Hong Kong IPOs. M&A deal flow has recently been getting a bit stronger as well. Although one can’t predict such things with any certainty, all signs are pointing to a banner entire 2014 for the top end US corporate and cap markets practices in Hong Kong / China. This is not really new news, as its been the feeling most in the market have had for a few months now and things continue to look good.
The head of our Asia practice, Evan Jowers, has been in Hong Kong for about 10 days a month (with trips every other month to both Shanghai and Bejing) for the past 7 months, and spending most of his time there meeting with senior US hiring partners at just about all the major US and UK firms there, as well as prospective candidates at all associate levels and partner levels, and when in the US, Evan works Asia hours and is regularly on the phone with such persons, as our the other members of our Asia team. Our Yuliya Vinokurova is in Hong Kong every other month and Robert is there about 5 times a year as well. While we have a solid Asia team of recruiters, Evan Jowers will spend at least some time with all of our candidates for Asia position. We have had long standing relationships, and good friendships in some cases, with hiring partners and other senior US partners in Asia for 8 years now.
The evolution of relationships between the genders continues. Currently, in law firms, there is an interesting conundrum; balancing the desire for a gender-blind workplace where “the best lawyer gets the work and advances” and the reality of navigating the complicated maze created by the fact that, in general, men and women do possess differences in their work styles. These variations impact who they work with, how they work, how they build professional connections and how organizations ultimately leverage, reward and recognize the talents of all.
Henry Ford sat on his workbench and sighed. A year earlier, he had personally built 13,000 Model Ts with his own hands. Fashioning lugnuts and tie rods by hand, Ford was loath to ask for help. Sure, there were things about the car that he didn’t quite understand. This explains the lack of reliable navigation systems in the Model T. But Ford persevered because he knew that unless he did everything, he could not reliably call these cars his own.
“Unless my own personal toil is responsible for it, it may as well be called a Hyundai,” Ford remarked at the time.
The preceding may sound unfamiliar because it is categorically untrue. And also monumentally stupid. Henry Ford didn’t build all those cars by hand. He had help and plenty of it. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, Henry Ford opened up the most technologically advanced assembly line the world had ever seen. Built on the premise that work can be chopped up into digestible pieces and completed by many men better than one, the line ushered in an age of unparalleled productivity.
Today, an attorney refers business because he can’t do everything the client asks of him.
There are three reasons why this is way dumber than a made-up Henry Ford story…
* One of the reasons that members of Congress are so filthy rich is because they’re only technically breaking the law, but Scott Brown wants to try to curb Congressional “insider trading.” [CBS News]
