You wouldn’t think a Nobel Peace Prize winner would rile up a vocal minority, but you’d be wrong. Tomorrow, the Journal of Conflict Resolution at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law plans to honor former President Jimmy Carter with the International Advocate for Peace Award.
That seems fair, since the Nobel committee already decided he’s got the peace-y bona fides. And it’s not like they just give that award to people who blow up countries or launch drone wars or anything.
But some people are just not happy about it and they’ve taken their (largely anonymous) complaints to the Interwebs, and they found their way into the ATL inbox. I guess the Simpsons warned us that he was “history’s greatest monster.”
It’s already tomorrow somewhere, and things seem okay.
* I’m happy to have spent this last day on Earth with you. And with professors Paul Campos and Brian Tamanaha telling you how law school is a raw deal. [HuffPost Live]
* Meanwhile, Seton Hall will be offering a tuition “discount” to students based on merit. Which is really just what a lot of law schools have been doing to try to fill seats as people become more aware of the problems with legal education. [National Law Journal]
* I didn’t know there were freaking idiots out there who thought that Israel had more lax gun laws than we do. But they don’t. Because Israelis like being safe. [Huffington Post]
* And if you think more lax gun laws in Russia would make the murder rate there go down, you are probably the kind of dumbass who thinks you can look into Putin’s eyes and see his soul. [Atlantic]
* So when former U.S. Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton admits to it, it’s called “prostitution,” but when we’re doing essentially the same story about Ryan Lochte in 10 years, we’re going to call it “sex addiction” or something. [Chicago Tribune]
* What happens if a Supreme Court clerk violates the Code of Conduct and leaks information to the press at the behest of a justice? At worst, he’d probably be forced to wash dirty socks from the SCOTUS morning exercise class. [National Law Journal]
* “[T]he great expectations when he was elected have not come to fruition.” Making judicial nominations wasn’t a high political priority, so President Barack Obama will be ending his term with just 125 lower-court appointments in the federal judiciary. [New York Times]
* If there’s anything that Paul Ryan’s good at, it’s soliciting money from lawyers and Biglaw firms. Alston & Bird tops the list of legal campaign contributors, with Patton Boggs in a close second. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]
* Apparently the female reproduction system shuts down to prevent conception upon rape. This improbable tidbit from a man who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. [Wall Street Journal]
* But a great way to take some of the heat off of the “legitimate rape” dude is to break news about another Congressman’s nude swim in the Sea of Galilee while in Israel. Excellent work on this distraction. [POLITICO]
* What crisis? Despite a steep decline in applicants, the average law school’s tuition will climb by more than double the rate of inflation this fall. It’s really heartwarming how they put students first. [National Law Journal]
* Customs agents in Los Angeles seized 20,457 pairs of faux Christian Louboutins that would’ve been worth approximately $18M. For this heinous crime of fashion, the offending shoes will undergo a trial by fire. [CNN]
* Karma sure is a Blitsch. Matthew Couloute, the alleged lawyerly Lothario who got slammed by his exes on LiarsCheatersRUs.com, is now being slammed by someone else: his soon-to-be ex-wife. [New York Post]
* Beauty school dropout, no pube hair trimming days for you! Seventeen female plaintiffs have alleged that a cosmetology instructor subjected them to less-than-sanitary lessons in a federal suit. [New York Daily News]
* Ira Schacter’s lawyer on his client’s propensity to give out rings worth more than $200K: “He’s just a generous guy.” No, he’s just a Biglaw partner. [The Careerist]
* From Russia Israel with Love: Emory Law student Ilan Grapel has been released from Egypt and will be arriving back in the U.S. today. Welcome home! [New York Times]
* A guy was convicted of selling black market kidneys? I thought that only happened in urban legends, but apparently it happens in good old Jersey. [Bloomberg]
* Next time you want to hold porn auditions at your house, make sure you have the girls sign all of the necessary release forms before you drug and assault them. [Miami Herald]
* How dare you prevent Vince Young from making it rain and then sue him over it! When a man asks you to give him $8,000 in one dollar bills at a strip club, you do it. [New York Post]
* Cloudy with a chance of dismissal for Steve Sunshine, Sprint’s Skaddenite. During oral argument, a judge reminded him that antitrust law didn’t exist to protect competitors. [Wall Street Journal]
* Israel trades prisoners like Pokémon cards. Pending approval from the country’s security cabinet, Emory Law student Ilan Grapel will be swapped for 25 Egyptian prisoners. [Los Angeles Times]
* Premeditation? Sam Friedlander, the solo practitioner who massacred his family, bought a shotgun after getting the short end of the stick in a custody arrangement. [Journal News]
* Do drug tests constitute unreasonable searches and seizures? Maybe not, but thanks to a temporary injunction, welfare recipients in Florida will live to toke another day. [Washington Post]
Here at Above the Law, we know that thanks to the powers of the internet, you can buy and sell just about anything on eBay, including stuff that may be relevant to your life in the law. We’re talking about things like:
* You know you’re screwed when law school folks are coming after you. A University of Hawaii Law dean has jumped aboard the “sue Facebook for wiretapping” bandwagon. [The Republic]
* Walk like an Egyptian? Emory Law student, Ilan Grapel — who was detained by Egypt on espionage charges — may soon be released in an exchange with Israel. [NBC New York]
* Lindsay Lohan’s probation was revoked, and she’s facing up to a year in jail. Judge Sautner doesn’t like her, so here’s hoping that LiLo’s single and ready to mingle. [New York Daily News]
* Heather Mills is being sued by her hairdresser over $80K in unpaid bills. After getting $50M in her divorce, she can’t cry poverty — she wouldn’t have a leg left to stand on. [Daily Mail]
* Being sexy and using kinky props for a song entitled “S&M” aren’t options anymore, because David LaChapelle has settled his copyright suit against Rihanna. [Rolling Stone]
Who is the real spy? Ilan Grapel (left) or Austin Powers?
As we mentioned yesterday, a student at Emory Law School by the name of Ilan Chaim Grapel was arrested in Egypt on Sunday, and ordered held for 15 days. The Egyptians allege that Grapel is a “highly trained” spy, working for the state of Israel.
Ilan Grapel is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. And he did serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prior to law school, as a paratrooper (which sounds pretty awesome bad-ass).
But does that make Ilan Grapel a spy? Some observers, including classmates of Ilan’s from Emory Law, find the allegation highly dubious….
At this year’s Emory Law School commencement, Professor Sara Stadler urged graduates to think outside the box with respect to their career options: “You might not be able to land that [top-choice] job…. You might have to move to Nebraska.… You might have to join a small firm where they don’t make the big bucks.”
Or you might have to… become a spy in the Middle East? Emory law student Ilan Grapel has been detained in Egypt, by authorities who allege that he is a “highly trained” spy working for Israel.
* In the new economy, new strategies are necessary in hiring law firms. A new paradigm is upon us and we must think outside the box. Synergy, people. Consultants are here to help. [New York Times]
* On Tuesday, Paul Allen revised his patent suit against… well, pretty much the internets. Gotta pay the troll toll. [Reuters]
* U.S. prosecutors arrested a California woman yesterday on insider trading charges. Immediately after the charges were filed, Michael Douglas’s ex-wife sued the woman for royalties. [CNET]
* A Los Angeles law firm, Glancy Binkow & Goldberg, is being sued for maintaining a hostile work environment and being generally pervy. The article raises several important questions. None more important than this: What the hell is a bikini bar? [Los Angeles Times]
* A primer on Bill Richardson’s possible pardon of Billy the Kid. Emilio Estevez hasn’t been this stoked since the Men at Work premiere party. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Vernon, a small town in California, has hired Latham & Watkins in an effort to save its status as a city. Pretty fascinating read. [Los Angeles Times]
* A former Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, was convicted of rape. [Bloomberg]
* And finally, what about Brett Farv…ra? Out $50,000. And he may face future litigation over those harmless Croc shots. [New York Daily News]
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.
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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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.
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
You wouldn’t think a Nobel Peace Prize winner would rile up a vocal minority, but you’d be wrong. Tomorrow, the Journal of Conflict Resolution at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law plans to honor former President Jimmy Carter with the International Advocate for Peace Award.
