Jail

If only all racists were dealt with this swiftly.

Don't take that first plea, especially on a misdemeanor. The stigma it carries will get you rejected from jobs, loans, licensing, and even housing.

Columnist Tamara Tabo examines the case of Sandra Bland, the young woman who died in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas.

* Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, most recently of Dickstein Shapiro, finally found a lawyer to represent him in his sex scandal cover-up. His new lawyer may not be “the brightest guy in the world,” but he does do white-collar defense at Sidley Austin, so there you go. [National Law Journal]

* Oopsie! A Tennessee lawyer is currently being held on $15 million bail because he allegedly solicited an undercover police officer to kill his estranged wife. He even gave the guy a “down payment for the murder.” We wonder how much he thought his spouse was worth dead. [Nashville Sun Times]

* In times like these, you’re going to need a great network in order to get a job after law school, and some schools are superior to others in that department. Check and see if your alma mater made the grade on this ranking. [Business Insider via GraduatePrograms.com]

* Concordia Law just received the gift that keeps on giving from the ABA — provisional accreditation. The news came just in time for its nine remaining third-year students to graduate and take the bar exam (everyone else transferred out). [Idaho Statesman]

* Kalief Browder, a man used as an example of our broken justice system, was sent to Riker’s Island when he was 16 years old. He never had a trial, and was never convicted, but still spent three years in jail. He recently committed suicide. RIP. [New York Times]

Should Chris Brown be given yet another chance?

What happened in his underlying case?

* “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.” Thanks Obama, but AG Eric Holder was the one who kind of signed off on the James Rosen search warrant. [Open Channel / NBC News]

* The chief judge of the D.C. Circuit apologized for a lack of transparency in the James Rosen probe, and this is one of the least embarrassing things that happened this week. [Washington Post]

* Despite having “done nothing wrong,” embattled tax official Lois Lerner announced she’s been placed on administrative leave in light of recent events. I salute you, fellow WNE grad. [National Review]

* Watch out, patent trolls, because this proposed bill might actually be — gasp! — helpful. If enacted, the Patent Abuse Reduction Act’s goal is to help keep discovery costs down. [Hillicon Valley / The Hill]

* It’s a hell of a drug: for some lawyers, the sequester won’t be such a bad thing after all, because Coast Guard and Navy forces won’t be available to intercept 38 tons of cocaine. [Breaking Defense]

* Proskauer Rose’s ex-CFO, Elly Rosenthal, has cut down her $10 million suit against the firm to just one allegation. She claims the firm fired her solely for her diagnosis of breast cancer. [Am Law Daily]

* A third perpetrator emerged in the Berkeley bird beheading case, and he was just sentenced to two days in jail. Can you listen to BARBRI in a jail cell? I guess he’ll find out. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* The Boy Scouts of America will now admit openly gay youths into their ranks for the first time in the history of ever. You should probably “be prepared” for a flurry of litigation over this. [New York Times]

* A mistrial was declared in the penalty phase of the Jodi Arias murder trial. Ugh, come on with this, the Lifetime movie is already in post-production! How on earth are they going to work this in? [CNN]

San Diego accidentally detains a lawyer for hours. He's a little miffed.

* Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the fairest firm of them all? According to the 2012 Acritas Brand Index survey, the current leader of the Global 100 is the most powerful Biglaw brand for the fifth year in a row. [American Lawyer]

* But that might not last for long, considering the dilemma Baker & McKenzie is facing when it comes to joining the Shanghai Bar Association in China. The firm is one of the first to indicate that it’ll take the plunge. [Wall Street Journal]

* Thanks to the Second Circuit, Rajat Gupta will be a free man on bail pending the appeal of his insider trading conviction. We wonder what Benula Bensam would have to say about this new twist. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Jason Smiekel, the lawyer who pleaded guilty in a murder-for-hire plot involving a former client, was sentenced to eight and a half years in federal prison. The things men will do for HHHBs. [Chicago Tribune]

* Student loan payments: coming to a paycheck deduction near you! Congress is considering an overhaul of the country’s student debt collection practices, and Rep. Tom Petri has some interesting ideas. [Bloomberg]

* The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is the latest school to hop aboard the solo practice incubator train, but graduates will have to rent their office space from the school. Nice. /sarcasm [National Law Journal]

* “We didn’t file this complaint lightly.” Sorry, Judge Norman, but as it turns out, you can’t just sentence a teenager to attend church for 10 years as a condition of parole without pissing off the ACLU. [Tulsa World]

* When your alterations cost more than your wedding gown, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll have some problems — ones worth suing over, if you’re a true bridezilla (like moi). [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

How does doing time in Biglaw compare to life behind bars? There are more similarities than you might think.

Who won August's Lawyer of the Month competition? Let's find out!

A New Jersey attorney has been accused of trying to extort her married ex-lover -- another attorney. What a hot mess...

Why bother with client service when you can get your clients to service you?

* It’s not just media groups that are urging the Supreme Court to allow live coverage of the announcement of the ACA decision. Senators Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee have joined the club. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Dewey know whether this failed firm’s former partners will be settling their claims any time soon? Team Togut hopes to reach a deal in the next six weeks, and claims that cooperation will absolve D&L’s deserters of all future liability. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* From Biglaw to the big house: former Sullivan & Cromwell partner John O’Brien, who is serving time for tax evasion charges, has been suspended from practicing law in New York. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* A Stradling Yocca partner and his wife, a Boalt Hall graduate, stand accused of planting drugs on a school volunteer who supervised their son. Looks like the only thing they’re straddling now is jail time. [OC Register]

* Dharun Ravi was released early from jail yesterday after completing a little more than half of his 30-day sentence. Funny how bad behavior got him into the slammer, but good behavior got him out of it. [CNN]

* “Why would somebody so smart do something so stupid?” Kenneth Kratz, the sexting DA from Wisconsin, claims that the answer to that question is an addiction to sex and prescription drugs. [Herald Times Reporter]

* Jay-Z’s got 99 problems and this bitch is one. He’s been accused by Patrick White of plagiarizing parts of his own best-selling memoir, “Decoded,” and slapped with a copyright infringement suit. [New York Daily News]

* Dewey have any cash to pay the people helping to wind down our firm’s business? Nope! Even though JPMorgan backed D&L’s $8.6M motion to fund the firm’s ongoing operations, Judge Glenn insisted that the bank “[r]oll [its] truck up and start collecting accounts receivable.” [Am Law Daily (reg. req.)]

* “Don’t tase my baby, bro!” SCOTUS has declined to review a case where the Ninth Circuit ruled that the use of a Taser on a seven-month pregnant woman constituted excessive force. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* “The jury has sent a note that they’ve reached… [dramatic pause] … a good stopping point.” Judicial humor lightened the mood after the seventh day of deliberations without a verdict in the John Edwards trial. [ABC News]

* Dharun Ravi finally issued an apology for his “stupid and childish” behavior, and he’ll be heading off to serve his 30-day jail sentence on Thursday. And you know, that jail sentence is joke enough for this blurb. [CNN]

* “Dumb Blonde” isn’t a name that Elizabeth Warren takes too kindly to being called. She much prefers the name that her Native American ancestors bestowed upon her: “Running Joke.” [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Four of the alleged victims in the Jerry Sandusky case have asked the court to protect their identities. It’s kind of like the Michael Jackson case, but everyone cares more because this one involves football. [Bloomberg]

* Hundreds of lawyers, notaries, and other legal professionals took to the streets in Montreal earlier this week to publicly protest Bill 78, a law that limits public protests. That’s so meta, eh Canadians? [Montreal Gazette]

* Stab your lawyer with a pencil once, shame on you. Stab him a second time, shame on me. Stab him a third time, they will strap you to your chair with a “stun cuff” so it doesn’t happen a fourth time. [Legal Blog Watch] * (Crack) cocaine is a hell of a drug. [Legal Juice] * A first-person account of why you don’t ever, ever want to end up in central booking. [The Crown] * Telling opposing counsel you hope she “sleep[s] with the fishes” is mean and inappropriate. But on top of that, what the heck do you even stand to gain from saying that sort of thing? [Minneapolis StarTribune] * If you want to complain about racial profiling at airports, there’s an app for that! [Prawfsblawg] * To catch (an alleged) law school predator. Icky. [Delaware Online] * Seriously? This “Is it Kanye or the LSAT?” quiz is surprisingly tricky. [LSAT Blog]

* Is the Roberts court really as pro-First Amendment as we’ve been led to believe? Lawyers aren’t really that good at math, but they’ve done studies, you know. And 34.5% of the time, it works every time. [New York Times] * The people at the ABA aren’t concerned that William Robinson’s remarks made him seem […]

* Time to separate the men from the boys (but don’t tell Sandusky). An accuser has hired Jeff Anderson of clergy sex abuse fame, and he wants damages. [Wall Street Journal] * RajRaj is trying to stay out of jail. He thinks he’s got a shot at getting his Galleon convictions vacated, but he’s probably […]

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 400 new jobs were added to the legal industry last month. Talk about progress. That’s like a fraction of a job for every successful bar exam taker. [Am Law Daily] * Biglaw firms in Washington, D.C. are racing to get more green. Sadly, we’re not talking about […]

It’s official: Lindsay Lohan is heading back to the slammer. She admitted to her probation violations yesterday, and waived her right to a formal hearing. Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced LiLo to 30 days in the county lockup, but as we all know, for washed-out movie stars in California, that means she’ll be spending about a […]