Sock-Puppets are a scourge of our time. How annoying does a person have to be create a fake, online persona specifically for the purpose of touting their own real life views?
We usually think of the most annoying commenter creating a fake persona, or “sock puppet,” to promote their “real” online persona. Occasionally, oversensitive journalists or bloggers will create an internet identity for the express purpose of pimping their articles on social media.
But today we’ve got a law professor who just got busted for creating a fake online handle to promote his scholarship. That the law professor is also a rabbi who got busted by “The Jewish Channel” just heightens the embarrassment….
This week we’re pretending that it’s not January by looking back at some of the biggest legal weddings of late 2011. There was a lot of muy prestigioso lawyer matrimony in the last part of the year. Before we delve into the January crop of weddings, which — let’s face it — is often subpar, here are some from the fall that we haven’t featured yet.
This is not the case for Biglaw partnership (and hasn't been for quite some time).
As mentioned yesterday in Non-Sequiturs, the white-shoe law firm of Milbank Tweed, in a recent press release about its new partnership class, gave a special shout-out to Atara Miller. It identified Miller as “likely the only Orthodox Jewish woman partner at a major Wall Street firm” (emphasis in the original).
The release continued: “Milbank has four other Orthodox partners who cope with the same issues, but each of them has a wife to run the household and children, while Ms. Miller takes on those duties at home.”
A big shot in Biglaw, and a baleboste to boot — that’s nice, very nice. But is it accurate to assert that Miller is unique?
It woud be nice if the Senate could have actually given this guy a vote instead of forcing the present ugliness.
* The recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB could get tricky — not because Republicans are outraged by recess appointments (much like Democrats are outraged by obstructionist filibusters), but because Congress isn’t technically in recess, due to the sham sessions Congress has been running. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Milbank, if you’re going to brag about being the only major Wall Street firm to have an Orthodox Jewish woman as a partner, you better be telling the truth, you meshuganas. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* The ABA responded to the Duncan Law antitrust suit. Its basic response is that the ABA doesn’t arbitrarily keep bad schools out, it only arbitrarily lets bad schools in. [Law School Transparency]
* But Duncan probably isn’t just in it for the legal fight. The school wants to bring media attention to the ABA’s random oversight of legal education. [Law Librarian Blog]
* Does Obama need to endorse gay marriage before the election? Or does he just tell the gay community “Santorum” until they get on board? [The Root]
* Is it really that surprising that the unemployed are NOT on drugs? Aren’t Republicans the ones who are supposed to understand that in a market, desirable goods cost money? If you want to drug test a constituency, do a random raid at a white-shoe law firm, and don’t forget your chemistry set. [Huffington Post]
* It’s nice to ask permission before you appropriate somebody’s song as your campaign theme. [Fox News]
* Thanks to everybody who voted for us as their favorite legal blog for news in the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 poll. You’ve given us the strength to keep reporting on spring bonuses, even though they don’t technically exist yet. [ABA Journal]
Ever since his heavy-handed lawsuit against his wedding photographer made national news, litigious groomzilla Todd J. Remis has been the butt of many jokes. And he’s also been the subject of much speculation, to wit: What the heck was he thinking?
The lawsuit seems inane and insane (especially when you consider that Remis and his wife are no longer married). But there must be an explanation, right? Todd Remis — a graduate of Bowdoin College, and a former research analyst at several Wall Street firms — is clearly an intelligent man. And his father, Shepard M. Remis, is a litigation partner at Goodwin Procter. So it’s not as if the aggrieved groom lacked access to wise counsel.
A college friend of Todd Remis tries to shed some light on the situation….
Tonight at sundown, the members of the tribe are going to party like it’s 5772 because it’s Rosh Hashanah. For the rest of you, that means that we’ll be celebrating the Jewish New Year. If you’re still confused, you can check out this handy-dandy Jew FAQ.
Anyway, tomorrow Jews around the world will be celebrating the holiday with apples in dipped in honey, cheeks squeezed by bubbies, kugel and challah being eaten, and more motherly nagging than can possibly be described in words. Most of us won’t be at work, if only because in some states the courts will be closed in observance of the holiday.
That’s why we found it strange that one law firm in Florida was pretty much demanding that a deposition take place tomorrow. This is one of the handful of holidays that most Jews celebrate, and here comes this law firm trying to ruin it like we’re actually going observe one of the 500 other holidays we have.
It’s a good thing we have judges to tell these goyim to stick it in their shofar and blow it….
The phone’s been ringing off the hook here at the Circumcision Law Desk all weekend, so I apologize in advance if this post comes off sounding a bit distracted. Oftentimes, the intersection of foreskin and law is a lonely corridor filled with nothing but shattered dreams and crying babies.
Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article that did a pretty good job of illuminating where we are at in the pitched legal battle over circumcision. As mentioned at the end of the last dispatch from the Circumcision Law Desk, the forces of full-bodied penises have turned their attention to passing legislation that outlaws circumcision.
As Elie pointed out two weeks ago, San Franciscans will be voting this fall on whether to ban circumcision. And they’re not alone.
After the jump, find out what happens when people stop being polite and start trying to pass laws that outlaw circumcision and, in the process, piss off an entire religion (and blogger Andrew Sullivan)….
This is rich. The owner of the Washington Redskins, Dan Snyder, has sued the Washington City Paper for a column he claims defamed him and used anti-Semitic imagery. That’s right, the man who has famously defended his right to name an entire football team after an ethnic slur is playing the ethnic card because a columnist made fun of him.
The kicker is that on top of this amazing execution of rank hypocrisy, Snyder manages to insult all Jews who have actually dealt with anti-Semitism by coming up with an ethnic offense where none existed. The columnist wasn’t making Jewish jokes or playing off of Jewish stereotypes. He was calling Dan Snyder a terrible owner and a shady dude. Saying he was a victim of anti-Semitism degrades the term and make this entire lawsuit look like the petulant reaction of a narcissistic millionaire.
Shout-out to Nathan Koppel at the WSJ Law Blog (or his editor), for coming up with the perfect title for this post: The Frozen One?
Jewish hockey player Jason Bailey is suing the Anaheim Ducks NHL team, alleging that he was subjected to a hostile working environment. Not the run-of-the-mill hostility that comes from playing a sport where people regularly lose their own teeth and then refuse to purchase replacement chompers on the theory that “chicks dig gap teeth and lisps.” No, Bailey claims that the hostility was directed at him because he is Jewish.
I know this comes straight out of “Racial Conspiracy Theories 101,” but I can’t be the only one to notice that this suit was brought against the Anaheim Ducks, a franchise that was once owned by Disney and called the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (because anytime you can buy a hockey team in order to promote a movie staring Emilo Estevez, that’s something you’ve just got to do). And Disney of course has long been suspected of harboring anti-Semitic views. And… you know what, I’ll kick back with a glass of manischewitz and discuss this with my Jewish brothers some other time.
Right now, Bailey is making some much more reasonable allegations against the organization….
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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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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Sock-Puppets are a scourge of our time. How annoying does a person have to be create a fake, online persona specifically for the purpose of touting their own real life views? 
