Kids

Non-Sequiturs: 01.23.13

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* If you’ve been waiting for the definitive, Kashmir Hill, what in the hell is Catfishing article, here you go. [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]

* Let me just say that societies that fully utilize the talents of women have an inherent advantage over the ones that don’t. With one rules change, we now have twice as many potential combat soldiers. Glory. [Daily Beast]

* A “Good Samaritan” gun owner defended a little boy from pit bulls by shooting at the dogs who were mauling the little boy. Look, as a dad, can I just say that if you see some pit bulls attacking my son, please help… by running at the pit bulls and saying, “Git, git away from that boy,” not by shooting a freaking hand cannon towards my child! [Cato @ Liberty / Cato Institute]

* Okay, who has standing to sue for a violation of the 27th Amendment? Who? I want this to happen. Come on, constitutional scholars. Make it happen. Let’s see who really cares about “all” the amendments, not just the ones that allow people to shoot each other. [The Note / ABC News]

* I mean we’re suing over sandwiches, aren’t we? [Legal Blog Watch]

* Slow your roll, NAACP. I’m pretty sure that the 14th Amendment doesn’t protect the rights of black people to become diabetic with oversized sugary drinks. [Gawker]

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Lawsuit of the Day: Teacher Claims School Failed To Accommodate Her Pedophobia

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Does teacher want to…. plaaaaaay?

Pedophobia, the fear of children, is not something that makes the news very much. It’s not like anybody who suffers from pedophobia gets to have a Facebook account unless they want to be bombarded with terrifying images of other people’s children.

Since we know that pedophilia is a real thing, I totally believe that pedophobia is a real thing. That makes sense.

But, just as I don’t want pedophiles teaching in schools, I’m not sure that a middle school is the best place for a pedophobe.

An Ohio teacher suffering from pedophobia agrees. She’s suing her former school district for failing to accommodate her disability by moving her from a high school to a middle school.

If she doesn’t win her employment discrimination case, maybe she’ll have a claim under the Eighth Amendment….

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Biglaw Partner Accused Of Being Too Cool To Her Daughter On New Year’s Eve

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This is a lot safer when Mom and Dad are holding you up.

I get pretty annoyed when the state tries to act like everybody’s mother. But the worst application of the “nanny state” is when the state actually supersedes the judgment of a caring parent. It just makes it worse when the government tries to ruin a family’s holiday season.

This summer, we had a report about a partner who was accused of providing alcohol for his daughter and a bunch of her friends during a party for her graduation. The charge has since been dismissed. Today, a tipster sent us a link about another Biglaw partner who has been charged with providing alcohol to her teenage daughter and some of her daughter’s friends, this time at a New Year’s Eve party.

Can we take a step back and ask why the government is running around charging people for letting teenagers drink at family parties?

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Above the Law’s Top Ten Most Popular Posts of 2012

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It’s the last day of December, so it’s a good time to look back on the year that was. We’ll do what we’ve done for the past three years (wrap-up posts from 2009, 2010, and 2011 can be found here, here, and here) and identify the ten biggest stories of the past year as decided by you, our readers. With the help of Google Analytics, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten posts for 2012, based on traffic (as represented by pageviews).

By the way, for the third year in a row, the most popular category page on Above the Law was Law Schools. People have now been intensely focused on the declining value proposition of going to law school for as long as it takes to earn a Juris Doctor degree. Isn’t it time that we graduate from the current educational model?

The second and third most-popular categories on ATL in 2012 were Biglaw and Bonuses. Although this year brought us the largest law firm failure ever, nearly all other firms indiscriminately doled out offers to summer associates, and bonus season looked better for the first time in years. While the legal profession is still in transition, things are certainly looking up, and through the highs and the lows, we’ve been there to cover it all.

So what were the ten most popular individual posts at Above the Law in 2012? Let’s find out….

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Morning Docket: 12.27.12

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* Justice Sonia Sotomayor just ruined Hobby Lobby’s new year by refusing to block the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptives mandate. All of the members of the company’s legal team will have to scrapbook and crochet for hours to get over this loss. [Reuters]

* Harvard Law graduate Barack Obama is being feted as CNN’s “Most Intriguing Person of 2012,” but he’s currently trailing in fourth place in the most important year-end poll of all: Above the Law’s Lawyer of the Year competition. Get out there and vote! [CNN]

* Federal district court judges aren’t being confirmed as quickly as they once were, and it’s partly because our president isn’t submitting nominees as quickly as those who came before him. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* But even if the president nominated judges more quickly, he’d continue to face harsh opposition from the NRA, which matters because the gun group has an entire party in its pocket. [Opinionator / New York Times]

* A legal problem and a journalism problem wrapped up in a little pretty bow: David Gregory of NBC’s “Meet the Press” is being investigated for displaying an alleged 30-round magazine on the air. [Washington Post]

* One of New York’s most prestigious private schools agreed to settle the sex abuse suit brought against it by former students. Simpson Thacher partner Phil Culhane must be doing a victory dance. [New York Daily News]

* You got a fast car, and now this case will pay all our bills. Toyota settled a class action suit over unintended acceleration, and it’s touted as one of the largest product-liability settlements in history. [New York Times]

* Ay dios mio! You know that you’re never going to enjoy another vacation when you catch a hotel employee spreading his seed all over your clothes. But what did you expect? It’s Mexico. [Courthouse News Service]

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Above the Law’s 2012 Lawyer of the Year Competition: The Finalists!

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The year is quickly drawing to a close, but we have unfinished business to conduct here at Above the Law. Come on, people, we still have to crown our Lawyer of the Year for 2012.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our call for nominations, in the comments or via email. We’ve narrowed down the nominees to a field of nine (although you’ll see only eight options in the poll because one is a joint nomination). As in past years, the contenders run the gamut from distinguished to despicable.

And the nominees are….

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November Lawyer of the Month: Mommie Dearest

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It’s time to announce the winner of November’s Lawyer of the Month competition. Our five contestants all made the news recently for their deeds of derring-do, be they on the bench on the bike path. As usual, one of them stole the show, both in your votes and in national media coverage.

From Above the Law, to the Huffington Post, to the New York Times, November’s winner rocked the legal profession and caused many to reevaluate their lives — and ultimately, their happiness. As it turns out, sometimes the wonderful world of Biglaw isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Who won the contest this time around?

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Millennials: This Is Why You Fail

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Good job… at ruining America.

I generally try to defend Millennials in these pages. They might seem like texting-obsessed kids, but we need to cut them some slack. Because they had the American economy pulled out from under them just as they tried to start their adult lives. You just wait, when these guys are 40, they’ll be telling their kids stories of the “Great Recession” and how patience and frugality are chief virtues. They might be telling their kids those stories in Chinese, but still.

But we do have our occasional disagreements. I think the special snowflake syndrome plagues this generation; they’re so obsessed with their own social-media fueled individuality that they tend to think things like statistics don’t apply to them. Part of that is being young; part of that is being dumb.

And part of that is that Millennials, as a group, seem to need compliments in order to function like normal humans. They want you to LIKE THEIR STATUS and retweet their banter with an inane “lol.” If you don’t give them gushing praise, they take it as a criticism. And if you actually criticize them, well damn, you might as well be questioning their entire existence and telling them to kill themselves.

Yesterday, I saw something that takes “gushing praise” to a new, disgusting, saccharine level. And it’s coming from law schools….

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Lawyer of the Month: November Reader Poll

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November brought us many things to be thankful for, ranging from time spent with family to hurricane relief efforts to the lawyerly antics worthy of representation in our Lawyer of the Month competition.

In what’s probably a first, the majority of this month’s contestants are judges, with a mere sprinkling of lawyers here and there. But when it comes to laying down the law — at least insomuch as this contest is concerned — these controversial jurists are top notch.

Let’s check out our nominees for November’s Lawyer of the Month….

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Quote of the Day: Mothers, Be Good to Your Daughters, Too

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Charlotte Devlin

What do we want to say to our daughters? That law is a great profession until you have children?

– Charlotte Devlin, co-founder of Obelisk Legal Support, commenting on the legal profession’s loss of female attorneys in the United Kingdom due to the overwhelming process of balancing long hours with child rearing.

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