Mexico

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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Having a Gay Old Time: Couple Sentenced for Massive Theft from Vanderbilt Law (and Statutory Rape)

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Jason Hunt (left) and Samuel Cole Wakefield

This week brought unfortunate news for an unambiguously gay duo. A former employee of Vanderbilt Law and his boyfriend pleaded guilty to stealing more than $500,000 from the law school — as well as to charges of aggravated statutory rape. Both men then got hit with some pretty heavy sentences.

How much time are they getting? How did they perpetrate their fraudulent scheme? And what did they blow the money on?

Keep reading for more details of their crimes, some color commentary from local correspondents, and photographs of some beautiful youths who used to hang out with the defendants….

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Morning Docket: 05.04.12

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* My Big Fat Dewey Compensation Guarantee: it’s like a movie that no one wants to watch, except it’s happening in real life. But at least the partners got their draws, right? [Reuters; DealBook / NYT]

* Why didn’t John Edwards’s former aide disclose to the government that he refused to lie under oath about his affair? “Because you never asked.” Best. Response. Ever. [MSNBC]

* Maybe Mintz Levin didn’t belong on the list of the Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms after all. The firm’s been sued twice in recent years for sexual discrimination. Oops. [Careerist]

* Baylor Law claimed the top pass rate on the Texas bar exam for the fifteenth time since 2001. Unfortunately, Baylor Law cannot claim a top pass rate on disclosure of private student information. [Baylor University]

* In America, lawyers are pissing off state bar associations by offering their services on Groupon. En México, no es un problema. There, you can buy gift cards for the gift that keeps on giving… divorce! [Huffington Post]

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Morning Docket: 04.26.12

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2 Girls 1 Sandwich

* Dewey need to take a look at the Biglaw industry in general before more firms implode? Hell yes, says an author who’s written on the economics and management of law firms. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Wal-Mart was served with its first shareholder suit over its alleged bribery scandal, because the only thing on rollback this week is the price of the company’s stock shares. [Reuters]

* Does diplomatic immunity give you a free pass for getting handsy with the maid? Guess we’ll see next week, when a judge rules on DSK’s motion to dismiss his civil suit. [New York Daily News]

* As long as you’ve got money, the TSA will totally look the other way if you’ve got suitcases filled with drugs. Vibrators, on the other hand, are simply out of the question. [Bloomberg]

* As of yesterday, Connecticut became the seventeenth state to kill the death penalty. But not so fast, death row inmates. You still get to die. Isn’t that nice? [CNN]

* Franchise agreements be damned, because even judges can understand that sometimes, you just need to eat a delicious sandwich while you’re getting a lap dance. [KTVN]

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Morning Docket: 02.21.12

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She definitely loves wieners.

* Vedel Browne has been charged in the machete robbery of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He faces up to 20 years if convicted, and with that sentence, we’re betting he wishes he got away with more than $1,000. [CNN]

* ¡Viva México! These days, Mexico’s got more than just drug cartels, violence, and prison riots. More and more U.S. and international law firms (like DLA Piper) are crossing the border to set up shop. [Wall Street Journal]

* Which Biglaw firms own New York’s congressional delegation in terms of donations? The same Biglaw firms that have handed out bigger bonus dollars: Boies Schiller, Davis Polk, and Paul Weiss. [Politicker]

* Jury selection in the Tyler Clementi case is under way. Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student who allegedly spied on his roommate, faces up to ten years in prison. Should’ve taken the plea bargain, bro. [New York Post]

* Some women like their wieners with a side of abuse, but that doesn’t mean they want the encounter memorialized on film. A federal judge says that’s too bad, so let the cameras roll. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Katherine Darmer, a Chapman University law professor, passed away after falling from a building last week. Her death is now being probed as a possible suicide. Rest in peace, professor. [Los Angeles Times]

5 Comments

Sidley Opens in Houston, and DLA Piper Heads to Mexico (I’m Not Joking)

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DLA Piper scouts locations for its Mexico City job fair.

Some major law firms might be closing offices, but others are in expansion mode. For example, Sidley Austin is opening a Houston office, with partners snagged from several other big players in town. And that’s not the only expansion taking place in the southwest.

Take DLA Piper. When we last checked in with them, the firm’s Baltimore office was operating under third world conditions. The toilets weren’t working.

This led me to joke about a fictitious DLA Guadalajara office.

Evidently, my imagination failed me. It’s not “clear parody” if it’s something that could possibly happen. Next time we joke about a DLA expansion, we need to go to straight fiction. We need to start making DLA Mustafar jokes. Because expanding to Mexico just got real….

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Vampire?

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Lawyers, have you been looking for a unique way to do some self-branding? Of course, we don’t mean that you should literally brand yourself, but this Mexican lawyer did just that. She turned herself into a walking piece of art, and is now known as the “Vampire Woman” by her colleagues in the tattoo and body modification industry.

We know what you must be thinking: “Aren’t female vampires supposed to be sexy?” That might be the case on True Blood, but we’re not so sure about this girl. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the Vampire Woman’s look makes us wonder whether she’s capable of keeping clients from running out of her office screaming. Don’t believe us? See for yourself….

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Morning Docket: 11.11.11

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Angelica Marie Cecora, Oscar's latest lady-friend

* A bill to repeal DOMA made it past the Senate Judiciary Committee, but members of the Senate don’t do dick (unless it’s in an airport bathroom), so it’s probably not going anywhere. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Next on the gay rights news beat, after waiting around for 18 months, WilmerHale attorney Edward DuMont has refused to be the last belle at the ball. He’s asked Obama to withdraw his Federal Circuit nomination. [ThinkProgress]

* “Be careful of what you do, ’cause the lie becomes the truth.” Sound familiar? Conrad Murray says the King of Pop deceived him. Oh, boo hoo. Come on, MJ warned you about this stuff via song lyrics back in the eighties. [CNN]

* When a lawyer’s wife allegedly hires you to kill her husband, the easy way out isn’t to burn down his law firm. You kind of need to make sure that he’s in there first. [KBZK]

* Oscar de la Hoya’s got bigger problems than this kinky lawsuit. He’s probably more worried about getting runs in his stockings, to be honest. [New York Post]

* Snitches don’t get stitches in Mexico. They get their freakin’ heads chopped off. And now I wait for a drug cartel to come and murder me. [Daily Mail]

11 Comments

Morning Docket: 11.07.11

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Wave goodbye to that ring.

* 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 money or bonus news. We’re talking about tree-hugging, environmental hippie design initiatives. [Washington Post]

* Same-sex couples in New Jersey will get the chance to challenge the state’s civil union law. Here’s hoping that my home state gets with the program and allows gay marriage like our New York neighbors. [Star-Ledger]

* “Lawsuit-crazed groomzilla” Todd Remis isn’t happy with the media’s coverage of his wedding woes. We’re “turning this into a circus,” he says. Uh, you did that yourself, buddy. [Huffington Post]

* What’s the best way to get out of a possible 15-year jail sentence? It’s as easy as saying that you’re an illegal immigrant and getting yourself deported to Mexico. [ABC News]

* Kim Kardashian has a pricey clause in her prenup. She’ll have to pay her soon-to-be ex-husband the purchase price of her gaudy engagement ring if she wants to keep it. [New York Post]

23 Comments

Morning Docket: 10.07.11

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Angelina Pivarnick

* The Westboro Baptist Church has announced — on an iPhone — that it will be picketing Steve Jobs’s funeral. And now I have an Alanis Morissette song stuck in my head. [Los Angeles Times]

* Price check on aisle seven. Price check on aisle seven for a divorce train wreck. People over in England need to be prepared for this now that supermarkets can sell legal services. [BBC News]

* Crowell & Moring has been slapped with an ethics complaint for suggesting that Appalachians suffer birth defects because they have family circles instead of family trees. [Am Law Daily]

* Se habla Español? Necesita un trabajo? Greenberg Traurig is expanding its ginormas practice with its 33rd office located in Mexico City. [Sacramento Bee]

* Doctors in Kentucky delivered a decapitated baby, but apparently did “nothing wrong.” [Insert completely inappropriate dead baby joke here.] [Courier-Journal]

* A former Jersey Shore star is suing over an alleged attack at a Hot Topic last year. This is only acceptable if the “dirty little hamster” was there to look for a Halloween costume. [New York Post]

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