Mitt Romney

Do you want to get drunk during tonight's presidential debate? Of course you do! So play our drinking game.

Lawyers at Biglaw firms are opening their hearts and wallets for our Election 2012 presidential candidates. Who's ahead in terms of donations, Obama or Romney?

* A tipster writes: “PLEASE address this trash pile of an article… I’m begging you.” Well, here you go. [XOJane] * The controversy over Elizabeth Warren’s phantom law license continues. Here’s more analysis of her allegedly unlawful practice. [Legal Insurrection via League of Ordinary Gentlemen] * Cravat swine and more? Court approves punishment for necktie thief. [Blog of the Legal Times] * Where do Mitt Romney’s infamous 47 percent live? [TaxProf Blog] * Check out this legal technology writing contest. Seriously. You could win $5,000. Hell, maybe I’ll enter too. [IT-Lex] * Isn’t it oddly fitting that Bill Clinton’s home turf is the first southern state to consider allowing medical marijuana? [Fox News] * Lat gives some protips on launching a successful law blog. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* Jill and Kent Easter have pleaded not guilty to charges of planting drugs on a volunteer at their son’s school. Goddamn that pusher man! [Jezebel] * Concussion litigation expert Paul D. Anderson discusses the nitty-gritty of all those football players suing because their job may have gave them brain damage. [Legal Blitz] * In unnerving lawyer news, a Seattle litigator was arrested on accusations of sexually assaulting a masseuse at knifepoint. [Komo News] * And on the other side of the country, a Pennsylvania attorney was specifically targeted in a home invasion that left him in the hospital with gunshot wounds. What is wrong with people this week? [Philadelphia Inquirer] * This whole disastrous domestic dispute-turned-shooting could have been avoided by marrying a dog-lover instead of a cat lady. [Legal Juice] * Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson explains why he’s putting all his chips on Mitt Romney. [Huffington Post] * Here are some tips on acing your call-back interview. Seriously though, you really only need one item: a Trapper Keeper. [The Careerist]

* Steven Davis, D&L’s former chairman, really wants to make sure he’ll be able to use the firm’s insurance policy to defend himself, or else he’ll “suffer undue hardship.” Sorry, but after all the undue hardship you caused, nobody feels bad for you. [Am Law Daily]

* As it turns out, the Mitt “47 Percent” Romney recording may have been illegally taped, but Florida authorities aren’t investigating — a victim hasn’t come forward to complain. What, no “off the cuff” remarks this time, Mitt? [Washington Wire / Wall Street Journal]

* Even if you get disbarred, you can still go on to work for a Biglaw firm. In other news, apparently you can last about a month at Lewis Brisbois while using a stolen identity before you get fired. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

* Arizona’s governor was really excited that the injunction against SB 1070′s “show me your papers” provision was lifted by Judge Susan Bolton. She won’t be as excited when all of the lawsuits start rolling in. [Bloomberg]

* It’s probably bad if your dean resigns before the school opens. J. Michael Johnson, the ex-dean of Louisiana College School of Law, left to take a “great job offer” (i.e., not a law school deanship). [Shreveport Times]

* Good news, ladies! A serial subway “grinder” in NYC avoided jail time after ejaculating on three women in separate incidents, and now city pols are trying to make it harder for perverts to get off. [New York Daily News]

Obama leads Romney in terms of lawyer fundraising. See which Biglaw firms are the top contributors...

Clint Eastwood gave an interesting speech at the Republican National Convention last night...

Who won the prize for Comment of the Week?

* Sorry, Rob Portman, while you’re very good at making law students flee from commencement ceremonies, you don’t get to be Mitt’s running mate. Instead, you get to pretend to be the president. Dreams do come true. [Recess Appointment] * Just because there was an undergrad rankings scandal at our school doesn’t mean that our law school data isn’t sound. ::pout:: Oh Emory, that’s so precious. [TaxProf Blog] * Breast implants don’t make women healthier?! Damn you, Congress! [New York Magazine] * Scamming insurance companies > scamming dying AIDS patients. [Dealbreaker] * Scott Greenfield is running a book giveaway contest. Well, here’s my submission: The law doesn’t suck; it’s just the week before Labor Day, so writing about the law sucks. [Simple Justice; Legal Blog Watch] * Given the number of men who ignore their girlfriends in favor of video games, it’s surprising that more women haven’t been charged with misdemeanor battery. [Legal Juice]

* Patton Boggs partner Benjamin Ginsberg serves as the Mitt Romney campaign’s top lawyer, and he’s taking flak for GOP rules revisions that have been likened to “killing a fly with a sledgehammer.” [Am Law Daily]

* “I am still shocked that I did everything right and find myself on the brink of destitution,.” This just in from the Things Everyone Already Knew Desk: even law firms have been hit hard by the recession. [Washington Times]

* The lead lawyer in the inquisition against Madam Justice Lori Douglas turned in a resignation letter. Perhaps he grew tired of being part of judicial farce that’s spread wider than Her Honor’s legs. [Canadian Press]

* Penn State Dickinson School of Law might not be losing its accreditation, but it will be reducing enrollment and consolidating all first-year classes at its University Park campus. [Central Penn Business Journal]

* A would-be law student wants to know if he has a good chance of getting into a top 20 school with a low 150s LSAT and an average GPA. You’ll get in everywhere you apply! [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Roger Fisher, Harvard Law School professor and co-author of “Getting to Yes,” RIP. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Threatening a judge, even in song, is still threatening. [WSJ Law Blog] * Obama’s White House microbrew is now the subject of a FOIA request. Instead of a bus tour, I think Obama should just travel around the country holding beer summits. [Legal Blog Watch] * I’m pretty sure the social contract will be unenforceable in a Romney administration. It’s unenforceable in an Obama administration too, but Obama tries to seem sad about that. [Salon] * I do hope that the GOP has some kind of “Rape: Accepted Definitions” seminar at their convention this week. They clearly don’t seem to understand what the term means, legally, as evidence by the Pennsylvania Republican who seems to think that a consensual out-of-wedlock pregnancy is kind of like rape. [TPM] * Here are the top eight reasons people are stressed at work. I wonder if anybody wants to see the top eight reasons people are who are unemployed are stressed out. [Huffington Post] * Yeah, I think we need to make it easier for people to get guns. Sure. Why not. It’s not easy enough to get a gun to carry out a mass shooting/turn a mass shooting into a mass shootout. [Forbes] * We drafted one of the Above the Law fantasy football leagues last night (I hate my team). Professor Marc Edelman has a fun paper on the regulation of fantasy sports. I’m still pissed at him for causing me to have to spend $2 on my freaking kicker. [SSRN]

* Don’t you wish there was some way to have a destructive Sharpie Party all over your student loan debt? [CNBC] * Should Romney be on the ballot in Washington State? Some people say “no.” Other people say “Obama is a Kenyan Muslo-fascist who wants to turn America into a communist hunter-gatherer economy.” I say “The jury’s still out on Steve Sarkisian, that is why we’re talking about Washington State, correct?” [The Stranger] * I’m really at peace with the Pennsylvania voter ID decision. Bottom line, it shows that instead of focusing on outreach towards other groups, the GOP is committed to riding this white thing out a little bit more. [Recess Appointment] * Meanwhile, early voting is still a go in Florida. I know it’s the kind of thing that turns Federalists white(r), but would it be so wrong if there was like, one set of voting laws instead of 50? It just feels, I think the technical phrase is f**king stupid, to have 50 different set of laws governing the most fundamental civic activity in a democracy. [Election Law Blog] * The personal injury attorney picked to be the new dean of Saint Louis Law School, Tom Keefe, will “donate” his salary back to the university. In a similar show of good faith, SLU Law students have promised to donate their debts back to Keefe. [St. Louis Business Journal] * I feel like I need a full Brain Tannebaum article explaining how this lawyer doesn’t deserve to live. [California Appellate Report] * Man claims it’s against his “creed” to allow black people to bag his groceries. I sure hope this guy has kids because I want to find out how his religion feels about black people bagging his daughter. [Longview News-Journal]

* In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate. Putting politics aside, this is a great pick, if only because Ryan is so handsome. Seriously, he’s a total stud. [Wall Street Journal]

* “How can I be the one guy with a good degree who is going to be chronically unemployed?” Sadly, many lawyers are still looking for jobs after (multiple) layoffs, but thanks to a lack of positions, employment is just “not in the cards” for them. [New York Times]

* Deadliest clerkship? The Washington, D.C. judge who presided over one of the most violent mass shooting cases in the nation’s capital was reportedly held up at gunpoint last week, with her law clerk in tow. [Fox DC]

* Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Texas. Judge Sam Sparks “know[s] the smell of bad fish,” and now wants to know why the USADA waited so long to bring charges against Lance Armstrong. [Bloomberg]

* After reversing a bankruptcy court’s decision that loan repayment would be an “undue hardship” for a law-school debtor, a judge took the time to rip law schools a new one over escalating tuition. [Oregonian]

* Match.com class-action plaintiffs found no love in court after a federal judge ruled that the dating website hadn’t breached its user agreement. Much like their love lives, their claims aren’t getting any action. [Reuters]

* A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client: 23% of all cases filed in the federal court for the S.D.N.Y. are brought by pro-se litigants, and the vast majority of them seem to have lost their minds. [New York Post]

* Apple is considering digging its greasy Gorilla Glass hands into Twitter. How long until they unveil the iChirp and the iStupidDessertPic? [New York Times]
* I’m sorry your three-year-old shot you with your Glock. Perhaps the safety could be better, but perhaps you shouldn’t have left a loaded gun within reach of a toddler, either. [JD Journal]
* Mitt Romney hightailed it out of England as fast as he could. He spent Sunday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I don’t think it’s hard to guess what he was praying for. [Washington Post]
* Bad day: getting your hand bitten off by an alligator. Worse day: facing charges of “unlawful feeding” of said alligator. Do I even have to say this happened in Florida? [ABC News]
* In continuing stupid Olympic news, NBC has caught a bunch of flak for cutting a tribute to victims of terror attacks from its U.S. broadcast. Apparently the segment wasn’t “tailored for a U.S. audience.” Well, neither is Mr. Bean. And we handled that fine, right? [Gawker]
* I just got back from Alaska. I’m so excited to go back indoors and get back to my desk after flying around mountains and looking at stupid, ugly glaciers for a week. /Sarcasm. [Twitter]

* And now for some reflection on the just completed bar exam. [Fink or Swim] * Here’s another take on how long your hair should be at the office. Apparently it helps to not be stupid. [Sweet Hot Justice] * Yesterday’s New York thunderstorm had tragic consequences for an area lawyer. [Herald Sun] * I was on Red Eye on Fox last night/this morning. It’s the first plank in the platform I’m using to run for King of the Homeless. [Red Eye] * We also covered this ridiculous story about a high school student suing because he got a C+ in Chemistry. [ABC News] * Uh oh, Mitt Romney has angered Carl Lewis. Now I’m waiting for other relevant 80s athletes to weigh in. Can somebody tell me what Greg Louganis thinks about Romney’s comments? [Politico]

* I’m not sure why Romney won’t just say that he lied to the SEC about when he left Bain. Lying to the SEC is just good business. Lying to the American people is something that politicians are only supposed to do for sex. [Wonkblog / Washington Post] * Character and fitness can be a surprisingly tough hurdle, so I’ve been told. [The Toronto Star] * Here are the top law faculties by scholarship. I’d bet this list and the list for top law faculties by salary are pretty similar. [Brian Leiter's Law School Reports] * Ed Hayes gets another profile, a dandy profile this time. [The Dandy Portraits] * This is a highlight reel of terrible lawyer ads. [Strategist via Findlaw] * Man with the largest penis gets frisked by TSA. When asked to comment, Sam said, “This is how we keep motherf***in snakes off the motherf***in planes.” [Hufffington Post] * Congratulations to the general counsel of Viacom. [Hollywood Reporter]

* “I think this is destined to fail.” People are not happy with the proposed settlement plan for former Dewey partners, but who are they kidding? These people don’t exactly like to part with money — not even to hand out bonuses. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* Andrew Levander, a partner at Dechert LLP, is representing ex-Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond. Diamond hasn’t been charged with anything, but this white-collar defense lawyer’s apparently been on his side since 2010. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Money talks: lawyers and law firms are the top donors by industry to presidential campaign funds, with Kirkland & Ellis leading for Romney, and DLA Piper for Obama. [Capital Business Blog / Washington Post]

* Escándalo! Louis Freeh’s report revealed that PSU’s “seriously deficient” counsel billed a whopping 2.9 hours on an incident involving Jerry Sandusky’s locker room shower with a young boy. [Centre Daily Times]

* But here’s where the football chatter comes in (not that I know a lot about football): legal experts say Freeh threw an “incomplete” with this report, because it didn’t go far back enough in time. [New York Daily News]

* Sorry, lady, but you didn’t need to attend a Justin Bieber concert for his music to allegedly cause permanent damage to your ears to the tune of $9M. All you really needed to do was turn on the radio. [Chicago Tribune]

* Today’s court session is business as usual for SCOTUS, because the justices always seem to save the “best” for last. And now I’ll have that stupid Vanessa Williams song stuck in my head all day. Sorry if I got it stuck in yours, too. [National Law Journal (reg. req.)]

* Meanwhile, over at the White House, the air was thick with the sound of silence on the eve of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act. More than willing to bet that President Obama probably didn’t sleep too well last night. [Los Angeles Times]

* “If she dies and Romney wins, the Supreme Court will be the most conservative in history.” Oh, please. Stop giving Ruth Bader Ginsburg flak for being too old, and learn to respect your elders — she’ll quit (or she’ll croak) when she damn well feels like it. [New York Times]

* Peter Madoff will plead guilty to two federal charges at the end of the week. He’ll probably serve ten years in prison. In the long run, that’s nothing compared to big brother Bernie’s 150-year sentence. [Bloomberg]

* Reason #11ty-billion why we <3 Flori-duh: a judge rejected the DOJ's request to block Florida's voter purge, and Governor Rick Scott, of course, was pleased as punch, calling it a "common-sense decision." [POLITICO] * Megaupload wins again: a New Zealand court ruled that the search warrants used to raid Kim Dotcom’s mansion were illegal because they failed to “adequately describe the offenses to which they related.” [Reuters] * Loan debt will allegedly make you do some pretty crazy sh*t. Jason Bohn, the law school grad featured in an NYT article about the perils of law school, now stands accused of murdering his girlfriend. [New York Post] * The ABA Journal wants to know if you think your law school’s name and reputation affected your career path. Well, the first comment on my first post was “the what what school of where now,” so you tell me. [ABA Journal]

* This is a great article on why the Supreme Court doesn’t leak, while more important institutions, like our national security apparatus, leak like a freaking sieve. [New Republic] * Most law professors think the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Most law professors think the Supreme Court will overturn the ACA anyway. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? [Bloomberg] * And now for some SCOTUS thoughts from the amazingly amorphous Mitt Romney. Look at his works in equivocation, ye mighty, and despair. [Washington Post] * You know, I don’t know how they afford this stuff, but having an inalienable right to “paid vacation” really feels like the kind of European invention we should be emulating. Good ideas can come from anywhere, folks. [Legal Blog Watch] * Letting students sit for the bar exam after their second year but then making them come back to school for an even more obviously useless third year is a great way to make somebody have a total mental dissociative break. Just imagine calculating how much money you’re being forced to waste while you sit there in a 3L seminar called “Law and Ceramics.” [Faculty Lounge] * Oh, I like this. The little Democrat in me can’t help but like this: a “global” financial transaction tax. Mmm… there’s nothing like the smell of global redistributive fairness. [Overlawyered] * Jonathan Turley seems hurt that Ann Althouse and other conservative academics acted in a way that shows “we have lost the tradition of civil discourse in this country.” Yeah, umm, Professor Turley, perhaps you didn’t read the footnotes, but here on the internet we don’t have a tradition of civil discourse. We do have a tradition of ad hominem attacks, hyperbole, and pictures of cats. [Jonathan Turley]

* Hyper-competitive weekend warrior kills himself racing down a mountain path and his family is suing the internet start-up that makes an app that allows you to track your time against other users. Is anybody making an app to track really stupid lawsuits filed by bereaved family members who receive terrible legal advice during times of crisis? [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes] * The Fast and the Furious Legal Edition: Executive of Privilege. [WSJ Law Blog] * Bringing the billable hour to social media seems likely to make me cry. [Legal Cheek] * Former SCOTUS clerks think the individual mandate is done for. [Wonkblog / Washington Post] * Google threatens to bring the hammer down on YouTube to mp3 converter. [Torrent Freak] * Maybe this is the kind of alcohol you can buy with prestige points. [Urban Daddy] * The companies who will own the president if Romney wins. [USAToday]