Monster Energy

Red Bull gives you wings, Monster gives you ridiculous trademark fights.

If your law firm has to be compared to a car, a Cadillac Escalade isn't a bad way to go.

* Beastie Boys prevail in another intellectual property fight. This time winning $1.7 million from Monster Energy — the drink that guarantees you’ll get no sleep until Brooklyn. [Grantland] * Law school hands out the wrong exam. To the whole class. [Legal Cheek] * Best politico defense of taking a bribe: I was too drunk to realize I was being bribed! [New York Post] * Lawyer wrote “go ahead and disbar me” to Departmental Disciplinary Committee. Sometimes there’s no just bluff to call. [Legal Profession Blog] * One more problem with high student debt: debt alone can nix your character and fitness approval. [Arizona Law Review] * A celebration of courtroom illustrators in light of the release of The Illustrated Courtroom: 50 Years of Court Art (affiliate link) [Illustrated Courtroom] * Vice Media is doing tremendous work exposing injustices. Perhaps they need to look into their own office… [Capital New York] * In a comical bout of karma, a landlord sued its blogger resident for alleged defamation. Next thing you know, HUD inspection records come to light. Let’s just say the landlord should be very unhappy that truth is a defense. [Columbus Dispatch] * Check out the conclusion of ReplyAll’s conversation with John Grisham. [Above the Law] * Do you think someone is not happy with Jones Foster’s billing practices?

Beastie Boys sabotage Monster Energy's defense in intellectual property suit.

* Justice Sotomayor’s memoir made the NYT’s best-seller list, and in terms of sales, she’s officially beating the pants off other Supreme Court justices who’ve released books of a similar nature. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* In case you were sleeping under a rock yesterday when this happened, John Kerry was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of state. Don’t think we’ll be getting a Texts From John Tumblr, though. [New York Times]

* Despite having a “pretty spectacular” year, Blank Rome’s legal secretaries may soon find themselves blankly roaming in search of new employment. Better hurry up, the buyout offer expires on Friday! [Legal Intelligencer]

* Straight up now tell me, do you really wanna sue me forever? Corey Clark once claimed he had an affair with American Idol judge Paula Abdul, and now he claims MoFo and Gibson Dunn defamed him. [Am Law Daily]

* In this round of musical chairs, we learn that Orrick hoovered up three energy and project finance partners from Bingham, one of whom will co-chair the firm’s U.S. energy group. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Remember the Zumba prostitution ring? Now we know you can’t be prosecuted for secretly filming Johns in the act in Maine, because there’s no expectation of privacy in “bordellos, whorehouses, and the like.”[Wired]

* Energy drink makers are facing class action suits over claims made about their products. Fine, Red Bull may not give you wings, but it tastes like piss, and that’s gotta count for something, dammit. [National Law Journal]

* Much like herpes, Lindsay Lohan’s legal drama is the gift that just keeps on giving. Her longtime lawyer Shawn Holley wants out, and her new lawyer, Mark Heller, isn’t even licensed to practice in California. [CNN]

* This San Francisco attorney had a nice visit to the up-and-coming superpower across the Pacific. And by “nice,” I mean the Chinese tried to kill him and the U.S. State Department made things worse. [San Francisco Chronicle] * I’m sure there’s some sort of serious social commentary here about how gay marriage is good or bad, but I can’t figure out what it would be. Either way, this poor kid has had quite the rough go of it. [Althouse] * Monster Energy Drinks are under investigation from an as-yet unnamed state attorney general. Because apparently some people were unaware that drinking something that looks like liquid uranium may be unhealthy. [About Lawsuits] * The suspect in this multimillion-dollar scam graduated from Harvard Law in 1972. You stay classy, Cambridge. [ABC] * Glenn Reynolds explains why everyone just needs to suck it up and pay income taxes. [Instapundit] * Justice Scalia is interviewed again about his new book. Shockingly, no one took any shots at Judge Posner this time! [LA Review of Books]