Movies

Akin Gump to Movie Producer Client: Where’s Our Money, Man?

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Legal services are expensive. Duh. And sometimes clients do not want to pay their bills. Maybe the case outcome wasn’t what the client hoped for. Maybe the bill was significantly higher than expected. There are all sorts of reasons that attorneys just have to say, “Eff you, pay me.”

The thing is, you normally associate breach of contract disputes with litigation or other standard lawyering. Not Biglaw attorneys brokering movie finance deals, and suing when the client doesn’t pay his finders fee.

But Akin Gump filed suit last week against a Hollywood movie producer, for breach of contract and promissory fraud, alleging that he did not fork over the finders fee he owed a firm partner for helping secure loans and finding a distributor for one of his projects.

The firm says Mark Manuel owes a lot of money. So how much does he owe, and which movie is at the center of the controversy?

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Who’s the 40-Year-Old Asian Actress Suing the Internet Movie Database for Revealing Her Age?

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When I was a kid, my father leaned across the dinner table and whispered to me, “Never ask a woman’s age or weight.” He then stole a glance at my mother, who was busy shoveling mashed potatoes into her maw, and sighed. I could never tell whether my dad was trying to offer the wisdom of the ages or making a statement about the tyranny of manners, the clichés they birth, and the way in which politeness can imprison a good man in a loveless relationship that inevitably leads to you watching your 400-pound wife shovel potatoes back like she was auditioning for The Biggest Loser.

And so it was that the Internet Movie Database, aka IMDb, found itself under attack for revealing an actress’s age and “real Asian name.” Kash detailed the charges last October. A few weeks ago, we noted that the woman would have to put up (her name) or shut up (legally speaking).

Well, I don’t want to waste any more of your precious time. The grand reveal is finally here.

After the jump, pictures of an attractive Asian woman….

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Judge Kozinski Occupies Oakland

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These days, mentioning the California city of Oakland conjures up images of tear gas and violence. It’s not a place that people associate with innocent fun right now.

But Oakland isn’t all protesters and police. We bring you a report from a recent visitor to that city, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit….

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.19.11

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* The American Bar Association is hiring Carol Stevens, former managing editor of USA Today, as its new director of media relations. Yeah, ’cause it’s the media that makes the ABA look bad, not the ABA’s refusal to regulate law schools during a time of dishonesty and profiteering by member institutions. [Poynter]

* Let’s play “count the stupid lawyer stereotypes” in this paragraph, many of which could lead a person into making a grave financial mistake. [Boise Weekly]

* Look, if an animal escapes from a zoo, it wins. It shouldn’t be hunted down and taken back to captivity. That’s just natural law. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Breaking news: if you sign your name on a petition, people might find out you signed your name to a freaking petition. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Pretty awesome collection of t-shirts people are wearing in their mugshots. [New York Daily News]

* Viacom cancels Ted Olson, taps Paul Smith as his mid-season replacement. [Hollywood, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

* I’m trying to figure out what this report on parenting styles can tell us about Bonobo_Bro’s upbringing. [Dealbreaker]

* If you’ll be in New York on October 26 and would like to attend a free screening of the new, buzz-generating HBO documentary, Hot Coffee, followed by a conversation between Lat and director Susan Saladoff, click here to RSVP. [New America NYC]

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Actress To IMDb: ‘I’m Too Old For This Sh*%’

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It’s said that it’s rude to ask a woman her age. In fact, it’s only rude to ask women 30 and over about their digits. It’s far worse, however, to ask a woman with decades under her belt for her age and then to publish it for the world to see. An actress in Texas says it wasn’t just rude but financially costly for her when the movie database IMDB publicized her nearly over-the-hill age in 2008. Cue, Robert Murtaugh.

The Hollywood Reporter has a copy of the actress’s complaint against Amazon.com, which owns the Internet Movie Database, in which she alleges that everyone’s favorite website for figuring out who-that-guy-in-that-one-movie-was-and-what-was-that-other-movie-he-was-in-with-that-girl screwed her over after she signed up for a Pro IMDb account. After entering credit card information and personal details, including her birthdate, to start the account, her age all of a sudden appeared on her public profile page, “revealing to the public that Plaintiff is many years older than she looks,” according to her humble complaint.

Age isn’t just a number, says her counsel, “Internet lawyer” John Dozier, but a $1,075,000 number…

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Morning Docket: 10.18.11

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Would you like some doc review with that?

* How can you pick a side when it comes to fairness and the law? Can you straddle the fence? Don’t ask Justice Alito, because he’s still not really sure what the answers are. [New York Times]

* Paul Ceglia is finding out the hard way that court orders aren’t like annoying Facebook friend requests. You can’t just tell your lawyers to ignore them and hope they’ll go away. [Bloomberg]

* From occupying Wall Street to occupying the courts? 99% lawyers are threatening to clog up the courts if their demands aren’t met. At least they’d have a toilet to do it in. [New York Daily News]

* “If your choice is between going to Liberty Law or working a deep-fat fryer, you might as well go to Liberty, right?” Lat, I think we really need to have a chat. [Commercial Appeal]

* If I had a dollar for every dude who had an Asian adventure involving a Thai ladyboy, I’d be rich, but it doesn’t mean that The Hangover II was based on their exploits. [Hollywood Reporter]

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Morning Docket: 10.11.11

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The Penthouse Club is no Bada Bing.

* The legal sector lost 1,300 jobs in September. And because that’s not depressing enough, lawyers now have to compete for jobs with computers. Guess it’s time to learn binary. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week kicked off yesterday in West Virginia. Too bad this campaign isn’t in Michigan, where a woman is suing over a misleading movie trailer. [Washington Post]

* Think you had it rough on the bar exam? Try being in active labor during the MBE. Our congratulations go out to Elana Nightingale Dawson for passing the Illinois bar! [Daily Herald]

* What’s the point of being in witness protection when you’re getting sued over dueling nudie bars in Texas? You may be the real life Tony, but you’re disrespecting the Bing. [New York Post]

* Pants on the ground / Pants on the ground / Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground. A judge in New York finally took General Larry Platt’s words of wisdom to heart. [Daily Mail]

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Morning Docket: 09.29.11

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Really? You're still suing?

* Sorry Missouri, but your reign as the “Show Me” state is over. Thanks to its immigration law, Alabama is going to be taking over as the “Show Me Your Papers” state. [CNN]

* Time to review the footage. Irving Picard stands to lose the game for the Investors if he can’t get an instant replay on Judge Rakoff’s home run decision for the Mets. [Bloomberg]

* Reebok has to pay out $25M in refunds because contrary to popular opinion, wearing a pair of sneakers won’t give you a nicer butt. Dammit, foiled again. [Blog of Legal Times]

* The EEOC is suing because a 680-pound man was allegedly fired for being too fat. Everything really is bigger in Texas, and now it’s considered a disability. [Houston Chronicle]

* Unpaid interns who worked on “Black Swan” are suing because they didn’t benefit from the job. Seriously? They should be sued for not appreciating all the film’s HLA. [New York Times]

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Morning Docket: 09.16.11

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Andrew Shirvell: Photoshopportunity?

* SCOTUS halted Duane Buck’s execution in Texas last night. How did it take 16 years for this to happen? Slow and steady doesn’t win the race on death row. [CBS News]

* Casey Anthony owes the state of Florida a pretty penny. At this rate, she may as well go to law school, because she’s already $97,626.98 in the hole. [CNN]

* New lawyers in Florida must take civility pledges. If they’re treating each other with such incivility, why haven’t we seen any benchslaps from that state lately? [ABA Journal]

* The U.S. Trustee has thrown a curveball at two Biglaw firms in the Dodgers bankruptcy case. Will Dewey & LeBoeuf and Young Conaway ever get paid? [Bloomberg]

* You’re so vain, you probably think this movie’s about you. Sorry guys, you may be a few good men, but to be Tom Cruise, you have to be good-looking and have a passion for Xenu. [New York Times]

* Andrew Shirvell has to spill the beans on whether Ave Maria had to warn the state bar about his conduct. Apparently the man’s got great gaydar. Wonder why… [Detroit Free Press]

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.31.11

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* Some thoughts from our colleague Matt Levine on the Justice Department’s opposition to the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. [Dealbreaker]

* Judge Sam Sparks (W.D. Tex.), king of the benchslap — yes, we already covered his latest handiwork, so no need to email the “kindergarten party” order to us again — has blocked key parts of the Texas sonogram-before-abortion law. [How Appealing]

* Meanwhile, Allen E. Parker Jr., the lawyer on the receiving end of a recent Sam Sparks special in the abortion case, had this to say about His Honor’s saucy order. [Tex Parte Blog]

* Nice work if you can get it: a pair of incoming DLA Piper associates will get paid $145,000 to $160,000 to do pro bono work for a year. [Am Law Daily]

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

* Think you’re tough, NYC lawyers? “A D.C. attorney attacked a man with a live power line — downed by Hurricane Irene — during an altercation in which the lawyer used his car as a battering ram against his alleged victim, police said.” [Georgetown DC Patch]

* The ABA and Senator Chuck Grassley continue to be pen pals. Here is law librarian Mark Giangrande’s take on the ABA’s latest response. [Law Librarian Blog]

* Interesting analysis: “How the Media Treated Mexico’s Mass Murder.” [The Awl]

* I agree with Professor Eugene Volokh: “people are constitutionally entitled to speak the truth about others, even with the goal of trying to get them fired.” [Volokh Conspiracy via Instapundit]

* I found a special friend on OkCupid, but the site wasn’t as helpful to Alyssa Bereznak, who had an unfortunate experience dating a world champion of Magic: The Gathering. [Gizmodo]

* If you’d like to check out Billable Hours: The Movie, here’s your chance (until September 10). [NexTV]

* And if you prefer live entertainment, tomorrow night check out the September 1 showcase of Comedians-at-Law (bios here; maybe you know some of these guys). [Comedians-at-Law]

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