Murder for Hire

  • Morning Docket: 10.12.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.12.16

    * From a SCOTUS mention to what seems like a final exam hypo: Kim Kardashian filed a defamation suit against celeb gossip site Media Takeout for reporting she’d faked her robbery and filed a fraudulent insurance claim. In her complaint, she alleges that the site victimized her again by “referring to her as a liar and thief.” [Reuters]

    * A legal recruiter claims that she received a series of death threats after she made political donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. Because she “fear[ed] for her life and safety,” the disturbing calls were reported to the police, and the matter is still under investigation. We may have more on this later. [Big Law Business]

    * “It seems to me that the design is applied to the exterior case of the phone. [T]here shouldn’t be profits awarded based on the entire price of the phone.” Thanks to SCOTUS, will Samsung get another bite at the apple when it comes to not giving up all of its profits as damages in its design patent dispute with Apple? [DealBook / New York Times]

    * The results of the July 2016 administration of the bar exam are out, and with a 91.96 percent pass rate for first-time takers, Duquesne Law boasted the second-best passage rate for first-timers out of all 10 Pennsylvania-area law schools, with only Penn Law coming out ahead. But which school did the worst? [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]

    * “Katie is the woman in the middle doing everything. It’s all because of Katie, man.” Katherine Magbanua, the woman who is alleged to have facilitated the successful murder-for-hire plot against Florida State law professor Dan Markel, has been denied bond. She will remain in prison behind bars until her trial. [Tallahassee Democrat]

  • Morning Docket: 08.01.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.01.16

    * If you thought you were going to be making $180K after graduation, then you better lower your expectations by quite a bit. Be prepared to make less than $65K! The National Association for Law Placement has released its annual edition of the bi-modal salary distribution for recent law school graduates, and the wide chasm between peaks on the bell curve looks more unhealthy than ever. [Big Law Business]

    * In the wake of the Democratic National Convention, everyone wants to know the names on Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court shortlist. It might surprise you that insiders say President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, is at the top of Clinton’s list of eleven potential candidates. We’ll have more information on this later today. [The Hill]

    * “What we’re seeing is a sort of shift around social norms. Kennedy is the best Geiger counter. He’s a very good instrument for measuring that.” SCOTUS seems to be cutting back on its defense of religious freedom in favor of supporting government regulators, and the high court’s swinger has led the way in the wake of Scalia’s passing. [USA Today]

    * Federal prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DOJ are now investigating whether Mossack Fonseca, the infamous firm behind the Panama Papers, knowingly assisted its clients in laundering money and/or evading taxes. A firm spokesperson has denied all accusations of criminal wrongdoing. [Wall Street Journal]

    * “You can sentence me to whatever you want, I guess. This sentence, I won’t outlive it.” Convicted murderer Drew Peterson was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison in a murder-for-hire plot to kill prosecutor James Glasgow. In 2047, Peterson will be 93 years old, and he’ll be up for parole for the murder of his third wife. [Chicago Tribune]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.09.15

    * Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, most recently of Dickstein Shapiro, finally found a lawyer to represent him in his sex scandal cover-up. His new lawyer may not be “the brightest guy in the world,” but he does do white-collar defense at Sidley Austin, so there you go. [National Law Journal]

    * Oopsie! A Tennessee lawyer is currently being held on $15 million bail because he allegedly solicited an undercover police officer to kill his estranged wife. He even gave the guy a “down payment for the murder.” We wonder how much he thought his spouse was worth dead. [Nashville Sun Times]

    * In times like these, you’re going to need a great network in order to get a job after law school, and some schools are superior to others in that department. Check and see if your alma mater made the grade on this ranking. [Business Insider via GraduatePrograms.com]

    * Concordia Law just received the gift that keeps on giving from the ABA — provisional accreditation. The news came just in time for its nine remaining third-year students to graduate and take the bar exam (everyone else transferred out). [Idaho Statesman]

    * Kalief Browder, a man used as an example of our broken justice system, was sent to Riker’s Island when he was 16 years old. He never had a trial, and was never convicted, but still spent three years in jail. He recently committed suicide. RIP. [New York Times]

  • Attorney Misconduct, Barack Obama, Biglaw, Celebrities, Crime, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Federal Judges, Football, Law Schools, LLMs, Morning Docket, Murder, Partner Issues, Politics

    Morning Docket: 07.15.14

    * Congrats to William Voge, who was elected as the new chairman of Latham & Watkins. He succeeds Robert Dell in this position, who is one of the Am Law 100′s longest-serving leaders. [Am Law Daily]

    * Dewey’s former execs filed a motion to dismiss their criminal charges, lamenting the fact that the Manhattan DA made them “scapegoats” for the total failure of their firm. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * A judge banned the Washington Redskins name from his court, proclaiming that the offensively monikered team shall be known only as “the Washington Team” in documents submitted. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks that if it were up to Judge Judy, House Speaker John Boehner’s “show trial” suit against President Obama would be thrown out in “half a second.” Well then. [ABC News]

    * A Michigan attorney was arraigned yesterday on a felony charge of homicide-solicitation of murder. It seems that the hired hitman warned his target. He’s not getting a good Yelp review. [UpNorthLive.com]

    * If you’re an international student with a foreign law degree trying to get a law degree in the U.S., why the hell would you waste your money on a J.D.? Just get an LL.M. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

    * Oh baby8: Nadya Suleman (formally doing business as Octomom) pleaded no contest to welfare fraud charges after she failed to report income from all of her public appearances and porn videos. [Reuters]

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  • 2nd Circuit, ACLU, Biglaw, China, Insider Trading, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Prisons, Religion, Sentencing Law, Solo Practitioners, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, Student Loans, Weddings

    Morning Docket: 12.05.12

    * Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the fairest firm of them all? According to the 2012 Acritas Brand Index survey, the current leader of the Global 100 is the most powerful Biglaw brand for the fifth year in a row. [American Lawyer]

    * But that might not last for long, considering the dilemma Baker & McKenzie is facing when it comes to joining the Shanghai Bar Association in China. The firm is one of the first to indicate that it’ll take the plunge. [Wall Street Journal]

    * Thanks to the Second Circuit, Rajat Gupta will be a free man on bail pending the appeal of his insider trading conviction. We wonder what Benula Bensam would have to say about this new twist. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Jason Smiekel, the lawyer who pleaded guilty in a murder-for-hire plot involving a former client, was sentenced to eight and a half years in federal prison. The things men will do for HHHBs. [Chicago Tribune]

    * Student loan payments: coming to a paycheck deduction near you! Congress is considering an overhaul of the country’s student debt collection practices, and Rep. Tom Petri has some interesting ideas. [Bloomberg]

    * The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is the latest school to hop aboard the solo practice incubator train, but graduates will have to rent their office space from the school. Nice. /sarcasm [National Law Journal]

    * “We didn’t file this complaint lightly.” Sorry, Judge Norman, but as it turns out, you can’t just sentence a teenager to attend church for 10 years as a condition of parole without pissing off the ACLU. [Tulsa World]

    * When your alterations cost more than your wedding gown, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll have some problems — ones worth suing over, if you’re a true bridezilla (like moi). [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

  • Antitrust, Arnold & Porter, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Canada, Department of Justice, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Football, Law Professors, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, Patents, Senate Judiciary Committee, Sentencing Law, Television, Texas

    Morning Docket: 07.27.12

    * Dewey know whether this revised partner contribution plan will be well received? Well, from the looks of it, the firm’s executive committee members are being asked to repay a greater sum of money, so people will probably be happier. [Am Law Daily]

    * Arnold & Porter’s William Baer, the man nominated to lead the DOJ Antitrust Division, received a warm reception from the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it was all because of his “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. [National Law Journal]

    * What do you get when you cross a Biglaw patent associate from Steptoe & Johnson with an NFL Redskins quarterback? A pretty cool hobby, and a new Adidas commercial. [Capital Business Blog / Washington Post]

    * Up next in this judicial gong show, Madam Justice Lori Douglas’s lawyer has asked the Canadian Judicial Council to recuse itself and terminate the legal ethics inquiry against her client. [Full Comment / National Post]

    * You saw this coming: attorneys for the man identified as Victim 2 in the Jerry Sandusky trial have released voice mails allegedly left by the former coach, and plan to use them in a civil suit against Penn State. [CNN]

    * A lawyer’s former mistress who attempted to kill his wife on several occasions is expected to take a plea deal today in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence. Sounds like a soap opera plot. [Houston Chronicle]

    * “Don’t say another word, because you’re just pissing me off.” Former adjunct law prof Clark Calvin Griffith said some interesting things to a judge during his indecent exposure sentencing hearing. [Pioneer Press]

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