They teach the trial of the century in school. So, who better to talk about it than me ?
– O.J. Simpson, explaining his planned law school speaking tour — because as every criminal defense lawyer knows, defendants always have the best sense of their own trials. All that’s standing between Simpson gassing up the white Bronco and heading to a law school near you is a new trial.
(A video report on the tour follows…)
Continue reading “Your New Law School Adjunct: O.J. Simpson”
I’m very uncomfortable doing this… [O.J. Simpson] said, “The other guys had guns and I didn’t”… To argue that he had tunnel vision and didn’t see these guns was absurd to me.
–Yale Galenter, former attorney for O.J. Simpson, testifying defending his work during Simpson’s hearing for a new trial predicated on Galenter’s supposed ineffective assistance of counsel.
You never really get away with anything in this world. You can’t outrun life in a Bronco.
* Schools with the most racially diverse law school faculties didn’t do well in the U.S. News Rankings or the ATL one. [New York Law Journal]
* Jodi Arias news. Something about the death penalty. I didn’t really read the article. Remember, every time you click on something about Jodi Arias, God kills a kitten. [USAToday]
* Obama merely fired the acting IRS chief, Steve Miller. He didn’t execute him in Times Square with his bare hands, so cable news outlets will still have something to bitch about. [CNN]
* How happy is Bloomberg that between the IRS and the DOJ their ridiculous scandal is kind of flying under the radar? [Reuters]
* The Juice, is loose, on the witness stand. Not really loose, he’s in shackles and way too fat now to fit gloves of any kind. [ESPN]
* And now it’s time for the House Republicans to be confronted with their own hypocrisy. In response to the DOJ subpoenas Obama wants to pass “media shield” legislation which would protect reporters from this sort of thing. But will the House GOP pass something that actually limits the power of the government to spy on people? Will the House pass any legislation that the President will actually sign these next four years? Dilemmas, dilemmas. [Wall Street Journal]
* Texas law student/international small-arms dealer Cody Wilson got shot down (pun!) days after revealing a fully security-proof 3D printable gun. The State Department pointed out that Wilson seems to be violating all manner of international arms agreements, which was pretty obvious when he went on video boasting about how his weapons were being used in hotbeds of civil strife. [Foreign Policy: Passport]
* The Juice may soon be loose! But probably not. O.J. Simpson has a hearing seeking a new trial in Las Vegas and blaming his former lawyer, Yale Galanter. Best part? Simpson claims Galanter approved the whole “armed, threatening confrontation” plan beforehand. Oops. [FOX News]
* Michael Arrington, a lawyer and “one of the most powerful people on the Internet,” is suing his ex-girlfriend for defamation. The complaint compiles some pretty salacious claims that she made via social media. [Valleywag]
* Just when you thought being an unpaid intern couldn’t be sadder, Judge Baer makes it sadder. [Fashionista]
* The “Thug’s Lawyer” got a reprieve when a judge tossed his indictment for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, theft, and perjury. [The Advocate]
* The EEOC filed suit against a Miami company that required its employees to become Scientologists. In other news, someone actually thought they could get away with making all their employees join the Church of Scientology. [Lowering the Bar]
* The history of the Madison Avenue IPOs alluded to in last week’s Mad Men. [DealBook]
It’s difficult to put into words just how racially divisive the O.J. Simpson trial was. That’s my first excuse for why this post is so bad. For nearly a year and a half, the entire nation was tuned into the trial. An entire constellation of ridiculous people became our first reality stars: the poodle-haired Marcia Clark, smooth-talkin’ Johnny Cochran, n-bomb aficionado Mark Furman, hirsute little person Lance Ito. Or maybe the stars were DNA evidence and reasonable doubt. Because for a year and change, America was riveted by a criminal trial. By lawyers and evidence and rulings and motions and cross examinations. And while we still occasionally watch trials of the century, we don’t do it with near as much vigor as we did when Orenthal James Simpson was indicted. And we definitely don’t break down along nearly the same rigid racial lines.
To put it into terms that current law school students will understand (an overwhelming majority of whom don’t remember the trial), O.J. Simpson was a lot like Justin Bieber. Like, that polarizing.
Let’s talk sports….
Continue reading “Sports Law, Spaw, Lorts: O.J. Simpson Edition”
* Politicians are barred from speaking at this year’s memorial ceremony at Ground Zero, but will this ever be a day without politics? That still remains to be seen, but it will always be a day of remembrance. Never forget. [ABC News]
* What could possibly be more important than a resolution in the South Carolina voter ID case? Prejudice by font size. The Department of Justice is arguing over the alleged 12-point font size used by the state in a brief. Yes, seriously. [National Law Journal]
* Stephanie Rose was confirmed by the Senate as the first female federal judge in Iowa’s Southern District by a margin of 89-1. Damn, the one guy who voted against her better have a good reason. [Des Moines Register]
* “[He's] still trying to exculpate himself from one of the biggest blunders in the history of jurisprudence.” O.J.’s Dream Team denied allegations that Johnnie Cochran tampered with the bloody glove. [Los Angeles Times]
* Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Obama “Hope” poster — you know, the one that Paul Ryan says is fading on your wall — has been sentenced to two years’ probation for tampering with evidence. [CNN]
* What are some of the advantages of applying to law school on an early decision basis? If anything at all, you’ll find out earlier that you won’t be getting any scholarship money. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]
* There are only 56 days until Election 2012. Does anyone actually think that’s enough time to resolve all of the state election law battles? Even if it is, we could still be looking at a “potential disaster” in terms of post-election litigation. [New York Times]
* “It’s a horrible feeling when you keep waiting for the phone to ring and slowly realize that it isn’t…” Second-year law students are learning that waiting to see if you’re getting a summer associate position is a lot like dating — but worse. [Wall Street Journal]
* Meanwhile, law school graduates are trying to figure out what to do because the call never came. Per the BLS, the legal sector lost 1,400 jobs in August. Must be encouraging if you’re looking for a job. [Am Law Daily]
* Seventeen years after the conclusion of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, the lead prosecutor on the case accused the late Johnnie Cochran of tampering with the infamous glove. Um, better late than never? [Reuters]
* “If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you.” Because being groped by a cop wasn’t traumatic enough, this judge wants you to know that it was all your fault. [New York Daily News]
* If you allegedly tell a judge’s clerk that his boss should “get the f**k off all [your] cases,” and then follow up by allegedly telling the judge to “straighten the f**k up,” then your next stop is probably jail. [National Law Journal]
* Fashion law goes to Fashion Week and makes it work: Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute celebrated its clinics with a presentation at Lincoln Center. Papa Gunn would be so proud. [Crain's New York Business]
Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the day a little-known heroin addict called Russell Brand turned up for work dressed as Osama Bin Laden, and was promptly fired by his then-employer, MTV.
After some ensuing years knocking around the lower echelons of British light entertainment, Brand got himself together and landed a role presenting the VMAs — from which he launched himself into mega-stardom when he branded George W. Bush a “retarded cowboy fella.”
Now, you don’t get career paths like that in law. Having said that, I do know of a London Biglaw associate who was once asked to replace his brightly-coloured socks with a more sober pair in advance of an important client meeting, in which he performed impressively.
Please don’t interpret that as a snarky suggestion that all lawyers are boring. As legal market-watchers well know, many attorneys — especially the litigators — are often anything but. They’re just good at hiding the madness. Usually, anyway….
Continue reading “Letter from London: Barristers Behaving Badly”
Please note the headline says “new” evidence. It does not say “good” or “credible” or “definitive” evidence. That’s because the evidence doesn’t really fall into any of those categories. In fact, the headline could have read “F. Lee Bailey Evades Caretakers, Gets to Internet Before Somebody Stops Him.”
But whatever, former Dream Team (and now disbarred) lawyer F. Lee Bailey says he can tell us things about O.J. Simpson that we didn’t know before, things that make O.J. look innocent. And Bailey says that this evidence was not used during O.J.’s trial because of a strategic mistake by the late Johnnie Cochran. That’s right, if Cochran would have just done what Bailey wanted, O.J. Simpson could have been more acquitted! Or something.
Let’s look at what Bailey has to say. It’s one of those things that makes me happy we have “the internet”…
Continue reading “F. Lee Bailey Has New Evidence That O.J. Was Innocent”
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
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