Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

On Friday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Winner: Batman & Robin LLP”
Last week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

On Friday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Winner: Batman & Robin LLP”
Earlier this week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this photo:

Let’s have a look at what our readers came up with, and then vote on the finalists….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Finalists: Batman & Robin LLP”
Every law firm’s got its own superheroes. Some of you may be familiar with The Litigatrix, a high-powered woman partner who renders opponents’ arguments completely useless with a single motion. Others once knew Captain Bonus, a monetary daredevil whose additional associate dollars recently disappeared faster than a speeding bullet. And everyone knows The Dismisser, who with several iterations of BAM! and KAPOW! manages to get every lawsuit that comes before him tossed out of court.
But holy office space, Batman, where do all of these legal superheroes meet to conduct their business on a daily basis?
Here’s the photo for our latest caption contest….

Sydney Spies
Remember Sydney Spies, the teenage dream from Colorado who fought valiantly to get her provocative pictures featured in her high school yearbook, all in the name of free expression? Despite the threat of a lawsuit and national media coverage, all of Spies’s racy photos were rejected — but she was able to earn a spot in Americans’ hearts (and spankbanks) around the country.
The young Hollywood hopeful landed a small role in an upcoming SyFy movie, and her mother, Denise “Miki” Spies, was preparing to ship her daughter out to Los Angeles in the hopes of her making it big. Why not throw one last bash to celebrate Sydney’s single success in stardom? And that’s apparently where all the trouble began for this mother and daughter duo.
Little did Sydney and Miki know that their alleged exploits at the party would someday be able to serve as the basis for a Lifetime movie. The pair could face jail time for allegedly serving alcohol to minors — but at least they’re back in the headlines. (And this underage drinking drama could earn Sydney another line on her iMDB profile, so she’s probably patting herself on the back.)
Let’s discuss the charges that the Spies are currently facing, and all of the allegations that make them appear to be quite the hot messes….
Here’s the problem with running a law school that publishes a laughable rankings system that magically ranks your school second in the nation. If the school is willing to do that, it makes it possible to question (and laugh at) every single thing that comes out of the school.
Hell, the shoeshine boy who tried to troll Staci couldn’t be dismissed out of hand because he said he was a Cooley grad.
It’s not entirely fair, but the school brings it upon itself, at least in part. That’s probably why I received a number of tweets about the new statue at Cooley Law.
At a regular law school, nobody would take much note of a sculpture of the school’s namesake. At Cooley, it’s pretty easy to read in a hilarious motive….

Benjamine Bowers
As Derek Zoolander would say, there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking — including filing lawsuits for really, really high damages. Male models may be stereotypically portrayed as stupid, but when they’ve allegedly been taken advantage of, they have the good sense to sue for millions — especially if a defendant has deep pockets.
And that’s exactly what Benjamine Bowers, a beautiful male model, did in a recent filing. This hottie claims he was told that he needed to “relax,” and if this were a movie, he’d have strut down the runway performing jiu jitsu moves to a track by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. But because this apparently happened in real life, Bowers instead was told that he needed to show his o-face on camera….
Shouldn’t law schools just start issuing tents to people at graduation? Or at least umbrellas that could double as tents?
Our last caption contest illustrated the use of law firm swag in a happy locale. Go to Cravath, get a beach towel, and be able to afford a beach vacation.
This caption contest involves the creative use of law school swag. But I don’t think Columbia Law School intended for its umbrellas to be used in this fashion.
At least, I hope this isn’t an intended use of Columbia Law umbrellas…
Continue reading “Caption Contest: Columbia Law Provides Quality Street Construction Materials”

It must be tough to leave an apartment like this one, with great views of Central Park, to go work in a drab federal office building.
Being a federal prosecutor is an amazing legal job, but it doesn’t pay particularly well. When I worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I earned well under six figures. An assistant U.S. attorney can break the $100,000 mark after a sufficient number of years in practice, but AUSAs generally don’t earn Biglaw money.
(People who work as special AUSAs on secondment from better-paying parts of the federal government, such as Main Justice or the SEC, earn significantly more than regular AUSAs on the “AD” — Administratively Determined, aka Awfully Depressing — pay scale. But even these SAUSAs, not to be confused with the completely unpaid SAUSAs, make less than they would in comparable private practice positions.)
This brings us to the question du jour: how can a federal prosecutor afford to live in an apartment that is worth more than twice as much as the most expensive lawyer home in Washington, D.C.? We’re talking about a $25 million apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in one of Fifth Avenue’s finest prewar buildings, with amazing views of Central Park.
Come up with some guesses, then keep reading….
Continue reading “Lawyerly Lairs: A Federal Prosecutor’s $25 Million Apartment”

Judge Paul Watford
Congratulations to the newest member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Honorable Paul J. Watford. On Monday, Watford, currently a 44-year-old partner at the super-elite Munger Tolles & Olson, was confirmed to the federal bench. The vote was 61-34, and it came after a bit of drama in the Senate.
It’s surprising that Watford’s nomination was so contentious, given that he has a number of backers from the right side of the aisle. As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, “[h]is supporters included conservative UCLA law Professor Eugene Volokh, who has described Watford as brilliant and ideologically moderate, and attorney Jeremy Rosen, former president of the Los Angeles chapter of the conservative Federalist Society” (and a noted appellate lawyer, who has appeared before in these pages).
That’s not all. Watford clerked for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, one of a handful of prominent conservative or libertarian judges on the (generally liberal) Ninth Circuit. If you look at the ranks of former Kozinski clerks, you’ll see many members in good standing of the vast right-wing conspiracy (and some who are not, like Paul Watford — who went on to clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and was nominated to the Ninth Circuit by a Democratic president).
Now that the handsome Watford has joined his superhottie boss on the bench, we have a trivia question: Who is the circuit judge with the most former law clerks to join him on the Court of Appeals during his lifetime?
Continue reading “Some Federal Judicial Congratulations — and a Bit of Trivia”

This is what 'working' looks like during summer.
The summer is almost upon us. You know what that means in Biglaw? Lunch time!
After months spent ordering Seamless and cursing the terrible weather, the summertime promises a world of outdoor seating, real plates, and real martinis with lunch — delicious martinis, and other cocktails.
Of course, there’s a downside to all this summer fun, as three patrons at a noted Manhattan steakhouse found out. Three buddies walked in, but only two were able to walk out under their own powers.
The other one, well, we have pictures…