Judge Judy… she’s gangsta. You gotta give her that. That’s a plus.
– a man on the street in response to a question — “What do you think about Obama’s decision to appoint Judge Judy Sheindlin to the Supreme Court?” — posed by a reporter from the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.
(Keep reading to see some of the other entertaining answers people gave in response to this question, and to watch the ridiculous clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live.)
* BREAKING: Law enforcement appears to have cornered Chris Dorner in Big Bear. Two injured in a shootout. [NBC News]
* Ranking the rankings? Who’s a bigger joke: National Jurist or Cooley? If only we had a ranking system for rankings. Hmm, that gives me an idea… [Brian Leiter's Law School Reports]
* A 2009 Harvard Law grad and Proskauer associate Megha Parekh just took over as the General Counsel of the Jacksonville Jaguars. She’s a much better hire than Blaine Gabbert. [Big Cat Country]
* Looking for a clerkship in the present state of anarchy in the post-Clerkship Scramble world? This new website can help. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Papal resignation is a little more complex than you’d think. But what’s all this stuff about Benedict XVI having to “take the Black” and move somewhere called “The Wall?” [Volokh Conspiracy]
* When is a blogger a journalist? This question becomes pretty important when a state boasts a shield law for journalists. [Simple Justice]
* The profiled study here asks whether judges prefer plain language or legalese? Unfortunately, it doesn’t consider the fact that some judges prefer neither. [Associate's Mind]
* After the jump, watch some video of what happened when hackers hit the Montana emergency alert system and said zombies were taking over….
Remember Judge Wade McCree? How could you not! He’s the Michigan jurist who received our Judge of the Day honors back in April for sending nearly-nude photos of himself to one of his female bailiffs via sext message. When confronted with the issue, McCree told a Fox Detroit reporter he had “no shame in [his] game.” When confronted by the Michigan Supreme Court, McCree was issued a censure for bringing shame to the judiciary, if not himself.
Now, you’d think that the good judge would clean up his act after a brush with the law, but of course, you’d be wrong. We wonder if he’s got any shame in his game now that his alleged affair with a litigant has been exposed for all the world to see.
And you really won’t believe where this woman claims they got it on, repeatedly….
First amongst weird creation myths is that of the Mbombo god, who is said to have vomited up pretty much all of our world. Similarly, the story of how this website has been… thrown up is worthy of retelling. At its essence, it goes like this: A boy blogs about very sober legal issues in an incredibly earnest way and then the governor of New Jersey tells him to start Above the Law, The End. I may have missed some crucial details and got others flat-out wrong, but I think the kernel of truth is still in there somewhere.
At any rate, that boy was working for the United States Attorney’s office in Newark at the time. Doing anything on the internet, even if it was super-serious and incredibly sincere, could be considered controversial because of the position. The lawyers tasked with working in such a high-profile prosecutorial role must be seen as impartial, lest the cases they take on get tainted by their online presence.
Which is what makes it all the more surprising that history is repeating itself down in New Orleans, where two assistant United States attorneys have become embroiled in scandal after being caught commenting on not just the law in general (like our own dear leader), but the specific cases that came through their office.
It’s almost as if the New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s office is trying to outdo David Lat in some way. Which, I mean, trick please…
It’s really hard giving up things you like — things like cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs — but when the time comes, and that time will come, you’ve got to do it, and sometimes you won’t even have choice in the matter. Perhaps you don’t have the money to finance your vices anymore. Perhaps you’ve decided you have an addiction, and it’s time to seek help. Or maybe you’re facing jail time, and a judge is offering you a way out.
But again, it’s really hard giving up things you like. Like really, really hard. So hard, that when pressed to give up, say, smoking pot, you’d ask a judge if you could have one more joint before you quit. Come on, judge, it’s just one more, what’s the big deal?
Well, contrary to popular belief, it is a big deal when you ask a judge’s permission to smoke weed when you’re in her courtroom on a drug trafficking charge….
* Google asked Gregory Sidak and Judge Robert Bork to write a report on its antitrust investigations. [Criterion Economics]
* Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom just caught a tough break, courtesy of the government of… Gabon? [Threat Level / Wired]
* Marco Delgado, lawyer and former trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, is accused of laundering half a billion dollars for a Mexican drug cartel. [Post-Gazette]
* I’m very, very uninterested in getting tangled in racial debates after the election. But this stuff is messed up and scary. [Gawker]
We’ve covered odd judicial penalties now and again, and there’s a legitimate debate as to the appropriateness of public humiliation as a legal remedy for wrongdoing.
Or, as we see next week in Cleveland, a woman forced to wear an “idiot” sign on the corner where she was caught busting some Crazy Taxi moves — in order to get around a school bus filled with children.
And of course, we have video of this gonzo driver, so you can see for yourself if her punishment was warranted….
* So you want to be the next top legal scholar? Step 1: find some better friends. [lawprofblawg]
* Clean your room! Otherwise you might not get into Harvard Law School. Seriously. [Greedy Associates / FindLaw]
* What’s the absolute worst-case bank-robbery scenario, from the robber’s perspective? The teller who says, “Oh hello, Ms. Robinson. Would you like to make a deposit today?” [Consumerist]
* Apple unveiled a new mini-iSomethingOrOther today. I wonder who they’re gonna sue next? [Bits / New York Times]
* Back in the day, David beat Goliath with a slingshot. In modern times, underdogs use Twitter. [IT-Lex]
* I hated Moby Dick, but historical legal and literary documents are always cool. [Lowering the Bar]
* If you’re planning on attending a law school — or heck, law firm — Halloween party, here are some costume dos and don’ts. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Meanwhile, Professor Kyle Graham wonders: How would Judge Posner review Moby Dick, Fifty Shades of Grey, and other classic literature? Incredibly, that’s how. [noncuratlex]
* This attempt at using a disguise to commit ID theft was so pathetic, I almost feel bad for the guy. And yes, there is a photo. [Lowering the Bar]
* A longtime Arby’s employee fled when a knife-wielding robber broke into the restaurant in the middle the night. And then Arby’s fired her. At least unemployment > dying alone in an Arby’s. [Consumerist]
* Models, runway shows, and confidentiality agreements, oh my! [Fashionista]
There are many worrisome aspects of online privacy — or the lack thereof. But on the upside, poor privacy protections do come with certain benefits. For example, stupid criminals more often expose themselves to prosecution — and public ridicule. Yesterday, we mentioned some teenagers who broke into a man’s house, threw a party, and then threw the photos on Facebook, where the man saw them and called police.
Today we have a more violent but similar story, this time from Philadelphia. Police posted security footage of several teenagers beating up a middle-aged man inside a supermarket, only to discover the assailants had also apparently posted footage of the crime on YouTube.
At least the alleged assaulters have a firm grasp on search engine optimization…
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
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The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
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Judge Judy… she’s gangsta. You gotta give her that. That’s a plus.
