The first month of the new year turned out to be a great one for lawyers, but as usual, we don’t exactly mean that in the nicest of ways. January brought us new legal controversies of all varieties, from all kinds of places.
With terroristic threats allegedly made by an associate at one Biglaw firm, and scandalous sexual allegations raised by a partner from another one, we knew that we’d have a crop of crass and sex-crazed behavior for this round of our Lawyer of the Month competition.
That being said, let’s check out our nominees for the month of January….
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Month: January Reader Poll”
Paisley Dickey (left) and Pretty Woman (right)
You don’t have to watch much reality television to understand that these days, many cable networks are trying to capitalize on the drama caused by little girls and their overbearing stage mothers. Take, for example, TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, a show that that gives viewers an inside look at the often controversial world of children’s beauty pageants. Apparently the resultant mother and daughter tantrums were just too good to keep off the airwaves.
But in late 2011, viewers expressed outrage over the pageant industry’s tendency to sexualize children. After all, with mothers dressing their daughters like surgically-enhanced country singers, fake breasts and all, or hookers with hearts of gold, how could viewers be anything but horrified? In all honesty, some of these little girls — the ones who don’t aspire to be tax lawyers, at least — look like complete prosti-tots (see above).
This backdrop brings us to today’s Lawsuit of the Day, where the mother of one of these tiara-toting toddlers alleges that a well-known celebrity gossip site had a hand in scandalizing her daughter….
Continue reading “Mother of ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’ Star Sues for Millions After Daughter Is ‘Sexualized’ on the Web”
Kim Kardashian
What reputation? She doesn’t have one.
– Legal analyst Joey Jackson, commenting on allegations made in Kim Kardashian’s lawsuit against The Gap. The reality television star claims that an Old Navy commercial featuring a look-alike actress damaged her reputation to the tune of $15-20 million.
(A clip of the commercial in question, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quote of the Day: Please Stick to Sex Tapes”
This Bachelor wasn't impressed with the credentials of one Illini 2L.
Still reeling from the producers’ decision to include one Latino contestant four seasons ago, The Bachelor franchise is back in Narnia this season with another all-white cast vying for the heart of Ben Flajnik, Sonoma’s most eligible winemaker and Geico Caveman lookalike. During the opening montage on the first episode, we see Ben drive a tractor, examine dirt, and wear a dusty leather vest — all key indicators that Ben is serious about his business.
Will such a serious career man be able to find love among this season’s pack of Dental Consultants, Trading Clerks, VIP Cocktail Waitresses, and other C-level executives? Luckily, he doesn’t have to. Also available for fake engagement this season is a sexy, seasoned Biglaw attorney.
Just kidding! Erika Uhlig, 23, is a completely average-looking 2L at the University of Illinois College of Law. Before that, she was a poli sci major at the University of Pittsburgh, and before that, she was Miss Chesterfield, Virginia 2006. Here she is singing the national anthem off-pitch in a dress from Dynasty.
To precisely no one’s shock, one of Erika’s law school classmates contacted ATL and opined that “she’s a b**ch”….
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Illinois 2L Is Kicked Off the Bachelor, Pranked By Classmates”
If you’re a bride-to-be — and let’s face it, even if you’re not — you’ve probably seen at least a few episodes of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress. The show features the goings-on at Kleinfeld, one of the premier bridal salons in New York City, where staff members assist brides in their quest to find the perfect wedding dress.
Imagine our surprise when we tuned in to watch the show, and caught a glimpse of a beautiful lawyer searching for a wedding gown. But this was not just any lawyer — this lawyer used to have an action-packed career as a stunt woman. These days, though, she gets all of her action inside of a courtroom.
So who is this stunt woman turned lawyer? Why did she decide to make such a drastic career change? And how did she snag her husband, the general counsel to a Fortune 500 company?
All of this and more, including some glamorous wedding photos, after the jump….
Continue reading “Here Comes the Bride: Stunt Woman Turned Lawyer Featured on ‘Say Yes to the Dress’”
Kim Kardashian
* With AT&T’s T-Mobile deal falling apart, in-house lawyer Wayne Watts could be heard singing, “it’s my merger and I’ll cry if I want to,” before more whining to the FCC. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Build us a border fence, and then get the f**k over it. Arizona lawmakers are soliciting the public for donations to keep out the people who would work at low cost to build it. [New York Daily News]
* Ever wonder what’s preventing greater diversity in the law? Apparently the problem is pre-law counselors with advising skills that are crappier than minority LSAT scores. [National Law Journal]
* ‘Til death (and billable hours) do us part: British firms are paying for employees’ divorces. Biglawyers await the day this gets picked up America. [Press Association]
* The star of this year’s Black and Blue Friday was the not-so-wise Latina who decided it was a good idea to pepper-spray her Xbox competition. Best deal ever? No charges brought. [CNN]
* It looks like Kim Kardashian got her Christmas wish early this year. Her soon-to-be ex-husband will not be suing her for $10M over his portrayal on her new reality show. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at your university is one thing. I don’t agree with what the man has to say, and he’s a dangerous crazy person — but he is the leader of a sovereign nation that plays a vital role in an important region. If you want to invite him to your campus, fine.
I bring that up to highlight the fact that giving a platform to an anti-semitic global strongman is less damaging to your reputation than allowing a cast member from Jersey Shore to address your students.
Vinny Guadagnino, the “smart one” from the Jersey Shore who occasionally talks about going to law school, was actually a guest speaker in front of college students at a Columbia University class….
Continue reading “Vinny From Jersey Shore Now Lecturing Columbia Students”
* “Rising tuition. Misleading employment statistics. Inadequate skills training.” So what are legal educators doing about it? Blogging, of course. [Law School Review]
* Trendspotting: cute judges the federal bench? The Senate has confirmed Loyola Law professor Stephen Higginson for a seat on the Fifth Circuit. [National Law Journal]
* People in New Jersey have morals. Who knew? When faced with aborting babies or aborting their careers, some nurses from UMDNJ decided to sue. [Washington Post]
* Elbert Lin is returning to Wiley Rein after a stint clerking for Clarence Thomas. We wonder what his wife would say about him if he was one of her LEWW contestants? [Blog of Legal Times]
* Another Real Housewife of New Jersey is facing legal troubles, but this time to the tune of $7.8M. Sorry Teresa, but at least Jacqueline Laurita’s got her hairline under control. [Huffington Post]
* Is Justin Bieber the father of a baby, baby, baby? That’s what a 20-year-old from California says, and she wants a paternity test to prove it. [New York Post]
I object to this 'outfit.'
Remember that time when the New York City Bar wanted to hold an event to instruct women on fashion sense for the workplace? How about that show sponsored by the Chicago Bar Association where lawyers dished on fashion dos and don’ts?
Apparently these kinds of events need to happen more often, no matter how controversial they might be, because we still have law students out there who could double as pole-dancers (or worse).
One of our tipsters alerted us to an episode of TLC’s What Not to Wear — the world’s greatest guilty pleasure television show — that we seem to have missed when it aired last year. The show featured a 2L from a southern law school, but this girl dressed more like a prostitute facing arraignment (sorry, Reema) than the lawyer representing her.
So who is she, was she hot, what law school did she attend, and were Stacy and Clinton able to change this girl from a hooker to a looker?
Continue reading “A Crime of Fashion: When Law Students Dress Like Hookers”
I hope it hasn’t come to this. For the sake of Bravo, of reality television, of the legal profession in general, I hope this Craigslist ad is fake.
Because if it’s not, that means that Bravo is putting together a pilot for some kind of Beverly Hills-based, female-lawyer reality show, and the network is casting it on Craigslist through somebody who so has his finger on the pulse of whatever that he’s still using an AOL email address.
I mean… hey, calm down L.A. ladies, I’ll give you the damn email address in two seconds….
Continue reading “Who Uses An AOL Email To Cast A Lawyer Reality Show?”
Hopefully the next edition of What Can You Do With a Law Degree? has not gone to press yet, because there is a thriving new category of jobs a JD gets you these days: reality show contestant. See, Elie? Law school is good for something.
Joining James Weir, Erica Rose, Stephenie Park, and the entire pantheon of lawyer-turned-reality luminaries is John Cochran, a 24-year-old Harvard Law School student who appears as a member of the “Savaii” tribe on this season’s Survivor: South Pacific. Not much is discoverable about red-headed John online because his name is so common, but he lives (somewhat improbably) in DC, drinks Fanta, and loves The Beatles. Pretty standard stuff.
But what’s not standard is the way in which our wan, nerdy hero made it onto the show:
I was in this class in Harvard Law School called American Jury and for the final paper we got to write about whatever we wanted. And being a huge “Survivor” fanatic, I decided to write about “Survivor.” In the paper I compared the current American jury system with the jury system in “Survivor,” especially the final Tribal Council. There are certain lessons we can learn from “Survivor” juries in that the jurors get to ask questions to the defendants…who’d be the final two and final three. And they’re also kind of the witnesses to the “crime.” And my professor, who’s a pretty famous professor, loved it. It turns out he’s a huge “Survivor” fan and he gave me the Dean’s Scholar prize for the best paper in the class out of about 100 students.
So basically while you were busy writing onto Law Review, John Cochran was DVRing a reality show and writing papers about it for a fanboy professor. Perfect….
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Survivor of the Fittest at Harvard Law School”
We’re about to take all take a poll, and how you answer this poll will once and for all determine whether or not you are a good person.
I’m serious. You can lie on the poll if you want to, but you’ll always know how you truly felt. If you go one way, you are a good person. If you go another way, you are a soulless bastard. I offer no third option.
Although this revolves around a common legal situation, you don’t even have to be a lawyer to take and learn from this test poll.
Just watch this video….
Continue reading “Best (Or Perhaps Worst) Courtroom Entrance In The World”
Nancy Grace: You'll be seeing a lot more of her.
Ever since the acquittal of Casey Anthony, people have been wondering: What has Nancy Grace been up to? The prosecutrix turned pundit got some major mileage out of the Casey Anthony trial, which she followed with maniacal dedication. How could she top her gavel-to-gavel coverage of the infamous “Tot Mom” trial?
Earlier today, “Nancy Grace” started trending on Twitter. It was from Twitter that I learned of Nancy Grace’s second act.
You’ll have a hard time believing this, but it seems to be true….
Continue reading “Nancy Grace’s Next Chapter: You Won’t Believe This”
What’s going to be funny for me is that I’ll now be able to tell laypeople that most prospective law students are like Vinny from the Jersey Shore.
Yes, we’ve reported before on Vinny Guadagnino’s law school aspirations. We’ve looked at the Jersey Shore star’s GPA. We’ve listened to him opine on why going to law school is just more work than he’s willing to do right now. I don’t really know why everybody is so fascinated with what one random reality TV star will do if and when his fame runs its course. Maybe it’s because people think the Jersey Shore people are “dumb” while people who go to law school are “smart”?
Anyway, mine is not to wonder why: Vinny is now talking about his LSAT score, and his take on things is not going to sound strange to anybody who has spent time around recent law school applicants.
If he does go to law school, maybe he’ll be able to help his Shore castmates with their recent legal entanglements. Oh that’s right, this post is a full on mash-up of Jersey Shore legal-ish news….
Continue reading “Vinny From Jersey Shore In Re: The LSAT And Its Relevance In Building A Legal Career”
Today we bring you a new installment in our popular series on celebrity summer associates. The stories in this series have been positive and uplifting — but we should note that we welcome tales of summer associate scandal as well.
With the summer winding down, it’s safe to share salacious tales of SA misbehavior. Please submit them by email, to tips@abovethelaw.com (subject line: “Summer Associate Story”), or by text message. As you know, we keep our tipsters anonymous.
Now, on to today’s celebrity summer associate.
Last week, in a piece for the New York Times’s Room for Debate project, I argued for reforming legal education by bringing back apprentices in law. But I was not optimistic about that change happening anytime soon.
Well, it seems that my call for apprentices has been heard. A former star of Donald Trump’s popular reality television show, The Apprentice, is now “apprenticing” at a major law firm, as a summer associate.
Who is this ex-Apprentice, and where is this person working?
Continue reading “Celebrity Summer Associate: An ‘Apprentice’ in Law”
Every season leads to more opportunity for me. I want a future too. I was going to go to school to get my law degree, but I really don’t want to do that work in the ant farm world. I’m seeing where it leads me, I want to be a performer.
– Vinny Guadagnino of MTV’s wildly popular Jersey Shore reality TV show, reflecting on his career plans.
(As you may recall, Guadagnino previously thought about going to law school, after racking up an astronomically high undergraduate GPA.)
I would still trust Judge Wapner.
It feels like I receive at least one email a week from a pissed-off white male. I feel like everywhere I look there is some white person whining, complaining, playing the “victim” card, and moaning about how difficult things are for a white person nowadays. I’m telling you, if white males have to live under a non-white male president for another four years, Ted Nugent is going to start writing spirituals.
Sometimes I respond to these “white plight” emails. Sometimes I get into passionate debates with people. Never do I sit back and say, “Man, white men really are getting screwed on this issue. White power!” I mean, at the end of the day the playing field still ridiculously favors white males. Sometimes white men can’t see it, just like sometimes you can’t tell that the Earth is curved when you’re standing on the ground. But if you look up — and do some math — it’s pretty obvious we live on a sphere, and it’s pretty obvious we live in a society that favors white males.
But I am… open-minded. And my mind was blown wide open when I read a blog post on Just Enrichment about the paucity of white male judges as fictional characters. Without having the resources to do a full-scale survey of every movie or television character in the past twenty years, this guy makes a compelling point that white males are disfavored when it comes to portraying impartial justice.
And I think this guy — Adam Chandler, a 3L at Yale Law School — is absolutely right….
Continue reading “White Male Judges Are Being Discriminated Against (On Television)”
What do you get when you cross Top Chef with Mark Cuban’s The Benefactor (anybody remember that? HA), steal half the name of America’s Next Top Model, and throw in inexplicably famous “chef” Curtis Stone? Only the single greatest reality show on NBC during the 8 p.m. time slot on Sundays: America’s Next Great Restaurant.
This groundbreaking pilot’s premise is that people who did boring things with their lives because they were too poor or risk-averse pitch restaurant franchise ideas to Curtis, Bobby Flay, and two other judges that nobody recognizes, who then back the winner with money from NBC’s budget their own wallets to open three identical restaurants so they can fail in three different cities at the same time.
As you may have guessed, America is not watching, the show is not Great, and I somehow doubt that The Spice Coast (or whichever proposed restaurant wins) will threaten the national hegemony of McDonald’s, although I might order it from Seamless Web. If I liked Indian food. Which I do not.
In any event, competing in “ANGR” is one of our own…
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Former Paul Hastings Associate May Be America’s Next Great Restaurateur”
Ashley Hebert
In case you were too busy watching the End Times unfold in Japan last Monday, back in sunny L.A., music soared and angels cried as second-time-around Bachelor Brad Womack finally selected a fiancée from a cumulative pool of 60 desperate women. As ABC production assistants stood just off camera with guns, Brad and his fiancée confirmed they would marry, and the network announced next season’s Bachelorette: second runner-up Ashley Hebert.
Though 26-year-old Ashley is probably best known to fans for her sperm-like eyebrows and for sexing Brad up in the Fantasy Suite, she’s also a fourth-year dental student at U. Penn. and, accordingly, the most respectable Bachelorette yet. So… does this mean ABC will nix the usual crew of medical sales/mall kiosk workers/”entrepreneurs,” up the ante, and give Ashley some real professional dudes to vie for her heart?
Seems like it….
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Identity of First Bachelorette Contestant Leaked — A Lawyer!”
We want to hear about your firm’s bonus news, even if it’s old. If we haven’t reported on it yet, we want to know about it. (Use our site search box in the upper-right-hand corner, or scroll through our Associate Bonus Watch archives, to see which announcements we’ve already covered.)
Here’s some old bonus news (literally “last year’s” news). A few weeks ago, Shearman & Sterling announced its bonuses. They essentially matched the Cravath scale, but with the caveat (also issued last year) that they are at least partly “merit-based” — i.e., adjusted up or down based on performance. The S&S bonuses are being paid out on January 14.
Some Shearman associates might be upset by the lack of upward movement on bonuses. But at least one of them probably doesn’t care that much, since he enjoyed other income in 2010.
I’ll take “Lawyers Who Have Appeared on Jeopardy” for $1000, Alex….
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Sherman & Sterling
(And… Jeopardy!)“
