Sex

Attorney Misconduct

Morning Docket: 05.21.12

* With more allegations of misconduct revealed, the Canadian Judicial Council met to discuss Justice Lori Douglas’s sex scandal inquiry. Unlike her legs in her nude picture spread, this media circus will likely close in July. [Winnipeg Free Press] * “I want to apologize. Obviously, mistakes were made.” Admitting you’ve got a problem is just the first step. Greenberg Traurig’s executive director apologized for the Biglaw firm’s apparent screw-ups in a Rothstein-related trial. [Miami Herald] * Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng will be enrolling at NYU Law School on a fellowship. The administration is giving him a ritzy faculty apartment that comes complete with a kitchen full of Chinese food. He already knows how to eat like a law student. [New York Times] * Facebook is being sued in an amended consolidated class-action complaint for $15B over privacy issues, but Mark Zuckerberg was too busy getting married to Priscilla Chan to let it bother him. [Bloomberg] * “What [the f**k] comes next?” That’s what law school grads asked themselves when their commencement speakers tried to slap on a happy face and speak positively about the job market. [Connecticut Law Tribune] * But perhaps future law school grads will be able to find jobs more easily thanks to class offerings geared toward in-house counsel lawyering skills. Keep on dreaming that impossible dream. [Washington Post] * How does a small-time DUI attorney from California go from being an unknown to being a household name overnight? By filing a lawsuit filled with tawdry allegations against actor John Travolta. [Los Angeles Times]

By Staci Zaretsky
Biglaw

Non-Sequiturs: 05.17.12

* This is the job that I want. Just running around New York City, and telling people they suck. [Dealbreaker] * New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma has filed a lawsuit against NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall. I’ve got $100 for anyone who takes Vilma’s lawsuit out with a summary judgment. [New Orleans Times-Picayune] * The story of Dewey & LeBoeuf, as told through numbers. Legacy Dewey Ballantine folks aren’t going to love this. [Adam Smith Esq.] * Isn’t this the best way to explain what it’s like to be white? [Kotaku] * What will the legal profession look like when your kids are going to law school? [Hellerman Baretz] * Speaking of having children, I wonder if I will become more “prude” when I’m a parent, or at least more critical of graphic displays of sexuality. [Popehat] * You shouldn’t let your client bring notes to a deposition. Otherwise you will have a huge a-hole. [What About Clients?] * The Da Silva Moore case already reads like a reality TV show. Is something more pernicious going on beneath the surface? [Ride the Lightning]

By Elie Mystal
5th Circuit

Morning Docket: 05.07.12

* While Dewey’s former culture gets roasted on a spit, and the seemingly unending drama gets turned into a montage of living lawyer jokes, we’re still waiting for the final punchline. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal] * Don Verrilli tried so hard, and got so far (depending on who you ask), but in the end, it doesn’t even matter. When Linkin Park lyrics apply to your oral argument skills, you know you’re kind of screwed. [New York Times] * The 9/11 arraignments went off without a hitch this weekend. And by that, we mean that it was a 13 hour hearing filled multiple interruptions, and grandstanding about “appropriate” courtroom fashion. [Fox News] * In a “re-re-reversal,” Judge Jerry Smith, on a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, reinstated Planned Parenthood’s injunction against Texas, without even so much as a homework assignment. [Dallas Observer] * The It Gets Worse Project: if you thought that the Law School Transparency debt figures were scary before, then take a look at them now. Six figures of debt just got a lot harder to swallow. [National Law Journal] * Scalia gets busted on a case of hot-dog hooking. No, not that Scalia. A woman from Long Island has been accused, for the second time, of selling swallowing foot-longs in the back of her food truck. [New York Post]

By Staci Zaretsky
Biglaw

Morning Docket: 04.27.12

* Dewey get to see a member of this firm’s chairman’s office strut for a perp walk in the near future? After all, partners reportedly say that it's thanks to him that D&L may close up shop “as early as next week.” [Law360 (sub. req.)] * De-equitize this: Oh, how Biglaw firms in America wish that they could return to merry old England, where mandatory retirement policies for old fart partners are the norm, and the courts agree. [Legal Week] * “We’re about to beat a dead horse here.” Even the judge presiding over the John Edwards trial got pissed when the defense repeatedly asked variations of the same question on cross-examination. [MSNBC] * Ain’t no shame in his game (well, actually, there is). Judge Wade McCree’s lawyer says he’s sure the judge is sorry for his sext messaging. Yeah, sorry he got caught. [Detroit Free Press] * Is this the first test of the “ministerial exception” in the Perich case? A teacher at a Catholic school was fired for getting in vitro fertilization treatments, and now she’s suing. [CNN] * Insert your own UVA joke here, bro. Yeardley Love’s family has filed a $30M wrongful death suit against former college lacrosse player, George Huguely V. [Washington Examiner]

By Staci Zaretsky
Attorney Misconduct

Morning Docket: 04.19.12

* Judge Jessica Recksiedler has disqualified herself from overseeing George Zimmerman’s murder trial. Stepping up to fill in as ringmaster for this media circus is Judge Kenneth R. Lester Jr. [Washington Post] * Oh joy, new fee hikes associated with law school! Administrations of the LSAT are going down, down, down, so of course the price to take the test no one wants to take anymore is going up, up, up. [National Law Journal] * Trying to win at all costs has its consequences. Just ask the New Orleans prosecutors who are now facing bar complaints for allegedly railroading defendants into harsh convictions. [Slate Magazine] * Hopefully this lawsuit’s descriptions of the rotten chicken that was allegedly served to customers are enough to make you never eat at Kentucky Fried Salmonella again. [Huffington Post] * “Housekeeping, you want me jerk you off?” Ex-MLB player and housekeeper aficionado Lenny Dykstra was sentenced to 270 days in jail after a conviction for lewd conduct and assault. [Bloomberg] * Instead of gold, everything Charlie Sheen touches turns into a lawsuit. The producer for his FX comeback series, “Anger Management,” has been sued by another show producer for $50M. [New York Daily News] * G’day, mates! This just in: if you’re on a business trip down under, you’re entitled to workers’ compensation for any sexual injuries that may occur “during the course of employment.” [Daily Telegraph]

By Staci Zaretsky
Biglaw

Morning Docket: 04.13.12

* A legal threat goes viral: if you’ve been living under a rock, Epstein Becker & Green is repping Fox News in any legal action brought against Gawker for the “Fox Mole.” [New York Observer] * Jerry Sandusky’s motion to dismiss his child sexual abuse charges have been denied. And the fact that he thought this would get him off is funny on its own. [New York Daily News] * When shouldn’t you flash an expired DA’s ID card at the cops? During a DUI stop. She can always use the “celeb angels and demons made me do it” defense. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] * New York City’s first female commissioner of the Department of Information Technology is leaving her job to milk the New York Law School cash cow. [Wall Street Journal] * Law schools are snatching up old ass buildings left and right to house new programs and clinics. Looks like upcoming episodes of “Flip This House” will be brought to you by overpriced tuition. [National Law Journal] * Yeah buddy! Apparently acting like a drunken idiot in Sleazeside pays off. A lawsuit has revealed Jersey Shore star DJ Pauly D’s salary per episode, and it rivals a Biglaw starting salary. [The Clicker / MSNBC]

By Staci Zaretsky