Stairway to Heaven

  • Morning Docket: 08.19.20
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.19.20

    * A New York attorney, who billed himself as the “lottery lawyer,” is accused of swindling lottery winners out of millions. Hey, you never know…your attorney’s allegedly bilking you. [NBC News]

    * The top employment lawyer at Target is going to be the new top attorney for Minneapolis. [Minneapolis Business Journal]

    * A suspect in Florida walked out of a hospital just hours before he allegedly killed an Orlando-area attorney. [Fox News]

    * A ton of states are suing the United States Postal Service over anticipated delays in mail delivery. [Bangor Daily News]

    * A petition of certiorari has been filed at the Supreme Court for a copyright case involving Led Zepplin’s iconic song “Stairway to Heaven.” Hopefully the justices will demand a live performance. [Billboard]

  • Morning Docket: 07.11.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.11.16

    * In case you haven’t been keeping score like we have, these are the firms that recently raised salaries: Duval & Stachenfeld; Seyfarth Shaw; and Foley & Lardner. If you’re worried you’ve missed any of our coverage on pay raises, check out our omnibus 2016 salary chart where we collect these stories. [2016 Salary Increase / Above the Law]

    * Lawyers are “the best-paid writers in the world,” so grammar god Bryan Garner suggests they emulate one of the greatest language snoots of them all: the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Garner identifies with Scalia’s textualism because “[he] believe[s] that words have meaning, and that we should take them seriously.” [Wall Street Journal]

    * According to constitutional law scholar Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Irvine Law, SCOTUS may be at a turning point since the next president will likely be able nominate up to four justices. “Whether you see yourself as conservative or liberal … this affects all of us, our most intimate and important aspects of our lives.” [Los Angeles Times]

    * Lawyers for Led Zeppelin are seeking about $800K in costs and legal fees for their defense of the seminal rock band in the “Stairway to Heaven” copyright infringement suit. Peter Anderson, the band’s lead counsel in the case, claims that his $330 per hour rate is “actually below” the going rate for this caliber of high-profile work. [Ars Technica]

    * Venezuelan authorities have arrested a woman connected to Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal, for allegedly being “in charge of seeking customers to invest illicit funds in outsourcing-type business arrangements.” She’s been charged with illegally obtaining funds in violation of banking regulations. [Reuters]

  • Morning Docket: 04.21.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.21.16

    * Who says we have a divided Supreme Court? When it comes to mercilessly mocking bad advocates.[Slate]

    * The ongoing Led Zeppelin infringement suit takes a comical turn when someone uncovers a melody that sounds, well, at least as similar as the one Spirit bases its claim upon, in a Sonata from the 1600s. [Digital Music News]

    * “Was Kanye’s Tweet Legally Binding?” Society should punch itself that this is a valid question. [Corporate Counsel]

    * Compliance lawyers are increasingly concerned over their personal liability. Hey, this was all fun and games until someone said there might be consequences to this job! [Law360]

    * Judge Rosemary Collyer is taking senior status, creating a vacancy that I’m sure the Senate will act quickly and responsibly to fill. [National Law Journal]

    * An ICE lawyer gets 30 days in the slammer for forging a document to keep an otherwise legal Mexican immigrant out of the country. Maybe Donald Trump can pay his legal bills, too. [ABC News]

    * Oh great! Creating a new law school. [The News Tribune]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 04.13.16
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 04.13.16

    * Led Zeppelin doesn’t want drug or alcohol evidence coming into the upcoming “Stairway to Heaven” suit. Good luck… it’s not possible to talk about that song without drugs. [National Law Journal]

    * A lot of small and solo lawyers are shy about big bills. They shouldn’t be. [Business of Law Blog / LexisNexis]

    * “10 Supreme Court Novels to Get Your Mind Off the Nomination Battle.” Great, now we’ve got to wait until Senator Grassley gets through all of these before he sets up a hearing. [ABA Journal]

    * Speaking of Judge Garland, Fix the Court sees this nomination as an opportunity to generate some momentum around the concept of Supreme Court term limits. [Fix the Court]

    * Apparently the key to getting good grades from narcissistic professors is to be a narcissist yourself. That seems odd because you’d expect narcissists to chafe at someone striving to steal the spotlight but “game recognize game,” I guess. [TaxProf Blog]

    * Remember when we said that the Florida bar exam results were bad? They were really bad. [Bar Exam Stats]

    * A Rutgers Law professor is in hot water over allegedly mishandled funds. [Legal Profession Blog]

    * BarBri Law Preview has a $10k scholarship for a lucky 1L this coming year. If you want it to be you (or someone you know), then act fast because the deadline is Friday. [BarBri Law Preview]

  • Morning Docket: 04.13.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.13.16

    * You may think that your law school graduation speaker is cool, but you should think again, because your law school graduation speaker probably isn’t Vice President Joe Biden. This spring, the Veep will be delivering the commencement address at Syracuse Law, his alma mater. [Syracuse.com]

    * Bill Mateja, one of Polsinell’s finest white-collar criminal defense attorneys, will be representing Texas AG Ken Paxton in his latest foray into the wrong side of the justice system. How do we know Bill Mateja is good at getting his clients off? “Unlike many attorneys, Bill Mateja does not expect repeat business.” [Big Law Business]

    * The Supreme Court may be behind the times when it comes to technology (cellphones are typically banned inside the courtroom’s walls), but the justices will allow a group of about a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers to use them to see a live transcript during their swearing-in ceremony next week. Congratulations to all! [ABC News]

    * FBI Director James Comey acknowledges similarities between arguments made in the gun-control debate and Apple’s quest to maintain privacy through encryption, but says “[w]e can’t resolve these really important issues that affect our values — technology, innovation, safety and all kinds of other things — in litigation.” [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “There’s a plaintiff who’s sure, his tunes could’ve made gold, and he’s buying a lawsuit in C.D. Cal.” Ever seen a cause of action for the falsification of rock n’ roll history? It’s taken about 40 years to happen, but now Led Zeppelin is going to trial over a copyright claim to its hit song “Stairway to Heaven.” [THR, Esq. / The Hollywood Reporter]


    Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

  • 1st Circuit, Antonin Scalia, Copyright, Elena Kagan, Music, Non-Sequiturs, Privacy, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Technology

    Non-Sequiturs: 05.19.14

    * Justice Kagan received a Supreme Court fact check when she confused the site of the nation’s oldest standing synagogue with the home of the nation’s first Jewish community. At least she didn’t make a mistake about the actual law that she actually wrote. [WSJ Law Blog] * Justice Scalia may not understand how cell phones work, but even he gets net neutrality — because it’s a lot like pizza. [The Atlantic] * Marc Randazza describes the need for a right to be forgotten online. Getting forgotten online? Hey, we found a new job for Jill Abramson. [CNN] * A woman threatened to shoot up a South Carolina Burger King over a stale roll. Don’t tell her what “pink slime” is. [New York Daily News] * Cops arrest upwards of 40 people while trying to catch a bank robber. When you read the whole history, it’s actually surprising they weren’t limiting their search to people in stripes carrying bags with dollar signs on them. [Slate] * Corporate lawyer fits right into the rising phenomenon of “Bulls**t Jobs.” [Strike! Magazine] * Earlier today we wrote about a possible crowdfunded lawsuit. Here’s a discussion of legal issues involved in crowdfunding generally. [IT-Lex] * Sen. Rand Paul has a stupid idea, so he’ll probably convince a bunch of liberals to go along with it. And that would be bad news for Professor David Barron’s nomination to the First Circuit. [New Republic] * Led Zeppelin is getting sued over allegedly stealing the opening riff from Stairway to Heaven. It turns out there’s some band out there who’s sure that all that glitters is gold and they want some of it. A clip of the alleged original below…. [The Guardian]
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