Supreme Ambitions

A reflective column on Steven Chung's relationship with David Lat.

Bring holiday cheer to lawyers everywhere!

* Yup, the criminal justice system is super broken. After being jailed for 2 years in Rikers and still fighting to clear his name for a crime even the victim’s family doesn’t think he committed, Enger Javier now wants to be a lawyer. [Gawker]

* Emotional tale of the lives behind mandatory minimums, though this one might have a happy ending. Demaryius Thomas’s mother, recently released from prison after 15 years after being pardoned by President Obama, is going to the Super Bowl. [ESPN]

* Should conservatives accept the delegation of legislative power? Heresy! [Library of Law and Liberty]

* Is there an issue with cognitive decline on the U.S. Supreme Court? And will anyone do anything about it? [Los Angeles Times]

* It’s a jungle out there: If you’re a lawyer, when you wake up, you better be running. [Associate’s Mind]

* Yup, a law student is suing over a wafer-less Kit-Kat. [Yahoo]

* We previously mentioned Orrick’s opening up in Houston; here are the identities of 13 of the new partners. [Legal Business]

* Great advice for making the most of networking opportunities. [Rebooting Your Law Practice]

* ATL managing editor David Lat will be in San Francisco a week from today, and you’re cordially invited to meet him at this cocktail reception and Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) book signing. [FBANC via Eventbrite]

Will this latest effort to break up the Ninth Circuit get better traction than past attempts?

* The most difficult thing to inherit may just be an Apple ID — a widow is told by the technology behemoth she needs a court order to continue playing her games on a jointly owned iPad. [Digital Passing]

* Your trusty Bluebook is going to need some help if it is going to continue to be the bane of law students’ existence. [Harvard Crimson]

* Is it too much to ask for a picture of RBG playing Xbox? A class action over Xbox’s tendency to scratch discs heads to the Supreme Court. [Forbes]

* Orrick is casting its lot with the energy market — they are opening up a Houston office with the addition of 20 new partners. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Is threatening someone with blackmail merely a courtesy? [Associates Mind]

* ATL managing editor David Lat will be in San Francisco next month, and you’re cordially invited to meet him at this cocktail reception and Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) book signing. [FBANC via Eventbrite]

Avoid the crowds and complete your Black Friday shopping from the comfort of your home or office -- with a little help from your friends at Above the Law.

* Marriage equality, religious freedom, voting rights, campaign finance reform, racial justice… one civil rights issue outweighs them all: the composition of the Supreme Court. [Talking Points Memo]

* Reminder to all the fresh lil’ 1Ls out there: you just might find love. [Go Knoxville]

* I’m glad someone is fact-checking How To Get Away With Murder; watching that show was getting exhausting. [Refinery 29]

* How quickly what is considered “offensive” changes. [What About Paris?]

* The latest review of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), by Katelyn Kye of Major, Lindsey & Africa (note: some spoilers). [In Brief]

* Try not to let the misery of the courtroom get you down. [Katz Justice]

* Taking a look at the process of adopting legal tech. [Law Technology Today]

* A tribute to how Doug Kendall changed the way liberals talk about the constitution. The founder of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kendall passed away this weekend. [Think Progress]

* That Anheuser-Busch/SABMiller deal is going to make a lot of people a lot of money in fees. [Dealbreaker]

* Thank you, John Oliver! Publicity from Last Week Tonight helped the Orleans Parish Public Defenders Office meet their fundraising goals. Though why a public defenders officer has to resort to crowdfunding in the first instance just boggles the mind. [New Orleans Advocate (last story)]

* More states release the bar passage rate for the July exam — which means more bad news. [Bar Exam Stats]

* The battle over whether Kim Dotcom should be extradited to the United States to face racketeering and copyright infringement charges begins, with legal heavyweights taking sides. [Computer World]

* GOP candidates are throwing Justice Roberts under the bus faster than a contestant on Big Brother. [Jost on Justice]

* This is how to handle typos Biglaw style. [Daily Lawyer Tips]

* If you’re in the Boston area, check out Lat’s latest event for his book Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) on Thursday. [Supreme Ambitions]

This past weekend, the Ninth Circuit held an open house in which it welcomed members of the public to its beautiful courthouse in Pasadena, California.

* The law prof who sent anal-bead porn to her students is making headlines beyond the legal media. [Inside Higher Ed; Total Frat Move]

* You’ve been served — via Facebook. How do you “Like” them apples? [New York Daily News]

* Making a federal — or at least state — case out of teaching yoga to schoolchildren. [ATL Redline]

* Bad idea: taking someone’s identity and accepting money on their behalf. (Or: the dangers of launching a startup without legal advice.) [Associate’s Mind]

* Also a bad idea (if the allegations are true, that is): a men-only golf retreat at a large law firm. [ABA Journal]

* “Sperm Donor Scandal Lawsuit: How One Man with Schizophrenia Allegedly Fathered 36 Children.” [People]

* Getting revenge on a revenge-porn magnate: an 18-year sentence for Kevin Christopher Bollaert. [Los Angeles Times]

* How can healthcare startups protect their intellectual property? [MedCity News]

* Debt-saddled law students love free stuff — so how about free membership in the ABA? [American Bar Association]

* In addition to our April 23 reception, I’ll also be doing an event on April 25 for Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), to which you are all most cordially invited. [Seminary Co-Op Bookstore; Facebook]

* Mary Jo White’s sizable net worth is causing sizable headaches over at the SEC. [DealBook / New York Times]

* If you work at a law firm and take way too long to perform simple tasks in Microsoft Word or Excel, shape up: a new test, developed by former in-house lawyer Casey Flaherty, could expose your weaknesses — and lead to your work being discounted. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* More from Howard Bashman about the misadventures of Howard Shipley, the Foley & Lardner partner who might get spanked by SCOTUS for a bizarre filing. [How Appealing]

* An S.D.N.Y. jury held the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization liable for supporting six terrorist attacks and issued a verdict of $218.5 million — an award that will under the law get tripled (collected remains to be seen). [WSJ Law Blog]

* Wall Street banks and their law firms are getting serious about cybersecurity. [New York Times]

* Thanks to Emily Kelchen for her review of Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link), which she calls “a true legal thriller.” [Wisconsin Lawyer]

Why should someone who will have a hard time relating to the duties of a federal law clerk read Supreme Ambitions?

* Law firm suffers Viagra hack. If it persists for more than four hours… [Legal Cheek]

* An in-depth and frightening look at “Witness 40” in the Ferguson Grand Jury proceedings: a bipolar woman with a long history of making racist comments who lived nowhere near Ferguson and testified only after Officer Wilson’s story was revealed — which she parroted back. Bob McCulloch thought this was a stellar witness. Bob McCulloch is also bad at his job. [The Smoking Gun]

* Charleston local government wants InfiLaw out of town. Is there anyone left who wants InfiLaw to take over Charleston? [TaxProf Blog]

* Congratulations to U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldaña on her confirmation as head of ICE. [International Business Times]

* Pet piercing will soon be illegal in New York, so get that dope nose ring for your dog today! [Lowering the Bar]

* Canadian “band” Skinny Puppy demands $660,000 from the U.S. government for using their music as torture material without permission. As a compromise can we just pledge to strap Dick Cheney down and force him to listen to 15 consecutive hours of Skinny Puppy and call it a day? [Gawker]

* Cleveland WR Andrew Hawkins pens a thorough, even-handed takedown of butthurt police union leaders demanding he apologize for taking the stance that police should try not to kill unarmed 12-year-olds. So apparently this is what the Browns are good at. [Talking Points Memo]

* David chats about the backstory behind Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link).

* An Assistant DA in Barrow, Alaska, was shot and killed the other day, allegedly by a man jealous that his ex-girlfriend had started dating the ADA. [KTUU]

* Legislature amends law “to protect quacks.” That sounds like a good use of their time. [Slate]

* David appeared on Today’s Verdict to discuss his new book, Supreme Ambitions. Also on the show was the creator of Lawsuit — The Game, featured in our holiday gift guide for lawyers. [BronxNet]

* “How Many Bites Do Sloppy Lawyers Get At The Apple?” Oh. I get it. [Redline]

* Lawrence Mitchell is back and talking about inequality. It’s much more what you’d expect from a legal academic than poetry about ogling women in the park. [Washington Post]

* Sometimes even squishy toys take a hit: Nerf ordered to pay $73 million in back royalties. [North Dallas Gazette]

* Congrats to Gawker General Counsel Heather Dietrick on her new role as President. [New York Observer]

* Sad news: Kirkland associate and Northwestern Law ’13 grad Jeremy Adler died unexpectedly last week. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. [Inside Bay Area]

According to the New York Times, "for an elite niche," Supreme Ambitions "has become the most buzzed-about novel of the year."

* A student at Barry Law claims someone stole her phone and used it to call an African-American blogger an N-word on Instagram. We’ll have more on this believable story later. [Miami Herald]

* Mark Wahlberg wants to be pardoned for a crime committed before he was known as Marky Mark. He should also consider asking to be pardoned for The Happening and Planet of the Apes. [CNN]

* The job market was flat last month, and in 2014, the legal sector lost 3,000 jobs. Don’t worry, you’ll get a job eventually, per the hopes and prayers of your career services employees. [Am Law Daily]

* Shine bright like A. Diamond: Howrey’s bankruptcy trustee says he’ll have a confirmed creditor-repayment plan “well before” the end of next year. [WSJ Law Blog]

* iF*ckedUp? The last named plaintiff in the Apple iPod class action may not have bought an iPod during the time period at issue in the suit. [Bits / New York Times]

* We suppose that with new tech comes new logos, because Covington & Burling is dropping the “& Burling” for global branding purposes. [National Law Journal]

* David Lat, ATL’s founder and managing editor, doesn’t “think [he’s] defamed anyone” in his book, Supreme Ambitions (aff. link). Yay! We’ll have more on this later. [New York Times]

* A former Cleary Gottlieb associate will be a very rich man after The Lending Club, the company he founded post-Biglaw, completes its IPO. [American Lawyer]

* Marriage equality won’t arrive in Mississippi just yet. [How Appealing]

* The federal civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner could complicate Loretta Lynch’s nomination to serve as attorney general. [New York Times]

* In other news about excessive use of force by police, the U.S. Department of Justice just blasted Cleveland’s department for abysmal record-keeping about such incidents. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

* And what does possible 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton think about police abuses? [New York Times]

* Non-random appellate panels in the federal courts are far more common than you might think, reports Alison Frankel. [Reuters via How Appealing]

* A smart and thoughtful review by Rosemarie Yu of my new book, Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [New York Law Journal]

* Eugene Ingoglia, one of the S.D.N.Y. prosecutors who helped send Harvard Law cheater Mathew Martoma to prison, will be joining Morvillo LLP as a partner. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Former federal government lawyer Michael Richter: “It’s Not Top-Secret If You Can Google It.” [Wall Street Journal]

* Congratulations to eBrevia, a legal technology company we’ve previously profiled, on raising $1.5 million in seed funding. [Law Technology News]

Not sure about what to get the lawyer or law student in your life for the holidays? We've got you covered!

In-house columnist Mark Herrmann reviews Above the Law founder and managing editor David Lat's forthcoming novel, Supreme Ambitions.

* Justice Scalia spoke at CU-Boulder last night. For his sake, we certainly hope he didn’t speak about any issues that might someday appear before SCOTUS, lest he be asked to recuse. [Boulder Daily Camera via How Appealing]

* Another one bites the dust over at Main Justice: David O’Neil, the head of the criminal division, is stepping down in the wake of the BNP Paribas case, and will likely have many white-shoe law firm suitors. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Fox Rothschild picked up a 18-lawyer boutique firm in Texas, which will serve as the home of its first outpost in the Lone Star State. Energy law, surprisingly, wasn’t the driving factor. [Legal Intelligencer]

* “I have a heart and I have two kids.” That’s a pretty damn good reason for Biglaw attorneys to take a break from their corporate billable hours to represent undocumented children pro bono. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Scott Greenfield reviews Lat’s forthcoming novel, Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). Of course, in SHG style, it contains a spoiler. Try to skip that clearly marked paragraph. [Simple Justice]