Tyler Clementi

  • 2nd Circuit, Abortion, Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Election 2012, Gay, Job Searches, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Lesbians, Morning Docket, Religion, Southern New England School of Law/Umass, Suicide

    Morning Docket: 10.08.12

    * Should Biglaw firms bill by the result instead of by the hour? When some of the results-oriented strategies involve reading less and writing faster to improve work efficiency, we’re not sure how well this would work in a law firm setting. [New York Times]

    * Roller coaster of employment: after losing 1,400 jobs in August, the legal sector added 1,000 jobs in September. Alas, there are way more than 1,000 new bar admittees gunning for all of those paralegal and secretarial positions. [Am Law Daily]

    * “They were throwing furniture at both of us.” Both sides on the Jacoby & Myers non-lawyer firm ownership case took a beating before the Second Circuit during oral arguments, but who won? [New York Law Journal]

    * Come November, Floridians will vote on constitutional amendments that deal with abortion and separation of church and state. Meanwhile, half the voters won’t even read the entire ballot, so there’s that. [New York Times]

    * A love triangle + an Arkansas Wal-Mart = a judicial suspension for Circuit Judge Sam Pope after an all-out brawl with… Bill Murray? Hey, at least this guy’s estranged wife got three punches in. [National Law Journal]

    * Tyler Clementi’s family won’t file suit against Rutgers University and Dharun Ravi — instead, they’ll use the publicity from their son Tyler’s suicide for “positive purposes,” like supporting gay and lesbian youths. [CNN]

    * “This guy is a bully, and he uses the court system to do it.” Robert V. Ward Jr., the former dean of UMass Law, had to deal with Gregory Langadinos, a serial law school litigant, and it wasn’t exactly pretty. [Boston Globe]

  • Attorney Misconduct, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Boalt Hall, Copyright, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Drugs, Health Care / Medicine, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, SCOTUS, Senate Judiciary Committee, Sex, Supreme Court, Tax Law

    Morning Docket: 06.20.12

    * It’s not just media groups that are urging the Supreme Court to allow live coverage of the announcement of the ACA decision. Senators Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee have joined the club. [Blog of Legal Times]

    * Dewey know whether this failed firm’s former partners will be settling their claims any time soon? Team Togut hopes to reach a deal in the next six weeks, and claims that cooperation will absolve D&L’s deserters of all future liability. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

    * From Biglaw to the big house: former Sullivan & Cromwell partner John O’Brien, who is serving time for tax evasion charges, has been suspended from practicing law in New York. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * A Stradling Yocca partner and his wife, a Boalt Hall graduate, stand accused of planting drugs on a school volunteer who supervised their son. Looks like the only thing they’re straddling now is jail time. [OC Register]

    * Dharun Ravi was released early from jail yesterday after completing a little more than half of his 30-day sentence. Funny how bad behavior got him into the slammer, but good behavior got him out of it. [CNN]

    * “Why would somebody so smart do something so stupid?” Kenneth Kratz, the sexting DA from Wisconsin, claims that the answer to that question is an addiction to sex and prescription drugs. [Herald Times Reporter]

    * Jay-Z’s got 99 problems and this bitch is one. He’s been accused by Patrick White of plagiarizing parts of his own best-selling memoir, “Decoded,” and slapped with a copyright infringement suit. [New York Daily News]

  • 9th Circuit, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Canada, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Dissolution, Football, John Edwards, JPMorgan Chase, Kids, Morning Docket, Police, Politics, Pregnancy / Paternity, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Trials

    Morning Docket: 05.30.12

    * Dewey have any cash to pay the people helping to wind down our firm’s business? Nope! Even though JPMorgan backed D&L’s $8.6M motion to fund the firm’s ongoing operations, Judge Glenn insisted that the bank “[r]oll [its] truck up and start collecting accounts receivable.” [Am Law Daily (reg. req.)]

    * “Don’t tase my baby, bro!” SCOTUS has declined to review a case where the Ninth Circuit ruled that the use of a Taser on a seven-month pregnant woman constituted excessive force. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * “The jury has sent a note that they’ve reached… [dramatic pause] … a good stopping point.” Judicial humor lightened the mood after the seventh day of deliberations without a verdict in the John Edwards trial. [ABC News]

    * Dharun Ravi finally issued an apology for his “stupid and childish” behavior, and he’ll be heading off to serve his 30-day jail sentence on Thursday. And you know, that jail sentence is joke enough for this blurb. [CNN]

    * “Dumb Blonde” isn’t a name that Elizabeth Warren takes too kindly to being called. She much prefers the name that her Native American ancestors bestowed upon her: “Running Joke.” [San Francisco Chronicle]

    * Four of the alleged victims in the Jerry Sandusky case have asked the court to protect their identities. It’s kind of like the Michael Jackson case, but everyone cares more because this one involves football. [Bloomberg]

    * Hundreds of lawyers, notaries, and other legal professionals took to the streets in Montreal earlier this week to publicly protest Bill 78, a law that limits public protests. That’s so meta, eh Canadians? [Montreal Gazette]

  • Basketball, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Gambling, Gambling / Gaming, John Edwards, Law Schools, Layoffs, Lunacy, Morning Docket, Murder, Sentencing Law, Trials

    Morning Docket: 03.16.12

    * While “Dewey remains a great firm with terrific lawyers” for the time being, check back in after five percent of the firm’s attorneys have been laid off. Then tell us how great and terrific things are, we dare you. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * The University of St. Thomas School of Law really “take[s] data accuracy very seriously.” That’s why the employed at graduation rate the school reported to U.S. News was off by 47.7%, right? [National Law Journal]

    * John Edwards has a judge’s permission to use Rielle Hunter’s lawyers at his campaign finance trial. Mmm, there’s nothing like getting some legal sloppy seconds from your former mistress. [Bloomberg]

    * After two days of deliberations, jurors in the Dharun Ravi privacy trial still haven’t reached a verdict. Just think, if he had taken the plea, he wouldn’t be worrying as much about deportation right now. [New York Post]

    * If Hemy Neuman’s delusions about Olivia Newton-John were about getting physical, instead of getting murderous, maybe he wouldn’t have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [CNN]

    * It’s the most wonderful time of the year: March Madness! Are NCAA bracket pools legal in your office? It depends. Either way, all I know is that I’ll be betting on Lehigh. Go Mountain Hawks! [Businessweek]

  • Biglaw, Deaths, Federal Judges, Health Care / Medicine, Money, Morning Docket, Privacy, Rankings, SCOTUS, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Supreme Court, Trials

    Morning Docket: 03.14.12

    * Who will play starring roles in the Obamacare arguments before SCOTUS? A bunch of older white guys. Good thing this isn’t televised, because the ratings would probably suck. [Legal Times]

    * The judiciary is on the cusp of a “financial crisis,” and some trials may be put on hold. That, or they’re just going to get rid of people. Which do you think it’ll be? [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * When rankings like these are available, who cares about U.S. News? Here’s a list of the law schools you should go to if you want to actually make bank as a lawyer. [Forbes]

    * Covington & Burling is the latest Biglaw firm to sign up for an office in Seoul. Memo to partners: this is not the spring “bonus” your associates care about. [Capital Business Blog / Washington Post]

    * The jury in the Dharun Ravi privacy trial is set to begin its deliberations this morning. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room — or, more on point, a webcam. [Statehouse Bureau]

    * Thomas Puccio, a former Biglaw partner known for his notorious clientele, RIP. [New York Times]

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  • Abortion, Biglaw, Family Law, Gay, Morning Docket, Old People, Partner Issues, Suicide, Vermin / Rodents / Pests, Women's Issues

    Morning Docket: 03.08.12

    * Lawyers at this Biglaw firm may learn a thing or two about respecting their elders later this week. Kelley Drye is close to settling an age discrimination suit filed by Eugene D’Ablemont, one of its many de-equitized partners. [Wall Street Journal]

    * Well, this could definitely be one of the reasons why Cravath hasn’t given out any spring bonuses to associates yet this year. They probably had to spend all of their money to clean up their allegedly fly-infested cafeteria. [Am Law Daily]

    * Women in Virginia will now be able to politely decline their pre-abortion transvaginal ultrasounds in favor of abdominal ones. Oh, how nice! Look at that, girls, we totally won the war on women. [CBS News]

    * Things Dharun Ravi texted to Tyler Clementi on the night the latter committed suicide? “I’ve known you were gay and I have no problem with it.” Of course you knew, you watched his sexual encounters via webcam. [CNN]

    * According to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, this equation makes sense: donor sperm + donor eggs + an estranged wife + consent to post-separation IVF = a child support obligation. [Boston Globe]

  • 9th Circuit, Alex Kozinski, Gay, John Edwards, Law Schools, Lindsay Lohan, Morning Docket, Privacy, Trials

    Morning Docket: 03.02.12

    * John Edwards’s heart condition has improved, so his campaign finance trial will begin in April. Your heart condition would be more manageable, too, if you knew your sex tapes were going to be destroyed. [Bloomberg]

    * Despite his love of all things fabulous (like peep-toe shoes), Proposition 8 plaintiffs don’t want Chief Judge Alex Kozinski to hear their arguments on an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]

    * Instead of filing a motion to dismiss like Cooley and NYLS, Florida Coastal School of Law has removed its law school lawsuit to federal court. Will this be the start of a new trend? [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * A witness claims that Dharun Ravi “appeared uncomfortable” because his roommate was gay — so uncomfortable that he allegedly set up a webcam to watch his intimate encounters. That makes sense. [CNN]

    * Objection! Lindsay Lohan is hosting Saturday Night Live, but her lawyer had to approve all of her skits. What a shame. Bobby Moynihan would’ve been great as Judge Sautner. [Daily Dish / San Francisco Chronicle]

  • Deaths, Non-Sequiturs, SCOTUS, Social Media, Social Networking Websites, Trials

    Non-Sequiturs: 02.24.12

    * So, your colleague or family member dies, suddenly, after allegedly being worked into the ground. But it’s my blog post about it that “turned the sad situation into a nightmare”? I think instead of lamenting for a fluff piece in a local paper, the media geniuses at Dinsmore should respond to a legitimate press inquiry. [West Virginia Record] * The Dharun Ravi trial is under way. I’ll be calling it the Ravi trial, not the Tyler Clementi trial. Because Tyler Clementi is the kid that tragically killed himself, while Dharun Ravi is the very much alive person who has already had his life ruined even thought he didn’t kill anybody. [Metropolis] * Are law firms finally starting to make money off of their investments in social media? [Legal Blog Watch] * HoLove is getting a Brazilian. [Legal Week] * Mmm… Section 230. [Paid Content.org] * Does pot make you less productive, or does lack of productivity make you smoke pot? Or, man, have you ever thought that, like, maybe the pot was smoking you, or something? [What About Clients?] * If you go to the second hour of this show, at about the 33-minute mark, you’ll hear me start to absolutely lose my mind over the Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert in Fisher. [WBEZ]
  • Biglaw, Deaths, Federal Judges, Food, Law Professors, Money, Morning Docket, Privacy, SCOTUS, Stephen Breyer, Suicide, Supreme Court, Television

    Morning Docket: 02.21.12

    * Vedel Browne has been charged in the machete robbery of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He faces up to 20 years if convicted, and with that sentence, we’re betting he wishes he got away with more than $1,000. [CNN] * ¡Viva México! These days, Mexico’s got more than just drug cartels, violence, and prison […]

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