Wall Street

You Need This Job, You Will Never Be in the Top One Percent

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On the Philadelphia Craigslist, there is a job listing for people who enjoy pissing all over the 99% — a part-time job for a most likely unemployed person who nonetheless loves the people in power and hates everybody else. Oh, and applicants better have not protested against the Iraq war, because apparently this employer loves people who never question authority.

See, this is why we still have to pay attention to Super Tuesday despite the fact that the Republicans are down to a robot and a guy who hates women. Republicans always have a puncher’s chance because there are so many people in this country right now who are unemployed and willing to take part-time crap work, who still believe that someday — magically — they will end up on top.

It’s much easier to sing to these American idiots about the dream of prosperity than to tell people the truth: statistically speaking, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning that to go from the mailroom to the boardroom.

But, since I suspect at least 50% of the unemployed people out there don’t understand how the system works, let me post the job. Have fun with your self-loathing….

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Morning Docket: 02.14.12

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Fashion: brought to you by lawyers.

* A bill to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey has passed in the state Senate. If this passes in the state Assembly, will Chris Christie put the kibosh on it? Someone better make him a faaabulous offer he can’t refuse. [Wall Street Journal]

* They might not be the most stylish bunch, but without lawyers (and the contracts they write), events like New York Fashion Week wouldn’t happen. Models, please keep that in mind while you do your little turn on the catwalk. [Reuters]

* Is a mandatory life sentence a cruel and unusual punishment for the Underwear Bomber? Because you’ve got to remember, it’s not like the guy actually killed 300 people. He only almost killed 300 people. [Detroit Free Press]

* Hey 0Ls, here’s some advice on how to “beat” the wait-list blues that’s reminiscent of bad dating advice: don’t call too soon; it’ll make it look like you’re “desperate and hasty.” [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Two Occupy Wall Street protesters are suing the police officer who pepper-sprayed them. Here’s a video of what happened. Those poor little hipsters, they didn’t even see it coming. [New York Daily News]

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Inside Straight: A Requiem To Epiphanies

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In the first lawsuit (during the proxy fight), the judge held that certain statements made in proxy materials were false and misleading. That lawsuit settled. In the next lawsuit (the 10b-5 class action), plaintiffs explain that precisely the same statements appeared in an annual report, and it is now settled law that those words are false and misleading. How do you avoid the devastating effect of collateral estoppel in the second case?

I solved that puzzle back in 1990. Now I’ve moved in-house, and I fear that I’ll never solve a similar puzzle again.

Have I lost my creativity? I don’t think so. Does my job still require creativity? Yes — but different kinds of creativity. This column is a requiem to a type of thinking that an in-house job — or, at a minimum, my in-house job — doesn’t seem to permit….

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Morning Docket: 01.24.12

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* First the Jones verdict, then the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Jose Padilla’s torture lawsuit. It’s enough to make ACLUers develop bipolar disorder. [Washington Post]

* Release the Kagan! The Supreme Court rejected Freedom Watch’s motion for time to argue that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the Obamacare case. [CNN]

* Biglaw problems: here’s a great round-up of 2012′s law firm lawsuits, starring Akin Gump, Crowell & Moring, Dechert, and Greenberg Traurig, to name a few. [Am Law Daily]

* After dropping a lawsuit challenging their forcible eviction from Zuccotti Park, supporters of Occupy Wall Street will go back to occupying the couches in their parents’ basements. [Bloomberg]

* Not interested in being a lawyer? Check out these suggestions for “unique” career paths (i.e., ones that you could have pursued after college, with half the debt load). [U.S. News]

* Not such a great alternative fee arrangement. A prosecutor turned solo practitioner is going to jail after accepting oxycodone pills as payment from a police informant. [Tampa Bay Times]

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Fun Fact of the Day: Lawyers and the One Percent

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Scrooge McDuck: he is the 1 percent (but not a lawyer).

Lawyers are the fourth most well-represented occupational group among the nation’s top 1 percent (which, for purposes of the study, consists of households with a pretax income of $380,000, excluding capital gains).

– a New York Times analysis of data collected by the University of Minnesota Population Center.

Additional interesting facts and links — including which occupations ranked ahead of lawyers, and what percentage of lawyers belong to the 1 percent — appear after the jump.

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.10.12

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He grows strong off the tears of fired workers.

* There’s a new chief legal officer at Morgan Stanley: Eric Grossman, a former Davis Polk partner, replaces Frank Barron, a former Cravath partner (who joined Morgan Stanley not that long ago; if you know more about this odd situation, email us). [Bloomberg Businessweek]

* Will anybody be surprised if it turns out that Ron Paul likes to fire people too? [Politico]

* Et tu, Bill Kristol? [Weekly Standard]

* How will Citizens United affect the political process? We’re starting to find out. [WSJ Law Blog]

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski

* How often does a federal judge get a shout-out in the announcement of a pop music group’s tour? [The Music Network]

* Or how often does a federal judge go on tour with his own band? [Patently-O]

* Maybe the NLRB should stay the course on protecting employees’ rights to organize themselves using social media. [LexisNexis / Labor & Employment Law]

* Most people will just ignore the balanced budget amendment as proposed by Chuck Woolery (yes, that Chuck Woolery), but on the off chance that somebody actually says to you, “You know, Chuck Woolery has some really good ideas,” here’s somebody who took the time to smack the Chuckster down. [Recess Appointment]

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Moonlighting: Things Not to Say In-House – ‘I’m Bad at Math’

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It’s one of the biggest cons going around. I cringe whenever I hear it. A lawyer laughs and says, “I’m not good with numbers — that’s why I became a lawyer.”

On the surface, it seems to make sense; it sounds like it should be true. For some, it might even be true. After all, the last time we used quadratic equations was back when loafers on bare feet were considered desirable footwear (thanks Don Johnson).

In-house lawyers should never, ever say they’re bad at math — even those who really are. After all, business people are preoccupied with numbers. As an in-house lawyer, telling a business person that you’re bad at math is like telling them you don’t care about the most important thing that everyone else in your company cares about, and if your company is publicly listed, what every investor in your company cares about — the company’s numbers….

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Morning Docket: 12.19.11

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* It’s about freakin’ time. Guess who’s jumped on board the ever popular “blame the ABA” bandwagon? None other than David Segal, the New York Times equivalent of the law school scam blogger. [New York Times]

* Newt says that as president, he’d ignore SCOTUS decisions. Raise your hand if you want to elect someone who doesn’t understand our government’s system of checks and balances. [Los Angeles Times]

* Remember that time you applied for the DOJ Honors Program? You were probably rejected because you were a damn, dirty, liberal hippie. [CNN]

* Facebook is threatening to sue Mark Zuckerberg. No, not one — he founded the company. The other one — no, not the lawyer. This guy: the “ultimate Facebook troll.” [Hollywood Reporter]

* “We are the 99 percent.” You know that our country is circling the drain when even Yale Law thinks that the Occupy Wall Street movement coined 2011′s quote of the year. [ABC News]

* North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has died. Say hello to his slightly taller successor. [Bloomberg]

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Morning Docket: 12.15.11

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* Guys in my high school White House dropped threats to veto defense bills authorizing infinite detention of U.S. citizens all the time, it was no big deal. Nothing like bastardizing the Sixth Amendment. [New York Times]

* So much for occupying the court system, eh? This judge won’t budge on dismissals, and more than half of the OWS protesters who appeared in court yesterday accepted an offer over going to trial. [Bloomberg]

* Gibson Dunn says that it will file a motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s Facebook suit in January. Now taking bets on whether Ceglia will have another lawyer by then. [Buffalo News]

* Just like Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray’s money was gone too soon. He’s requesting a public defender to handle the appeal of his conviction for involuntary manslaughter. [CNN]

* Lindsay Lohan was finally able to please Judge Sautner during her probation progress hearing. She was also able to please her adoring fans, because she reportedly flashed her bra. [USA Today]

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Morning Docket: 12.09.11

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* DLA Piper is blaming the Occupy Wall Street movement for Biglaw’s sad, 2011 bonus season. It looks like we can expect a Cravath match from that firm. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* We could really use some more law schools — fourth tier law schools, in particular. Say hello to the Savannah Law School, a John Marshall Law School Atlanta production. [National Law Journal]

* University of Texas School of Law Dean Larry Sager has been ousted from his position. Readers have flooded our inbox with the news, so we’ll have more on this later. [Texas Tribune]

* This Senate victory for gay servicemembers came with unintended consequences. It’s now kosher to have sex with men, women, and everything else under military law. [Washington Post]

* Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against Stephen McDaniel. If being drawn and quartered were an option, maybe this medieval scholar wouldn’t mind so much. [Macon Telegraph]

* Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Although Ben Stein is the keynote speaker at this year’s ABA Techshow, legal tech nerds will likely be unable to win his money. [ABA Journal]

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