If you are looking for a good reason for Stanford and Harvard to stay away from a modified pass/fail grading system like they have at Berkeley and Yale, here you go:
Yes, you are seeing that video correctly. That there was a self-styled Boalt student rapping the Rules of Civil Procedure, replete with dance interludes.
I don’t know if this will help you pass Civ Pro, but it might help you become the Court Clerk for the Miami-Dade County.
Back in July, we were the first to wonder about the mysterious departure from Sullivan & Cromwell of Carlos Spinelli-Noseda, a rising star at the über-prestigious (and profitable) law firm. Some commenters viewed our interest in his departure as unseemly, prying, or reflecting bias against S&C.
We don’t mean to gloat — okay, maybe just a little — but we’ve been vindicated by recent revelations. From a report by Anthony Lin in the New York Law Journal:
A former Sullivan & Cromwell partner has resigned from the bar for billing his clients and firm more than $500,000 in fraudulent travel and entertainment expenses.
Carlos J. Spinelli-Noseda, a banking and finance specialist who joined Sullivan & Cromwell straight out of Harvard Law School in 1994 and became a partner in 2003, was facing a disciplinary investigation over a pattern of improper billing dating from roughly July 1998 to February 2008.
In a June 3 affidavit of resignation he submitted to the disciplinary committee of the First Department, Mr. Spinelli-Noseda admitted he could not successfully defend himself against charges of professional misconduct. Such resignations are frequently tendered when further proceedings are almost certain to lead to disbarment.
Read more, after the jump.
The Brokeback Lawfirm scandal folded its pup tent months ago. But there’s still stuff to cover at one of ATL’s favorite firms, the venerable Sullivan & Cromwell.
Here are two items. First, from a tipster:
If I recall correctly, Sullivan & Cromwell sent out a memo in December or January saying that even though they paid the “special bonuses” in December, they still intended to pay additional profit-sharing bonuses in February. [February is over] and as far as I know, not a word from S&C. Can you guys please make a big deal over this?
The tipster’s memory is slightly off. From chairman H. Rodgin Cohen’s earlier bonus memo:
[T]he Firm will pay senior associates compensation in addition to salary and bonus through our new Senior Associate Supplemental Bonus Plan (“the Plan”). We have decided to accelerate payments under this new Plan to result in the following [market-matching bonuses] being paid on December 14 to our senior associates, with final supplemental payments to be made in the Spring of ’08.
We are now officially into spring 2008. So ATL hereby “make[s] a big deal over this.” Has S&C paid the supplemental bonuses to its senior associates? If so, can someone please give us the skinny?
Second, here’s an interesting rumor of a partner departure from S&C, from a different tipster….
We’re confused. And we’re guessing we’re not alone.
We have provided extensive coverage of Cordero v. Epstein, in which model Maximilia Cordero alleges that high-profile financier Jeffrey Epstein took advantage of her when she was underage. To add to the suit’s salaciousness, the New York Post previously claimed that Maximilia Cordero was born a man — to wit, Maximillian Cordero (b. 1983).
Now Cordero has turned around and sued the Post. She has filed an exhibit with the court casting doubt on the Post’s claim that she was born a man — but oddly enough, she’s not raising the gender issue in her lawsuit. From DealBreaker:
Cordero and her lawyer (and alleged sometime boyfriend) William Unroch have filed a lawsuit against the Post, claiming it engaged in a smear campaign coordinated with Epstein’s flack Howard Rubenstein (who is also the publicist for the Post).
Radar has all the dirt, but here’s the dirtiest bit:
“Conspicuously absent from the accusations is the Post’s revelation that Cordero was born a man. A source tells Radar that the initial filing of the suit by Unroch includes as an exhibit a birth certificate, which showed Cordero being born Maximilia Cordero, a woman. Reached by phone this weekend, Unroch (with Cordero commenting loudly in the background but declining to come to the phone), called the Post’s behavior ‘outrageous’ but refused to address Cordero’s birth gender or the authenticity of the birth certificate originally filed. ‘She’s a woman,’ Unroch tells Radar. So, why not go after the Post’s gender claims?
‘It’s a slam dunk case whether she was born a cat, a dog, or a space alien,’ Unroch says.”
You can see why we’re confused. And our confusion has only grown since someone sent us a copy of the exhibit mentioned by Radar — namely, a birth certificate showing that Maximillia Josephine Cordero, born on November 15, 1982, was born a “Female.”
You can check out the birth certificate for yourself — please note, we take no position on its authenticity — after the jump.
Epstein’s Accuser Accuses Page Six Of ‘Raping’ ‘Her’ All Over Again [DealBreaker]
Epstein’s Accuser Sics Law Dog On Page Six [Radar / Fresh Intelligence]
While we anxiously await word of new associate bonus announcements, it is in the meantime a quite slow news day. For those of you tired of talking about the New York Bar Exam Results, here is a brief diversion in the form of full-length attorney bio photos from the firm Fox Rothschild. Our tipster quips:
It’s back-to-school-photo time for law firms. What’s up with this Fox Rothschild’s cruel and unusual full-body photos?
We had a look at a few of the sampling of photos provided by the tipster and we totally get what he’s saying (Samantha Evans, pictured at right, is an exception). Interesting experiment, but stick with the head shots next time guys, alright? You don’t want opposing attorneys sizing you up that much.
Any other firms doing wacky things with attorney photos? Maybe some more artsy-fartsy stuff, a la Gibson Dunn’s Peekaboo? Send us anything strange that you come across.
Links to a few more examples of the full length photos are after the jump.
Our colleagues over at DealBreaker have been extensively covering one heck of a lawsuit. It’s our Lawsuit of the Day, but it really ought to be our Lawsuit of the Week — it’s that good.
The defendant is wealthy New York financier Jeffrey Epstein, who already stands accused, in Florida state court, of sex crimes involving underage girls. This latest case is a civil action filed in New York. Here’s a teaser:
[W]e’re knee-deep into the latest sex suit against Jeffrey Epstein, brought by a girl who, at the time, was whatever the opposite of over eighteen is. This one’s from Maximilia Cordero [at right], an aspiring model, who claims that in 2000, Epstein lured her to his Upper East Side apartment on the promise that “he and his wealthy friends would help…with her modeling career.”….
Epstein, in order to quell the girl’s fears as to what people would think of her blowing a man old enough to be her father, swore that he “wouldn’t tell anyone.” Bet he’s wishing he’d gotten her to do the same! Ah, well, hindsight.
Then he came in her mouth and requested that she return with her “14, 15, and 16 year old girlfriends next time.”
More — ’cause you know you want it — after the jump.
What’s up with all these federal judges seeking to leave their life-tenured quarters? We understand that the pay’s not great (which is why we urge them to marry rich). But being an Article III judge is still nice work if you can get it.
Despite the power and prestige, two federal judges are moving on — temporarily or permanently. First, from the Daily Business Review:
Jenkins, 54, a moderate Democrat and former state trial court judge in Oakland, Calif., was appointed by President Clinton a decade ago. He confirmed rumors that he has submitted an application with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the vacancy.
We understand the allure of an appellate over a trial court gig. But still, giving up the federal bench for a state court is “highly unusual” — especially since the state court in question isn’t even the California Supreme Court (the move that Judge Morrison England (E.D. Cal.) was contemplating, before he withdrew his name from consideration).
Second, from the Houston Chronicle (via Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog):
U.S. District Judge Sam Kent [S.D. Tex.] will take a four-month leave from his Galveston bench for unspecified reasons, according to an order made public Monday.
No one involved would comment on the order, but students of the federal judiciary said it is unusual.
We smell a story here. A little more about Judge Kent, after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Federal Judges Fleeing the Bench?”
When President Bush delivered the State of the Union last night, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not one of the four Supreme Court justices in attendance.
Oddly enough, however, Justice Ginsburg and President Bush aren’t as far apart as one might think. They share something in common:
Both Justice Ginsburg and President Bush were cheerleaders!!!
President Bush’s career as a college cheerleader is well-known. But did you know that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a cheerleader too, at Madison High School, in Brooklyn, New York?
We are not kidding. More details available from Ted Frank. It goes without saying that we would LOVE a copy of that yearbook photo.
UPDATE: Alas, the link to Ted Frank’s blog no longer works. But you can read about Justice Ginsburg’s cheerleading career, as well as her other high school activities, over here.
Look, anything is possible. If little Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) can be a beauty pageant contestant, in Little Miss Sunshine — which just snagged Oscar nominations for Best Picture and for Breslin’s performance, among others — then surely RBG can be a cheerleader.
Justice Ginsburg, cheerleader [Lagniappe / Ted Frank]
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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