Mitt Romney’s unfortunate comment at the most recent presidential debate, in which he boasted about receiving “binders full of women” while trying to build a diverse cabinet as Governor or Massachusetts, has become a wildly popular internet meme. If you’re looking for some good laughs, check out this Tumblr or this slideshow.
Happily, there’s a Biglaw connection to all of this. At which leading law firm can you assemble your own “binder full of women”?
* With 269 partners to go, Dewey need to start panicking yet? Twelve additional partners, including practice group leaders, have jumped ship, bringing the grand total of partner-level defectors to 31 since January. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Late-breaking news: law schools’ numbers still don’t add up. The New York Times has already said its piece on the problem with law schools, so the Wall Street Journal decided that it was time to chime in again. [Wall Street Journal]
* Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the man accused of going on an Afghan killing spree, will be represented by Ted Bundy’s lawyer. In the court of public opinion, that’s equivalent to pleading guilty. [Bloomberg]
* “I have had it with these motherf**king snakes breastfeeding women on this motherf**king plane!” A mother has settled a lawsuit with her airline over being kicked off a plane for nursing her child. [Businessweek]
* Here’s a fashion tip for law firm staff: you wear orange shirts in prison, not at the office. Think twice next time before you wear that color to work, because you might get fired like these folks in Florida. [Sun-Sentinel]
* Let’s face it, there is no escape from the law, not even in your free time (if that even exists). That being said, here’s a lawyerly crossword puzzle, inspired by Nina Totenberg’s reporting on legal affairs. Have fun! [NPR]
Yesterday marked the first day of Women’s History Month. And as we noted for our readers, Rush Limbaugh began his celebrations a day early by calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student who testified before a Congressional committee on the need for access to birth control, a “slut.”
In case you’re in need of a refresher, here’s what Limbaugh had to say of Fluke’s testimony: “What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.”
Needless to say, people are outraged about Limbaugh’s comments. Because really, who wouldn’t be? Let’s take a look at what Fluke had to say in response….
* Like a virgin, detained for the very first time: thanks to this court order, Egypt will be forced to come out of the dark ages and ban virginity tests for female detainees and military prisoners. [CNN]
* Oh, hell no. Judge Jed Rakoff issued an order 78 seconds after the Second Circuit decided to delay the SEC’s Citigroup case. His pimp hand is strong (which is impressive!). [WSJ Law Blog]
* As an attorney, you should know that the law stops for no one, not even Santa Claus. Major deals in Asian markets kept many Biglawyers working hard this holiday season. [Am Law Daily]
* Social media subpoena fail: “Haha. Boston PD submitted to Twitter for my information. Lololol? For what? Posting info pulled from public domains? #comeatmebro” [Boston Herald]
* A former stripper is suing a police officer for allegedly stealing money from her purse. This girl fit $714 in dollar bills in a small, Coach bag? That’s actually a real accomplishment. [ABC News]
* It’s been seven hours and fifteen sixteen days, since you took your love away. Nothing compares to a Vegas wedding, because Sinead O’Connor’s marriage is already over. [Los Angeles Times]
It can be said with certainty that the women’s rights movement in this country has resulted in many positive outcomes. We can vote (and drive, too; sorry, Saudi Arabia). We can go to college and professional schools. We can work just as hard as men and earn almost as much. Heck, we can even run for president. What could possibly be wrong with any of these things?
Supply and demand, that’s what.
As more and more women decided to pursue higher education and become members of learned professions like medicine and the law, professional schools had to figure out what to do with all of their new female applicants. Schools in both of these fields figured out solutions. Take a wild guess as to which profession botched the decision….
* How lucky for us that the Senate decided to avoid a government shutdown, but the third time is not the charm when it comes to the taxpayers’ money. [New York Times]
* Did DSK get a blowie in his official capacity as Managing Director of the IMF? That might be what he has to say if he wants diplomatic immunity. [Washington Post]
* Women in Saudi Arabia now have the right to vote, but they’ll have to walk to the polls. They’ll remain backseat drivers until further notice, just like in America. [WSJ Law Blog]
* While med school grads can stop a person from bleeding out, law school grads could probably treat a papercut (but that’s a bit of an overstatement). Who will be there to stop our bleeding? [Am Law Daily]
* Annie Le’s family is suing Yale over her death, saying the school failed to protect women. Yale says the suit has no basis, but when someone has died, that just makes them sound like tremendous d-bags. [CNN]
* The unhappiest workers in professional fields are unmarried, middle-aged, female lawyers. Figures. Maybe we need to arrange some Geriatric Courtship Connections for these gals. [ABA Journal]
* China’s new marriage law interpretation has set women’s rights back a few decades. Next thing you know, women will be back in the kitchen, with bound feet and pregnant. [New York Times]
* Is it defamatory to say someone is a millionaire, not a billionaire? Don’t mess with the Donald’s money. Apparently he has enough of it to appeal even the dumbest of lawsuits. [Wall Street Journal]
* A noise complaint against Madonna will go to trial. Her neighbor was borderline, but the Material Girl’s not sorry. It’s human nature. And I’m all out of applicable lyrics. [New York Daily News]
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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.
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?
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