* O.J. freshly squeezed by a second co-defendant. [AP via Athens Banner-Herald]
* Law professors get appointed to do everything. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
* Nevada holds off on an execution, waiting on SCOTUS. [Reno Gazette-Journal]
* Weiss pleads not guilty. [Jurist]
* iPoison. [PC World]
Technology
- Crime, Law Professors, Melvyn Weiss, Michael Vick, Milberg Weiss, Morning Docket, O.J. Simpson, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Technology
Morning Docket: 10.16.07
By Billy MerckLast week, USA Today ran an article about “Email-Free Fridays” or “Zero Email Fridays.” Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal ran pretty much the same article.
But it’s an interesting piece, and it relates to an issue that many of us confront: email overload. The problem is especially acute for lawyers at large law firms, but it’s not limited to their ranks.
From the WSJ:
A growing number of employers, including U.S. Cellular, Deloitte & Touche and Intel, are imposing or trying out “no email” Fridays or weekends. While the bans typically allow emailing clients and customers or responding to urgent matters, the normal flow of routine internal email is halted. Violators are hit with token fines, or just called out by the boss.
The limits aim to encourage more face-to-face and phone contact with customers and co-workers, raise productivity or just give employees a reprieve from the ever-rising email tide. Emails sent by individual corporate users are projected to increase 27% this year, to an average of 47 a day, up from 37 in 2006…. And one-third of users feel stressed by heavy email volume, according to a 2007 study…. Many check email as often as 30 to 40 times an hour, the study showed.
Managers complain that rather than confronting problems, employees use email to avoid them by passing issues back and forth in long message strings, like a hot potato. Email reduces face-to-face contact among co-workers and clients; terse, poorly phrased messages further strain those relationships. And it is spilling into weekends, chaining employees to computers when they should be relaxing.
So, are email-free Fridays a brilliant idea? Or is this policy just not feasible? Take our poll:
P.S. We’re hopelessly behind in our email. After we deal with a message, we file or delete it, leaving only pending items in our inbox. Right now our inbox contains 2,471 pending items.
Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of email we receive, we can’t respond personally to every message. If your email does require a response, and you haven’t heard from us for a while, please email us again, by way of friendly reminder. Or here’s a novel concept: try calling!
Fridays go from casual to e-mail-free [USA Today]
A Day Without Email Is Like… [Wall Street Journal]
- Antitrust, Celebrities, Health Care / Medicine, Morning Docket, Running, Shameless Plugs, Technology
Morning Docket: 10.11.07
By B Clerker* Politician busted for cheating in marathon. Seriously. [Sports Illustrated] [FN1]
* iPhone sued over exclusivity. [MSNBC]
* Hospital employees suspended for violating HIPAA after Clooney visit. [CNN]
* Suspected killer escapes to St. Martin, so far evades extradition. [CNN]
[FN1] Shameless plug: Speaking of marathons, David is running the New York City marathon next month, to raise funds for cancer research. If you’d be willing to support him with a tax-deductible donation, please click here.
- Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Media and Journalism, New York Observer, Shameless Plugs, Social Networking Websites, Technology
Why Do Lawyers Love Facebook So Much?
By David LatThat’s the question we tackle in our latest column for the New York Observer. Here’s an excerpt:
Among associates at large law firms, Facebook passed the tipping point sometime over the summer. Since the site opened to the public last year, adults everywhere have been joining—there are 40 million people already on Facebook, and about a million more every week. But lawyers seem to be particularly enamored of it (as is Microsoft, which is reportedly considering an investment that would value Facebook at as much as $10 billion).
It’s an expensive love affair…. Next year, the AmLaw 200 law firms are expected to hire 10,000 new associates. Let’s estimate, conservatively, that half of them spend one billable hour a week on Facebook. If we assume (again conservatively) an average hourly billing rate of $200, that comes to about $50 million a year in lost billable hours—and partner profits. Fifty million bucks will buy you a lot of Hermès ties.
You can read the rest of the piece by clicking here.
From Bluebook to Facebook: Social Site Seduces Firmland [New York Observer]
It appears that Quinn Emanuel isn’t the only law firm with a snazzy new website. The WSJ Law Blog reports:
Okay, we’re not necessarily proud of our law-firm Web site fetish, so forgive us for spilling a few pixels over the spanking-new page the folks at Gibson Dunn put up.
[Ed. note: Racy stuff, esp. for the Wall Street Journal! That sentence -- with its references to a "fetish," "spilling a few pixels" (hehe), and "spanking" -- is chock full of double entendres.]
We’re not sure it offers more or better content than the average firm site… but check out that design! We’re big fans, from the newspapery layout to the McSweeney’s-esque literary feel to the overall minimialist aesthetic….
Take, for instance, the six videos on firm diversity. There’s one entitled Out, with gay partners talking about their sexual orientation. And then there’s one called Red & Blue, about the firm’s political diversity, including an interview with former Congressman Mel Levine (Blue) and former Solictor General Ted Olson (Red)…
Unlike those rascals over at Quinn Emanuel, the GDC folks haven’t pulled their videos. And hopefully they will leave them up, even after we poke (gentle) fun of them.
Which we proceed to do, after the jump.
Continue reading “Methinks that Gibson Doth Protest Too Much”
We aren’t the only ones having fun with the story of the Quinn Emanuel recruiting junket to Deer Valley. Check out this cartoon, over at The Recorder.
As noted by some commenters, Quinn Emanuel just launched a new, upgraded website. Sadly, the “Day in a Life of an Associate” video — which featured a fictional associate, a Yale and Stanford Law-educated hottie named “Ivy” (geddit?) — appears to have been pulled. (The site says that the video is “coming soon.”)
Some of the speculation about why the video was pulled is amusing. Check it out, after the jump.
- Biglaw, Boutique Law Firms, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Job Searches, Patents, Technology, Trademarks
Fall Recruiting Open Thread: IP Firms
By David LatSometimes it seems like we talk about the same handful of general practice Biglaw shops again and again. So let’s mix things up a bit. Here’s a suggestion from a loyal reader:
I’m in the field of patent law. It might be interesting to post a Fall Recruiting Thread that discusses both patent boutiques (Finnegan Henderson, Fizpatrick Cella, Kenyon & Kenyon) and general practice firms with a strong IP practice (Kirkland, Irell, MoFo, Jones Day, Ropes & Gray).
Yes, it might. So here’s that post — an open thread in which people can talk about firms that specialize in or excel at intellectual property law.
(Last month we had a post dedicated to discussion of compensation issues at IP firms. But this open thread is intended to be broader, to go beyond pay to discuss quality of life, strong practice areas, type of work, etc. Enjoy.)
Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: IP Firms
- Alberto Gonzales, Crime, Department of Justice, Kids, Lawyer of the Day, Perverts, Sex, Sex Scandals, Technology
Lawyer of the Day: John David R. Atchison
By David LatDuring his tenure as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales made it a policy priority to “keep our children safe” from creeps on the internets.
As it turns out, at least one alleged creep worked for the DOJ:
A U.S. Justice Department official has been arrested on suspicion of traveling to Detroit over the weekend to have sex with a minor.
John David R. Atchison, 53, an assistant U.S. attorney from the northern district of Florida, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit Monday afternoon.
An undercover officer posed as a mother offering her child to Atchison for sex, according to police.
And it gets worse:
The detective, acting as the child’s mother, allegedly arranged a sexual encounter between Atchison and her 5-year-old daughter, police said….
The undercover detective expressed concern about physical injury to the 5-year-old girl as a result of the sexual activity. Detectives said Atchison responded, ” I am always gentle and loving; not to worry, no damage ever, no rough stuff ever. I only like it soft and nice.”
If convicted and sentenced to prison, Mr. Atchison can try that line out on his new friends behind bars. But whether they’ll give it to him “soft and nice” is open to question.
Federal Prosecutor Arrested In Child Sex Sting [ClickOnDetroit.com]
Our somewhat flagging coverage of the perks or fringe benefits of law firm life is getting reinvigorated, thanks to your suggestions. If you have an idea for a perk that merits discussion, please review our prior coverage (scroll down), to make sure we haven’t covered it already. If we haven’t, then please send your idea to us by email (subject line: “Biglaw Perk Watch”).
A tipster submitted this interesting topic:
[Y]ou should do a thread on firms that allow associates to participate in equity compensation schemes, i.e., purchase stock in clients. This is pretty common among the native Silicon Valley firms, but nowhere else, and is the only way I see any upside to practicing law!
This practice was very popular during the late 90′s tech boom. But that was before the tech bubble burst.
Do firms continue to do it today? If so, how lucrative can it be for participants? Can any associates who have taken advantage of this benefit describe how they made out financially?
Please discuss in the comments. Thanks.
Several readers drew our attention to this fascinating article from our local free weekly, the Washington City Paper:
Wanted: Gullible Lawyers
By Arin GreenwoodI was hired over e-mail. A boss I never met promised me $14,000 a month. How could I fall for that?
Two tipsters have done an especially good job teeing it up, so we’ll just quote from their plugs:
“Have you read this? Very entertaining story about a lot of people who got scammed on craigslist, a sizable portion of which were lawyers. Most interesting is the author’s take on what the goal of the scam was.”
“This is so interesting! Even if you don’t write about it (which you should: any story that includes a hapless and pathetic Columbia law grad, an Indian lesbian, Rupert Murdoch, and 15 lawyers embroiled in a scam de l’amour deserves the full treatment from ATL, no?), you just must read this! Delicious!”
We concur. It’s a bit long, but a wild (and worthwhile) story. Check it out here.
Wanted: Gullible Lawyers [Washington City Paper]
the fake job.. turned into a real article [Arin Greenwood]
-
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The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE
Presented by Kinney Recruiting
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.
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Digital Canary in the Virtual Mine #2: What’s In Your Apps? Prying Eyes Are Ready To Discover . . .
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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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