Duke University 2L Andrew Blumberg is a “Simpsons Superfan,” a designation that got him an appearance on the “Food Network Challenge” this past weekend. The challenge was to create a cake inspired by the Simpsons episode, “Last Tap Dance in Springfield”. Four “superfans” were paired with professional cake designers to ensure character fidelity in the final creations.

Blumberg was paired with a professional cake designer to craft a Bart Simpson cake. Almost anyone between the ages of 20 and 55 would likely claim the mantle of Simpson fan. How do you qualify as a “superfan”? From Duke Law News:

Qualifying as one of the show’s four “superfans” took more than just logging hours in front of the television, though. “One of the things I said that I think resonated with them was that I incorporate the Simpsons into the rest of my life,” Blumberg says.

Take, for example, the project he has been working on with Duke Law Professor Barak Richman to create a DVD that explains contracts using clips from Simpsons episodes. “That was one of the things that made me stand out from the crowd,” he says.

Mad points for any ATL reader who remembers the name of the stripper character that appeared in just one Simpsons episode (no Googling).

So how did Blumberg do on the show?

One of our favorite legal affairs journalists is switching networks. As first reported by Mediabistro, the fabulous (and fabulously talented) Jan Crawford Greenburg is leaving ABC News for CBS News. Greenburg, author of the excellent and bestselling Supreme Conflict (2007), will become Chief Legal Correspondent at CBS, as of January 4, 2010. Meanwhile, back at ABC, her Supreme Court beat will be picked up by Terry Moran.

Greenburg’s move to CBS is something of a homecoming, since she worked at the Tiffany Network prior to her three-year stint at ABC. At CBS she’ll work once again with Bob Schieffer, described by Fishbowl DC as her longtime friend and mentor.

Congratulations and good luck at your new (old) home, Jan!

JCG’s farewell email to her colleagues at ABC, plus the press release announcing her hire at CBS, after the jump.

From Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal:

Getting rejected by Harvard Law School was “the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Winning admission to HLS is the dream of many a college student (not just Elle Woods). Being a Harvard Law alum puts you on the fast track to a prestigious law firm job with a $160,000 starting salary (and allows you to attend exclusive dating events).

So why was HLS rejection Zucker’s lucky break? Click on the link below for the full story (and a possible implicit dig at UVA Law, which Zucker got into but never attended).

Jeff Zucker [Digital Facility]

The cast for the latest season of Survivor, which premieres on September 17, has been announced. This season, the show’s nineteenth, takes place on the tropical island of Samoa.

Four of the 20 contestants, or a fifth of the field, are either lawyers or law students. Is appearing on a reality television show the best way to wait out the recession?

We believe this to be the highest number of law-related contestants in a single season. We reached out to Charlie Herschel — the former Survivor contestant and current Weil Gotshal associate, who has encyclopedic knowledge of the show — and he said that, as far as he knows, four would be a record. Herschel explained:

Lawyers are making a better showing than bartenders for once on Survivor! There was a lawyer on the first Survivor who sued producers for rigging the show. Word was that they avoided casting lawyers after that.

Also, it’s generally difficult for lawyers to drop everything at a moment’s notice for the casting process and also for the show (which is required), so they have trouble casting lawyers. Most of the lawyers on survivor dont practice anymore.

Perhaps you know one of these four. Let’s learn more about them, shall we?

Meet Ken Basin. This legal prodigy, just 24 years old, is an associate at Greenberg Glusker, one of the top entertainment law firms in the country. Basin graduated last year from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude and with a Sears Prize, at the tender age of 23.

Basin isn’t just a handsome legal genius; he’s also a trivia ace. Back in 2003, he made it to the semifinals of College Jeopardy (which, incidentally, his girlfriend won back in 2000).

On Sunday, Basin was back in the hot seat. He made it all the way to the million-dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

So how did things turn out for Ken Basin? Did he join the ranks of lawyers who have won seven-figure sums on television — e.g., Victor and Tammy Jih, of Harvard Law School and the Amazing Race, and Yul Kwon, of Yale Law School and Survivor?

Find out how he fared, after the jump.

Back in October 2007, we wondered:

Why does Florida produce so many TV judges? It is because of their penchant, noted by PD Howard Finkelstein, for being rude and abusive?

The following are former Floridian jurists who left the state bench for the boob tube: Marilyn Milian, of the People’s Court (previously discussed here); Alex Ferrer, a/k/a “Judge Alex”; David Young, the gay TV judge; and the notorious Anna Nicole Smith judge, Larry Seidlin (not on air yet, but rumored to arrive in fall 2008).

Sadly, the world is now down two Miami TV judges. One of them, Judge David Young (pictured above), was trying to be The Gay TV Judge.

The country may be growing more receptive to gay marriage. But when it comes to television judges, it seems we like ‘em straight.

Courtroom TV: Two of Miami’s TV judges get the ax [Daily Business Review]

We’ve written about numerous lawyers turned reality TV stars here at ATL. When we’ve done so, we’ve identified them and/or their employers by name. E.g., Jeremy Anderson (Hunton & Williams / The Bachelorette), Charlie Herschel (Weil Gotshal / Survivor), Victor and Tammy Jih (O’Melveny / Quinn Emanuel / Amazing Race), Yul Kwon (McKinsey / Survivor), David Otunga (Sidley / I Love New York), etc.

If you voluntarily appear on a nationally televised reality show, whether as a contestant or a friend or relative of a contestant, it’s a bit ridiculous to complain of privacy violation, isn’t it?

The Fox Reality Channel has launched a rip-off twist on Bravo’s very successful “Real Housewives” series: Househusbands of Hollywood.

From the New York Daily News:

The reality series, premiering Aug. 15 at 9 p.m., features five stay-at-home men who run the house while their wives head to work.

It features former L.A. Dodger Billy Ashley; aspiring actor Danny Barclay; former “A Different World” star Darryl M. Bell, who’s married to “Cosby Show” actress Tempestt Bledsoe; one-time “Gentleman Bandit” star Charlie Mattera, and Grant Reynolds, husband of “Good Day LA” anchor Jillian Reynolds.

The working woman behind househusband and aspiring actor Danny Barclay is a “high-powered Los Angeles attorney.” The New York Times focuses on the Barclays in its write-up of the episode premiere, due to the morning to-do list that Danny Barclay gets from his wife via e-mail every day, and his sad man-cave in the garage:

Fox Reality describes Katherine Barclay as a “high-powered attorney.” A check with the California Bar Association turned up no trace of her; a Fox publicist said Ms. Barclay practices under another name, which she would not provide, citing “client sensitivities and upcoming trials.”

Thanks to tipsters, we’ve managed to do what the Times couldn’t: identify Katherine Barclay. Find out which firm she’s with, and see clips from the first Househusbands episode, after the jump.

Are you a fan of the show Mad Men? We’ve only seen one episode, on an airplane, but we’ve heard great things. Television critics have praised it to the heavens. Our colleagues at Fashionista are also big fans.

So are many law students and lawyers. Meet Leo Mulvihill (below left), a law student at Drexel in Philadelphia, and Jon Rich (below right), a lawyer in New York:

Both have submitted their photos to the Mad Men casting call contest.

Find out how the contest works, after the jump.

Kate McLaughlin will be the youngest 1L at Northwestern Law School this fall, at just 19 years old, reports the Orange County Register.

McLaughlin, who graduated from high school at 12 and from UC San Diego at 17, rocked the LSAT (score: 174) and is going to law school because she wants to save the world:

McLaughlin is not sure yet what she wants to do with her law degree, but hopes it will help her to be more effective in lobbying for the social causes she feels passionately about - feminism, combatting racism, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and international humanitarianism.

“I’m an idealist; I want to change the world,” she said. “I bleed blue; I’m a Democrat. I’m an ardent feminist. I’m big on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights - Prop. 8 was a big issue for me.”

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog questions McLaughlin’s decision to go to law school:

[S]he says being a lawyer isn’t at the top of her to-do list. Rather, she wants to be a science fiction writer…

We’re all for law school — and who are we to say what McLaughlin should do? — but, frankly, we sort of share McLaughlin’s worry about not having time to do the things she’s interested in. How about making a run in the science-fiction world and then heading to law school a bit down the road?

McLaughlin’s not the first especially young one to head to law school. After the jump, we give you a round-up of other barely pubescent law school students and how they’ve fared. One of them has fared especially well — her life might be turned into a TV sitcom about life as an underage lawyer, starring Hilary Duff.

Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN commentator and former quarterback of The Ohio State University football team, let the fire department burn down his house. As fans from Michigan know, this is classic Buckeye behavior.

Herbstreit thought he’d get a tax deduction for his charitable gift of flammable substances. “Not so fast, my friends.”

Click on the link below to read the full story.

IRS Doesn’t Care for Kirk Herbstreit Burning Down His Own House [Going Concern]

We already mentioned the Erin Andrews situation this morning. The ESPN anchor was spied on through a peephole at a hotel. Andrews is considering her actions, and she has retained counsel. Bingham McCutchen will be taking on this high-profile case.

Here is the statement from Bingham’s Marshall B. Grossman:

While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent. She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future. Although the perpetrator or perpetrators of this criminal act have not yet been identified, when they are identified she intends to bring both civil and criminal charges against them and against anyone who has published the material. We request respect of Erin’s privacy at this time, while she and her representatives are working with the authorities.

One of these days, the people who snap this kind of footage and the publishers who make it available are going to get smacked down, hard.

On Sunday night, the third episode of this season’s Amazing Race aired. Biglaw sibling team Victor and Tammy Jih, who came in first the previous week, barely avoided being eliminated.

(We interviewed the Jihs last month. Victor Jih is a partner at O’Melveny and Myers, while Tammy Jih is an associate at Quinn Emanuel. )

On Sunday, on the reality TV show where teams race around the world completing challenges, Tammy and Victor had to head to Romania to do gymnastics and go hiking. They struggled at both. Tammy had some issues with the balance beam and floor routine during the gymnastics challenge, complaining that she “can’t cartwheel.” Victor, um, consoled her by telling her afterward, “I think your brain just froze.”

The next challenge was hiking to some coffins — yeah, the show loves cultural stereotypes, with gypsies, gymnastics, and Transylvania references featured prominently in Romania — and Victor took the lead as trail guide, perhaps because Tammy’s brain was still frozen from cartwheeling. He proceeded to follow the wrong markers. They got terribly lost. “Look, we’re doing so great,” says Victor optimistically. “This sucks,” Tammy replies.

After much wandering, Victor finally acknowledges he’s led them astray by kneeling, sobbing, and asking Tammy to take over. Biglaw partner. Sobbing. Handing control over to the midlevel associate.

She leads them back down the mountain, and to the coffins. Victor, still very upset, drags a coffin haphazardly down the hill, saying, “I don’t care if I die.” They finish far behind all but one of the other teams (who got stuck in Amsterdam). When they discover they’re still in the race, Victor cries some more. See the video, and more episode highlights, after the jump.

Based on the anemic associate bonuses recently announced by Cravath, one might think that the firm is hurting. We hear that work at CSM is a little slow — and that there may be some anxiety over the staggering cost of the firm’s $900 million lease at Worldwide Plaza.

But don’t shed tears for Cravath just yet. The firm is still getting some high-profile engagements. From the New York Observer:

When agent Richard Leibner’s phone was ringing off the hook one night last week, everyone was asking him the same thing: Was his longtime client David Gregory the next host of Meet the Press, or wasn’t he? He called back, telling reporters he could neither confirm nor deny the report that first appeared on the Huffington Post.

Perhaps this was because his agency, N. S. Bienstock, wasn’t representing Mr. Gregory on the deal. So who exactly was aiding the ambitions of NBC’s robo-newsman? ….

On Monday morning, with the deal finally made public, white-shoe New York law firm Cravath, Swaine, & Moore posted a brief item on its Web site, crediting two of its partners — Eric Hilfers and Robert Joffe — for handling the negotiations.

This engagement probably didn’t generate the seven- or eight-figure fees that billion-dollar M&A deals generate. But it’s still a cool and interesting gig, the kind that stands out to 2Ls going through fall recruiting.

More after the jump.

A tipster asked us: “Did you catch this week’s Law & Order - SVU? The judge had to recuse himself because they found porn on his computer during the course of a porn-addiction case.”

Sound familiar? It may remind you of this recent case (although the L&O episode involved dolphins rather than donkeys).

More after the jump.

Where do lawyers turned reality TV contestants go? After their television careers, they take different paths.

Some return to their law firms. E.g., Charlie Herschel (Survivor / Weil Gotshal); Denise Gitsham (The Bachelor / K&L Gates); and Stacy Rotner (The Apprentice / Sidley). Some stay in the world of entertainment. E.g., David Otunga (engaged to Oscar-winning songstress Jennifer Hudson); Yul Kwon (Survivor winner, who then worked for CNN as a special correspondent).

And some have ups and downs. Remember Jeremy Anderson, the hottie from Hunton & Williams who competed for DeAnna Pappas’s hand on the latest season of The Bachelorette? Shortly after the show ended, his life wasn’t so glamorous. From a Texas tipster:

Jeremy, the runner-up from the Bachelorette, is working as a contract attorney upstairs at my firm [McKool Smith in Dallas]. Looks like Hunton Williams didn’t invite him back to the firm after the show ended. I heard about it because a bunch of the secretaries were going to the doc review floor to go check him out. I personally wasn’t about to make my way up there to stare at the guy.

Other indignities inflicted upon poor Jeremy (from a different reader, in mid-September):

I was at lunch today at Jason’s Deli in downtown Dallas with all of the other downtown workers. Well, all of a sudden, a familiar face walked in for a take-out order: Jeremy from the Bachelorette. My, how the mighty have fallen. From national TV to getting his own lunch.

And that wasn’t the end of it. Get this: Jeremy Anderson has been doing catalog modeling for JCPenney. And not just regular JC Penney, but the JC Penney outlet store.

(No joke — we have photographic proof. The photos show that Jeremy, whose magnificent shirtless torso was featured prominently on The Bachelorette, has gained weight since leaving the show.)

But our hero’s tale has a happy ending. Read more, and check out the pictures — including the J.C. Penney catalog images — after the jump.

Lawyer turned Survivor contestant Charlie Herschel, right, with your above-signed writer (in the yellow Survivor do-rag).

As previously reported in these pages, Charlie Herschel — a 29-year-old, openly gay associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York — is a contestant on Survivor: Gabon, which had its two-hour season premiere last night. We’re pleased to report that Charlie is still in the running for the one million dollars. To read more about our handsome hero, including details of his friendship with fellow gay Clay Aiken, check out this interesting interview with Herschel in The Advocate.

Last night, we headed over to Professor Thom’s in the East Village, to attend a “Survivor” premiere party in Charlie’s honor. It was hosted by his employer, Weil Gotshal — which is doing well in the downturn, thanks in large part to its top-flight bankruptcy practice.

Correction: The party was not officially hosted by Weil, although many WGM attorneys were in attendance.

More discussion, plus a slideshow of party pics, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is by SOPHIST, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Sophist’s avatar (at right).]

Why does my television constantly tell me that being an attorney is: glamorous, “fun,” and yet so easy that any idiot can do it? I caught a preview for TNT’s new lawyer show, Raising the Bar, and, after my seizure, I realized that dramatic license has gone too far.

So, with a nod to the Coolest Law Firm bracket, I bring you the “Lionel Hutz Invitational.” Which of the following characters has done the most to mislead our friends and family about the true nature of our profession? Let’s keep it to characters created after 1990, so the kids can play along.Today, I’ll start with the quarterfinals, I’ll update the progress on Thursday, and on Friday we’ll vote on the finalists. But I sense how much ATL readers love to write in candidates, so please comment on the fictional donkeys that didn’t make my cut (I cannot watch Eli Stone or Shark). Perhaps I will run my own “shadow poll” based on the most popular write-in choices.

See the field after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is by MARIN, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Marin’s avatar (at right).]

If you’ve ever secretly read somebody else’s email 537 times, turns out you’re not alone. Larry Mendte, former CBS3 Philadelphia news anchor and Botox enthusiast, allegedly hacked into his former co-anchor Alycia Lane’s personal email accounts 537 times since January 2008 and leaked the contents of some of those emails to the press, according to the criminal information filed last Monday. What makes this case interesting is not the charge itself (one felony count of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization; Mendte is expected to plead guilty on August 22), but the fact that this case appears to confirm that there are real-life Ron Burgundys among us: vain, jealous and 100% ridiculous.

According to Lane’s attorneys, Mendte, insanely envious of Lane’s 8.7% higher salary (Lane supposedly made $780,000, Mendte about $100,000 less), embarked on a campaign to sabotage her career by installing keylogger programs to obtain Lane’s passwords, which he then used to compulsively check Lane’s emails from work. And home. And vacation. And his country club. Lane unwittingly assisted Mendte in his plot to undermine her by sending pictures of herself in a bikini to married NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen, which were intercepted by Eisen’s wife. It is believed that Mendte leaked the correspondence to the press, including the wife’s classic response:

Boy, do you look amazing in a bikini … congrats! Whatever you’re doing, (Pilates? yoga?) keep doing it - it’s working for you. Anyway, sorry but those seven e-mails you sent to my husband, Rich, well, oops, they came to the e-mail address we both use from time to time, but no worries, I’ll forward the beach shots as well as the ones of you dancing with your friends on to his main address. Do you have it?

Mendte also allegedly leaked certain privileged communications between Lane and her lawyer concerning that one time when she allegedly assaulted a police officer and accidentally called her a “dyke b*tch.” Stay classy, Philadelphia.

Evidently Mendte was so busy hacking into email, subverting attorney-client privilege and leaking private information to the press that he failed to consider that his lower salary was merited. It takes more than a Cheshire grin and a plastic face to succeed as a news anchor, and unfortunately for Mendte, his spray tan could not mask his complete ineptitude as an investigative journalist.

U.S. v. Lawrence Mendte [pdf]
Philly ex-TV anchor charged with e-mail snooping [Associated Press]
Bikini E-mails Rattle TV Wife; Alycia Lane Arrested, Punches Cop [NY Post]

That’s the subject of this fun little piece by Kim Isaac Eisler, in Washingtonian magazine. There aren’t that many ways to write about law firms — after a while, all the articles start to sound the same — so new and quirky takes like Eisler’s are especially welcome.

Here’s an excerpt:

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Feuding brothers grow up in a dysfunctional household, constantly boxing and picking on each other. One, William Bennett, becomes a prominent Republican, while the other, Skadden’s Robert Bennett, defends a Democratic president who bears some striking similarities to Eddie Haskell.

Show: Leave It to Beaver.

You can read the rest — which features, among other Biglaw shops, Dickstein Shapiro, McDermott Will & Emery, Williams & Connolly, and WilmerHale — by clicking here.

On the boutique firm front, there’s a nice shout-out to Joe diGenova, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and his fabulous wife, Victoria Toensing, of diGenova & Toensing. As we can attest from firsthand experience, they’re a lot of fun to sit with at a dinner party, with Joe diGenova offering irreverent, under-his-breath running commentary on the dinner speaker.

Cue the Theme Song … If Law Firms Were Sitcoms [Washingtonian]