Beyoncé
* “All My Justices” may soon be coming to daytime television station near you. In a close vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that calls for television access to Supreme Court proceedings. [Legal Times]
* A former Cravath associate’s law license has been suspended as a result of a DV assault charge. For every day spring bonuses go unannounced, another CSM attorney will do something to embarrass the firm. [Am Law Daily]
* Duncan Law wants wants a judge to reconsider an injunction, claiming “eight students have withdrawn” since its accreditation was denied. In other news, only eight students at Duncan Law have half a brain. [National Law Journal]
* If you liked it, then you should’ve put a trademark on it. Jay-Z and Beyoncé have filed a trademark application for their daughter’s name. Nothing says love like exploitation. [New York Post]
* Remember the siblings involved in a nationwide manhunt last summer? Stripper and bank robber extraordinaire Lee Grace Dougherty pleaded guilty, and now faces up to 28 years in jail. [New York Daily News]
David Otunga
If you’re a longtime reader of Above the Law, then you’ll remember Harvard Law School graduate and former Sidley associate, David Otunga. We’ve previously written about Otunga’s adventures in reality television on VH1′s I Love New York, his engagement to singer-actress Jennifer Hudson, and his foray into the wonderful world of “professional” wrestling with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Otunga’s been flexing his muscles in the ring since 2008, but our tipsters were unimpressed, noting, “From Harvard Law School to I Love New York to the WWE. Unfortunately the next stop is probably porn.” Well, sorry to disappoint you, but Otunga hasn’t signed up for his porn industry debut just yet. Instead, he took a momentary break from wrestling to make his return to the courtroom.
Was he able to lay down either of his finishing moves (the Verdict and the Case Closed) to pull out a win?
Continue reading “Case Closed: David Otunga Steps Out of the Ring to Return to the Courtroom”
Paisley Dickey (left) and Pretty Woman (right)
You don’t have to watch much reality television to understand that these days, many cable networks are trying to capitalize on the drama caused by little girls and their overbearing stage mothers. Take, for example, TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, a show that that gives viewers an inside look at the often controversial world of children’s beauty pageants. Apparently the resultant mother and daughter tantrums were just too good to keep off the airwaves.
But in late 2011, viewers expressed outrage over the pageant industry’s tendency to sexualize children. After all, with mothers dressing their daughters like surgically-enhanced country singers, fake breasts and all, or hookers with hearts of gold, how could viewers be anything but horrified? In all honesty, some of these little girls — the ones who don’t aspire to be tax lawyers, at least — look like complete prosti-tots (see above).
This backdrop brings us to today’s Lawsuit of the Day, where the mother of one of these tiara-toting toddlers alleges that a well-known celebrity gossip site had a hand in scandalizing her daughter….
Continue reading “Mother of ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’ Star Sues for Millions After Daughter Is ‘Sexualized’ on the Web”
This Bachelor wasn't impressed with the credentials of one Illini 2L.
Still reeling from the producers’ decision to include one Latino contestant four seasons ago, The Bachelor franchise is back in Narnia this season with another all-white cast vying for the heart of Ben Flajnik, Sonoma’s most eligible winemaker and Geico Caveman lookalike. During the opening montage on the first episode, we see Ben drive a tractor, examine dirt, and wear a dusty leather vest — all key indicators that Ben is serious about his business.
Will such a serious career man be able to find love among this season’s pack of Dental Consultants, Trading Clerks, VIP Cocktail Waitresses, and other C-level executives? Luckily, he doesn’t have to. Also available for fake engagement this season is a sexy, seasoned Biglaw attorney.
Just kidding! Erika Uhlig, 23, is a completely average-looking 2L at the University of Illinois College of Law. Before that, she was a poli sci major at the University of Pittsburgh, and before that, she was Miss Chesterfield, Virginia 2006. Here she is singing the national anthem off-pitch in a dress from Dynasty.
To precisely no one’s shock, one of Erika’s law school classmates contacted ATL and opined that “she’s a b**ch”….
Continue reading “Fame Brief: Illinois 2L Is Kicked Off the Bachelor, Pranked By Classmates”
If you’re a bride-to-be — and let’s face it, even if you’re not — you’ve probably seen at least a few episodes of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress. The show features the goings-on at Kleinfeld, one of the premier bridal salons in New York City, where staff members assist brides in their quest to find the perfect wedding dress.
Imagine our surprise when we tuned in to watch the show, and caught a glimpse of a beautiful lawyer searching for a wedding gown. But this was not just any lawyer — this lawyer used to have an action-packed career as a stunt woman. These days, though, she gets all of her action inside of a courtroom.
So who is this stunt woman turned lawyer? Why did she decide to make such a drastic career change? And how did she snag her husband, the general counsel to a Fortune 500 company?
All of this and more, including some glamorous wedding photos, after the jump….
Continue reading “Here Comes the Bride: Stunt Woman Turned Lawyer Featured on ‘Say Yes to the Dress’”
Watch this before Sunday.
* Is New Jersey’s Senator Robert Menendez blocking Patty Shwartz, Obama’s Third Circuit nominee, out of resentment? Time to build yourself a bridge and GTF over it. [New York Times]
* Sullivan & Cromwell took the top spot among law firms in M&A transactions in 2011, with $325.7 billion in deals. You better believe they’re giving out huge spring bonuses. [Bloomberg]
* “No one wants to pay for something that doesn’t pay off.” At least those at the annual meeting of the AALS realize this applies to law school. When will the ABA sign on? [National Law Journal]
* In his first move after being appointed to the CFPB — a so-called valid appointment, mind you — Richard Cordray has launched a program for oversight of non-banks. [Legal Times]
* You can’t bill clients for hookers and porn and then try to get out of it by blaming your mental disorder. Or you can, but it will come back to bite you in the ass. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* The Firm: from the best sellers list, to the silver screen, and now to the small screen. Look out for Mitch McDeere in his two-hour, television premiere this Sunday on NBC. [Wall Street Journal]
* Should the Supreme Court be forced to televise oral arguments? Yes, but only on the condition that we get spin-off shows called Wise Latina Justice and Ruthie’s Law. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Rod Blagojevich won’t get leniency during sentencing. He’ll spend the next week lamenting the fact that can’t brush his beautiful hair like Marcia Brady while in prison. [Bloomberg]
* Brynee Baylor, a D.C. attorney, has been charged with fraud by the SEC. Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get yourself a pair of Jimmy Choos. You go girl. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Plan B, the morning-after pill, may soon be available on drugstore shelves thanks to the FDA. But so what? Plan A, keeping your legs closed, is a much cheaper alternative. [New York Daily News]
* Pakistani actress Veena Malik is suing FHM for $2M. She only wanted to go topless on the cover, but she claims they made her look full on nude. Have at it, pixel inspectors. [New York Magazine]
Professor William Birdthistle
Welcome to Lawyers & Economics, a new video series on financial topics by Professor William Birdthistle of Chicago-Kent College of Law. Professor Birdthistle, who teaches corporate law, has been preparing well-received videos for his students on a variety of subjects related to economics and finance. We’ve previously linked to some of his work, which received positive reader feedback, so we thought we’d give you a bit more.
After the jump, here’s a short primer on the Greek debt crisis, which remains ongoing. Watch it, so you can sound enlightened the next time this topic comes up at a cocktail party.
It features not just Professor Birdthistle but also a television actor you might recognize, who left Hollywood to become a law student….
Continue reading “Lawyers & Economics: The Greek Debt Crisis”
I object to this 'outfit.'
Remember that time when the New York City Bar wanted to hold an event to instruct women on fashion sense for the workplace? How about that show sponsored by the Chicago Bar Association where lawyers dished on fashion dos and don’ts?
Apparently these kinds of events need to happen more often, no matter how controversial they might be, because we still have law students out there who could double as pole-dancers (or worse).
One of our tipsters alerted us to an episode of TLC’s What Not to Wear — the world’s greatest guilty pleasure television show — that we seem to have missed when it aired last year. The show featured a 2L from a southern law school, but this girl dressed more like a prostitute facing arraignment (sorry, Reema) than the lawyer representing her.
So who is she, was she hot, what law school did she attend, and were Stacy and Clinton able to change this girl from a hooker to a looker?
Continue reading “A Crime of Fashion: When Law Students Dress Like Hookers”
I hope it hasn’t come to this. For the sake of Bravo, of reality television, of the legal profession in general, I hope this Craigslist ad is fake.
Because if it’s not, that means that Bravo is putting together a pilot for some kind of Beverly Hills-based, female-lawyer reality show, and the network is casting it on Craigslist through somebody who so has his finger on the pulse of whatever that he’s still using an AOL email address.
I mean… hey, calm down L.A. ladies, I’ll give you the damn email address in two seconds….
Continue reading “Who Uses An AOL Email To Cast A Lawyer Reality Show?”
We’re about to take all take a poll, and how you answer this poll will once and for all determine whether or not you are a good person.
I’m serious. You can lie on the poll if you want to, but you’ll always know how you truly felt. If you go one way, you are a good person. If you go another way, you are a soulless bastard. I offer no third option.
Although this revolves around a common legal situation, you don’t even have to be a lawyer to take and learn from this test poll.
Just watch this video….
Continue reading “Best (Or Perhaps Worst) Courtroom Entrance In The World”
Nancy Grace: You'll be seeing a lot more of her.
Ever since the acquittal of Casey Anthony, people have been wondering: What has Nancy Grace been up to? The prosecutrix turned pundit got some major mileage out of the Casey Anthony trial, which she followed with maniacal dedication. How could she top her gavel-to-gavel coverage of the infamous “Tot Mom” trial?
Earlier today, “Nancy Grace” started trending on Twitter. It was from Twitter that I learned of Nancy Grace’s second act.
You’ll have a hard time believing this, but it seems to be true….
Continue reading “Nancy Grace’s Next Chapter: You Won’t Believe This”
Gay or European? Or just puppets?
* Should the police be able to use mobile-phone location data in order to locate a charged defendant? Kash reports on a recent decision. [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]
* More importantly, should Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street get “gay married”? [Althouse]
* The ABA takes a lot of blame for the inadequacy of graduate employment reporting by law schools, but at least they’re taking “a step in the right direction,” according to Professor Gary Rosin. [The Faculty Lounge]
* Professor Ilya Somin: “The Decline of Men or Just the Rise of Women?” [Volokh Conspiracy]
Raj Rajaratnam
* Leave it to a whiny law student to complain about getting a package delivered before its estimated arrival time. [White Whine]
* “The Revenge of the Rating Agencies”: no, it’s not a horror film, but an interesting NYT op-ed by Professor Jeffrey Manns. [New York Times]
* Lawyers for Raj Rajaratnam argue that their client deserves a lower prison sentence due to a “unique constellation of ailments ravaging his body.” There’s a whole lot to ravage. [Dealbreaker]
* If you’d like to lose your appetite, read this Texas lawyer’s profane blog chronicling his effort to eat cheaply for a month (under $12.50 for every meal). [30 Days @ $12.50]
* No need to email us that Kentucky judge’s (very funny) “tick on a fat dog,” “one legged cat in a sand box” order, regarding a case that settled, obviating the need for a trial — we covered it last month. Thanks. [Above the Law]
Just when you thought TV had run out of legal drama series concepts, Sony Pictures TV went rummaging through 2004′s trash and resuscitated this old turd: Dead Lawyers.
The series, originally developed for the Syfy channel, follows “a hotshot defense attorney [who] is run over by a bus and finds himself in his own version of hell: a law firm on earth composed of other dead lawyers, all trying to right miscarriages of justice in order to redeem themselves.” Astonishingly, the show never aired.
But in the bleak 2011 world of Two and a Half Jokes, Cumulatively Men and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Dead Lawyers just might be solid gold….
Continue reading “Fame Brief: And You Thought Lawyers Were Only Dead Inside”
In a New York Times op-ed, mentioned previously in Morning Docket, Professor Zachary Shemtob and I argue that executions should be made public. More specifically, we argue that executions should be broadcast live or recorded for future release, on the web or on television.
Public execution has some unsavory connotations, perhaps dating back to the days when hangings took place before rowdy crowds in the public square. But when you stop and think about it, the idea really isn’t all that crazy….
Continue reading “Should Executions Be Televised?”
Today we bring you a new installment in our popular series on celebrity summer associates. The stories in this series have been positive and uplifting — but we should note that we welcome tales of summer associate scandal as well.
With the summer winding down, it’s safe to share salacious tales of SA misbehavior. Please submit them by email, to tips@abovethelaw.com (subject line: “Summer Associate Story”), or by text message. As you know, we keep our tipsters anonymous.
Now, on to today’s celebrity summer associate.
Last week, in a piece for the New York Times’s Room for Debate project, I argued for reforming legal education by bringing back apprentices in law. But I was not optimistic about that change happening anytime soon.
Well, it seems that my call for apprentices has been heard. A former star of Donald Trump’s popular reality television show, The Apprentice, is now “apprenticing” at a major law firm, as a summer associate.
Who is this ex-Apprentice, and where is this person working?
Continue reading “Celebrity Summer Associate: An ‘Apprentice’ in Law”
Perhaps the winner of our Fictional Lawyer contest was never in doubt. Perhaps it was always obvious that the main character from the longest-running legal drama in the history of television was going to win this thing.
Perhaps, it was all about the eyebrows.
The most popular fictional lawyer in the past 30 years is Jack McCoy from Law & Order. Here’s the updated bracket.
Our CEO here are Breaking Media had a bracket that looked a lot like the final version. Mine? Not so much…
Continue reading “Fictional Lawyer Madness: The Winner”
Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier!
And by “Frazier,” clearly I mean Lionel Hutz.
From my perspective, Lionel Hutz losing in the semifinal round was a huge upset. I don’t want to take anything away from Jack McCoy — whose face is probably next to the word “lawyer” in the dictionary for a generation of people — but I thought Lionel Hutz would walk away with this thing.
And in the other semifinal, there was another upset of sorts. Apparently Elle Woods is human after all.
You can see all the action on our updated bracket. And now, on to the Fictional Lawyer Madness final….
Continue reading “Fictional Lawyer Madness: The Final”
I hope you all maxed and relaxed over the holiday weekend, because things are about to get serious. We have reached the final four stage in our Fictional Lawyers bracket. We started with 32 lawyer characters, but the top four shouldn’t really surprise anybody.
We’re giving you the rest of the week to vote on this one. We expect these match-ups to be close so it might be time to call on some friends to champion your favorites…
Continue reading “Fictional Lawyer Madness: The Final Four”
I want the record to show that I tried. In our Fictional Lawyer Madness contest, I really tried to find a lot of female legal characters to put into the bracket. Of the 32 lawyers in the bracket, eight were female. One fourth is not a lot, but given the preponderance of male lawyer characters this was a good representation.
But here we are, just in the Elite Eight, and we’re down to only one woman. Hey, we all know that if ladies voted as a bloc (like African-Americans or NRA members), they’d be the most powerful force in American politics. And therefore we all know that women don’t vote as a bloc.
But are we really living in a world where Elle Woods is one of the few things women will rally around?
Continue reading “Fictional Lawyer Madness: Regional Finals Part Two”
