As we mentioned earlier, we don’t watch How I Met Your Mother. But maybe we should start, since lately it has been very topical for lawyers and law students.
From a devoted reader of ATL and watcher of HIMYM:
No snarky write-up of last night’s episode? Marshall anxiously awaiting his bar results figures prominently. He loses his password, so he can’t log into the NY bar site. Meanwhile, Doogie Howser (as he will forever be named in my mind) concocts an elaborate scheme to hack into the site to get his results — and shows Marshall a dog pooping on a baby, instead.
As an aside, Marshall graduated from Columbia Law School, my alma mater, so I’m feeling particularly sentimental about the show.
We don’t watch the show, although we’ve heard good things. But we’re guessing that those of you who are fans of How I Met Your Mother appreciated the shout-out to fall recruiting in last night’s episode.
Here’s a capsule description, from Wikipedia:
“I’m Not That Guy”
When a corporate law firm courts Marshall, lawyer Jeff Coatsworth wins him over, forcing him to let go of his dream of saving the earth in favor of the almighty dollar. Guest star John Cho.
And a more detailed account, from a reader:
The 3L (I guess) character wanted to work for a nonprofit, but took an interview with a BigLaw. He was wined and dined (on Kobe-beef fed lobster!), then slept at the apartment of the recruiter (played by John Cho), doing the “walk of shame” the next morning.
He wasn’t going to take the job, but then he was “dragged off” to “Tuckahoe Funland” – I’m guessing it’s a Coney Island ripoff – for more playtime, where he’s given the sales pitch again, and told he will represent only the amusement park and protect it from overzealous developers. On the ferris wheel, he finally takes the offer.
Take 22 minutes and go over to CBS.com. It’s probably up on the web for viewing.
Actually, as it turns out, Judge Jeffrey Levenson DID say he was sorry — immediately after making the ill-considered gay football / “wide receiver” crack that made him our Judge of the Day. And he apologized repeatedly during the course of the hearing, too.
But that hasn’t stopped the hue and cry. From the Daily Business Review:
Bar leaders and the public defender issued new calls Thursday for sensitivity training for Broward judges after Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson made an off-color joke in his courtroom about a teenage boy who allegedly had sex with an adult male defendant.
“If this incident doesn’t scream loudly how desperately we need diversity and sensitivity training in this circuit, then I don’t know what will,” said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. “In a matter of a year or two years, we had a judge insult Haitian-Americans, another insult African-Americans, had a third judge insulting blacks, Hispanics and Catholics, and a fourth judge insulting gay people.”
Maybe Judge Levenson should skip the sensitivity training and become a television judge. After all, TV judges get PAID to insult the litigants.
Food for thought: 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). Broward Courts: New chief’s honeymoon over [Daily Business Review] Earlier: Judge of the Day: Jeffrey Levenson
And no, we’re not talking about their tough new standards for associate reviews, which have resulted in what might be called “soft layoffs” (and which we’ll be writing more about soon — we’ve received lots of great info after yesterday’s post).
We’re speaking more literally about Law & Order at Kirkland & Ellis. Check out this email from about an hour ago, which went out to the entire New York office:
From: Carolyn Marino Sent: 10/17/2007 09:47 AM EDT To: #NY All Personnel Subject: Law & Order Filming Today
If you are on the 39th or 43rd floor today, you will notice that parts of the office are being used for filming. The television show Law & Order is using the office to film several scenes. This morning, they are working in the northeast corner of the 39th floor, and this afternoon they will film in Conference Room 43A.
I think of the show as the home-town TV show, since they film almost every day at locations everywhere in the city. So it’s exciting that now they are here. We don’t know when the episode will air that is filmed
here, but we will be sure to let everybody know when the show is scheduled.
This short video clip requires little introduction. Res ipsa loquitur. Just watch Judge Marilyn Milian, of The People’s Court, benchslap a cute-but-insolent 2L from the University of Miami:
We just caught the second half of I Love New York 2 (previously discussed here and here). Wow.
Even by the debased standards of reality television, the show couldn’t be any more trashy. We felt our IQ plummeting as the minutes passed. We won’t tune in next week, since we don’t have the points to spare.
And no, we’re not TV snobs. Our favorite shows include ANTM, Gossip Girl, and Desperate Housewives. We like good trash TV as much as, if not more than, the next guy (or girl). But it has to be quality trash, if that makes any sense. (As for defining quality trash, we cite Justice Stewart: we know it when we see it.)
But look, don’t take our word for it. From a commenter (one of the few to opine on the show itself, as opposed to affirmation action, the legal academy, and the plight of minorities in America):
Since I’m not arguing about race, HLS, Obama or any of these issues, my post probably doesn’t belong. But I was personally quite amused to [see] a Big Law associate on my secret vice: vh1 reality programming….
Though I would have to say, seeing as how law firms are in the business of questioning the “good judgment” of associates, I think exhibiting an interest in dating NEW YORK [a/k/a Tiffany Pollard] is clearly a poor example of judgment.
She’s crazy, looks like a [transsexual] with a cheap breast enhancement, and did I forget to mention CRAZY?
Frighteningly enough, the exact same description — “crazy, looks like a [transsexual] with a cheap breast enhancement, and did I forget to mention CRAZY” — also applies to Tiffany “New York” Pollard’s mother, Sister Patterson. While we harbor a weakness for strong, African-American women, we want them to look like women (and work at the Justice Department).
And what about the fate of the two legal eagles on the show — David Otunga, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Sidley Austin associate, and Juan McCullum, a 2L at Mississippi College of Law? As you can see from the show’s Wikipedia page, which has already been updated with the results of tonight’s episode, they’re both still in the running.
And Christopher Columbus Langdell is turning over in his grave. I Love New York 2 [VH1 (official website)] I Love New York 2 [Wikipedia] Earlier: Sidley Hates on Old People, Reality TV Stars He Feels Pretty, Oh So Pretty
Welcome. If you’re at home, tune in to C-SPAN, which is rebroadcasting the recent book party for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas’s eagerly anticipated memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, is now in bookstores — and topping the bestsellercharts (to the relief of his publisher, HarperCollins, which reportedly paid him a $1.5 million advance).
7:05: The party is being held at the elegant, red-brick Capitol Hill home of radio host and syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams. Expected to attend: 250 guests, including six Supreme Court justices, Vice President Dick Cheney, and several U.S. senators.
Armstrong Williams is interviewed. He explains that the party has been in the works since June. An overwhelming turnout is expected; more people were turned away than allowed to attend.
7:08: Justice Thomas climbs the stairs. When he enters the kitchen — which is right at the top of the stairs, and thus (oddly) where everyone enters and exits — he’s greeted by hearty applause.
Various guests hug him. One guest gushes over his 60 Minutes appearance. CT explains that CBS News made no promises about the nature of its coverage. Interesting. Considering how flattering that segment was, and how uncritical Steve Kroft was in his questioning of Justice Thomas, one might have suspected that Brangelina-type stipulations were in place.
More after the jump.
* U.C. Berkeley has settled on a new name for its law school. Check it out, it’s quite brilliant. [Blogonaut]
(But we’ll probably still conduct the reader poll mentioned here, just for the heck of it.)
* Strained attorney-client relations between Britney Spears and Anne Kiley? Apparently Brit has “trust issues” (in addition to that whole missing-panties problem). [OK! Magazine]
* Wow, this guy is quite a tool. Thankfully he’s not a lawyer — which you could infer from the facts that (1) he lives in Atlanta and (2) he brags about his compensation. [Gawker; follow-up here and here from DealBreaker]
* Judge of the Day. [St. Petersburg Times via Blogonaut]
* Exciting happenings this weekend: (1) the CSPAN rebroadcast of the Clarence Thomas book party, and (2) the nuptials of the Wall Street Journal’s Peter Lattman. Congratulations and best wishes, PL! [WSJ Law Blog]
When we wrote about David Otunga, the Harvard Law School graduate and former Sidley Austin associate now known as “Punk” on the reality show I Love New York 2, we requested more information about a second contestant with a legal background: a current law student who goes by “Pretty.”
A number of you kindly obliged. We now know that “Pretty” is Juan McCullum, 24, a 2L at the Mississippi College School of Law. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mississippi State University, where he was a Student Association officer. He was working at the Mississippi Attorney General’s office this summer.
For more about McCullum, read this article, from the Clarion-Ledger. Or turn down the volume on your speakers and check out his MySpace page, which is almost as annoying as David Otunga’s.
Juan McCullum is a handsome guy, so his nickname of “Pretty” makes sense to us. But he may not be the “prettiest” person on his campus. That honor may belong to Katie Rader, a 3L at Mississippi College law school and one of the Hawaiian Tropic girls.
Check out her photo, after the jump.
Law firms love free publicity. Especially law firms that have been in the news for having to pay $27.5 million to settle age discrimination claims by former partners.
Or maybe not:
In case you’re not familiar with the show, here’s a synopsis:
“Tiffany “New York” Pollard is jumping back into the dating pool to find the man of her dreams. A fresh crop of twenty men are brought together to compete for her heart and this time the selection process has a twist….some of the chosen contestants vying for New York’s heart have been hand-picked by online users and some have been chosen by Tiffany’s outspoken mother, Sister Patterson.”
Back to our tipster:
[Otunga] was brought in as one of three or four “Mama’s Boys” (potential suitors selected by New York’s mother) and nicknamed “Punk.” He told New York that he was perfect for her, since he was an HLS grad and a lawyer at “one of the top law firms in the world.”
Unfortunately, that law firm — Sidley Austin — didn’t appreciate his appearance on the show, and the firm recently “suggested” to him that it may be in his best interest to pursue his “acting career” instead of his legal career. He’s no longer on the firm’s webpage.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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.
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As we mentioned earlier, we don’t watch How I Met Your Mother. But maybe we should start, since lately it has been very topical for lawyers and law students.
