No one wants to be this guy.
At any job, there are various levels of misconduct that an employee can usually get away with or at least occasionally pull off without repercussions. Like, maybe you could get away with wearing jeans even if it’s not casual Friday. You might show up a few minutes late when your boss isn’t around, or you might check Facebook. I steal cars and blog while racing down East 14th after my east coast coworkers go home. You are not supposed to do it, but hey, it happens.
Then there are things you cannot do. Period. Things that any competent employee should simply know are unacceptable.
Included in this category of utterly verboten workplace activities are watching porn during a rape trial when you’re the on-duty court clerk. The list would also include falling asleep during a youth justice hearing — when you’re the judge running the proceeding.
But some people never learn. And then they lose their jobs. And we write about it (gavel bang: Adjunct Law Prof Blog) and show you video of the sleeping judge in court…
Continue reading “How to Destroy Your Career As a Court Employee: Watch Porn During a Rape Trial and/or Fall Asleep on the Bench”
Being a judge is hard work. So hard, in fact, that sometimes these distinguished members of society go out in search of more plebeian ways to relax. We’ve taken the time to write about their hobbies in the past. For example, some judges get off by packing penis pumps underneath their robes. Some judges prefer prostitutes, and other judges like to blow through thousands of dollars at strip clubs. Hell, some judges just like blow.
But other judges are apparent aficionados of the classic gateway drug — marijuana. One judge in Texas was recently arrested for allegedly smoking two joints before he smoked two joints, and then smoking two more….
Continue reading “Up in Smoke: Texas Judge Busted for Alleged Pot Possession”
I didn't do well in the classroom, so I'm going to the courtroom.
At least once a month, something happens that makes millennials seem insufferable. It’s like we’ve bred an entire generation of people who can’t take criticism. It’s an entire generation that hasn’t watched the Godfather and doesn’t understand the phrase “it’s business, not personal.” When they fail, they don’t redouble their efforts; instead, they get their feelings hurt, make excuses, and whine and complain to anyone who will listen.
So it is with some pathetic millennials from the Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Two students at the school received crappy grades. This is going to come as a huge shock to some of you out there, but it turns out that going to a lower ranked law school with the expectation that you’ll get a job if you finish in the top ten percent of the class doesn’t work out for 90% of the students.
Other people get bad grades and re-dedicate themselves to study, or (gasp) figure out something to do that they are actually good at. These kids, well, you can’t say that millennials are ashamed of being whiny bitches….
Continue reading “Law Students Sue School Over Being Graded on a Curve”
As mentioned previously, these State of the Market posts by Lateral Link, as compiled by Director Gary Cohen, will focus on one of the country’s largest states — Texas.
The strongest market in Texas is Houston, with some of the strongest candidates being those with corporate, capital markets, or finance experience. A close second is Dallas, and a distant third in terms of strong markets in the Lone Star State is Austin….
Continue reading “Career Center: State of the Market – Texas (Part 3)”
As mentioned previously, the next few State of the Market posts by Lateral Link, as compiled by Director Gary Cohen, will focus on one of the country’s largest states — Texas.
The strongest market in Texas is Houston, with some of the strongest candidates being those with corporate, capital markets, or finance experience. A close second is Dallas, which is also the focus of this post….
Continue reading “Career Center: State of the Market – Texas (Part 2)”
The next few State of the Market posts by Lateral Link, as compiled by Director Gary Cohen, will focus on one of the country’s largest states — Texas.
In general, lateral hiring activity in Texas has increased substantially in the past 12 months, with even greater momentum as we head into 2012. Corporate/securities and IP are the busiest major practice areas across the state; however, there are differences between the Dallas, Houston and Austin markets. Overall, the Houston market is the strongest, followed by Dallas, with Austin a distant third. In all markets, partners with solid books of portable business are viable and firms are always on the hunt for new partner-level talent….
Continue reading “Career Center: State of the Market – Texas (Part 1)”
Shoes. Oh my God, shoes.
On Monday, my roommate came home griping that his Zappos.com account, which he had not used in a year, had been hacked. Instead of feeling sympathetic, I started wondering how I might write about it. Data breaches are a dime a dozen these days.
It seems almost every company loses control of their customers’ sensitive data at some point. Someone almost always sues after the news breaks. But the lawsuits are rarely successful, unless customers can show real harm caused by the breach.
Most often, companies do not give up full credit card or Social Security numbers. This week, Zappos said it only suffered unauthorized access to somewhat less sensitive information. It’s a bit unnerving, but not the end of the world.
Did that stop some opportunistic consumer from taking action against the online shoe retailer?
Of course not. And we didn’t have to wait very long. A Texas woman filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, which owns Zappos, the same day the breach was announced. Is her lawsuit premature, vague, and a bit silly? Probably. Will it go anywhere? Probably not. But c’mon, you gotta love melodramatic, eager-beaver, consumer litigation.
So what, exactly, did Zappos lose? And how many people’s data was compromised? (Hint: it’s a lot.) Let’s mosey on past the jump and find out….
Continue reading “Zappos Suffers a Data Breach, and the Other Shoe Drops with a Lawsuit”
* Landmark case alert. This just in from SCOTUS: the separation of church and state even applies to employment discrimination lawsuits. Say hello to the “ministerial exception.” [New York Times]
* Paul Ceglia was fined for ignoring a discovery order. He also has to reimburse Facebook for all of its related, Biglaw legal fees. Here’s looking forward to Ceglia’s bankruptcy filing. [Bloomberg]
* “[D]emand for lawyers is declining,” but we definitely need another law school in Texas. A federal judge quit his job to become the dean of the ten millionth law school in the state. [National Law Journal]
* Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty to the murder of Stephany Flores yesterday, but we know what most Americans are thinking. WHERE’S THE JUSTICE FOR NATALEE HOLLOWAY?!!?!?!?!! [CNN]
* Proof that Casey Anthony isn’t mentally ill: she’s been thinking of kicking Jose Baez’s limelight-loving, camera-hogging ass to the curb. Time for Cheney Mason’s takeover. [New York Post]
* Lindsay Lohan is being sued for allegedly running over a paparazzo. But really, she should be sued for thinking she can play Elizabeth Taylor. Come on, that’s just not right. [Hollywood Reporter]
Alison Fournier
* In trying to resolve the Texas redistricting problem, the Supreme Court has come to a realization: everything really is bigger in that state, including its congressional delegation. [Los Angeles Times]
* The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing to get video of the would-be 20th hijacker’s interrogations made public. Too bad no one really cares about this stuff unless it’s in a movie. [Washington Post]
* The Second Circuit has overturned former Mayer Brown partner Joseph P. Collins’s Refco conviction. He’s getting a new trial, and maybe this time around, the jurors will be less shady. [New York Law Journal]
* Talk about a crappy ROI. Alison Fournier, a former i-banker, is Gloria Allred’s latest litigant. She claims that a drunken pervert groped her abroad thanks to Starwood’s lax hotel security. [Reuters]
* A judge has ordered that the leader of EquuSearch’s jurisprudential hymen be ruptured at deposition by Casey Anthony’s defense team for no more than seven hours. Ouch. [Boston Globe]
* Why are CUNY Law’s bar passage rates so low? Apparently New York’s second-worst law school has standards that are similar to the town bicycle’s morals and orifices — loose. [New York Post]
As a lawyer, you’re probably looking for a way to cool down after the work day is over. You’re probably looking for a way to rid yourself of all of the pent up angst and aggression that you’ve accumulated throughout the day in the office.
Put down the bottle, alkie, because we’ve got a different solution for you. Maybe you should consider taking this lovely litigatrix’s lead, and join the local roller derby team. After all, you get to “slam into people,” and that’s what sold her on the crazy idea.
Let’s take a look into the life of Amy Dinn, a partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, who goes by the “Prosecutor” when she’s in the rink….
Continue reading “Partner Playtime: Lawyer by Day, Roller Derby Diva by Night”
Paul Clement
* If defending unpopular clients is cool, consider Paul Clement Miles Davis. He’s the lead lawyer in three politically charged cases going up before SCOTUS in the new year. [LA Times]
* Joe Arpaio’s going to have a tough time racially profiling Hispanics in 2012. What’s a man to do without verification powers and the ability to detain people on suspicion alone? [WaPo]
* A summary of the NLJ’s 2011 year in review round-up: all of this was a preview of what’s to come in 2012. And what’s to come? Same sh*t, different docket number. [National Law Journal]
* C&F fail: the California Supreme Court is busy worrying about Stephen Glass, a guy who took his “creative writing” efforts a bit too far. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* The Hollywood actress suing IMDb for revealing her age has to reveal much more thanks to this ruling. She’s got two weeks to amend her complaint to include her name. [The Wrap]
* “Oh my God, the law school has gone crazy.” Don’t blame the messenger, but UVA Law’s headlines on ATL are totally self-inflicted. Here’s Elie’s take on the collar-poppin’ action. [C-VILLE]
* Larry Ribstein, partnership law guru, business law blogger, and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Illinois College Law, RIP. [Truth on the Market]
* Robert Morvillo, New York trial lawyer and white-collar defense pioneer, RIP. [WSJ Law Blog]
* John Lawrence, plaintiff in the landmark LGBT rights case of Lawrence v. Texas, RIP. [NY Times]
[We were going to call this post something like "Associate Bonus Watch: Susman Godfrey Beats Cravath Too." But then we felt bad for singling out Cravath for paying unsatisfying bonuses, when so many other Biglaw firms have followed suit. So we went with a tamer title instead.]
Just as it did last year, the powerhouse litigation boutique of Susman Godfrey announced associate bonuses that put the bonus scales of most other firms to shame. Happy Holidays, Susman Godfrey associates!
(By the way, Susman is a firm that celebrates the season in high style. The holiday party of its New York office, catered by acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud, is already legendary, even though it’s of fairly recent vintage.)
So, the Susman bonuses — what are we looking at here?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Susman Godfrey Pays Ten-Gallon Bonuses (and Announces New Partners)”
Downward dog... kind of.
* Protip for Mark Hansen, AT&T’s lawyer: when you want a judge to save your merger plans, it’s probably not a good idea to demand that she make a ruling by a certain date. [Businessweek]
* What’s going on in Cooley Law’s defamation suit against Rockstar05 (other than discussion of whether the school’s attorney understands the tort’s defenses)? An appeal. [Lansing State Journal]
* Getting a prep school education in New York isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ask Philip Culhane, Simpson Thacher partner and name plaintiff in the Poly Prep sex abuse suit. [New York Times]
* America, f**k yeah! The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is suing the DMV over free speech rights they might not have had if they seceded from the union. [Fox News]
* Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury tried to sue his disciples for infringement of his moves, but he ended up getting it downward doggy style from the Copyright Office instead. [Bloomberg]
* “If you want a good grade, you need to have sex with me.” At the height of finals season, many law students wish this were an option, but apparently it only happens in college. [New York Post]
* DLA Piper is blaming the Occupy Wall Street movement for Biglaw’s sad, 2011 bonus season. It looks like we can expect a Cravath match from that firm. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* We could really use some more law schools — fourth tier law schools, in particular. Say hello to the Savannah Law School, a John Marshall Law School Atlanta production. [National Law Journal]
* University of Texas School of Law Dean Larry Sager has been ousted from his position. Readers have flooded our inbox with the news, so we’ll have more on this later. [Texas Tribune]
* This Senate victory for gay servicemembers came with unintended consequences. It’s now kosher to have sex with men, women, and everything else under military law. [Washington Post]
* Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against Stephen McDaniel. If being drawn and quartered were an option, maybe this medieval scholar wouldn’t mind so much. [Macon Telegraph]
* Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Although Ben Stein is the keynote speaker at this year’s ABA Techshow, legal tech nerds will likely be unable to win his money. [ABA Journal]
In the before times, in the long, long ago, everything about law school was hard. Getting in was hard. Completing the training was hard. Passing the bar was hard. Everything was hard and everything was stressful.
And legal educators and successful lawyers were proud that it was hard. The hardness is what made it mean something. I remember one of the reasons some people in my family told me to go to law school instead of business school was that law school was harder, and thus it intrinsically had more value.
But now, we don’t want law school to be hard. We don’t want thousands of students to break their dreams against high barriers to admission. We don’t want kids to be so stressed out that they spend their first year crying themselves to sleep at night like a new, fleshy prisoner in a penitentiary.
We want law schools to be like a goddamn camp — a goddamn hippie law learning camp where the professors are “down to earth,” and the administrators are there for “encouragement,” and there’s freaking ice cream in the student lounge. Look to your left, now look to your right: all three of you will be getting smiley faces on your transcripts!
This trend to make law schools the “aww shucks” destination for regular folks has made all the way down to Texas, the state that’s supposed to be the balls of this country….
Continue reading “Admissions Office ‘Keeps It Real’: Except for the Part About the Value of Going to Law School”
On Thanksgiving Day, while you were enjoying your turkey (or tofurkey), we wrote about a different bird: namely, the ostrich. In a somewhat snarky opinion, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit compared a lawyer appearing before him to an ostrich: “The ostrich is a noble animal, but not a proper model for an appellate advocate. The ‘ostrich-like tactic of pretending that potentially dispositive authority against a litigant’s contention does not exist is as unprofessional as it is pointless.’”
Ouch. Judge Posner even included a photo (above right) of a man in a suit burying his head in the sand.
What did the lawyer in question, David “Mac” McKeand of Houston, have to say for himself? And what did McKeand have to say about Judge Posner?
Continue reading “A Reverse Benchslap? Chastised Lawyer Lashes Out at Judge Posner”
Earlier this month, a video showing Judge William Adams of Texas beating his disabled daughter went viral. Judge Adams didn’t try to deny what he did (which would have been tough, given the video); instead, he defended his actions.
Did the Texas Supreme Court find Judge Adams’s advocacy persuasive?
Continue reading “An Update on Judge William Adams (of Daughter-Beating YouTube Fame)”
We hope you’ve enjoyed following the Career Center’s Top Partners series through which we’ve recognized Biglaw partners from around the country who exemplify what it means to be an exceptional partner who associates are actually happy to work for. Thanks to all the readers who took the time to submit such glowing nominations and give some well-deserved recognition to the 60 partners highlighted in this series.
Today we conclude with the best partners in the smaller legal markets of Chicago, Dallas, and London. While the markets in which they work may be smaller, their firms are some of the biggest names in Biglaw: Winston & Strawn, Sidley Austin, Katten Muchin, K&L Gates, SNR Denton, and Latham & Watkins.
Let’s see who the final six partners are….
Continue reading “Career Center Survey Results: Top Partners to Work For – Smaller Legal Markets (Part 2)”
Kim Kardashian
* Deborah Batts, the first openly gay judge to serve on the federal bench, got married this weekend. We hope she doesn’t become the first openly gay federal judge to get divorced. [New York Times]
* Things are getting hairy for Kim Kardashian, and not just because she’s Armenian. A hair removal company is suing her, saying she’s lying about how she gets all of that hair off her body. [Fox News]
* Lori David: she’s every teenage boy’s dream, and every mother’s nightmare. A hot Texas mom has been banned from the internet after sexting naked pictures to her son’s friend. [Daily Mail]
Let’s see what else the ladies are up to this morning….
Continue reading “Morning Docket: 11.15.11″
