This couple definitely merits an honorable mention this week. They met a year ago in Vegas and turned a 24-hour hookup into a NYT wedding announcement featuring seersucker, a 6-year age difference, and a JD from Widener. It’s certainly one of the more colorful lawyer wedding announcements we’ve seen in a while (although we concede the bar is fairly low).
We even managed to find a picture for you, seersucker and all. They look like they know how to party, don’t they?
On to our finalists, who are more prestigious — but admittedly a bit less colorful:
LEWW often hears complaints about the elitism and snobbery of the NYT’s wedding coverage (and, by extension, our coverage of the coverage). “What about all the couples who didn’t meet at Harvard?” critics cry.
In response, we’d like to point you to this Vows column from mid-June. Roughly twice a year, the NYT covers the wedding of what it presumably considers “average Americans,” seeking thereby to demonstrate that its weddings sections isn’t only for privileged Ivy Leaguers and their wealthy parents. This one, for example, features a pregnant bride and at least one electronic monitoring bracelet. Enjoy.
And now, this week’s legal eagle finalist couples (six people, six Harvard degrees, zero ankle bracelets):
We were dying to write about this wedding announcement, featuring a slutty Strawberry Shortcake costume (WTF?) and a wacky/tacky proposal story. But alas, commenters would have crucified us for elevating comedic potential over excellence.
So behold, this week’s finalists. They include five Harvard degrees, five Yale degrees, and OMGOMGOMG the best Article III officiant ever. Enjoy.
The first weekend after Easter traditionally marks the beginning of High Wedding Season, where the weekly NYT fodder switches from merely interesting to heart-stoppingly impressive. This year is no exception, as last Sunday’s pages were chock-full of prestigious lawyer couplings.
There was no LEWW last Friday because last week’s wedding pages were even bleaker than the Biglaw employment news. We’ve bounced back nicely, though, because Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, making this week’s weddings section a February feast of premium nuptial news.
We present three outstanding couples for your consideration:
Hello, job seekers. There will soon be an opening at the University of Chicago Law School. Dean Saul Levmore circulated an e-mail to the school yesterday announcing his decision to step down. Here’s an excerpt from the e-mail (which is reprinted in full, after the jump):
I have long said that eight years is about the longest a dean should serve, and I am now in that eighth year. Consequently, President Zimmer will soon ask a faculty committee at the Law School to begin the search process for a new Dean.
Chicago joins a host of law schools currently searching for deans, as we noted recently in our post on Dean Harold Koh possibly leaving Yale. Dean Levmore says he plans to “resume life as a full-time member of the faculty” (of which his wife, Julie Roin, is a part).
Dean Levmore’s departure is completely voluntary, according to one Chicago source with a favorable view of Levmore’s tenure. As for his successor, a few U of C alums we spoke with are hoping for a prominent conservative from the outside with strong Chicago ties (e.g., prior service on the faculty).
Since we can’t predict the future, let’s take a moment to look back on some of Levmore’s past appearances on Above The Law:
He held onto U of C’s (rather confusing) grading system, resisting the pass-fail grade reform trend that swept through other top law schools.
Perhaps most importantly, back in 2006, he was a nominee for Law School Dean Hotties (noting that Dean Levmore “rocks the chrome dome,” and referring to him as “a solar-powered love machine”). Unfortunately, he came in second to last in the B Bracket.
What else do you consider to be part of the Levmore legacy at the University of Chicago? Feel free to discuss in the comments.
But it’s not like U of C Law is just ignoring the economic realities of the day. Another trend among top law schools it to make their on-campus interview process start earlier so firms don’t “fill up” on other candidates. Chicago is officially moving in that direction:
The fall 2009 on-campus interview program may seem very far away during the Chicago winter, but the Office of Career Services has begun planning in order to maximize your opportunities during this important phase of the job market for students exploring law firm careers. This planning has led to a notable calendar change: The University of Chicago Law School’s fall on-campus interviews will be held August 17-28, with an orientation to the program scheduled for August 15th.
After the jump, Chicago Law makes its intentions clear — but there are other problems with changing the timing of OCI.
Things just seem to be getting more and more draconian over that the University of Chicago Law School. Yesterday we reminded you of the school’s attempts to shut down internet access in class. The day before that we mentioned that some student was calling for an end to video games on personal laptops during lectures.
Today, the UofC Dean of Students has piped up with thoughts about the appropriate use for a law school listserv:
It has come to my attention that there may be some confusion among our student body about the proper use of our student listservs, and now is an ideal time to clarify this information. For your review, I have attached the guidelines for the use of the LawAnnounce listserv. You will notice that the LawAnnounce listserv is meant for informal announcements that may be of general interest to the law school community, and serves as an electronic bulletin board of sorts. While the list is monitored by our administrative staff, the Law School generally does not restrict content on this site with few exceptions. For example, while students are not permitted to use the listserv for “political commentary,” students may be permitted to invite others to a political rally. (*See restrictions below.) The listserv is not meant to be a discussion board, however, on any political issue. Therefore, rebuttals or commentary about a posting should be directed to the poster and/or to the administration, but not to the listserv. This kind of back and forth discussion is more appropriate for a blog and not for this forum. Similarly, any offensive language, including the use of racial slurs, is strictly prohibited on LawAnnounce.
ATL would love to take credit for the “ideal” timing of this letter. But sadly, it appears that politics made this message necessary.
After the jump, more stern warnings from the Dean of Students that are promptly disregarded.
A study conducted by Indiana University found that law students are more likely than other students to use their laptops in class. The study confirms our own internal data that shows that most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana.
The ABA Journal smartly put the study in the context of the University of Chicago Law School’s attempts to shut down internet access in most classes, a move no doubt applauded by this guy:
Distractions posed by laptops with Internet access have prompted some law professors to ban the computers and one law school–the University of Chicago–to shut down Internet access in most classrooms.
A very wise tenured professor once said to me:
The way I see it, if my presentations are not interesting enough to capture your attendance and attention to a lecture you’ve already paid for, the fault is on me.
Needless to say, his lectures were always well attended, and I know more about the English Revolution than I could possibly need. But I digress.
It happens every year. After first semester some 1Ls belatedly realize they need to “step it up” for second semester. Law school isn’t like college: there’s a curve, there are jobs to be wrested from the clutching hands of fellow students, and just because a professor starts babbling about Floridian Burger Kings doesn’t mean you can zone out.
Some people look inward for strength and resolve. Some people blame others. Those outward looking folks are the ones liable to send out emails like this one, which popped up on the University of Chicago Law listserve yesterday:
A friendly warning to fellow 1L’s: if you intend to play video games in class — especially graphics-intensive video games — please remember to sit in the back row so the rest of us don’t have to watch. Super Penguin Mario or Donkey Kong Country may, from your perspective, be a good way to while away a long class; to those sitting behind you, it is a distraction we’d rather not have to deal with.
Sorry to be That Jerk; for what it’s worth I know I’m not alone in strongly preferring this.
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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.
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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