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]

When we tried to launch the ill-fated Courtship Connection, a matching service for ATL readers, we were stymied. Matchmaking was hard (especially when people didn’t respond to our e-mails).

Maybe we should have organized singles parties instead. That’s how the Ivy Plus Society operates. Whereas Courtship Connection sought to match up legal types, this dating society wants to bring together potential mates from elite universities. It had its inaugural D.C. event on Friday, reports ABC News:

Requirements for membership in TIPS are strict. Attendees must have attended one of the eight Ivy League schools or a handful of other TIPS-approved institutions. The University of Chicago and the Naval Academy qualify for the list.

If you were a graduate University of Virginia School of Law graduate, OK, you can attend. But, if you studied at UVA only as an undergraduate, sorry. UVA doesn’t make the grade.

[UPDATE: As noted by a commenter, UVA undergrad is now on the list. Perhaps there was an outcry over its original omission?]

“You can only be so superficial for so long,” said one young college graduate at Friday night’s event, who preferred to remain anonymous. He said he’s tired of trying to meet potential mates at general admission bars and parties. “I would like to find people of equivalent educational background — too dicey to go to a bar and find that. It’s nice to know, generally, people are going to be closer to your intellectual range.”

Because it’s not superficial to date only people from top-ranked schools…

So which law schools make the cut for Ivy League Plus?

The University of Virginia Law School, and legal academia more generally, have been rocked recently by a controversy involving a leading law professor and claims of anti-gay animus.

William N. Eskridge Jr. — currently the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School, where we had great good fortune of having him as a professor — testified last month before Congress in support of the pending Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA). ENDA would prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the workplace. In explaining the need for ENDA, Professor Eskridge made reference to his own career, testifying that “I was denied tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985 based in part on my sexual orientation.” You can, and should, read his complete testimony here (opens as a Word document).

The controversy has, of course, reverberated throughout the blogosphere. See, e.g., the UVA Law Blog (including 40+ comments, many of them quite insightful); Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports (here and here); and The Faculty Lounge. The UVA Law Blog also reprints a Virginia Law Weekly article from January 1986 about the Eskridge tenure denial (which was strongly opposed by students; if you’ve been lucky enough to have Bill Eskridge as a teacher, this should not be a surprise).

We reached out to both Professor Eskridge and UVA Law School. We received written statements from Professor Eskridge and from Dean Paul G. Mahoney.

Their statements, plus a comprehensive collection of links, appear below.

I’ll admit, I did not participate in any kind of fake court moot court competitions during law school. It just wasn’t my thing. But for other students, moot court can be a really exciting way to pass the time while you are waiting for law school to stop charging you money. I totally respect that.

Unless people take it too seriously. When moot court turns into gunner heaven, it’s hard not to laugh at all the Lil’ Boies running around acting like the competition is more important than 1L torts.

But at UVA Law School, it looks like the people running the school’s William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition have taken things to an entirely new level of pettiness. A UVA 2L explains it this way:

[T]he Lile Moot Court competition is our intramural moot court that 240 2Ls are competing in. It is run by appx. 10 incredibly rude and power-hungry 3Ls … and they have been inconsiderate to say the least. It’s the talk of the campus, or at least of the 2Ls.

You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens when 3Ls don’t have secure firm jobs waiting for them upon graduation?

After the jump, the members of the UVA moot court board completely lose their ever lovin’ minds.

Some of you, especially the straight males, may recall Stephanie Shimek (née Stephanie Haney). She’s the University of North Carolina law student who tried out for Playboy, to wit, the “Girls of the ACC” issue. We wrote about her in a post entitled “Career Alternatives for Law Students: Playboy Bunny.”

Multiple ATL readers — who read Playboy just for the articles, we’re sure — have alerted us to the good news: Stephanie made it into the magazine! WCHL reports:

A UNC student has had her dreams of being featured in Playboy magazine come true in the 2009 October ‘Girls of ACC” issue.

Twenty-four year old Stephanie Christine says ever since she first picked up a copy of the magazine at her aunt’s house, she wanted to be like one of the Bunnies.

That’s one open-minded aunt! (Based on an interview with Stephanie on the WCHL website, however, it seems that the issues belonged to her uncle — no lesbianic aunt here.)

Stephanie is a 3L, and as we’ve discussed, 3L recruiting is a nightmare this year. But don’t worry about Steph; she has backup options. According to WCHL, she aspires to work in entertainment law — but if that doesn’t work out, “[f]uture involvement with Playboy has been extended to her.” In addition, “her parents and family have been really supportive.”

As diligent journalists, we went out to a local newsstand and picked up a copy of Playboy’s “Sex on Campus 2009” issue. After showing photo ID — we got carded (yesss!!!) — and plunking down $5.99, we took the plastic-wrapped periodical back to the office, where Elie gave us a brief tutorial in female anatomy. (We’ve never seen a woman’s private parts in real life, except this one time we went to a nude beach in France.)

After the jump, we present you with pictures of Stephanie, plus one other young woman who aspires to a legal career. We have carefully redacted the photos — drawing on skills honed during document review years ago, before online doc review became commonplace — so they are safe for work. Enjoy.

Once everyone gets back from Labor Day weekend, the craziness known as the clerkship application process will begin. This coming Tuesday is the first date when applications may be received, according to the 2009 Law Clerk Hiring Plan (followed by many but not all federal judges).

It’s become pretty standard to advise law students and lawyers dealing with the awful legal job market to consider clerking. As Harvard Law School told its students, earlier this year:

One option we would like to highlight is a judicial clerkship, which conveniently tends to be for one year, is valued by the full spectrum of legal employers, and is a fantastic job in itself…. Be sure to consider all types of clerkship opportunities, including those at state and specialty courts, because the competition is likely to be fierce this season.

Indeed. This will probably be the most competitive clerkship season in a decade (or longer). Landing a clerkship is easier said than done.

Update: As reported by U.S. News & World Report (via the ABA Journal), some law schools are better than others at sending their graduates into clerkships. The top three: (1) Yale, (2) the University of North Dakota, and (3) Stanford. Check out the full list over here.

Correction: Whoops. It seems that some of that clerkship info is wrong.

It’s not just feeder judge clerkships, or circuit court clerkships, or district court clerkships in hot districts that are tough to land. These days, even district clerkships in so-called “flyover country” require great credentials.

Discussion of hiring standards and timetables, after the jump.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) passed away shortly before midnight on Tuesday, while at home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He was 77. From CNN:

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” a family statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice.”

Kennedy, nicknamed “Ted,” was the younger brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was gunned down while seeking the White House in 1968. However, his own presidential aspirations were hobbled by the controversy around a 1969 auto accident that left a young woman dead, and a 1980 primary challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter that ended in defeat.

Senator Kennedy was a lawyer. He graduated in 1959 from the University of Virginia School of Law (where he won a moot court competition), became a member of the Massachusetts bar, and served as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County from 1961 to 1962. But he was more known for his long and distinguished political career than for his legal one.

Update: Over at True/Slant, Elie asks: “Could a 30 year old Edward Kennedy get elected to the Senate today? Would he have survived the scandals of his youth to become entrenched in the U.S. Senate?”

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy dead [CNN]
Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 [ABC News]
Senator Edward Kennedy, 77, dies [Reuters via Drudge]

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.

This is really of interest only to hard-core ATL groupies. But if you’d like to know our policy on preserving the anonymity of law students who do embarrassing things — and why we identified the alleged Law Student Spitter by name yesterday, even though we generally keep names out of summer associate stories — then check out the statement we issued to the UVA Law Blog.

One caveat: this is our policy with respect to law students. We deal with lawyers — or “attorneys,” if you think the words have different meanings — on more of a case-by-case basis.

David Lat’s Take on Covering the “Felony Arrest Case” [UVA Law Blog]

We all know gunners who spit hot fire at professors. But we rarely see gunners who spit at the police. According to the Charlottesville police, one UVA law student can roll both ways.

From Newsplex:

A Charlottesville woman is facing felony assault charges after an altercation with a police officer on Thursday.

Elisabeth Epps, 29, is accused of spitting on a police officer early Thursday morning in the Market Street parking garage.

It appears that initially she was trying to keep her saliva safe within the confines of her car, but the police were having none of it:

Charlottesville Police say friends of Epps were trying to get her out of a locked, parked car after a night of drinking. When Epps would not respond to continued police instructions, officers broke the back window to get her.

After police removed Epps from the car, she continued kicking and screaming and then spit in an officer’s face.

Epps is actually a little bit famous in UVA circles. More details after the jump.

We are living in a bizzaro world. Check out this fact pattern:

There’s a partner at Morgan Lewis with 18 years of experience. Morgan Lewis cancels its entire 2010 Summer Program. Partner leaves Morgan Lewis. For a more lucrative gig? No. He leaves to be the new head of career services at UVA Law School.

UVA Law has just hired Kevin Donovan, a former litigation partner at Morgan Lewis.

First of all, who leaves a partnership for a career services gig?

Secondly, the irony of a partner at a firm that just refused to hire rising 2Ls being in charge of finding jobs for rising 2Ls is rich. Is this some kind of twisted Marshal Plan? First you bomb it, then you build it?

After the jump, let’s take a look at Mr. Donovan’s qualifications and vision for UVA law students.

As goes Harvard Law School, so goes the rest of the law school world. Last month, HLS pointed its students towards an escape from Biglaw purgatory: clerkships.

Now Penn Law is doing the same, revising its clerkship policy to allow students to blanket the country — and cyberspace — with clerkship applications. From Law Clerk Addict:

JUDGE LIMIT POLICY

In light of the current market conditions and the expectation that the competition for clerkships this year will be greater than in the past, CPP and the Faculty Clerkship Committee decided to reconsider the 100 judge limit and have agreed to the following new limit: Applicants will be limited to 75 paper applications. There is no limit on the number of OSCAR judges you may apply to.

At least there’s still a limit on paper applications. Trees everywhere are breathing sighs of relief.

(For those of you who clerked in the Mesozoic Era, as we did, OSCAR has nothing to do with the Academy Awards; rather, it’s the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review.)

Update: UVA is following suit. Full message after the jump.

More after the jump.

Earlier this week, we reported that Hunton & Williams wasn’t on the list of firms conducting on-campus interviews — or, to be technical, “on-grounds interviewing” (OGI) — at UVA Law School. That appears to have changed. From an email sent out yesterday afternoon by UVA Law’s office of career services:

[A] number of employers have signed up for OGI just this week. We have provided a list below. If you prepared your rankings previously, you may want to consider working these employers into your schedule. For example, contrary to what was reported on AbovetheLaw.com, Hunton & Williams is, in fact, interviewing during the OGI process and has been added to the system as of this afternoon.

The wording of the memo is misleading to the extent that it implies our original report was not correct at the time it was published. We have confirmed with UVA’s career services office that Hunton & Williams signed up for OGI after our original post went up.

Of course, that’s just a matter of chronology, not causation. But some readers think we might have played a role. From one law student tipster (representative of about half a dozen who expressed the same sentiment):

Apparently the ATL shaming was enough — Hunton and Williams now has a bid page for UVA OGI.

More discussion, including the full UVA career services memo, after the jump.

It’s hard to overstate the love between Hunton & Williams and UVA Law School. The firm sponsors a number of pro-bono fellowships at UVA Law, they come together to offer pro-bono services in the Charlottesville community, and there’s even a UVA Law building — or at least a sizable part of one — named after Hunton & Williams:

The firm and the law school go together like peas and carrots.

So you can imagine our surprise to learn that Hunton & Williams doesn’t seem to be on the UVA Law “on-grounds interviewing” (OGI) list.

Tipsters explain, after the jump.

Gentleman, how emasculated would you feel if your future father-in-law shuttled your bride down the aisle, and then, instead of pecking her on the cheek and handing her over, actually turned around and performed the wedding ceremony? Talk about control issues. That’s exactly what this groom endured last Sunday, as he was married by his father-in-law, United States Federal District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.

The Rakoff wedding didn’t make our final three. Neither did a couple of lesbian unions, a WGWAG, and several other worthy contenders. Here are the three who made the finals:

1. Devon Quasha and Jeffrey Thorn

2. Saralisa Brau and William Van Horne

3. Linda Cho and James Brennan

More about these impressive legal-eagle newlyweds, after the jump.

* One bra size does not fit all. There are so many different reasons why one might get a severe rash from a Victoria’s Secret bra that the 17 suits filed in various states cannot be consolidated into one. [On Point News]

* More on Law Student of the Day: Leo Wolpert. The UVA Law card shark is spending his summer writing memos for the ACLU. Money quote from the article: “With the economy as it is, it’s definitely nice to have poker to fall back on.” [Washington Post]

* A North Carolina company had a big day in court last week. On Thursday, MIG Inc. filed for bankruptcy and filed a big lawsuit against Paul Weiss. MIG alleges that stock offering documents drafted by the firm were unprofessional and filled with errors that cost it $140 million when it merged with another company in 2007. [American Lawyer]

* Rihanna may sing from the witness stand today in Chris Brown’s assault trial. [CNN]

* Federal Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York has a flair for the dramatic. [Studio 360]

We’ll bottom-line this week’s contest, folks: The SCOTUS clerk wins. Yep, after a long absence, LEWW’s favorite credential makes a welcome appearance in the NYT weddings section, and we’ve got the details for you.

But first, congratulations to Sabrina Charles and Jamie Dycus, who readers overwhelmingly voted Legal Eagle Couple of the Month for May, demonstrating that — in the words of one commenter (and apparently, in the minds of ATL readers) — “Wachtell > Sotomayor > Olympic medal.”

Here are our finalists:

1. Kathryn Whitfield and Adam Fotiades

2. Christina Krause and Peter Henderson

3. Pamela Bookman and Jeffrey Perlman

More about these couples, after the jump.

We usually wouldn’t recommend that law school students try to pay their tuition through gambling — but if you’re a former poker pro, it might not be such a bad idea.

Leo Wolpert, a rising 2L at the University of Virginia, just won “Event 29,” a $10,000 no-limit hold ‘em heads-up tournament in the World Series of Poker. From the Poker Pages:

Wolpert is a 26-year-old former professional poker player who is currently attending law school. He is enrolled at the University of Virginia. He just completed his first year. He graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. He spent two years as a poker pro, mostly playing online. Wolpert was so successful that he built up a huge bankroll playing mostly cash games. He decided to use his poker winnings to go back to school.

His total winnings in Event 29: $652,682 $625,682. With that in the bank and a law degree from UVA, we see a bright future in the cards for Wolpert.

Former pro Leo Wolpert wins Event 29 [ESPN]
World Series of Poker Leo Wolpert Wins Event 29 $10K HeadsUp [PokerPages News]

You’ll recognize the comedic stylings of Tom Tancredo from his brief turn as the Republican presidential candidate capable of protecting us from the rampaging Mexican hordes. Recently, Tancredo has been liberally availing himself of the opportunity to call Judge Sotomayor a racist.

Maybe you can’t blame Tancredo for throwing around the racist moniker. White men get to use the term so rarely that hearing him say it is almost cute — kind of like when a baby learns its first curse word.

But maybe Tancredo should check his own house before throwing around charged terms. One of his chief speechwriters, Marcus Epstein, has pleaded guilty to a hate crime.

According to documents obtained from District of Columbia’s Superior Court, Epstein, 25, must appear before Judge Wendell P. Gardner on July 8 for sentencing after pleading guilty to simple assault charges stemming from an incident during the early evening hours of July 7, 2007. The documents state that Epstein was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the victim, called her the “N-word” and struck her in her head. He was briefly detained by the woman’s husband, but was able to escape, only to be arrested minutes later by a Secret Service officer who witnessed the attack. According to the officer’s statement, a friend of Epstein’s informed him that he had been drinking.

Nothing says “protecting the future of America” quite like getting drunk and slapping a woman.

While rubbing shoulders with Tom Tancredo and Bay Buchanan, Epstein has made quite a name for himself with his colorful rhetoric. But it appears that Epstein has been a good soldier for Tancredo. And the Congressman isn’t going to abandon him just because he likes to get drunk and hit black people on the head.

Apparently, neither will UVA. More details — plus an update — after the jump.