Videos

Slightly Crazy Blonde Disrobes for TSA

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More fun than document review?

I’m surprised we’re not seeing more of this. As TSA continues to scan and/or feel-up everybody who gets on a plane, raising questions under the Fourth Amendment, an Oklahoman woman stripped down to her underwear to prove a point.

According to a report by News 9 – Oklahoma, Dr. Tammy Banovac, 52, arrived at the Oklahoma City airport wearing an overcoat and in a wheelchair. When she got to security, she removed the coat, revealing her curvaceous figure — clad in nothing but a black bra and panties. She refused to go through the metal detector, so she had to be subjected to a pat-down.

Is there video? Would I be posting this if there wasn’t?

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Biglaw Perk Watch: MoFo Takes a Stand for Fairness

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Sorry, we’re still waiting for the Biglaw bonus shoe to drop. While you wait, here’s some good news in the Biglaw benefits area (a la Proskauer’s iPad announcement).

On Wednesday, I asked: “Remember Google’s gay gross-up? Barclays is doing it too. Will law firms follow suit?”

At least one law firm is stepping up to the plate to help domestically-partnered employees with their health-benefit-related tax burdens. The firm of Morrison & Foerster issued the following statement to Above the Law, from firm chair Keith Wetmore: “Starting in 2011, Morrison & Foerster will begin offering an additional benefit payment to assist with the tax obligation that same-sex and opposite sex Staff and Non-Partner Attorneys pay when they elect Domestic Partner health benefits.”

This is excellent news, and we commend MoFo for taking this step. Hopefully it will inspire additional firms to move in this direction. Note also that the policy applies not just to same-sex couples, but also to opposite-sex couples who are similarly situated — which might be a way of addressing the criticisms of some that the gay gross-up is unfair to heterosexual couples.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in “law firms being nice to gay people” news, let’s give some props to Shearman & Sterling….

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So You Want to Go to Law School: The Backstory, and a Sequel

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So you want to go to law school....

Remember the hilarious So You Want To Go To Law School video? The genius behind it, Virginia lawyer David Kazzie, recently sat down with The Careerist to share the backstory behind the video (which was one of the 25 most-viewed videos last month in YouTube’s film/animation section).

So who is David Kazzie? And has he done other law-related videos?

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Don’t Put Bullies in Jail: Now With Video!

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Megyn Kelly of Fox News

I had the opportunity to take my surprisingly controversial argument that bullies shouldn’t be thrown in jail to a television audience. Megyn Kelly, the host of America Live on Fox News and a former litigator at Jones Day, invited me on her program and gave my argument a fair hearing.

Once again, I think my core principles here are sound: children shouldn’t kill themselves, children shouldn’t be incarcerated because other children kill themselves, and children should learn appropriate coping mechanisms when faced with embarrassment and humiliation.

As we all know, I have an insatiable appetite to offend and then devour fresh souls, but I become particularly strong when I can drink the tears of children. Kelly did everything she could to keep me from sounding like a raving lunatic who likes putting babies on spikes, but some people will come away convinced that I’m a heartless sociopath.

What do you think? Take a look at the clip, and let me know just how bad karma will eventually bite me on the backside…

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How Many Jaded Attorneys Does It Take to Discourage One Law Student?

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So you want to go to law school....

It has been a while since we’ve had one of these cut-rate animation movies discouraging people from going to law school. There have been some great ones in the past: A Law School Carol springs to mind, as well as Don’t Go To Law School.

There was a time when I thought little video clips like the two above would actually help someone. I thought that if people won’t listen to the shrill voices of people like me, they might take advice from Lego-lookalikes speaking in a dull monotone.

But those were the heady days of 2009, when the craptastic state of the legal economy finally started to seep into the consciousness of prospective law students and lawyers. Now, thanks to the Great Recession, there’s less of a need to educate prospective law students about what they’re getting themselves into. Now, these little videos aren’t important teachable moments, they’re simply fun opportunities to make fun of people who fail to look out for themselves. They are opportunities for those who have been through the law school wringer to sit back and enjoy themselves — and exchange knowing glances among fellow colleagues.

The one we just came across today hits exactly the right note…

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Is Law School Becoming a Fool’s Errand?

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That’s one of the topics covered by an impressive trio of law professors — Richard Epstein, Glenn Reynolds, and John Yoo — in an interesting, wide-ranging discussion over at PJTV. Although they all hail from the right side of the aisle, they disagree on a number of issues. Here’s a summary:

Are law schools creating a new generation law fools? Is the bar exam the best measure of a lawyer? Are the best law schools even worth the money? Law professors John Yoo and Richard Epstein of Richochet.com discussion the legal profession on this episode of Instavision.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion takes place when Professor Reynolds mentions that he decided to attend Yale Law School over free rides from Duke and Chicago. He asks Professors Epstein and Yoo: What advice would you give to a prospective law student facing a similar choice today?

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Stephen Colbert Rips Loyola-L.A.’s ‘Foolproof Plan to Get Their Graduates Better Jobs’

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Loyola Law School (Los Angeles) hoped to quietly jump on the grade-inflation bandwagon in order to help make its students more competitive in the legal marketplace. The school bumped letter grades up a notch, so that a C- became a C, a B became a B+, and an A+ became an A+you’reasuperamazinggunnerrockstar.

But the quiet jump has resulted in a lot of noise. After we wrote about the school’s retroactive grade inflation, the Los Angeles Times and later the New York Times picked up on it.

And last night, Loyola had its big moment on the Colbert Report:

The upside is that Loyola-L.A. just broke through to a whole new audience of potential applicants. The downside is that we can hear the deflation of the hopes of all the Loyola law school grads who planned to wow employers with their amazing GPAs.

We reached out to Loyola about being mocked by one of America’s most influential people. A response from Dean Victor Gold, after the jump.

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Bullfighter Arrested for Cowardice Breach of Contract

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Toreador, En garde ... Et songe bien, oui, songe en combattant Qu'un oeil noir te regarde!

In America, nonperformance on a contract usually involves a failure to deliver goods or a failure to pay. In Mexico, apparently contract law covers a failure of courage. The ABA Journal reports:

Gored by a bull in a previous match several months ago, Mexican bullfighter Christian Hernandez lost his nerve and bolted from the ring ahead of a charging bull on Sunday, dropping his cape along the way…

But his escape from the charging animal left him vulnerable to legal action.

After his inglorious exit from the ring, Hernandez was arrested for breach of contract, jailed, and ordered to pay a fine.

And yes, there’s video…

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Law Student of the Day: Star Wars Kid

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Hello, what have we here?

Based on the approximately ten billion emails we’ve received about this into tips@abovethelaw.com in the last few hours, it seems a lot of you already know that the “Star Wars kid” has decided to attend law school. We think the first Kamino-like flood of emails linked to the story on TechCrunch:

It was eight years ago that Ghyslain Raza slashed his way into our hearts with his Star Wars Kid video. Sadly, Raza suffered from severe bullying and abuse for his video and eventually ended up in a psychiatric ward for children…

He and his family sued the kids who leaked the video for $250,000, settled, and that seemed to be the end of it. Now, however, Ghyslain just became the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières, a heritage society dedicated to conserving his hometown in Quebec. He’s also working on law degree at McGill in Montreal.

I have a bad feeling about this. But clearly escape from McGill is not his plan. Raza must face his demons, alone.

In case you don’t remember Star Wars kid: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….

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Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: Personal Injury Firm Might Break Your Funny Bone

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We don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who hurt themselves in stupid ways. When we’ve featured personal injury firms in our lawyer advertising feature before, it’s usually been to make fun of them.

In this case, the personal injury firm, Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman, is in on the joke:

Their commercials got picked up by the New York Times earlier this year. The firm’s other humorous commercial can be found over at Copyranter.

Apparently, humor pays dividends. According to its advertising agency, the Levinson Trachtenberg Group, the commercials and the buzz around them have increased client leads by 25 percent.

When lawyers advertise: NYC edition [Copyranter]
Lawyers Use Humor to Plead Case [New York Times]

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