Here’s a first — A U.S. Supreme Court decision issued today has its own accompanying video: Talk about multimedia rulings! The Court’s opinion today in Scott v. Harris, No. 05-1631 — a dispute about the lawfulness of a high-speed police chase captured on video — appears online at the Supreme Court’s web site with this 91.7 MB RealPlayer video file. No word yet from the Court on whether the volume of U.S. Reports in which this decision will appear will include its own embedded video player.
The dueling opinions — Justice Scalia’s majority opinion, and Justice Stevens’s dissent — discuss the video extensively.
Some brief discussion, of the video and of the opinions, after the jump.
Here are the results of the various readerpolls we conducted concerning Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who appeared nude in a video for Playboy TV:
These results make sense to us. Dominguez’s participation in the Playboy really has no bearing upon her character and fitness, with respect to her bar admission. It wasn’t criminal, and we don’t live in the Victorian Age.
As for her legal career, if she’s a talented lawyer, who cares if she has, er, certain other abilities? Sure, one might question her judgment; but this was one mistake, and nobody’s perfect.
(But yeah, maybe she’s not that hot. And just because her doing this nudie video shouldn’t preclude her bar admission doesn’t mean people can’t look down on her for doing so.) Earlier: Adriana Dominguez: What Do YOU Think? The Jurisdiction Stripper: Two More Polls
Former Justice Department official Monica Goodling isn’t the only appealing female who’s hiring lawyers these days. Yet another damsel in distress, who has also been in the headlines lately, has obtained legal representation for herself.
Remember Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a nude video for Playboy TV? If you email Ms. Dominguez with an interview request, you receive this message:
I have no comment at this time. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to my attorney:
Brian Bloom Cozen & O’Connor (212) 509-9400 bbloom@cozen.com
Sincerely, Adriana Dominguez
Why on earth has Adriana Dominguez hired a lawyer? We saw the video, and it was pretty trashy — but not criminal (although reasonable minds can differ).
Here’s the law firm bio of Dominguez’s attorney, Brian Bloom (Cornell 1999, Hofstra Law 2002):
Brian A. Bloom joined the New York Midtown office of Cozen O’Connor in March 2005 as an Associate in the General Litigation Department. He concentrates his practice in commercial litigation and intellectual property matters. Brian has represented various entertainers, musicians, and recording artists, including Eminem and (the Estate of) Tupac Shakur. Prior to joining the firm, he was a litigation associate at Fischbein Badillo Wagner Harding, LLP.
Tupac is probably turning over in his grave right now. Assuming he’s actually in it.
P.S. We’re guessing that Bloom and Dominguez are friends and that he picked up this matter as a favor to her (i.e., allowed her to refer to him as her attorney). But did he clear it with the powers-that-be at Cozen O’Connor, go through the requisite conflicts check, etc.? Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Adriana Dominguez (scroll down)
Congratulations to the Columbia Law Revue crew for putting on a great show, which we attended on Thursday night. We were lukewarm about some of their prior efforts, but our opinion has changed entirely.
Check out this great clip, a parody of this SNL video, which is currently #61 on YouTube in today’s Top Favorites for Comedy:
We’ve been enjoying the story of Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a nude video for Playboy TV. And based on the number of people who have been visiting ATL by Googling her, it seems that we’re not alone.
We’d like to “own” this story, covering every aspect of it, no matter how trivial (as we’ve been doing with the Aaron Charney case). If you have any firsthand information about Adriana Dominguez, even if not terribly exciting, please contact us (subject line: “Adriana Dominguez”).
Here’s one such tip we received:
“The New York Daily News keeps on referring to her as a ‘brainy blonde,’ but that’s not entirely accurate. First, it’s a dye job. Second, she’s not what I would call ‘brainy.’ I know someone who is in her International Law class, and let’s just say she’s not a star pupil. She should spend more time with her books and less time naked before the camera.”
After the jump, we’ve posted a screencap of her MySpace page. It’s not terribly revealing because access to her full profile is restricted to her friends. But for those of you who can’t get enough of her, check it out.
Next time you hear a cell phone go off in a movie or at the theater, and think to yourself, “What an a**hole!”, remind yourself: Someday YOU might be that a**hole.
Watch this video, from the start of the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court finals, which we attended at Columbia Law School earlier this week. Pay special attention to what happens around the 18-second mark:
Yes, that’s right. The judges entered the room, their robes billowing out behind them. The court crier made the very formal and grandiose announcement: “Oyez, oyez…” The room fell into a solemn silence. And then, at that precise moment, our computer — which was in the process of turning on — made that annoying Windows start-up noise. Loudly.
One could feel a wave of horrified embarrassment sweep through the audience. Justice Alito chuckled, so hopefully he wasn’t too offended. But we were mortified (and rightfully so).
In our defense, this was a complete accident. We were in the process of setting up and turning on our computer, and we didn’t know when exactly the judges would be arriving. We turned our computer on, and it began the start-up process (which can take a little while). Unfortunately, just seconds after we turned it on, the judges made their entrance. And even more unfortunately, as the silence settled over the room, our computer made that colossally loud cyber-fart.
In any event, our apologies, Your Honors! Please do not blame the CLS audience for this rudeness. It was completely our fault.
We took some rough notes on the proceedings. They will probably interest you only if you attended the Moot Court finals yourselves. Or if you care about the hairstyles of Article III judges.
If you want to see our commentary, it’s available after the jump.
Everyone seems to have an opinion on Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student who made a video for Playboy TV. We’d like to get a more systematic handle on people’s views:
Yesterday afternoon, we attended the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court finals, at Columbia Law School. We interviewed the four finalists prior to the arguments.
Here’s our interview with Eric Chesin and Geoffrey Reed:
And here’s our interview with David Gringer and Patrick Somers:
After impressive arguments, and deliberation by the distinguished panel — Justice Samuel A. Alito, Judge Susan P. Graber, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Judge Sonia Sotomayor — the best oralist prize went to Eric Chesin. Congratulations, Eric!
Speaking of the New York tabloids, they’re having a field day — as well they should — with the story of Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School student cum Playboy TV stripper (blogged about here and here).
Here’s the latest article, from the New York Daily News, about this legally blonde, Ivy League-educated exhibitionist. An excerpt:
Adriana Dominguez, who’s in her final year at Brooklyn Law School, blabbed about her sexy exploits all around campus, said former flame Sean Kalish.
“She told everyone in school, ‘This is what I did, watch this,’” said Kalish, 25, a fellow third-year student at the school.
Please, Sean, don’t be so modest. Weren’t you part of the video too? As noted here, Mr. Kalish grabs Ms. Dominguez’s ass in the video — and spanks it.
“It was definitely not my wisest moment,” he said at his Manhattan apartment building. “I already have a job lined up. I’m hoping my employer doesn’t find out. I’m quite embarrassed by all this. I wish it didn’t happen.”
Here’s the promised follow-up to our earlier post about Adriana Dominguez, the Brooklyn Law School 3L who has embarked upon a career as a Playboy TV stripper.
Remember the similarly named Adrienne — the Boston College Law School student who did a racy spread for Barstool Sports? Adrienne ain’t got nothing on Adriana. Adriana Dominguez doesn’t just do soft-core, Sports Illustrated swimsuit-style spreads; she takes it all off. And she works it for the camera.
More discussion, including some comments from her classmates at BLS, after the jump.
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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.
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An astute observation about today’s opinion in Scott v. Harris, from Howard Bashman:
