How would you like to be sitting in property class at Iowa College of Law, and realizing that you are in the same section as this guy? The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports:

An Iowa City man is accused of physically and verbally abusing his live-in girlfriend on Sunday.

According to Iowa City police, Alvin K. Seals, 35, choked the woman after an argument and caused her to hit a wall with her elbow. The woman scraped her elbow and also cut her finger during the struggle, police said.

A tipster reports:

Seals is a 1L at Iowa College of Law. Word on the street is he dropped one of the three doctrinal first-semester classes (property) already.

Alvin Kwesi Seals apparently has quite the temper. More urine soaked allegations, after the jump.

We have another episode in the saga of Deidre Dare, one of our favorite laid-off lawyers. She was an attorney in Allen & Overy’s Russia office until she penned typed a salacious online novel about her expat adventures, which featured lots of drinking, sex, drugs, donkeys, and dwarves. After the firm let her go, she sued.

Dare’s still in Moscow, where she writes an often controversial column for the Moscow News called sExpat. The latest reveals that Deidre likes it rough:

Anyone who has spent even five minutes in bed with me knows that I have a strong proclivity for S&M. My experience in the area ranges from the mild (spanking) to the extreme (ball gags, golden showers and the like), according to how much experience my partner has and what he or she likes.

The column goes on to praise Russia’s abusive men. Dare writes: “If you’re hanging out with real men and you’re a little slutty, you’re going to get hit. Period.” Roll On Friday photoshops A&O’s chairman into being a “real man” here.

Ed. note: We at Above The Law do not condone physical violence against women. We do, however, condone violence against the commenter ShaFeef.

In a previous column, Dare said money was tight and suggested that prostitution might be a way out of her money woes. That might have led to more hitting than even Deidre likes. Luckily, she’s come up with a different way to make money. She’s written another book. Its title, fittingly, is SLUT.

Have you ever considered the possibility of getting sued for not being able to dance? That’s the reality now facing James Graeber, who allegedly flung a hedge fund employee right off of a dance floor at a New Jersey wedding. The New York Post reports:

An Upper West Side woman is suing a rowdy reveler who drunkenly clobbered her on the dance floor at his sister’s reception last year.

Christine Mancision said she was grooving after dinner at the Hyatt Morristown in New Jersey when, “all of a sudden, I turn and I’m grabbed by this really tall individual.”

“I had no idea who he was. And he grabbed my arm and spun me around to dance with me and then just flung me off to the side of the dance floor, and I went flying to the floor,” the petite 27-year-old recalled.

Turn around, bright eyes
Every now and then I fall apart
Turn around, bright eyes
F***in every now and then I fall apart
And I need you now tonight
I f***in need you more than ever.

In related news, people who can dance do not go to weddings in New Jersey.

Mancision suffered a broken wrist and is suing James Graeber. But she’s also suing the Hyatt, for reasons passing understanding.

Details and updates after the jump.

A battle went down the other day on a basketball court at Gregory Gym on the University of Texas - Austin campus. It’s a battle that has been fought across time and generations. It pitted a freshman defensive back from the Texas Longhorns (ranked #2 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll) and a UT law student (ranked #15 in the latest U.S. News law school rankings). Who hasn’t been a part of a strong kid v. smart kid fight?

The football player is freshman Kenny Vaccaro. The law student is Jonathon Fuhrman. The Austin-American Statesman takes it from here:

Fuhrman, who is identified as a UT student, told police Vaccaro and his friends were throwing basketballs at him. The affidavit said Fuhrman threw a basketball back at Vaccaro, hitting him in the head.

Fuhrman said Vaccaro then punched him in the face. The affidavit stated that Fuhrman, when he was interviewed by police, had blood coming from a cut lip.

Guys at my high school used to throw basketballs at future legal scholars all of the time. Then they would make love to all the women and be treated like gods. But now they all have multiple out-of-wedlock children and/or priors, while the future legal scholars enjoy prosperous careers and fulfilling romantic relationships. It was no big deal.

Will Vaccaro get punished for this? I’ll share some painful childhood memories, after the jump.

Here’s a strange little story that we meant to cover during the week but missed. From the Philadelphia Daily News:

Ever heard the one about the exploding toilet? Well, an Olney woman could tell you all about it, from firsthand experience….

It happened on Oct. 30, 2007, according to the lawsuit, when a toilet the woman was using “exploded” in an eighth-floor ladies’ room at the 1900 Market Street building.

“Excess water pressure caused a toilet to explode causing plaintiff to be thrown from the bathroom stall, thereby causing her severe and permanent injuries,” the suit said.

And then they tried to charge her for an enema. The nerve!

So what injuries does plaintiff claim as a result of sitting on Old Faithful?

Mental note: Do not mess with lawyers in South Carolina. Don’t believe me? Just read the Charlotte Observer:

Conway Attorney Irby Walker was charged today with trying to hire someone to kill another attorney, according to police.

Walker, 58, was charged with solicitation of a felony after Doug Thornton told police Sept. 11 that Walker had made threats against his life and believed he was trying to follow through on those threats, according to Horry County police Lt. Jamie DeBari.

According to The Sun News, the going price to take down a fellow member of the bar is $10,000.

Really? I mean, who can even afford that in this economy?

Irby Walker’s attorney responded to the charges with the Chewbacca defense:

“I know there’s some bad blood between [Walker and Thornton], but this entire thing defies comprehension, and I suggest it is illogical,” said Walker’s attorney, George McMaster, during the hearing. “He didn’t get a gun, he didn’t go try to go shoot somebody, he’s probably not capable of shooting somebody.”

Police: S.C. lawyer plotted to hire killer [Charlotte Observer]
Police: Lawyer sought hitman to kill rival [The Sun News]

Hampton Behavioral Health Center is a mental health clinic in New Jersey. Its website makes the place seem quite tranquil: lots of pastels and photos of clouds. A safe place.

The tranquility was disrupted on Christmas Eve 2007 when a masked gunman burst into the clinic’s pharmacy, reports Courthouse News Service. The gunman told pharmacy worker, Babette Perry, that he had already taken another hospital worker hostage and demanded Oxycontin. Perry tried to call for help but the phone line was down.

But it turns out this was all just a surprise safety drill. The “gunman” was actually a fellow hospital worker. The phones had been cut on purpose. There was no actual threat of being shot or taken hostage. Woo hoo, right?

Perry was not exactly relieved by this news. She’s now having mental health issues of her own, and has filed a suit against the clinic for compensatory and punitive damages. But even if she wins, she might have a hard time spending her money.

Documentarian Michael Moore would have us believe that everyone in the Great White North is friendly and loving, leave their doors unlocked, and have no need for guns. Well, there are definitely some crazy, violent types residing in Canada. Like the Greyhound bus killer. And Ontario’s former attorney general.

Michael Bryant, a Harvard LLM graduate and youngest AG in Ontario’s history, had a minor collision with a 33-year-old bike courier, who then made the unwise decision to grab onto Bryant’s Saab. From the New York Times:

[P]olice received reports of a Saab convertible racing past the fashionable shops of Bloor Street with a man clinging to its side. Two construction workers doing repairs along the road told CTV, a Canadian television network, that the car accelerated, its tires squealing, before veering into oncoming traffic on the left side of the street.

The workers said that the motorist repeatedly mounted the sidewalk and drove near lampposts in what seemed to be an attempt to brush off the man hanging onto the side.

One of the workers said the driver was “yelling pretty loud and he sounded very, very angry.” The other worker said, “He meant to knock him off.”

Several witnesses said that the clinging man flew off of the car after striking a mailbox.

Sheppard — the bike messenger — did not survive the incident, and Bryant is now charged with criminal negligence in his death. Many media outlets have pointed out that as attorney general, Bryant championed laws making Canadian roads safer, namely banning street racing.

But what they don’t point out is that sometimes bike messengers are really crazy and scary. But that doesn’t justify slamming them up against things on the road and killing them. Just punch annoying cyclists in the face. It’s okay to do in New York.

Canadian Politician Charged in Death [New York Times]
Former attorney general says he’s innocent [Associated Press]
Driver Punches Cyclist in the Face After Blocking Bike Lane [Gothamist]

Ed. note: This post has been updated. Please read below (updates in bold).

Not all Biglaw types are luxuriating in 1600 hours for the year. Some are still working long hours and spending late nights at the office. There can be hazards to late night assignments: canceled dinner plans, sleep deprivation, and running across an armed robbery in the car garage.

Such was the case last night, in a garage shared by many firms, including Paul Hastings. A Los Angeles attorney sent us this e-mail last night at midnight EDT/ 9 p.m. PDT:

This evening, some attys in the office received the following email:

“In case you guys were planning on leaving the office, there’s an armed car jacking going on in j2, its barricaded and cops aren’t letting anyone in. Some sort of stand-off with the cops now.”

Our correspondent has since retired. We have inquiries in to Paul Hastings but have not gotten an official statement yet. Are there any early risers on the West Coast who know more about this? Send us tips at tips@abovethelaw.com.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles garage in question is shared by Paul Hastings and other noteworthy Biglaw firms, such as Morgan Lewis, Winston & Strawn, and Jones Day.

The full story from a building manager is that a woman — we don’t know her Biglaw affiliation, if any — was approached by a man in the parking lot who demanded that she surrender her car keys. She did and called the police. That precipitated the closing of the garage. The police investigated the crime scene for a couple of hours, which is why nobody was allowed to leave the building during that time. No “stand-off,” just a crime scene investigation.

The criminal was not apprehended, but police reports indicate that the criminal left behind some physical evidence. As we understand it, the car jacker was not armed.

We’ll keep updating this post as we have more details to report.

We’ve written before about Hal Turner, the infamous internet radio host who has been charged with threatening three federal judges. This week brings new information about him, from Wired:

A notorious New Jersey hate blogger charged in June with threatening to kill judges and lawmakers was secretly an FBI “agent provocateur” paid to disseminate right-wing rhetoric, his attorney said Wednesday.

Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.

But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate “without crossing the line,” according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.

Unfortunately for him, Turner can’t blame the FBI for the comments that got him in trouble with the law. His claimed involvement with the Bureau ended in 2007, and his alleged threats against the Seventh Circuit judges were made in 2009.

More discussion about Turner’s case — plus comment from one of the threatened jurists, Judge Richard Posner — after the jump.

Stalking, cat fights, cheating, assault, and a secret marriage. This is the scandalous news out of Vinton, Virginia (pop: 7,782) this week, thanks to a lawyer-lawyer-paralegal love triangle.

If you surf over to WDBJ to check out the tale, we advise watching the video and skipping the transcribed broadcast. It hurt our head to translate it. And it hurt our eyes to Photoshop the image at right — click to enlarge (if you dare).

Two bankruptcy law attorneys, Jeffrey Kessler and Ann Marie Miller (an Appalachian School of Law ‘06 grad), had been partnering on cases and in the bedroom. Ick. Apparently, Kessler then started secretly dating a younger woman, paralegal Jennifer Kelley.

That’s when things got messy — and, allegedly, violent.

Remember the fellow we mentioned yesterday, whose wife (and her friends) gave him the reverse Bobbitt treatment, by gluing his penis to his stomach?

Poor guy — things have gone from bad to worse for him. From the Madison Capital Times:

The eastern Wisconsin man who was the victim in a bizarre plot to punish him for disloyalty in a lover’s quadrangle is in jail.

Fond du Lac Police Capt. Steven Klein said Wednesday the 36-year-old man was arrested Tuesday on allegations of child abuse, theft, unlawful phone use and harassment with a death threat in a domestic abuse investigation.

Sounds to us like a very sticky situation.

Man who was victim of glue-toting women is arrested [Madison Capital Times]

Earlier: Wife (And Friends) Glues Husband’s Wang

Last night, George Sodini, 48, walked into an LA Fitness Center near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened fire on those exercising inside. Early reports say he killed three women and injured up to 15, including his ex-girlfriend. He then turned the gun on himself.

Sodini’s LinkedIn profile says he was a systems analyst at K&L Gates. We reached out to the firm this morning. A spokesperson responded to say:

K&L Gates is deeply saddened by last night’s events, and offers its condolences to the families and friends of all who were involved in this terrible tragedy.

ABC News has found Sodini’s online diary. We ran a WhoIs search and determined that the diary is not a hoax. A George Sodini of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, registered the website in August 2000.

It is incredibly disturbing.

This case is going to bring new meaning to the “Glue Stic” product. For a Wisconsin man, one evening started out like a happy dream. The AP reports:

A married eastern Wisconsin man thought he was going to a motel for a little romance with one of his handful of lovers. She allegedly played along and suggested he be tied up and blindfolded for a massage, according to court documents.

But it ended up going so horribly wrong:

[F]our women eventually showed up to humiliate the man, who ended up with his penis glued to his stomach in a bizarre plot to punish him for a lover’s quadrangle gone bad, according to the documents filed in Calumet County.

And we’re not talking about some low-rent, barely sticky glue that is approved for use by children:

[Therese] Ziemann struck the man in the face, and used Krazy Glue to attach his penis to his stomach when the other women arrived, according to the complaints. The man told investigators he also was threatened with a gun. Ziemann told investigators she didn’t have a gun but may have told the victim, “Do you know how much I want to shoot you?”

He started screaming and the women rushed off fearful that he could get loose and hurt them but allegedly took his wallet, vehicle and cell phone….

Ziemann told investigators Sewell asked him, “Which one do you love more?” and the man’s wife made a derisive remark about him being scared.

Ouch.

But there’s an open question here. Was the glue applied during the man’s state of excitement or not? Because, if that bad boy was one way, and then started to retreat because he was “scared” …. I mean, not good times, man.

Charges have been filed against the alleged conspirators. Details after the jump.

Last week, we made dancing groom Kevin Heinz our (Future) Law Student of the Day. Heinz, his bride, and their wedding party danced down the aisle to Chris Brown’s Forever instead of the traditional Canon in D Major. They put it on YouTube last month and it’s since been hit on more than a hot, single bridesmaid.

We posted the video last week and noted:

Their only misstep: Choosing a song by someone convicted of domestic abuse.

Those who commented on last week’s post questioned the bride’s dancing ability, the groom’s decision to go to Hamline University Law School, and our calling the couple out for using a song by someone convicted of domestic violence.

As far as we know, Heinz is still going to Hamline and his bride’s dancing abilities have not improved. But we do have updates for you on the domestic violence front and, unrelatedly, on the couple’s divorce video.

Now that Gatesgate is behind us, capped off by a beer summit at the White House yesterday, what can we get riled up about now?

Well, there’s always something going on with the police. From Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post:

A lawyer who moments earlier had been complaining to friends about police overreaction in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., got a taste of the Gates treatment himself after loudly chanting “I hate the police” near a traffic stop in Northwest Washington, D.C.

Pepin Tuma, 33, was walking with two friends along Washington’s hip U Street corridor around midnight Saturday, complaining about how Gates had been rousted from his home for not showing a proper amount of deference to a cop….

Then the group noticed five or six police cruisers surrounding two cars in an apparent traffic stop on the other side of the street. It seemed to Tuma that was more cops than necessary.

“That’s why I hate the police,” Tuma said. He told the Huffington Post that in a loud sing-song voice, he then chanted, “I hate the police, I hate the police.”

Uh-oh. Find out what happened next to Tuma — a former associate at Milbank Tweed and Gibson Dunn, by the way — after the jump.

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.

A reader sent this Craigslist ad along, noting the “uninhibited freedom of expression afforded to smaller firms” in their advertising as opposed to “uber-processed biglaw ads.” Yes, MidLaw and SmallLaw, thank you for providing the fuel for our Adventures in Lawyer Advertising series.

The advertising California-based firm, Le Pelletier, has one of the strangest websites we’ve ever seen. There is only one attorney listed: the firm’s managing partner, Erin Carlstrom Pelletier. Her LinkedIn profile says she is a Yale undergrad, Pepperdine Law ‘08 grad, who apparently started her own firm.

In case you can’t read it, here’s an excerpt from the ad:

Do you need a stealthy warrior specially trained in the unorthodox arts of law? How about a team that can sneak under the cover of darkness to silently assassinate your debt? Le and Pelletier, LLP can be your ninja! We will stalk your enemies like a shadow and strike before they ever knew what hit them.

The rest of the text and some gems from the firm’s site, after the jump.

Who hasn’t “killed off a grandparent” in order to obtain an extension on a paper? I had a friend who went through six grandmothers in four years of college.

But one University of Connecticut law student is not joking around. As we understand it, an editor of the Connecticut Law Review received an email this morning from a rising 2L who is trying to write on to law review. The submission is due tomorrow, but the 2L is seeking an extension because of troubles back on the home front. The 2L pointed the law review editor to this article in the Hartford Courant, which allegedly concerns the 2L’s parents (one of them a local lawyer):

Police continue to negotiate with an armed man who they believe is holding his estranged wife hostage and who claimed that his house is wired with explosives.

We hope the 2L received that extension — and that everything turns out okay.

For students who do not have crazy situations like parental terrorism taking place at home, I imagine your requests for extensions are weak.

Update (9:15 PM): According to the Hartford Courant, the hostage has been safely released.

Update (11 PM): Not surprisingly, the 2L received the requested extension. All’s well that ends well.

Hostage Drama Unfolding In South Windsor [Hartford Courant]
Hostage Situation May Involve Hartford Lawyer [Connecticut Law Tribune]

Yesterday, we brought you the story of Marcus Epstein — the karate-chopping congressional staffer who was heading to UVA Law until yesterday.

Virginia is for… haters? Back in April 2007, the Washington Blade ran a story detailing difficult times for gay students at Washington & Lee School of Law:

Reports have circulated that two gay students at Washington and Lee University’s School of Law in Lexington, Va., were attacked in separate incidents late last month.

Brian Dunkel, 27, was attacked by another law school student on his way home on the morning of March 25, according to Lexington police reports….

Dunkel, who filed the report, was walking to his home on Main Street and was jumped from behind by Todd Harper Lindsey, 26, who put him in a chokehold and wrestled him to the ground, police said. Dunkel was able to get away unharmed.

A separate student claimed that she was subjected to anti-gay slurs at the same party Dunkel attended before he was jumped. The students alleged that Washington & Lee administrators were “unresponsive” to the problems of gay students.

Such problems may persist to the present. Today, Washington & Lee law school dean Rodney A. Smolla sent an email to the entire law school community about complaints of “verbal misconduct,” allegedly directed against minorities, that were raised this past semester.

Details after the jump.