And speaking of train wrecks, lawyers continue to marry at a depressing rate. Here’s our roundup of all the recent legal weddings, plus an in-depth look at the following outstanding newlyweds:
* In a Supreme Court decision split across gender lines, prosecutors can now get a do-over on criminal charges without double jeopardy, even if an otherwise deadlocked jury unanimously rejected them. [New York Times]
* And yet another day ended without a verdict in the John Edwards campaign finance trial, but the jury asked to review every exhibit in the case. The former presidential candidate must feel like he’s being punk’d. [CNN]
* The DOJ found that two prosecutors in the Ted Stevens case committed reckless professional misconduct punishable by unpaid time off. Looks like they’ll be getting an extended Memorial Day break. [Blog of Legal Times]
* Hot on the heels of Obama’s announcement in support of gay marriage, yet another California judge has found that DOMA is unconstitutional (along with a provision of the tax code). [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
* Occupy Wall Street is suing for $48K over the destruction of the group’s “People’s Library” after their eviction from Zuccotti Park. But let’s get real, who wants used books that reek like patchouli and pot? [Bloomberg]
* More than one million “de facto spouses” in Quebec may soon be automatically married by the state against their will. Imagine how much fun it’ll be to get a divorce from someone you never actually married. [Slate]
* Two waitresses who claim they were fired for complaining about their former employer’s “no fatties” policy will get to bring their $15M lawsuit before a jury. Hopefully Peter Griffin isn’t a juror. [Law & Daily Life / FindLaw]
When you’re getting ready to walk down the aisle to say “I do,” you should probably make sure that your soon-to-be spouse isn’t getting ready to walk — or worse yet, run — the other way.
You may remember that back in March 2011, a jilted lawyer bride sued her ex-fiancé after he dumped her, leaving her to deal with all the wedding expenses for an event that never happened. And as it turns out, according to today’s news, men aren’t the only ones capable of standing up their future mates at the altar.
In a case of love gone bad, consulting firm exec Steven Silverstein alleges that his former fiancée, Kendra Platt-Lee, took his money and ran. Instead of saying “I do,” he was instead forced to say “I sue.”
Let’s take a closer look at the lawsuit — the ex-groom behind it, and the attractive woman who apparently broke both his heart and his wallet….
* “I want to apologize. Obviously, mistakes were made.” Admitting you’ve got a problem is just the first step. Greenberg Traurig’s executive director apologized for the Biglaw firm’s apparentscrew-ups in a Rothstein-related trial. [Miami Herald]
* Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng will be enrolling at NYU Law School on a fellowship. The administration is giving him a ritzy faculty apartment that comes complete with a kitchen full of Chinese food. He already knows how to eat like a law student. [New York Times]
* Facebook is being sued in an amended consolidated class-action complaint for $15B over privacy issues, but Mark Zuckerberg was too busy getting married to Priscilla Chan to let it bother him. [Bloomberg]
* “What [the f**k] comes next?” That’s what law school grads asked themselves when their commencement speakers tried to slap on a happy face and speak positively about the job market. [Connecticut Law Tribune]
* But perhaps future law school grads will be able to find jobs more easily thanks to class offerings geared toward in-house counsel lawyering skills. Keep on dreaming that impossible dream. [Washington Post]
* How does a small-time DUI attorney from California go from being an unknown to being a household name overnight? By filing a lawsuit filled with tawdry allegations against actor John Travolta. [Los Angeles Times]
This week, Legal Eagle Wedding Watch salutes… a divorce lawyer. This one dutifully dissolved her client’s marriage, seeing him through a contentious custody battle. But then she went the extra mile and set him up with his next wife. Attention, divorce bar: We smell a new business model.
But let’s not let talk of divorce spoil our ooh-ing and ahh-ing over some tender new lawyer marriages. Here are this week’s finalists:
* Apparently the Roberts Court is unusual in that its elite members lacked opportunities to gain “the most critical judicial virtue: practical wisdom.” Yeah, right. Tell that one to the Wise Latina. [Washington Post]
* The powers that be in Massachusetts have decided to show law bloggers a little bit of respect. Now they’ll get to cover judicial proceedings like real, live journalists — press passes and all. [Metro Desk / Boston Globe]
* Pornography: now with ten percent fewer HIV infections! A Los Angeles city ordinance requiring porn actors to wear condoms during filming will be taking effect today. [L.A. Now / Los Angeles Times]
* After allegedly making two other incidents disappear from her record, former Bronx ADA Jennifer Troiano pleaded guilty to drunk driving last week. It looks like the third time really is the charm. [New York Daily News]
* New York newlyweds allege that Glamour Me Studio Photoshopped their heads onto naked bodies. Groomzilla Todd Remis must be glad that his wedding photography woes weren’t so graphic. [New York Post]
Our profile drew heavily upon a New York Observer piece that dubbed him “the James Bond of Columbia Law School.” What did Professor Bobbitt do to earn that sobriquet?
“His mannerisms just kind of ooze a James Bondian kind of quality,” says Vishal Agraharkar, a former [Legal Methods] student and a teaching assistant for this year’s class. “Someone who acts like that in class and outside class we assumed must have just an incredible personal life. James Bond has a hell of a personal life, so he must as well.”
Well, it appears that Professor Bobbitt, 63, does have one heck of a personal life. Over the past few days, we’ve received some rather interesting information about the good professor’s love life. The reports go something like this: “Professor Bobbitt married one of his students! Over the Christmas holiday! She’s a 3L at Columbia Law! And a Turkish princess! They were married at the Supreme Court! By one of the justices!”
As is generally the case with juicy gossip, most of this is true — but some of it is not. Here’s the real story, based on my interview with Professor Bobbitt himself. And wedding photos, of course….
* People like it when the members of the Supreme Court agree with each other, except when the justices forget to tell them exactly what to do. Poor sheeple. [Washington Post]
* If you’re wondering why you can’t get a Biglaw job, it’s because the firms don’t need you. Well, they probably do, but definitely they need their money more. [Wall Street Journal]
* Chadbourne & Parke to 190K square feet: partners seem to be pissy about the move, but this white-shoe firm may soon be a blue-chip tenant at One World Trade Center. [New York Times]
* British blokes like scamming folks. Kevin Steele, a former Mishcon de Reya partner, has been sentenced to more than five years for his role in a $28M fraud scheme. [The Guardian]
* My Fair Wedding? More like My F**ked Wedding. A New York couple is suing celebrity wedding planner David Tutera, alleging that he left them waiting at the altar. [New York Daily News]
Perhaps this is something that you’ve noticed: women who are newly engaged tend to brag about the way their fiancé proposed to them. And whether the proposal was bland or spectacular, it’s all these women seem to want to talk about.
So, what happens when you’ve got two criminal cases pending against you, and your boyfriend is just dying to pop the question? What happens when that same boyfriend has an order of protection against you due to allegations of domestic violence? Is that the kind of backstory you’d want to tell all your friends before spilling the beans on how your fiancé asked for your hand in marriage?
Apparently, the answer to the last question is “yes,” because this unlucky couple’s engagement tale was published in the local paper for all the world to see….
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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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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Aficionados of wedding-related WTF-ery should not miss this slide show of married-name train wrecks. The one shown at right is mild compared to some of the other exhibits!
