Weirdness

The Perks of Small Law: Tuesday Masseuse and Tagging Events

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While there are a few offbeat Biglaw firms out there (think Venable and rooftop bocce ball), the quirkiest firms tend to be the small ones. Childress Duffy Goldblatt is a litigation shop that does insurance recovery work. Its Chicago office just moved to a new location where it’s rolling out new perks.

One quirky perk? From RE Journals:

A massage table remained in a small office on Wednesday. Childress explained that a masseuse typically visits the office on Tuesdays.

“She just grabs you if you look like you need a massage,” Childress said.

If there’s going to be spontaneous grabbing at the office, it’s best done by a professional. (Speaking of, does Sidley still offer chair service?)

There are some other interesting aspects of this new location: no walls, a roof deck, and an upcoming “tagging” event — attorneys will be let loose with spray cans to decorate…

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Nina Totenberg and Her NPR Colleagues Go Gaga for Gaga

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Word on the street is that President Obama is about to nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. This makes sense; there are many good reasons to nominate Kagan.

But what if Obama were to think outside the box in terms of SCOTUS nominations? What if he nominated, say, Lady Gaga to the high court? (She is not without ties to the legal world; she is, after all, the unofficial mascot of Cornell Law.)

If Lady Gaga were to become Justice Gaga, we could look forward to Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg filing dispatches for NPR like this:

Wow. That was bizarre. So what’s the story behind this video?

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Psyching Yourself Up For Final Exams
A University of Oklahoma 2L Knows How To Motivate

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For most of our readers, this is just a regular week. The only noteworthy event is Elie’s birthday on Monday on Sunday (Mother’s Day — we hope you’ve done your filial duty and sent a card or mailed her some home-made pancakes.) For our little law student readers, though, this is a week that may make them hate Mom… for encouraging them to seek success through a JD. A premise that now seems flawed and that requires at various points in the year, like now, the taking of exams.

Students have all kinds of methods for preparing for exams. We advise abstaining from the devil’s water in the weeks before tests. Our co-editor Elie tells us he had a more specific routine. Before every finals period, he watched Rocky 1 in full. Then, on every test day, he’d start the morning by rewatching the final fight on his “vcr/dvd.” (Aw. Elie went to law school before the existence of YouTube.) Then, halfway through the exam, he’d blast Cake’s “Going the distance.” Perhaps using his “walkman” or “discman.”

If Elie had had a laptop and access to YouTube, he could have subjected his classmates to this routine, watching the fight with the volume turned up and sharing with others what it is to be beaten but not bowed. According to a source at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, there is a 2L who has mastered the art of psyching himself up as public spectacle.

After reading the article on the douchy Dukies earlier today, I had to write you about an experience I had with a fellow law student. Words won’t do the story justice, but I’ll do my best to paint this masterful portrait of douchiness appropriately.

Oh yes, please do…

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A University of Oklahoma 2L Knows How To Motivate“

All Rise for Air Guitar Judge Adam Liptak
And some other legal eagles who air rock

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A few weeks back, a lawyer friend invited us to attend the Air Guitar New York Championships in Brooklyn. It was described to us as “pretty rad.” We declined to attend, but in doing so, missed out on taking part in an activity that seems to be taking the legal community by storm. ESPN recently described competitive air guitar thus:

Writhing and finger-plucking. Wagging tongues and balcony dives. Oh, and male shirtlessness. Lots of male shirtlessness. All of it taking place before hundreds of screaming, chanting spectators… [It] isn’t about music. It’s about world peace (really). And going to Finland (really). And headbands. (So many headbands). Mostly, it’s about rock. Head-banging, face-melting, soul-devouring rock. The mysterious, ineffable feeling therein. What air guitar devotees creatively call … “the airness.”

So which legal eagles have been overcome by this “mysterious, ineffable feeling”? A Georgetown Law student, a University of Colorado Law professor, and New York Times legal correspondent, Adam Liptak.

Liptak has actually been in the judge’s seat for a couple Air Guitar competitions in D.C. How did he gain his expertise in the air guitar? We caught up with him for a brief interview. When it comes to air guitar jurisprudence, Liptak has something in common with Justices Scalia and Thomas…

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And some other legal eagles who air rock“

Update on the Georgetown Law Grad Who Sold his J.D. on Craigslist

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Somebody bought this degree off Craigslist

What do you think the resale value on your law degree is? Earlier this year, a San Francisco lawyer put his degree up for sale on Craigslist and found out.

The Georgetown grad was miserable working for a large law firm in Silicon Valley. So he quit and posted his degree in the Craigslist “For Sale” section for “the bargain basement price of $59,250″ — the current value of his student loan balance — or best offer. He hoped to get rid of the piece of paper with “the amazing ability to keep you from doing what you really want to do in life, all in the name of purported prestige and financial success.”

Back in March, the best offer had come from a documentary filmmaker who offered to give the miserable lawyer $50 to “piss on the diploma and then set it on fire.”

That would have been a serious markdown on the $100,000 degree. We checked back in with him this week and found out that a slightly better offer came along…

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Williams Mullen Gets Out of a Pickle of a Lawsuit

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Or make that a cucumber of one. Remember this allegation, from the lawsuit filed by former case manager Hanh Nguyen Allgood against the prominent Richmond law firm of Williams Mullen?

When the [office elevator] doors closed, [partner] Robert Eicher pretended to be sad and depressed. He asked Allgood for a hug. When she complied, he pressed his genital area against Allgood’s left thigh. Allgood felt something hard pressing against her thigh and attempted to pull away from him. Eicher held Allgood tighter to prevent her from pulling away, and pressed his genital area against her thigh even harder. Allgood was horrified. She pushed him away and stepped back. In response, Eicher laughed and pulled a cucumber out of his pants pocket.

We’re sorry to disappoint all you lovers of law firm gossip, but sadly, we won’t be hearing testimony in open court about the cucumber incident….

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An Exorcism at Bryan Cave?

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Last month, Midwestern firm Polsinelli Shughart raided Bryan Cave. Approximately 22 attorneys from Bryan Cave’s Phoenix, D.C., and Chicago offices spread their wings and flew over to Polsinelli. The Phoenix flock was the largest, consisting of 12 partners and associates.

When a big group of attorneys leave, it sometimes spooks those left behind. We hear that one partner at Bryan Cave was really spooked.

The attorneys that left had all been on the 22nd floor, the main floor of the Phoenix office on which clients are greeted. Their departure left the floor eerily vacant, so the firm asked some partners and attorneys to move into the empty offices. One of those asked to move was longtime partner Bob Shely. He felt his new office was tainted, though; according to reports circulating widely at the two firms, he said it had an “evil feeling.”

I see defected people?

According to the rumor mill, he wanted the carpets torn out and the office renovated. But a recruiting coordinator at the firm offered a cheaper solution: a do-it-yourself spiritual cleansing kit….

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  • 25 Mar 2010 at 2:48 PM
  • Weirdness

Mental Health Break: The Lawyers’ Coloring Book

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Loyal readers of our In-House Counseling column may have have missed their little dose of psychotherapy yesterday. Will Meyerhofer, aka The People’s Therapist, is regressing this week. He’ll be back next Wednesday.

You’re stuck at work, but perhaps you’d like to do a little regression too? For your infantile pleasure, we bring you an oldie but a goodie — The Coloring Book for Lawyers:

A coloring book for lawyers? Well, color us excited!



Our favorites from the coloring book after the jump…

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Christopher Austin, The Two-Week Partner

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Christopher Austin.jpgChristopher Austin spent sixteen years at Ropes & Gray, the crème de la crème of Boston law firms. He was the co-head of the Technology Company and Venture Capital Practice group. So it was with some fanfare that Cooley Godward announced earlier this month that the Yale Law grad was leaving Ropes to join Cooley’s burgeoning Boston office.
The firm issued a press release, and the news made it into the “Human Capital: People on the Move” column of the Boston Business Journal, on February 3:

Cooley Godward Kronish LLP added Christopher Austin, previously the co-head of the technology company and venture capital practice at Ropes & Gray LLP, as partner. Austin will be a resident in Cooley’s Boston office.

So it was with some surprise that one of our readers saw his name mentioned again in the same paper and the same column, but with a different firm destination, on February 19:

Goodwin Procter LLP added a new corporate partner in the firm’s Boston office. Christopher Austin’s practice focuses on the representation of public and private technology and life sciences companies, venture capital funds and investment banks. Austin was previously co-head of the technology company and venture capital practice at Ropes & Gray LLP, where he practiced for 16 years.

La partner è mobile. Two weeks may be the record for shortest partnership ever. This truly does sound like musical chairs.
So what happened? Cooley issued a surprisingly spicy statement…

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What Can You Do With a J.D.?

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There is an excellent new product on the market. A tipster reports:

A machine that turns your JD into something useful. Or, what to do with all those resumes “on file”. Or, the next cost cutting measure. So many possibilities…


Remember when K&L Gates decided to go with cheap toilet paper in their office bathrooms? Well, this seems like an elegant solution.
But I’m not sure that we’ll be seeing this device at Legal Tech next week.
Earlier: K&L Gates to Nickels and Dimes

How Jeff Fenster Landed on the Workers’ Comp Board
Or: How to Get a Government Job

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networking handshake businessmen shaking hands AboveTheLaw Above the Law.jpgOver the weekend — yes, we often publish over the weekend, so do check in with us — we wrote about the happy story of Jeffrey Fenster. Fenster, a 29-year-old lawyer who previously worked for a short time at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, was recently selected by Governor David Paterson to serve as executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State.

In the comments, a number of you wondered how Fenster landed this gig, despite what one former board commissioner described as “absolutely no administrative experience” and “no experience in workers’ comp or labor law.” One commenter speculated that Fenster might have been helped by Martin Minkowitz, a retired Stroock partner and expert in workers’ compensation law (which is what the New York Times hinted at).

As it turns out, it appears that Fenster was helped by connections — but not through Stroock or Marty Minkowitz.

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Or: How to Get a Government Job“

Who says government jobs are impossible to get?

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Stroock logo.JPGWe’re doing a little catch-up blogging this weekend, covering some stories we meant to cover during the week but didn’t get around to hitting. E.g., the update on Loren Friedman, a former Lawyer of the Day who doctored his law school transcript.
This post is a happier one. It’s about a lawyer at a big firm who managed to land an interesting and high-profile government post.
Laid-off lawyers, recent law school graduates, and Biglaw attorneys seeking greater job security are flocking towards positions in federal and state government. As a result, government gigs are very difficult to land these days, with hundreds of applicants applying for a single posting on USAJOBS.
But as shown by the story of Jeffrey Fenster, a former Stroock associate who was picked earlier this month to head up the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State, getting a government job is not impossible.

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