Yale Law School

Happiness Tips for Lawyers

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Ed. note: Gretchen Rubin is the author of The Happiness Project. The book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 15 weeks, ever since its publication (including hitting the #1 spot).

Although she’s now a writer, with a total of five bestselling and/or critically acclaimed books to her name, Rubin started her career as a lawyer. She graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, and clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court, for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Feel free to check out her blog, follow her on Twitter, or join the Happiness Project Facebook page.

We asked Gretchen Rubin to offer us some happiness advice aimed at a lawyerly audience. Her guest post appears below.

By Gretchen Rubin

A few years ago, I decided to do a happiness project. I spent a year testing the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. From my experience, to be happier, it helps to think about the little things in life—and also the big things. Here are some ideas specifically targeted to lawyers:

Tackle the little things: Happiness can seem like a lofty, abstract goal, but a great place to start is with your own body and daily schedule.

Get enough sleep. We adjust to chronic sleep deprivation and don’t realize how much it weighs on us. According to one study, a bad night’s sleep was one of the top two factors that upset people’s daily moods at work (along with tight work deadlines — another problem many lawyers face). It’s tempting to stay up late, especially if that’s the fun part of your day, but the morning comes fast. (Here are some sleep tips.)

Get some exercise—preferably outside. You don’t have to train for a marathon. Just go for a ten-minute walk at lunchtime. People who exercise are healthier, more energetic, think more clearly, sleep better, feel cheerier, and perform better at work. (Here are some tips for sticking to an exercise routine.)

More happiness pointers, after the jump.

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Who Made an April Fool of You Today?

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April 1 is a dangerous date. It’s a day when punking people becomes the national sport.  It’s not just traditional pranksters like College Humor marking the holiday. Law firms and law schools have been getting in on the fun today as well.

Shortly after your ATL editors got back from lunch, we got an alarmed email from a Columbia Law student, upset about Columbia’s plan to block some popular websites starting Monday:

From: Student Senate
Date: Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 14:25
Subject: Selective Website Blocking

Dear Students,

When the Dean’s Advisory Committee addressed the Senate last month, it conveyed the faculty’s concern regarding student inattention and declining participation in class. The consensus among professors is that in-class Internet use is the primary cause.

Yesterday, we were informed that IT will begin blocking access to certain Internet sites inside the Law School’s three main buildings, while classes are meeting. Selective site blocking is scheduled to begin Monday morning. Among the 2-3 dozen sites affected are Facebook, Gmail and Above the Law. Others may be added later.

A full list of these sites is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/senate/siteblocking.html. We’ll update this page as more information becomes available…

We’re honored to be part of that Holy Trifecta of websites, though Elie was initially quite upset at Columbia — until he visited the linked website and “got Rick-rolled for the first time in years.” Judging from the flood of emails we’ve gotten, he’s far from the only one.

Weil Gotshal and Yale Law School also performed some prestigious pranks. You’d think legal types’ natural cynicism would help protect them today. But you’d be wrong…

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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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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 1.10: Headbangers

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champagne glasses small.jpgAt the end of a wild week that included Blue Monday, terrible (or terrific) Tuesday, and corporate-overlord Thursday (sponsored by Justice Anthony Kennedy), we bring you an unusually strong January edition of LEWW.
It features six lawyers in a wide range of practices: public sector, teaching, Biglaw, nonprofit — even personal injury (or “accident law,” as they apparently call it these days). Here are the lucky finalists:

1. Batsheva From and Michael Altman
2. Abigail Gaunt and Gabriel Feldman
3. Erin Roeder and John Spader III

Read all about these lawyer newlyweds, after the jump.

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Congratulations to the Newest Class of Skadden Fellows

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Skadden Fellowship Skadden Fellows Above the Law.JPGIn addition to being one of the world’s most successful law firms, Skadden is also a public-spirited one. The firm just donated $100,000 to Haiti relief efforts, for example. (More on that later.)

In addition, the firm supports public interest work through the Skadden Fellowship Program:

The Skadden Fellowship Foundation, described as “a legal Peace Corps” by The Los Angeles Times, was established in 1988 to commemorate the firm’s 40th anniversary, in recognition of the dire need for greater funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor (including the working poor), the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. The aim of the foundation is to give Fellows the freedom to pursue public interest work; thus, the Fellows create their own projects at public interest organizations with at least two lawyers on staff before they apply.

Fellowships are awarded for two years. Skadden provides each Fellow with a salary and pays all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. For those Fellows not covered by a law school low income protection plan, the firm will pay a Fellow’s law school debt service for the tuition part of the loan for the duration of the fellowship. The 2010 class of Fellows brings to 591 the number of academically outstanding law school graduates and judicial clerks the firm has funded to work full-time for legal and advocacy organizations.

The 2010 class of Skadden Fellows was just announced. Congratulations to the 27 winners, selected from 20 different law schools. Yale had four, Berkeley (aka Boalt Hall) had three, and Stanford and Fordham had two each.

Check out their names, law schools, and sponsoring organizations — maybe you know some of them? — after the jump.

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Super Law School Rankings

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Super Lawyers Law school rankings.JPGLast night, the WSJ Law Blog previewed a new set of law school rankings. Today, we have the full list from SuperLawyers. The magazine, in association with Minnesota Law & Politics and Washington Law & Politics, has ranked law schools based on the number of Super Lawyers they produce.
Is it a little self-serving for a magazine to rank law schools based on how many of the school’s graduates end up in its own magazine? Sure. It’s a little like US Weekly handing out Oscar nominations based on how many times a star has appeared on its cover.
But at least it is an attempt to rank schools based on graduate outcomes. The Super Lawyers Blog explains the rankings this way:

Most law school rankings look at things like bar passage rates, professor-to-student ratios and the number of books in the library, but they ignore the end product — the quality of lawyers produced. We think it’s like ranking football teams based on athletic facilities, player size and equipment without considering who wins the games.
In the real world — the world of clients and juries and judges — no one cares about your GPA or LSAT score. All that matters is how good and ethical a lawyer you are. That’s the focus of Super Lawyers.
Schools are ranked according to the total number of graduates named to the state and regional Super Lawyers lists in 2009. In the event of a tie between schools, the cumulative peer evaluation and research scores of graduates are used as tie-breakers.

They care about how “ethical” you are in the real world? Who knew?
Enough with the preamble. Let’s explore the cream of the crop, the Super Lawyers top 20, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.25: Trumped Up

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There’s nothing scary about this Halloween edition of the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. Our featured newlyweds include two Skadden associates, a SCOTUS clerk, and a famous heiress / model / entrepreneur.
Here are our fabulous finalist couples:

1. Limor Robinson and Jordan Mann
2. Heather Elliott and Stuart Rachels
3. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

Marvel at the accomplishments of these couples, after the jump.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.18: Jean-John

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Congratulations to Caroline Nyenke and LaRue Robinson, selected by ATL readers as our August Couple of the Month in a close race. Things were a bit more lopsided in our September Couple of the Month poll, as SCOTUS clerks and lovebirds Karen Dunn and Brian Netter took the crown with 40 percent of the vote. Both couples will compete for Couple of the Year honors in a few months.
Now, this week’s contestants:

1. Molly Rusten and Peter Rosen
2. Xixi Yin and Edward Amley Jr.
3. Simrin Parmar and John Bennett

Check out these newlyweds’ pictures and bios, after the jump.

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AutoAdmit Case Ends Not With a Bang, But With a Whimper

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autoadmit.JPGIf you were hoping for the AutoAdmit lawsuit to result in courtroom drama, with Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey breaking down in tears on the stand, then we’re sorry to disappoint you. The case has ended, somewhat anticlimactically.
Last week, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their case against the remaining defendants. From the Hartford Courant:

Two former Yale University law school students have quietly settled a high-profile lawsuit they brought against about two dozen anonymous authors who the students said defamed and threatened them by posting malicious falsehoods on an Internet message board.

Perhaps plaintiff Brittan Heller felt ready to put down her sword, now that she’s happily married. But note that the dismissal is without prejudice (so check yo self, Pauliewalnuts).
What did the plaintiffs get out of filing their lawsuit?

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How Much Do You Study?

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princeton review law school rankings.jpgA couple of weeks ago, we mentioned the Princeton Review law school rankings. The rankings are based on law student surveys, which may explain why the rankings bear little relationship to reality.
But Paul Caron of Tax Prof Blog has looked at Princeton Review’s underlying data, and he’s come up with some interesting info about how much law students are studying.
Here are the top ten schools in terms of study hours per day:
Study hours per day top.jpg
Villanova law students, you guys are lying. You cannot possibly average 7.5 hours of study a day unless you are (a) skipping class or (b) really dumb.
After the jump, let’s take a look at the schools that report the least amount of study time.

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Preventing Dictatorship?

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Stewart Rhodes Stew Rhodes Oathkeepers Oath Keepers.JPGMeet Stewart Rhodes. He graduated in 2004 from Yale Law School, where his paper, “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status,” won a prize for the best paper on the Bill of Rights. Before entering the law, he served as a U.S. Army paratrooper.
What’s Rhodes up to now? Many military men turned lawyers troop off to large law firms, where the discipline and diligence cultivated in the armed forces help them succeed. Others join the JAG Corps or work for defense contractors.
But Rhodes, who was a non-traditional student at YLS, has taken a non-traditional career path since graduating.

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.13: Devine Inspiration

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Supreme Court clerks continue to flood the NYT wedding pages this month, creating grim LEWW odds for mere-mortal Cornell grads and Skadden associates. Like Troy playing Florida or North Texas playing Alabama, these folks are welcome to suit up, but the only question is how bad their whuppin’ is going to hurt.
Here are your three finalist couples for the week:

1. Rebecca Mancuso and Andrew Brunswick
2. Erin Gustafson and David Curtiss
3. Kathleen Devine and David Newman

Evaluate these newlyweds, after the jump.

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