The stereotypical lawyer is risk-averse. But every stereotype has exceptions. Some lawyers — perhaps you? — have ideas for innovations that they leave the law to pursue.
Are you interested in leaving the practice of law to pursue an entrepreneurial venture? Maybe you can learn some lessons from the experiences of today’s lawyer turned businessperson….
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Startup Founder”
Typically when people get shot in the head, they do get very angry.
– Jodi Arias, as depicted by comedian Courtney Pauroso, in a parodic video of “never before seen testimony” from the Arias murder trial. In case you haven’t been watching HLN, Arias is accused of killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, who was stabbed 27 times, shot in the head, and had his throat slit. Arias claims she killed him in self defense.
(If you’re interested, keep reading to see the hilarious video.)
Continue reading “Watch Jodi Arias Make Dick Jokes on the Witness Stand”
Spring is in the air this week, and you know what that means: we’re now seeking submissions for our annual law revue video contest. Last year, 23 law schools submitted 31 videos for the contest. Some of them were funny, some of them were “meh,” and some of them made us want to close our heads inside of our laptops. You do NOT want to be in the last category.
But if you think you can carry a tune or tell a joke, we ask that you send us your very best law revue videos so that we — and the Above the Law audience — may pass judgment upon them. Get out the soothing lotion now, folks, because you might need it after we’re done with you.
Those responsible for the winning video will get Above the Law t-shirts and the pleasure of knowing they’re the envy of all their law school brethren. As for the losers, well… how embarrassing for you.
Before you start sending us your videos (and some of you have already tried), we’ve got some rules. As future members of the legal profession, you should be able to follow the rules….
Remember Judge William M. “Chip” Watkins III? He’s the temperamental West Virginia jurist who was recorded on video yelling at — and we mean literally yelling at, not just “scolding” or “raising his voice at” — a pastor. In another case, Judge Watkins called a woman seeking a protective order against her husband “stupid,” criticizing her for “shooting off [her] fat mouth about what happened.”
Last summer, Judge Watkins was hit with expedited ethics charges. This week, the West Virginia Supreme Court issued its ruling. What do you think happened? Take a guess….
Continue reading “Judge of the Day: Old Yeller Learns His Fate”
Mike Lickver
We’ve written before about Mike Lickver, the Toronto-based Bennett Jones associate who made magic with Law School Husslin’ 3. This autotuned masterpiece (two words that shouldn’t go together at all) featured Lickver celebrating his new career Miami-style: on speedboats, with sports cars, and swimsuit models.
But that video doesn’t hold a candle to Lickver’s latest installment, revealing the ultimate fate of Lickver’s eponymous hero, now working as an associate at a major law firm…
Mickey Mouse, Esquire?
“I’m leaving the legal profession.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Disney World!”
This is, in a nutshell, the story of the latest lawyer featured in our series on career alternatives for attorneys. But there is a lesson here of broader applicability.
Are you looking to leave the law? Your treasure trove of “useless” knowledge could be a valuable asset….
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Disney World Guru”
[S]uppose a State said that, “Because we think that the focus of marriage really should be on procreation, we are not going to give marriage licenses anymore to any couple where both people are over the age of 55.” Would that be constitutional?
– Justice Elena Kagan, in response to Charles Cooper’s contention that marriage is an institution that’s been historically and traditionally linked to procreative purposes, during yesterday’s oral arguments on California’s Proposition 8.
(This exchange led to a wildly entertaining political ad parody about the dangers of old people marrying, produced by the Daily Dolt. Because if there’s anything that’s “worse” than gay marriage, it’s gray marriage! Please continue reading to see the video; you can thank us later.)
Continue reading “Supreme Ideals on Procreation: Just Say No to Gray Marriage!”
Ed. note: This post appears courtesy of our friends at Techdirt. We’ll be sharing law-related posts from Techdirt from time to time in these pages.
Eric Wisti alerts us a case we hadn’t heard about before. You may recall a few years back how the Bed Intruder song became a huge hit, after the Autotune the News guys took an offbeat TV interview and turned it into a song. They, famously, provided some of the proceeds from that song to the interviewee, Antoine Dodson. Apparently, last year, a radio show called the Bob Rivers show sought to do something similar with an interview with a woman in Oklahoma, who goes by the name Sweet Brown (real name: Kimberly Wilkins), about a fire in her apartment complex. Here’s the original interview…
Continue reading “Sweet Brown Has Her Voice Autotuned, Sues ‘iTunes’ And Others For $15 Million”
Ryan Steinman
The handsome fellow at right is named Ryan Steinman. He used to be an associate at a leading law firm, but now he’s a professional BikeDude™.
Steinman traded securities law for cycling. He’s an instructor at SoulCycle, which is one of the hottest fitness crazes in the entire country.
Let’s learn more about Ryan’s professional journey — and, while we’re at it, check out a shirtless photo showcasing his ridiculously good body….
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Bike Dude”
Do you have an eye for design? Do you know how to make a room really pop? Did you hate it when the people on TLC’s Trading Spaces upholstered the walls with tacky-looking fabric? If you’re still practicing law, then maybe you’re in the wrong field. Perhaps you should consider taking a cue from the subject of our latest foray into career alternatives for attorneys and become an interior designer.
Because helping people make their houses feel like homes is just as heartwarming as it sounds….
Continue reading “Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Interior Design Diva”
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.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
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.
Keep reading »
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