Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz

Morning Docket: 12.16.13

* “She changed how the world looked at us: from scrappy lawyers to a force to be reckoned with.” As the very first female name partner of an Am Law 100 firm, the Biglaw world is Kathleen Sullivan’s oyster. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan thanks you kindly. [American Lawyer] * “You hate to lose a great lawyer, but if you’re going to this is the way to do it.” Akin Gump might have recently lost partner Patricia Ann Millett to the D.C. Circuit, but her replacement, Pratik Shah, is working hard to fill her impressive shoes peep-toes. [National Law Journal] * Alan Dershowitz will be stepping down from his position at Harvard Law School at the end of the week. Perhaps he’ll be able to find some time to join O.J. Simpson in the hunt for the real killers. [Boston Globe] * Stephen McDaniel, the law grad accused of dismembering classmate Lauren Giddings, is back in the news. His alleged condom-stealing burglary capers are inadmissible at his murder trial. [Macon Telegraph] * As if TLC’s critically acclaimed “Sister Wives” couldn’t get any better, a judge declared parts of Utah’s polygamy statute unconstitutional. Just imagine the ratings gold because of this ruling. [Salt Lake Tribune] * It appears crack isn’t so wack after all, because Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor has a bevy of supporters who have stepped up to pay all of his legal bills. Waste your bonus money by donating here. [CBC News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Alan Dershowitz

Non-Sequiturs: 11.27.13

Ed. note: Happy Thanksgiving! We will resume our normal publication schedule on Monday, December 2. We hope you have a wonderful holiday, and we thank you for your readership. * O.J. Simpson is going to be staying in prison longer. The search for the real killers suffers another setback. [Fox News] * Sriracha-gate continues. A federal judge has ordered a partial shutdown of the plant. [Slate] * Lawyers are destroying American society. Because the Romans also had a glut of law school grads when the Republic fell. Or something. [Bloomberg BusinessWeek] * A federal government lawyer who mastered the stock market and lived a frugal life has given some $56 million to the University of Washington School of Law. Go ahead and hold your breath for that Washington tuition decrease. [Seattle Times] * UNC professors are questioning the motives of a public records request targeting the new director of the law school poverty center. Which isn’t naked intimidation at all. [Chronicle of Higher Education] * A couple weeks ago Professors Alan Dershowitz and Sanford Levinson debated Professor Eugene Volokh and David Kopel. The former argued that the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness. Based on minds changed, they won. The debate video is embedded past the jump… [Intelligence2 Debates]

By Joe Patrice
Alan Dershowitz

Non-Sequiturs: 11.20.12

* Better late than never: congratulations to everyone who passed the New Jersey bar exam. You’re just in time to get in on some Sandy class-action litigation. [New Jersey Board of Bar Examiners] * Congratulations to all the honorees from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association conference in D.C. last weekend — including, but not limited to, the Best Lawyers Under 40 awardees. [NAPABA] * And congrats to Professor Sherrilyn Ifill, incoming president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. [Concurring Opinions] * Does every bra made in America have Gloria Allred’s phone number sewn into it? [WSJ Law Blog] * Who is “Portfolio Manager A” in the latest major insider-trading scandal? [Dealbreaker] * You don’t need to be a dog lover to find these allegations abhorrent. [Alabama Live] * Want to avoid dating Democrats (or Republicans)? There’s an app — okay, two websites — for that. [Jezebel] * After the jump, Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz discuss Obamacare…. Toobin is the author of The Oath (affiliate link). Dersowitz is the new owner of a $1.7 million Manhattan apartment. Their conversation took place last Friday, November 16, at the 92nd Street Y.

By David Lat
Alan Dershowitz

Non-Sequiturs: 10.08.12

* In light of Chief Justice Roberts’s historic vote to uphold Obamacare, should we expect JGR to be more liberal going forward? According to Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Oath (affiliate link), “Do not expect a new John Roberts. Expect the conservative he has always been.” [Talking Points Memo via How Appealing] * Law firm staff layoffs: they’re not just an American thing. Slaughter and May is dropping the ax on 28 secretaries. [Roll On Friday] * “[A]ny robot or high school graduate can calculate numbers in a matrix to arrive at the highest possible sentence. But it takes a Judge — a man or woman tempered by experience in life and law — to properly judge another human being’s transgressions.” [Justice Building Blog] * Professor Dershowitz’s $4 million Cambridge mansion? Robert Wenzel is not impressed: “if I lived in that house, I would want to attack Iran and most of the rest of the world, also.” [Economic Policy Journal] * A man sues a strip club, alleging that a stripper ruptured his bladder when she slid down a pole and onto his abdomen. Ouch. [Legally Weird / Findlaw] * Still on the subject of Torts, two attractive blonde sisters walk into a bar — and discuss who can be held liable if a man suffers a heart attack during a threesome. Video after the jump….

By David Lat
Alan Dershowitz

Non-Sequiturs: 07.11.12

* Canadian comes to America, goes into $100,000 worth of law school debt, and has no job. Mwahahaha, Canada, let’s see your superior health care system find a cure for that! [Globe and Mail] * Wait, you’re not supposed to take your baby along when you go to see a prostitute? Okay. Got it. See, that’s the kind of tip that isn’t in any of the Dr. Spock books. [Wave3] * Ben Bernanke can time travel… [Dealbreaker] * … While John Mara, owner of the WORLD CHAMPION New York Giants, simply revises history. [Forbes] * Alan Dershowitz received a “D” on his first legal writing assignment. Apparently, his Yale Law School professor, the great Guido Calebresi, told him, “You write like you’re having a conversation with your friends in Brooklyn,” and then helped him work on his technique. Little did Calebresi or Dershowitz know that writing like you’re having a conversation with friends could lead to a successful life as a legal blogger. Boy, did they miss out! [Yale Alumni Magazine] * Kenny Heitz, an Irell & Manella partner and former UCLA basketball champion, passed away. [Daily News] Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe foresaw the Obamacare Tax Holding, and we’ve got video evidence to prove it…. How Appealing pointed us to the link below. This will make Tribe’s Con Law class even harder to get into this fall. Remember HLSers, competing classmates can’t register if both their hands are broken:

By Elie Mystal