Blog Wars

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 03.02.15

* Unfortunately, it seems that if you want to get an elite legal education in this country, you're going to have to pay an arm and a leg for it. This year's NLJ Top 10 Go-To Law Schools each have a sticker price that's greater than $50K. [National Law Journal] * Hamline University's president thinks it was smarter for her law school to merge with William Mitchell Law than for it to close altogether -- hey, it'll still bear the Hamline name and its dying carcass won't be on her books anymore! [Star Tribune] * Later this week, SCOTUS will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a case that could decimate the Affordable Care Act as we know it. At this point, the justices must be contemplating how many people will lose if the plaintiffs here win. [Wall Street Journal] * An ADA from the Brooklyn DA's office who prosecuted drug cases was canned after his colleagues learned that he failed to report his personal connection to an admitted cocaine dealer. Perhaps they were jealous he refused to share his hookup. [New York Daily News] * In case you missed it, Above the Law, your favorite legal website, has been "rankle[d]" by a new series on CNNMoney called "Above the Law." We know you're as ticked off about this as we are, so we hope you'll help us write our cease-and-desist letter. [Am Law Daily]

By Staci Zaretsky
Blog Wars

Non-Sequiturs: 10.17.14

* Congratulations (and good luck) to our nation’s new ebola czar — who happens to be a high-profile lawyer. [ATL Redline] * An update on the Charleston Law/InfiLaw drama. [Post and Courier] * If they had only taken the pink underwear off the patient before he woke up, he wouldn’t have his panties in a bunch. [Huffington Post] * Getting people to read law review articles is hard enough; why put them behind a wall? [TaxProf Blog] * It’s funny that Floridian lawyers are having such a bad reaction to Bad Judge, since the show could actually be reality TV down there. [Daily Business Review (sub. req.)] * Career advice: if you aspire to the federal judiciary, try to avoid writing blog posts about biting girls in the butt. [Missouri Lawyers Weekly (sub. req.)] * Congrats to lawyer Lisa Smith on winning the Pitch Week book competition at the When Words Count Retreat! [Street Insider]

By David Lat
2nd Circuit

Non-Sequiturs: 03.29.13

* To those of you who celebrate it, Happy Easter! Welcome the holiday by voting in the ABA Journal’s fifth annual “Peeps in Law” contest. [ABA Journal] * If law firm brackets aren’t your thing, check out Professor Kyle Graham’s brackets for (1) law school classes and (2) law blogs. I’m thankful for ATL’s #1 seed but terrified by who we’re up against (because they’ve ripped me a new one before). [noncuratlex] * Sorry, Judge Steiner, you wuz robbed; you should have been our Judge of the Day. It’s tough to top “allegations of a sexual quid pro quo with a female lawyer and the eye-opening confiscation of carpet from [chambers] for forensic analysis.” [OC Weekly] William Shatner * “William Shatner’s Seductive Powers Don’t Create a Fiduciary Duty.” Robyn Hagan Cain explains why. [U.S. Second Circuit / FindLaw] * Citi settles securities cases for $730 million. Matt Levine is not impressed. [Dealbreaker] * And Ted Frank is incensed by Bernstein Litowitz’s nine-figure fee request. [Point of Law] * If you’re already depressed by public ignorance about the Supreme Court, don’t look at the responses to question 9 of this opinion poll. [Penn Schoen Berland] * Steven Harper — author of a new (and very good) book about the legal profession, The Lawyer Bubble (affiliate link) — offers thoughts on the billable hour in the wake of the DLA Piper overbilling allegations. [New York Times]

By David Lat
Biglaw

Non-Sequiturs: 11.30.12

* Just in case you haven’t seen enough responses to the Case Western Law dean’s New York Times op-ed, here are some more. (Plus, with this, you’re getting the additional bonus of an incredibly sad letter from a young lawyer.) [Associate's Mind] * Oh mon dieu! Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal team is now denying that that there was ever a settlement in the hotel maid’s sexual assault suit civil suit, and especially not a $6M settlement — because that’s apparently “flatly false.” [Slate] * You’ve probably led a sad and lonely existence if you’re laying on your death bed and worrying about who will inherit your iTunes library. Don’t worry, they’re headed to a “legal black hole,” anyway. [Legal Blog Watch] * And in other news, some teenagers are so obsessed with their tech gadgets, like cellphones, that they’d allegedly be willing to kill their family and pry the damn thing from their cold dead hands. [Legal Juice] * Please remember to vote for your favorite law blog (coughcough Above the Law coughcough) in the Blawg 100 in the News/Analysis category, and all the rest of the sites you read in other categories, too! [ABA Journal] * After the jump, Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia speaks with law firm consultant Tim Corcoran of the Corcoran Consulting Group about the future of rainmaking and business development in Biglaw….

By Staci Zaretsky