Stephen Rogata

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.18.16

* A Brazilian judge ordered that Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen surrender their passports and remain in Rio until investigators can determine whether they filed a false police report of being robbed at gunpoint. There's one problem: Lochte is back in America. Jeah! [USA Today] * As we mentioned yesterday, according to NALP, law school graduates in the class of 2015 landed fewer jobs in private practice than any other class in the past 20 years. There is a bright side, though: Biglaw firms are hiring in droves and the median starting salary for new lawyers has risen to $100,000, which is 5 percent higher than it was for the class of 2014. [DealBook / New York Times] * Graduates who sued Widener Law in 2012 over the school's allegedly deceptive employment statistics lost a federal appeal to overturn a denial of class certification. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit -- one which included Donald Trump's sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry -- rejected a class-wide theory of damages. [Law.com] * Legal ethics professor Ronald Rotunda of Chapman Law wrote an op-ed striking out against the ABA's adoption of a new professional misconduct rule which seeks to combat discrimination and bias in the law. He refers to the new rule as a misguided "foray into political correctness," and thinks the ABA overstepped its bounds. [WSJ Law Blog] * "At best he was doing something profundity stupid with the hopes of meeting someone he will never get to meet in his lifetime." A lawyer for Stephen Rogata, the teen who scaled Trump Tower, says her client should receive psychiatric treatment instead of jail time. He's being held on $10,000 bail bond or $5,000 cash. [New York Daily News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 08.12.16

* I climbed the Republican presidential nominee's building using suction cups and all I got were these lousy handcuffs: Stephen Rogata, the Virginia teenager who attempted to scale Trump Tower earlier this week, has been criminally charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing. [New York Times] * "We adopt policy that will be beneficial to all lawyers -- we don't adopt things just to be politically correct." Many attorneys are up in arms about the new ABA professional conduct rule which prohibits discriminating against and harassing colleagues during the practice of law, but it was something that needed to happen. [Big Law Business] * Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has predicted "with some degree of credibility" that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will nominate Judge Merrick Garland if she wins the White House this fall. He doesn't think Clinton will "rock the boat" with a new pick for Donald Trump's "minions" to block. [Associated Press] * Given the fact that 36.4 percent of lawyers surveyed qualified themselves as problem drinkers, attorney-counselor Patrick Krill has opened a consulting firm that will cater specifically to law firms, providing assistance for lawyers dealing with addiction and mental health issues. If you need help, please seek it out. [Law.com via ABA Journal] * Who are 11 of the most successful graduates of Stanford Law School? Two are SCOTUS justices, one is a former Ninth Circuit judge, one is the executive director of the ACLU, four are business executives (one of whom invented "revenge litigation finance" to sue Gawker into bankruptcy), and the rest are public figures in politics. [Business Insider]

By Staci Zaretsky