You Go Girl

  • Anna Nicole Smith, Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw, California, In-House Counsel, Law Firm Mergers, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Marijuana, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, Politics, Sexual Harassment, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 11.05.14

    * Bingham McCutchen canceled its partnership retreat, and their partner offer letters from Morgan Lewis must be accepted by today’s deadline — all while a prospective merger currently hangs in the balance. [Am Law Daily]

    * Per Altman Weil’s 2014 Chief Legal Officer Survey, the work at in-house legal departments is about to grow exponentially, while the spend on outside counsel will decrease in turn. Uh oh, no bueno. [Corporate Counsel]

    * “The attempt to have the defendant have any kind of humility has failed.” Due to “unsatisfactory” apologies to state employees, former judge Joan Orie Melvin will have to re-apologize for her crimes. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

    * “A troubled law school is like Dracula: hard to kill.” In the wake of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s debt restructuring, it’s now obvious that law schools aren’t worth much at all. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Republicans are now in control in both the House and the Senate, but fear not, because the nation’s capital just legalized marijuana. That’ll help calm down the depressed D.C. Democrats out there. [CNN]

    * Though it’s unlikely, thanks to this ruling, Anna Anna Anna Anna Anna Nicole’s lawyer/lover could be retried for allegedly giving illegally obtained prescriptions to the drug-addled model. [National Law Journal]

    * Tinder’s cofounder apparently made a killing on her sexual harassment settlement with the company. Though no one admitted guilt, she reportedly took home “just over” $1M. Get it, girl. [Business Insider]

  • Biglaw, Canada, Career Alternatives, Food, In-House Counsel, Kasowitz Benson, Law Schools, Layoffs, Morning Docket, Sports, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 02.21.14

    * A source says the casualties at Kasowitz were a matter of “managing the pipeline” after work involving the credit crisis dried up. Don’t worry, he says the firm’s still really busy. Aww, someone will believe you. [New York Law Journal]

    * Sorry, folks, but if you want to work in Biglaw, taking classes during law school like “Law and Unicorns” isn’t going to cut it. Try to stick to the boring stuff, and you probably won’t get dinged as often. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

    * Oregon’s AG is refusing to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage because it “cannot withstand a federal constitutional challenge under any standard of review.” That’s just fabulous, darling. [Bloomberg]

    * Career alternatives for attorneys: Olympic gold medalist. Jennifer Jones, in-house counsel at National Bank Financial, helped Canada’s curling team take the win this week in Sochi. You go, girl! [The Star]

    * Say hi to this century’s Stella Liebeck. A woman is suing Dunkin’ Donuts after suffering second and third degree burns to her crotchal region after spilling her hot apple cider. [New Jersey Law Journal (reg. req.)]

  • American Bar Association / ABA, Bar Exams, Biglaw, Law Professors, Law Schools, Layoffs, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Money, Morning Docket, Music, Partner Profits, Texas, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 02.07.14

    * According to the latest Citi report, the Am Law 50 outperformed the rest of their ilk in terms of net profits and profits per equity partner. As for the rest, ha ha ha, enjoy all of your “modest” returns. [Am Law Daily]

    * The ABA’s Standards Review Committee is close to a decision on its bar-exam passage standard for accreditation. It’s tough to protect students and law schools at the same time. [National Law Journal]

    * Oh my! Professors at Albany Law are incredibly pissed the school would dare imply they suggested lowering academic standards to put asses in seats and stave off faculty layoffs. [New York Law Journal]

    * Wendy Davis has left her position at Cantey Hanger, one of Fort Worth’s largest law firms, to dedicate herself fully to her bid to become Texas’ Next Top Governor. You stand, girl! [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

    * Yuna, a Malaysian pop star with a law degree who’s worked with artists like Pharrell, doesn’t think she’ll be able to fall back on her J.D. now that she’s in America. Funny, because many Americans feel exactly the same way. [Pittsburgh City Paper]

  • Biglaw, Blank Rome, Contract Attorneys, Crime, Deaths, Document Review, Federal Judges, Gay Marriage, Law Firm Mergers, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Romance and Dating, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, State Judges, Supreme Court, Texas, Violence, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 12.30.13

    * Exciting news: Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be leading the countdown on the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square. She’ll be the first SCOTUS justice to perform the task. You go girl! [New York Times]

    * Blank Rome and Nixon Peabody are reportedly in merger talks, but one firm’s managing partner says he “talk[s] to firms all the time,” it’s no big deal. No word on what guys from his high school do. [Reuters]

    * Sorry, Quinn Emanuel, but this limited discovery thing is going to happen. Judge Ronnie Abrams recently slapped down the firm’s attempt to appeal her MTD denial in this contract attorney’s suit. [Am Law Daily]

    * A state court judge from Texas stands accused of strangling his girlfriend over the balcony of his apartment and threatening to “f**king kill [her].” Romance in Texas has certainly got some of that je ne sais quoi. [Dallas Morning News]

    * A legal soap opera? An ex-prosecutor whose relationship with a judge landed her lover in hot water was found dead in her home hours after a judicial misconduct ruling came down. R.I.P. [Reno Gazette-Journal]

    * Take a look back at the legal profession’s year that was: from the highest of highs in gay marriages to the lowest of lows in law school enrollment, 2013 was a year for the record books. [National Law Journal]

  • Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw, Confirmations, D.C. Circuit, Environment / Environmental Law, Gender, Job Searches, Money, Morning Docket, SCOTUS, Social Media, Social Networking Websites, Supreme Court, Women's Issues, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 12.11.13

    * When it comes to the air pollution case that’s currently before the Supreme Court, it seems like the justices had absolutely no difficulty at all in evaluating the type of problem at hand. It’s apparently a “tough” one and a “hard” one. [New York Times]

    * Thanks to the historic new Senate rules put into action last month, Patricia Ann Millett, the co-head of Akin Gump’s Supreme Court and national appellate practice group, has been confirmed to the D.C. Circuit. You go girl! [Post Politics / Washington Post]

    * The Senate showdown isn’t quite over yet, folks. We could see another confirmation vote on Georgetown Law professor Nina Pillard’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit sometime today. [Blog of Legal Times]

    * “We risk failure in having a profession that is as diverse as the country we serve.” OMG guys, the legal profession is bad at diversity. This is new information that no one’s heard before. [National Law Journal]

    * Now that the recession is over, women are gaining their jobs back faster than all their male counterparts. Not to worry, guys — they’re still being paid 77 cents to every dollar a man earns. [Corporate Counsel]

    * Here are the top five social media mishaps by lawyers and law students of 2013. If you value your career, you should really try not to do any of these embarrassing things during the new year. [Strategist / FindLaw]

  • Art, Baseball, Biglaw, D.C. Circuit, Elena Kagan, Federal Judges, Holland & Knight, Judicial Nominations, LSAT, Morning Docket, Perks / Fringe Benefits, Pregnancy / Paternity, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 10.29.13

    * The four female Supremes gathered last night (and kept RBG up past her bedtime) to celebrate the unveiling of a lifelike painting of themselves that’ll be on display for years. You go girls! [Reliable Source / Washington Post]

    * Now that cloture’s been filed on a would-be D.C. Circuit judge, these judicial nominations are getting exciting. You should probably get ready for a battle royal on Patricia Millett’s qualifications later this week. [Blog of Legal Times]

    * The women over at Holland & Knight must be pregnant with glee now that the firm is offering incredibly attractive paid maternity and adoption leave packages in the hope of retaining its lady lawyers. [Daily Business Review]

    * People want to know if they should take the LSAT in December or February. Are they serious? Take it in December so you can retake it if you screw up. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

    * Aww, Barry Bonds wants the Ninth Circuit to rehear his obstruction of justice conviction with 11 judges instead of three. Perhaps he thinks that more judges will equal more sympathy. [San Jose Mercury News]

  • Biglaw, Disasters / Emergencies, Federal Judges, Gender, Mergers and Acquisitions, Morning Docket, Murder, Pregnancy / Paternity, Tax Law, Technology, Trials, United Kingdom / Great Britain, Women's Issues, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 05.21.13

    * Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Oklahoma. [CNN]

    * The IRS and the Treasury Department better watch out, because it seems that the “next logical step” for the tea party victims of heightened scrutiny leads right up the courthouse stairs. [ABC News]

    * #Whatshouldwecallme after advising on the $1.1 billion Yahoo/Tumblr deal? Kind of a big deal. The Biglaw firms doing the underlying legal work are Simpson Thatcher and Gunderson Dettmer. [Am Law Daily]

    * The Mirena MDL judge thinks female attorneys should be on the all-male executive committee. If this is “strategic gender placement,” the strategy is to look bad publicly. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

    * The Travers Smith trainee who was fired for getting pregnant is due in court this June to find out what type of compensation she’ll receive for being discriminated against by the firm. You go girl! [Daily Mail]

    * Wherein the parents of a 0L who’s got doubts about her employment prospects are counseled that she can “work not just in law.” ::facepalm:: [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

    * There’s trouble in paradise: lawyers in the Jodi Arias case unsuccessfully attempted to get a mistrial and withdraw from representation — for the second time — during its punishment phase. [Fox News]

  • Biglaw, Boutique Law Firms, Clarence Thomas, Gay, Gay Marriage, Gender, Law Firm Mergers, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Partner Issues, SCOTUS, Securities Law, Supreme Court, Women's Issues, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 04.03.13

    * Some Supreme Court analysts are speculating that Justice Clarence Thomas could cast a vote to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, but at this point, that’s just about as likely as him speaking during oral arguments. [Talking Points Memo]

    * When a practice group laterals out of a firm en masse, you know things were probably going on behind the scenes for a while. Apparently Bingham’s securities enforcement crew was in very high demand by other Biglaw firms. [Am Law Daily]

    * Hot on the heels of a merger ménage à trois, Dentons (fka SNR Denton) is already eyeing new growth possibilities across the globe. Guess they’re down with orgies now… [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * “Clients don’t hire us because of our sex. They hire us because we win.” This, from Hillary Richard, one of the female name partners of a largely all-female firm. You go girl! [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Silly Cooley, a “second-tier” law school by any other name would smell as stank. Our nation’s second-best law school is considering a union with Western Michigan University. [National Law Journal]

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  • Alston & Bird, Banking Law, Biglaw, Crime, Death Penalty, Gay, Gay Marriage, Ho-Love, JPMorgan Chase, Morning Docket, Paul Clement, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Violence, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 03.28.13

    * Based on the justices’ reactions during oral arguments in Windsor v. U.S., there was no defending the Defense of Marriage Act. Not even the Paul Clement, the patron saint of conservative causes could save the day. [New York Times]

    * Alas, the David Boies and Ted Olson Dream Team stole much of the spotlight from Roberta Kaplan, the Paul Weiss partner who argued on behalf of Edith Windsor in an effort to overturn DOMA. Seriously, you go girl! [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * Dude, you’re getting a Dell! Alston & Bird and Kirkland & Ellis are the latest firms to join the Biglaw sharks (including Ho-Love, Debevoise, Wachtell, SullCrom, and Simpson Thacher) circling this major tech buyout. [Am Law Daily]

    * It looks like it’s time for JPMorgan to face the music for its investments in Lehman Brothers, because a federal judge just ruled that the bank cannot “dispatch plaintiff’s claims to the waste bin.” [Reuters]

    * An alleged killer’s sense of mortality: James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado movie theater shooting, offered to plead guilty and spend life in prison in order to avoid the death penalty. [CNN]

  • Adam Liptak, American Bar Association / ABA, B for Beauty, Biglaw, Deaths, Law Professors, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Mergers and Acquisitions, Money, Morning Docket, Reality TV, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Suicide, Supreme Court, Technology, Television, Texas, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 01.14.13

    * “I’m a New Yorker, and I jaywalk with the best of them.” Don’t be fooled by the rocks job that she’s got — she’s still, she’s still Jenny Sonia from the block. The Supreme Court’s very own wise Latina, author of a new memoir (affiliate link), is proud of her city. [New York Times; 60 Minutes]

    * If you’re looking for an M&A adviser, you’d be wise to seek out counsel from Skadden Arps. The firm sweeped three separate rankings lists based on the total value of its clients’ 2012 M&A transactions. [Am Law Daily]

    * Only in the world of legal education could the dean of a law school that isn’t even numerically ranked by U.S. News have the highest salary of all law deans nationwide. (We’ll likely have more on this later.) [Boston Globe]

    * Arizona schools will allow 3Ls to take the bar exam, but New York schools may soon do away with 3L year altogether. Of course, the ABA will find a way to muck it up, but still, hooray for progress! [National Law Journal]

    * Remember “Made in Jersey,” the show about a stereotypical Jersey girl who made the jump to Biglaw? Yeah, neither does anyone else. Hopefully “Staten Island Law” won’t face the same fate. [New York Daily News]

    * “Sexiness is all about being a woman of character.” Our congratulations go out to DaNae Couch, the Texas Tech law student who advanced to the Top 10 of the Miss America competition. You go girl! [Lubbock Online]

    * Aaron Swartz — Reddit co-founder, friend of Larry Lessig, felony hacking defendant — RIP. [New York Times]

  • 9th Circuit, Affirmative Action, Asians, Biglaw, Conferences / Symposia, Copyright, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Federal Judges, Harvard, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, Technology, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 05.08.12

    * Aw, come on, Mort, Dewey really have to pay you $61M? In case you missed it last night, the only thing that made the former vice chairman’s departure memo dramatic was the insane amount that he claims he’s owed. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Congratulations to Jacqueline H. Nguyen on her confirmation to the Ninth Circuit. She’s the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appellate court, so she’s earned our judicial diva title (in a good way). You go girl! [Los Angeles Times]

    * Google might’ve infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights, but a jury couldn’t decide if it constituted fair use. Sorry, Judge Alsup, but with that kind of a decision, you can bet your ass that there’ll be an appeal. [New York Times]

    * A Harvard Law professor has come to Elizabeth Warren’s defense, claiming that an alleged affirmative action advantage played no role in her hiring. And besides, even if it did, it only played 1/32 of a role. [Boston Herald]

    * Classes at Cooley Law’s Tampa Bay campus began last night. Unsurprisingly, the inaugural class is double the size originally projected, because everyone wants to attend second-best school in the nation. [MLive.com]

    * Albany Law will be having a three-day conference on the legal implications of the Civil War. This could be a little more exciting if presenters wore reenactment garb and did battle when it was over. [National Law Journal]

    * Jury selection is underway in a second degree murder trial that will forever be known as the case where a defendant first raised the “Snooki Defense.” He didn’t kill his wife… but her spray tan did. [CBS Miami]

  • Defamation, Free Speech, Gloria Allred, Google / Search Engines, Harold Baer, Hotties, Romance and Dating, Rudeness, Sex, Sex Scandals, You Go Girl

    Lawyerly Lothario's Lawsuit Against His Hot Exes Gets Tossed

    At the end of January, we brought you a detailed report on a lawsuit filed by former prosecutor and Court TV analyst Matthew Couloute Jr., who alleged that his ex-girlfriends had taken to the internet to let loose about his alleged infidelities. His exes’ scathing words were found on LiarsCheatersRUs, a website created to “save […]
  • FDA, Hair, Morning Docket, Pictures, SCOTUS, Securities and Exchange Commission, Sentencing Law, Sex, Shoes, Supreme Court, Television, Women's Issues, You Go Girl

    Morning Docket: 12.07.11

    * Should the Supreme Court be forced to televise oral arguments? Yes, but only on the condition that we get spin-off shows called Wise Latina Justice and Ruthie’s Law. [WSJ Law Blog] * Rod Blagojevich won’t get leniency during sentencing. He’ll spend the next week lamenting the fact that can’t brush his beautiful hair like […]

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