December 2009

Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom that are jealous of JFK’s naked Mediterranean boat trip:

• Dr. Buchanan, a visiting scholar at Cornell Law and associate professor at George Washington Law has a brilliant idea: Let’s tax bankers’ bonuses!  I didn’t think we needed a Ph.D. in economics to figure that out, but sure enough, I guess we do.  [CNN Opinion]

• Per Mayor Bloomberg, flags on New York City buildings will be lowered in honor of Percy Sutton, the “pioneering civil rights attorney” whose Harlem law office represented Malcolm X, who died at 89.  [Detroit Free Press]

• The recession.  Heard of it?  Well, courthouses are starting to really hear about it.  All the financial crumbling and other legal ramifications of the economic downtown are starting to bombard to the U.S. court system.  New York State’s courts are closing 2009 with the largest number of cases ever—4.7 million.  “Society’s problems come to us,” New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, said. “We are the emergency room for society.” [The New York Times]

• With flooded court systems, it only makes sense that a Philadelphia judge pressed attorneys to push their cases through swiftly in a letter to about 300 court-appointed defense lawyers.  Let’s get a move on, boys and girls.  [Philly.com]

• What the hell is a nice, handsome Jewish boy doing at a Midwest Catholic law school??  Next you’re going to tell me he’ll probably end up being one of the school’s biggest donors.  [The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle]

• You only have four more days to do the vote thing for Bitter Lawyer.  [ABA Journal]

• Finally, a bunch of lawyers who are fingering, blowing and banging around…without getting in trouble for a sex scandal.  A group of attorneys are toting their cellos and formed an orchestra to play at the opening of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s new downtown office.  [ABC News]

• Man does not live by Ponzi alone.  Here’s how jailed billionaire R. Allen Stanford bribed and paid his way into lawmakers’ hearts.  [New York Post]

• SCOTUS over the last 30 years.  New justices.  Same split.  What gives?  [STLtoday]

• The 50 best careers in 2010.  “Lawyer” is not on there.  Shocker.  [U.S. News & World Report]

• Zachary Wilson is the Teflon defendant.  Murder convictions just don’t stick to him.  A judge recently overturned his second.  [WSJ Law Blog]

• A BigLaw partner gave Bitter Lawyer his resolutions for 2010.  What are yours?  Should you even bother making any?  Are you going to tweet them? Avoid the bizarre, stop hoping for a miracle and just take 2009 for what it was.  (Below.) Deep breath.  Move on.  [Lawyerist.com]

`

Check out more news from previous days.

Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook.  Follow on Twitter.

Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.

Keep Reading ⇒

Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom and a suggestion of Christmas sex positions to survive the holidays:

• Biggest gift to lawyers this holiday season?  Tiger Woods’ affairs.  Hush money and pre-nups to negotiate mean jingle bells for attorneys.  Lavely & Singer is singing deck the halls with boughs of money cash money.  [Bloomberg]

• The decade’s biggest legal stories.  Ten years of thrills, chills and lawsuits.  [National Law Journal]

• You know you’ve had a bad day as a law firm receptionist when you try to help someone who walks into your lobby and your assistance literally makes him shoot himself in the head.  [AP via AZCentral.com]

• Girls who love girls like their franks fried.  “A former associate plans to file a wide-ranging $50 million lawsuit against Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, accusing the firm of denying her a promotion to partner because she is a lesbian and of doing nothing to stop higher-ups from harassing her.” [The Am Law Daily]

• There are lots of excessive sentences in US jurisprudence.  So who cares if those who do the white-collar crime get a little longer time?  Assuage your concerns by buying one of Scott Rothstein’s Oriental rugs.  [Reuters Blog]

• We asked in February: Is UC Irvine the new Harvard? The law school’s pilot class started in August—with no out-of-pocket expense.  The cost of being one of the first student at Erwin Chemerinsky’s new law school pet project was $0 for all three years.  Now the school announced that its second class will be treated half as well—with 50% scholarships offered to everyone accepted.  [89.3 KPCC]

• But remember, while you can go to law school at UC Irvine next year for half price, you can not go to law school at all for free.  [Forbes.com]

• Flex your Bitter Lawyer voting muscle.  [ABA Journal]

• Hello!!  You’re in an American jail, so you’re going to have to speak American.  Duh!  The defense attorney for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly shooting at Fort Hood, says his client’s religious rights are being violated because he isn’t allowed to pray with his family in Arabic over the phone while in custody.  [Houston Chronicle]

• Let’s be clear: Tom Cruise is not gay.  And a lot of lawyers have made a lot of money defending that.  Today the tables turned on the un-gay leading man when Michael Davis Sapir, who Cruise sued in 2001 for defamation for allegedly circulating homosexual rumors to the media, is suing Cruise, his attorney Bert Fields, and jailed private investigator Anthony Pellicano.  Sapir alleges that his phone was wiretapped during the course of his 2001 lawsuit that Cruise had filed against him.  [Access Hollywood]

• While some people stress just trying to make Law Review, others anoint their resumes with the job title of “Supreme Court Clerk,” which makes life pretty sweet.  (Remember: It doesn’t suck to be Tara Kole.) While it opens the door to a treasure trove of career choices, “a new [Vanderbilt] study has found that former clerks have started to take jobs that reflect the ideologies of the justices for whom they worked.” [The New York Times]

Check out more news from previous days.

Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook.  Follow on Twitter.

Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.

Keep Reading ⇒

Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom wishing you a happy shortest day of the year:

• Who doesn’t love a headline like: “Tennessee lawyer Mark Lambert bites off part of Greg Herbers’ nose during fight over bathroom stall?” Unless you’re Greg, who was fought tooth-and-nose for the crapper.  Probably has something to do with why he’s suing for $5 million and claiming he may need a prosthetic sniffer.  As WMCTV points out, Lambert went all Hannibal Lecter because two guys (one being Herbers) were in a stall together, but “not using the bathroom.” Ahhh, subtext.  [New York Daily News]

`

• Just so we’re perfectly clear—associates are not having a banner year.  (When the words most associated with your profession are “bread line,” 2009 wasn’t for you.) And if you still have a job, a reminder: “Law firms including Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP cut year-end bonuses for first-year lawyers by as much as 71 percent.” Not sure if you hadn’t heard or were on the fence.  [Bloomberg]

• Remember how we tried to convince you, law students, that your professors are just as frightened about final exams as you?  Well, here’s why it was worth mentioning: A visiting NYU visiting professor used questions on his contracts exam that he had distributed to other classes before, creating an unfair advantage for some students.  Hilarity ensues.  [Above the Law]

• 2010 will be a great year to die!  It doesn’t look like Congress is going to pass a new estate tax law by the end of the year, which means there will be no estate tax at all starting in the new year.  And you thought Cash for Clunkers was awesome.  It’s news so good, you could just….  You get it.  [U.S. News & World Report]

• A Chicago lawyer turned to a reality game show because he was so desperate for money, a new career, to feel something—ANYTHING…(I’m not exactly sure why people starve themselves on TV.) University Chicago Law School graduate Jaison Robinson came close, but ultimately didn’t win the most recent season of CBS’s Survivor.  [Chicago Sun Times]

• Tis the season to vote for Bitter Lawyer.  [ABA Journal]

• You know you’re feeling better after a cold or flu when you get your appetite back.  Can the same be said for corporate clients re-whetting their appetites to sue like crazy during a recession?  BigLaw firms like Dechert L.L.P. seem to think so.  [Philly.com]

• “The lawyer from hell” won a posthumous $46 million judgment.  Muahahah.  [UPI.com]

• Who are you calling “unaccountable,” chump?  (It’s all good, homies—didn’t mean to “impugn” you.) Eighteen appellate judges are miffed that Mayor Bloomberg’s top legal adviser, City Attorney Michael Cardozo, made a speech earlier this month saying, “Judges must be made more accountable.” But Cardozo says he didn’t mean it.  [New York Post]

• How about a little less focus on the “Wise Latina” tchotchkes and a little more focus on SCOTUS’ possible reconsideration of the lab testimony requirement?  [The New York Times]

• Love this.  Happy holiday!  [Courtoons]

Check out more news from previous days.

Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook.  Follow on Twitter.

Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.

Keep Reading ⇒

Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom that celebrate Homer Simpson & family turning 20:

• In ‘Bama, football rules…the court system.  On Wednesday, we mentioned Above the Law’s coverage of an Alabama lawyer who asked a judge to reschedule a case so everyone could be available to attend the BCS National Championship game on January 7, starring the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Texas Longhorns.  The plaintiff’s counsel disagreed with the request saying, “Some things are more important than football.” But apparently there aren’t. Circuit Judge Dan King announced Wednesday he would grant a delay.  As it was said, “They really seem to have their act together down there.”

[Deadspin | The Christian Science Monitor]

• And before you get any big ideas that football is America’s celebrated, tolerated addiction, it’s important to remember that you can be legally fired for playing Fantasy Football at work.  Just ask the four Texas fans from Fidelity Investments who just were.  [CBS MoneyWatch]

• Since Tiger Woods is on Santa’s (and every white-collar housewives’) naughty list this year, here are some of the lawyers who are trying to be nice to their clients and help out in the situation:

—Elin has picked celeb divorce attorney Sorrell Trope to guide her sleigh to Splitsville. [NY Daily News]

—Jessica Simpon’s lawyer fights to make clear that Simpson never sat on Tiger’s lap.  [Celebuzz]

—Tiger’s doctor’s lawyer denies performance-enhancing drugs in Tig’s stocking.  [NY Daily News]

—Lawyer Gloria Allred is playing “Clarence” to Tiger’s alleged love child’s momma.  [Toronto Sun]

—Lawyers try to explain whether Tiger made a deal to pose for Men’s Fitness in order to avoid a Rudolph-red hot sex scandal in the National Enquire in 2007.  [LA BizJournal]

• The titillating Tigergate gossip emerging daily has made us all, at someone point, fanaticize about VIP Vegas treatment.  So starting a law-related headline with “What Happens in Vegas” ain’t a bad idea.  (Because we love when it doesn’t stay in Vegas—or involve us…) Here’s the deal on the firms involved in the year’s craziest bankruptcy of Station casinos.  [The Am Law Daily]

• Didja vote yet?  [ABA Journal]

• What the hell did we say before?  No, no, no.  That must have been a misunderstanding.  The law firm model is perfectly fine.  Everyone back to their desks now.  [The Legal Itelligencer]

• Set your TiVos and cancel your Netflix, “the Ninth Circuit on Thursday approved an experimental program that could lead to TV coverage of a lawsuit challenging California’s same-sex marriage ban [Prop 8].  Yes, that lawsuit, the one that stands to star heavyweights Ted Olson and David Boies.” The one that Elizabeth Wurtzel is working on.  “Appeals court Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said the idea is to improve ‘public understanding of our judicial processes and (enhance) confidence in the rule of law.’” And to be able to hear Ted Olson say, “Bring it!” And for David Boies to reply, “It’s already been broughten.” [WSJ Law Blog]

• A North Carolina judge has ruled that laws limiting a sex offender’s ability to attend church are unconstitutional.  Whether or not they can go to Sunday School is hopefully a different story.  [Winston-Salem Journal]

• Brian Moynihan, Notre Dame Law graduate and man who has served as Bank of America’s head of consumer banking, general counsel and chief of investment banking twice since November 2008, became the new head honcho—CEO.  [Bloomberg]

• Firms with no representation in Boston are interested in expanding into New England’s biggest city because of all the legal talent that’s available due area firms’ lay offs and salary freezes.  Younger attorneys in Boston are currently facing their third year of no pay increases.  “This week, two of Boston’s largest law firms, WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray, said first-year associates will receive salaries of $160,000 next year, a figure that set a record high in 2007, but has remained unchanged since the economic slump began that year.” Cue the Jaws theme while Morgan Lewis swims in.  [The Boston Globe]

• Sit tight in jail, alleged swindler Allen Stanford. U.S. District Judge David Hittner said his criminal trial won’t begin til January 2011.  [Reuters]

Check out more news from previous days.

Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook.  Follow on Twitter.

Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.

Keep Reading ⇒

Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom that are like a topless flasher getting hit by a distracted driver:

• What do you get for the person who has everything…including a bad marriage?  A British law firm is offering divorce gift certificates for the holidays.  So every kiss may begin with Kay, but now every divorce can begin with Lloyd Platt & Company.  [Digital Journal]

• The legal case against the woman who was arrested and accused of offering an undercover police officer various sex acts in return for World Series tickets was charged with prostitution and promoting prostitution today.  And she never even got to first base.  [Philly.com]

• I like the nightlife…I like to boogie… So what’s going down in law firm land with holiday shindigs this year?  Well, it started off with one of the most profitable firms of 2009, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, had a celebration that was more law-vish than lavish.  So subdued is the name of the game this year.  The best you can hope for is a little drama when laid-off associated show up, as suggested. [Above the Law]

• How do you make a verb like “differed” sound even worse?  Add the prefix “re.” Associates at firms like Nixon Peabody are being re-differed as far into 2010 as possible.  [The Am Law Daily]

• A couple is asking the Vermont Supreme Court to “carve out a new legal doctrine that a dog’s owners can sue for emotional distress and loss of companionship, just like parents can when they lose children.” Their dog, Shadow, was shot on a neighbor’s yard in 2003.  And I don’t think you understand how different Shadow was from any other dog you’ve ever met.  Yadda, yadda—more professions dog owners make about how their pet is exceptional.  [Phily.com]

• When the internet closes a door, it opens a Christmas window?  The law offices of Bayless & Stokes no longer needed their first-floor law library after succumbing to the digital age, so they turned it into a Christmas tchotchke shop, which picks up business at a time of year when the firm is traditionally dead.  No word on if the managing partner works the weekends as Santa, but they’ve got it all from ornaments to rape defense.  [Houston Chronicle]

• What the hell are you staring at?  Just vote for Bitter Lawyer already.  [ABA Journal]

• What came first: Spouse-cheating online dating service AshleyMadison.com or the actual Ashley Madison?  A great question for former lawyer Noel Biderman, AKA The King of Infidelity.  [THR, Esq.]

• Here are 10 ways to make sure you won’t get that job you’re lucky enough to be interviewing for.  Omitted is #11: Maybe you just suck.  [Career Realism]

• India is sort of overpopulated enough, which is probably why the High Court ruled that foreign law firms can’t open there.  [Bloomberg]

• You’re not the only ones worried about final exams, law students.  Your profs are a little scurred too.  Scurred that you’re going to blow them up.  [Legal Blog Watch]

• Here are the dumbest moments in business in 2009.  And a law firm somewhere/somehow is behind just about every one of them.  [CNN Money]

• Not exactly law related, but here’s a look into the world of VIP host(esses) in Vegas who are in charge of making sure your every whim is met—if you’re rich enough.  Dare to dream.  [Fox News]

• And one off-topic item—a drunk four-year-old is accused of stealing a neighbor’s Christmas presents.  Seriously.  (Video below.)

Check out more news from previous days.

Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook.  Follow on Twitter.

Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.

Keep Reading ⇒