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Williams and Connolley to 180K
2007-12-19 00:18:00
In some of the best news I've heard since law school started, W&C has bumped their associate pay scale chart up (making them, as far as I know, the first law firm to raise associate pay scales beyond the 160K scale ). The pay chart looks like this:Year -- Salary1st: $180,0002nd: $195,0003rd: $210,0004th: $230,0005th: $250,0006th: $270,0007th: $290,000The numbers are actually slightly misleading since W&C doesn't pay year end bonuses, but pays slightly above the 160K scale. Their old numbers were:1st years: 165,000.2nd years: 180,000.3rd years: 195,000.4th years: 210,000.5th years: 225,000.6th years: 245,000.7th years: 265,000This is GREAT news. It might signify an increase across the board to a 180/190K scale. I'm not so sure it will, since W&C has a history of operating on a "different" scale. But, considering that W&C has a reputation as a "prestige" firm and a place where partnership opportunities are actually somewhat realistic, even despite the lack of bonuses, you might be ...
More About: Williams , Iams

Law Library Sex
2007-12-17 18:07:00
Sex in any library is, of course, a time honored tradition at colleges and universities around the nation. But law library sex must be the apex of the "let's do something dangerous" genre, since people practically live there. Two law students were having sex in a cell phone booth at the UVA law library recently, following a prior trend where multiple (!) law students were caught by employees having sex at the WUSTL law library, this time last year. While there's not much going on in the recent event, it's interesting to read last years email about the WUSTL law orgy. Note that it comes from the SBA president. Why would she feel the need to add "necessity is not a defense, even if your power is out at home?"The killer, though, is this quote from the email excerpt by the campus police: "The students usually do not have the common sense or the decency to stop when they are confronted, and seem to expect the Aramark employees to leave and come back later to do their work...." That's...
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Board Shakeup
2007-12-17 04:31:00
And in another (not-so shocking) shakeup, two members of the board have resigned. Erik resigned apparently two days ago, and Michael Davis apparently resigned back in November and forgot to tell anyone. I'm not really shocked that Erik resigned. In my opinion, he was the biggest threat to the stability of the board. He was regularly having public fights with Jimmy, Florence, Mike, Sue, and others, on the mailing lists. His posts had that GerardM "Hoi, look at me, I know what I'm talking about" quality to them. I think this is a net gain for the foundation, and an opportunity for them to appoint someone ho is both stable and knowledgeable to the board.Florence also said that Michael Davis' seat would be reserved for a treasurer. This is good, since they need someone in that role, but I hope they won't hold off on appointing any good candidates to the board just because they don't fit the treasurer seat. Just....add more seats. I mean, they're already at 5 now, and 6 when they r...
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Disabled Army Veteran ejected from Dillards
2007-12-17 03:56:00
In a blatant disregard for the Americans with Disabilities Act, the department store Dill ards ejected a disabled Army combat veteran for having a service dog in their store, because he was not blind nor deaf. The service dog helps him keep his balance because he has damaged discs that cause his legs to give out.As a fellow vet with spinal damage (thankfully weakness attacks are extremely rare for me and have only happened three times since my injury in 2005,) I'm absolutely disgusted by the conduct displayed by Dillards here. It doesn't take but common fucking sense to realize that when you have a person with a damaged spine, the first thing they lose is mobility and stability. Whenever you hurt your back, the first question a nurse will ask you (or should) is "do you feel weakness in your legs?".i mean the dog had a big fucking sign "Service Dog -- do not pet". What did they think it was for?
More About: Veteran , Disabled , Lard

The Register outs Carolyn Doran
2007-12-17 03:14:00
I'm not going to make a big long post on this like I originally thought I would. The Register wrote an article the other day exposing Carolyn Doran, past COO of the WMF's prior criminal record. It turned into a relative drama-fest on the mailing lists, and within two days the expected threats from Michael Bimmler to moderate the list have served to pretty much shut everyone up. What's notably NOT there is the mainstream media coverage everyone is predicting. I think the biggest outlet to pick it up was Yahoo News UK, and that was on a feed, and hidden through their technology subpage.Will it blow up further? We'll see.

ArbCom final tallies
2007-12-17 02:59:00
Voting has ended. Here are the final tallies. Note, that we don't "officially" know how many seats will be available, and Jimbo has free will to pick whoever he wants for the seats, disregarding the tallies. In theory only candidates greater than 50% are eligible.1. NewYorkBrad -97%2. FT2 -89%3. FayssalF -76%4. SamBlacketer -74%5. Deskana -73%6. TheBainer -67%7. Raul -65%8. Rebecca -65%9. Manning Bartlett -61%10. Giano -58%11. David Fuchs -56%12. Shell Kinney -55%13. MastCell -53%14. JoshuaZ -46%15. Moreschi -45%16. Swatjester -45%17. Will Beback -45%18. Hemlock Martinis -41%19. Endless Dan - 35%20. John Reaves -34%21. Misza13 -33%22. WhiteCat -15%23. Jeepday- 10%The real question will be, how many seats does Jimbo appoint? 5 seats are up for grabs in Tranche Alpha. I reasonably expect at least 7 candidates to be appointed, maybe 8. This covers everyone over 65%, while conveniently leaving out Giano. So in a few days, we'll see "WWJD" (What would Jimbo Do?).Realistically, I'd...
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Faking your own disappearance: not just for brits
2007-12-12 22:17:00
At least, not anymore. In the wake of the British guy who faked his own death and showed up with "amnesia" after living in Panama for a few years, we have this wonderful tale of a pregnant lawyer who faked her own kidnapping at gunpoint, as she was having a nervous breakdown. Key points:He had said his wife called him from a restaurant pay phone Thursday afternoon, saying "they have me." She said she thought she was going to die and "told me don't let her son forget her and that she loved me," he said.Hancock was found after she flagged down a motorist near Six Flags in Austell, Georgia, and the motorist called police, authorities had said. Her car was found nearby.advertisementOne of the attorney's former clients recently filed a lawsuit against her, accusing her of taking money from him that he was owed from an accident settlement.So next time you steal from a client, you too can fake your own kidnapping!
More About: Brits

Wikimedia Foundation signs Cape Town declaration
2007-12-12 21:52:00
Or rather, pledges to sign it, since it won't be signed until January 2008.The Foundation just released their latest resolution :WhereasThe Wikimedia Foundation wishes to help support the further development of a movement around open educational resources, a goal aligned with its own missionIt is hereby resolved that the Wikimedia Foundation will be a signatory of the The Cape Town Open Education Declaration Mission of Wikimedia FoundationThe mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Int...
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A change to ArbCom procedures?
2007-12-12 15:22:00
Two down, one to go. Contracts was a BITCH. Closed book, hardest multiple-choice questions I've seen, and the second essay sucked ass.In other news, there's about 4 days left in the Arbitration Committee elections. I'm way back in the middle of the pack so I don't really have a chance of winning, but it's cool that I made WP:100, which is the list of times where 100 wikipedians supported something.Current top 8 are NewYorkBrad still with 98%, FT2 who has slipped to 89%, FayssalF with 78%, Sam Blacketer with 75%, Deskana with 73%, TheBainer with 69%, Rebecca with 66%, Raul654 with 64%.There's going to have to be a fundamental change in the way the next elections happen. First, when you only have 4 candidates that can gather over 75% support, that should automatically be telling you that their are too many spurious opposes. Second, when you're looking at anywhere from 5 to 8 seats being filled/added, and your cutoff is around the 64% marker: that should REALLY tell you that the...
More About: Change

Wikipedia-haters?
2007-12-09 14:26:00
Sometimes I wonder why the foundation doesn't send Mike Godwin after nonsense like this. The Guardian's Seth Finkelstein published a piece called "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop". At the best this is highly unethical; at the worst it's defamatory. Yes yes, First Amendment, actual malice, blah blah. There's also a little thing like journalistic ethics, which is why to this day I refuse to accept the Guardian as a reliable source (this article gives a little more credence to my claim, I'll note).In it, of course, he spews a rant about Essjay, Citizendium, plugs WR and Wikitruth, etc. Sometimes I wonder if shitty reporting like this is the reason that Europeans have a bad view of the U.S. Obviously this information is highly biased, and designed to fool an unsuspecting reader into believing that Wikipedia is some sort of sinister organization. In France, Le Monde does the same thing. (In defense of certain Euro organizations, the BBC has been ver...
More About: Haters

Exam week
2007-12-08 00:38:00
In case it wasn't clear, updates are going to be extremely sporadic until the 14th when exam week ends.
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Current ArbCom results: Day 1 9pm
2007-12-03 02:42:00
Stats first, then preliminary thoughts.NYBComBot: If the vote ended now, these are the top 5:Newyorkbrad has 101/0, 100 %; FT2 has 38/1, 97 %; FayssalF has 27/4, 87 %; Deskana has 50/9, 84 %; Rebecca has 29/6, 82 %;[9:00pm] NYBComBot: Sam Blacketer has 17/4, 80 %; Manning Bartlett has 16/5, 76 %; Wizardman has 19/7, 73 %; Raul654 has 47/17, 73 %; Giano II has 57/27, 67 %; Swatjester has 18/9, 66 %; Ryan Postlethwaite has 31/18, 63 %; Moreschi has 26/18, 59 %; Shell Kinney has 7/5, 58 %; Thebainer has 11/10, 52 %;[9:00pm] NYBComBot: David Fuchs has 10/10, 50 %; MastCell has 8/10, 44 %; Endlessdan has 16/20, 44 %; Danny has 27/36, 42 %; JoshuaZ has 9/16, 36 %; Pilotguy has 7/13, 35 %; Stifle has 3/7, 30 %; Phil Sandifer has 9/22, 29 %; Misza13 has 8/20, 28 %; Will Beback has 8/21, 27 %;[9:00pm] NYBComBot: Adam Cuerden has 9/24, 27 %; Monsieurdl has 5/15, 25 %;[9:00pm] NYBComBot: Newyorkbrad has highest, at 100%, Physchim62 has lowest, at 0%.Ranked, with prelimin...
More About: Results , Current

ArbCom Voting Begins
2007-12-03 02:38:00
Go on with your bad self and vote Support for Swatjester. These are my current picks for support (I will not be mentioning oppose here for obvious reasons)NewyorkBradFT2ThebainerEveryone else is up in the air at the moment.I'll be publishing regularly updated reports on the voting here, starting immediately after this post.
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Morning lawsuit roundup
2007-11-30 12:26:00
Most courtesy of abovethelaw.com. (Thanks Lat and Merck!).First the prime rib (It's the king of all the meats!) and then the subway stuff.A California appellate court (State 4th Circuit) recently ordered law enforcement to give back eight grams of medical marijuana seized from him. They basically construed the 10th Amendment to say that the state medical marijuana laws cannot be interfered with by the federal government. Most awesomely: ""...it must be remembered it is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws as such," the justices wrote. "Now onto the Big Philly Steak and Cheese:*NWA to Pay $1.6M in Pilot Legal Fees over pilot/workers strikes and bankruptcy. Now where is the several hundred dollars worth of luggage of mine they lost while I was organizing the 1st Annual IWVO Summer Adaptive Sports Clinic in Aspen (forcing me to have to buy 300 dollars of kit myself)?*Ford agrees to settle Explorer-rollover lawsuits: Unfortunately, Explorers still suck. Yes...
More About: Lawsuit , Roundup , Morning

Japanese Vending Machine Camouflage
2007-11-30 12:21:00
Normally this would be too offtopic to add, but since we just added "All Look Same" to our blogroll, we'll share this. According to the New York Times (thanks to alllooksame for the tip), the Japanese have some innovative new clothes: such as a skirt that hides the user in vending machine camouflage, and a purse that hides your valuables as a manhole cover.I'd laugh, but it's a country that sells panties in vending machines. Le sigh.
More About: Machine , Vending , Vending Machine , Camouflage

Turn off your cell phones!
2007-11-29 02:45:00
Or you'll go to the big house. This whacko judge sent more than half of his courtroom to jail for contempt because someone's cellphone rang.From Above the Law:The next time you pass through the city court system in Niagara Falls, N.Y., remember to turn your cellphone off.Today, the Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of a judge in Niagara Falls City Court who had, what the commission’s chairman, Raoul L. Felder, called, “two hours of inexplicable madness” when a cellphone rang in his courtroom.Specifically, on the morning of March 11, 2005, the judge, Robert M. Restaino, was presiding over a slate of domestic violence cases when he heard a phone ring in his courtroom. He told the roughly 70 people in the courtroom, according to the commission’s report, that “every single person is going to jail in this courtroom” unless the phone was turned over.After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and asked the defendant who had been standing b...
More About: Cell Phones , Phones , Cell , Turn

Prof. Vladeck to attend Prawfsblog convention at Loyola
2007-11-29 00:39:00
And Loyola 2L is pleased. WCL's Prof essor Steve Vladeck, along with Orly Lobel (USD), Tommy Crocker (USCarolina), Rob Kar (Loyola), Carissa Hessick (ASU), Jason Solomon (UGA), Sasha Natapoff (Loyola), Ekow Yankah (Illy/Cardozo), Dave Fagundes (Southwestern), Gowri Ramachandran (Southwestern), Zak Kramer (UALR), Michael Waterstone (Loyola), will be attending the conference.Those of you in Vladeck's classes, well if you're planning on heading home to L.A. before finals, might want to check it out for brownie points.
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Overheard in CivPro
2007-11-29 00:12:00
"My horrible attempts at drawing. (draws a stick figure) This is a dead cow. Look I can't even make it say moo because it is dead."Btw, Professor Polikoff (the above CivPro professor) was in the New York Times today. I'll blockquote it below in case you can't access the page.Taking Marriage PrivateBy STEPHANIE COONTZPublished: November 26, 2007Olympia, Wash.WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes. If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows — even out alone by the haystack — the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.In 1215, the church decreed that a “licit” marriage must take place in church...

Charities update
2007-11-28 23:37:00
As a quick update: The Desert Bus for Hope event has finally finished, after 4 days and raising over $22,000. Congrats to everyone who donated, and hopefully we'll see more events like it in the future.Child's Play is having their fundraiser in Seattle, on Dec. 11. If you can go (I wish I could, but it's smack in the middle of exams), you should check it out. They're auctioning off a pair of tickets on Ebay for a table at the dinner with Gabe and Tycho, as well as Wil Wheaton. You can also buy tickets directly. Dinner menu looks pretty sweet, and the auction looks pretty sick, plus almost 2/3 of it is tax deductible.
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Greatest Charities Ever
2007-11-27 04:34:00
In the thanksgiving spirit of giving back, (yes, even as a law student), I've recently donated to two charities. Child's Play, which allows you to buy toys and video games that can be shipped directly to children's hospitals across the country, and is hosted by the good folks at Penny Arcade (Which you've probably seen me reading in Contracts); and a new one called Desert Bus for Hope. Desert Bus is a new charity, and it took me a little while to figure out what it was. Basically, there is a game that came out called Desert Bus. To play it, you have to drive a simulated bus in real time from Tuscon to Las Vegas, which takes approximately 8 hours at a maximum of 45mph. You can't pause it, and you can't automate it, because just like a real bus, it swerves randomly. If you crash, you get towed back to Tuscon, again in real time and start over. Once you reach Vegas, you have a few seconds to choose to turn around and head back, or it's game over.Sounds like torture right? Well, ...
More About: Charities , Greatest

Overheard today in lawschool
2007-11-26 22:55:00
My torts class:Student: "Professor, I've heard your exams are ridiculously hard, what's the best way to prepare for your exam?"Professor: "Prayer."Later on in Torts:Professor: "Dougherty v. Stepp.....hmm, it's 1835 lets skip it."
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Last week of classes
2007-11-26 04:14:00
Hard to believe, but we're in the last week of classes before reading period starts. Hope you all have got your outlines in good shape.I spent Thanksgiving up here working on my outline. Civpro is finished in long and short form, appx. 90 and 40 pages respectively. Torts is finished in long form at about 75 pages, and I'm holding off on a short form until after the other two exams are over; and Contracts I'm still working on, since it's closed book.We're making this an open thread on outlining and exam strategies. What worked for you? What did you do this year?
More About: Classes , Week

DeOnte Rawlings really did have a gun
2007-10-31 20:24:00
And I say "told you so." There's been an ongoing drama in D.C. about black teenager DeOnte Rawlings, who stole a minibike from a cop. The off duty cop, who was also black, tracked DeOnte down and DeOnte allegedly pulled a gun, shot at the cop and his partner, and was killed in the firefight.Black residents of D.C. have been up in arms, first claiming DeOnte didn't have a gun, then that the police planted the gun, and that this was a police brutality incident.Even Mayor Fenty, instead of backing his own police force, chose to stand with the rabble rousers.Well looks like the cop is justified here. The FBI installed their "ShotSpotter" system on various buildings in the neighborhood. The shotspotter results showed that the .45 pistol that DeOnte had fired first, from the location he was alleged to be at. The 9mm police service pistols fired afterwards from the position the police SUV was known to be at. The .45 continued to fire from the other location while the officers were shoo...

Supreme Court
2007-10-25 20:52:00
Yesterday was an interesting day. We had our Phi Alpha Delta initiation in the Supreme Court building, administered by Justice Alito.Pics are coming soon, whenever we get the official ones, because we weren't allowed to take photos. However, I did get one on my camera phone of my dad in the great hall, on the second floor.If you've never had a chance to take a tour of the building, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's simply stunning, more so than the Capitol or the White House. The second floor is even better; while it lacks the massive statue of Chief Justice John Marshall, and the portraits, but it does have busts of all the chief justices, a beautiful ceiling, and impressive spaciousness.

18 year old attorney gets a job.
2007-10-20 18:15:00
This girl is unbelievable. I wonder if she's hot. Chick started college at 11 years old. She graduated magna cum laude, and at 15 years old started at UCLA law school. She graduated at 18 having been on law review.And Professor Volohk, who similarly graduated college at 15, but waited for a few years to start law school, likes her too!She's been hired at a firm already, pending the release of her bar exam courses. She's the youngest attorney in California....possibly the United States.Thanks AboveTheLaw.com for the tip off to LA Times.
More About: Attorney , Year

Quadriplegic Police Pinata?
2007-10-20 18:06:00
Wikilaw/May it Please the Court reporting to you live from Tallahassee.And what the fuck is going on in Pasadena today? A jury awarded $80,000 in damages to a quadriplegic man who was detained and searched by police officers. Not knowing how to properly search him, they pulled him out of his wheelchair and hung him upsidedown over a 4 foot concrete wall.What's stranger than that, is that the jury did not actually find the officers culpable, they assessed the damages against the department for not properly training the officers how to search a quadriplegic.$80,000? That's it? Lawyers ought to be SALIVATING over a case like this. And all his guys could get was $80,000? Can he get a peek? Just a little peek? The man's quadriplegic, can we get this playa a fuckin peek?
More About: Police

Citizens stand up to takedown notice abuse from copyright holders.
2007-10-19 17:13:00
Washington Post, how I love you. WaPo came up with a GREAT article about everyday joes who are being hit with takedown notices for copyright infringement, mainly on eBay and YouTube, and fought back.In the article, the Post talks about blogger Michelle Malkin's protest of takedown notices against a video response she posted on Youtube, as well as some average schlubs fighting back against the big bad RIAA.It's two freakin pages, just read it.
More About: Abuse , Notice , Copyright , Takedown , Stand Up

Ave Maria Law School sued!
2007-10-19 16:59:00
Naughty little Catholic 1Ls. Ooops, wrong fetish. Naughty little law priests.Ave Maria Law School and its founder Tom Monaghan (who you probably know from Domino's Pizza), have been sued by their own faculty members. The press release reads like a thriller novel, complete with child porn, obstruction of justice, gay priests, and all the great things that make a little Jewish law student like me so happy. Three professors from Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria School of Law filed a multi-part complaint against Thomas Monaghan, Bernard Dobranski and associated entities in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on Oct. 17. Monaghan serves as Chair of the Board of Governors and Dobranski is the President and Dean. The three professors claim that they were removed from their positions in retaliation for their having reported illegal conduct by Monaghan and Dobranski to law enforcement and other governmental agencies, and for refusing to go along with Monaghan's attempts to improperly control the Board...
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Volokh toilet conspiracy?
2007-10-18 05:31:00
Thanks to The Volo kh Conspiracy and CNN for the scoop.Ironically, as I'm writing this, I'm watching MANswers on Spike, which just did a segment called "Can you take the Dump of Death?" (The answer was a weak yes, which their medical expert didn't really support, but that's another story.)According to CNN: A Scranton, Pennsylvania, woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said. Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300."It doesn't make any sense. I was in my house. It's not like I was outside or drunk," Herb told The Times-Tribune of Scranton. "The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling [for my daughter] to get the mop."Herb doesn't recall exactly what she said, but she admitted letting more than a few choice words fly near an open bathroom window Thursday night.Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was o...
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Eighth Circuit rules against MLB: Fantasy Baseball steals home.
2007-10-18 05:04:00
According to Concurring Opinions, the Eighth Circuit ruled today against the MLB in a case involving Fantasy Baseball and publicity rights. From the blog, Earlier today, the Eighth Circuit ruled against Major League Baseball in the high-profile fantasy baseball case of CBC Distribution and Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media. The case was brought by CBC, a St. Louis-based fantasy sports company against Major League Baseball seeking a declaratory judgment that CBC's fantasy baseball games did not infringe upon the players' rights of publicity or in the alternative that the First Amendment immunized it from liability. Dan and Kaimi blogged about this case last year here and here. In today's ruling, the Eighth Circuit held that CBC infringed the players' rights of publicity (which they had licensed to MLB) but that any state-law publicity claim was preempted by CBC's First Amendment right to use player names and statistics.I've got a lot to say about this case...
More About: Fantasy Baseball , Home , Rules