News Roundup 10.28.09

How badly do you want to go to the World Series?   Badly enough to post an ad on Craigslist offering sex for World Series tix—only to get arrested hours later when the cops “answer” your ad?  Well, then you don’t want to go nearly as badly as this diehard Phillies fan.  Slacker.  [NBC Philadelphia]

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The New York Times offers new insight into the inner workings of law firm managers’ minds when they decide who gets laid off and who get to stay.  According to a “Washington lawyer friend” of the op-ed columnist,  ”[L]awyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.”  Funny, that’s JUST how it went down in my firm.  What’s the billing code for “imagining” again?  [NYT]

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Fraud?  By the Church of Scientology?  The group that routinely pressures its members to fork over as much money as they can afford and believes that an intergalactic warlord named Xenu is responsible for infusing us all with soul pieces?  I know, we didn’t believe it at first either.  But rest assured, at least in the eyes of the Paris court who convicted the cult church of fraud on Tuesday and fined it more than half a million euros, Scientology’s got some ’splainin’ to do.  [WSJ Law Blog]

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Not surprising:  There’s been a rash of break-ins to celebrity homes in Los Angeles recently, including the lairs of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom.  Surprising: Those responsible for the alleged robberies are a band of teenage girls obsessed with clothing and jewelry.   According to police, the enterprising ladies “studied” celeb magazines, television shows, and websites to pick out what clothing they wanted, cased the homes and stole their chosen items.  Ah, who says the American teens never study?  [Fashionista]

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Lady lawyers:  Bad at rainmaking or good at…realizing that the time you spend rainmaking could be spend making (more) money for yourself in a job that doesn’t expect you to work 3,000 hours a year?  [Above the Law]

News Roundup 10.6.09

It’s not every day that a United States Supreme Court Justice pitches the idea of a “Human Sacrifice Channel.”  Today was that day.  [CNN]

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Are you an associate at one of the country’s bigger lawyer factories?  Are you looking for something new and exciting to be pissed off about when it comes to your salary?  Well, here you go.  [WSJ Law Blog]

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Note to the geniuses over at Ralph Lauren:  If you’re going to create a print ad featuring a model so over-Photoshopped that her head is actually bigger than her pelvis, some blogger, somewhere, is probably gonna notice it.  And blog about it.  And reprint that image…which no one will notice and/or care about until you sue that blogger for copyright infringement. Nice work.  [Boing Boing]

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Meet Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq.  Yes, DDS, Esq.—she’s a practicing dentist and an attorney.  Oh, and a foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic.  Hm, didn’t see that one coming.  [Washington Post]

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Tom Cruise goes to law school.   [Above the Law]

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Wondering how to have that pesky DUI expunged from your record forever?  Just make sure to rant like a maniac during the arrest and make as many sexist and anti-semitic comments as possible.  We can’t make you any promises, but hey, it worked for Mel Gibson earlier today.  [Radar Online]

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Joyce Poster-Lederman, the NY couples therapist who allegedly attacked her husband—also a shrink—with knives and was subsequently banned from the couple’s Upper West Side home, has been allowed to return home to her husband, the Manhattan DA’s office reported today.  The reason for the prosecutor’s sudden change of heart?  Poster-Lederman has apparently been undergoing therapy.  Ah.  [NY Post]

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Freebiegate, Part I: In a new ruling handed down yesterday, the FTC is now requiring bloggers who review products to disclose their connections with advertisers, including any free swag and payment received.   [New York Times]

News Roundup 10.1.09

No.  We’re sorry, but we can’t agree with you.  In the wake of his latest legal efforts, we refuse to say that Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus Hate fame is an incredible douchebag.  Because that would be an insult to incredible douchebags the world over.  [Popsquire]

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And you thought convicted Ponzi schemer and ex-lawyer Marc Dreier was to blame for defrauding investors out of $380 million.  Oh, naive soul.  Turns out, the Hamptons were to blame all along.  [NY Post]

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Cristina Warthen, the former high-end hooker who worked her way through Stanford Law on her back and later pled guilty to tax evasion, has been sentenced to one year home detention and ordered to pay $243,000 in back taxes and fines.  In other words, she got laid in law school about seven thousand more times than you did, got paid for it, and has just been ordered to hang around her house for a while.  On an unrelated note, how’s that sweet big-firm associate gig working out for you so far?  [Valleywag]

Deal Goggles

I should’ve seen this one coming, I know.  I’ve had enough experience by now with sexual humiliation at the hands of Big Law to have known better.   But no matter how seasoned, how street smart you may think you are, this one sneaks up on you without warning.  One minute, you’re cruising along on a string of all-nighters for a fire-drill deal with a senior associate you know only well enough to find mildly repulsive; the next minute, you’re pinning him up against the wall of a file room with your Prada pencil skirt hiked up around your waist, clawing at each other like starved lunatics.  The culprit: Deal Goggles.  And let me assure you from recent personal experience, by the time you realize you’re wearing them, it’s way too late. [Read more]