News Roundup 11.13.09

It was only a matter of time before dragon-eyed baby farmer Jon Gosselin found himself a new lawyer—and that time is now, apparently.  In the latest installment in his kids’ future rehab story-circles, Gosselin has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the TLC network, claiming that its representatives damaged his reputation and career by preventing him from working with other media outlets.  Yep, that’s what did all that damage.  [People]

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Speaking of Parents of the Year, Colorado’s own Richard and Mayumi Heene, parents of the vomit-prone (never-went-in-a-) ballon boy are  reportedly pleading guilty today to the felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant in connection with their flying saucer hoax.  The apparent motivation for the plea was the likely deportation of Mayumi, a Japanese citizen, if the case proceeded to trial.  As the Heene’s lawyer explained, a deportation “would have put the family at grave risk of seeing a loving, caring, compassionate wife and mother ripped from the family and deported.”   Fair point.  Whatever would the kids do without all that caring.  [Huffington Post]

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“Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers.”   No, it’s not some weak joke; it’s the actual name of a new study by a Vanderbilt law school professor debating whether a law degree—a degree that demands three years of your time, $200K of your money and every waking minute of your life thereafter if you plan to work in the only kind of legal job that will actually allow you to pay back your tuition for said degree—is a good idea.  Guess how that debate shakes out?  [WSJ Law Blog]

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One of the downsides of murdering a famous person: Your name just might show up on the Interwebs.  Sorry.  Apparently two Germans convicted of killing an actor in 1990 never quite figured that out; they’re now suing Wikipedia’s parent in an effort to force the online encyclopedia to remove their names from an English-language entry about their crime. [ABA Journal]

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If you were holding out hope that kids today aren’t shooting each other over things like 40-cent chicken wing promotions, you’re not going to like this.  [NY Times]