News Roundup 11.11.09

So, we drop off the radar here at the SHJ Hot News desk for a few short days (OK, fine, a few more than a few), and we’re welcomed back with stories of an S&M-loving lady lawyer living in Russia, a sex-tape-loving lady monster living in California, a legal bitchslap for Glenn Beck, a legal lovetap for Obama’s healthcare bill, a historically humiliating day for the Justice Department and a low point for Big Law associates everywhere, courtesy of Cravath.  Clearly, we need to drop off the radar more often.

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And you thought beauty queens couldn’t get any classier than Carrie the Good Masturbating Christian Prejean. Obviously, you haven’t met England’s own Rachel Christie, the reigning Miss England who was forced to give up her crown after being arrested for starting a brawl in a nightclub with another beauty queen.  [Brisbane Times]

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Eight words you probably never thought you’d hear: “Bernie Madoff’s wooden duck decoy can be yours.” We’re not kidding—on either front.  [Gawker]

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Just when the public had run out of things to mock about Joe Halderman, David Letterman’s failed exortionist, his lawyer goes and files a motion to dismiss the case against him on the theory that Halderman was just trying to pitch Dave a screenplay, arguing that Halderman’s conduct was nothing but “a pure commercial transaction.”  Let the mocking resume.  [Popsquire]

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No, there’s no such thing as too many sex tapes in one week.  Although J.Lo would likely disagree.  A California judge shut down the singer’s ex-husband, Ojani Noa, from distributing a soft-core “movie” about his famous ex called ”How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story,” which features racy footage from the pair’s 1997 honeymoon.  ”She is not being fair,” Noa griped after hearing the judge’s ruling, “She’s trying to stop me from moving on with my life.”  Which seems to be working out well for Noa so far.  [NY Post]

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One of the pros of having Justice Kennedy speak at your high-school assembly: You get to have…Justice  Kennedy speaking at your high-school assembly.  One of the cons: Good luck trying to write about it in your high-school newspaper without getting the good Justice’s publication approval first.  The kiddies over at Manhattan’s Dalton School learned the hard way.  [NY Times]

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 10.1.09

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]

News Roundup 9.28.09

Wondering what’s bound to happen when a cricket-loving, Texan pseudo-knight shows up in jail for defrauding investors out of $7 billion?  Ask “Sir” Allen Stanford—after he gets out of the prison infirmary, that is.  [Dealbreaker]

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Seventy-six-year-old Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski arrived at the Zurich airport this weekend to pick up a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival and left the Zurich airport this weekend in handcuffs, arrested on a 31-year-old warrant for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.  [Popsquire]

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Two things that the Wal-Mart in Peoria, Arizona apparently will not tolerate: Kiddie porn and employees with an IQ over 4.  This family learned the hard way. [WSJ Law Blog]

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A disgruntled Bank of America customer in New York named Dalton Chiscolm has filed a lawsuit against the mega-bank and its board for “1,784 billion, trillion dollars,” demanding that B of A deposit the funds into his bank account the next day, after complaining that he received inconsistent service and that certain of his checks were rejected because of incomplete routing numbers.  Sort of like that one he wrote to himself for a billion trillion dollars.  [NY Daily News]

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When it comes to licensing its attorneys, the Florida State Bar apparently doesn’t have a sense of humor about air rage.  [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

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A practicing judge and law professor at the University at Buffalo law school says seven students saved his life when they rushed him to the hospital after ignoring his protests to be left alone after he complained of a pain in his knee.  “I would have never had a chance if it wasn’t for those seven law school students,” the prof explained. “Lawyers are supposed to be compassionate, and these future lawyers were compassionate. They did the greatest job for me when they could have walked right out the door.” Aaaaand there goes the curve for the rest of the class.   [ABA Journal]

News Roundup 9.23.09

Want to succeed in nabbing that dream legal job you thought was out of your reach?  Start tweeting.  An article appearing in the National Law Journal today encourages law students faced with imminent joblessness to increase their chances of landing that sweet job by “networking exponentially” by “sharing their message broadly” on sites like Twitter.  Good call. Because if anything’s going to land you that gig at Cravath, it’s a steady stream of “pantyRade34 @MexicoRob Yam burritos and Cougar Town with Ms. Puttykat rocks my world, yummm!!!!” [Law.com]

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Manorexia comes to the mayor’s office in New York City.  [Dealbreaker]

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“To quote the great Marty Singer — Eric Dane’s lawyer — if you don’t want a sex tape on the internet, ‘don’t make one!’”  to quote the great Nick Denton, founder of Gawker media and recent target of a lawsuit for introducing the world to that smoky, liquor-soaked sex tape that Eric “McSteamy” Dane made with the girl from the old Noxema commercials and some former teen-beauty-queen hooker.  [Gawker]

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Whip out that platinum Amex, all you law firm types out there—the worst of the recession is over for law firms!  Well, at least according to a recent survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.  Bring on those bonuses. [ABA Journal]

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Day care center. Dogfighting ring. Day care center. Dogfighting ring. Daycare center. Dogfighting ring.  Day care ce—  Nope, no luck, no matter how many times you say it, the two just don’t click.  The Cook County sheriff’s department apparently agrees. [HuffPost]

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Lawyer Howard K. Stern eleven steps closer to being blamed for the death of Anna Nicole Smith.  If by “steps,” you mean “felony counts,” that is.  [Popsquire]

News Roundup 9.18.09

Think of the saddest, most pathetic sexual nadir you ever reached.  Did it involve purchasing virtual sex toys like a ”sex bed,” a digital bed with built-in sex position animations, for your Second Life avatar to use online?  Or better yet, did it involve suing other virtual sex toy makers who are peddling knocked-off versions of your high-end online kink to Second Lifers?  Well, then, at your worst, you still have light  years more game than these folks.  Pun intended.  [MediaPost News]

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Just what every girl dreams of: A new recently leaked book proposal by John Edwards’s former aide claims that the adulterous Edwards once calmed his piece-on-the-side/ babymama, Rielle Hunter, by promising her that after his wife finished up her bout with cancer and died, he would marry Hunter in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by none other than the Dave Matthews Band.   Who says romance is dead?  [Gawker]

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Speaking of romance, good news, all you lawyer boys out there: Gold digging ladies of leisure still want to date you!  According to self-proclaimed “high-end matchmaker” Samantha Daniels, her lady clients have been broadening their scope lately regarding the types of guys they want to buy them be set up with.  According to Daniels, whereas ladies “used to immediately say, set me up with someone in finance, they’re now going back to the traditional professions as well. They’re asking for lawyers and doctors and business owners — the type of guys their grandmothers used to tell them to look for.” [Fortune via CNN Money]

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This 22-year-old Georgetown law student is NOT dating Rihanna.  Really, he swears he’s not.  Repeatedly.  And with such flair.  [Above the Law]

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Oh, John Thain.  You slay us.  That remark you made—you know, the one where you said that, if you “had to do it over again,” you’d furnish your office “in Ikea,” instead of spending $1.2 million on choice pieces like a $35,000 toilet—is part of what makes you just so damn fun.  A spokeswoman for Ikea, Mona Astra Liss, even offered to show the the former CEO of the exploded Merrill Lynch & Co. around his local IKEA anytime, offering to “show him a wealth of furniture choices for home and office” and to “feed [him] Swedish meatballs, too.”  Wouldn’t hold your breath there, Mona. [Bloomerg]

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And you thought the paralegal sitting outside your office had it in for you.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t know Irby Walker, the South Carolina criminal defense attorney who’s been charged with solicitation of a felony for allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill another attorney with whom he formerly shared a law office. [ABA Journal]

News Roundup 9.14.09

When the judge hearing your case starts quoting Oscar Wilde, you can be pretty damn sure you’re screwed from that point forward.  Just ask Bank of America. [Dealbreaker]

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Might as well go out with a bang—and a yacht: Wells Fargo has fired an SVP in charge of foreclosed commercial properties for throwing a few bashes at a vacant $12 million Malibu beach home—including one rager in which guests were escorted to the house by private yacht.  Sort of makes that bag full of extra highlighters you stole from your firm when you found out you were getting laid off seem less exciting, no? [Los Angeles Times]

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Oh, we do hope you’re sitting down:  A groundbreaking recent study by a “director of a project at UCLA law school” finds that law students who fail the bar exam have a difficult time making ends meet initially after law school, “never catch[ing] up to their lawyer peers.”  The director cautions that the results of the study should serve as a cautionary tale to law schools, suggesting that, “[a]t the very least, law schools owe it to their prospective students to provide candid information about the risks of attending law school.”  May we suggest they start here. [ABA Journal]

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Rod Blagojevitch more terrifyingly stupid than originally thought… [Gawker]

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…but at least he’s not the most hated man in the music industry.  After last night, anyway. [Defamer]

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Let’s see: You’re a lawyer.  You’re appearing in front of a judge who you think is a useless idiot.  You have a blog. With your name plastered all over it.  You write on your  blog that this judge is an “evil, unfair witch.” Now….guess what happens?  No, really, guess.  Come on, take a guess.  [New York Times]

News Roundup 9.09.09

Ladies, keep hope alive: After more than a decade of legal separation, Hugh Hefner is seeking an official return to full-fledged bachelor status. The 83-year-old Playboy founder filed for divorce on Friday from his wife and former Playmate, Kimberly.  [HuffPost]

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The people have spoken.  The Douchiest Law School has officially been crowned.  Tucker Max fans, rejoice.  [Above the Law]

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Kissing is now banned in some parts of France.  Blame the swine. [BBC]

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Think that Nino Scalia and Ricky Martin have nothing in common?  Think again. [NYT]

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Speaking of the Supremes, a new Gallup poll has found that half of Americans believe the court is “about right” ideologically, representing an all-time high and an increase of 7% over last year.  It remains unclear to what extent Ricky Martin influenced the results.  [ABA Journal]

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Get it while it’s hot—on so many levels: Bernie Madoff’s former $7 million Palm Beach weekend shack is up for sale through the U.S. Marshals Service.  The Marshals have packed away items such as clothing, artistic birds nests mounted in the living room rafters, along with statues, figurines and paintings of bulls, explaining “We’ve taken away things that screamed Bernie Madoff.”  Good luck with that.  [Bloomberg]

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Glenn Beck’s lawyers are now on the public prowl for “defamatory domains” involving their client, spurred on by the recent creation of “GlennBeckRapedandMurderedaYoungGirlin1990.com,” the site that promotes for parody purposes the false rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.   Never heard of it until now?  Neither did we.  Nice job, lawyers.  [Gawker]

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