One Down...

I just walked out of a Business and Tax Planning final that turned by world upside down. I am pretty sure I should have added the following to the bottom of my exam:

See generally the Internal Revenue Code, see also any law, promulgation, or law review article ever read, considered or passed by the Delaware state legislature, cf. every point of conventional wisdom widely held prior to the creation of the LLC business entity.

*sigh*

Oh well, I am turning to Ben & Jerry's Pistachio, Pistachio ice-cream for comfort. Onward towards graduation...

Things Change So Much That They Stay the Same

Power Of Attorney: Not Happy Hour At The Bar: Female Lawyers - A Pre-historic View

Very, very interesting. The article is funny in the way that makes you think, "sad, but, wow, he hit the nail right on the head." We'll see what it's like for me to be part of the "fairer sex" at the firm...

First of the Last Tomorrow

Well, folks it's the night before the first of my last round of finals. I have two back to back (Monday & Tuesday), then Thursday and the following Tuesday. For tomorrow it's business planning and LLC land. Get excited. If you are not nice in your comments I will Van Gorkom or Caremark you :)

What is it with famous people never going to court?

We all remember how hard it was for Britney to show up to the courthouse... Even when she did show, it was a whole new ballgame to get her inside. Is this the new trend among the young and strangely famous?

TMZ Reports:
Lalaine Vergara Paras, who played Miranda Sanchez on the Disney Channel show, was popped back in July and charged with felony possession of methamphetamine. But before the plea there was lots of drama. Paras was a no-show for a court appearance and the judge issued a $50,000 bench warrant for her arrest -- but it was recalled when she showed up in February.

Catch the whole article here:
http://www.tmz.com/2008/04/25/mr-toads-wild-meth-ride/

Potty Mouth!

This is entertaining, major entertainment folks. I will definitely watch this case! Jan Crawford Greenburg reported the following:

Holy @$#%! Here’s a surprise: The Supreme Court is going to hear some bad language. The justices announced today they’re going to take up the issue of profanity on network television—and whether it’s OK for President Bush to use the “S-word” when he’s talking about Hezbollah, but not when Nicole Richie happens to blurt it out during some music award presentation. I gotta tell you. I can’t wait for the arguments on this one.

Check out her article here:http://blogs.abcnews.com/legalities/2008/03/dirty-words.html

Foreclosure Nation

Mainly I'm focused on finals... particularly everything Chief Justice Marshall ever said or thought. But, every now and then I poke around the internet for a study break. It seems that the foreclosure crisis is hitting even the richest of the rich:

http://www.luxist.com/2008/04/24/the-mount-staves-off-foreclosure/

The Luxist reports:

Good news for friends of The Mount, Edith Wharton's Lenox, Massachusetts, house today. Bloomberg reports that the property, which was facing foreclosure, has been saved at least temporarily.

Blawgs... Drum Roll Please...

The legal profession finds a way to rank everything. You by facing your "predicting numbers" that include your undergrad school, gpa, and LSAT score. Then you worry about the ranking of prospective law schools. Next, you pick the highest rated school to which you were accepted. Now that you are in law school you need to worry about your gpa and the all important class rank. Your 2L year you start looking at the ranks of law firms. Again, pick the highest one that will take you. This goes on and on until it reaches... rankings of legal blogs? Totally figures!

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/aba_journal_blawg_100

The ABA Journal Blawg said the following:

When we set out to name the ABA Journal’s inaugural Blawg 100, we knew we were up for a challenge. There are between 2,000 and 3,000 legal blogs—what we call blawgs. How many of those are worth a click? Turns out, quite a few.
The trick is fitting them neatly into a category. By their very nature, bloggers defy categorization. What in one week is a blog devoted to the black-letter practice of law is the next week a heartwarming chronicle of a baby’s first steps or a devastating battle with cancer. Our Blawg 100 bloggers fill their posts with chatter about work, gossip, helping hands, frustration, love, rage and pleas for justice. There is no end to advice (lots of it useful), tips (many of them helpful) and opinion (goes without saying). And there are volumes, we repeat, volumes of cautionary tales.

Billable Hours... Fill In the Blanks!

Whew! That's a lot of your life... this law firm job better be AMAZING and challenging and fantastic and energizing because I will give them everything except my left kidney. Here's the latest from a blog I just discovered:

http://www.stanford.edu/~bruck/pdfs/nyc_billables.pdf

This is a website built by students (I'm still in the club!) using their grass roots skills to watch
each other's proverbial backs. The above post is billable hours, as reported to NALP for 2006. The kicker is that most big firms did not even report average hours. I'd love some input on "average hours" for big firms. I want to know if I am being chained to a desk excessively or just normally. Here are some of the Big Law firms that did not report in: Cleary Gottlieb,
Covington & Burling, Cravath, Fried, Frank, Fulbright & Jaworski, Gibson Dunn, Hughes Hubbard, Kaye Scholer, Latham & Watkins, O'Melveny & Meyers, Orrick, Paul Weiss,
Pillsbury Winthrop, Sidley Austin, Skadden Arps, and White & Case. Of the ones reporting, Akin Gump was the "winner" with 2,040 average billables.

What has been your experience?

P.S. What is up with the California tri-plex: Gibson Dunn, Latham & Watkins, and O'Melveny & Myers not reporting hours. Did they report for 2007? Shame on them.

The crew from building a better legal system also has a facebook site, but it doesn't seem like either are all that active anymore... anyone out there from either site? Here's the facebook link:

http://stanford.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5041493562

Update: (April 25, 2008) - it seems like the students who run these sites are MIA... much of the info is super old... any word on the people who started this amazing effort? Can we bring them back? Are they locked in a doc review somewhere?

Still in Law School

I found out last week that I passed the MPRE... that's pretty cool. I am currently supposed to by studying for finals, particularly CON LAW, FED / STATE RELATIONS. Assuming that I pass the bar, I will be starting to work for a mega "Big Law" firm in the fall. I am pretty dang excited, and a little bit scared that it is going to be as horrible as everyone says :) Last summer as a Summer Associate was a BLAST. But, we all know that's not real life, I just don't know what that real life will be like...

So, I hope you enjoy my journey from 3L to new associate. Welcome to the world of caffeine, nerves, and "Big Law."