-
OBABL Links & Resources
2009 May
May
26
Sports And The Law
Filed Under Social Engineer • Leave a Comment
Kobe Bryant is one heck of a multitasker. By night he’s working to lead his Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals. By day he’s countersuing his former housekeeper. The athlete and his wife are claiming that the woman violated her employment confidentiality agreement when she talked to the media about her lawsuit against the couple. They call the maid’s claims of harassment and humiliation “specious and frivolous.” LATimes
Miami Dolphins, Randy Starks, was charged with aggravated battery on a police officer after the defensive lineman struck the cop with his slow-moving freightliner. In Starks defense, at the time of the accident, he was probably distracted by his 13 passengers, including a woman sitting on his lap as he cruised along Ocean Drive. Sun-Sentinel
Michael Vick has been released from federal prison and is expected to remain in home confinement until July 20. Vick has gone from a $130 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons to a $10 an hour gig at a construction company. Though his agent says his plans to get back to the NFL are on the “back burner”, Team Vick is undoubtedly lobbying NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, like bank execs pleading their cases on Capitol Hill. Vick is getting a fair amount of support for his NFL comeback, and it would not be shocking to see him in uniform by the end of the 2009 season.
Richard Haywood contributed to this post
May
16
OBABL has for some time resisted reporting on our ubiquitous First Lady, but alas, we can resist the urge no longer.
Guess who showed up as #93 on Maxim Magazine’s “Hot 100.” Considering that most of the women are baring a little more than their biceps, Mrs. Obama’s ranking is quite impressive. From Maxim:
He may be dealing with two wars, an economic meltdown, and a rapidly graying dome, but at least our Commander in Chief gets to come home to the hottest First Lady in the history of these United States. (Sorry, Martha Washington!)
The former associate explains once again why she left BigLaw. In a nutshell, she felt she could contribute more to society than another billable hour. From The Chicago Sun-Times:
I went from college to law school to a big ol’ fancy law firm where I was making more money than both of my parents combined. I thought I had arrived. I was working on the 47th floor of one of the largest buildings in the city of Chicago. And I thought, well, I must be doing okay.
But then several things happened over the course of my life in a year to make me stop and actually think for the first time about what I wanted. I lost my father. I lost one of my good friends to cancer suddenly. She was in her mid-20s when she died. And I thought that — for the first time I had to think about life and the life that I was building for myself, and I had to ask myself whether, if I died tomorrow, would I want this to be my legacy, working in a corporate firm, working for big companies? And when I asked myself the question, the resounding answer was, absolutely not. This isn’t what I want to leave behind, this isn’t why I went to Princeton and Harvard, this isn’t why I was doing what I was doing. I thought I had more to give.
Mrs. Obama encourages the audience to be “loose” during the first ever White House Jazzy Poetry slam.
May
16
In-House Counsel Diversity Conference: Position Yourself to Obtain New Clients
Filed Under Announcements • Leave a Comment
Please plan to join the General Counsel of major Boston area companies and the Managing Partners of major Boston law firms for an important conference on promoting diversity and enhancing career development for minority lawyers. A more detailed program agenda will be sent to you within the next few weeks.
Monday June 22, 2009
2:00 to 5:00 PM
Reception to follow
Host: Fidelity Investments
Seaport Hotel
One Seaport Lane
Boston, MA 02210
At the conference, we will discuss:
- Strategies for hiring, retaining, and promoting lawyers of color.
- Senior in-house counsel responsible for engaging outside lawyers for major matters will discuss what qualities they seek and how minority lawyers can best position themselves to obtain new business and new clients.
- Conference attendees will have ample opportunities to interact with general counsels and members of their senior leadership teams both during the panel discussions and at the reception following the program.
- Please mark your calendar, and encourage the minority lawyers in your legal department to attend as well. During these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we redouble our efforts to advance diversity and inclusion in the Boston legal community.
Sponsored by the: Diversity & Inclusion Section of the Boston Bar Association
Co-Chairs: Marc Gary, Fidelity Investments and Ralph C Martin, II, Bingham McCutchen LLP
May
6
The Minority Law Journal has just released this year’s law firm diversity rankings. The staff decided to change the scoring formula to give more weight to minority partners and less to minority associates (and staff attorneys) which caused quite a shake up. New York’s Cleary, Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, dropped all the way to number 20 while Palo Alto’s Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati snatched the top spot. MLJ
All this churn comes courtesy of a new ranking formula adopted after we found ourselves wondering whether our traditional approach to measuring diversity—calculating the overall percentage of minorities within a firm—ignored something significant. Did it really make sense to treat all lawyers of color as essentially equivalent in stature? Should a firm get the same kind of credit for a minority associate as it does for a minority partner? We decided that it was time to start giving more credit to firms that have increased the racial diversity of their partnership ranks. Under our revised formula, we add each responding firm’s percentage of minority lawyers to its percentage of minority partners to come up with a diversity score. This number is a truer gauge, we believe, of what kind of progress a firm is making in hiring lawyers of color at every level, with an emphasis on those at the most senior levels. (Click here for a fuller explanation of our methodology, and a list of firms that did not respond.)
May
1
Justice David H. Souter: I’m Out!
Filed Under Supreme Court • Leave a Comment
Justice Souter is ready to get back to his books and his beloved New Hampshire. He has reportedly informed the White House that he will retire. At the time of his appointment by Bush 41, he was viewed as a “home run for conservatives” by the likes of John E. Sununu, who apparently was not much of a scout. Viewing the old photos of Souter, we’re surprised we’d never noticed the Justice’s penchant for pinstripes. WaPo
Souter was considered by some to be the most likely, because of his well-known disdain for the ways of Washington. The speculation has been fueled in recent weeks because Souter had not hired clerks for the court’s next term. That was tempered by the fact that Souter traditionally is the last justice to hire for the coming term.
When the court is not in session, Souter is back home in Weare, a small town west of Concord where he has a modest 200-year-old farmhouse on eight acres.
A friend who ran into him last summer in Concord said he was surprised by just how strongly Souter spoke about wanting to leave Washington. “He said, ‘If Obama wins, I’ll be the first one to retire,’ ” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Souter had not yet announced a retirement.
May
1
A member of President Barack Obama’s entourage was infected with swine flu while in Mexico. The president’s press secretary assured the world yesterday that the Prez is as fit as ever. Meanwhile, the sick federal agent and his family are being taunted and shunned. WaPo
Marc S. Griswold, a former Secret Service agent who was serving as the lead advance special agent for Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the mid-April trip, said in an interview that the minor cough he developed in Mexico grew into swine flu. Although he has recovered and is back to work, he and his family have watched in shock as his illness has sparked national security concerns, severely strained his relationship with his brother and put his family at the center of rumors and panic in his Severna Park neighborhood.
Over the past two days, his daughter, who was not infected, has endured stares and mean jokes as rumors spread through her school about her family’s role in some of the first swine flu cases in the region, Griswold said. Griswold probably infected his nephew, and now the parents, close friends, refuse to talk to him.
“We’re not the Typhoid Mary family, for goodness’ sake,” Griswold said in frustration on the front steps of his house. “We’ve been told we’re not contagious. We’re already past the seven-day mark for that.”
