Kelley Drye & Warren

Many firms are delaying their plans to reopen their offices... but not this one.

Nice job!

What it's really like when the weight of the firm rests on your shoulders.

Good job, Kelley Drye!

* GCs just keep getting raises. Some reports suggest compensation is up almost 7 percent this year. But don’t worry — they’ll still bitch and moan about Biglaw associates getting a small cost of living bump. [Corporate Counsel]

* If you haven’t been paying attention, William & Mary Law School has been on FIRE lately. No, literally, the school is on fire. Call 911. [WAVY 10]

* Seventh Circuit may soon rule en banc to ban sexual orientation bias. You know, until Congress and the President impeach the entire Seventh Circuit to bring it back. Wow that was an absurd sentence and yet it’s entirely plausible right now. [Law360]

* Kelley Drye enters the Texas market. [The Am Law Daily]

* Heroic big banks are demolishing patent trolls while everyone else continues to suffer, which sounds about right. [Law.com]

* China’s got a new cybersecurity law and it’s not good news for foreign businesses. [Fortune]

* But don’t worry, the U.S. is now just as intrusive with new rules taking effect today that allow judges to order broader government hacking for investigative fishing expeditions. So… yay! [Ars Technica]

Lateral moves are afoot.

* Blame Kelly Drye for the lack of exotic snake regulations, because what could go wrong in an unregulated market for spitting cobras? [Slate]

* New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is instating mass pardons for youthful offenders. [New York Times]

* A Texas alumni group has apologized for calling Justice Scalia a racist. I guess scientists are made of sterner stuff. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* The founding fathers were better about defending the rights of Muslims than (some) modern Republicans. [Washington Post]

* Preet Bharara’s latest target — the evils of auto-subscribing. [Law and More]

* Ah, the Christmas season. That time of the year when customer service is paradoxically at its best and worst. [That’s My Argument!]

* The verdict against former White House counsel J. Michael Farren has been affirmed by the Connecticut Appellate Court. [Legal Profession Blog]

These poor lawyers before the D.C. Circuit just can't catch a break.

This is funny. You should read it.

* After months of gains, the legal industry lost 900 jobs in October, just as some of the big state bar exam results came out. We imagine the folks who rallied for the 10-months-after-graduation employment statistic are as pleased as punch. [Am Law Daily]

* “How do we find a new inventory of high net worth clients?” The answer for Kelly Drye was really quite simple: it seems that pro athletes are willing to pay just about anything to keep themselves from going bankrupt. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* “I don’t know why it’s better to use a bigger firm.” When it comes to the latest law firm mega-mergers, some say that it’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* It’s like Groundhog Day for these Biglaw attorneys: Apple and Samsung are preparing for the “patent trial of the century,” part deux, and both MoFo and Quinn Emanuel have enlisted new lineups. [The Recorder]

* SAC Capital’s general counsel is okay, “[a]ll things considered.” His painful appendectomy is nothing compared to the $1.2 billion his hedge fund has to pay the government. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Ted Cruz might be an “AASS,” but he’s done at least one awesome thing in his life. He once drank so much Everclear that he completely ruined a play put on by the Harvard Law drama society. [Boston Globe]

* The Z-list actress who sued IMDb for revealing her age filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit because hey, some of those judges are pretty old. Maybe they’ll sympathize. [Hollywood, Esq. / Hollywood Reporter]

* Since you’re so funny, crack some jokes about this one, Obama. Senate Republicans will be filing an amicus brief in support of a challenge to the constitutionality of the President’s recess appointments. [New York Times]

* Thanks to this Third Circuit ruling, you can rest easy knowing that you can rely on the First Amendment to protect your homemade sex tapes from all of those strict porn record-keeping and labeling requirements… for now. [Reuters]

* Due to Kelley Drye’s EEOC settlement, the New York State Bar Association is asking firms to end mandatory retirement policies. Because old folks need to make bank till they croak. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The ABA’s Commission on Ethics 20/20 has decided to ditch its proposal to allow limited nonlawyer ownership of law firms. Cue tears and temper tantrums from the likes of Jacoby & Meyers. [Am Law Daily]

* “If I believe that Chris Armstrong is a radical homosexual activist, I have a constitutional right to express that opinion.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell that to the judge who dismissed your suit, Shirvell. [Detroit Free Press]

* Presenting “her royal hotness”: apparently Pippa Middleton has been seen cavorting around France with gun-toting lawyer Romain Rabillard, of Shearman & Sterling. [Daily Mail]

Is there no legal way to make old people go away?

* The EEOC suit against Kelley Drye was brought “for a reason.” You hear that, Biglaw? Other firms with mandatory retirement policies better take a look at their partnership agreements and make some changes. [Am Law Daily]

* Media whore lawyers unite! Cheney Mason of Casey Anthony fame has come out of the woodwork to support George Zimmerman. Still waiting on vital impressions from Gloria Allred. Oh wait… [Naked Politics / Miami Herald]

* Just think, maybe if Planned Parenthood of Texas had taken Tucker Max’s money, they wouldn’t be suing the state for banning their organization from the women’s health program. Nah, they’d still be suing. [Reuters]

* Georgetown Law is planning to launch an executive education program, but don’t worry, they’re not going to be competing with Harvard. They know they’re the safety school in this scenario. [National Law Journal]

* Love will definitely make you do some really crazy things, like watch The Expendables. Or allegedly commit a murder-suicide because your husband might’ve had an affair. Things like that. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

* Kim Kardashian’s dubious defense of the day: “I’m Armenian and hairy.” The only-famous-for-her-sex-tape star is trying to use that as an excuse to get a lawsuit over a hair removal product dismissed. [Fox News]

* Well, at least somebody’s getting a spring bonus. A Biglaw firm has folded against the EEOC’s will on the de-equitization of partners. And all of the underpaid old farts at Kelley Drye & Warren rejoiced! [Bloomberg]

* Jets fans, are you ready for some football? That’s too bad, because no amount of Tebowing could have saved Reebok from settling this Nike suit. You’re going to have to wait for your damn jerseys. [WSJ Law Blog]

* George Zimmerman’s lawyers, Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig, have dumped him as a client. They’re probably just pissed that the “defense fund” he set up wasn’t linked to their PayPal account. [Miami Herald]

* Marrying a terminally ill client who’s as old as dirt may seem like a great way to make some quick cash, but it’s more likely that you’ll just be disbarred. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* When you’ve been late to court so many times that a judge calls your behavior “premeditated, blatant and willful,” you better be ready to open your wallet. That’ll be $500; at least pay on time. [New York Law Journal]

* If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again — but only after a few years, banking on the off chance that the bar admissions people have forgotten about all the bad sh*t you did in law school. [National Law Journal]

* Frank Strickler, Watergate defense lawyer to two of President Nixon’s top aides, RIP. [New York Times]

* Lawyers at this Biglaw firm may learn a thing or two about respecting their elders later this week. Kelley Drye is close to settling an age discrimination suit filed by Eugene D’Ablemont, one of its many de-equitized partners. [Wall Street Journal]

* Well, this could definitely be one of the reasons why Cravath hasn’t given out any spring bonuses to associates yet this year. They probably had to spend all of their money to clean up their allegedly fly-infested cafeteria. [Am Law Daily]

* Women in Virginia will now be able to politely decline their pre-abortion transvaginal ultrasounds in favor of abdominal ones. Oh, how nice! Look at that, girls, we totally won the war on women. [CBS News]

* Things Dharun Ravi texted to Tyler Clementi on the night the latter committed suicide? “I’ve known you were gay and I have no problem with it.” Of course you knew, you watched his sexual encounters via webcam. [CNN]

* According to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, this equation makes sense: donor sperm + donor eggs + an estranged wife + consent to post-separation IVF = a child support obligation. [Boston Globe]

How are small law firms doing in a still-challenging economy? Better than you might expect, according to the results of a new survey.

* On the same day that Lady Kaga wrote her first dissent, Governor Deval Patrick nominated Barbara Lenk, an openly gay woman, to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Big week for… uhh, female judges. [New York Times] * The prosecution in the Barry Bonds case rested their case yesterday, and the judge is considering […]

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