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What explains the BigLaw happiness gap? It’s exhaustion, law prof says

BigLaw lawyers enjoy lucrative careers. They express more satisfaction with the substance of their work than the median for the legal profession. But still, they are unhappy. Only 44 percent of BigLaw lawyers report satisfaction with their careers, compared to 68 percent of public sector lawyers, BloombergView reports in an…

Sep 10, 2015 10:37 AM CDT

Arthur Hunter Jr.: From cop to judge to fighting recidivism

If you send people to prison and do nothing to rehabilitate them, it’s not surprising that they often commit more crimes when released, says Judge Arthur L. Hunter Jr. of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in New Orleans. Five years ago he and fellow jurist Laurie A. White founded…

Sep 10, 2015 8:20 AM CDT

Did Harper Lee write a true-crime novel? Lawyer’s wife says she has the first chapter

After writing To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee researched and began writing a true-crime book about a possible serial murderer, according to the family of the lawyer who represented an acquitted suspect. Lee worked on the book for months and possibly years, but there is no indication that her notes…

Sep 10, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Was it ‘misogynistic behavior’? BigLaw partner is chided for comment on ‘stunning’ LinkedIn photo

A human rights lawyer in the United Kingdom has accused a Brown Rudnick partner of “unacceptable and misogynistic behavior” for his comment about her “stunning” photo on LinkedIn. The human rights lawyer, 27-year-old Charlotte Proudman, used Twitter to post a screen shot of the comment by 57-year-old Alexander Carter-Silk, who…

Sep 9, 2015 8:24 AM CDT

Laurie White: Using lifers to help other inmates re-enter society

Inmates serving life sentences at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly referred to as the fearsome Angola prison, may be seen as hardened criminals who don’t have much to offer society. But Judge Laurie A. White of the Criminal District Court of Orleans Parish, knows that some inmates have spent their…

Sep 9, 2015 8:23 AM CDT

Lawyer, wife and father-in-law die when small plane crashes on Labor Day

A well-known Pennsylvania lawyer died Monday, along with his wife and father-in-law, when the small plane he was piloting crashed in North Carolina. Michael Apfelbaum practiced in Sunbury and served as city solicitor there. He was also known for his work as counsel for a charitable foundation and as a…

Sep 8, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Lawyer’s yen for online selling led to a $25M family business

Linda Lightman earned her law degree at Brooklyn Law School because she thought it was pathway to “traditional success.” But the former New York labor and employment attorney left that job in 1991. For the last 15 years, she has operated her own online resale company, Linda’s Stuff. With the…

Sep 8, 2015 3:30 PM CDT

Aspiring law profs face tough job market

Newbie lawyers aren’t the only legal professional facing a tight job market. The market for entry-level law professors “has constricted dramatically” since 2011, and legal educators don’t see a likely full recovery in the near future, the National Law Journal (sub. req.) reports. Since 2011, the number of new law…

Sep 8, 2015 9:38 AM CDT

Lawyer for New York state is shot in head; he previously worked as a BigLaw associate

A former assistant counsel to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was in critical condition Monday evening after he was shot in the head, apparently an unintended target in what may have been a gang shootout. The lawyer, 43-year-old Carey Gabay, is a lawyer for New York state’s economic development agency,…

Sep 8, 2015 6:57 AM CDT

Ray Gallo’s Leverage app automates a lot of the administrative work involved in mass actions

Ray Gallo was getting clients he didn’t even know he had. In late 2008, Gallo’s San Rafael, California, law firm was spearheading Amador v. California Culinary Academy, a putative class action alleging that a Bay Area culinary school misled its students about their job prospects. The plaintiffs argued they were…

Sep 3, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

Lawyer convicted in wife-murder said to inspire ‘Fargo’ movie plot dies at home at 88

A Minnesota lawyer convicted of first-degree murder in one of the state’s most notorious crimes died at his home last month. T. Eugene Thompson was 88 years old. He served nearly 20 years for the 1963 slaying of his wife, Carol Thompson, who was fatally beaten and stabbed by a…

Sep 2, 2015 11:40 AM CDT

Vivek Maru: Drawing the arc to global justice

After finishing at Harvard College and before entering Yale Law School, Vivek Maru, born and reared in the U.S., took off more than a year to live in a hut made of sticks and dung amid the poverty and pollution of India’s Kutch region, from which his grandfather came. Maru…

Sep 2, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

Lawyers ‘lean to the left,’ study says; which schools, firms and practice areas are most liberal?

Many conservative commentators have aired claims that trial lawyers appear more liberal than the rest of the population, and they overwhelmingly contribute to Democratic candidates. Is it true? And is the legal profession on the whole left-leaning? A study by professors from Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago Law…

Sep 2, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

EEOC: Female law profs at the University of Denver are underpaid, violating the Equal Pay Act

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined that the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law is violating the Equal Pay Act by paying its female professors less than males. The EEOC threatened suit over the gender pay gap in a letter sent to the university on Friday, report the…

Sep 1, 2015 10:21 AM CDT

Salt Lake City firm Open Legal Services operates as a nonprofit, keeping hourly rates low

Making Hay the Nonprofit Way

Sep 1, 2015 8:45 AM CDT