Australia
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Biglaw
Top 20 Biglaw Firm Sacks Staff In Round Of Redundancies Down Under
Lawyers survived unscathed by the layoffs. -
Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Sponsored Content
Planning For A Legal Career Overseas: An Update For 2022
We have seen some small shifts in the hiring landscape in recent years. What has changed? Lateral Link provides an update on the most commonly asked questions for lawyers looking to make the leap overseas. - Sponsored
Survey Results: A Perspective On The Private Markets
Ontra surveyed over 400 private markets professionals about what to expect this year and their legal process pain points. -
Biglaw, Sponsored Content
International Lateral Moves
You might expect Biglaw firms to be reluctant to hire associates from one country for roles in a different country. But in fact, despite the possible obstacles, the market for cross-border hiring is booming.
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.14.21
* Judge Judy claims that expanding the Supreme Court is a “dumb idea.” Maybe she would change her mind if the Supremes televised their arguments… [Hill]
* A Virginia woman has been arrested for allegedly posing as a lawyer. [NBC News]
* An Australian man has filed a lawsuit claiming that he invented Bitcoin. Strange, assumed Elon Musk invented it… [Reuters]
* A lawyer alleged at a hearing earlier this week that Jeff Lowe of Tiger King fame would purportedly be willing to give up big cats. [Chicago Tribune]
* A topless, passed-out Florida woman who was found behind the wheel of a car purportedly still asked for a lawyer before failing a field sobriety test. What a Florida story. [Fox News]
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Finance
Australia’s Law To Remonetize Real News Can’t Keep Facebook From Succumbing To Its Own Boringness
News organizations deserve to be paid for their content. -
Immigration
Immigrant Detainees Down Under
The concern that asylees are terrorists or active agents of mayhem is a red herring. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 11.07.18
* Republicans’ control over the Senate grew after the midterm elections, but Democrats managed to take the House. Here are six interesting reasons why that means President Donald Trump could be in “huge legal trouble” now. [Law & Crime]
* Florida voters approved an amendment to their state constitution to restore felons’ voting rights, which will now be automatically restored after prison time is completed and restitution paid. That’s at least 1.4 million more voters! [Orlando Sentinel]
* Remember Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed after she refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples? Last night, she lost her reelection campaign to Elwood Caudill Jr., a Democratic challenger. [Lexington Herald Leader]
* In case you missed it, President Donald Trump chose former White House counsel and current O’Melveny of counsel A.B. Culvahouse to go Down Under to
put another shrimp on the barbieserve as U.S. ambassador to Australia. [National Law Journal]* A California appellate court has paved the way for former Winston & Strawn partner Constance Ramos to get out of an “unconscionable” arbitration agreement with the firm. This may be the first Biglaw gender bias case to make it to trial. [The Recorder]
* Sorry, but you can’t deduct the cost of your law degree on your taxes because it qualified you for a new trade or business. The U.S. Tax Court says that even with a shiny new J.D. in your possession, you’ve only enhanced your current skills. [Law360]
* Grab ’em by the public interest: Per a new Gallup survey, pre-law students don’t care about Biglaw money; no, they say the top reason to go to law school is to “pursue a career in politics, government, or other public service.” [Idaho Business Review]
* A group of crypto investors has filed suit against rapper T.I., alleging that they could not have whatever they like because he tricked them into backing FLiK Token. The Rubberband Man’s lawyer says, “Tip is truly disheartened by the lawsuit.” [Complex]
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Family Law
Woman Wins Right To Use Donor Sperm Over Spouse’s Objection
We are in for more and more complex cases in parentage thanks to assisted reproductive technology and evolving forms of family. - Sponsored
Documenting Secured Transactions: A New Guide For Practitioners
A newly updated PLI treatise provides both the legal framework and practical guidance on documenting secured transactions, including important details about 2022 amendments to the UCC. -
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Family Law
Anonymous Sperm Donors May Be Identified By Their (Many!) Offspring, Thanks To New Law
Some jurisdictions -- like this one -- are changing their laws, and banishing donor anonymity altogether. -
Family Law
Can Your Girlfriend Use Your Sperm After Your Death?
In Australia, the answer is now 'yes.' -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 11.15.17
* Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks that the people of Alabama should choose Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a write-in candidate to replace alleged pederast Roy Moore on the ballot for his former seat, but the AG has no desire to return to the Senate. [NPR]
* The Ninth Circuit has temporarily allowed part of Travel Ban 3.0 to proceed. While that means issuances of visas to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen will be restricted, there’s a catch. Applicants with concrete ties to the country will be exempt. [POLITICO]
* Wisconsin is so desperate to get lawyers to help indigent criminal defendants in rural areas that lawmakers have introduced new legislation that calls for the state to fund law school loan payments of up to $20,000 a year in exchange for the representation of these clients in need. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
* Newsflash: In-house legal departments are planning to spend more on outside counsel in 2018. This is the first time this will have happened in more than a decade. Hopefully Biglaw’s fee hikes don’t come back to bite them. [Corporate Counsel]
* After a two-month national postal survey, Australians have voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of same-sex marriage. Now it’s up to the country’s government to work out the details of the bill that will bring marriage equality down under. Congrats! [CNN]
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Labor / Employment, On The Job
Workplace Sexual Harassment And Bullying: Can Anything Be Done?
What can we learn from the experience of other countries?
Sponsored
Documenting Secured Transactions: A New Guide For Practitioners
Clio Users: New Ways To Add Value To Your Practice!
The Digital Transformation Imperative
Sponsored
Survey Results: A Perspective On The Private Markets
LawPay Pro Offers Upgraded Time And Billing Essentials
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Airplanes / Aviation, Justice
Man Sues American Airlines Because His Aisle Was Full Of Fat People
Reader poll: who really had the worse flight? -
Crime, Patents
Top Patent Partner Accused Of Jumping Out Of Bushes, Groping Jogger
From attacking patents to allegedly attacking women? -
Family Law, Health Care / Medicine, Kids
I Want To Put A Baby In You: Update Time
The latest twists and turns in recent intriguing fertility litigation. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.04.16
* At long last, the ABA has released the final version of its employment statistics for the law school class of 2015. Ten months after graduation, 59.2 percent of the class was employed in long-term, full-time jobs where bar passage was required, but there’s been a sharp decline in the number of those jobs since 2014. We’ll have more on this later. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called probate: Earlier this week, Judge Kevin Eide appointed Bremer Trust National Association as the special administrator of music icon Prince’s estate. Prince is said to have died without a will, but all of his presumptive heirs agreed to the appointment. [Big Law Business]
* “[I]n all 50 states, gay couples are allowed to adopt kids, as it should be.” Since Mississippi failed to timely appeal a ruling striking down its ban on same-sex adoption as unconstitutional, same-sex adoption is now permitted across America. Let’s celebrate all of the children who will soon be welcomed into good, loving homes. [BuzzFeed News]
* Australian law firm Slater & Gordon, the biggest firm Down Under and the world’s first law firm to be publicly traded, narrowly avoided going under after a $700 million loss thanks to a deal with its bankers. Beware, stock market bidders, because the firm still remains a “high-risk investment” due to its “uncertainty.” [Sydney Morning Herald]
* The University of Tulsa John Rogers Hall College of Law is deciding whether or not it should change its name to remove a founder who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Law school administrators have already recommended that Rogers’s name be removed, and after some discussion, trustees will vote on the proposal later today. [Associated Press]
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Biglaw
A $700 Million Loss Puts A Law Firm On The Ropes
The world's first publicly traded law firm finds itself in dire straits. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.01.16
* Senior White House adviser Brian Deese has assembled a crack team to help President Obama choose a Supreme Court nominee who will be able to win confirmation before an angry Senate to replace Justice Scalia. Let’s see which way the 2009 Yale Law School graduate steers this important project. [Reuters]
* Australian law firm Slater & Gordon is feeling the pain of being the world’s first publicly traded law firm after a $958.3 million first-half loss. The firm, which is now being referred to as a “corporate catastrophe,” hopes to lay out a restructuring plan in the next few months amid the likelihood of multiple shareholder suits. [Herald Sun]
* Texas State District Judge Julie Kocurek returned to court this week after a shooter opened fire on her in November 2015 in what police are now calling an assassination attempt. She lost a finger during the shooting, but says she feels “very lucky that is all [she] lost.” Welcome back to the bench, Your Honor! [Austin American-Statesman]
* Sorry, FBI, but a judge has ruled that Apple doesn’t have to help the security service unlock an alleged New York drug dealer’s iPhone. This isn’t binding precedent for the tech company’s San Bernardino case, but you can bet your ass its legal team will try to convince the judge handling the order at issue that it should be considered. [NBC News]
* If you’ve been waitlisted at the lowest-ranked law school you applied to this admissions cycle, it doesn’t mean you’ll be rejected from every other school you applied to this admissions cycle — it just means you may have to work a little bit harder on all of your letters of continued interest. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]
* Law firms aren’t the only businesses that go through break-ups; the communications firms that represent these elite firms apparently have rocky relationships, too. Spencer Baretz and Cari Brunelle of Hellerman Baretz Communications have split to found their own firm, and they took the entire HBC team with them when they left. [Business Wire]
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 01.15.16
Ed. note: Above the Law will not be publishing on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Have a good weekend!
* Only a few weeks before law school classes were to start, Alicia Vikander’s acting career took off. Now she has an Academy Award nomination, so I guess that was a good call. [KPCC]
* Fans and/or opponents of Making a Murderer are have a hard time with nuance and the concept of “reasonable doubt.” [Gawker]
* As a native New Yorker, and decent human being on planet earth, let me just say to Ted Cruz: F*ck you. [New York Daily News]
* Spoiler alert: law school internships are still a terrible idea. [Lawyers, Guns and Money]
* “[P]roof that that the holidays are finally over: avalanche of legal tech this week,” via Monica Bay. [CodeX]
* A law school parody from Australia — I guess law school nonsense is a universal language. [Australian Lawyer]
* A showdown is a brewing! 2016 is going to be a big year for reproductive freedom. [Pacific Standard]
* When would Supergirl be responsible for damages? [Legal Geeks]