Legal Blog Watch

Legal Blog Watch

Chambermaid: The Summer Must (Not?) Read When a former law clerk to 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Dolores Sloviter writes a novel that her publisher promises "breaks the code of silence surrounding the clerkship ... and boldly takes us into the mysterious world of the third branch of the U.S. government," lawyers' ears perk up. The novel, Chambermaid, by Saira Rao, is now shipping, and James Grimmelmann at PrawfsBlawg says, I'm Sorry I Read It: "The book is an abomination, one of the worst novels I have ever read, both artistically and morally. The affected style, which runs the gamut from 'cutesy' to 'bench memo,' would be forgivable if the substance weren't so dreadful." Grimmelmann calls the narrator "a raving narcissist" and offers examples of her shallowness drawn from her own words, such as this: "I was suddenly intrigued. A real-life lesbian! And she was my coclerk. I would actually have a lesbian friend! [My sister] had recently convinced me that lesbians were more fabulous than gay men." Others had kinder words for the book. At Above the Law, David Lat says he "thoroughly enjoyed" it. Legal Antics writes: "It really is hysterical! I highly recommend it." And in the New York Law Journal, reporter Thomas Adcock describes the book as "witty" and "suffused with humor." (Adcock is himself the award-winning author of several novels.) Rao, meanwhile, is doing the Q&A circuit. Earlier this month, she spoke with Peter Lattman at Law Blog, who asked her how much of the novel was based on personal experience. Her reply: "While informed by personal observations, this is a novel, this is fiction. If I wrote a memoir it would be pretty damn boring. I clerked in the Third Circuit, the novel is based in the Third Circuit. People can draw their own conclusions." Brett McKay also interviews Rao at his blog, The Frugal Law Student. He asks her that all-important law student question, "How much debt did you incur while in law school?" Her answer: "I did take out loans to pay for half of law school. But I was also deeply lucky to have parents who paid for the other half." She has yet to pay off that debt, she confides, but the second novel she is already at work on may help. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Blawg Review: Double the Hosts, Double the Fun For this week's Blawg Review #114, two bloggers team up as hosts, and the result is an almost double-length collection of citations to the week's best of the legal blogs. Double-teaming for this first Blawg Review of summer 2007 are mediator Stephanie West Allen of idealawg and mentor and lawyer coach Julie Fleming-Brown of Life at the Bar. With Julie already at the beach and Stephanie visualizing herself there, the two offer their summer summary of the sangria and watermelon of the legal blogosphere.  Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Sneak Peek: Top-ranked EDD Vendors As I noted here a year ago, the annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey could be called the Consumer Reports of EDD vendors. Based on vendor-provided data, interviews and other research, the survey ranks the top EDD companies and provides information on a number of others. The survey costs $5,000 to purchase, but an abbreviated version will be published in the August issue of Law Technology News. Today at her blog The Common Scold, LTN editor-in-chief Monica Bay has a sneak preview of the report. Among other things, she reveals the survey's 2007 picks for the top-five EDD providers. They are: FTI Consulting. Guidance Software. Kroll Ontrack. LexisNexis. Zantaz Inc. Monica has other peeks at the survey, including the top-ranked providers of EDD software. Read more at her blog and watch for the article in the August LTN. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Cadwalader's Bed Bug Solution Bugs have been found in the New York office of white-shoe law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. They are not of the eavesdropping kind, but of the bothersome, itch-inducing bed bug kind. At the blog Abovethelaw.com,  David Lat has the memo sent yesterday to all New York staff from chairman Robert O. Link Jr. According to the memo, said bed bugs were found not in beds, but in the 33rd floor word-processing department. In a paragraph that could only -- as Lat observes -- have been written by a lawyer, Link advises: "We immediately arranged with Assured Environments, a full-service integrated pest management firm operating in the metro NY area for over 70 years and a specialist in the treatment of bed bugs, to review our problem and make recommendations on both short and long-term solutions." The short-term solution: remove the box from whence said bugs emerged. And remove the person who brought the box. There was a guilty party, the memo suggests, who brought the bed bugs into the firm. That person, Link adds, "is no longer associated with the firm." Link goes on -- again sounding every bit the lawyer: "Bed bugs, while not usually found in a work environment, can cause uncomfortable itching. They do not show themselves during daylight hours, only at night in the dark. ... The best evidence of bed bugs is not the actual bugs but the waste material left behind that is either a dark brown or reddish color." He later concludes: "Other reports of insects -- which we receive periodically in an office environment -- have been carefully investigated and, in each instance, were identified as fruit flies or gnats." So there you have it: short- and long-term strategic planning and solutions, application of the best-evidence rule, and careful ongoing investigation -- all in a day's work for a major law firm responding to a bed bug crisis. Meanwhile, Cadwalader's fruit flies and gnats are resting easy. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
santiago-chile

 

Escribanos, consultenos, opine