The New Addition is Awesome

I've been meaning to congratulate all of us (especially the administration that made it happen) for the new, improved Boalt. The new Zeb rocks, the courtyards rock, the ease of getting from one side of the building to the other rocks. The library reading rooms are awesome (fun thing to try: put your face right against the class above any of your friends and watch them freak out). I would take pictures, but I'm too lazy.

Pretty much everything is awesome, except one thing: No Zeb 90s slow jams. Where is my Mariah? My TLC? My Counting Crows?

The lack of music is leading silly 1Ls into thinking it's a quiet study zone. It's not. It's Zeb, the place for meetings, friends and those sweet 90s jams some of you are too young to remember.

OCIPin' on a 40

Update, 8-16-11: See Rule Number 2.
_____________________________________________________

It's time for the annual OCIP thread here on N&B.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, here is a short explanation (you should also probably consult last year's thread and follow the links in that post to educate yourself). In essence, this thread is to inform those who want to be informed of such things when firms send out offers and/or rejections following OCIP. OCIP is a stressful process and it brings out the best and often the worst in people. If you feel OCIP is a notch below the library during exam times then you might want to skip this thread.

No, you're still curious and want to participate? OK, here are the rules:

1. We will take comments posted below regarding offers/rejections and incorporate them into the body of this post. The process is tedious and generally not fun. There's a lot you can do to expedite things along.

2. PLEASE READ THE BODY OF THIS POST AND THE LAST FEW COMMENTS TO SEE IF ANYONE HAS POSTED THE SAME OFFER/REJECTION THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO POST.

3. SEE NUMBER 2.

4. Post the offers/rejections in the following format:

Firm name, Office, +/- to indicate offer/rejection respectively. For example:

Orrick, SF +.

The location abbreviations are as follows:

Atl -- Atlanta; Bos -- Boston; Chi -- Chicago; Dal -- Dallas; DC -- DC; EBay -- East Bay locations (Oakland, Walnut Creek, etc.); LA -- LA area offices (includes Century City); Mia = Miami and South Florida; Minn -- Minnesota; NY -- New York/New Jersey; OC -- Orange County area offices; Por -- Portland; Sac -- Sacramento; SD -- San Diego; SF -- San Francisco; SV -- Silicon Valley offices (includes Palo Alto, San Jose, Menlo Park, and all other South Bay locations).

5. This is now the seventh OCIP that N&B has had this thread. Without failure, each previous thread contained comments that were ummm worthy of staying up. So, while we will delete comments that are only posting +/-, more substantive comments will stay up. At the same time, it's probably wise not to identify yourself to your prospective employers. So don't write anything silly that's going to reveal who you are.

Best of luck to all of you, but for the love all that is holy and good, please follow Rules 2 and 3.

***
Allen Matkins, SF +
Arent Fox, NY -
Arnold & Porter, DC -, LA -, SF -
Baker Botts, SV +
Baker Hostetler, DC -
Baker & McKenzie, SF -
Bingham, LA +, SF +/-
Boies Schiller, DC +, NY +, OAK +
Brownstein, DEN +/-
Bryan Cave, LA +, SF +
Cadwalader, DC +
Cahill Gordon, NY +
Cleary Gottlieb, DC +/-, NY +/-
Cooley, NY +, SF +/-, SV +
Covington Burling, DC -, SF +/-
Cravath, NY +/-
Crowell & Moring, DC -, OC +, SF +/-
Davis Polk, NY +/-, SV +/-
Debevoise, NY +/-
Dechert, NY -, SF +, SV +
Dewey & LeBoeuf, NY +, SF +/-
DLA Piper, SD +, SF +, SV +
Drinker Biddle, SF +
Farella Braun, SF, +/-
Fenwick & West, SV +
Foley, DC+/-, SF +
Gibson Dunn, DC -, LA +/-, NY +/-, SF -, SV +
Goodwin Procter, BOS +/-, LA +, SF +/-, SV +
Hogan Lovells, DC +, NY -, SF +
Howard Rice, SF +/-
Irell, LA +/-, OC +/-
Jeffer Mangels, LA +
Jenner & Block, CHI -, LA +
Jones Day, DC +, NY +/-, SF +/-, SV +/-
King & Spalding, SF -
Kirkland, SF +
K&L Gates, SF +, Sea +
Keker, SF -
Knobbe, LA -
Kramer Levin, NY +
Latham Watkins, DC -, LA +, NY +, SF +/-, SV +/-
Lieff Cabraser SF -
Lowenstein Sandler, SV -
Manatt Phelps, LA +
Mayer Brown, CHI -, SV +/-
McDermott, LA +, SV +/-
Morgan Lewis, SF +, SV +
Morrison & Foerster, LA +/-, SD +/-, SF +/-, SV +
Munger LA, +/-
Nixon Peabody, SF +
Norton Rose, LON +
O'Melveny, DC +/-, LA +/-, OC +, SF +/-, SHA +/-, SV +/-
Orrick, LA +, SF+/-, SV +
Paul Hastings, DC +, LA +/-, SF +/-, SD -, SV +
Paul Weiss, NY +/-
Perkins Coie, SF -
Pillsbury, SF +
Proskauer Rose, LA +
Quinn, SF +/-, SV +
Reed Smith, LA +, SF +/-
Ropes & Gray, NY +
Rutan & Tucker, OC-
Sedgwick, SF +
Severson & Werson, SF +
Shartsis Friese, SF +/-
Shearman & Sterling, SF +
Sheppard Mullin, LA +, OC +/-, SF +/-
Sidley Austin, DC +/-, LA +, SF +/-, SV +/-
Simpson Thacher, LA +, NY +/-
Skadden, LA +, NY +, SV +
Stoel Rives, SEA -
Stradling Yocca, OC-
Sullivan & Cromwell, LA +, NY +
Troutman Sanders, OC +
Vinson & Elkins, HOU, +
Wachtell, NY +/-
Warren & Gunn, SF +
Weil, NY +/-, SV +/-
White & Case, LA +/-, SV +/-
Wilmer, DC +/-, LA +, NY -, SV +/-
Wilson Sonsini, SV +/-
Winston & Strawn, SF -

Mr. Manners is Back

Oh Boalt, every year we start anew and every year I have to be grumpy about people making messes and not cleaning them up.

I am not sure which one of you decided it was cool to lay a Mario Kart style trap during your Con Law class (or whatever class was in 100 before that), but come on, throwing a banana peel on the floor? Really?

Bar Review Review

Howdy folks,

Despite being "extreme" (which I take to mean extremely awesome), I think there's a need to address last week's Bar Review at Jupiter.

Here are the general problems with Jupiter:

1. No hard alcohol

2. Poor service

3. Relatively high prices for the area

And the major one:

Not enough space for everyone who comes out to Bar Review. They were turning people away at around 10pm. I continue to have no idea who makes these decisions, but I'd hate to see the Kips revolution happen so early in the year. How about we save Jupiter for the crappy end of semester bar reviews that mostly no one goes to and the awesome bars for now? Good thing we moved things to the Downlow.

Looking forward to seeing good clean fun dissected in the comments.

Love,

James

Advice for 1Ls

After thinking long and hard about what advice to give the 1Ls, I decided I'd just show them a typical Monday night if you're doing Boalt the right way.

Don't stress. Have fun. Come dance.

(Special thanks to Haas guest stars)

Rare Law Volume Stolen From U.C. Student's Locker

From the Oakland Tribune

December 14, 1923

A rare law book printed 250 years ago was stolen from the University of California law school yesterday and the police are searching for the “book-collector” thief.  The ancient volume was taken from the locker of one of the students and professors of the school declare that it cannot be replaced.

“The thief evidently knew that the book was of great value,” Walter Gleason, president of the student association said today.  “Nothing else was taken from the locker and the book was in such bad repair that an ordinary thief would overlook it.”

According to Professor Max Radin the book was printed in 1686 and was being used by a student in preparing to write a thesis for a doctor’s degree.  He values the book at $200, but does not believe that a duplicate copy can be secured.

A number of other articles were taken from the law school yesterday, according to Gleason.  Edward Estill, a second-year student, reported that his locker had been opened and $10 in currency taken from his coat.  Another student had $15 taken from his locker and a number of books were stolen.

LEGAL STUDENTS TRAP THIEF, THEN HAVE HIM FREED

From the Bulletin

March 19, 1924

After applying legal logic to solving a mystery and catching a thief, law students of the University of California today turned tender-hearted, habeas corpused the victim out of jail, and sent him home on probation.

The thief, according to Berkeley police officials, should have known better than to have selected the overcoats of budding young attorneys for criminal activities.  After a number of thefts, the embryo barristers laid down “Greenleaf on Evidence,” and other standard works, and applied their acumen to a trap.

The sum of $40 was placed in a coat and the coat put under watch.  A former law student was seen to take the money.  The legal staff turned him over to the police.

Later they asked that he be reprimanded and sent home on probation, which was done.

Shelanski Moves On (Again)

According to Dealbook and the WSJ Law Blog, former Boalt prof and sometime antitrust regulator Howard Shelanski is going over to Davis Polk. His class at Boalt was a real pleasure -- I, for one, wish him all the best in his new gig.

11th Circuit Declares Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

Here we go again. A divided panel of the 11th Circuit has concluded that the health care reform's individual mandate is unconstitutional. This creates a circuit split with the Sixth Circuit, which also ruled via a split panel.

The Eleventh's Circuit's servers are clogged up now, but I'm looking forward to reading this opinion. I just hope it's better than the Sixth Circuit's dissent, which I thought demonstrated poor legal reasoning. (You know you're in trouble when most of your citations are to SCOTUS dissents.) I'm just sick of reading substantive due process arguments masquerading as commerce power challenges.

Two additional notes. 1. The existence of a circuit split will make it more likely that SCOTUS will decide this case before the 2012 election. 2. I'm glad that, as with the other circuit decision, there's no partisan divide among the panel votes; I think the perception that judges were voting based on whether they were appointed by Republicans or Democrats was very bad for the judiciary.

UPDATE: Oops, I spoke too soon about hoping to avoid disguised due process arguments.

Properly formulated, we perceive the question before us to be whether the federal government can issue a mandate that Americans purchase and maintain health insurance from a private company for the entirety of their lives. . . . In answering whether the federal government may exercise this asserted power to issue a mandate for Americans to purchase health insurance from privatecompanies, we next examine a number of issues: (1) the unprecedented nature of the individual mandate; (2) whether Congress’s exercise of its commerce authorityaffords sufficient and meaningful limiting principles; and (3) the far-reachingimplications for our federalist structure.

A BURNING ISSUE

From the Los Angeles Times
September 21, 1894

The temperance question has become an issue in the university town of Palo Alto. By acts of the State Legislature the sale of liquor has been prohibited within a certain distance of the grounds of the University of California at Berkeley and, although the law has been evaded to some extent by crafty venders of alcoholic beverages, yet the effect of the measure has been felt to a certain degree.

When Palo Alto was selected for the location of the Stanford University it was expressly the wish of the founder of the institution that no liquor should be sold within its limits and to that effect a prohibitory clause is inserted in every conveyance of Palo Alto real estate, which provides that the vendee, his heirs and assigns, shall not at any time manufacture or sell to be used as a beverage, any intoxicating liquor or to permit the same to be done on the premises conveyed. It is also provided that if the vendee, his heirs or assigns, violate the above provision and condition, the indenture shall be void and the premises shall revert to and become the absolute property of the vendor, who may enter and take possession and remove the vendee or any person holding under him.

The population was surprised when the discovery was made several days ago that J. Spencer and C. W. Condon, two of the town dealers, have been carrying on an illicit liquor trade in a small way. Both men have been placed under bonds to appear before the Justice of the Peace and answer to charges of selling liquor. The interesting question of the constitutionality of the prohibitory clause of the conveyance of the real estate will also arise from this affair.

Timothy Hopkins, the previous owner of the land upon which the liquor was sold, will bring suit in the Superior Court of Santa Clara county against the landlords of Condon and Spencer in order to test the legality of the clause. It is stated upon good authority that the suit will be simply a test case of the question.

Not-Your-Typical Summer Movie Recommendation

This is a shameless plug for a brilliant film that (in my opinion) every law student and legal professional should try to see while it's in theaters this week: Crime After Crime documents the ordeal of Debbie Peagler, a woman incarcerated for decades because of her role in the death of her abusive boyfriend, and the 7-year legal struggle of two Bay Area attorneys who represented Debbie pro bono in her fight to be set free.

Broadly, the film focuses on the issue of intimate partner battering, and how it contributes to the ever-increasing rate of female incarceration in the United States today. Particular to Debbie's story, the film exposes the appalling misdeeds of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office in overcharging and extracting a plea from Ms. Peagler - knowing all along that she was a victim of domestic violence and that the one witness against her had committed perjury - then two decades later, resisting her habeas petition under California's Penal Code §1473.5 (passed in 2002), which permits battered women convicted of a felony to file a writ of habeas corpus with evidence demonstrating the effects of battering in their case.

In addition to taking place in the Bay Area, the film is closely tied to the Boalt community - incomplete versions have been screened in various classes over the last couple of years, and the film includes a short commentary by Boalt Professor Nancy Lemon.

The movie was recently picked up by the Oprah Winfrey Network to air sometime in November. In the meantime, Crime After Crime is showing in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Rafael today through Thursday - and many of the showings include introductions / Q&A with Professor Lemon or the attorneys who worked on the case. As someone completely unfamiliar with this subject matter before tonight, I was incredibly moved by the film and highly recommend it.

Bye-Bye, Trippe-A

This post has a preface. The preface goes like this: remember the ratings agencies? Those august bodies that completely missed the sub-prime mess even though they proudly/smugly presume to ordain the economic wellbeing of each important player in our economy? The bodies whose views have proven so thoroughly establishmentarian that (and this may be only my opinion) we should no longer regard their pronouncements as anything more than the consensus view? Well, the consensus as pronounced via ratings agency have news for the United States today, and it ain't good.

Apparently the Treasury and Standard & Poor's have been arguing back and forth behind the scenes all afternoon about whether there was an "arithmetic" issue with the rating agency's recent calculations pertaining to the United States' sovereign debt. (The Treasury was concerned that S&P had overestimated the national deficit by about $2 trillion--yes, that really is two million millions of dollars--but S&P later "conceded the error.") By now you can guess the reason the Treasury was concerned with arithmetic: S&P just downgraded our credit rating. Why? Well, basically because it concluded that Congress was too inept to confront our nation's problems. (Like I said: "consensus view.")

For those who don't follow such things, what that means is that United States debt no longer deserves to be considered one of the safest investments in the world. Money is now no safer with us than it is with, say, Belgium or New Zealand. That may not seem so bad, but consider the effect that a sudden 0.5 percent interest hike could have all those whiz-bang Wall Street algorithms that essentially run vast swaths of our still-vulnerable economy . . . suffice it to say, this has the potential to be, um, sort of a big deal. Not like, "oh my, does this mean more Ponzi schemers going to be shaken from the woodwork?" kind of big deal but, more like "holy hell the 'great recession' of 2008-2010 may have been on the beginning!" kind of big deal. I don't think I'm exaggerating here.

For those who DO follow such things, here are various questions that come to my mind:

• Is it too early to kiss Obama's second term goodbye?
• Is it uncouth to ask if I can get my double-dip with extra toppings?
• Will a potential QE3, or 4, or 12, inflate the dollar sufficiently to make my student loans bearable?
• Given that Europe is in the middle of a full-blown credit crisis, we can't pay our bills, and China (to whom everyone is looking to pull the entire world out of the recession) is currently manufacturing at just above contraction levels . . . why is it that the gold nuts on late-night TV and the gun nuts in Kalispell, Montana, seem to be the only people freaked the hell out right now?
• Finally, and most importantly, will today's downgrade irritate Congress enough that it finally moves toward meaningful reform the entire banking-rating complex?

But There Is A Silver Lining

I don't mean to bump Dan's post below, but I'd be remiss if I didn't continue to point to the silver lining of a) having a Boalt degree and b) having a Democrat in the White House.   Earlier today, President Obama nominated Miranda Du, a Boaltie from Nevada, to the federal bench.  I hear very, very good things about Ms. Du from those in the know; and considering Harry Reid probably pushed for the nomination, I think she'll have a smooth confirmation.  And she's not the only Boaltie with a Nevada connection to be nominated as an Article III judge.  Last week, the President nominated Judge Wallach of International Trade Court to the Federal Circuit.  So by my count at least, in the past two weeks, the President has nominated three Boalties to the federal bench, on top of Professor Liu's appointment to the Supreme Court of California.  Three cheers for them all. 

DON'T PANIC

The last-minute debt deal not only displayed the impotence of the modern Democratic party, but also screwed over a lot of future grad students. There is an excellent post about it at ATL. Read it.

I don't have a lot to add, except I think it is time for Boalt's administration to reassess their reliance on the Federal IBR/forgiveness program as the central pillar of LRAP. We have repeatedly been reassured that IBR is safe. Now it looks like anything is on the table.

Enjoy your tea.