Screaming Lawyer » Legal Exotica

“Sieg Heil” Mr Jensen

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:14:11 +0000

Cactus Kate has pointed out that Napier lawyerPhilip Jensen, fined $1500 for cultivating and possessing cannabis because of what his lawyer called his cannabis addiction and requested that Jensen be discharged without conviction. She asks whether this was the same Philip Jensen who stood up in a Napier Court room and in defending a Mongrel Mob trainee who thinks “sieg heil” is an acceptable way of “saying hi to the bros” came up with this explanation: As Hungahunga left the dock, his lawyer Philip Jensen remarked that “it was a German phrase popular in the 60s in the Commando comics”.

“Actually it goes back a bit further than that, Mr Jensen. It was made popular in the 30s when very different rules applied,” Judge Adeane said. Cactus Kate wonders if they are the same Philip Jensen’s and if so whether he is still rolling his own?

Bonus News From the Big Bagel

admin — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:50:30 +0000

Linklater's Michael Bassett

Here’s some very belated bonus news from the Big Apple, from AboveTheLaw. Earlier this month, the New York office of Linklaters announced bonuses that matched the Cravath scale. As usual at Linklaters, there was no hours requirement. The news was communicated via individual memo.

A Cravath match, especially in a bonus season when some firms are paying significantly more, isn’t that exciting. A Cravath bonus won’t get a Linklaters associate a pad as swish as the $2.8 million that of Linklaters partner Michael Bassett and his non-Linklaters partner Darren Henaut. Heck, $35K — the top of the Cravath scale — probably won’t even cover the cost of Bassett’s wallpaper, ATL say.

Leaky Assange Questioned by British Cops

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:18:10 +0000

Julian Assange, the man everyone is loving to hate or just loving is being questioned by British police and expected in court tomorrow to discuss the small problem of a Swedish warrant for extradition relating to alleged sexual assaults in that country, according to The Guardian. At the same time, a legal net is tightening around the WikiLeaks founder’s website, causing consternational worldwide.

Graeme Hart Gets Big Apple Lawyers Excited

admin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:43 +0000

At a time when investing in bankrupt European economies looks like the sort of deal Hanover might have done, and when a “trillion” is suddenly just another thousand billion – or is it a billion billion? – a mere billion dollar deal seems almost trifling. But, let’s hand it to Glendowie resident and cardboard collector Graeme Hart because his billion dollar deal just had a bunch of top-shelf lawyers in Manhattan boxing the air. New York-based Debevoise + Plimpton, where its partners made $US2.5 million each last year, put no fewer than six partners onto Mr Hart’s deal to buy UCI International Inc. The deal involved Rank Group buying capital stock for $375 million and assuming debts of over $US600 million, which is something the guys from Big Apple were thanking the little kiwi for. Their PR lady sent us their news release trumpeting the deal. It wasn’t so much Mr Hart’s cardboard. It was all that green paper that had them excited.

The Law Life of “Dirty Law” – The Stuff They Don’t Want You To See

admin — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:34:55 +0000

donziger_screaminglawyer

In the final version of Crude — the 2009 documentary on the epic environmental suit brought by Amazon tribespeople against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador — lead U.S. plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Donziger remarks: “This is something you would never do in the United States, but Ecuador, you know, this is how the game is played, it’s dirty.” So check out the tapes on this at Law.com – it’s all fascinating, weird, and . . well, dirty.

Entering Hobbit Hell

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:23:53 +0000

Warners' Kevin Tsujihara

As the Warners heavies lumbered into Premier House in our BMWs, The Hobbit fiasco was raising cain on the blogs with effervescent David Farrer blogging about “the most incompetent political or industrial action for some years” and recording comments from around the world, as well as Middle Earth over the deal that cost the taxpayer $34 million – thanks to some angry ‘wimmin’. Meanwhile the Warners top brass did a deal they can live with and so can we. Kevin Tsujihara is Warners’ guy in charge of home entertainment, the fastest-growing business at Warner as at other studios overseeing home video, digital distribution, video games, technical operations, and anti-piracy efforts. Check the Fortune story.

Billionaire’s Government Lawyer Pay Offer

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:43:44 +0000

US Billionaire Mark Cuban’s a tough successful guy but if you are one of Cuban’s adversaries, it must be brutal AboveTheLaw reports. To paraphrase one observer, if the milk’s sour, Mark Cuban ain’t the kind of pussy to drink it. NBA referees know that. And SEC attorneys are about to learn the same lesson. They’re taking forever to prosecute an insider trading case against him and so he’s offered to pay the Government attorneys to speed it up.

Personal Injury Lawyers’ Big Day Out

admin — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:04:43 +0000

Oh, what a day for the lawyers – Sting and Sheryl Crow will perform at two of the biggest holiday parties of the season hosted by Texas plaintiffs lawyers, reports Texas Lawyer. Sting will do his gig before The Lanier Law Firm’s annual holiday party on Dec. 5 in Houston, while Crow will take the stage at lawyer Lisa Blue-Baron’s party at her Dallas home on Dec. 11. “Sting brings great music, a great stage show and a great deal of popularity, which is what we always try to bring,” says W. Mark Lanier, owner of the Houston plaintiffs firm.

Harry Potter’s Nemesis Strikes in Copyright Claim

admin — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:55:27 +0000

JK Rowling has been impregnable as a tour-de-fortress until now it seems, with the successful copyright claim brought by Blackstone Chambers Robert Howe, according to a report in The Lawyer. Howe succeeded on behalf of the trustees of the estate of the late Adrian Jacobs in their claim that themes from Jacobs’ 1987 book The Adventures of Willy the Wizard are copied in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was published in 2000, and allege that Rowling therefore has infringed copyright.

The Hobbit – The Muppets

admin — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:50:17 +0000

Peter Jackson’s press release shows his dander is well and truly up but while he deals with the muppets in trying to make The Hobbit he knows that dumb-arsed actors manipulated from Aussie, manipulated in turn from LA where they’re seeking to regain their lost-abroad movie business is all part of a game that can easily be won – in Czech Republic or Scotland. BooHoo actors. It’s back to the repertory for them.