New York Times reports that OJ was: found guilty late Friday on all 12 counts stemming from a confrontation in a hotel room last year, including armed robbery and kidnapping. Mr. Simpson now faces 15 years to life for the kidnapping charge as well as a minimum of at least another 10 years in prison on the other charges. His attorney, Yale Galanter, said he would appeal.

Well, as you can see ((if you're not an RSS subscriber -- and if not, why not subscribe?)), we've been hard at work revamping the website. It's not just a new look this time, though. We've migrated away from WordPress.com and into our own server. Now, don't get me wrong, WordPress.com is great, but we're really excited about the new features we're able to provide by hosting our own blog. ((For instance, footnotes! What's a blawg with law review editors without footnotes?)) We now have a lot of freedom to pretty much do whatever we want with the site, and we're definitely open to feedback. Why not try out the new wall-esque widget and tell us what you think? Note: The blogroll will be fixed tomorrow.

I would be interested to know how many times a certain R.E.M. song has been referenced within the last week. As a rational consumer of goods (law firms) who is in the process of making an important choice (2L summer employment), I've been reading a lot about how the recent bailouts of Fannie/Freddie and AIG, and failures of Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros. (hereinafter "1929" or "the crisis") will change the legal landscape.  Recognizing that my future as a litigation associate will be significantly impacted by this crisis, even if I don't specialize in financial services, is an important first step. I believe that law students should be aware of the business world to be better able to serve their clients, and see two major consequences of the current financial crisis: (1) Firms will change their employment practices, and (2) Clients will demand more of their firms. The Shrinking Legal Employment Market My advice for 1Ls - study harder, for 2Ls - job search smarter (diversify), for 3Ls - pray.  There's no doubt that the top large law firms will be directly affected by these business failures. Above the Law conducted a survey of associates in major markets to gauge their reactions.  It's a ...

Legal Geekery contributor Kim told me about the entertaining website of Marque Lawyers, who seek to revolutionize the legal industry. MARQUE exists!  We are Australia’s newest law firm, and we have the single ambition of completely changing the way that law is practised. We do not charge by the hour. We do not charge you when we pick up the phone or send you an email. We do not charge you for photocopying or travel time or any of that kind of stuff. We invest in long term relationships with our clients, and we measure the value of our services in the same way that you do. We have a lot to offer, and we provide it in a way that doesn’t hurt. There’s a lot more, but that’ll do for starters. So I laughed for a bit, but then recognized that the firm has a pretty sweet address for a non-traditional fee structure.  Granted they're up-and-coming, but that section of Sydney is somewhere I'd like to practice. And because of the the ongoing job search, I've been visiting a ton of firm sites recently, and have stumbled across some pretty great designs. Gibson Dunn - traditional styling, motivational text & artistic lawyer photos Cravath - ...

I was lucky enough to write a brief during the spring semester in Professor Basas's Legal Writing class about whether a Title VII prohibits harassment against a biological male who is transitioning to living as a woman.  The legal arguments supporting coverage are interesting, ranging from interpretation of the legislative history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the definition of the phrase "because of sex" in Title VII's prohibition on discrimination because of sex, and clarifying the line between sex discrimination and gender discrimination. The ACLU, who is representing plaintiff Diane Schroer in a lawsuit against the Library of Congress, has published an excellent blog post that tells the story.  Although the Sixth Circuit in Smith v. City of Salem is responsible for the most progressive and comprehensive coverage of transgender rights, Schroer's seems like a great test case for extending coverage. Starting a new life and searching for a new career isn't easy, but Diane Schroer, a highly-decorated veteran, is no stranger to a challenge. Schroer was an Airborne Ranger qualified Special Forces officer who completed over 450 parachute jumps, received numerous decorations including the Defense Superior Service Medal, and was hand-picked to head up a classified national security operation. She ...

Update: Messi & Argentina won the gold - AMS The NYT has this interesting story about today's decision of The Court of Arbitration for Sport that holds that private football clubs are not required to release their players for Olympic competition. The court, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, but with an adjunct office in Beijing for the Olympics, decided Wednesday that the clubs were not legally bound to release the players since the Olympic tournament was not on the match calendar of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. The FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, said in a statement Wednesday that he was “surprised and disappointed” by the decision, saying he regretted that the court “has not taken the Olympic spirit into consideration.” Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona, the Argentinian at the center of this dispute, is one of the players to watch in this years' games, which kick off tomorrow, Aug 7 in Shanghai.  It's clear that the home clubs have a strong financial interest in the health and conditioning of their players.  Evidently part of the FIFA schedule overlaps with Olympic competition, but it's is unclear at this time whether any of the players will be called back by their employers. A 1998 article in the Florida ...

One of my biggest problems in law school is that I read really slow, and when I try to speed up, my comprehension can suffer. Today on digg, someone posted a link to a site called spreeder. After playing with it for a bit, It seemed obvious that I was reading faster than normal, so I decided to run a test. I read two paragraphs of a law review article, which took 1 minute 50 seconds. After loading the paragraphs into spreeder, I was able to read the same paragraphs in just under 30 seconds with much better comprehension. Sounds unbelievable, right? A digg user offered a pretty interesting theory about why this may work: I occurred to me that people who look at spreeder and have never before really tried speed reading might not quite "get it" when they test it. "The text I pasted in flashes at me one word at a time. Interesting, but why? Is this just some sort of entertaining visual effect or something?" Fair question, and no. When you read, you normally fall into what's called "subvocalization" which simply means you sound out and pronounce each word mentally. It's like your brain goes trough the process of ...

You bloggers may or may not have heard that Encyclopedia Britannica is giving away free 1 year subscriptions to their online service. Apparently even amateur blogs like mine qualify, and it only took about 2 days for them to approve my subscription.  With Encyclopedia Britannica, you can find neat articles like this one: insolvency finance Main financial condition in which the total liabilities of an individual or enterprise exceed the total assets so that the claims of creditors cannot be paid. There are essentially two approaches in determining insolvency: insolvency in the equity sense and under the balance-sheet approach. Insolvency in the equity sense denotes the inability of the debtor to pay his debts as they become due in the ordinary course of business. Insolvency under the balance-sheet approach means that the total liabilities of the debtor exceed his total assets. Insolvency is distinguished from bankruptcy in that bankruptcy denotes a particular legal status to be determined and declared by judicial decree. For an individual or a corporation to be declared bankrupt, certain additional requirements, such as committing an act of bankruptcy, for example, are necessary. Thus, insolvency, although an essential factor, is not the sole ingredient necessary in determining bankruptcy. "insolvency." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica ...