Lat attack!

Isn’t it always the case: You turn your back on your firm for two minutes, and suddenly it’s the starring post on a snarky legal tabloid Web site. That’s what happened to Chris LaFollette, partner-in-charge of Akin Gump’s Houston office, who was in the midst of a business trip when she got an e-mail announcing that an internal firm memo offering its lawyers 22 Summer Program Do’s and Don’ts had been posted – and embellished, natch -- on blawger David Lat’s AboveTheLaw.com. Thankfully, LaFollette did not adopt the stance of one big firm recently skewered by ATL for actually recording an, ahem, motivational firm theme song – that is, she didn’t freak out (click here for an ABC news video account of NixonPeabodyGate). Although LaFollette says she has yet to read the post, she returned TexParte’s call immediately and called the entire incident “just kind of a non-event.” Indeed it sort of was – even Lat concedes the firm’s advice-filled memo is “pretty sound.” LaFollette says the list of “common sense reminders” was compiled using suggestions submitted by actual associates, the kind of stuff that’s just helpful to remember in the wake of incoming 1Ls and 2Ls. So what do the 15 summer clerks who started on Monday think of their firm’s newly established cybercred? Says LaFollette, “You know, I have been in Denver since Sunday, and I haven’t even had the chance to say ‘Good morning’ to them.”
-- Jenny B. Davis