The torturer in the video is UAE Royal Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan. His brother is the Interior Minister, and his other brother is the head of the country, Sheikh Mohammed. He's the man whose name is plastered on NYU's Abu Dhabi campus, because he paid for it.

Weil Gotchal is one of three major law firms that has asked new associates to hang out until 2011 before showing up to work. The firms are encouraging recruits to push back their start dates on account of the recession, naturally, but Weil may have a harder time pleading poverty as of this afternoon. The firm just requested the largest quarterly fee in bankruptcy history for its work on the Lehman Brothers meltdown. Weil is asking a judge to turn over $55.1 million for the the work it has done over just the past four months—plus expenses, of course—and insiders say it will probably get every penny of it. And Weil is expected to earn another $200 million in the event General Motors files for bankruptcy protection. It isn't often that we wish we'd gone into bankruptcy law. But it looks like today is one of those days.

Is there a single major law firm in America accepting new recruits in 2009? Doesn't look like it! Earlier this week, the Times covered the story of a sixth-year associate at Skadden, Arps who was offered $80,000 to take a year off. (She's hoping to spend her time off "teaching English to monks in Sri Lanka" and helping to "bring solar power to remote parts of the Himalayas.") Even more common are the firms informing new associates that they're pushing back start dates by a few months. Or years.

In your hopeful Tuesday media column: Portfolio.com hires(!) people, NYT op-ed-speak translated, Philly papers make an offer you can refuse, and journalists in peril:

Bernie Madoff's going to be locked up for infinity, but the fate of his family members is still up in the air. But guess who thinks those family members are going to prison? They do!

How does America deal with hard times? By trimming the fat from our budgets. D.I.Y., people! Out: paying people for things. In: squatting in houses and being your own lawyer!

The FBI is taking the "To Catch a Predator" model of crime-fighting to a highly theoretical realm by seeding message boards with fake links to kiddie porn and arresting the people who click on them.

Okay so you know that Swedish countess Marie Douglas-David needs $53K per week to live because her CEO (soon-to-be-ex) husband was overly generous and divorce-fetishy (and submissive), but did you know she made him rich?

In your servile Thursday media column: the scoop on Steve Bartelstein, the Singapore Judiciary blows, Eric Holder's willing to help newspapers die slower, which is good, because nobody wants to pay much for one:

Singapore's wacky totalitarian repression just won't quit! The country's attorney general is charging an editor at the WSJ's editorial page with contempt for "impugning the integrity" of the courts. Also illegal in Singapore: irony. [WSJ]

Shepard Fairey is America's darling, ever since that Obama 'HOPE' poster. The AP looked like jerks when they complained about him stealing their photo. But! Fairey will sue your ass for stealing his brand, quick.

It sucks to find out you're getting laid off. It sucks a lot worse to find out you're getting laid off because a lawyer yakked about it at high volume on a commuter train.

It's been a brutal day in the legal world. More than a dozen firms announced sweeping layoffs today, according to Above the Law. To wit: As many as 200 people at DLA Piper may be out of jobs; Bryan Cave reportedly handed out pink slips to 58 attorneys today; Dechert confirmed that it dropped 19 attorneys across the U.S.; Goodwin Procter sacked 74 people; Epstein Becker and Green dismissed 23 attorneys and 30 staff members; Cadwalader dropped 16 people in London; Cozen O'Connor laid off 61; Faegre & Benson gave notice to 29 attorneys; and as many as 200-300 people could be out of a job at Holland & Knight this afternoon. And this is just since eleven o'clock this morning. (Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, so it may very well get worse.) If you notice lots of men in rumpled suits walking around Grand Central Station in a daze, now you know why.

Disgraced lawyer Marc Dreier stands accused of bilking investors out of $400 million and could end up spending 30 years in prison if he's eventually convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. But he isn't sitting behind bars for the time being. Last week a federal judge allowed Dreier to return home on $10 million bond, provided he hire round-the-clock security to keep tabs on him. So where did he go home to? Permit us to show you around! We found a Prudential Douglas Elliman video tour of the One Beacon Court apartment from 2007, which was filmed shortly before Dreier paid $5.425 million for the 2,900-square-foot pad (with massive terrace) on the building's 34th floor. Dreier has redecorated a bit since then—according to court documents, he has this Robert Wilson video installation featuring Salma Hayek hanging on the wall, for example—but you'll still be able to see it's a step up from Rikers Island.

The Berlin Film Festival continued Sunday with critics' first look at Rage, the fashion-world mystery featuring Jude Law's revolutionary turn as a model. Just, you know, a female one.

Recognize these spotlight-loving criminal defense attorneys? Their identities (and some of their more notable clients) after the jump.

You know what's really great about being wealthy and white? When you do something very bad, a judge will still probably allow you to go home to your comfy bed! Judge Jed Rakoff ruled today that Marc Dreier, the lawyer accused of bilking clients out of $400 million, can remain confined to his home on a $10 million personal recognizance bond. Dreier will have to pay to have armed security guards with him at all times, and they'll be entitled to use "reasonable force" if he tries to flee. And if Dreier gets bored sitting at home, he'll always be able to have nice, long chats with Bernie Madoff. [AP, WSJ]

Were you aware that not so long ago, young corporate lawyers sometimes had the audacity to dress in casual clothes, even, gasp, Uggs and jeans? Well, if the recession has done anything positive, it's put an end to such wantonly inappropriate behavior, reports the Wall Street Journal's Christina Binkley. Yes, formal power dressing is apparently back with a vengeance, which for men means white-collared colored dress shirts with ties, expensive dark suits, and shiny shoes; basically the only way anyone in a law firm's office should be able to tell that it's not actually the eighties is by the presence of Blackberries. "I think people expect high-powered lawyers to look like high-powered lawyers," sniffs Bill Brewer of the law firm Bickel & Brewer. "Anything else is sending the wrong signal." Like the possibility of paying less than exorbitant billable rates in a recession, presumably.

New York Judge James Peck—who oversaw the first part of the Bernie Madoff trial, and is handling the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy—smacked his wife "in self defense" last weekend. They were arguing about a ladder. [NYP]

Bernie Madoff isn't just taking a psychological toll on members of his family and the people he's accused of defrauding. Judge James Peck, who is overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's firm as well as handling the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, was arrested and charged with third-degree attempted assault and second-degree harassment after allegedly slapping his wife at their Park Avenue apartment on Saturday evening. Peck was released without bail, although he'll be returning to court to face (another) judge on March 16th. [NYP]