No, We Won’t Use the Gone-Zales Pun
(Not because Alberto Gonzales is looking secure in his position as Attorney General, but because everyone else — the WSJ Law Blog, the Legal Times — has used it already.)
In the past hour or so, the Justice Department released about 3,000 pages worth of documents relating to the U.S. Attorneys firing fiasco. The documents were sent over to Capitol Hill, quickly and in non-chronological order (which the Dems may complain about; but hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth). It appears that some of these documents may relate to the specific reasons for firing the dismissed U.S. Attorneys — a belated attempt by the DOJ to explain, in more satisfying and greater detail, why exactly these eight federal prosecutors were canned.
Another interesting rumor going around: If AG Gonzales steps down, one possible replacement is Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — former assistant U.S. Attorney General, and former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (and the only U.S. Attorney not replaced immediately by President Clinton when he cashiered almost all of the U.S. Attorneys upon taking office).
The whole situation is very fluid. Stay tuned…
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"The documents were . . . in non-chronological order."
Because all discovery requests are answered with cleanly organized and chronologized documents.
Troll, you're supposed to be an ignorant law student. Remember?
Get back in character!
I overheard top school graduates talking about discovery as I handed out resumes in front of the DPW building.
FRCP 34(b): "A party who produces documents for inspection shall produce them as they are kept in the usual course of business or shall organize and label them to correspond with the categories in the request."
Unclear on whether, or how much, you have to organize or chron the documents when you're sending Bates-stamped copies to the other party, i.e. on paper or CD-ROM. Maybe the litigators can enlighten us.
It's only 3,000 pages.
Why isn't there a news story already?
Give me one McDonalds number 2 meal and I could doc review 3,000 pages overnight. Us humble tier 2 grads don't need $160,000 to work, we work because we love our bosses and we love biglaw. If only hiring partners would see this.
Oh yeah, and Bates, the guy who invented the Bates stamp. Tier 2. Yeah.
3000 pages is like 1.5-2 bankers boxes...Not an overwhelming amount of documents.
C'mon boys break out those highlighters and get to work!
For the guy who used to be A3G, Lat, it's odd that you neglected to mention that Chertoff's past roles include a stint as a judge on the Third Circuit.
Chertoff was a 3d Cir. judge for less than two years, and he didn't write many major opinions during that time. It's not one of the highlights of his resume.
SYC for AG!