First!

P.S., libs suck.

Touché, Kathleen Sullivan!

Fulbright & Jaworski's D.C. office just raised as follows:

Class - Base - 1900hrs - 2150 - 2300 - 2500
'06 - $160k - no bonus
'05 - $165k - $5k - $5k - $5k - $5k
'04 - $170k - $15k - $7.5k - $12.5k - $12.5k
'03 - $185k - $25k - $10k - $12.5k - $12.5k
'02 - $200k - $30k - $12.5k - $17.5k - $17.5k
'01 - $210k - $35k - $12.5k - $17.5k - $17.5k
'00 - $220k - $40k - $15k - $17.5k - $17.5k
'99 - $230k - $40k - $15k - $22.5k - $22.5k
'98 - $240k - $40k - $15k - $22.5k - $22.5k
'97 - $245k - $40k - $15k - $22.5k - $22.5k
'96 - $250k - $40k - $15k - $22.5k - $22.5k

After 1900 hours, up to 150 of pro bono and other qualified hours count towards the higher bonuses.

Salary is retroactive to July 1.

Harold Koh is on the long list. Duh.

"get opinions into law school casebooks"?? LOL. Yeah, that is important.

Big news for Texas! If there is a nice bonus at 1900, what is the minimum billables for the "base"? [and is there a 10 year partnership track if the numbers run back to 96?]

The justice described in the SCOTUSblog comments wouldn't be the anti-Scalia. The anti-Scalia would be someone who decides cases based on which side of the bed he or she got up on that day, or whether it was raining outside. In other words, the anti-Scalia would be Sandra Day O'Connor.

11:38, this is only D.C., not Texas offices. No formal minimum hours requirement that I know of. Partnership track is 8-10 years.

11:42: Good thing I'm doing administrative stuff today instead of client work. My lack of attention to detail is scary. I guess it's the hangover from the summer associate event last night.

No, the anti-Scalia would be the one where every opinion read "the constitution doesn't say it. So we can make it up."

[based on the principal that every Scalia opinion reads: "The Constitution doesn't say that. You're all a bunch of fucking retards."]

Nice thoughts, but a few of them seem pretty unlikely. Deval Patrick, in particular, hasn't been able to keep out of his own way ever since coming into office, and the last thing a president wants when nominating a justice is somebody with a reputation for incompetence. And Ken Salazar can hardly be considered either liberal or heavyweight enough to counterbalance a Scalia-Roberts-Alito intellectual axis on the right.

11:52: That makes the Kagan selection interesting. Can the Dean of Harvard Law take on the right-wing nut jobs?

any other bonus policy at F&J, or are the lockstep hours targets it? Seems like they don't incent huge hours very week, esp. at the low levels.

There isn't a person alive who can match Scalia's intellectual prowess.

Pam Karlan is the anti-Scalia!

Deval Patrick? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Maybe the anti-Scalia would be someone who doesn't get all hot and bothered about the "homosexual agenda".

Should have added, cause nothing makes you a preeminent intellect like quoting Jerry Falwell/Bill Donahue.

If the Warren era decisions are any indication of liberal opinions to be included in casebooks, I don't think conservatives will have much to worry about. Most of the decisions from the height of the liberal court are a laugh-riot.

What about Diane Wood?

Tribester on da Bench ya huhr me?

"Deval Patrick, in particular, hasn't been able to keep out of his own way ever since coming into office..."

Would you be referring to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED sign fiasco, maybe?

"ZOMGZOMG there are blinking signs all over Boston showing a space alien flipping the bird at us!!!!111oneoneeleventyone!!"

The F&J salary structure looks like it is market but only if you hit 1900 hours. Meaning that your salary is a little lower, but the 1900 hours bonus makes up the difference. Not a bad strategy. Is F&J going to raise at all in their home office - Houston - and the rest of Texas? What about V&E and Baker Botts? Are they raising in DC? In Texas?

Wishful thinking, all of you. Justices McConnell, Jones, and Easterbrook should start practicing for the hearings.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37456'

Supreme Court Justices Devour Sandra Day O'Connor In Ancient Ritual

July 27, 2005 | Issue 41•30

WASHINGTON, DC—The eight remaining justices of the Supreme Court met in chambers Monday to feast on the living flesh of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, enacting an ancient tradition that began when the first chief justice of the Supreme Court retired and was summarily consumed in 1795.

Although the most important cannibalistic ceremony in American jurisprudence is closed to outsiders, some details of the ritual are inscribed within the High Court Scrolls. The scrolls, written in human blood and stored in the Justice Library Reading Room, have been studied by only a handful of legal scholars.

"Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist almost certainly consumed the greater part of O'Connor's brain and heart prior to the ritual feeding, in a rite believed to grant him the knowledge, wisdom, and courage of the devoured," said American University law professor Donald Hewett. "Any portions of O'Connor's brain and heart that Rehnquist refused would have been consumed by the remaining justices within minutes, as they chanted passages from her seminal opinions."

Hewett said the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court was gutted, strung up, and "drained into stone goblets from which her blood was sipped like wine."

"This quaffing of blood is traditionally accompanied by much singing and drumming," Hewett said.

If the ritual was performed in accordance with the court scrolls, O'Connor's body was then laid upon a traditional brass bier and borne up a five-story marble staircase to a consecrated inner sanctum, where clerks skewered the raw meat on wooden spits. Late into the evening, the Supreme Court justices feasted on the renowned federalist by torchlight.

"The ceremony is said to be quite moving," said Zachary Katz, editor of the Yale Law Review. "By consuming O'Connor's mortal body, the other justices seek a communion with her transcendent qualities—her respect for the discretion of the court, her pragmatism, and her refusal to commit to abstract legal principles."

O'Connor has been prepared for the ritual since January 2005, when Chief Justice Rehnquist sprinkled her desk with the ashes of a virgin law clerk and pronounced, "Receptum, receptum, receptum."

Tuesday evening, Rehnquist emerged from the 17-foot-tall, 13-ton bronze sliding doors of the Supreme Court building's west entrance and addressed those who had gathered in the oval pavilion.

"Hear us, Justice," said Rehnquist, wearing a necklace of human bones and an elaborate headdress adorned with yak horns. "In the abiding name of Jurisprudence we consumed her; in the eternal name of Law was she eaten; and as her flesh does become our flesh, so her wisdom shall become our wisdom, yea, through all time everlasting."

According to legal scholars, O'Connor's skin will be tanned and sewn into a ceremonial cloak, to be worn by the youngest justice, Clarence Thomas, as he lights the pyre upon which members of O'Connor's senior staff are burned alive.

11:59a - that's the only bonus policy.

12:48p - There's been no word on a raise at the home office or at BB or V&E; Fulbright appears to be the first of the big three Texas firms to raise in D.C.

I think Goldstein is overthinking. The first pick doesn't have to be female and Hispanic. I think it'll likely be a woman or a minority, and probably a woman. If it's not a minority woman, then the next pick will likely be a minority. I'm not sure I'd put Wardlaw ahead of a Diane Wood or Elena Kagan. Not sure why Kagan gets the third slot ahead of Wood in Goldstein's mind -- maybe age? Wood's been floating on shorter speculative short lists for a while.

1253: GREAT find. I can't believe I missed it.

12:00: that's idiotic.

Why is Souter forecasted to depart in 2009? Is it common knowlege that he wants out as soon as there is a Democrat in office to name his successor?

12:53: That makes me sick. I wanna like it, but it just makes me sick.

I have a question: Why Wardlaw? Someone explain, please.

The appropriate term to indicate someone who acheives Sclia-like ersults in the exact opposite direction is "bizarro Scalia," not "anti-Scalia,"

The appropriate term to indicate someone who acheives Scalia-like results in the exact opposite direction is "bizarro Scalia," not "anti-Scalia."

And then there's the question of the Ersatz Scalia. But I suppose we already have Justice Thomas.

As Scalia has been an utter failure in putting together a right wing coalition due the fact that he is a flaming asshole, I don't think the dems want another scalia.

Another Brennan who could charm Kennedy to come on over to the left side where the people are nicer would be a much smarter pick.

And I'll note that Bush may have finally found the right wing answer to Brennan with Roberts.

I CANNOT believe that Goldstein even utterred Johnnie Rawlinson's name!!! Was he joking?

"Why is Souter forecasted to depart in 2009? Is it common knowlege that he wants out as soon as there is a Democrat in office to name his successor?"

My respect for Goldstein just disappeared. Wardlaw? Rawlinson?

Forget diversity, what about T-Gold in '09? Can't get much younger and still be credible.

Wardlaw is not an intellectual heavyweight (vs. Kagan, Garland, Wood). And Rawlinson votes with the conservatives on the 9th Circuit 80+% of the time.

I feel pretty in the know as a Court-watcher and I have NEVER heard a peep of an early Souter retirement. It's always Stevens or Ginsburg. So if anyone has some scoop, please share. You'd think Goldstein would have explained it. I also agree with the why Wardlaw. She doesn't have a great rep. And Deval Patrick. Oh god no. That's laughable.

"There isn't a person alive who can match Scalia's intellectual prowess."

Please. "Intellectual prowess"? In the service of what? The wealthy and entrenched?

I don't care how intellectual he makes his arguments, he always gets it wrong. And that's what counts.

Calling Scalia a great mind is like calling someone a great football player because he's fast, even though he always ends up in the wrong end zone.

Granholm: Canadian turned third-world economic despot turned SCOTUS justice? Seems right.

Wardlaw's a complete loose cannon. Ask anyone who clerked in the 9th Circuit.

Actually, someone just asked me, and I don't remember. All I know is that it was full of fruits and nuts.

Pam Karlan would be an exceptionally good choice. Academic queen with a great deal of spunk.

"conservatives on the 9th circuit"

*snicker*

it seems like the anti-scalia would be someone who believes that, yes, it IS the court's job to decide this issue.

Diane Wood all the way. She is the ultimate anti-Scalia. Not to mention kinda cute for her age.

The anti-Scalia, ideaologically, would be Reinhardt. Similar 'I-woke-up-on-this-side-of-the-bed-so-how-am-I-going-to-justify-this-decision' attitude, but diametrically opposed in ideology.

Also, If I was picking a female 9th Circuit judge to move up, I'd take Rymer over Wardlaw in a second.

Except Rymer isn''t anywhere close to liberal. And a republican appointee. Wardlaw is a moron, but at least left of center. Why would a dem appoint Rymer, a conservative? Clear thought process genius.

The anti-Scalia is not Reinhardt. Scalia's much more principled that Reinhardt. Reinhardt is probably the anti-Edith Jones. I'd say Breyer's much more the anti-Scalia.

Diane Wood or Karen Nelson Moore would be great picks, if slightly above T-Gold's age criterion.

To the commenter who compared Scalia to an NFL player in the wrong end zone:
Your argument is logically flawed. We could all objectively

We could all objectively agree that this player had scored a TD in the incorrect end zone. Whether Scalia "always gets it wrong," on the other hand, is a matter of opinion. BTW, did Scalia "get it wrong" in Hamdi? Gonzalez-Lopez? Texas v. Johnson? Peguero?
I doubt somehow that you'll think that he "got it wrong" in all (or any) of those cases.

Judge Boyce Martin (6th) would also be a great pick. My personal favorite - his opinion quoting "The New Colossus":
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
If I recall correctly, it was an immigration opinion...

Wait a minute. Harold Koh isn't already on the Supreme Court? He sure seems to think he is.

duncan kennedy

jeremy waldron

put that it your pipes and smoke it