5 Stories of the Week: Ginsburg, Football, and More

Looking at five notable stories of the week that was.

2. It began with a knock-knock joke and ended with a dummy. Welcome to our legal system!

Last week I mused that the George Zimmerman murder trial was a farce that would continue through closing arguments. Despite my editorial voice, I’d hoped that wasn’t true. Sadly, I was wrong and the trial lurched further into absurdity. If I didn’t know it was real, I could probably be persuaded that it was a really cutting edge performance art piece on the failings of the legal system.

After opening with a knock knock joke, the defense decided to add ventriloquism to their bag of tricks. The Zimmerman defense busted out a foam doll and proceeded to beat the hell out of it on the courtroom floor to simulate the savage beating that George Zimmerman allegedly took after he cornered an unarmed kid in a dark street and threatened him with a loaded gun before killing him.

Reminder for when George Zimmerman inevitably walks — the fact that he “cornered an unarmed kid in a dark street and threatened him with a loaded gun before killing him” is NOT in dispute.

Ironically, the doll was meant to depict George Zimmerman. I say “ironically” because (a) even if Zimmerman packed on a lot of post-arrest weight, he hasn’t been that frail and skinny since he was 10 years old; and, (b) the symbolic imagery of the doll, conveniently colored black, juxtaposed with the white defense and prosecution attorneys served to remind the jury that Trayvon was some “scary black dude” even while it was supposed to be standing in for Zimmerman.

And yet, when the time came, the prosecution accepted the framing device offered by the defense and used it in their own theory.

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Not since Mannequin has there been a less convincing use of a prop. And I mean Andrew McCarthy as a romantic lead.

Here’s a lesson that prosecutors should have learned during the O.J. trial: Do not use props. Ever. It’s the leather glove incident all over again:

The built-in advantage afforded the prosecution is credibility. Props make prosecutors look stupid. Defense lawyers can get on the ground and play with a foam doll all they want. It can even be compelling. Prosecutors then need to stand up and say, “while they rolled around on the ground, where would the gun be if Trayvon was actually on Zimmerman’s chest?” The jury responds because they expect the prosecutors to be the grown-ups in the room. The prosecutor’s argument in the above clip is not wrong, it just looks stupid coming from a guy performing some kind of sex act on a foam doll. Well, I guess it earned him some fame from women who wished they were the dummy.

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So the defense had a knock knock joke and a blow up doll. The prosecutors remind me of Michael Dukakis in 1988. “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.”

3. Vault provides even more ways to judge people at other firms.

The latest Vault 100 came out a few weeks back! And the motto should have been “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” as Wachtell whips up on everyone again. Wachtell is like Citizen Kane at an AFI festival.

Indeed, the only edits in the top 15 are Sullivan leaping Skadden for the 3 slot and Boies jumping Williams & Connolly at 15. Ho hum.

But the overall rankings are basically a “who runs New York” ranking. The real action for most observers is found in the internals. The regional ratings, which just came out, are what matters to the majority of lawyers and law students across the country who aren’t trying to work in NYC. Mostly the regional rankings held stable, though congratulations in order for Williams & Connolly, who snagged the top spot in the D.C. market from Covington & Burling.

Vault also ranks firms by practice area and that’s where some major shakeups happened. For example, in energy law, Sidley Austin jumped from unranked to number 1 overall, while Bracewell & Giuliani also jumped from unranked to the top 5.

The full list of available rankings is here.

Football and filibusters, coming right up…