* Seventh Circuit to lawyer: What is this, amateur hour? [TaxProf Blog]

* Some more full length attorney bio pics. [Groom Law Group]

* Speaking of the whole Mac-PC thing... [Choate Hall & Stewart LLP]

* Former Congressman blows by the cops while getting blown, then refuses to blow. [Times Union]

* Ah jeez, the nuns too? [New York Times]

Well, not in Illinois. In Cavel International v. Madigan (PDF; via How Appealing), the Seventh Circuit upheld an Illinois law making it unlawful to "slaughter a horse if that person knows or should know that any of the horse meat will be used for human consumption."

It's a quirky and interesting case. Howard Bashman provides a concise summary and more discussion over here.

Don't miss page 11 of Judge Richard Posner's slip opinion, which features a photograph of a "birthday cake" made of horse meat. YUM!!

Cavel Int'l v. Madigan (PDF) [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit]
Horse meat was until recently an accepted part of the American diet [How Appealing]

Since the tireless Howard Bashman is in transit, we'll temporarily assume his role as super-timely provider of appellate litigation news.

This just in: A divided Seventh Circuit panel has affirmed the criminal convictions of former Illinois Governor George H. Ryan and his associate, Lawrence Warner. The majority opinion is by Judge Diane Wood (who is a judicial hottie); the dissent is by Judge Michael Kanne (who is reportedly not fat).

This is especially bad news for Winston & Strawn. As some of you may recall, the firm reportedly blew $20 million on defending Governor Ryan, on a pro bono basis.

United States v. Ryan [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit]

The rail-thin Judge Richard Posner (7th Cir.), who favors grapefruit for dessert, has this to say about fat people over at his blog:

It makes sense, as the recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine finds, that friends' fatness would have an influence distinct from that of the culture as a whole....

In my own ingroup of 16 judges (11 active members of my court, 4 senior members, and 1 nominee, who will replace an active member who will be taking senior status), only 2 are overweight (12.5 percent), compared to a nationwide average of 66 percent. Among my other friends, judicial and otherwise, the percentage who are overweight is probably no greater than 12.5 percent.

When we read this, we guessed that one of the two overweight judges was Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook. After all, a fondness for Arby's Melts is not a recipe for thinness. But one ex-Seventh Circuit clerk we contacted disagreed:

Actually, Easterbrook has lost a lot of weight. I am not sure who [Posner] meant. Also query whether he used the rigorous BMI > 25 test.

Good point. Did Judge Posner run around the Dirksen Courthouse with a pair of body-fat calipers? Or did he just eyeball his colleagues in the robing room, to see who was sporting muffin tops?

To Seventh Circuit groupies: Which judges are packing a few extra pounds underneath their robes? Please enlighten us, in the comments. Thanks.

Social Obesity -- Posner's Comment [The Becker-Posner Blog]

Not allowing the defendant to allocute before pronouncing sentence is a rookie mistake for a judge to make. So if a judge makes it, despite having been on the bench for over 25 years, he can expect to get benchslapped. From a Wisconsin reader:

Not sure if this is quite up your alley, but Federal District Judge John Shabaz got bench-slapped pretty hard by the Seventh Circuit in an opinion that came down today.

He's like a million years old and is best known around here for falling asleep during trials and objecting himself and sustaining his own objections. We've decided not to get really worried until he starts overruling himself.

Well, as long as a former clerk doesn't write a tell-all memoir, Judge Shabaz should be just fine.

Wherrrreeee's Johnny [Seriatim]
United States v. Luepke (PDF) [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit]
John C. Shabaz bio [FJC]

What do you get when you put the three smartest judges on the Seventh Circuit -- Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner, and Diane Wood -- on the same panel?

In this case, something weird. Very weird. It's amusing to imagine this trio of legal geniuses wrapping their minds around such a bizarre fact pattern.

Questions Presented:

(1) How can you tell when a gay co-worker is cruising you at the urinals?

(2) Is he checking you out -- or does he just have a lazy eye?

For more details, check out Keeping Up With Jonas.

Gay Guy Harasses Straight Co-Worker at Urinal? [Keeping Up With Jonas]
Bernier v. Morningstar, Inc. [Keeping Up With Jonas (PDF)]

* A hilarious read if you've been there, even if I tell you that the punchline is that this 70-year-old rich lawyer dude with 40-year-old sheets now has a 22-year-old Russian girlfriend. [New York Times]

* I think I heard a colleague at one of my first jobs say he wanted to f*&k me like an animal. It was a good thing I didn't find any cause of action, because it turns out it was just that Nine Inch Nails song playing in his cubicle. [Workplace Prof Blog]

* You are actually a day older than you think, a fact hopefully irrelevant to ATL readers. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Groupies are much less trouble. [MSN Music]

A quick follow-up to yesterday's post about Judge Richard Posner's opinion in the "Giftes" free speech T-shirt case.

Thanks to the commenter who brought the two drawings in the opinion exhibits to our attention. We reprint them after the jump. And we look forward to seeing them in the august pages of the Federal Reporter.

A detailed excerpt, plus a link to the full opinion, can be accessed here (via How Appealing). Money quote:

[T]he picture and the few words imprinted on the Brandt T-shirt are no more expressive of an idea or opinion that the First Amendment might be thought to protect than a young child's talentless infantile drawing which Brandt's design successfully mimics. Otherwise every T-shirt that was not all white with no design or words... would be protected by the First Amendment, and schools could not impose dress codes or require uniforms without violating the free speech of the students, a proposition sensibly rejected in the Blau case.

"[T]alentless infantile drawing"? Judge Posner, that was way harsh.

You had to rule against the plaintiffs based on the caselaw; fine. But did you really have to insult their artistic abilities? Kids are like district judges: their feelings are easily hurt.

(If you're not familiar with this bizarre but amusing litigation, read our earlier post, available here.)

Rulings of Note from the Seventh Circuit [How Appealing]

Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: Gifties v. Tards

* Dahlia Lithwick on SCOTUS and the death penalty. [Slate]

* A panel of the Seventh Circuit is made up entirely of Sixth Circuit judges sitting by designation. Of course, recusal seems to make sense when the defendant plotted to attack the Seventh Circuit's courthouse. [How Appealing]

* Novak testifies: he got the info from Armitage and Rove. [CNN]

* Pay the judges! [WSJ Law Blog]

* I've my got my mind on my merger and my merger's on my mind. [Law.com]

Here's an interesting appeal that was recently argued before the Seventh Circuit. From the Chicago Sun-Times (via Ted Frank):

Four years ago, the "Gifties" of Beaubien School lost in the principal's office. Then, this class of gifted eighth-grade students lost in U.S. district court.

Undeterred, Thursday the group went before one of the highest courts of the land, arguing their principal violated First Amendment free speech rights when he punished them for wearing T-shirts with the word "Gifties" on them.

"There's a certain point when you have to stick up for your rights," said Michael Brandt, one of 24 gifted students who sued their principal and the Chicago Board of Education. His mother, Irene Dymkar, is representing the students in the class action lawsuit.

At oral argument, Judge Richard Posner sounded unsympathetic to their cause:

"Why do people bring lawsuits for such trivialities?" Judge Richard Posner, a notoriously tough jurist, asked Dymkar during a three-judge hearing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Thursday. "Have they been harmed, these 'Gifties'?"

Chicago Public Schools lawyers say Kotis was protecting the kids from possible attacks by regular education students. They argue there were tensions between the groups and Kotis had outlawed the word "gifties," as well as "tards," used to refer to regular education students....

The gifted students claim there was no safety issue.

We admire the appellants' chutzpah. It takes guts to label your classmates "tards."

But we question their assertion that there was no safety issue. They might as well have worn T-shirts reading, "I'm a nerd. Please beat the crap out of me."

Kids pit principle vs. their principal [Chicago Sun-Times via Overlawyered]
T-shirt battle before Seventh Circuit [Overlawyered]

As previously mentioned, we're on a reduced publication schedule this week. We'll be doing a daily news round-up (and maybe a few other random posts here and there). We'll return to our normal diarrhea of the keyboard publishing schedule on January 2.

* Civil libertarians, just raise the white flag. The Justice Department knows what you're doing RIGHT NOW. [Washington Post]

* His father always knew there was "something special" about Judge Frank Easterbrook. And litigants who have appeared before FHE feel the same way. [Buffalo News via How Appealing (of course -- no offense, but we aren't regular readers of the Buffalo News)]

* In other Seventh Circuit news, Judge Richard Posner delivers remarks about maritime law to an audience of supermodels. We swear we're not making this up. [Washington Post]

* Following up on our prior report, here's a clear sign that Chadbourne & Parke partners don't have enough business. [WSJ Law Blog]

* If McDonald's french fries never taste the same, blame it on the anti-trans-fat legislation. [UPI]

* Complications of diabetes: not just medical, but law-related, too. [New York Times]

* If you're a judge with unfulfilled literary aspirations, try writing something safe and non-controversial. Ideally it should be something nobody would want to read. We suggest a pop-up book about the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch via How Appealing]

* Even more fun than charades: take Peter Lattman to a party, start reading out random newspaper headlines, and challenge him to find a legal angle to the stories. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The feds and the ACLU wrangle over a classified document. Is such use of the grand jury subpoena creative, or improper? [New York Times]

* A Swift (& Co.) crackdown: federal raids on meatpacking plants in six states result in over 1,200 arrests on immigration charges. [Associated Press]

* MoveOn and those Swift Boat Veterans get fined. [New York Times]

* "Seventh Circuit reinstates claim asserting that ... members of the plaintiff classes have bought products or services from some of the defendants that they would not have bought had the defendants not concealed their involvement in slavery." [How Appealing]

* Girls Gone Wild guy gets community service for filming underage women. [MSNBC]

* "College Student Gets Mother-in-Law to Co-Sign $10,000 Loan to Buy Apple Computer, Has $7,800 DOI Income When He Repays Only $2,200 After Taking High-Paying Job at Microsoft." [TaxProf Blog]

* A British police inquiry rejects conspiracy theories concerning the death of Princess Diana, concluding that the 1997 car crash was a "tragic accident." [Associated Press]

* Does anyone know if "ABV D LAW" is taken? [WSJ Law Blog]

* It's all about the benjamins, baby. Bonus season is upon us. And we're standing by to broadcast every move. So please email us with any news, rumors, and leaked memos about bonuses.

* Truthful tips are especially welcome. Look for the first wave of bonus announcements in the coming week.

* And check out the most anal retention letter ever.

* In non-Biglaw developments, it was a busy week for the Supreme Court. They heard all about EPA regulatory discretion, the Federal Circuit's recondite jurisprudence, and other fun topics.

* On tap for the SCOTUS: Ken Starr and a bizarrely fascinating case. It's like Bill 'n Monica, all over again. But is it sexy enough for same-day audio-cast? Probably not.

* Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the imminent Democratic takeover is already being felt at the Senate Judiciary Committee. The big white-collar shops are eagerly anticipating lots of new business.

* Speaking of elections, please cast your vote for November 2006 Couple of the Month. And if you're an NYU Law School student, please forward us the results of voting in the 3L hottie contest.

* In federal appellate judge news, Judge Morris Arnold is recovering nicely, Judge Richard Posner is getting testy, and Judge Frank Easterbrook is now Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook.

* And over in the district court, Judge Lee Rosenthal (S.D. Tex.) is probably out of the running for a promotion to the Fifth Circuit (despite being very highly regarded).

* Finally, in state court land, some judges are getting a little big for their britches robes. They're mouthing off, railing against immigrants, and making spectacles of themselves. Pipe down, Your Honors, and stay out of trouble.

Because this distinguished and brilliant jurist seems rather grumpy as of late. Last week, in a published opinion, he slapped around the IRS.

And now Judge Richard Posner -- who, by the way, will be assuming virtual form later this month -- delivers stinging benchslaps to lawyers for playing fast and loose with jurisdiction:

[T]he lawyers have wasted our time as well as their own and (depending on the fee arrangements) their clients' money. We have been plagued by the carelessness of a number of the lawyers practicing before the courts of this circuit with regard to the required contents of jurisdictional statements in diversity cases.

It is time, as we noted in BondPro, that this malpractice stopped. We direct the parties to show cause within 10 days why counsel should not be sanctioned for violating Rule 28(a)(1) and mistaking the requirements of diversity jurisdiction. We ask them to consider specifically the appropriateness, as a sanction, of their being compelled to attend a continuing legal education class in federal jurisdiction.

Ouch. But query whether forced attendance at a CLE class on federal jurisdiction constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment.

Continued commentary, after the jump.

Back in September, we reported that Judge Frank Easterbrook -- "a veritable judicial hottie, a possible SCOTUS nominee, and brother of well-known author and ESPN.com commentator Gregg Easterbrook" -- would be taking over in November as the chief judge of the Seventh Circuit.

The passing of the torch has now come to pass. From a tipster:

Judge Frank H. Easterbrook (your favorite judicial bear hottie) assumed the mantle of Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit on Monday, November 27.

Judge Joel Flaum turned 70 over the weekend. Under 28 U.S.C. 45(a)(3)(C), he was forced to step down as chief judge.

There was a nice little party in the main courtroom for employees of the court. Cake even!

How lovely! But we think that Chief Judge Easterbrook might have preferred an Arby's Melt.

28 U.S.C. § 45: Chief Judges [Cornell Law School / Legal Information Institute]

Earlier: All Hail the Chief: Judge Frank Easterbrook

Few things make us happier than when judges administer benchslaps to either colleagues or litigants. When the judicial power of the United States is deployed to diss, the result is fun for the whole family.

Heck, bench-slaps can even make tax law enjoyable! If you doubt this proposition, check out Judge Posner's recent opinion in Kohler Co. v. United States (PDF).

Here are a few excerpts. We've pulled them out of context, and we won't bother to get into the complex facts of the case; but the benchslappery is still evident:

"How to choose between adversaries’ valuations when both are manifestly erroneous?"

"[The IRS's effort] to prove that the pesos were indeed worth $19.5 million fell pathetically short of the mark...."

"[C]linging stubbornly to its untenable valuation, [the IRS] suggested no alternative to $19.5 million. It played all or nothing, lost all, so gets nothing."

Way harsh -- but at the same time, direct and matter-of-fact. The straightforward nature of Posnerian benchslaps is what makes them so elegant, effortless, and enjoyable.

This latest benchslap from Judge Posner calls to mind our prior observations about his writing style:

The Posnerian prose style is wonderfully dry, and Judge Posner's amazing writerly feat is his generation of delight from desiccation. The Giant Hedgehog doesn't laugh at his own jokes, which just makes them funnier. And when he cuts you down, with a clean slice of his linguistic lightsaber, his face bears no expression. It's all done with a clinical elegance; disdain is a dish best served cold. Magnificent!

With most judges, you can see the benchslap coming a mile away. They take forever to wind up that slapping arm, and when they make contact with their target, you can hear the "whack" for miles. With Judge Posner, in contrast, you're benchslapped before you even REALIZE you've been benchslapped.

This makes perfect sense. Why? Judge Posner's hand is too good for your face. And the national treasure known as the Posnerian Brain shouldn't be wasted on benchslappery, since it really could be put to more productive use.

Like having electrodes hooked up to it, so we can finally end America's dependence upon foreign oil.

Kohler Co. v. United States [Seventh Circuit (PDF) via How Appealing]
Posner Slams IRS's "Pathetic" Position in Mexican Debt-Equity Swap Case [TaxProf Blog]
The Hilarious Hedgehog: Judge Richard Posner [Underneath Their Robes]

Via How Appealing, we learn of the Seventh Circuit's opinion in Piggee v. Carl Sandburg College (pdf). The opinion, authored by liberal judicial hottie Diane P. Wood, begins as follows:

In September 2002, Martha Louise Piggee, who was then a part-time instructor of cosmetology at Carl Sandburg College, gave a gay student two religious pamphlets on the sinfulness of homosexuality. The student was offended and complained to college officials. After the college looked into the matter, it found that Piggee had sexually harassed the student. It admonished her in a letter to cease such behavior, and the following semester it chose not to retain her.

Thereafter, Piggee filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the college, the members of its board of trustees, and various college administrators (including one person who directed the mortuary science program, whose offense was to clean out Piggee’s refrigerator and throw away her noodles at some point during the spring of 2003) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Question Presented: Can throwing away someone's old noodles constitute a civil rights violation?
Answer: No, unless they're cold sesame noodles. Those things are like crack!

It's also worth noting that Ms. Piggee -- no, we won't make the Muppets joke -- is an instructor in COSMETOLOGY. If she has something against gay people, she sure picked the wrong field.

More excerpts from this delightful opinion, after the jump.

In November, Judge Frank Easterbrook will take over from Joel M. Flaum as Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit. Judge Easterbrook, of course, is a judicial celebrity of the first order: a veritable judicial hottie, a possible SCOTUS nominee, and brother of well-known author and ESPN.com commentator Gregg Easterbrook.

At 57, Judge Easterbrook is still pretty young by judicial standards. But he's been on the bench for over two decades, since 1985. During that time, he's developed a reputation as one tough customer. Attorneys who have appeared before Judge Easterbrook say that he doesn't suffer fools gladly -- and he admits as much himself:

"I sometimes have a reputation for being undiplomatic, but I like to think it's only when I choose to be undiplomatic," Easterbrook said. "Sometimes it's my preference to be blunt because I think that's the only way I can get lawyers moving correctly."

So yes, an oral argument before Judge Easterbrook is no walk in the park. But we have some advice for lawyers appearing before him -- his Achilles’ heel, if you will.

A fun and little-known fact about Judge Easterbrook: he likes to eat at Arby's. So if you're arguing before him and filled with dread, stash an Arby's Melt in your briefcase. If the going gets rough, and Judge Easterbrook has you between a rock and a hard place -- for example, on the verge of conceding your entire case -- take out the sandwich and ask: "May I approach the bench? I have an Arby's Melt for you, Your Honor. Yum yum!!!"

Exacting Easterbrook to Be Chief of 7th Circuit [Legal Times via How Appealing]