Eyes of the Law

The Eyes of the Law: Leading Lawyers Chowing Down

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john roberts at cosi.JPGIn response to our request for legal celebrity sightings, you sent a few our way, which we now share in these pages.
But we know that you can do better. Next time you see a famous lawyer or well-known judge around town, please let us know, by email (subject line: “Sighting”).
Today’s sightings have a theme: FOOD. Prominent and Supreme Court justices have been spotted at the feeding trough. Great legal minds need the fuel of high-quality chow to propel them through their mountains of work.
Here are the sightings — all in Washington, DC, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting an attorney (hopefully not a personal-injury lawyer):

Last month, on a Sunday afternoon around 1:30, I saw Chief Justice John Roberts walking on Pennsylvania Ave. SE and 2nd St., towards the Library of Congress. He was wearing khakis and a blue polo shirt, with some kind of acronym on it, and carrying a Cosi bag and coffee.

It’s interesting to see that Chief Justice Roberts was hard at work on an August weekend (while his colleagues were frolicking around Europe, no doubt). Since Chief Justice Roberts lives out in Chevy Chase, Maryland, there would be little reason for him to be walking around in that neighborhood if he weren’t in chambers. And if he were doing some sightseeing in the area — like when he took a tour of the Folger Shakespeare Library back in July — one would expect him to be accompanied by his wife Jane and their two kids, Josie and Jack Roberts.
So we’re guessing that JGR was at work that day and just stepped out to grab a little lunch. And Cosi is a logical choice for the Chief: we know that he likes sandwiches for lunch, based on prior sightings of him at Au Bon Pain. (ATL to JGR: We recommend the Tuscan pesto chicken sandwich. It’s scrumptious!)
Chief Justice Roberts’s colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia, has somewhat less healthy eating habits. His weakness for pizza at AV Ristorante is well-known. But on a Friday this past summer, he was spotted in very different surroundings:

On a Friday earlier this summer, I spotted Justice Scalia and four young men (presumably his clerks) at Chinatown institution Full Kee. I was surprised to see him there, since I thought he was more partial to AV’s anchovy pizza. But he and his clerks had a nice spread of food out before them, and they seemed to be enjoying it. I didn’t get a good look at what they had, but one of the items appeared to be a beef dish of some sort — maybe beef with broccoli or sesame beef (couldn’t tell just from sight, and Nino didn’t invite me over for a taste).

Very interesting! We didn’t know that Justice Scalia was so fond of Chinese food. It would have surprised us less to spot him at the site of our next celeb spotting:

Former Solicitor General Ted Olson, and Federalist Society grand poobah Leonard Leo, were at Morton’s on Connecticut today [Friday, September 1]. Shocking, I know.

Olson was sitting underneath Leonard Leo’s photo, but Leo was in the next booth over. Both were wearing suits. No consumption details, alas.

Speaking of Ted Olson, today is his birthday (as we noted earlier). Above the Law wishes him all the best.
Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Legal Celebrity Sightings

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The Eyes of the Law: Legal Celebrity Sightings

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spyglass 2.jpgCelebrity sighting columns are a staple of gossip magazines and gossip blogs. E.g., Gawker Stalker, Wonk’d, Judicial Sightations. So, in this spirit, we proudly present The Eyes of the Law — your source for all the legal celebrity sightings that are fit to print (and a few that aren’t).
Since we don’t get out that much — we get an electrical shock if we stray ten feet from our keyboard — we need your help. We’ll need you to make the sightings and submit them to us, by email (subject line: “Sighting”). Then we’ll publish them on the internet, for all the world to enjoy. (We’ve already received a few; keep ‘em coming!)
A few tips and guidelines to help you in your celeb-spotting:

(1) When you make a sighting, please be as observant as possible. How was the person looking — hot, or not? What were they wearing? What kind of mood were they in? Were they alone, or with others?

(2) On a related note, digital photographs to support your sighting are especially welcome. A thousand words, etc.

(3) A true “sighting” requires seeing the personality outside of their natural habitat — and preferably doing something that one might not expect them to be doing. So sightings of federal judges in courthouses and law school deans in the halls of their schools don’t count. But we welcome sightings of judges or deans at, say, a baseball game — or, better yet, a nudie bar.

Here are the types of people who qualify as sighting subjects in our book:

(1) any federal judge (but we’re talking Article III here — no bankruptcy or magistrate judges, ick);

(2) any member of a state’s highest court;

(3) a state court judge from a lower court, but only if they’re notorious for doing the kinds of things that state court judges are known for doing (e.g., using a penis pump on the bench, facilitating the escape of a violent felon, etc.);

(4) famous practicing lawyers, like David Boies, Ted Olson, Mark Geragos, or Ben Brafman (if you have to explain who they are, they’re not famous);

(5) prominent law school deans, like current Yale dean Harold Koh, current Harvard dean Elena Kagan, and former Stanford dean Kathleen Sullivan;

(6) well-known law professors, like Laurence Tribe, Lawrence Lessig, Lani Guinier, or Anita Hill (no, your first-year legal writing instructor doesn’t count); and

(7) law-related television personalities, like Judge Judy Sheindlin, Nancy Grace, or Jeffrey Toobin.

This list is not exhaustive; we may have overlooked certain categories of legal eagles that we’d like you to spot. But it gives you a good idea of the kinds of people we’re interested in.
So enough idle chatter; get to it. Rustle up some juicy sightings, and submit them to us forthwith, by email. Much thanks!

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