We first heard about this months ago — back in September, from another speaker at the Lavender Law conference. We didn’t mention it at the time, though, since we’re not that comfortable outing people.

But now that the cat has been let out of the bag — or closet, as the case may be — by the mainstream media, let’s… go there. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.

Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise — or advertise — his orientation.

Shocking? Not exactly. Judge Walker is a professionally successful white male, with great job security and a six-figure income, who’s in his sixties — and has never been married. A confirmed bachelor, if you will. Who lives in San Francisco. Umm, yeah.

(On the other hand, we hear His Honor’s favorite drink is a Maker’s Mark Manhattan — a fairly butch beverage, despite the maraschino cherry. We’ll stick with our cosmos, thank you very much.)

So this brings us to the question that Ashby Jones posed over at the WSJ Law Blog earlier today: If Judge Walker is gay, what should we make of that fact?

Judge G. Thomas Porteous (E.D. La.), the only Judge of the Day Hall of Fame honoree who is still actually a judge, may soon join Edward Nottingham, Samuel Kent and Elizabeth Halverson as a former judge.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

The House Judiciary Committee today unanimously approved four articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous. The panel, consisting of 23 Democrats and 16 Republicans, sent the articles to the full House of Representatives.

A vote by a majority of the 435-member House to impeach Porteous, 63, would result in a Senate trial on whether to remove the New Orleans judge, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, from office. It takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate to remove a judge from what otherwise is a lifetime appointment.

So what were the impeachment articles based on?

A disclaimer: we’re not sure how we feel about Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal constitutional challenge brought by superlawyers Ted Olson and David Boies to Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. We are somewhat sympathetic to Jonathan Adler’s position: gay marriage makes perfect sense as a policy matter, but the constitutional case is less clear. (We suspect that Elie may be more supportive of the Perry litigation and its ultimate objective; see here.)

We do know, however, how we feel about cameras in the courtroom: we are strongly in favor of them. For more, see our Washington Post piece. The right to an open and public trial is guaranteed by the Constitution, and understanding what’s going on in our courts is a crucial part of democratic self-governance.

The standard for closing a courtroom to the public is very high, and justifiably so. We the People should be allowed to know — and to hear, and to see — what is transpiring within our courts. After all, these are our laws being interpreted, our rights being adjudicated, and our taxpayer dollars at work.

And in this age of videoconferencing, YouTube, blogging, and Twitter, the distinction between physical and virtual attendance of court proceedings is becoming increasingly artificial. If we can read reporter Dan Levine’s real-time tweets about the Prop 8 trial, or if we can read blog posts published during breaks about what just transpired in open court, why shouldn’t we be able to watch the proceedings ourselves, in livestreaming video? Or, if we can’t watch real-time video, why can’t we watch video posted online after the fact?

This is why we are so disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision to kill, at least for now, efforts to broadcast the Prop 8 trial. This is why we strongly support the efforts of Chief Judge Vaughn Walker (N.D. Cal.), who is presiding over the trial, and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (9th Cir.), who is spearheading a Ninth Circuit pilot project providing for cameras in the courtroom, to offer some wider broadcast of the proceedings (whether on YouTube, an official court website, or even just to federal courthouses outside San Francisco).

More discussion, plus a READER POLL, after the jump.

On Monday, November 16, we attended an interesting talk by Judge Gerard Lynch, formerly of the Southern District of New York and now on the Second Circuit. He spoke before the Regis Bar Association, a group of lawyers and law students who are graduates of our shared alma matter — Regis High School, an all-boys Catholic school run by the Jesuits, located here in New York.

As one would expect from a federal judge, especially one in a high-powered city like NYC, Judge Lynch has an amazing résumé. He graduated first in his class from Regis, first in his class from Columbia College (1972), and first in his class from Columbia Law School (1975). He clerked for Judge Wilfred Feinberg on the Second Circuit, followed by Justice William Brennan on the Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment to the district court in 2000, Judge Lynch was a law professor at Columbia, worked in private practice (at a firm that would later become part of Covington & Burling), and served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the legendary U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District.

In September, Judge Lynch was confirmed to the Second Circuit by a vote of 94-3. He was the first Obama appointee to be confirmed to a circuit court.

Judge Lynch began his remarks to the RBA by discussing his background. He explained that he came from working-class roots and was the first in his family to graduate from college. He also noted that government lawyers and judges don’t make very much money: “As a public servant, first-year associates at large law firms have generally made more than I have,” he observed, before adding: “Thanks to the recession, that’s changed.”

(A federal district judge, which Judge Lynch was until his recent elevation, earns $169,300 a year — a bit above the New York starting salary of $160,000. As a circuit judge, he now earns $179,500. If Judge Lynch were to become Justice Lynch — he is sometimes mentioned on Supreme Court shortlists, although being a 58-year-old white male doesn’t help — he would earn $208,100, as an associate justice. Despite many years earning a government salary, Judge Lynch has done well for himself; his financial disclosures reveal a net worth of $1.6 million, with zero debt.)

Judge Lynch described being a trial judge as “the greatest job you can have.” Find out why, after the jump.

We received this info last night, from several readers in attendance. One of them wrote:

For the patent nerds out there, including me, Chief Judge Paul R. Michel of the Federal Circuit is retiring effective May 31, 2010. Just personally announced it at the FCBA annual dinner. Sent his resignation letter to Obama this morning.

Why is Chief Judge Michel stepping down? Is it due to inadequate judicial pay?

Apparently not, according to our source:

[H]e said he’s motivated to retire instead of moving to senior judge status because he hates the muzzle that comes with being an Article III judge. He wants to lobby. He feels pretty strongly that certain parts of the pending patent reform act are outrageous.

Read more at Patently-O and the BLT (links below).

Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel Announces that he is Leaving the Bench [Patently-O]
Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel Announces Retirement [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]

What’s your Halloween costume this year? A slutty nurse? A creepy Notre Dame 1L? Or something far more scary — maybe Bob from Human Resources, the Grim Reaper who takes your Biglaw job away?

This year we decided to dress up as Judge Denny Chin (S.D.N.Y.), recently nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. If you’re a criminal, Judge Chin can be quite frightening — he sentenced Bernie Madoff to a whopping 150 years.

And where did we get the idea for our costume? ATL comments (see #2 and #17).

A slideshow of photos showing us in our Judge Chin costume, after the jump.

Tajudeen Oladiran is an Arizona attorney who is currently of counsel at Aguilera International Counsel. A Biglaw refugee, he spent a year at Greenberg Traurig, as well as a year working for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

Given those credentials, we were surprised that he would file one of the craziest motions we’ve come across here at Above The Law.

From the U.S. District Court of Arizona:

It is a motion in a case that Tajudeen Oladiran and his wife filed against Suntrust Bank for racketeering. We gather from the motion that Oladiran was not pleased with the ruling by “the Dishonorable Susan R. Bolton” (as she’s identified in the caption). Oladiran wrote: “I just read your Order and I am very disappointed in the fact that a brainless coward like you is a federal judge.”

A lesson on how not to address the court, after the jump.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is not really retired yet. “I am more busy in retirement than before,” she told Above the Law in a recent interview. One of her myriad projects is Our Courts, a non-profit organization that develops Web-based games to teach seventh- and eighth-graders about government. We spoke with Justice O’Connor recently for our piece for the Washington Post reviewing the games.

We had hoped to actually play the games with her, but it turns out she’s not much of a gamer. Not being the computer type, she hasn’t actually played the Web-based games herself. “I watched young people play it. They have a lot of fun. They’re actively engaged. I think it’s very exciting,” she told us.

Justice O’Connor has been touring the country to promote the games. She even stopped in to chat with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. We got to catch up with her via conference call last month. We rung her up at One First Street — like some retired Biglaw partners, retired SCOTUS justices get to keep an office. After her secretary connected us, Justice O’Connor answered the phone: “Sandra Day O’Connor.”

We discovered that O’Connor is adamant about bringing an end to the election of judges in America. Read more from our interview, after the jump.

Over the years, numerous proposals have been made to split the Ninth Circuit, the nation’s largest federal appeals court. There are certainly reasonable arguments to be made in favor of a split.

But regardless of the merits of a split, the careers of politicians who have backed these proposals seem to meet unfortunate ends. We’ve dubbed this effect the Ninth Circuit Curse. Check out this list of victims.

Last Wednesday, Senator John Ensign (R-NV) introduced a bill to split the Ninth Circuit. The very next day, he wound up on the front page of the New York Times — for possible ethics violations. Coincidence?

Politicians, consider yourselves warned: mess with the Ninth Circuit at your peril.

Senator’s Aid After Affair Raises Flags Over Ethics [New York Times]
Senate Ethics Committee investigating Ensign [Political Ticker / CNN]

Earlier: The Ninth Circuit Curse
The Ninth Circuit Curse Strikes Again

Last week, we wrote about federal judge Stephen Larson’s decision to step down from the bench because of unrequited salary longings. He said his salary of $169,300 was not enough to support his family. We’re skeptical of a six-figure salary not being enough to support a family, but Larson does have seven kids and lives in Los Angeles, so it may not be entirely ridiculous.

Plus, his salary would be much more likely to keep pace with seven future college tuition bills if he were making the big bucks as a Biglaw partner. His resignation led us to ask if judges really are underpaid. We threw the question to you via a poll. ATL readers were torn: 52% of voters said judges are underpaid, while 48% of voters said they’re not underpaid.

Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog weighed in on judicial pay (and recounted a story about how a judge screwed him over when he was a law student interviewing for clerkships). Jones points out:

[I]t’s unreasonable, in all likelihood, to expect that federal judges should make what the average BigLaw partner makes. But it also strikes me as unfortunate that the federal bench should lose Larson, who presided over the recent dispute between Mattel and MGA Entertainment over the rights to the Bratz doll (and, incidentally, a judge I’ve heard to be exceptionally hard-working) over financial issues.

If judges were to make more, how much are we talking? The SCOTUS justices make just over $200,000, with John Roberts raking in $217,400. Should all judges be making that much? It is public service — are the rewards of respect and being called “your honor” enough to make up for the salary shortfall?

It’s the afternoon of Thursday, September 17. Do you know where your clerkship is?

Today is the first day, pursuant to the Law Clerk Hiring Plan for 2009 — which some judges follow, and some don’t — when interviews may be held and offers made. The plan even specifies a time of day for interviews and offers to begin — “8.00 a.m. (EDT)” — perhaps because, in years past, some judges brought applicants in for midnight meetings.

Relive the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, perhaps by (anonymously) disclosing your credentials and the clerkship(s) you got (or didn’t get), in the comments to this open thread.

Law Clerk Addict
Clerkship Notification Blog: 2010-11 Clerkship Season
THE LAW CLERK HIRING PLAN FOR 2009 [Federal Judges Law Clerk Hiring Plan]
About OSCAR [Online System for Clerkship Application & Review]

Earlier: Clerkship Application Season: Clear The Phones
Clerkship Application Season: Open Thread

Federal judges have been complaining about their salaries for years now, but all they’ve managed to get recently is a small cost of living increase.

Federal judge Stephen Larson of the Central District of California is taking a stand on the issue — by quitting. From the National Law Journal:

U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson of the Los Angeles-based Central District of California said in a prepared statement on Sept. 15 that the failure by Congress to increase judicial salaries made it impossible to support his seven children, all under age 18.

“The costs associated with raising our family are increasing significantly, while our salary remains stagnant and, in terms of purchasing power, is actually declining,” he said. “The short of it is that I know I must place my family’s interest, particularly the future of my children, ahead of my own fervent desire to remain a federal judge.”

We can see where he’s coming from. Larson, 44, hasn’t seen big(law) money since 1991, when he was a second-year associate at O’Melveny & Myers. Since then he’s been in public service, as an assistant U.S. attorney and a judge.

We have so many questions!

Finally, we wonder: are federal judges underpaid? Find out how much judges make, and vote in our poll as to whether they’re underpaid, after the jump.

The current New Yorker has an interesting piece by Jeffrey Toobin on President Obama’s judicial picks. Toobin took part in a live chat about the piece at NewYorker.com right now earlier today if you’re interested. (Try not to crash their website.).

UPDATE: The chat’s quite interesting. Toobin reveals why he likes Justice Souter best and answers this young wannabe judge’s question:

11:31 Guest: I’m a 25 year old law student, I want to be a judge, and my roommate smokes pot. How worried should I be? Do you think people will still care when I’m older?

11:32 Jeffrey Toobin: Don’t inhale! I’m kidding. I don’t think it will make a bit of difference. Our president has more or less admitted he was a pretty big pothead in his day, and it’s been a non-issue. Certainly the fact that your roommate smokes — not you — is irrelevant.

Toobin’s piece is available online to non-subscribers here. If you don’t feel like clicking through seven pages, here’s the ATL reader’s digest version:

Apologies for not getting to this story earlier. Sometimes things fall through the cracks around here. (We were offline for much of Thursday and Friday, attending Lavender Law.)

Last week, a federal magistrate judge questioned the propriety of the U.S. Attorney’s Office moving to dismiss a marijuana possession charge against Andrew Sullivan. Yes, that Andrew Sullivan — the noted political pundit, author, and blogger (and proponent of marijuana legalization).

Judge Collings issued his saucy opinion (PDF) on Thursday. Later that day, the story was broken by The Docket. The case has also been covered by Gawker, Wonkette, and the WSJ Law Blog, among other outlets (links collected below).

So we won’t rehash what you’ve probably already read. But feel free to take our reader poll and to discuss the case in the comments.

Judge angered by special treatment for Andrew Sullivan [The Docket / MLW]
United States v. Sullivan [PDF] [U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts]
Andrew Sullivan’s Federal Pot Favors [Gawker]
Friendly D.A. Saves Andrew Sullivan From Life Sentence In Gitmo, For Smoking Marijuana [Wonkette]
On Marijuana, a Famous Blogger, and One Skeptical Judge [WSJ Law Blog]

A couple of days ago, we heralded the start of clerkship application season. Given the weakness in the legal economy, there should be a lot of people trying to snag a clerkship offer this year.

Today is the day that judges can start calling around and setting up interviews. A tipster reports:

Per the hiring plan, judges can start calling to extend interviews at 10 a.m. today. Thousands of 3Ls across the country are doubtless waiting anxiously by their phones. The whole process obviously will be agonizing …

Who is making calls? Share your boasts and fears in the comments.

Earlier: Clerkship Application Season: Open Thread

Once everyone gets back from Labor Day weekend, the craziness known as the clerkship application process will begin. This coming Tuesday is the first date when applications may be received, according to the 2009 Law Clerk Hiring Plan (followed by many but not all federal judges).

It’s become pretty standard to advise law students and lawyers dealing with the awful legal job market to consider clerking. As Harvard Law School told its students, earlier this year:

One option we would like to highlight is a judicial clerkship, which conveniently tends to be for one year, is valued by the full spectrum of legal employers, and is a fantastic job in itself…. Be sure to consider all types of clerkship opportunities, including those at state and specialty courts, because the competition is likely to be fierce this season.

Indeed. This will probably be the most competitive clerkship season in a decade (or longer). Landing a clerkship is easier said than done.

Update: As reported by U.S. News & World Report (via the ABA Journal), some law schools are better than others at sending their graduates into clerkships. The top three: (1) Yale, (2) the University of North Dakota, and (3) Stanford. Check out the full list over here.

Correction: Whoops. It seems that some of that clerkship info is wrong.

It’s not just feeder judge clerkships, or circuit court clerkships, or district court clerkships in hot districts that are tough to land. These days, even district clerkships in so-called “flyover country” require great credentials.

Discussion of hiring standards and timetables, after the jump.

We’ve written before about Hal Turner, the infamous internet radio host who has been charged with threatening three federal judges. This week brings new information about him, from Wired:

A notorious New Jersey hate blogger charged in June with threatening to kill judges and lawmakers was secretly an FBI “agent provocateur” paid to disseminate right-wing rhetoric, his attorney said Wednesday.

Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.

But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate “without crossing the line,” according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.

Unfortunately for him, Turner can’t blame the FBI for the comments that got him in trouble with the law. His claimed involvement with the Bureau ended in 2007, and his alleged threats against the Seventh Circuit judges were made in 2009.

More discussion about Turner’s case — plus comment from one of the threatened jurists, Judge Richard Posner — after the jump.

When Justice Sonia Sotomayor needs to work off all the rice, beans and pork she’s consumed, she hits the gym.

Alas, it appears that Her Honor’s Equinox gym membership was canceled, after she apparently refused to show identification when trying to enter the premises. We’re with Justice Sotomayor on this: she’s a frickin’ federal judge, the closest thing this nation has to an aristocracy. Showing ID is for little people!

Sure, Barack Obama showed his birth certificate identification when he visited Equinox health clubs during the campaign. But he’s Article II — ick, having to run for election, how déclassé — and Justice Sotomayor is Article III, fabulous and life-tenured.

Luckily, the SCOTUS has its own gym — replete with a basketball court, aka “the highest court in the land.” And Justice Sotomayor won’t have to worry about being recognized at One First Street (where even the law clerks are recognized on sight by the Supreme Court police).

Sotomayor v. Equinox Fitness: The Case of the Canceled Membership [New York magazine]

(Gavel bang: commenter.)

Greetings from the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. We’ve been having a great time schmoozing with federal judicial celebrities, here in lovely (but surprisingly chilly) Monterey.

Yesterday we participated in an excellent panel discussion about the future of journalism, together with some boldface names: Linda Greenhouse (moderator), former Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times; Nina Totenberg, of NPR; Judge Robert Lasnik, chief judge of the Western District of Washington; and Hal Fuson, Executive Vice President, Copley Press. We got to play the role of blogger-barbarian at the gate, which was fun.

We’ve also enjoyed attending the excellent educational programs and speeches. Two of the early highlights: a review of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recently completed Term, by the noted constitutional law scholar and former Stanford Law School dean, Kathleen Sullivan (top right); and a speech by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (center right). We got to meet both Dean Sullivan and Secretary Napolitano — both of them possible Supreme Court nominees, both of them fabulous — and it was thrilling.

(We even got Secretary Napolitano’s business card. Who knew that Cabinet members got business cards? Does President Obama have a business card?)

We were planning to write up both of these events, until we saw the excellent accounts of Articleman over at dagblog. We refer you to his delightful write-ups (links below).

The Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Dean Kathleen Sullivan Speaks on the Supreme Court [dagblog.com]
The Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Secretary Napolitano Speaks About Our Security [dagblog.com]

P.S. If you’d like to see our rough notes on Dean Sullivan’s SCOTUS round-up, click here to download (Word document). But these notes are very rough, not converted to polished prose; you’re much better off with Articleman’s elegant summary.

Is it sexist to dissect the fashion choices of Judge Sonia Sotomayor during last week’s confirmation hearings? Probably. I don’t remember anybody asking what Sam Alito was trying to convey with his confirmation tie choices.

But Sotomayor was trying to convey something with her choices. We might as well take a look at what message she was trying to get across.

Click the link below for the full Fashionista analysis, by editor Abby Gardner, and reader comments (which you’re free supplement with your own two cents).

Dressing the Part [Fashionista]