Feeder Judges

Wherein Harvard Law School Hits Itself Over the Head With a Silly Stick

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Harvard Law School HLS seal logo.gifWe’ve always admired Harvard Law School. It struck us as a place of high seriousness. It didn’t succumb to the latest trends in legal education. It didn’t train philsopher-kings; it trained LAWYERS, dammit.
So what if its students were kinda miserable? They got the best, most rigorous legal education money could buy. In short, HLS was bad-ass.
But recent events call into question our veneration for Harvard Law School. The Law School seems to be getting squishy on us. They have revamped their 1L curriculum, to place greater emphasis on touchy-feely topics like “international law.” And now we learn this (from an HLS tipster):

HLS is considering renaming the sections, previously assigned numbers (Sections 1 through 7), with actual names. Just when I think people can’t get more ridiculous…

See attached PDF for a Student Government survey. I like how they would consider naming sections after prominent donors!

Here’s our favorite question from the survey:
Harvard Law School HLS sections 3.JPG
Our tipster suggested “porn stars, Care-Bears, and favorite sections of the MPC.”
Not bad; but we have two more ideas. Section names should facilitate healthy inter-section rivalry, as well as “trash talking.” Here are our suggestions:
1. Feeder Judges: You might as well name the sections after things HLS students actually care about. That’s why naming them after random dead alumni (see option F) is so stupid. Who wants to be in the “Jonathan Witherspoon IV Section”?
Naming sections after feeder judges makes much more sense. It lends itself well to assertions of team spirit:

“I’m in the Boudin section. Judge Boudin sent all of his clerks to the Court this Term. He rules!!!”

“I’m in the Kozinski section. He sent all his clerks to the Court too. And the Ninth Circuit is way cooler than the First Circuit — what a backwater!”

2. Celebrities With Legal Problems: The beauty of this section-naming scheme is that the category is continually expanding. The well never runs dry. And it’s terribly fun. Who wouldn’t want to be in the “O.J. Simpson Section” or the “Winona Ryder Section”?
Once again, there’s excellent trash-talking potential:

“We’re in the Michael Jackson Section. We’re the Kings of Pop — and of Torts!”

“Too bad you can’t keep your hands off teenage boys. We’re the Anna Nicole Smith section. Sure, we sleep around. But at least the people we sleep with have undergone puberty!”

If you’d like to see the HLS Student Government survey, we reprint it in full after the jump.

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Morning Docket: 02.13.07

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* 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]

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ATL Week in Review: January 8 – 12

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Donald Stout house Blackbery RIM NTP NPT.JPG* Over at the Justice Department, the bad-ass Shanetta Cutlar, Chief of the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division, takes no prisoners.
* Not even summer interns can escape her wrath.
* But hey, at least they get to go back to school. Full-time attorneys can escape only by leaving the Section — provided that Shanetta doesn’t get to them first.
* Speaking of job changes, meet your new White House counsel: Fred Fielding, of Wiley Rein & Fielding (who served as White House counsel under President Reagan).
* Next time you go out for pizza, leave the corporate lawyers at home.
* Pentagon official Charles Stimson doesn’t like how Guantanamo Bay detainees are getting pro bono representation from some of the country’s top law firms. Don’t they have better things to be doing with their pro bono time?
* Michael Nifong manages a Houdini-like escape from the debacle known as the Duke lacrosse team rape case.
* Celebrity law professors Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk, whom you have just dubbed Feldsuk, have a really nice house.
* But not as nice as the $7 million mansion of patent lawyer Donald Stout (aerial view at right).
* Federal judicial nominees: Out with the old, in with the new.
* Chief Judge Michael Boudin (1st Cir.): You like him, you really like him.
* Maybe it’s because he’s such a big feeder judge. Interestingly enough, though, he has only placed one clerk so far at the Supreme Court for October Term 2007.*
(But Chief Judge Boudin feeds mostly to Justice Breyer and Justice Souter. The former isn’t finished hiring yet, and the latter hasn’t even started.)

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The Eyes of the Law: Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Investiture

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Last week, an investiture ceremony was held for Judge Neil Gorsuch, recently confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. And it was a star-studded affair. From the Denver Post:

Seven-year-old Emma and 5-year-old Belinda helped their father, Neil Gorsuch, into his judge’s robes Monday after the newly appointed 10th Circuit Court judge was sworn in.

Munching on cookies after the formal ceremony, Emma said she thought it “was nice.”

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who was in Denver to administer the oath, spoke directly to the little girls before Gorsuch raised his right hand. “He’s doing it to remind all of us that the first obligation any American has is to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States,” he said.

Justice Kennedy’s pedagogical impulse is admirable. We suspect, however, that Emma and Belinda were thinking more about cookies than the Constitution.
Some supplementary coverage, from an ATL tipster:

The entire en banc 10th Circuit was present. Justice Kennedy administered the oath. Attorney General Gonzales read the commission. Both Colorado Senators made remarks, as did Mark Hansen of Kellogg Huber (the insanely prestigious appellate shop from which Gorsuch rose). Half of the Justice Department was there: Rachel Brand, Elisebeth Collins Cook, Brett Gerry, Wan Kim, Gregory Katsas, among others.

The Gorsuch clerks showed everyone around Denver and got trashed on consecutive nights. Good times were had by all.

Article III groupies, Judge Neil Gorsuch is one to watch. He’s brilliant, he’s young, and he’s incredibly well-connected. Look for him to rise through the ranks of Supreme Court feeder judges in the years to come — and, perhaps, to be nominated to the Court himself someday.
(Judge Gorsuch is taking the seat of Judge David Ebel, who has been the Tenth Circuit’s resident feeder judge for quite some time now. Guess that’s the 10th Circuit’s designated “feeder seat.”)
Update: Would someone be able to locate and/or send us a good photo of Judge Gorsuch for our files? Our quick Googling didn’t produce anything useful.
10th Circuit judge’s oath a family affair [Denver Post]

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The Eyes of the Law: Judge Williams’s Portrait Ceremony

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stephen williams stephen f williams steven williams judge.jpgIf you, like us, find Supreme Court justice sightings more thrilling than Brangelina spottings, you would have died from excitement at the portrait ceremony for Judge Stephen F. Williams.
Judge Williams is the brilliant former law professor who now sits on the venerated D.C. Circuit. Back in the day, before he assumed senior status, Stephen Williams was one of the biggest feeder judges in Christendom. He fed huge numbers of his clerks into Supreme Court clerkships, with an impressively broad spectrum of justices.
The Williams portrait ceremony was held last Friday. Stuart Buck, a former Williams clerk, offers a detailed report. Here is an excerpt:

Portrait ceremonies are evidently a big deal: I’d never been to one before, but it was probably the most legal talent that I’ve ever seen in one room. The entire D.C. Circuit was there, as were six members of the Supreme Court (all except Souter, Kennedy, and Alito).

There was a person I didn’t recognize sitting between Justices Stevens and Thomas. Judge Laurence Silberman later said in conversation that it was Judge Louis Oberdorfer — a long-time and highly respected district court judge who has to be in his late eighties now. [Ed. note: Judge Oberdorfer was also a feeder judge in his time -- especially impressive given that he's "only" a district court judge.]

Now THAT is an impressive line-up. It’s the federal judicial equivalent of Ed Limato’s Oscar pre-party, a more star-studded event than the Lori Alvino / Matt McGill wedding — and maybe even than the Ted Olson / Lady Booth wedding. (That second comparison turns on how much weight you assign to SCOTUS justices as opposed to other legal luminaries.)
Anyone have pictures from the ceremony? If so, we’d love to see them. You know how we love pictures.
And while we’re on the subject of judicial celebrity sightings, a quick follow-up to our item yesterday about Justice Alito swearing in his former clerk, Alex Acosta, as U.S. Attorney in Miami. David Oscar Markus has a firsthand account of the event, which you can check out at the S.D. Fla. Blog.
Judge Williams’ Portrait [The Buck Stops Here]*
Acosta Sworn In [Southern District of Florida Blog]
Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Justice Alito Hits South Beach
Lady and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Wedding Photos That Rock
The Eyes of the Law: Ted Olson’s Star-Studded Nuptials
The Eyes of the Law: Wedding Crashers
* The “s” after “Williams’” is missing in the original. Our views on this dispute are set forth here.

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