Back in May, Jeffrey Toobin wrote a rather harsh appraisal of Chief Justice John Roberts. The title of Toobin’s New Yorker piece: No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Based on a recent celebrity sighting of Chief Justice Roberts, however, JGR still seems like a pretty nice guy. The sighting took place here in New York, and it was, interestingly enough, made by a fellow celebrity: Gay Talese, the critically acclaimed, bestselling author.

Visit the NYT’s City Room blog (via WSJ Law Blog) to read about Talese’s encounter with JGR, then come back.

Okay, are you back? Wasn’t that an awesome story? Doesn’t Chief Justice Roberts sound like a prince of a man?

Random medical commentary from a reader, after the jump.

Don’t you love it when the Supreme Court of the United States makes a concerted effort to avoid constitutional issues? Today, Chief Justice John Roberts got seven other justices together in a truly remarkable display of ignoring an elephant in the room. The WSJ Law Blog reports:

It’s in the waning days of June that the Supreme Court winds up its business for the term, typically with its most high-profile decisions. Today, one such decision was handed down from on high — the case known as Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder.

At issue in the case was the constitutionality of section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires governments in so-called “covered” jurisdictions — state and local governments in areas that once practiced discrimination — to “preclear” changes in election procedures with the Justice Department to ensure that minority voters are protected….

Supreme Court followers and commentators had expected a narrow ruling in the case, with the constitutionality of section 5 possibly turning on the vote of Justice Kennedy. But the Court threw everyone a curve-ball, ruling 8-1 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts that drew a narrower path — keeping Section 5 in place, but allowing the “covered” jurisdiction at issue — a utility district in Austin, Texas — to apply for exemption from the law.

After the jump, SCOTUSblog tells us that by avoiding the constitutional issue, the Court has put Congress on notice that it needs to get off of its ass if it expects section 5 to survive much longer.

* Struggling to compete for business in a shrinking market, law firms are hiring image and marketing consultants to improve their chances—one Philadelphia-based image consultant even tells them how to dress for the courtroom. Lay-off problem solved—apparently all you need is a makeover. [The Wall Street Journal]

* Not only that, but in an effort to be more business savvy, more firms are investing in management courses for their top lawyers. [The Wall Street Journal]

* Tweets lawyers should follow. [Law.com]

* Jeffrey Toobin on John Roberts. [The New Yorker]

UPDATE: * Kash on Toobin on Roberts. [Above The Law]

* The District US Court of Appeals ruled that the White House can keep emails from the public because the White House Office of Administration is not subject to The Freedom of Information Act. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]

Everyone’s a-twitter about Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Chief Justice John Roberts in this week’s New Yorker. And with good reason. We’re not sure whether the title of the profile, “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” is meant to describe Roberts or Toobin.

We’re sure you’re familiar with Toobin, the ubiquitous legal analyst whose resume includes gigs with CNN and ABC, as well a Harvard Law School degree, a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney, time on the Oliver North trial, a Second Circuit clerkship, and many books, including The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. And he’s not yet 50 years old (though he’ll be 49 on Thursday, according to Wikipedia).

But back to Roberts. He gets a fairly harsh appraisal in the profile, coming across as a political stooge:

After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

Toobin does not appear to be a fan of the Roberts Court. More on the elephant in the courtroom, after the jump.

The second time was a charm. Constitutional crisis averted.

Okay, it was hardly a “constitutional crisis.” But it was probably wise to take a mulligan on the oath, to avoid crackpot claims of illegitimacy. In the words of law professor Jonathan Turley, who recommended retaking the oath:

He should probably go ahead and take the oath again. If he doesn’t, there are going to be people who for the next four years are going to argue that he didn’t meet the constitutional standard. I don’t think it’s necessary, and it’s not a constitutional crisis. This is the chief justice’s version of a wardrobe malfunction.

Turley seems to place blame for the screw-up on Chief Justice Roberts, as does CNN (see their headline below). Based on the results of yesterday’s reader poll, ATL readers concur.

Obama retakes oath of office after Roberts’ mistake [CNN]
Experts say Obama should retake the oath [San Francisco Chronicle]
Reading of the Presidential Oath, Take Two? [WSJ Law Blog]

Earlier: Whoops. How does that Constitution go?

As we type this, our fingers are still thawing from standing in the cold on the National Mall during today’s inauguration. The number of people willing to brave the cold was impressive. Every time President Barack Obama appeared on a jumbotron screen, the crowd went crazy with shouts of “O-bam-a” and “Yes, we did.”

The crowd quieted down in order to hear Obama take the oath of office. But what followed was a bit confusing. SCOTUS Chief Justice and now-President Barack Obama appeared to be talking over one another. In the crowd, people started asking, “Who screwed it up?”

MSNBC.com reports that Roberts is to blame:

The Constitution prescribes the text: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

But Chief Justice John Roberts, using no notes, flubbed his lines, and Obama knew it.

First, Obama jumped in before the “do solemnly swear” phrase, which seemed to throw the chief justice off his stride. Roberts rendered the next phrase as “that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully.”

“That I will execute,” Obama repeated, then paused like a school teacher prompting his student with a slight nod. Roberts took another shot at it: “The off … faithfully the pres … the office of President of the United States.”

Is there a little pro-Obama bias there? We’re not so sure Roberts is totally to blame. As one ATL commenter says:

First Flub: Obama. Roberts proceeds with the swearing in and Obama jumps the gun before Roberts gets done. Second Flub: Roberts.

Watch the video here. What do you think?

Read the transcript from MSNBC.com, and see our take, after the jump.

We spent a fair amount of time last week in lovely Charlottesville, Virginia, where we spoke at the University of Virginia Law School (coverage of our talk appears here and here). We spent lots of quality time with UVA Law students — at dinner, at a karaoke bar, and walking around the beautiful grounds.

One of the highlights of our trip was attending a luncheon talk by the fabulous Dahlia Lithwick, who has covered the Supreme Court for Slate for the past ten years (and who also served as a celebrity judge on ATL Idol). Despite suffering from a nasty flu, she delivered remarks that were hilarious and insightful, shedding much light upon media coverage of the Court.

Read more, after the jump.

This installment of the wedding watch is a bit of a hodge-podge. We’ve got old people, Communism, Skadden, HLS, organized crime, a SCOTUS connection, and a midriff-baring bride. But the common thread, as always, is lawyers in love (though not necessarily with other lawyers; there’s just one dual-JD pair in this group).

Here are this week’s nominees:

1. Deborah Ellis and Hal Strelnick

2. Rachel Hershfang and Wesley Williams

3. Katherine Wagner-McCoy and Jacob Goldstein

4. Andrea Connor and Evan Hudson

More about these envy-inducing newlyweds, after the jump.

The legal (and music) world is abuzz in response to Chief Justice John Roberts citing Bob Dylan in his dissent in Sprint v. APCC Services. From the New York Times:

Four pages into his dissent on Monday in an achingly boring dispute between pay phone companies and long distance carriers, John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States, put a song lyric where the citation to precedent usually goes.

“The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. ” ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).”

Alex B. Long, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions, said this was almost certainly the first use of a rock lyric to buttress a legal proposition in a Supreme Court decision. “It’s a landmark opinion,” Professor Long said.

Rolling Stone named “Like a Rolling Stone” the best song of all time. Roberts, or the clerk who provided the citation, has good taste, but poor attention to detail. A double negative has gone missing; when Dylan sings it, it is “When you ain’t got nothing…”

Rolling Stone points out that Roberts is the first baby boomer SCOTUS chief. It may be true that we’ll see more musical legal citations by those raised on the political music of the 60s:

In the lower courts, according to a study Professor Long published in the Washington & Lee Law Review last year, Mr. Dylan is by far the most cited songwriter. He has been quoted in 26 opinions. Paul Simon is next, with 8 (12 if you count those attributed to Simon & Garfunkel). Bruce Springsteen has 5.

Both Dylan and Springsteen had three songs nominated for ATL’s Top Ten Law Songs list, though Dylan was the only one to make the final cut with “Hurricane.” Johnny Cash had the most songs nominated. Why aren’t the courts showing Cash citation love?

The Chief Justice, Dylan and the Disappearing Double Negative [New York Times]
Chief Justice John Roberts (Almost) Quotes Bob Dylan [Rolling Stone]

* Resignation in Detroit text-message scandal (previously discussed here). [Detroit News]

* A proud American tradition unknown in the rest of the world: bail for profit. [New York Times]

* Legal luminaries at the SOTU. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Trial begins in alleged microwaving of infant. [CNN]

* TRO against Patriots’ Moss extended until after Super Bowl. [SI]

* Mortgage crisis may affect litigation departments. [WSJ Law Blog]

* U.S. jails Colombian FARC leader. [BBC]

In October 2006, when LEWW reviewed her wedding, we wrote of Aileen McGrath (at right, with handsome hubby Jason Gillenwater):

Aileen is the President of the Harvard Law Review. HELLO!!! And this isn’t mentioned in the announcement, but we’ve learned that she’ll be clerking next year for Chief Judge Michael Boudin, of the First Circuit — feeder judge extraordinaire.

So, Aileen, have you picked which Supreme Court justice you’d like to clerk for?

She has. We’ve learned that Aileen McGrath (Harvard 2007 / Boudin) has accepted an offer to clerk for Justice Stephen G. Breyer in October Term 2008. One source tells us: “[S]he’s universally recognized as brilliant. She was president of the law review and a Sears Prize winner.”

We also hear that the fourth clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas for OT 2008 is a D.C. Circuit clerk (believed to be clerking for Judge David Sentelle). Will someone please give up the name?

Update: Her name is Claire Evans. She’s a 2002 graduate of Rutgers School of Law - Camden, and she’s the first alum of the school to score a SCOTUS clerkship. She clerked for Judge Jerome Simandle (D.N.J.) in 2003, and then for Michael Chertoff, back when he was still on the Third Circuit. Reports our source:

“Chertoff liked Claire so much that he took her to the Department of Homeland Security when he left the bench for Washington. Apparently, Claire continues to amaze and has now secured the most coveted of credentials — a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship.”

“[S]he holds the highest cumulative grade point average in the history of Rutgers School of Law - Camden. And, because of a grading change implemented the year after Claire graduated, it is now mathematically impossible for Claire’s epic GPA to ever be topped.”

Finally, expect more SCOTUS clerk hires in the near future. From an in-the-know tipster:

There’s movement among the justices now. At least Alito, Roberts, Kennedy & Breyer have scheduled interviews in the last few days. Kennedy has scheduled pre-screen interviews, at least some of which are with Judge Kozinski.

The current tally of OT 2008 Supreme Court clerks, with Aileen McGrath and Claire Evans added, appears after the jump.

Welcome. If you’re at home, tune in to C-SPAN, which is rebroadcasting the recent book party for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas’s eagerly anticipated memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, is now in bookstores — and topping the bestseller charts (to the relief of his publisher, HarperCollins, which reportedly paid him a $1.5 million advance).

7:05: The party is being held at the elegant, red-brick Capitol Hill home of radio host and syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams. Expected to attend: 250 guests, including six Supreme Court justices, Vice President Dick Cheney, and several U.S. senators.

Armstrong Williams is interviewed. He explains that the party has been in the works since June. An overwhelming turnout is expected; more people were turned away than allowed to attend.

7:08: Justice Thomas climbs the stairs. When he enters the kitchen — which is right at the top of the stairs, and thus (oddly) where everyone enters and exits — he’s greeted by hearty applause.

Various guests hug him. One guest gushes over his 60 Minutes appearance. CT explains that CBS News made no promises about the nature of its coverage. Interesting. Considering how flattering that segment was, and how uncritical Steve Kroft was in his questioning of Justice Thomas, one might have suspected that Brangelina-type stipulations were in place.

More after the jump.

So LEWW was at a wedding the other weekend, and who should plunk down next to us but a reporter for the NYT Vows section! It was a deeply emotional, humbling experience — like being face-to-face with Gandhi, or Bono — but after we recovered, we waved our ATL press credentials and had a nice chat with the correspondent.

Turns out it was her first Vows column, so we briefed her on the most basic rules of Vows column writing: Make sure you refer to the bride, groom, or both as “honest,” “courageous,” “spirited,” or “down-to-earth,” etc., and definitely include at least one forced simile (“as white as a sun-bleached seashell” is good; “as grounded and unshakable as a redwood” is a two-fer!).

We can’t wait to read about that wedding in this coming weekend’s NYT, but in the meantime, we have two weeks worth of LEWW to catch you up on. Here are our featured couples:

1.) Kate Edmonds and Alex Donner

2.) Denise Delgado and Keith Kerman

3.) Fell Ogden and Charles Gray Jr.

4.) Daisy Wademan and Luc Dowling

5.) Deecy Gray and Douglas Ginsburg

6.) Aielleen Fajardo and Stefan Schick

More about these couples, after the jump.

Sigh. Too much to write about, not enough time (or energy). We should have written about this on Tuesday. But since we didn’t, we now have the luxury of assembling a post by commenting on what other people have already written — and snarkily noting that they all say the same thing.

It all started with this article from the Washington Post (via the Huffington Post):

It was John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice of the United States, who suggested [Harriet] Miers to Bush as a possible Supreme Court justice, according to the [new] book [Dead Certain, an examination of the Bush presidency, by Robert Draper].

Miers, the White House counsel and a Bush loyalist from Texas, did not want the job, but Bush and first lady Laura Bush prevailed on her to accept the nomination, Draper writes.

Sounds juicy, right? But not so fast.

If you’re already familiar with this controversy, you can probably skip the rest of this post. But if not — or if you are, but want some commentary on the commentary — you can read more after the jump.

Not too long ago, we said we had a “gut feeling” that some Supreme Court clerk hiring was going on (despite the Court being in recess). We were right.

Meet Porter Wilkinson. And don’t hate her because she’s beautiful. Or brilliant. Or rich. Or the daughter of a top feeder judge and frequent Supreme Court short-lister, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Cir.).

Or, for that matter, a future Supreme Court clerk. We hear that Judge Wilkinson’s daughter — yes, Porter is a girl’s name, if you’re a WASP — just landed an October Term 2008 clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts. Congratulations, Porter!

Not surprisingly, we hear that the young Ms. Wilkinson is fairly conservative — in case you couldn’t have guessed that from the fact that she’s currently clerking for Judge Brett Kavanaugh (D.C. Cir.) (alongside the lovely, and recently married, Zina Gelman).

And where did we hear about Porter’s politics? From Judge Wilkinson himself!

In late July, we attended the excellent national convention of the American Constitution Society, in Washington, DC. Judge Wilkinson was on one of the panels. In thanking the ACS for inviting him, he noted that his son is a member of the liberal organization — but that he’s balanced out by his sister Porter, a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society. We bet the Wilkinsons must have interesting dinner table conversations.

Porter Wilkinson continues the trend of fathers and daughters who both clerked for the Court (as noted by Tony Mauro). See here.

Update: A tipster tells us, “FYI, Porter was an All-American lacrosse player at UNC. See here. Her husband [Christian Cook] was lacrosse Defenseman of the Year at Princeton and three-time national champion. Formerly of the Secret Service. See here. They got married this past summer in Charlottesville.”

With Porter Wilkinson added, the current list of OT 2008 clerks thus far appears after the jump.

Graduation Awards: Four in the Class of 2007: Porter Wilkinson [Virginia Law]
Carter Phillips’ Kin Is Alito Clerk [Legal Times]

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kinda obsessed with Linda Greenhouse, the longtime Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. But we’re afraid she’s not our biggest fan. :-(

At the recent (and excellent) ACS National Convention, Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog moderated a fantastic panel on covering the Supreme Court. One of the panelists was Linda Greenhouse. After the panel, we approached and introduced ourselves. Her sarcastic response: “Oh, so you’re the famous David Lat.”

(Ouch — but we loved it. Getting abused by divas is one of our favorite pastimes!)

We praised her work. La Greenhouse quipped, quasi-snarkily (you had to be there): “Do you already have what I said up on the web?”

We offered her our business card, which she finally took — after pointedly letting it hover in the air. She did not proffer hers, then strode away, capri pants flapping in the ballroom’s air conditioning.

So yes, Linda Greenhouse — we had a reason for bringing her up. Did you catch her “Supreme Court Memo” in yesterday’s Times, on Chief Justice John Roberts’s recent seizure?

We have some meta-commentary on it. Check it out, after the jump.

Breaking news, from NBC (via Drudge):

Chief Justice John G. Roberts was hospitalized Monday after falling while on vacation in Maine, the Supreme Court told NBC News. Roberts, 52, fell at his summer home off Port Clyde [previously profiled in Lawyerly Lairs]. The court said he was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

The nation’s top judge was fully awake and coherent both at his home and later at the hospital, the court said.

UPDATE: Lyle Denniston has a few more details over at SCOTUSblog. Apparently Chief Justice Roberts experienced “a benign idiopathic seizure.”

The upshot: JGR is doing just fine. But it’s a reminder that anything can happen — that life is full of unpredictability.

Because if any member of the Supreme Court were to star in a Lifealert commercial — and utter those famous words, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” — wouldn’t it to be Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Or maybe John Paul Stevens, who bears a reasonably strong resemblance to the man who cries out, “I’m having chest pain!” If you disagree, refresh your recollection here:

Chief Justice Roberts hospitalized [MSNBC]
Chief Justice falls [SCOTUSblog via How Appealing]
Lifecall/Lifealert - Commercial [YouTube]

Earlier: Lawyerly Lairs: Chief Justice Roberts’s Island Hideaway

LEWW salutes Laura Marshall Worth, a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall, who celebrated her wedding last weekend. Laura wasted a great law-school admissions essay and became a teacher, so this hat-tip is all she gets.

Here are our three lucky finalist-couples:

1. Rebecca Ingber and Anton Metlitsky

2. Alexandra Flood and Samuel Alcoff

3. Devon Powers and David Bennion

More about these couples, after the jump.

Late last week, Bill Mears of CNN wrote a helpful round-up of the best benchslaps from the Supreme Court’s most recent Term. It starts off:

One Supreme Court justice says his fellow conservatives are “too dismissive” of government efforts to ensure racial diversity in schools. Another more liberal member says those on the right did “serious violence” to a high school student’s free speech rights. And one conservative slams another for “faux judicial restraint.”

That last bench-slap was one of several delivered by Justice Scalia to Chief Justice Roberts. For more, see this Linda Greenhouse piece.

But after all the verbal roughhousing, the justices go back to being friends. Then they scamper off to a bevy of European countries, where they spend the summer soaking up adulation and cash teaching summer courses in constitutional law.

The members of the SCOTUS regularly complain about the inadequacy of federal judicial pay. But let’s not forget that they — as well as certain other federal judges, like the members of the D.C. Circuit — basically get summers off.

Being a Supreme Court justice: Nice work if you can get it!

Justices take potshots in opinions [CNN via How Appealing]
Even in Agreement, Scalia Puts Roberts to Lash [New York Times]
Supreme Court Justices Hit the Road for the Summer [Legal Times via WSJ Law Blog]

From the opinion of Chief Justice John “Sordid Business” Roberts:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

From Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent:

“John, John, John, you don’t even — you’re glib. You don’t even know what Brown v. Board of Education is. If you start talking about school integration, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how schoolchildren are affected by racial segregation. That’s what I’ve done. Then you go and you say that no member of the Court at the time of Brown would have agreed with today’s decision.”

Enough quoting from the opinions. How should we react to this ruling?

1. Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin!

2. Brown v. Board has been eviscerated!

3. American schoolchildren will soon be getting after-school milkshakes at lunch counters with Robert Bork!

(Note to diner owners: Keep those floors dry — or at least have a warning sign up while you’re mopping. If Judge Bork slips and falls, he WILL sue your ass.)

Court strikes down school integration plans [SCOTUSblog]
Schools Must Ignore Race in Placing Pupils, Justices Say [Associated Press]