Stephen McDaniel
* Is the D.C. Circuit is okay with TSA screeners touching your junk? Professor Orin Kerr discusses an opinion handed down today. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* According to his mother, Mercer Law grad Stephen McDaniel — a “person of interest” in the investigation of the death of Lauren Giddings — would like to serve on the Supreme Court someday. He might want to get a haircut first. [Macon.com]
* Speaking of SCOTUS, here’s Linda Greenhouse’s scorecard for the Term that just finished. [Opinionator / New York Times]
* Could a change in Irish law result in priests going to prison? [Catholic News Agency]
* Can a criminal defendant assert a Batson claim based on sexual orientation? [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe): all grown up now.
* Lawyer turned novelist Arin Greenwood offers conflicting thoughts on the Canadian legal troubles of comedian Dave Foley. [Washington City Paper]
* “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Lawsuits”: Justin Tenuto reviews “the most interesting, amusing, and preposterous claims from a decade of Potter case law.” [Legally Easy]
* Has diversity taken a hit during the recession? Not on the campuses of the University of California, according to Heather Mac Donald. [City Journal via Instapundit]
* How can legal departments implement new technology to increase the value they provide to their organizations? [Above the Law (sponsored content)]
* Johnson & Johnson will have to fix several factories after an agreement with the FDA prompted by massive product recalls. This still doesn’t explain why my bottle of Tylenol may contain tree nuts. [Bloomberg]
* Charlie Sheen hammered out a custody agreement With Brooke Mueller. That’s nice. [People Magazine]
* Texas may consider a law that would make losers pay attorneys’ fees. Easy, New York Mets. Not all losers. Just those who lose lawsuits. [New York Times]
* A discussion of the legal complaints lodged against the Wisconsin Legislature for Wednesday night’s votes. You know who’s not complaining? This guy. [Wisconsin State Journal]
* A former assistant attorney general from Maine was sentenced yesterday in a child porn case. This is definitely the year of the assistant AG. [ABA Journal]
Happy Birthday Nino
* Not all people living in Idaho are racists, duh. Some are gangsters from Boston. [New York Times]
* Law firm profits and productivity were up in 2010, while demand was flat and revenue was modestly up. Someone named Dan DiPietro and someone named Gretta Rusanow tag-teamed a report all about it. [Am Law Daily]
* A former McGuireWoods partner pleaded guilty to falsifying a tax document. [ABA Journal]
* Linda Greenhouse wishes Justice Scalia a happy 75th birthday. Sort of. [The Opinionator / New York Times]
[A] résumé need not be destiny.
– Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times, discussing the Roberts Court.
That’s the question posed by Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times, in an extremely interesting post on the Opinionator blog. In attempting to address “why other countries [don't] suffer from the same toxic confirmation battles that we do,” she first notes that other nations don’t give their judges life tenure:
High-court judges [in other countries] typically serve for a single nonrenewable term of 9 to 12 years — a period during which Supreme Court justices in the United States are just getting warmed up. These shorter terms ensure frequent turnover and allay fears about a party in power being able to lock up the court for decades through the fortuity of a large number of vacancies; each vacancy naturally carries less weight.
But we’re guessing that Greenhouse, whose politics tend to fall on the left side of the aisle, actually likes having life-tenured judges who are completely unaccountable insulated from the political process. So she tosses out another idea….
Continue reading “Should Supreme Court Opinions Be Anonymous?”
The Roberts court has lost its virginity.
– Linda Greenhouse
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.
Continue reading “Covering the Court: Thoughts from Dahlia Lithwick”
Welcome to the latest post in our recent series on the 2008 National Convention of the American Constitution Society. We attended lots of excellent events as part of the conference. Prior posts appear here and here.
One of our favorite events was the Saturday lunch panel, “Covering the Court.” It was moderated by Thomas Goldstein, of Akin Gump and SCOTUSblog fame, and featured the following distinguished members of the Supreme Court press corps:
Robert Barnes, of the Washington Post;
Linda Greenhouse, of the New York Times;
Dahlia Lithwick, of Slate; and
Tony Mauro, of the Legal Times.
For the Court-watchers among you, a detailed write-up is available below the fold.
Continue reading “At the ACS National Convention: Covering the Court”
We have a strange obsession with Linda Greenhouse, the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. When we spotted her recently at Jennifer 8. Lee’s D.C. book talk for The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, we practically leapt out of our seats in excitement. [FN1]
If you’re a fellow LG groupie, and if you’re at Yale Law School, here’s some good news. As one tipster excitedly chirped to us, “Linda Greenhouse is going to be a Yale Law sort-of-professor!” From the Yale Daily News:
After 30 years covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winner Linda Greenhouse will take a new post as a journalist-in-residence and senior fellow at Yale Law School starting next January, the Law School announced Wednesday.
Greenhouse, who accepted a buyout from The Times last month, will return to the law school from which she earned a Master of Studies in Law degree in 1978 to conduct her own research and give lectures and seminars, although it is not yet clear whether she will teach a formal course. She will also be involved with the Law School’s Supreme Court Clinic and will help pioneer its new Law and Media Program.
More details in the YLS press release. Surely this can only help Yale maintain its sizable lead over #2 Harvard and Stanford in the U.S. News rankings. (Yale has an overall score of 100, with Harvard and Stanford almost ten points behind, at 91.)
As you may recall, Linda Greenhouse received a cool $300K in her Times buyout. It’s a pittance compared to Biglaw bucks, but a princely sum in the world of journalism.
And now Greenhouse will be supplementing this with a draw on the well-endowed coffers of YLS — we’re guessing low six-figures (for what doesn’t sound like very much work). She’ll probably begin work on another book, too, for which she can expect a good-sized advance. Her last book, Becoming Justice Blackmun, was a national bestseller.
Linda Greenhouse to Linda Greenbacks!
[FN1] The use of “we” is especially appropriate here because Kash and I attended this reading together.
Yale Law School nabs Linda Greenhouse after Times departure [Yale Daily News]
Linda Greenhouse Returning To Yale Law School in 2009 as Journalist-in-Residence [Yale Law School]
* Linda Greenhouse to $300K! [New York Observer via ABA Journal]
* Duties of a law school dean: attend parties, appear at conferences, talk to alums. And don’t forget the herding of cats — aka law professors. [TJ's Double Play]
* Even law review editors screw up sometimes. “Constructive acceptance”? [Concurring Opinions]
* Who’d have thunk it? Sometimes blogging can help people. And stuff. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Ethan Leib dresses up as a giant chicken to teach Contracts, thereby guaranteeing ABA accreditation. [PrawfsBlawg]
* Orin Kerr points out online interviews “with eight of the nine current Supreme Court Justices (all but Souter) about legal writing, advocacy, and the process of deciding cases and writing opinions.” [Volokh Conspiracy]
* Ann Althouse on John McCain and being a “natural-born citizen.” [Althouse]
* Hillary to Russert: You can’t handle the truth! About my tax returns. [TaxProf Blog]
We already discussed this news yesterday. But in our earlier post, we promised to let you know if and when Linda Greenhouse got back to us — and she kindly did, sending the following message to ATL about her rumored departure as the New York Times’s Supreme Court correspondent:
As you may know – the Times put a newsroom-wide buyout package on the table last week, in an effort to shrink the staff by 100. For someone of my seniority (40 years) the terms are very attractive, and I’ve told my bureau chief that I plan to take it. I was planning to retire in a few years, and giving up this package would have basically meant working for free – which seemed foolish, much as I love my job. I plan to keep writing about the court in various forums.
(I should note that this is not official, because the buyout window is open until March 5, after which the Times will respond to the individual volunteers – so my response to you is based on the assumption that my acceptance of their offer will in turn be accepted.)
Greenhouse also confirmed her move to the Associated Press (via WSJ Law Blog).
During her 30 years covering the Court for the Times, Linda Greenhouse has sometimes been controversial. See here, here, and here, for perhaps the most recent controversy.
It cannot be denied, however, that Greenhouse has tremendous knowledge of the Supreme Court’s history and inner workings, as well as unparalleled access to the justices themselves. Few journalists are such superstars that their comings and goings are covered by the AP.
Greenhouse leaves big shoes to fill, and it will be interesting to see how her successor fares. How much of her clout was the institutional clout of the New York Times, and how much of it was Greenhouse qua Greenhouse? We’ll find out soon enough.
Feel free to speculate about replacements for the legendary Linda Greenhouse, in the comments.
NYT’s Greenhouse Takes Buyout Offer [Associated Press via WSJ Law Blog]
Public and Private Lives, Intersecting [New York Times]
Lay Off Linda [Slate]
Far From Sober [National Review Online]
Earlier: Is the Margo Channing of One First Street Taking Her Final Bow?
We have previously compared Linda Greenhouse, the veteran Supreme Court correspondent of the New York Times, to Margo Channing, the great but aging diva of All About Eve. The comparison continues to hold.
Just as Margo Channing eventually leaves the thea-tuh, so too does Linda Greenhouse leave the SCOTUS. Ed Whelan, the former Scalia clerk with lots of Court connections, has this report over at Bench Memos:
According to a well-placed Supreme Court source, New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse is telling folks at the Court that she has accepted a Times buyout package and will be ending her coverage of the Court at the end of the current term.
So that’s the word on One First Street. We have reached out to Linda Greenhouse for comment and will let you know if and when we hear back from her.
If this is true — and we have no reason to doubt it, since it comes from the well-connected Whelan — then Jan Crawford Greenburg is one step closer to being Queen Bee of the Supreme Court press corps. Nina Totenberg, watch your back!
Update: More from Ed Whelan at NRO Online: “On the same day that we learn of Linda Greenhouse’s imminent departure from the New York Times, Greenhouse provides further evidence of her bias….”
Greenhouse’s Departure [Bench Memos / National Review Online]
Re: Breyer’s and Souter’s Drift to the Right? [Bench Memos / National Review Online]
Earlier: All About… Jan?
“Dear Jim: Thanks for the great job you do pushing the mail cart around the office. You truly are a special person!”
[Charlie Savage signs a copy of his book for Aaron Zitner, politics editor for the Los Angeles Times.]
Earlier this week, we attended a delightful book party for Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe. Savage won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, based on his work on presidential signing statements.
Photos and discussion of the star-studded event — after you win a Pulitzer, everyone is your friend! — after the jump.
Continue reading “‘Takeover’ by Charlie Savage: A Fabulous Book Party”
* The best argument for immigration reform: qualified (i.e., hot) fashion models are being kept off American runways. [Fashionista]
* What rating does ATL get — e.g., G, PG, R, etc. — using this tool? To give you context, NBS is a PG-13. [Nasty, Brutish & Short]
* What blogs does Linda Greenhouse read? [My Times ("Journalist's Picks") via Romenesko]
* What blogs do judges read? [May It Please the Court]
* And what blogs should they read? [Blawg Review]
* Speaking of judges, here’s our Judge of the Day — possibly offensive, and wrong on the law too. [AP via NYT]
* The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last, on the Nixon Peabody non-theme-song: “Some things you just can’t un-hear.” [Galley Slaves]
To follow up on our earlier post, here’s an update on L’Affaire Linda, from the Columbia Journalism Review:
Linda Greenhouse has written a letter in response to C-SPAN in which she defends herself against their accusations. In it she claims that the “issue is not one of ‘open media access to public policy discussions,’” as C-SPAN’s Terence Murphy wrote in his letter, but “one of communication and simple courtesy.”
Ignoring the question of whether she received an email warning her that C-SPAN was going to be present, Greenhouse writes, ” I learned about the plan to cover the Supreme Court panel only when I showed up and saw the cameras. Prof. Gajda told me yesterday that she had only learned at 5:00 p.m. the day before that C-Span intended to cover our panel.”
Read the rest — plus a bonus Linda Greenhouse Rap!!! — after the jump.
Continue reading “Linda Greenhouse’s Reply Brief”
We feel better. We’re not the only folks who have been rudely dissed by Linda Greenhouse, the longtime op-ed columnist Supreme Court correspondent of the New York Times.
From Jim Romenesko’s widely read media blog, Poynter Online:
NYT’s Greenhouse demands that C-SPAN turn off its cameras
Columbia Journalism Review
The Times’ Linda Greenhouse became upset when she realized that C-SPAN planned to broadcast a panel discussion featuring Supreme Court reporters. “I told [the event organizer] she had a choice, either she could have me on the panel speaking candidly or she could have C-SPAN there,” Greenhouse tells Gal Beckerman. “I didn’t want to have to modulate my comments for a national audience.”
C-SPAN’s programming veep is unhappy: “All the participants were notified the night before, and no one objected. Then, five to ten minutes beforehand, we were told we couldn’t cover it. Having a five-person crew unable to work for a day was a major hit on us.”
Wow. To the commenters who have questioned our characterization of Greenhouse as a diva, please reconsider your views.
So why did Linda Greenhouse throw a hissy fit over possible C-SPAN coverage? We have some (quasi-informed) speculation.
Some thoughts and some links, plus the complete protest letter sent by C-SPAN, appear after the jump.
Continue reading “Linda Greenhouse Strikes Back (Capri Pants Sold Separately)”
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.
Continue reading “Linda Greenhouse: A Drama Queen in Capri Pants?”
We’re loving this little dustup over our item about Nina Totenberg getting territorial over seating in the Supreme Court press gallery. It got us a shout-out in the Washington Post. And it’s generating celebrity correspondence for us, too.
Over the weekend, we heard from SCOTUS bar superstar Tom Goldstein. And then, this morning, we received this email, from one of our favorite commentators on legal affairs:
From: Dahlia Lithwick
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 10:35 AM
To: David Lat
Subject: one bigger question raised in Divagate
The Wa Po article about Nina said she was “dean” of the Supreme Court press corps.
I have also heard that title applied to both Linda [Greenhouse] and Lyle [Denniston] at various times.
What the heck is that about?
Is it a real position? Is it tenured?
Good questions. It reminds us of “The Tenth Justice,” a title that has been bestowed on everyone from the Solicitor General to ex-judge J. Michael Luttig to Howard Bashman (by Howard Bashman).
Also, can you run for this post of “dean”? If the SCOTUS press corps is like high school, is this like being class president? Or prom queen?
If so, we nominate Dahlia Lithwick. She’s fabulous! How many Supreme Court correspondents have Facebook fan clubs?
(Linda Greenhouse, eat your (bleeding) heart out….)
Names & Faces: Totenberg’s Courtside Seat [Washington Post]
A3G to President Bush: Pick Alito, Not Luttig [Underneath Their Robes]
Earlier: Why Is Nina Totenberg Like Judy Miller?
And we’re not speaking metaphorically, about the remaining decisions from October Term 2006.
We’re talking about the shoes of celebrated Supreme Court reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg, of ABC News. Will a pair of Manolos fall from the sky?
So, what happened to JCG’s footwear? Was it a case of sabotage, by an increasingly threatened rival?
Go Home Already: Missed Connections [DCist]
“Linda says Jan has had work done — I mean, A LOT of work….”
Due to associate pay raise mania, we’ve been neglecting news in other areas of the legal profession — like our beloved federal judiciary. We’re embarrassed, for example, not to have commented upon the Bush Administration’s rumored Supreme Court short list, drawn up in case there’s an unexpected vacancy at the end of this Term.
The theme of the article: the shortlist is centered on women and minorities. Most of the names are familiar (e.g., Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen), but there was one very exciting addition: Judge Loretta Preska, of the Southern District of New York.
Here’s how she was described previously at Underneath Their Robes:
Judge Loretta A. Preska. In a word: magnificent. Tall, thin, elegant. Great bone structure, perfectly coiffed silver hair. Note to self: nominate for superhotties contest next year? Fabulous dark blue suit. Who designed? Dramatic, extra-long jacket, white-trimmed lapels; tapers down towards clasp, then flares out again–gorgeous cut. Nice accessories: big gold eagle pin, ladies-who-lunch pearl necklace, matching earrings. Delivers intro like newscaster, smooth as butter. Gestures grandly with long fingers; flawless manicure. WOW!
This scrumptious SCOTUS scoop was delivered courtesy of Jan Crawford Greenburg, one of our favorite Supreme Court correspondents. And our affection for her has only grown after we attended an event with her last week, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in Washington.
Discussion of that event — where we put JCG on the spot about her rivalry with Linda Greenhouse — appears after the jump.
Continue reading “Greenhouse v. Greenburg: JCG Responds”
Do we exaggerate the rivalry between Linda Greenhouse, the New York Times’s veteran Supreme Court correspondent, and comely up-and-comer Jan Crawford Greenburg, who covers the Court for ABC News?
Maybe. We have a weakness for the dramatic, in case you haven’t noticed. But even if exaggerated, there’s no denying the tension between these two formidable female journalists.
Linda Greenhouse recently spoke at a litigation department luncheon at Willkie Farr in New York. And in her remarks, she threw down the gauntlet before Jan Crawford Greenburg.
Here’s what La Greenhouse had to say about Supreme Conflict, the bestselling book penned by her young rival (emphasis added):
“In her book, Jan Crawford Greenburg wrote, I think quite improbably and without any evidence, that Justice Thomas is the ideological heavyweight anchoring the conservative side of the court…”
“Jan Crawford Greenburg got a lot of mileage out of that statement in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, but I just don’t think it’s true.”
WOW. What did Willkie Farr feed Greenhouse for lunch? Fancy Feast?
An interesting account of the rest of Greenhouse’s remarks, from an ATL reader who was there, after the jump.
Continue reading “Greenhouse v. Greenburg: The Catfight Continues”
