* What will become of Justice O’Connor’s precedent? [Slate]
* Baseball agent gets prison for smuggling clients. [ESPN]
* Civil suit vs. TB Andy. [CNN]
* Civil verdict vs. Allen Iverson. [ESPN]
Latest Stories
- Andrew Speaker, Morning Docket, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Sports, Supreme Court, Trials, Violence
Morning Afternoon Docket: 07.16.07
By
B Clerker
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, and try again. And maybe the 14th time will be the charm!
For those of you freaking out over the bar exam next week, chillax. You will probably pass. If you don’t pass this time, surely you’ll pass the next time. Or the time after that.
You’ll be just fine — as long as your name isn’t “Paulina Bandy.” From the Orange County Register:
Paulina Bandy couldn’t fail the state bar exam again. Not after she failed 13 times before.
Some people complain that we’re elitist. So we apologize for asking: What the hell is UP with this woman?
(Is Paulina Bandy the child of a prominent politician? They seem to be jinxed when it comes to the bar exam.)
If you feel sorry for non-top-tier law school graduates who can’t land good jobs, just think — things could be worse. Much worse:
Paulina Bandy couldn’t fail the state bar exam again. Not after she had spent tens of thousands to attend law school. Not after she put her husband Jon Gomez through the ringer for so many years. Not after the debt she piled up forced her family to move into a 365-square-foot home.
Anywhere outside the island of Manhattan, that’s simply unacceptable.
More discussion, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Bar Exam: If At First You Don’t Succeed…”
We’re back. It’s Monday. We don’t like Mondays. We’re feeling sluggish today.
So we’ll take the path of least resistance, and start a thread about an ATL staple: clerkship bonuses. We have some good news about two new (and non-New York) firms.
First, the rumor about O’Melveny & Myers can be treated as confirmed. We received lots of emails about OMM. Here are two:
“O’Melveny and Myers has raised their federal clerkship bonus to 50k. District Court and Appellate. Not sure about second year bonus of 70k.”
“O’Melveny and Myers just raised their clerkship bonus from 35k to 50k. As far as I know, they’re the first non-NY based firm (aside from Susman) to go to 50k. And it’s straight 50k — it doesn’t include a bar stipend like that Latham nonsense.”
Second — from just one source, so let us know if it’s erroneous — we hear that Morrison & Foerster has joined the $50K Club:
“Noticed the clerkship bonus list of shame (7/02/07). A co-clerk of mine is joining MoFo this fall and the clerkship bonus is listed as 50K (nationwide) in the documents he has received.”
If you have clerkship bonus information not previously reported on ATL, please email us (subject line: “Clerkship Bonus”). Thanks.
- Fabulosity, Media and Journalism, Nina Totenberg, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Thomas Goldstein, You Go Girl
Nina Totenberg Wants A Bagel, Lightly Toasted, Lowfat Veggie Cream Cheese on the Side – Stat!
By David LatOur series of posts on that delicious legal diva, Nina Totenberg of NPR, has made the pages of the Washington Post:
A blog that labels itself a “legal tabloid” has been soliciting juicy anecdotes about NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg’s on-the-job behavior, but Totenberg says she’s just doing her job.
In a post on Above the Law authored by the blog’s editor in chief, David Lat, one anecdote describes the correspondent entering the Supreme Court’s press section moments before a morning session begins — and asking someone sitting in the front row to surrender the seat.
Totenberg gets her way, it says, “because nobody says no to Nina.”
But not so fast: Totenberg says that since she happens to be the dean of the Supreme Court press corps, she actually has an assigned seat — that nice one, right up front.
Who knew the Supreme Court press gallery was just like a high school cafeteria? On first Mondays we wear pink!
Totenberg’s complete comment, and our reaction, after the jump.
* Texas teen cut from cheerleading squad; sues. [Victoria Advocate via Drudge]
* Virginia middle-schoolers receive diplomas bearing likeness of Frederick Douglas Karl Marx. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]
* Lawyer who leaked BALCO testimony gets 2.5 years. [LA Times]
* A “thumb on the scale” in college admissions — in favor of men. [US News]
Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals engages in some impressive benchslappery in a dissent released today. He’s not attacking the court’s majority opinion, just ignoring it:
I concede that this short opinion of mine does not consider or take into account the majority opinion. So I should disclose at the outset that I have not read it.
Ouch! (We take particular pleasure in pointing out that the majority opinion is by Judge Guido Calabresi, LEWW’s favorite elfin jurist.)
Click below to read more about the case, plus more from Judge Jacobs’ delightfully disdainful dissent.
Continue reading “Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs: Not Running for Student Body President”
- Antonin Scalia, Harvard, Harvard Law Review, Harvard Law School, John Bash, New York Times, Supreme Court Clerks, Weddings
Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.8.07: Seven on Earth
By Laurie Lin
We’re posting this on Friday the 13th — hardly anyone’s lucky day. But last Saturday was 7-7-07, and couples all over the world rushed to the altar (and the gambling tables) to take advantage of the auspicious date.
And sevens weren’t the only thing we saw multiples of in the NYT weddings section. We’ve got four grooms this week, and all four are named John!
If that gives you chills, just wait till you check out their credentials.
Here are this week’s finalists:
1. Zina Gelman and John Bash III
2. John Alexander and John Lipsey
3. Anne Ho and John Griggs III
More on these couples, after the jump.
[Bonus wedding note: Check out this correction and ponder how annoyed this bride is.]
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.8.07: Seven on Earth”
Fashion news from across the pond: English judges and barristers are leaping willy-nilly into the nineteenth century, shedding the curly horse-hair wigs that have symbolized the British legal system for centuries.
(Memo to Lat: Explore possibility of haircut for ATL logo-thing.)
The wigs are being removed despite their popularity with the public, who like to be represented by “a proper lawyer with a wig.”
But many others despise wigs as hot, smelly, and more to the point, elitist – they make all too obvious the caste system in British law, dividing the more numerous solicitors, who do most of the day-to-day work of representing clients, from the more prestigious barristers, who for centuries had a monopoly on the right to speak (and to wear a wig) in court. These days the functional distinction between the two kinds of lawyer is eroding, and the solicitors, at least, want the sartorial distinction to vanish as well.
We’re torn. Elitism is of course fabulous, but “smelly” is not.
Judges in criminal cases will keep their wigs, because . . . well, we have no idea why, really.
Oh, they say when you marry in June,
You’re a bride all your life.
And the bridegroom who marries in June
Gets a sweetheart for a wife.
- “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”
Which of our four June brides and bridegrooms will soar into married life as Couple of the Month? As always, we’ve picked the weekly winners — now it’s ATL readers’ turn to award the big prize.
A recap of our nominated couples appears after the jump; here’s the poll if you’re ready to vote:
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Couple of the Month for June”
Ann Althouse, call your dean! A Wisconsin lawmaker wants to address what he thinks is an overpopulation of lawyers in the state — by ending state funding for the University of Wisconsin Law School.
State Representative Frank Lasee (Lah-SAY’) says the state doesn’t need any more ambulance chasers or frivolous lawsuits. The Green Bay Republican convinced his colleagues in the GOP-controlled Assembly to include his plan in their version of the 2-year budget approved Tuesday.
But the proposal appears to have little chance at becoming law. Governor Doyle called it ridiculous and bizarre during an appearance today in Milwaukee.
The plan would cut state funding for the law school over the next three years before eliminating it completely in 2010. Lasee says the school would be forced to raise tuition to cover the cuts or stop admitting as many students.
You can follow Lasee’s other exploits on his blog, which includes jokes, French-bashing, and other random musings.
(Of course we’re mocking Lasee’s proposal, but we should note that it’s not unheard-of for a public law school to reduce its dependence on state funding. UVA’s law school, for example, has done it voluntarily.)
Update: Ann Althouse’s post on this subject appears here.
Over at SCOTUSblog, Tom Goldstein has a long post on who a Democratic president might nominate to fill the Supreme Court vacancies that would surely open up if the GOP exits the White House in 2008.
Goldstein’s criteria are fairly straightforward: ideology, experience, demographics, and age (he excluded anyone born before 1952).
Some of the names are familiar (Sonia Sotomayor, Merrick Garland) and some are unexpected (Jennifer Granholm, Ken Salazar). Here’s Goldstein’s bottom line:
My ultimate predictions? Kim Wardlaw (2009, for Souter), Deval Patrick (2010, for Stevens), and Elena Kagan (2011, for Ginsburg).
What, no Harold Koh?
A SCOTUSblog commenter suggests another factor for a Democratic president to consider:
a relevant consideration is “How aggressively is the nominee going to articulate a coherent liberal jurisprudence?” Finding a lefty version of Scalia to blast the right and get opinions into law school casebooks is what Democrats should be aiming for if they care about politics and partisan entrenchment to their benefit.
The anti-Scalia! Does such a creature exist?
Remember that McDermott Will & Emery partner who was disciplined for telling a Miami bankruptcy judge she was “a few French fries short of a Happy Meal”? We wonder what he’d say about this breach of civility from the other side of the bench:
A Hamilton County Municipal Court judge told an angry defendant “F— you,” an almost unheard of breach of courtroom etiquette.
Judge Ted Berry was responding to the same phrase that was uttered at him by Ivan Boykins, a defendant Berry had just sentenced to spend 30 days in jail after Boykins complained that he didn’t want probation because it would prevent him smoking marijuana.
During sentencing, Littner suggested probation, prompting the defendant to comment, “No. I don’t want to do probation. I’m going to keep smoking,” according to a transcript of the hearing.
Berry instead imposed a 30-day jail term.
That’s when Boykins got really mad, prompting the foul language exchange.
Perhaps more fascinating than Judge Berry’s deployment of the f-bomb in open court is Boykins’ bid to avoid probation by threatening to engage in more illegal activity. We’re shocked that this wasn’t successful.
No word on whether Berry will face repercussions for his colorful language.
-
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