The Ninth Circuit may be getting slapped around by the Supreme Court lately. (Yeah, what else is new.) But they continue to go about their business. Keep on truckin’, Your Honors!
One of you was kind enough to attend a recent Ninth Circuit sitting — not just any old sitting, but the one graced by that judicial celebrity, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor — and send us a detailed report.
That account of the oral argument — plus a bonus judicial sight-ation, and some added commentary from us — appears after the jump.
Now that we have the able assistance of Stella Q for Non-Sequiturs — check out her great post from yesterday — we have no place for random links that catch our eye, but don’t merit full treatment in a separate post. Blogospheric leftovers, if you will.
So here’s a special midday “bonus edition” of Non-Sequiturs:
* “Law porn”: Glenn Reynolds is not turned on. [Instapundit]
* Wherever there’s a financial debacle, the plaintiffs’ lawyers can’t be far behind. [DealBreaker]
* Project Runway: We were thinking (and hoping) that Uli Herzner would win. But Professor Althouse called this one correctly. [Althouse]
* This paper sounds interesting. Can it justify damage awards that include payments for prostitute visits? [PrawfsBlawg]
* “[T]he Nietzschean alternative: a postmodern appropriation of pop culture that turns an entire class into a video game.” Unorthodox? Certainly. But it also sounds kinda fun. [Concurring Opinions]
* Forget about Kansas’Kansas’sKansas’ issues. What’s the matter with Namibia? [WSJ Law Blog]
* CNN has its finger on the pulse of America — and Orin Kerr is giggling. [Volokh Conspiracy]
Some random reading recommendations, which don’t have much to do with law. But that’s what weekends are for, right?
* Suffering from Entourage withdrawal? Read about a real-life agent dumping (by Jim Carrey). [Defamer]
* Suffering from Project Runway withdrawal, since there was no new episode this week? Get your hands on the New Yorker’s fantastic fashion issue. The profile of Diane von Furstenberg — by Larissa MacFarquhar, who once profiled Judge Richard Posner — is especially worthwhile. So is Andrea Lee’s article about high-end handbags (“The Bag Lady”). [New Yorker (table of contents; most articles not online)]
* Suffering from Harriet Miers withdrawal? Head over to the blog of Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston. Then run a search (ctrl-F) for “LOL.” [Cardinal Seán’s Blog via New York Times]
Another day, another circuit court decision involving a school kid with a wise-ass t-shirt.
Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit dealt with the case of a kid who wore a T-shirt to school that read, “Be ashamed, our school embraced what God has condemned. Homosexuality is shameful.” (The kid lost; and that’s why they call it the Ninth Circuit.)
Today, the Second Circuit also ruled in favor of the student, on these facts:
[T]he images depicted on the shirt were a martini glass, three lines of cocaine, a razor blade and a straw. According to the court, the alcohol and drug-related images were intended to portray President Bush as a former alcohol and drug user.
The school allowed a large picture of the president’s face, wearing a helmet, superimposed on the body of a chicken. The shirt identified Bush as “Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief.” But it demanded that Zachary cover the alcohol and drug-related images. He did so with duct tape on which he wrote “censored.”
Zachary and his parents then filed suit claiming that he had been required to cover the images in violation of his free speech rights.
These cases are quite en vogue. And even though the slogan wasn’t on his clothing, don’t forget the kid with the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner, which Ken Starr is appealing to the Supreme Court.
We like these cases, ’cause they’re more interesting than typical appeals court fare. But they must be quite a headache from the perspective of school administrators — and certainly another argument in favor of dress codes.
Picture this: “Express Yourself,” a Project Runway challenge in which the designers would have to produce an “expressive” outfits. Wouldn’t that be great?
But don’t hold your breath waiting for this. Last year we submitted a feedback form to the Project Runway website, suggesting that they hold a judicial robe design challenge — with the wild ‘n wacky Judge Alex Kozinski as the guest judge. Alas, they haven’t gotten back to us. ‘Offensive’ Speech Gets Narrow Reading at 2nd Circuit [New York Law Journal] Rehearing on T-shirt is denied [San Francisco Chronicle] Project Runway [official website]
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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The Ninth Circuit may be getting slapped around by the Supreme Court lately. (Yeah, what else is new.) But they continue to go about their business. Keep on truckin’, Your Honors!
