Now it appears that the decision on Dean Berman’s replacement is also steeped in controversy. Today, GW Law named Professor Gregory Maggs as its interim dean. In so doing, the school passed over their Senior Associate Dean, Christopher Bracey. Instead of promoting Bracey into the interim dean position, he’ll stay on at GW, under Maggs.
This seems like a good time to point out that Maggs is white and Bracey is black.
And so let’s play our game, because a member of the GW Law Faculty, who is also black, had a real problem with the decision to pass over Bracey. She called it “not the law school’s finest hour” in a message to the entire faculty. And then she subtly told another faculty member to go jump in a lake.
It’s been great fun to watch archconservatives wake up and realize what country they’ve been living in this whole time. Minorities vote too. Single women don’t like being called sluts. Gays and lesbians are everywhere. And people can understand that sometimes, taxes are necessary.
The emerging American consciousness — from both Democrats and Republicans — that if we want government to do things we have to pay for them with taxes, has been particularly fun to watch. In Austin, Texas, there was a ballot initiative which contemplated raising property takes to in order to pay for “a medical school in Austin and other health care projects,” according to the Austin American-Statesman. And it passed!
But that didn’t sit well with some Texans. Don Zimmerman, treasurer of the Travis County Taxpayers Union political action committee, argued that the initiative — called Proposition 1 — was discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. Zimmerman and his attorney argued that Prop 1 was confusing to minorities who “have lower reading comprehension than whites.”
Maybe so, but I sho’nuff can spy me a racist when I done read one….
Chris Christie, that redundant rotundity, has taken a vicious beating this week. The party of personal responsibility has personally held him responsible for Mitt Romney’s defeat. And it’s easy to see why. Instead of traveling to Pennsylvania to stump for Romney, he stayed behind in New Jersey so he could spoon some more with President Obama. What does it profit a man who gains a friendship with Bruce Springsteen, but loses his party the presidential election? Hell if I know.
Loads of people are saying that Christie blew his chance at ever being nominated by the Republicans because of his a-hugging and a-kissing on President Obama. I don’t know about all that. The fact is, Christie has and had about as much a chance at the Republican nomination for president as Rudy 9-11 before him. Just as that lisping vampire couldn’t have won a nationwide nominating process if the excess saliva in his mouth depended on it, so too was Christie doomed. The sort of abrasive politics that Christie practices may have found its level in the New Jersey governorship. And that’s probably okay.
Today, playing the role of the scary black man, Jay-Z.
In a perfect dose of Friday news, a New York judge cited Jay-Z while allowing a lawsuit brought by public housing residents to continue against the City of New York.
The public housing residents and their visitors claim Fourth Amendment violations when visitors are detained as “trespassers” in public housing complexes. The city moved to kill the suit, but Judge Shira Scheindlin (S.D.N.Y. issued an 84-page opinion saying that the public housing residents could pursue their claims.
Normally, I throw my lot in with the segment of humanity who would rather be eating Brussels sprouts at a Phil Collins concert than reading 84-page public housing decisions. But Judge Scheindlin threw a Jay-Z reference into one of her footnotes. Fun! Unless you hate black people, in which case Judge Scheindlin is deeply subversive…
I’d like to live in a world where the list of best law schools “for black people” was exactly the same as the list of best law schools “for people.”
I think we’re close. Black people are already conditioned to make the same stupid decisions based on the U.S. News rankings as white people have been making for a generation. And while there are still some unhelpful people who try to tell black people that the reasons for going to law school are somehow radically different for them than for everybody else, for the most part, people understand that black people go to law school for the same reason white people do: jobs.
Still, we’re not quite there, in large part because the strength and vibrancy of the black community can vary greatly between law schools. In this day and age, nobody should expect to be the “only” black student in their small section. Everybody should expect access to a diverse law school faculty. But some law schools do a better job of providing those kinds of environments than others.
Now, usually when I see a non-U.S. News law school ranking, I make fun of it. That’s because there is usually some kind of huge, methodological problem with them. And then, of course, there is the pathetic joke that is the Cooley Law School Rankings. In general, non-U.S. News rankings fail either by offering no new information than what is already captured by U.S. News, or by looking at completely stupid information that nobody cares about.
With that in mind, I opened The Black Student’s Guide To Law School with a lot of skepticism. I mean, unless they figured out how to capture the all important “racist apologist per oblivious white person” metric, I wasn’t sure there would be a lot of utility here.
But having thumbed through the guide and their ranking of the top 25 national law schools for black people, I have to say that there is a lot of good stuff in here. And I’m not just saying that because Yale Law plummets to #19….
Americans expect the courts to be fair, impartial, and open to all. Cebull clearly demonstrated that he does not have the temperament to serve as a federal judge, period.
Cebull may hope that taking senior status before the misconduct review concludes will help him avoid sanction. But he should be held accountable by the 9th Circuit regardless of his status.
Taking senior status is a half-measure that allows Cebull to continue hearing cases. That’s not appropriate. He should resign or retire immediately.
This doesn’t mean the same thing in all parts of the world.
It’s not unusual for politicians to spew racist or ignorant invectives about people and cultures when one is unfortunate enough to hear them speaking to their “base.” That’s just the sad fact of political life, and saying horrible things about “other” people is neither new nor uniquely American. All over the world, there are politicians who make their mark by inflaming the passions of the dumbest among us.
What’s unusual about this election cycle is that so far, politicians have really doubled down on their divisive, hateful, or frankly stupid speech when the red meat intended for true believers gets picked up by more moderate sources. We’re seeing it with Mitt Romney and this ridiculous notion that the world can be divided up between makers and takers. We’re seeing it with Todd Akin who has stubbornly refused to shut that whole thing down. And I’m sure it’s happening in local races all around the country.
A tipster sent us something about one such local race. Debbie Riddle is running for reelection as a Texas State Representative. She’s got some views which are the very definition of racism towards the Afghan people. But it’s not surprising that an openly racist woman has been elected by the good people of Texas. What’s surprising is how comfortable she is being this hateful even when talking to a student and fellow American citizen who just happens to be not white.
I mean, I’m not as prejudiced against this guy as Debbie Riddle is, even though he goes to some law school I’ve barely heard of….
* Wal-Mart allegedly ripped up a woman’s hundos because a cashier thought they were fake. The bills were, in fact, real, and now the woman, who just wanted to do some Christmas shopping, is suing. Beat that, Ebenezer Scrooge! [Daily Mail]
* A few weeks back, we challenged law professors to come up with 50 Shades of Grey-based hypos. This fellow took us up on it. So here you go: 50 Shades of Admin Law. [Lawprawfblog]
* Hey Romney, you can take our lives health care, but you’ll never take our pornography! [Forbes]
* “Now enterng the Klu Klux Klan Memorial Highway.” Yeah, I agree, that really doesn’t have such a great ring to it. [Thomson Reuters News and Insight]
* If you just started your 1L year and are already thinking, “I’ve made a huge mistake,” you may still have time to escape with your bank account intact. [Texas Lawyer]
* Speaking of, a recent Delaware Supreme Court opinion worked out to $35,000 per hour for winning attorneys in the case. Now the losers, Grupo Mexico, have appealed by arguing, “You guys made a huge mistake!” [WSJ Deal Journal]
* If you want to go to law school, but you hate reading, just buy the Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law. And don’t go to law school. [The Criminal Lawyer via Boing Boing]
* Analyzing an upcoming SCOTUS case though the Lonely Island’s I’m on a Boat. Andy Samberg seriously needs to recruit some justices for one of his videos. You know the Wise Latina could throw down. [FindLaw]
* Something about politics and booze and a bar being forced to change an allegedly racist drink name. Probably for the best, if for no other reason “Marion Berry’s Dirty Asian Summer Punch” is a crummy drink name anyway. [Huffington Post]
* This guy is so bad at being a criminal, I almost feel sorry for him. Worst part is he knows it, too. [LegalJuice]
* Speaking of ineffective criminals, if you’re dating a wanted man, you might want to reconsider adding the local sheriff as a Facebook friend. [Bluefield Daily Telegraph]
* Should lap dancing be classified as an art form for tax purposes? If curling is an Olympic sport, naked hip gyrations is clearly art. [Overlawyered]
* You know those weird vaporless cigarettes that were kind of popular for a while? Well, now they have them for weed too. In other news, marijuana is still illegal. [East Bay Express]
* “He’s stupid. I wouldn’t even count him as a Republican.” Many Republican women at the RNC wish that the men like Rep. Todd Akin would just shut up about abortion, rape, and contraception. [Reuters]
* Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the discrimination against minorities. A panel of judges on a D.C. federal court shot down the state’s redistricting plans for lack of compliance with the VRA. [Washington Post]
* A disgruntled Stanford Law graduate’s defamation and retaliation suit against the school was dismissed. Sorry, but it’s highly doubtful that a law professor blacklisted you from getting a job. [National Law Journal]
* “[T]here’s a surplus of attorneys and not enough jobs for it.” Lincoln Memorial’s president admits amid accreditation issues that perhaps it wasn’t the best time to open Duncan Law. [Knoxville News Sentinel]
* “I don’t know if this was worth it, but I did have a good time in Cancun.” Skipping deliberations to go on vacation is a great way to earn yourself a trip to jail, but this girl got lucky. [Proof & Hearsay / Journal Sentinel]
* Continental faces a lawsuit after baggage handlers allegedly removed a sex toy from a passenger’s luggage and taped it outside the bag for the world to see. At least it wasn’t the TSA. [Courthouse News Service]
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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.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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We’ve previously covered the departure of Paul Schiff Berman as dean of George Washington University Law School. There was a lot of intrigue regarding Dean Berman’s departure.
