Sandra Day O’Connor

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  • Affirmative Action, Biglaw, Deaths, Education / Schools, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Sports, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court

    Afternoon Docket: 04.29.13

    Ed. note: Apologies for the technical difficulties that have prevented us from posting until now. Thanks for your patience!

    * Attention prospective law school applicants: affirmative action, at least as we currently know it, may not be long for this world. A decision in the Fisher v. University of Texas case is expected as early as this week. Stay tuned. [Reuters]

    * Justice Stephen Breyer had to get shoulder replacement surgery after having yet another bike accident (his third, actually). Please — somebody, anybody — get this man some training wheels. Justice is at stake! [New York Times]

    * “We’re not going to take it, goodbye.” That’s what retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wishes the high court would have said when it came to the controversial Bush v. Gore case. [Chicago Tribune]

    * Thanks to the sequester, the Boston bombings case may turn into a “David and Goliath” situation. Sorry, Dzhokhar, but your defense team may be subject to 15 days of furlough. [National Law Journal]

    * George Gallantz, the “founding father” of Proskauer’s sports law practice, RIP. [New York Law Journal]

    * Leo Branton Jr., the defense attorney at the helm of the Angela Davis trial, RIP. [New York Times]

  • Barack Obama, Biglaw, Law Firm Mergers, Law Professors, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Morning Docket, Politics, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, William Rehnquist

    Morning Docket: 04.05.13

    * If President Obama could send a love note to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, it’d probably say something like this: “Girl, you look good. Won’t you back that ass up?” [ABC News]

    * The fun things you learn during a Supreme Court justice’s book tour: apparently Sandra Day O’Connor dated William Rehnquist when they were at school together at Stanford Law. [Legal Times]

    * When it comes to law firms, size really does matter. Quite a few midsize firms had the urge to merge in the first quarter of 2013, according to the latest Altman Weil survey. [Am Law Daily]

    * In case you haven’t heard the news by now, NYU Law School has a new dean, and he was poached fresh from Columbia. The bonus here is that he’s actually pretty cute. We’ll have more on this story later today. [NYU Law News]

    * Law faculties may be a tad too liberal, say some at Harvard Law School, which is basically a bastion of leftie law professors. Cut to Ted Cruz muttering about Commies under his breath. [USA Today]

    * Here’s an obvious protip that may not be obvious to 0Ls: if you’re going to ask for a recommendation letter, you should probably make sure that it’s going to be a positive one. [U.S. News & World Report]

  • Adam Liptak, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Books, California, Crime, Deaths, Disability Law, Gay, Gay Marriage, In-House Counsel, Job Searches, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Texas

    Morning Docket: 04.01.13

    * Can you DIG it?! Well, SCOTUS can’t, at least when it comes to the Prop 8 case, but perhaps that’s what the conservative justices planned all along. You can probably expect a judicial punt on this one. [New York Times]

    * The case for cameras at the high court became even more compelling last week, because people just now realized that having to “spend money to see a public institution do public business is offensive.” Damn straight. [National Law Journal]

    * Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s new book, Out of Order (affiliate link), didn’t exactly get a glowing review from the NYT’s Supreme Court correspondent, Adam Liptak. It’s a “gift shop bauble”? Ouch. [New York Times]

    * Oh, Lanny Breuer, you tried to be all coy by saying you were interviewing elsewhere, but we knew you’d return to Covington. That “vice-chairman” title is a pretty sweet new perk, too. [Legal Times]

    * DLA Piper’s bills may “know no limits,” but in-house counsel claim that while the firm’s emails were “flippant,” they won’t have an impact their already meticulous billing review. [New York Law Journal]

    * The true love’s kiss of litigation: Bingham McCutchen’s Sleeping Beauty may have found her prince in Judge Vincent O’Neill Jr., because he ruled that the firm won’t be able to compel arbitration. [Recorder]

    * It’s really not a good time to be a prosecutor in Texas. Two months after the murder of ADA Mark Hasse, DA Mike McLelland and his wife were gunned down in their home. RIP. [Dallas Morning News]

    * Good news, everyone! The class of 2012 — the largest on record, according to the ABA — was only slightly more unemployed than its predecessors. Cherish the little things, people. [National Law Journal]

  • Election Law, Football, Lindsay Lohan, Non-Sequiturs, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Supreme Court

    Non-Sequiturs: 03.06.13

    * Darren Heitner writes about the new business of concussions in the NFL. Safety equipment manufacturers are working overtime to shield themselves from future litigation because, you know, there’s not much that can be done when you’re still intent on running the human head into another hard, moving object at full speed. [Forbes] * Welcome to Salem 2.0. This time it’s Salem, Missouri that tried to protect us from witchcraft by blocking Internet access to information about Wicca. A federal judge struck this down. Then hopped on a broom and skyrocketed away. [KDSK] * A Florida woman pulled a gun on Walmart employees who wouldn’t honor her $1 coupon. It’s Florida, so she had to stand her ground on that sh*t. [Lowering the Bar] * A 12-year-old boy got stoned and led police on a car chase. Live fast and die young, my friend. [Legal Juice] * More on Lindsay Lohan: After her lawyer, Mark Heller, got blasted as incompetent by the media (including us) and the judge in the case, Lindsay says she’s sticking with him. Because she’s shown a canny understanding of legal practice so far. [TMZ] * #Filiblizzard! That’s the Twitter hashtag that Senator Rand Paul coined to describe the confluence of a major D.C. snowstorm and Paul’s unabashed filibustering of the nominee to head the CIA. At the same time, there is another filibuster of Caitlin Halligan’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit. Remember when Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell hammered out a deal that would end the excessive filibusters? No. You don’t. Because that was just your Absinthe-fueled hallucination. [PrawfsBlawg] * Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was on the Daily Show. She didn’t seem to understand that Shelby County was about Section 5. [Election Law Blog] Full video after the jump….
  • Dorsey & Whitney, Election Law, Job Searches, John Roberts, Law Schools, Money, Morning Docket, Patents, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Supreme Court

    Morning Docket: 03.04.13

    * “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African American voter turnout? Massachusetts.” Sorry, Chief Justice Roberts, but the Bay State’s top elections official begs to differ with your assessment. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

    * This retired SCOTUS justice — the first woman to ever serve on the nation’s highest court — now refers to herself as “an unemployed cowgirl.” We wonder what Justice Scalia will refer to himself as in interviews after he retires. [Sacramento Bee]

    * Mayer Brown wasn’t the only Biglaw firm that had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. Dorsey & Whitney’s 2012 revenue was also at a six-year low, but firm leaders think they can turn it around. [Star Tribune]

    * Billion-dollar patent verdicts, so hot right now: 2012 was a “banner year” for for Biglaw firms representing winning clients, with K&L Gates leading the pack for the highest monetary award. [National Law Journal]

    * “I wouldn’t want to be coming out of law school now.” Oh my God, you guys, the legal job market is still really tough for brand-spanking new law grads. This is new information that no one’s heard before. [Buffalo News]

  • Adoption, Books, Copyright, D.C. Circuit, Environment / Environmental Law, Kids, Lindsay Lohan, Non-Sequiturs, Sandra Day O'Connor

    Non-Sequiturs: 03.01.13

    * Court rules that overlapping elements between romance novels do not amount to infringement. I mean, there’s only so many ways to phrase “throbbing member.” [Courthouse News Service] * Pinellas County, Florida (Tampa Bay area) returns to using fluoridated water after a governmental sea change brought on by the issue. Don’t they understand the Communist plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids? [Tampa Bay Times] * In fairness, I think pro se litigants generally have a pretty good ineffective assistance claim. [Lowering the Bar] * The D.C. Circuit managed to irritate both environmentalists and industry by affirming Fish and Wildlife’s designation of polar bears as “threatened.” It’s a nice middle ground. You know who else would appreciate some middle ground? A polar bear clinging to a shrinking ice floe. [Volokh Conspiracy] * Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor thinks kids need a healthier respect for the American democratic process. It would be unfortunate if the will of a democratic majority could get hijacked by five partisan hacks. [Courthouse News Service] * Following up on yesterday’s profile of Lindsay Lohan’s attorney Mark Heller, the judge declared him “incompetent.” Fair enough. [TMZ] * Oh, but trust him, he’s a doctor (of law). [The Economist] * To quote the inimitable Spencer Hall, “Fine, here, cry.” [New York Times]