State Judges

Non-Sequiturs: 08.20.12

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* So now the judge accused of watching porn from a courthouse computer admits to watching porn on a courthouse computer. Let me just get this out of the way: if I’ve used your computer, it was probably to watch porn. [Chicago Sun-Times]

* Too soon for Aurora jokes? I think it’s weird that more people believe in waiting periods for zingers than for handguns. [Tax Prof Blog]

* Lance Armstrong’s suit against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks. How come the only athlete that seemed to get his day in court was Roger Clemens? [Bloomberg]

* Another kid is packing in his sports dreams to go to law school. Though, in fairness, one of the few things worse than the law graduate economy is probably the NHL economy. [North Dakota Inforum]

* I think Republican political candidates should know by now that they only bands they are allowed to like are country music bands. If they want to like non-country music, they should get the artist’s approval, in writing. Meanwhile, liberals are allowed like all kinds of music, even music performed by people who don’t know what they are talking about. [What About Clients?]

* Attorney and rape victim Shauna Prewitt has some facts about rape that apparently Todd Akin didn’t know. [xoJane]

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.16.12

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I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy!

* A St. Louis plastic surgeon has been sued for allegedly posting topless photos of her breast augmentation patients online — with their names attached to the photos. It’s just more evidence that sooner or later everyone will be naked on the internet. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

* Dewey have enough partners to make the Partner Contribution Plan viable? It seems that we do! [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Wow, the miracles of technology. Now if you have a paternity dispute that you need to clear up, you don’t need to go on Jerry Springer. All you need to do is visit your local taco truck DNA testing van. [Legal Blog Watch]

* You know that scary feeling when it seems you have forgotten something but you can’t figure out what it is? Well, you forgot your toddler — at the grocery store. There, fixed it for you. [Legal Juice]

* Oh boy, another misbehaving state judge. This one, from Georgia, allegedly pre-signed arrest warrants and hit on a woman who appeared before him in court. Sounds like quite the stand-up dude. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

* What are the top five movies all law students should watch? Let the arguing over this list begin… [Greedy Associates]

* I’m sure there must have been a legitimate reason for a federal judge to compare the civil liberties of Muslim Americans to a “hideous sea monster,” but c’mon, really? [Chicago Tribune]

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Allegedly ‘Out of Control’ Judge Faces Official Ethics Charges

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Early in July, we wrote about a family court judge who found himself in hot water after a video of him yelling at a pastor who was going through a divorce went viral.

Now, the judge has been hit with expedited ethics charges — not over his hot-tempered behavior, though, but for allegedly ignoring orders from higher-ups on the state judicial food chain. And, as you might expect, the judge is not exactly Zen about facing the charges…

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Morning Docket: 08.13.12

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* In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate. Putting politics aside, this is a great pick, if only because Ryan is so handsome. Seriously, he’s a total stud. [Wall Street Journal]

* “How can I be the one guy with a good degree who is going to be chronically unemployed?” Sadly, many lawyers are still looking for jobs after (multiple) layoffs, but thanks to a lack of positions, employment is just “not in the cards” for them. [New York Times]

* Deadliest clerkship? The Washington, D.C. judge who presided over one of the most violent mass shooting cases in the nation’s capital was reportedly held up at gunpoint last week, with her law clerk in tow. [Fox DC]

* Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Texas. Judge Sam Sparks “know[s] the smell of bad fish,” and now wants to know why the USADA waited so long to bring charges against Lance Armstrong. [Bloomberg]

* After reversing a bankruptcy court’s decision that loan repayment would be an “undue hardship” for a law school debtor, a judge took the time to rip law schools a new one over escalating tuition. [Oregonian]

* Match.com class-action plaintiffs found no love in court after a federal judge ruled that the dating website hadn’t breached its user agreement. Much like their love lives, their claims aren’t getting any action. [Reuters]

* A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client: 23% of all cases filed in the federal court for the S.D.N.Y. are brought by pro se litigants, and the vast majority of them seem to have lost their minds. [New York Post]

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Why Go Through the Trouble of Clerking for a Judge When You Can House Sit for One Instead?

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Clerking for a federal judge is supposed to be a prestigious way to spend your first year after you graduate from law school. Clerking for a state judge is not quite as prestigious, but a job’s a job, and in this economy, beggars can’t exactly be choosers.

But why go through the trouble of getting all of those recommendation letters when you can just house sit for a judge instead?

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Best Way to Get Out of Jury Duty? Tell the Judge You’ve Got an Audition for ‘Law & Order’

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We’ve written countless times about the ways that people have tried to get out of jury duty. While some of them have managed to shirk their civic duties, others have been less successful.

In rare (unpublicized) cases, potential jurors have been more than willing to serve their time. But sometimes, real-life courtroom drama meets with television drama featuring plots ripped straight from the headlines — and that’s where things get messy.

But not in this judge’s courtroom….

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Morning Docket: 08.03.12

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What Husch Blackwell first-years look like right now.

* The Apple Samsung carnival returns to court today. I can’t wait to see what happens. We will probably have more on this later. [Bloomberg Businessweek]

* After being found guilty of judicial misconduct for misappropriating public funds, Michigan state Judge Sylvia James will be removed from the bench for the remainder of her term. [Detroit Free Press]

* London-based Herbert Smith poached six partners from Chadbourne, including the head of the firm’s litigation group, Thomas Riley, and Gregory Loss, who helmed the products liability group. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* San Bernardino is the newest California city to declare bankruptcy. The city apparently has over $1 billion in debt. I wonder if they had to cut their prosecutors’ salaries also. [Wall Street Journal]

* First-year associates at Husch Blackwell will see a nice salary bump this year. Oh boy! [Blog of the Legal Times]

* President Obama nominated prosecutor Pamela Chen to be a new judge for the Federal District Court in New York. If confirmed, she would become the second female Chinese-American federal judge in U.S. history, and also would be one of the first openly lesbian federal judges. [Metro Weekly]

* Republicans filibustered the Obama administration’s high-priority cybersecurity bill. [New York Times]

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Murder Trial Jury Selection Turns into Gossip Girls; Everyone Loses

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The hot topics in jury misconduct these days are mostly about jurors who over-share or over-research cases on the internet or social media. Everyone is legitimately concerned about what jurors find online about the cases they hear. Sometimes big-time attorneys even get lambasted by judges for allowing certain information to be published in the media — even though jurors have already been instructed not to look at at any press.

But that doesn’t mean old-school water-cooler gossip has disappeared from the list of headaches uncooperative jurors can cause. In Florida this week, a high-profile, extraordinarily slow-moving murder case was delayed yet again after the judge dismissed the entire jury selection pool because of excessive pick a little talk a little cheep cheep cheep…

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Morning Docket: 08.02.12

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Hey boss, plz stop thnx.

* Global agribusiness group Monsanto Co was awarded $1 billion in a patent infringement case against DuPont for improperly duplicating some kind of crazy seed technology. [New York Times]

* For particularly thick-headed employers who don’t understand it’s a bad idea to ask employees for Facebook passwords, now Illinois will fine them $200 for doing so. [Chicago Tribune]

* A federal judge in Washington sanctioned well-known plaintiff’s attorney Joy Ann Bull for filing grossly inflated fee statements. She was consequently asked to resign her partnership at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd. Welcome to the breadline! [LegalNewsline]

* Should a trial judge who is a Brooklyn Law grad recuse himself from a case against Brooklyn Law filed by Brooklyn Law alumni? Meh… [National Law Journal]

* As Ralph Baxter nears retirement, who will be chosen to lead Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe? [Am Law Daily]

* The Ninth Circuit already issued an injunction against Arizona’s new late-term abortion ban. Like they say, it’s all about shakin’ hands and killing kissin’ babies. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The psychiatrist James Holmes was seeing at the University of Colorado was so alarmed by his behavior sometime before his alleged shooting spree that she notified the school’s “threat assessment team,” but apparently nothing was done. Looks like someone missed the assessment boat, by like, and ocean or two. [Denver Post]

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Quote of the Day: He Don’t Give a Damn About His Reputation

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Only squares arrive to court on time.

Mr. Basner is gaining a reputation in Central Pennsylvania for this kind of behavior.

– Mifflin Court of Common Pleas President Judge Timothy S. Searer, criticizing defense attorney Christopher Basner, who didn’t show up to his client’s aggravated indecent assault trial. Basner blamed his absence on car troubles.

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