A photo op with two of the nation's most distinguished jurists: Ninth Circuit Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Alex Kozinski!

(Judge Reinhardt seemed a bit skittish about the taking of this picture, but Judge Kozinski's enthuasism was infectious. Or maybe it was just hard for Judge Reinhardt to say no to the incoming Chief Judge of the court.)

For the limited but passionate segment of the ATL readership that avidly follows the federal judiciary and clerkship news, the past week has been a good one.

First, there was this very interesting Legal Times article by Joe Palazzolo, about the debacle known as the law clerk hiring process. Executive summary: "As in most family feuds, it's the kids who suffer most. In interviews, newly hired law clerks rated this year's hiring frenzy on a scale from 'unfortunate' to 'an utter mess.'"

At the D.C. Circuit, lights shone in the windows of some judges' chambers before dawn on Sept. 19. They had scheduled their first interviews between 6:45 and 7 a.m.

[Yale Law School Professor Christine] Jolls, who is a member of a committee of professors and deans that advises the Judicial Conference on the hiring process, says she got a 2 a.m. e-mail from one of her students who had just emerged from an interview with a 2nd Circuit judge. The judge had scheduled the interview for Sept. 19 at 12:01 a.m.

If you know, feel free to identify the judges who scheduled these insanely early interviews, in the comments.

Second, for those of you follow clerkship bonus developments, on Tuesday the ever-helpful Law Clerk Addict posted an updated Vault 100 clerkship bonus chart. You can access it here.

Third, today the National Law Journal serves up a delightful profile of the nation's #1 judicial superhottie (male), Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit. As of December 1, make that CHIEF Judge Kozinski. Congratulations, Your Honor!

Links to the aforementioned sources, plus excerpts and commentary on the Kozinski profile, appear after the jump.

Update: Also after the jump, some scuttlebutt about which judges were conducting the midnight and early morning interviews.

Lawyers are taking over the NYT weddings section like mold on warm cheddar! Once again, we had a tough time picking three contestant couples from the horde of JDs this week. An unusually high number of law firm partners (and a GC) tied the knot (see here, here, and here for some that didn't make the cut), and partly as a consequence, some younger associate-level couples were left out in the cold. LEWW even had to suck it up and cut one of our law school classmates from the finals!

Here are the carefully selected contestants:

1. Soogy Lee and Nathan Taft

2. Alyssa Qualls and John McCormick

3. Eve Brensike and Richard Primus

Continue reading about this week's couples, after the jump.

(And if you haven't already voted, don't forget about the April Couple of the Month race -- we'll close the poll soon.)

Or at least a big benchslap upside the head, courtesy of the Supreme Court. Per Orin Kerr:

A lot of people have talked about the Supreme Court's small docket; Judge Harry Pregerson of the Ninth Circuit is actually doing something about it. He handed down an opinion today in Carrington v. United States that has "Destination: One First Street" written all over it.

Read the rest of Professor Kerr's devastating critique here. Howard Bashman also doesn't think highly of the opinion.

Professor Kerr concludes by quoting George Will: "[t]here should be two Supreme Courts, one to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the other to hear all other cases." Will's article was about a "Reinhardt special." But as Carrington shows, Judge Stephen Reinhardt isn't racking up reversals all by himself; he gets by with a little help from his friends.

One final note: Carrington gave Judge Consuelo Callahan, the luscious Latina sometimes mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, the opportunity to write an impassioned, high-profile dissent. Judge Callahan should be grateful to Judge Pregerson for giving her the chance to develop conservative street cred. If she gets nominated to the SCOTUS someday, she should thank Judge Pregerson at her investiture.*

(We'd be curious to hear what Professor Doug Berman, sentencing guidelines guru, thinks of Carrington.)

Update: Professor Berman weighs in. Interesting! Are the conservatives now guilty of putting their policy preferences ahead of the letter of the law?

* Best correction ever, from Slate: "Our article originally identified Consuelo Callahan as Consuela Callahan."

Because, you know, all Latinas in the state of California are named "Consuela." They're all maids. And they're all played by Lupe Ontiveros in the movies.

Carrington v. United States [Volokh Conspiracy]
Carrington v. United States (PDF) [Ninth Circuit via How Appealing]

* Meet Aquagirl. She's the Cleary Gottlieb summer associate who had too much to drink, then wound up in the drink.

* But even Aquagirl can land a good job -- in fact, two (a Biglaw gig, and a clerkship) -- after her fifteen minutes of infamy.

* In fact, legal employment is even available to people who make pathetic fools of themselves at their interview lunches.

* Interview Horror Stories: Is the supply inexhaustible? (Click here, scroll down.)

* More law firms get the urge to merge. The latest legal Brangelinas: Dewey/Orrick, Thelen Reid/Brown Raysman, and Pitney Hardin/Day Berry.

* The Ninth Circuit: Why can't they all just get along?

* Speaking of the Ninth Circuit, Judge Kozinski is just as cool as ever. And he photographs well, too. The New Jersey Supreme Court, on the other hand, does not.

* When you aggregate the "Most Favorite Justice" and "Least Favorite Justice" scores, Justice Scalia comes out on top.

* So ATL readers think that Justice Scalia rules (except for those who blame him for judicial incivility). But does anyone want to take a nude cruise with him?

Judge Stephen Reinhardt (left), perhaps the most prominent liberal appeals court judge in the country, is buddies with his conservative colleague on the Ninth Circuit, Judge Alex Kozinski (right). But we suspect that Judge Reinhardt feels less warmly towards Judge Jay S. Bybee (far right).

You can always count on the Ninth Circuit for a good old-fashioned judicial smackfest. And this latest one is very, very good.

Stepping into the ring are two of the Ninth Circuit's most high-profile judges. On the left: Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the court's liberal lion, who has been trading benchslaps with conservatives for decades. On the right: Judge Jay Bybee, one of the court's newer (and more conservative) members. Luckily for him, Judge Bybee was confirmed to his life-tenured post shortly before eruption of the controversy over the 2002 Bush administration "torture memo" (which he signed).

From an article by Justin Scheck of The Recorder:

In March of 2005, Reinhardt and Bybee found themselves on a three-judge panel -- together with Senior Judge Procter Hug Jr. -- that heard the case of Roger Smith. Smith claimed that his guilty plea in the murder of Emmet Konzelman was no good since his supposed accomplice Jacob Edmonds -- who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and testified against Smith -- later recanted his testimony.

In his majority opinion, Reinhardt wrote that even though Smith had not exhausted his state claims, a rarely used exception should allow his case to move forward in federal court.

Par for the Reinhardt course. How did Bybee respond?

"I disagree with nearly every word the majority has written, including 'and' and 'the.' My profound disagreement is not limited to the facts, but runs throughout the majority opinion."

Gee, Judge Bybee, tell us how you really feel!

And there's more. Check out the rest, after the jump.

Howard Bashman offers a preview of the upcoming Supreme Court Term at Law.com. And based on the cases on the oral argument calendar so far, October Term 2006 isn't looking terribly exciting. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Here's our irreverent digest of Bashman's lengthier analysis:

Lopez v. Gonzales, Toledo-Flores v. United States: Question presented: What kind of drug crime can get a guy booted back to Mexico? (If this sounds familiar, it should; every Term the Court has some Latino-surnamed case raising a variant of this issue.)

Ornaski v. Belmontes: Question presented: How early in the Term can Judge Reinhardt get reversed?

MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. Question presented: In order for a patent licensee to litigate the validity of a patent, can they merely flip the patent holder the bird, or do they actually have to go ahead and breach the license agreement?

BP America Production Co. v. Watson: Question presented: Have you ever heard of the federal Mineral Leasing Act -- and if so, do you care? (We didn't think so.)

More case summaries, after the jump.