Supreme Court Clerks

* What happens if a Supreme Court clerk violates the Code of Conduct and leaks information to the press at the behest of a justice? At worst, he’d probably be forced to wash dirty socks from the SCOTUS morning exercise class. [National Law Journal]

* “[T]he great expectations when he was elected have not come to fruition.” Making judicial nominations wasn’t a high political priority, so President Barack Obama will be ending his term with just 125 lower-court appointments in the federal judiciary. [New York Times]

* If there’s anything that Paul Ryan’s good at, it’s soliciting money from lawyers and Biglaw firms. Alston & Bird tops the list of legal campaign contributors, with Patton Boggs in a close second. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* Apparently the female reproduction system shuts down to prevent conception upon rape. This improbable tidbit from a man who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. [Los Angeles Times]

* But a great way to take some of the heat off of the “legitimate rape” dude is to break news about another Congressman’s nude swim in the Sea of Galilee while in Israel. Excellent work on this distraction. [POLITICO]

* What crisis? Despite a steep decline in applicants, the average law school’s tuition will climb by more than double the rate of inflation this fall. It’s really heartwarming how they put students first. [National Law Journal]

* Customs agents in Los Angeles seized 20,457 pairs of faux Christian Louboutins that would’ve been worth approximately $18M. For this heinous crime of fashion, the offending shoes will undergo a trial by fire. [CNN]

* Karma sure is a Blitsch. Matthew Couloute, the alleged lawyerly Lothario who got slammed by his exes on LiarsCheatersRUs.com, is now being slammed by someone else: his soon-to-be ex-wife. [New York Post]

* Beauty school dropout, no pube hair trimming days for you! Seventeen female plaintiffs have alleged that a cosmetology instructor subjected them to less-than-sanitary lessons in a federal suit. [New York Daily News]

Congratulations to Ted Cruz, who just won a runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination in Texas. Let's take a look at his amazing résumé....

* This is a great article on why the Supreme Court doesn’t leak, while more important institutions, like our national security apparatus, leak like a freaking sieve. [New Republic] * Most law professors think the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Most law professors think the Supreme Court will overturn the ACA anyway. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? [Bloomberg] * And now for some SCOTUS thoughts from the amazingly amorphous Mitt Romney. Look at his works in equivocation, ye mighty, and despair. [Washington Post] * You know, I don’t know how they afford this stuff, but having an inalienable right to “paid vacation” really feels like the kind of European invention we should be emulating. Good ideas can come from anywhere, folks. [Legal Blog Watch] * Letting students sit for the bar exam after their second year but then making them come back to school for an even more obviously useless third year is a great way to make somebody have a total mental dissociative break. Just imagine calculating how much money you’re being forced to waste while you sit there in a 3L seminar called “Law and Ceramics.” [Faculty Lounge] * Oh, I like this. The little Democrat in me can’t help but like this: a “global” financial transaction tax. Mmm… there’s nothing like the smell of global redistributive fairness. [Overlawyered] * Jonathan Turley seems hurt that Ann Althouse and other conservative academics acted in a way that shows “we have lost the tradition of civil discourse in this country.” Yeah, umm, Professor Turley, perhaps you didn’t read the footnotes, but here on the internet we don’t have a tradition of civil discourse. We do have a tradition of ad hominem attacks, hyperbole, and pictures of cats. [Jonathan Turley]

Some interesting observations about the October Term 2012 law clerks of the U.S. Supreme Court (plus updated clerk lists for OT 2012 and OT 2013).

Which lucky (and brilliant) young lawyers will find themselves clerking for the Supreme Court for October Term 2012?

A former Supreme Court clerk, currently President Obama's nominee to serve as ambassador to Iraq, finds his personal life under scrutiny thanks to some racy leaked emails. How racy?

Government work doesn't pay particularly well. So how can a federal prosecutor afford to live in a $25 million apartment?

This week, Legal Eagle Wedding Watch salutes some tender new lawyer marriages. Read on for all the juicy details on these newlyweds, plus a recap of all the recent legal-eagle nuptials….

Some observers have suggested that Justice Clarence Thomas run for president, emerging as the nominee after a brokered convention for the Republican Party. What does Justice Thomas think of the idea?

What does Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia think about the state of the legal profession and Biglaw's compensation system? See what he had to say about both at the 2012 American Bar Association Midyear Meeting....

Supreme Court opinions can be loooong! But at least the justices have their trusty Supreme Court clerks, three dozen or so of the nation's brightest young legal minds, to help get everything done. Thanks to everyone who responded to our recent request for tips about law clerk hiring activity at SCOTUS. Let's take a look at what we've learned, shall we?

Last July, we shared with you the Supreme Court's official list of law clerks for the October Term 2011. We noted at the time that "this list does not include law school and prior clerkship information, which the [Public Information Office] will release later this year." We now have that updated list of OT 2011 Supreme Court law clerks, featuring law school and prior clerkship data, courtesy of the Public Information Office. Let's look at the list, and count up which law schools and feeder judges sent the most folks over to One First Street....

Last week, we pretended that it wasn't January by looking back at some of the biggest legal weddings of late 2011. There was a lot of muy prestigioso lawyer matrimony in the last part of the year. Before we delve into the January crop of weddings, which -- let's face it -- is often subpar, here are some from the fall that we haven't featured yet. These are good ones, folks. Think Rhodes Scholars. Think SCOTUS clerks....

Congratulations to the 2012 Bristow Fellows, who learned of their selection earlier this month. These one-year fellowships in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office, awarded to recent law school graduates with outstanding academic records and top clerkships, are generally regarded as second only to Supreme Court clerkships in prestige. Let's take a look at the next crop of Bristow Fellows....

* John Wilkes Booth. Lee Harvey Oswald. Oscar Ortega-Hernandez. Sorry, Oscar, you have three names, but you didn’t actually kill the president, so you don’t get to join the club. [New York Times] * Former SCOTUS clerk Roy McLeese III has been nominated for a seat on the D.C. Court of Appeals. I don’t have […]

If Learned Hand’s opinions are like the products of a bespoke tailor, the opinions coming out of the Ninth Circuit are like the products of a factory that is staffed by machines and menial workers who are overseen from afar by a handful of overworked managers. — Justice Samuel Alito, in a recent speech at […]

* “Rising tuition. Misleading employment statistics. Inadequate skills training.” So what are legal educators doing about it? Blogging, of course. [Law School Review] * Trendspotting: cute judges on the federal bench? The Senate has confirmed Loyola Law professor Stephen Higginson for a seat on the Fifth Circuit. [National Law Journal] * People in New Jersey […]

Congratulations to the “Minority 40 Under 40.” This is a distinguished group of 40 minority lawyers, all under the age of 40, who have just been honored by the National Law Journal for their accomplishments within the legal profession. Let’s learn more about them. Maybe you have friends or colleagues on the list?

Professor Stephen F. Smith, who teaches criminal law and criminal procedure at Notre Dame Law School, stands accused of a serious crime. According to the South Bend Tribune, Professor Smith faces one count of domestic battery, a class D felony....

Everyone loves a wedding, but everyone loves a lawyer wedding even more -- especially when Columbia Law has apparently taken over.This is a summer mega-LEWW, with five finalists and a loooooong list of also-rans at the end. Read on for a virtual nuptial feast....