Don’t try to answer my question with your own question.
– Justice Antonin Scalia, in response to Ted Olson’s attempt to ask the justice a rhetorical question during today’s oral arguments on California’s Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court.
(We’ll have additional analysis of the Hollingsworth v. Perry proceedings later today, courtesy of Michelle Olsen of Appellate Daily. You can follow Michelle’s real-time coverage on Twitter.)
Today, SCOTUS is all about the gays, and soon enough, it’ll be back to helping white people overcome affirmative action, but soon — very soon I imagine — some court is going to have to step up and reaffirm a woman’s right to choose. Or strike it down and rouse the overwhelming majority of people who support choice out of their complacency.
But quietly, abortion is under attack. And so we’re going to have to have this fight again.
And when we do, wherever we fall, we’re going to have to update Roe v. Wade to take account of the miracle (or madness) of modern science.
North Dakota just signed in the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, more restrictive than Arkansas’s new law that has received more publicity. But some of the new restrictions seem, almost, enlightened….
Continue reading “Has Everybody Noticed That States Are Now Openly Ignoring Roe v. Wade?”
In August, we lamented the fact that nearly two-thirds of Americans couldn’t name a single member of the Supreme Court. At the time, we blamed it on the perceived stupidity of our nation’s population, calling for televised oral arguments in the hopes that they’d someday compete in the ratings with reality shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Unfortunately, given the high court’s resistance to change and the burgeoning evidence that we live in a country that’s overflowing with Honey Boo Boos, neither is going to happen any time soon.
But that’s really beside the point, because even if SCOTUS arguments were televised, they’d likely appear on C-SPAN, a channel that some people have probably never heard of before. Another thing that some people have never heard of before is the Supreme Court itself. That was a serious statement….
Continue reading “People Who Have Actually Heard of the Supreme Court Don’t Like It Very Much”
He is a smart man. He is a good man. I believe he sees where the tide is going. I do trust him. I absolutely trust that he will go in a good direction.
– Jean Podrasky, lesbian cousin to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, commenting on her hopes for her cousin’s thinking about the gay marriage cases being argued before the Supreme Court this week.
Today, the National Law Journal released its list of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. The NLJ releases a similar list once every few years, and each time, the nation’s top lawyers — some from Biglaw, some from legal academia, some from the in-house world, and some from the trial and appellate bars — celebrate their success in creating real change in the industry. That said, the people named to this list are relatively well-known to the general Above the Law readership, but they won’t exactly be household names to laypeople.
Which legal eagles soared into the NLJ’s list this time around? Well, the NLJ selected their influential lawyers based on their political clout, legal results, media penetration, business credibility, and thought leadership. We’ve whittled the impressive list of 100 down to our own top 10.
So who made our cut?
Continue reading “Who Are the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America?”
We all remember Schenck v. United States, the 1919 decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that established the “clear and present danger” test and coined the oft-misquoted line “free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Eloquent and well-reasoned.
You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes didn’t say? “Free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘BINGO!’ in a seniors home.”
But one judge has gone that far…
‘You may take our false hopes for employment, but you will never take our right to sue!’
* Many have compared the possible outcome of the gay marriage cases to the Roe v. Wade decision, saying that constitutionalizing the right to gay marriage will create a similar culture war. Relax, bro, your bigotry is showing. You won’t be any less married if everyone has equal rights, promise. [New York Times]
* Everyone thought Justice Kennedy was going to be the deciding voice in the Obamacare case, and that didn’t happen, but when it comes to the future of gay marriage, in the words of RuPaul, Kennedy’s got the right amount of “charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent” to save the day (at least as far as California’s Proposition 8 is concerned). [Sacramento Bee]
* Meanwhile, people waiting in line outside of the Supreme Court in the hopes of grabbing one of the 50 seats reserved for the public like it’s a Black Friday sale outside of Walmart. Unemployed law grads, just think, you could be getting paid to sleep outside in a tent right now! [The Caucus / New York Times]
* Modern-day legal education is a “failure” in the eyes of this Supreme Court justice. Now don’t get it twisted, Scalia wasn’t referring to the post-graduate employment crisis that we’ve all come know and loathe — he just thinks we need fewer “law and [insert bullsh*t here]“ classes. [Portsmouth Herald]
* Dewey know when we’ll be able to retire this punny phrasing? Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight because more than a dozen former partners (including John Altorelli of spy-shagging fame) are still clinging to their claims that the failed firm’s estate owes them money. [Am Law Daily]
* Seeing as Widener’s motion to dismiss as to its allegedly deceptive job statistics was denied, it looks like there’s still time to rally behind the law school litigation cause. Someone on Team Strauss/Anziska needs to go all William Wallace and inspire more would-be plaintiffs to sue. [Law 360 (sub. req.)]
* If you’re looking for an easy résumé line, then consider joining the Supreme Court bar, an elite organization that doesn’t check to see if its members are still alive. All you need is three years of practice, two signatures, and $200. [Associated Press]
* Stanley Chesley, the master of disaster himself, was disbarred for his “shocking and reprehensible” conduct in a fen-phen case. His wife, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott of the Southern District of Ohio, must be oh so pleased. [Courier-Journal]
* Howrey like dem apples now? Some of Howrey’s former partners, including ex-chairman Robert Ryuak, all lined up to make deals to delay lawsuits from the firm’s bankruptcy trustee, Allan Diamond. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* This Biglaw firm’s future was just a little bit dimmer in 2012, with a 4.9 percent dip in profits per equity partner. This is unexpected from Milbank, a number 3 seed in our March Madness competition. [Am Law Daily]
* The NRA’s New York affiliate filed suit challenging the state’s new gun laws, claiming that a ban on assault weapons violates the Second Amendment — because this is clearly what the founders intended. [Reuters]
* Raj Rajaratnam’s younger brother, Rengan Rajaratnam, was indicted yesterday in a federal insider-trading scheme tied to the Galleon case. You can’t fault the guy, he was just trying to keep it in the family. [Bloomberg]
* Sorry, Dean Boland, but you’re not going anywhere. A judge denied the attorney’s request to withdraw from Paul Ceglia’s Facebook case. He must be wishing there were a dislike button now. [Law 360 (sub. req.)]
* I’ve got a feeling “Bart Simpson” isn’t going to get a fair trial from this judge. [Lowering the Bar]
* The Supreme Court strikes a blow for copyright sanity by telling publishers that they can’t go after people reselling books published overseas. Now the only incentives to move your publishing operation overseas are the cents per hour wages and the lax health and safety standards. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is… the same bad guy with a gun. [Legal Juice]
* Following up yesterday’s link to Professor Richard Epstein’s AMA, Ken White of Popehat exposed himself to the same onslaught. [Reddit]
* About 11 years too late, the NFL rescinded its ridiculous “Tuck Rule,” which was always hard to understand, but basically ruled that an otherwise obvious fumble allowed the player to ditch his actress baby momma and marry a Victoria’s Secret model. [USA Today]
* This guy is VERY specific about what gigs he’s willing to play. And he’s also, apparently, a registered sex offender. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]
Ted Olson
May those arguing on behalf of same-sex “marriage” present their arguments in an inept, confusing and unconvincing way. May they fail to gain traction in the minds of the Justices. May the right of Californians to amend their state constitution to protect marriage be confirmed by the Court, and may the Defense of Marriage Act be ruled constitutional (Lev 20:all; 1 Sam 2:8-10; 2 Chr 14:11; 20:12-27; Pr 22:28; 24:21; Is 8:18-20; Dan 7:25-27; 2 Cor 2:5).
– the Family Research Council, in a public message to “praying friends” regarding next week’s arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry. (Gavel bang: Good As You.)
Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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