Iowa

Iowa Judge Warns Prospective Clerks Not To Expect A ‘Balanced’ Life

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Who says the Midwest is more laid back than the coasts? Who says Midwesterners are more polite than people who live in big cities? Who says working in a place like Iowa affords a higher quality of life and a better work/life balance than working in a place like Chicago?

Not United States District Court Judge Mark Bennett. No sir.

We’ve written about Judge Bennett before. He’s a funny guy. The last time we saw him, he was expressing his personal bias against “East Coast law firms,” in part because he think big city lawyers possess “unsurpassed arrogance.”

But Judge Bennett might be selling himself short. I don’t think the average East Coast lawyer’s arrogance even approaches what His Honor rolls with…

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Non-Sequiturs: 12.17.10

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* You know, I think the National Organization for Women should just try to pretend that Hooters doesn’t exist. The restaurant is just going to piss them off; who needs the aggravation? [ABA Journal]

* If you trust legal advice you receive over Twitter, you’ve already lost. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Apparently, Iowa lawmakers see no use in having three independent branches of government. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Pretty cute comic strip on taking the LSAT, but they must have forgotten the panel where the dead grandmother applies hairspray to the correct answer choice. [LSAT Blog]

* Wow, the promissory estoppel guys have been surprisingly ineffective at breaking through the white noise. [Concurring Opinions]

* Dueling is still not cool for lawyers in Kentucky. [Lowering the Bar]

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About Last Night: Iowans Truly Embarrass Themselves.

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All things considered, I’m feeling pretty good this morning. It’s a lot easier to tear something down than to build something up. For over a year, the Tea Party has been like the developmentally disabled kid in kindergarten whose main talent is knocking over other people’s Lego creations. Now that they’ve got their own house of government, we’ll get to see what they can actually build. Seriously, let’s see them govern. Let’s see the actual legislation they pass. Yesterday was a loss for progressives, but it was also a loss for moderate Republicans. Obama can now continue to ignore his left, the TBD Republican nominee will be pulled to his or her right. Let’s see how that works out for the GOP in 2012.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Christine O’Donnell, I know the difference between winning and losing. If you hate gay people and pot why do you live in California? I feel like Justice Anthony Kennedy went to Wisconsin and personally executed Russ Feingold. But at the end of the day, I live in New York. Cuomo, Schumer, Gillibrand, new A.G. Eric Schneiderman, I mean if Boehner and friends get too annoying we could always secede.

There’s only one result from last night that seems totally idiotic. The good people of Iowa ousted all three of the judges targeted by out-of-state, anti-gay groups. Way to go Iowa, nice of you to let your random dislike of gay love to motivate you all the way to the polls…

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Quote of the Day: Preacher Wants IRS to Make His Day

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Dear God, please allow the IRS to attack my church, so I can take them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

– Iowa pastor Cary K. Gordon, who is campaigning against three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted for same-sex marriage, even though tax-exempt churches are prohibited from campaigning for or against specific political candidates.

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A Collection of Things You Can Do in a Bathroom

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We know how our readers are obsessed with toilets. Over the course of this week, a couple of stories came in about bathroom shenanigans, and we’ll deal with them both here. We’ve got a steamy bathroom (or maybe not, see correction below) and a stinky bathroom from Iowa and UCLA Law, respectively.

First up, Iowa. Land of same-sex marriage and judges getting kicked around because of same-sex marriage. With everybody hot and bothered over gay love in the corn state, you’d think there wasn’t any good, clean, traditional-values sex happening in Iowa. Well the Des Moines Register tells us that Iowa is still safe for heterosexual couples:

A Waterloo lawyer who allegedly had sex with a client in the law library of the Black Hawk County Courthouse faces a possible suspension of his license.

The Iowa Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Board alleges that Clovis M. Bowles had sexual relations with one of his female clients on several occasions in 2007 and 2008.

Clearly, if we let the “gay agenda” have its way and ruin the traditional definition of marriage, this kind of grotty, bathroom hetrosex will be a thing of the past. And that’ll make Jesus angry…

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Lawyer of the Day: Prosecutor-To-Be Mouths Off to Officer — and Loses Job

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When I worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I’d sometimes hear colleagues joke about handing over their Justice Department credentials along with their driver’s license if pulled over for a moving violation. It was a joke because it was generally understood that trying to get out of a speeding ticket by flaunting one’s status as law enforcement was a bad idea (setting aside the ethical issues). The police officer might give you a free pass, or he might get ticked off at your attempt to take advantage of your position. You could end up with a scandal on your hands — the kind of scandal that could derail career ambitions.

This is a lesson that Iowa attorney Lisa Jones-Hall learned the hard way. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports:

A woman on track to become a Linn County prosecutor lost that chance after police pulled her over in Marion last month for having tinted windows. New dash cam video police released today shows Lisa Jones-Hall called the officer names and tried to use her new job to get out of the ticket. The officer asked Jones-Hall to sign a ticket because he said her windows were illegally tinted. But, she initially refused to sign it, called the officer names and then brought up the job she was supposed to start the following week.

“Ok. I want you to arrest me for having tinted windows. I start with the Linn County Prosecutor’s Office next Tuesday. I want you to arrest me for not signing this,” Jones-Hall told the officer.

After hearing about this incident, the Linn County Prosecutor’s Office decided not to hire Jones-Hall.

Ouch. Jones-Hall should have read our earlier post about how lawyers should handle traffic stops (which also involved the offense of overly tinted windows).

The police video is actually quite mortifying — the article doesn’t do it justice….

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Judge of the Day: Judge Mark Bennett of Iowa Is ‘Underwhelmed’ By East Coast Law Firms

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U.S. District Judge Mark W. Bennett won’t get the publicity of Judge Martin Feldman. Obviously, blocking President Obama’s deep-water drilling moratorium — having already disclosed investments in Transocean and Halliburton — is big news.

But Judge Bennett is making waves of his own in his Iowa courtroom. He’s decided that he wants lawyers to participate in an auction to determine who will get to serve as lead counsel in some consolidated antitrust cases.

And he informed lawyers of this with a curious email. The subject line alone is not something one expects from a federal judge:

Waterman v. VS Holding Co. et al (10cv4038) – consolidated antitrust actions – “going once, twice, sold to the lowest bidder” – ready to rumble?

Not only is this judge “ready to rumble,” he’s also ready to insult lawyers from East Coast law firms…

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