Orin Kerr

Judge Posner on Statutory Interpretation: This Is How We Do It

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This past Wednesday, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit delivered the Madison Lecture on Judicial Engagement at Columbia Law School. The lecture series, sponsored by the CLS chapter of the Federalist Society, brings distinguished jurists to Columbia to discuss topics relevant to the federal judiciary and the administration of justice.

(Perhaps we should put “at” Columbia Law in quotation marks; Judge Posner actually appeared via video conference. That shouldn’t surprise, coming from a judge who lists The Matrix as one of his favorite films.)

In his talk, entitled “How I Interpret Statutes and the Constitution,” Judge Posner was his usual candid self. He offered commentary on two recent books about statutory and constitutional interpretation — books that he’s not a fan of.

Yes, readers. There will be benchslaps….

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The Not-So-Young and the Restless: Drama at One First Street?

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Actually, just like most cert petitions, drama got denied. In an interview last night with Piers Morgan of CNN, Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court’s longest-serving member, denied that he had any kind of tiff with Chief Justice John Roberts over National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka the Affordable Care Act case, aka Obamacare).

Justice Scalia’s denial of drama is pretty funny, actually. Let’s read about it — along with the latest opinion polls about public approval of the SCOTUS….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: The Conspiracy

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This week, Legal Eagle Wedding Watch salutes… a divorce lawyer. This one dutifully dissolved her client’s marriage, seeing him through a contentious custody battle. But then she went the extra mile and set him up with his next wife. Attention, divorce bar: We smell a new business model.

But let’s not let talk of divorce spoil our ooh-ing and ahh-ing over some tender new lawyer marriages. Here are this week’s finalists:

Ainsley Fuhr and Orin Kerr

Alison Silber and Eric Lesser

Elizabeth Marshall and Jeffrey Leeds

Read on for all the juicy details on these newlyweds, plus a recap of all the recent legal-eagle nuptials….

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Employers Claim Feudal Rights Over Facebook Pages

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Do you really want this guy as your boss?

If there is one golden rule in the technological age, it would likely be that you don’t share your electronic passwords with anyone. Tech companies routinely tell their customers that they will never ask for their users’ security information. Common knowledge says you shouldn’t share passwords with friends, lovers, or even family members. Because when you share that information, you might end up getting arrested for selling contraband to Iran, and your iPhone might wind up at the bottom of a canyon.

So what do you do when a prospective employer wants to login to Facebook — as you — during a job interview? Weep and gnash your teeth? Yeah, that’s what I thought…

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Quote of the Day: Law Professors Rule (Literally)

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[T]he dislike [for legal academics] is a result of law professors being too much in the world. You see, law professors — and I should disclose here that I am one — very nearly run the world, or at least certain parts of the U.S. government. When you include Justice Anthony Kennedy, who taught nights, they make up the majority of the Supreme Court.

– Professor Noah Feldman, in an interesting and provocative Bloomberg opinion piece (via Overlawyered), responding in part to David Segal’s latest New York Times piece criticizing legal education.

(Additional excerpts and discussion, after the jump.)

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Non-Sequiturs: 11.07.11

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Lindsay Lohan

* Professor Glenn Reynolds notes Lindsay Lohan’s swift movement through the jail system. [Instapundit]

* Professor Orin Kerr notes Professor Stephen Higginson’s swift movement onto the Fifth Circuit — in apparent violation of the rule in judicial nominations “that a circuit court nominee with Supreme-Court-level credentials will have a harder time getting confirmed than a nominee without those credentials.” [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Professor Larry Ribstein notes the growing competition between Biglaw and the in-house world. [Truth on the Market]

* If you’re having a hard time keeping track of all the lawsuits in which law firms and their partners are parties rather than counsel, check out this handy guide from Brian Baxter. [Am Law Daily]

Professor Paul Campos

* How would you like your soon-to-be-ex spouse to have your Facebook and Match.com passwords? [Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]

* Here’s an interesting profile of Professor Paul Campos, the legal academic behind the controversial Inside the Law School Scam blog. [National Law Journal]

* And here’s commentary on Karen Sloan’s NLJ piece by Professor Paul Horwitz. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Still on the subject of scamblogging, where do retired scambloggers go? Apparently they start doing podcasts about reality television. [Top Chef Refire]

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Grammer Pole of the Weak: Split Infinitives

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In an event I did a few years ago at the University of Chicago with Judge Richard Posner (check out the podcast here), Judge Posner tossed out a delicious little blind item. He mentioned a federal judge in Chicago who would fire law clerks for what she viewed as a very grave offense: splitting infinitives in written work product.

But is splitting infinitives really such a crime?

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.24.11

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Neal Katyal

* “Dominique Strauss-Kahn Gets Off, As Did Everyone Else Who Stayed In His Room At The Sofitel.” Or: what you don’t want to know about your high-end hotel room. [Dealbreaker]

* F**k yeah — trademark law! Or: some reflections on the “immoral or scandalous” bar to trademark registration, by fashion lawyer Chuck Colman. [Law of Fashion]

* The New Jersey Supreme Court just issued a major new decision calling for changes in the way that courts handle eyewitness identifications — an issue that will also be going before SCOTUS in the coming Term. [The Innocence Project]

* Congratulations to Professor Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general, who’s apparently headed to Hogan Lovells. [Am Law Daily]

* Professor Orin Kerr is not impressed by how Dean Linda Ammons has handled the controversy over Professor Larry Connell. [Volokh Conspiracy via Instapundit]

* They have lots of lawyers over at the IRS (former workplace of Michele Bachmann). Do you really expect them to be good at math? [Going Concern]

* Does signing a bill into law with an autopen present constitutional problems? Professor Terry Turnipseed explains how it might. [Slate]

* Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain thinks that President Obama’s decision not to defend DOMA constitutes an “impeachable defense.” [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]

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The Tenured Law Prof Turned ‘Scamblogger’ Reveals Himself

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The 'scamblogging' law professor has revealed himself.

Earlier this month, we wrote about an anonymous law professor — a tenured professor, at a top-tier school — essentially joining the ranks of the law school scambloggers. Writing over at a site entitled Inside the Law School Scam, under the pseudonym LawProf, the author offered a harsh indictment of legal education, purportedly from within the ivory tower.

I believed that the author was who he said he was, but others did not. Professor Ann Althouse, for example, opined that the blogger was a student, “uncharitably projecting thoughts onto [a] professor” (who talked about how little he, and his colleagues, prepared for teaching). Professor Althouse explained that she thought was student-written, “because it had some bad writing and simplistic thinking.”

Well, as it turns out, LawProf is an actual tenured law professor, at a top 50 law school. Who is he, and where does he teach?

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.01.11

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* A federal judge in Kansas has given Planned Parenthood’s Abortionplex a new lease on life. [WSJ Law Blog]

* What? A former Supreme Court clerk who got passed over for a job at a law school? Nicholas Spaeth, who’s also the former state attorney general for North Dakota, is suing the Michigan State University College of Law, for age discrimination. [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times via SBM Blog]

* Interesting thoughts from Scott Greenfield on making executions public. I certainly don’t oppose more-comprehensive coverage of the criminal justice system in general. [Simple Justice]

* Elsewhere in criminal justice news, should prisons be run on a voucher system? Dan Markel offers some thoughts on Sasha Volokh’s interesting proposal. [PrawfsBlawg]

* An interesting profile of Alan Gura, the celebrated Second Amendment litigator, by a fellow small-firm lawyer, Nicole Black. [The Xemplar]

* Hopefully this will all become moot after a deal gets done, but remember the Fourteenth Amendment argument for Obama unilaterally raising the debt ceiling? Jeffrey Rosen thinks a lawsuit against Obama would get kicked for lack of standing — or might even prevail. [New Republic]

* But Orin Kerr believes that a recent SCOTUS case might change the analysis. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Howrey going to pay all the creditors? A lot turns on how some contingency-fee cases turn out, according to Larry Ribstein. [Truth on the Market]

* From in-house to the big house: former general counsel Russell Mackert just got sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme. [Corporate Counsel]

* Keep It Simple: a commendable theme for Blawg Review #313. [Patent Baristas via Blawg Review]

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