Paul Watford

Members of the legal community have long wondered why Paul Watford quit the bench at such a young age. Now we know that the Supreme Court played a role in his decision.

This former federal appellate judge left a lifetime appointment to work as a Biglaw partner.

It better be the job of a lifetime for him to leave a lifetime appointment.

* Now that the Supreme Court shortlist has been whittled down to just three appellate judges, people are speculating as to whether we’re on track to see our first Asian-American nominee. Sri Srinivasan, the front-runner whose “ethnic identity would be the real novel factor here,” could be the high court’s first Hindu justice. [Washington Post]

* Those on the left, however, apparently have objections to Judge Srinivasan’s nomination. During his time at both O’Melveny & Myers and the DOJ, he supported companies accused of gross human rights abuses — a “deeply disturbing” record for someone being considered for SCOTUS. [The Hill]

* Oopsie! Somebody wasted $250K! On Friday, Judicial Crisis Network launched an ad campaign against Judge Jane Kelly of the Eighth Circuit’s possible nomination to the nation’s highest court. You can “[t]ell your senator Jane Kelly doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court” all you want, but this is a bit of a moot point now. [POLITICO]

* Since “simply claiming that an attorney’s conduct was fraudulent does not allow plaintiffs to circumvent attorney immunity,” the Fifth Circuit tossed a suit alleging that Proskauer Rose and Chadbourne & Parke helped to conceal R. Allen Stanford’s $7.2B Ponzi scheme. Stanford is serving a 110-year sentence. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* You snooze, you lose: “[W]e find it impossible not to conclude that [Nikita] Mackey slept, and was therefore not functioning as a lawyer during a substantial portion of the trial.” The Fourth Circuit vacated a man’s conviction and 30-year sentence because his lawyer slept “almost every day” of his trial, for at least 30 minutes. [WSJ Law Blog]

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* The AT&T/T-Mobile antitrust suit is so big that not even Big Government law can handle it. The DOJ is bringing in even bigger guns with a partner from Biglaw firm Munger Tolles. [Bloomberg] * Obama has nominated former Kozinski clerk, Paul Watford, to the Ninth Circuit. Way to go, because he’s kind of cute. […]