Public Defender

* “Bueller… Bueller…” Richard Hsu chats with Ben Stein. [Hsu Untied]

* NFL deflates Tom Brady’s hopes of playing a full season. [Redline]

* Can a public defender really handle 700 cases a year? Spoiler alert: No. [Mother Jones]

* About a third of the seats on the Court of Federal Claims are vacant, and a solitary Senator aims to keep it that way. Why are Republicans against getting citizens tax refunds? Shouldn’t that be their whole schtick? [Constitutional Accountability Center]

* If you’re around August 11, check out “Many Faces of Mediation: An Alternative to Courtroom Drama” at JAMS HQ in New York. [ABA]

* If you’ve been hankering for a podcast covering the U.S. Tax Court, then hanker no further. [U.S. Tax Court Podcast via iTunes]

* A proposal for expanding the U.S. News Diversity Index. [Iowa Law Review via SSRN]

* The continuing tribute to commenter Partner Emeritus rolls on. This time delving into my favorite Baby Boomer trope: lame excuses for skipping out on Vietnam. [What About Clients?]

* Talmage Boston explains how Atticus Finch is still worthy of respect in a post-Go Set a Watchman (affiliate link) world. [Washington Independent Review of Books]

* Talmage will be moderating a panel at the ABA Annual Meeting featuring Judge Posner, William Landay, and Laura Caldwell. The panel will also include our own David Lat, discussing Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link). [Supreme Ambitions]

Constitutional challenges mounting against underfunded public defender offices.

If you think you've seen the worst of the plight of recent law school graduates, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Law school can be expensive, and sometimes mid-tier law schools may be a worse investment than one lower down the food chain.

It's not that the pay is necessarily worse -- though when all is said and done, it almost assuredly is -- it's that the job is a delicious cocktail of overwhelming responsibility and bad public policy.

What kind of house can you afford on a public defender's salary?

A public defender has some fun with her filings.

Tech columnist Niki Black looks at how one criminal defense attorney uses an iPad to support her practice and better represent her clients.

If you've ever wondered how General Zod got railroaded in that trial...

Because days off are important.

Who is the most prestigious piece of lawyerly man meat? See for yourself....

Matt Kaiser outlines the most common paths into a popular practice area.

This lawyer's alleged actions should be entered into the attorney misconduct hall of shame.

Why be a lawyer when you can make movies about law instead?

* Do we really need another “50 Best Law Schools” ranking list? Meh. But we know you want to find out if your school made the cut. [Business Insider] * What’s the hardest part of being a public defender? Is it a) the low pay, b) the long hours, or c) getting punched in the face by an unhappy client? [Huffington Post] * This lawyer is involved in a mess of defamation accusations because he made the mistake of paying attention to anonymous comments. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight] * Only amateur fibbers simply pretend they have cancer. If you want to be the real deal, you gotta tell all your friends you also don’t have health insurance and get them to raise three grand to pay for your imaginary chemo. [Legal Juice] * So, I would never fake an injury to get to use a wheelchair, because of the serious karma issues it would probably create in my life (e.g., above blurb). But I will say I went to Disneyland once with a physically disabled friend, and it was freaking amazing. I’ve never waited in so few lines in my life. [Consumerist] * I think the lesson here is that it’s generally poor parenting to name your child after the sound a bomb makes. [CBS Cleveland via Legal Blog Watch]

A Miami public defender caused a mistrial and potentially scuttled her career by posting photos of a client's underwear online.

Sh*t My Lawyer Says. You know, like the word "sh*t," allegedly uttered by one Illinois lawyer in open court.

There is a judge in New Orleans who doesn't want poor people to just go away. There is a judge in New Orleans who wants the larger community to not only see but also defend poor people who appear in his court. He hopes that if some prominent people have to get some skin in the game, maybe they won't be so eager to cut essential legal services to indigent defendants....

* Most Americans can look forward to a tax increase in 2012 because our elected officials would rather bicker with each other than do their jobs. Happy freakin’ New Year! [Los Angeles Times] * Duncan Law’s dean sheds some light on why the ABA might have denied the school provisional accreditation. Come on, what’s not […]

* Guys in my high school White House dropped threats to veto defense bills authorizing infinite detention of U.S. citizens all the time, it was no big deal. Nothing like bastardizing the Sixth Amendment. [New York Times] * So much for occupying the court system, eh? This judge won’t budge on dismissals, and more than […]