Public defenders

  • Morning Docket: 08.17.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.17.17

    * Leaders and prominent partners at Biglaw firms across the country are speaking out against President Donald Trump’s most recent comments concerning the deadly Charlottesville rally, where he blamed “both sides” for the violence that occurred. Has anyone among the leadership at your firm denounced Trump’s remarks? We’ll have more on this later. [Big Law Business]

    * In case you missed it, James Alex Fields, the man accused of second-degree murder in the death of Charlottesville counter-protester Heather Heyer, was supposed to be represented by an attorney from the public defender’s office, but it seems there was a conflict of interest — a relative of an employee was injured in the car crash that led to Heyer’s untimely death. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

    * Judge Jim Hinkle of Gwinnett County, Georgia, has been suspended thanks to his Facebook comments about the events that unfolded in Charlottesville. Hinkle compared the protesters “nut cases tearing down monuments” to ISIS, referring to them as “snowflakes” with “no concept of history.” Hinkle said he didn’t “see anything controversial” about his posts. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

    * Retired Judge Robert Echols, formerly of the Middle District of Tennessee and now a partner at Bass Berry & Sims, once donated about $3,000 to the Mary Noel Kershaw Foundation, which funds firearms training for the League of the South, a hate group tied to the violent Charlottesville rally. The firm has launched an internal investigation into the matter. [Tennessean]

    * Austin Gillespie — d/b/a Augustus Sol Invictus, the DePaul Law grad who opened his own Florida solo practice, closed it via this unhinged memo, and later sacrificed a goat and drank its blood — was an organizer of the Charlottesville alt-right rally and is now running for Senate, again. [Am Law Daily]

  • Morning Docket: 07.05.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.05.17

    * While it’s taken most justices about three to five years to get adjusted to life on the Supreme Court, it seems as if Justice Neil Gorsuch has already hit his stride over the course of just a few months. This gunner wrote one majority opinion, three dissents, three concurrences, and one statement during his first two months on the bench. [New York Times]

    * DLA Piper — the first Biglaw firm to fall to a cyberattack — has finally restored its email service after five days of going without it thanks to being the victim of the worldwide Petya ransomware attack. The firm still claims no client data was compromised by the hackers who gained access to their systems. [ABC News]

    * Ty Cobb of Hogan Lovells will reportedly be brought on to attend to Russia-related issues within the Office of White House Counsel. Cobb met with Trump last week, but wouldn’t offer any comment on his prospective role except to say that he was on vacation. Enjoy your time off while it lasts — working on Russia-related matters at the White House will certainly be no vacation. [Reuters]

    * Harvard Law School has established an endowed professorship to honor the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who graduated from the school in 1960. According to outgoing Dean Martha Minow, the professorship is “especially meaningful” because the justice “had a great love of learning.” [Harvard Law Today]

    * Overworked and underpaid never paid? Public defenders working as independent contractors in Massachusetts aren’t being paid in a remotely timely fashion. They sometimes go up to two months without receiving paychecks, and say that this has been going on for at least five years. [WWLP 22News]

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