Vicious Infighting

You do not want to mess with Judge Sam Sparks, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. We recently wrote about Judge Sparks accusing a lawyer appearing before him of incompetence -- in a harshly worded order that pulled no punches. Judge Sparks has been doling out stinging benchslaps for years, and he's gotten pretty good at it. Last week, Judge Sparks lit more lawyers on fire....

You might think that watching law students play sports would be like watching U. Conn. and Butler play basketball. You know, undersized, intense people playing in an ugly and painful style. You’d think that watching law students play a pick-up game of 21 would be indistinguishable from watching Butler unsuccessfully try to throw a ball […]

There must be no more of this childish abuse…. No more or there will be sanctions. In more than 29 years as a judge, I have never encountered such bickering, quarrelsome lawyers. You are wasting my time and your clients’ money. — Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation as a district […]

Earlier this month, we presented you with a trademark law hypothetical. It was based on a dispute between Lawyerist and PeerViews Inc., parent company of TechnoLawyer, over the term “Small Law.” Lawyerist used the words “Small Law” in the title and text of this post — about Above the Law’s new offerings for small-firm readers, […]

Effing Wisconsin. First I have to spend 10 minutes with my clicker searching around for something ridiculous called “TruTV” to catch the Michigan tournament game. I can’t find it so I have to stream the game on the radio while I watch Texas coach Rick Barnes continue his brave struggle to become the first developmentally […]

Earlier this week, I compared Wisconsin to a North African country. Now I think that comparison is unfair to North African countries. The crisis in Wisconsin continues. Democratic state legislators are still on the lam from their jobs, denying the Wisconsin legislature the quorum necessary to conduct state business. Some of our commenters think that […]

In our most recent practice area survey of the Above the Law readership, the most popular single response was “Intellectual Property.” Eighteen percent of survey respondents identified themselves as IP attorneys. So many of you might be interested in the latest controversy to heat up the small-firm blogosphere. If you’re an IP lawyer, if you […]

Is there a huge difference between living in a North African country and living in the state of Wisconsin right now? Can somebody please send in Richard Engel to conduct an interview with a bearded lumberjack making a barricade out of cheese? In case you haven’t been following along (and I understand that it’s not […]

We love internecine warfare at law schools and in other academic settings. As the old saying goes — our cursory Googling doesn’t immediately generate the exact wording or source, so we’ll paraphrase — fights in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small. As Hillary and Barack do battle in Virginia today, so […]

Sure, the divorce proceedings of Leroy Greer won’t be pretty. But hopefully it won’t get as ugly as Nancy Tauck v. Peter Tauck. That litigation, which has dragged on for some two years, has earned these dubious distinctions: — a new national record for the longest divorce trial ever (some 86 days and counting); — […]

Remember Judge Sam Sparks, of the Western District of Texas? He’s a colorful judge with a robust sense of humor, as well as a low tolerance for lawyer shenanigans and quarrels. Back in 2004, Judge Sparks compared bickering lawyers in his court to kindergarteners. His saucy order made the email rounds, first in Texas, then […]

Apperances can be deceiving. The smiling woman above looks like a sweet old lady (or perhaps she’s middle-aged). But don’t be fooled. This pleasant-looking woman opened a can of whoop-ass at the final panel discussion of the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. She rained hellfire and brimstone upon the audience, and placed at least two […]