Texas

Fifth Circuit Upholds Affirmative Action, But Is It Begging for SCOTUS Intervention?

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Two people from my high school got into the same college I did. We were all in the top 10 of our class, but none of us were in the top 5. One was a white guy who was a brilliant piano player. The other was a white girl who excelled at sports. Then there was me. I had the “does lots of activities” application. You know the type of d-bag kid I’m talking about: debate this, mock trial that, sports, school plays, bands.

Also, I’m black. Do you think that might have had something to do with it? I hope it did, since it seems to me that my race is at least as much of a factor in what I may add to an incoming college class as whether I could play the piano or dominate in field hockey.

Of course, saying race can be a factor in college admissions is controversial. A certain segment of the population gets all bent out of sorts when a “deserving” white student potentially gets “passed over” because a college official gave a person of color “extra points” when making up the entering class of students.

I find these arguments totally irrational. If the top five students from my high school were passed over — three Jews and two Asians (you know, the real victims of affirmative action, if there are any) — then who exactly “took” their spots? Me, or the sports chick? And if an Asian guy “takes” my spot, but I bump down the piano player who didn’t score as well as I did, and the piano player takes the spot of some poor Hispanic kid who has never seen a piano in real life, would everybody say that we all got what we deserved?

Coming up with an effective way to balance all of the relevant factors in college admissions is hard. But when race is involved, people don’t want to deal with “hard,” and they don’t want to hear “complicated.” They want simple rules and a few platitudes they can recite on television. After yesterday’s Fifth Circuit decision upholding affirmative action at the University of Texas, the only question is whether the Supreme Court has the will and intellectual rigor to think through something hard, or whether the majority will want to fall back on truisms and clichés…

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Drinking While Riding Your Burro Is Still Legal!

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Legal Blog Watch has a perfect Friday story up on its pages. Two men were arrested for riding animals while drunk. One guy was on a mule, the other was on a horse.

But when they got to the police station, the county attorney determined that the animals did not fall within the definition of “a device in, on or by which a person or property is, or may be, transported or drawn on a highway,” to trigger a DWI arrest. And so the men were released.

OF COURSE this happened in Texas…

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Job of the Week: Texas Transactional Work

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Corporate practices in Texas are busy and there should be plenty of excellent transactional opportunities in Texas in 2011. This Job of the Week presents a great chance to move to one of the top corporate groups in Dallas.

Position: Capital Markets Associate

Location: Dallas, TX

Description: A top Dallas firm is seeking a mid-level associate to join its capital markets practice. Two to five years of high-end law firm experience is required, with an emphasis on public company offerings (including under Rule 144A), Exchange Act reporting, and Section 16 and corporate governance compliance. Stellar academics are required.

For more information about this opening, see Position 7405 on Lateral Link. If you are not currently a Lateral Link member, you can register for free at www.laterallink.com. For other opportunities in Texas please contact Gary Cohen, gcohen@laterallink.com.

Cuckolded Spouse Gets Revenge on SMU Law School Lovers

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One Dedman School of Law student may be a dead man. He may have picked the wrong person’s wife to have an affair with.

Here’s the set-up: a husband suspects that his wife, a student at SMU Law School, is cheating on him with another SMU Law student.

So the husband sets up a video camera in the SMU Law parking garage… and hilarity ensues.

Oh, and did I mention that the cuckolded husband apparently has cancer? And that his wife looks like a blond hottie? Yeah, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing you’d expect to happen in Texas.

Of course there’s video of the whole thing, which you MUST check out….

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Greg Coleman, Leading Appellate Litigator and Former Texas Solicitor General, RIP

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We’ve received a number of email messages from readers today conveying some very sad news. In the words of one correspondent, “Texas lost one of its finest lawyers, as well as a great man and father, last night.”

On Tuesday night, prominent Texas lawyer Gregory Coleman — name partner at appellate boutique YetterColeman, former Solicitor General of Texas, and former partner at Weil Gotshal — was killed in a plane crash. Said a second source: “I think most folks in Texas would regard him as one of the best, if not the best, appellate lawyer in the state.”

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Texas Bar Results Are Out Now

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It has been a tough month for Dallas. The Cowboys are embarrassing, Cliff Lee spit the bit, and the Rangers couldn’t win the World Series. Hopefully today’s bar results will give some Dallas-area would-be lawyers a big boost. And if they failed the bar, they can always work for Jerry Jones: he seems to like people who look good on paper but can’t get it done on game day.

For the rest of Texas, your results are out too. Woot. Congratulations to those who passed, good luck next time to those who failed, and condolences to still unemployed or underemployed attorneys already licensed in Texas who must brace for the next wave of competitors.

Chat about the bar here. And go Mavs!

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of bar results

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Legal Citation of the Day: Pointy Ears Under a Ten-Gallon Hat?

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Appropriately weighty principles guide our course. First, we recognize that police power draws from the credo that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Second, while this maxim rings utilitarian and Dickensian (not to mention Vulcan21), it is cabined by something contrarian and Texan: distrust of intrusive government and a belief that police power is justified only by urgency, not expediency.

21 See STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (Paramount Pictures 1982). The film references several works of classic literature, none more prominently than A Tale of Two Cities. Spock gives Admiral Kirk an antique copy as a birthday present, and the film itself is bookended with the book’s opening and closing passages. Most memorable, of course, is Spock’s famous line from his moment of sacrifice: “Don’t grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh . . .” to which Kirk replies, “the needs of the few.”

– Texas Supreme Court Justice Don R. Willett, concurring, in Robinson v. Crown Cork and Seal.

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Texas Tries to C**kblock Lawyers from Getting Their Freak on With Clients

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Stud lawyers in Texas could have a more difficult time mating with their own clients.

Today many people made time to talk about Texas legal ethics — specifically, a proposal in front of the Texas bar that would prohibit lawyers from having sex with their clients. It’s a rule most jurisdictions have in one form or another. It’s not obvious that getting this rule enacted in Texas would be a huge problem.

But to paraphrase Louis Gossett Jr., “only two things come from Texas, steers and [a horribly anachronistic term that rhymes with 'steers'].”

Let’s deal with the steers first. It seems that the people against the new Texas Bar proposal are afraid that clients might just make up tales of affairs, and Texas lawyers — you know, people specially trained in methods of recognizing and producing evidence — will have no way to defend themselves…

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Shooting at UT Austin: Law Professor Shot At But Unharmed

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Breaking this morning, there’s been a shooting at the Perry-Castaneda Library on the University of Texas – Austin campus. The Houston Chronicle reports:

A man opened fire with an automatic weapon on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castaneda Library early Tuesday, UT police spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said.

“He subsequently shot himself. He is deceased,” she said, adding that no one else was injured.

Police and university officials urged students to stay indoors.

“A suspected shooter in PCL library is dead. Police are searching for possible second shooter. Lock doors, do not leave your building,” the alert said.

Based on reports we’ve received from students at the UT Law School, the potential second shooter might still be at large…

WE HAVE POSTED VARIOUS UPDATES BELOW.

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Man Takes Razor to Throat Instead of Sentence From Judge

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A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the decision by Philip Markoff, aka the Craigslist Killer, to take his own life. Today we’re seeing another version of that kind of thinking — less high-profile, less fatal, but still pretty harrowing.

The Dallas Morning News reports that a Texas man slashed his own throat — in the courtroom — after receiving a 40-year sentence for assault:

Marcial Michael Anguiano pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for cutting his niece with a butcher knife. After state District Judge Larry Mitchell announced Anguiano’s sentence, Anguiano cut himself with a razor blade.

“As soon as the judge sentenced him, I saw him do something with his right arm,” said Anguiano’s defense attorney, Juan Sanchez. “I turned and he cut himself with something he had brought into the courtroom.”

After Markoff offed himself, Professor Douglas Berman wrote on his blog, Sentencing Law and Policy, that from a utilitarian perspective we should be happy about Markoff’s suicide. But here Anguiano’s self-mutilation was a disaster, from a utilitarian point of view, for the state of Texas…

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