The government acknowledged that a link exists between autism and the routine vaccines which one girl from Georgia was given as a child:

The cases are before a special "vaccine court" that doles out cash from a fund Congress set up to pay people injured by vaccines and to protect makers from damages as a way to help ensure an adequate vaccine supply. The burden of proof is lighter than in a traditional court, and is based on a preponderance of evidence. Since the fund started in 1988, it has paid roughly 950 claims _ none for autism.

Although the government didn’t say that the vaccines cause autism, they did concede that, in this single case, the vaccines worsened the girl’s existing condition and caused her to develop symptoms of autism.

We’re wondering about this “special ‘vaccine court.' To our readers: what are some other interesting cases in which “special courts” were set up for a specific type of claim (not military tribunals; that’s too obvious)?

UPDATE: We're asking about interesting cases when "special courts" set up for strange or unorthodox reasons.

Government Concedes Vaccine Injury Case [WaPo]

Today's Washington Post contains a very interesting article by Ian Shapira (who seems to love writing about lawyers; see here and here). It's the latest in a series of stories about well-educated young people in the D.C. area. Today's piece focuses on college-educated twenty-somethings, living in metro areas, who decide to buck the trend and have kids. Shapira writes:

[Erin] Rexroth, a former congressional aide, and her husband, Philip, 27, who works for the Department of Homeland Security, are defying the norm for their class and age group: They are raising a child. The majority of college graduates in their 20s in metropolitan regions postpone having kids until at least their 30s or never have any, according to recent demographic research.

Like anyone who strays from the generational pack, college-educated parents in their 20s often face questions about friendships, careers and their place in life. Although rearing children invigorates them like a high-profile job, these parents sometimes say they feel like guinea pigs among childless peers. They wonder whether it's possible to befriend older parents. Some say they feel isolated from friends, those who don't change diapers or deal with sleep deprivation.

Later in the story, an associate at Cadwalader is quoted about how she decided to have kids early so it wouldn't disrupt her path to partnership as much:

"By the time I'm at a point in my career where I am going to be making partner, my kids are going to be old enough to be playing on their own and sleeping on their own," said Erin Foley Lewis, 28, an associate at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who recently had twins. "If I had waited until 33 to have children, I'd have newborns at the time I would be up for partner."

Cadwalader -- they still make partners over there? They better not get into that habit, or their crazy leverage -- and sky-high profits per partner -- are sure to fall.

On the bright side, at least Ms. Lewis is (1) in litigation and (2) in Washington. So her chances of being laid off are relatively low.

Bringing Up Babies, And Defying the Norm [Washington Post]

Gracing the front page of today's Washington Post is an article that will appeal to many ATL readers. It's by Post reporter Ian Shapira, who previously wrote this interesting piece about summer associates. Here's the headline:

Okay, not a terribly novel development. As one of several ATL readers who wrote us about this story observed, "it's not exactly Man Bites Dog."

But even if the article may not be earth-shattering, it's a well-crafted, thought-provoking piece. We think it will get an interesting discussion going. Also, anything that gets a general audience to care about the niche topic of law firms, like a front page WaPo article, is a good thing in our book.

Excerpts and observations, after the jump.

Today's Washington Post has a great article, by Ian Shapira, about the adventures of summer associates here in the nation's capital. This is our favorite part (emphasis added):

[B]udding lawyers say they spend much of their office time looking for better deals. They peruse such Web sites as Above the Law, a must-read legal blog written by David Lat, a former federal prosecutor in Newark and former co-editor of the Wonkette politics and media blog.

One of Above the Law's scoops this month was headlined "WilmerHale Summers: Where's Our Raise?" The blog published an e-mail from an anonymous summer associate in the Boston office who complained that the summers weren't getting the customary pro-rated weekly equivalent of first-year associates. Instead of about $3,100 a week ($160,000 a year), the tipster wrote, they were getting only $2,800 (about $145,000 a year).

More discussion of this delightful piece, after the jump.

Here are some recent, noteworthy moves within the D.C. legal community:

Inside the Administration:

* Conservative legal superstar Jennifer Brosnahan has left the White House Counsel's office, where she was one of the more senior associate counsels, to become the new deputy general counsel at the Department of Transportation.

From government to private practice:

* As previously reported by Ken Vogel of The Politico, Michael Toner has left the Federal Election Commission, to build an election law practice at Bryan Cave (which, by the way, recently raised associate salaries).

Within the Fourth Estate:

* One of the most knowledgeable legal scribes around, Benjamin Wittes, is leaving the Washington Post, after some nine years at the venerable paper.

(Wittes, the author of Confirmation Wars (previously praised here), is currently on book leave from the Post. He's working on another book about the federal courts.)

FEC Revolving Door Swings Faster [The Politico]

Worth your time: this article, from the front page of today's Washington Post, and this post, by Professor Dave Hoffman (who is quoted in the article).

Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web: Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks [Washington Post]
Article on Xoxohth and Legal Gossip [Concurring Opinions]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a government official unwisely shooting his mouth off is just a government official unwisely shooting his mouth off.

When Charles D. Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, criticized lawyers at top law firms for representing Guantánamo Bay detainees, we speculated that perhaps his statements were part of a Bush Administration effort to discourage such representation. It appears that we were wrong.

Today's Washington Post contains a letter of apology from Stimson. In the letter, he states that he "believe[s] firmly that a foundational principle of our legal system is that the system works best when both sides are represented by competent legal counsel."

After making his controversial remarks, Charles Stimson was roundly criticized by numerous law school deans. His abrupt about-face raises an amusing possibility: Could an open letter from law school deans -- typically as worthless and irrelevant a piece of paper as a parking ticket on a diplomat's windshield -- have had an actual impact in the real world?

The full text of Cully Stimson's apologetic letter, plus related links, after the jump.

Hey, guess what? In our best impression of Howard Bashman, we're going to tell you all about a recent lunch of ours.

On Tuesday, we had an absolutely delightful lunch with Benjamin Wittes. He's an editorial writer for the Washington Post, specializing in legal affairs, and the author of a new book about the judicial confirmation process: Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times.

We recommend Confirmation Wars most highly. It's tremendously well-researched, as well as fascinating and fun to read. (Even the footnotes are juicy.) It has the rigor of an academic book -- it's published in connection with the Hoover Institution at Stanford -- but the readability of, well, a non-academic book. And it came out after the Roberts and Alito confirmations were concluded, so it's informed by those recent experiences.

Wittes ably diagnoses the problems with the current judicial nomination and confirmation process, then offers up some solutions. And he's commendably fair-minded and non-ideological in his assessment of a highly controversial subject. (To learn more about the substantive views expressed in the book, check out this article, from the Harvard Law Record.)

Starting in January, Wittes will be away from the Post. He's going on a six-month book leave, to work on his next project: a book about the federal appeals court. We can't wait to read it!

In case you're wondering, we lunched at Georgia Brown's, just down the street from the Post offices. We both had the soup special -- black bean, if memory serves -- and the fried chicken salad, which was scrumptious, even if not very healthy for a salad. And we gossiped incessantly about federal judges and judicial nominees. What a blast!!!

Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times [Amazon.com]
Confirmation Wars: Ben Wittes on How to Preserve Judicial Independence [Harvard Law Record]

We're delighted that our scoop about Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh pushing Linda Greenhouse over Justice Samuel Alito for the YLS Award of Merit has been picked up so widely. It even made the pages of the Holy Trinity of the Right-of-Center Blawgosphere: Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy (Jonathan Adler), and Althouse.

As noted, our transcript of the deliberations was fictionalized and satirical. But it is based upon what we've learned about the process by which Greenhouse was selected.

If you disbelieve our account in its entirety, allow us to share with you some supporting information. This isn't the first time that Dean Koh has been accused of showing favoritism towards Linda Greenhouse. Consider the case of the Harry Blackmun papers.

Koh, a former law clerk to Justice Blackmun and advisor to his daughter Sally, played a major role in giving Linda Greenhouse exclusive, early access to Blackmun's papers -- much to the chagrin of other news organizations. As reported at the time by Tony Mauro:

Blackmun's daughter Sally, the executor for the papers, said in an interview last week that Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, and Nina Totenberg, longtime Court correspondent for National Public Radio, have been given exclusive pre-release access to the papers for their respective media of print and broadcast journalism....

The Washington Post asked for early access before the exclusive arrangement was made, but was denied. Editors at the Post were described by one knowledgeable source outside the newspaper as "livid" over the favored treatment granted to the Times.

Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Post attorney David Kendall of Williams & Connolly repeatedly sought reconsideration of the exclusive deal, without success, according to sources at the Post. The Post petitioned Sally Blackmun and Yale Law School professor Harold Koh, a former clerk to the justice and now an adviser to Blackmun.

A Post source says that Koh invited the newspaper to make a proposal for early access last July, but did not mention a deadline. According to the source, by the time the Post replied in September with a plan for non-exclusive early access, the decision had already been made to give the Times exclusive access.

Say it ain't so! Dean Koh had already made up his mind, in favor of La Greenhouse? Quelle surprise!

For her part, Greenhouse says she began talking with Koh last July, but did not seek exclusivity. The offer to give the Times the only print media preview "fell in my lap," she says....

Koh declined to comment on why Greenhouse and Totenberg were selected.

So what is the origin of Linda Greenhouse's Svengali-like power over Harold Koh?

We have a theory. Check it out, along with a bunch of interesting links, after the jump.

Okay, look, we get it. Given that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is now the swing vote on the Supreme Court, how long he will remain on the Court -- and his health, which obviously affects the length of his tenure -- is of critical importance.

But we still found it odd that the Washington Post decided to throw AMK's ideology into its subhed:

That got us thinking -- would they do the same if, say, Justice Scalia underwent the same procedure?

Or what about Justice Stevens?

(Being a copy editor is such a thankless task. If you do a good job, nobody notices; if you make a mistake, everyone makes fun of you.)

Justice Kennedy Has Stent Implanted [Washington Post]