Obergefell v. Hodges
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Technology
ChatGPT Crowns Clarence Thomas As Champion Of Gay Rights In Feedback Loop Of Stupid
That's not how I remember it, but maybe this is like the whole 'Berenstein Bears' thing. -
Courts
The Supreme Court Has Only Scratched The Surface Of Awful
Gay rights? Contraception? Interracial marriage? None of that is settled law anymore. - Sponsored
Trust The Process: How To Build And Manage Workflows In Law Firms
If you’re feeling inefficient but don’t know why, this episode of the Non-Eventcast is for you. -
Government
With ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law, Gay Conservatives Find Their Inner Ernst Röhm
If this were the 70s, they’d be calling Anita Bryant a gay icon.
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Courts
John Roberts Will Not Save Us
Just because there are four justices to your left, and four justices to your right does not make you a centrist. -
Courts
Scalia Wasn't Afraid To Criticize His Fellow Justices, Even When Advised Not To
That advice was just a bunch of argle-bargle. -
Family Law, Health Care / Medicine, Kids
Will This LGBT Custody Battle Inspire A New 'Hamilton' Song?
Courts continue to explore the intersection of marriage equality and parental rights. -
Gay, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
4 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Safe, Even After Justice Kennedy Retires
Calm down, people; Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement does not spell the end of same-sex marriage. - Sponsored
Referral Fees The Key To Growing A Modern Practice? Overture Thinks So.
Overture digitizes your existing attorney networks and makes it easy to share referrals and ethically split fees with attorneys you already trust. -
Politics, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Replacing Justice Kennedy: A Legacy-Defining Achievement For President Trump
The ramifications of a Gorsuch-like conservative replacing a Kennedy swing vote would reverberate for a lifetime. -
Family Law, Health Care / Medicine, Kids
Happy Fourth To All ART-Formed Families! Enjoy Your Rights -- But We Still Have A Long Way To Go.
American citizens enjoy the freedom to marry who they want and to have kids with whom they want -- for the most part. -
Family Law, Gay, Health Care / Medicine, Kids, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Supreme Court Confirms 'Constellation of Benefits' For Same-Sex Couples
What do you call it when the law treats gay women worse than straight men, for no good reason? Unconstitutional. -
Clerkships, Federal Judges, Neil Gorsuch, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Liberals And Gays For Gorsuch? (Or, The Virtues Of Non-Ideological Clerk Hiring)
It's nice to have friends on both sides of the aisle. -
Benchslaps
No, That Is Not How 'Religious Freedom' Works At All
Judge Reeves did not let that one stand.
Sponsored
How Savvy Lawyers Build Their Law Firm Rate Sheet
Raising The Bar in Bar Prep
Referral Fees The Key To Growing A Modern Practice? Overture Thinks So.
Sponsored
Law Firms Now Have A Choice In Their Document Comparison Software
Trust The Process: How To Build And Manage Workflows In Law Firms
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Election Law, Supreme Court
The Liberal Argument Against The Supreme Court
Y'all need to stop putting all your eggs in the Supreme Court's basket. -
Gay, Immigration, Quote of the Day
Righting A Decades-Long Wrong
The federal government recognizes that this gay couple should have been treated with the same respect as any other married couple. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.15.16
* Ted Cruz may not like dildos, but he doesn’t seem to mind legal weed. Earlier this week, the Republican presidential candidate said that while he opposes federal legalization of cannabis, states should be free to experiment because the Constitution allows for it. Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana is safe and sound, for now. [Denver Post]
* “It was a very pleasant meeting, but it has changed nothing.” Senate Republicans may want nothing to do with confirming D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but they’ve sure been taking their sweet time telling him “no” during their courtesy meetings with him. Some of these seemingly pointless meetings have gone on for more than an hour. [New York Times]
* Chief Judge Garland may be wasting his time with these lengthy meetings, though, because if the jurist isn’t confirmed before the upcoming presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders said during last night’s Democratic debate that if he wins, he’d ask President Obama to withdraw his nomination, as he doesn’t think that Garland would pass his progressive litmus test on Citizens United. Are you still feeling the Bern? [TIME]
* Lawmakers in several states have passed bathroom bills that enable bigotry in the name of protecting religious rights, but what you may not have known is that there is one lawyer behind them all. Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel — who was recently in the news for representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis — says he’s doing it to push back against the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. [CBS News]
* Professor Richard Sander of UCLA School of Law, whose claim to academic fame is his “mismatch” theory of affirmative action, has been trying to get more than 30 years’ worth of data from the State Bar of California for quite some time in an effort to continue his research into the “large and persistent gap in bar passage rates among racial and ethnic groups,” and now he’s finally going to get his day in court. [WSJ Law Blog]
* David Gherity, a former Minnesota lawyer who was falsely accused of setting his girlfriend on fire using accelerants like alcohol, lotion, hair spray, and fingernail polish remover, has filed a civil rights suit against the police and prosecutors who kept him in jail for about two months. Gherity, who was suspended from practice in 2004, alleges a violation of the “protected interest in his good name.” [Twin Cities Pioneer Press]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Gay Marriage, Supreme Court
Supreme Court Justices Sued!... By Lawyer With Nonsensical Complaint About The Gays.
Let's step back and appreciate how the anti-gay crowd isn't even trying to find level-headed people to rail against marriage equality. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.07.16
* “I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds.” Immigration Judge Jack H. Weil seems to think that children facing deportation don’t need court-appointed attorneys because they’re perfectly capable of representing themselves. We’ll have more on this later. [Washington Post]
* “[T]his will be the first time a law school will be on trial to defend its public employment figures.” It’s taken five years, but Anna Alaburda will finally get to face off in court against Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Soon we’ll find out if the word “allegedly” can stop being used as a prefix for the school’s allegedly deceptive job statistics. [DealBook / New York Times]
* If President Obama nominates Judge Jane Kelly of the Eighth Circuit for a seat on SCOTUS, then Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Judiciary Committee could be in a pickle. Would Kelly, a longtime Iowa public defender, be refused a hearing even though Grassley supported her when she was appointed in 2013? [Des Moines Register]
* The Alabama Supreme Court begrudgingly dismissed suits filed by conservative groups seeking a ruling declaring that the state’s anti-gay marriage laws were still in effect, despite the SCOTUS decision in Obergefell. In a concurrence at odds with reality, Chief Justice Roy Moore held fast to his belief that the state’s law was still intact. [AL.com]
* As we mentioned previously, the American Bar Association will vote on a change to its bar passage rate rules for law schools. Schools notorious for their bar passage problems better hold onto their hats if this proposal is passed, because their accreditation may quickly turn out to be like their graduates’ job prospects: nonexistent. [WSJ Law Blog]
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Donald Trump, Gay Marriage, SCOTUS
Trump Vows To Appoint SCOTUS Justices Who Will Overturn Gay Marriage
After all, it's a "YUGE" issue, as far as his base is concerned. -
Samuel Alito, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
After 10 Years, Sam Alito Is The Most Important Conservative On The Supreme Court
Justice Alito is more coherent than Kennedy, more conventional than Thomas, more consistently conservative than Roberts, and a lot further from retirement or death than Scalia.