I’m out for the next few days as I deal with “work,” but a few brief notes regarding an update to my blogroll — all lawyers (two righties, two lefties, and one, erm, “aspiring Judicial Diva”):
Michael Froomkin — a lefty, and represents it well.
Stephen Bainbridge — More conservative than I, but brilliant in his area of expertise (corporate law). His latest attack on John Kerry is right on the money. If he says “John Trial Lawyer Edwards” one more time, however, I’m pulling out my can of “those who cannot do, teach.”*
Brian Leiter — Does not suffer fools, and does not suffer them well.
Curmudgeonly Clerk — Frequently conservative, always considered — the Tacitus of law bloggers. (It doesn’t hurt that he appears to clerk in the Southern District of Texas, and I have fond memories of my appearances before Judge Hinojosa of the same.)
Article III Groupie — Umm, I’m not sure how to describe this site; all I can say is that I visit it more frequently than I care to admit. How to explain what it’s all about? I’ll let A3G give it a go: “This weblog, ‘Underneath Their Robes’ (“UTR”), reflects Article III Groupie’s interest in, and obsession with, the federal judiciary.” It’s too late to vote in her “Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary” contest — “The Hot. Alex Kozinski (9th Cir.)”* won for the men and “The Hot. Kimba M. Wood (S.D.N.Y.)” won for the women — but that’s no reason to stay away.
And, with that, see ya’ll in a few.
von
*”Trial lawyer” is horribly imprecise; I represent only large corporations, and I’m a trial lawyer. I presume he really means (1) class action plaintiffs’ attorneys who travel around the country filing silly lawsuits in a virtual extortion gig and (2) plaintiffs’ attorneys who represent individuals and small business and work on contingency. (I can see why he’d prefer the obscuring term “trial lawyer” to actually identifying the folks in category #2. John “I represent the little guy” Edwards just doesn’t have the same pejorative ring.)
**Judge Kozinski prompted a reader to comment: “Look, on the men’s side, there’s no contest here. After all, the contest is for the ‘hottest’ judge, right? Alex Kozinski (aka AK-47, AK, Hotpants, the Romanian Love Machine) wins hottest, hands-down. You can keep your clean-cut Jeff Suttons. He might be the kind of judge you want to bring home to mom, but ‘hot’ he ain’t.”
Now why didn’t you send me that site before I had to finalize my list of judges for clerkships? I only chose two hotties, and one of them was female.
Though if Souter is in 4th place, there wasn’t much to be done about it. He’s my favorite justice on the current court, but a hottie he’s not.
Balkin’s also quite good. (At blogging, that is. I don’t know what he looks like.)
I am unconvinced by Bainbridge’s argument, which seems to amount to saying it would be too expensive to allow the owners of the company (i.e. the shareholders) to actually choose who should be on the board of the company, even when a majority (or a large minority) of those owners have indicated their desire to replace the current board, or at least to vote on alternatives for the current board.
The current system for electing corporate boards resembles nothing so much as an election in a kleptocracy (say, Zaire), where the only way to express any dissent is to withhold your vote. To defend the system on the ground that it would cost too much to hold actual elections every time a majority of the shareholders wanted to do so is an implicit admission that the system is non-functional, if not corrupt.
OTOH, I share your views on A3G (especially the part about visiting but not wanting to admit it).
Another good law clerk blog is Legal Fiction —
http://lawandpolitics.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_lawandpolitics_archive.html#108990226739253348
Von,
I blogged about an eloquent defense of trial lawyers by a Republican conservative trial lawyer (who also happens to represent Jeb Bush) here. Some excerpts from his defense:
My own favorite comment:
Now why didn’t you send me that site before I had to finalize my list of judges for clerkships?
Sorry, Katherine. I wasn’t thinking. (If you don’t end up with a Superhottie, here’s hopin’ you get at least Hottie.)
I blogged about an eloquent defense of trial lawyers by a Republican conservative trial lawyer (who also happens to represent Jeb Bush) here.
Excellent. Calling for tort reform is fine (heck, I’m in favor of it). These mindless attacks on “trial lawyers” by those who should know better, however, are depressing.
My blushes (again)
A continuing series:Stephen Bainbridge — More conservative than I, but brilliant in his area of expertise (corporate law). … If he says “John Trial Lawyer Edwards” one more time, however, I’m pulling out my can of “those who cannot do,
Von: About your two categories of plaintiffs’ lawyers: I represent the “little guy” (category 2), but I have also filed a number of class actions in my career (category 1). Even though I consider myself a very knowledgeable class action lawyer, however, I definitely don’t “travel around the country filing silly lawsuits in a virtual extortion gig.” Don’t you think you’re engaging in the same sort of mindless generalizing that you criticize in Prof. Bainbridge?
By the way, I disagree with you that the term “trial lawyer” is imprecise. It’s actually quite precise: it’s a lawyer who does trial work, whether for the plaintiff or the defense. The problem is that people like Prof. Bainbridge misuse the word, and you can’t really blame them, since the plaintiffs’ lawyers like me adopted the term “trial lawyer” in naming their group ATLA–The Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
Still, I share your frustration with the way the precise term is used imprecisely, and have written about it a lot on my weblog.