Did you know that even you can own Posner for less than five bucks?!...

What happens when a trial court judge gets overturned on the same issue thirteen times in thirteen years? The Court of Appeals lays the smackdown on him: All this needlessness [the multiple appeals and reversals] sucks money from the taxpayers, respect from the law, and patience from this court. And for what? To order one person [the trial court judge]...

In 1966, Chief Justice Warren sent the following memo to Justice Fortas: Recently an article appeared in a leading Washington newspaper in which the distinguished Mr. Justice Fortas mentioned that “black robes were too awesome for the Members of the Supreme Court of the United States.” After consulting with several designers of considerable note, the enclosed robe is submitted for...

District Judge Stephen Orlofsky is resigning from his appointment after a whopping eight years on the bench. The spin is that he's ticked that he didn't get confirmed for his Court of Appeals nomination. I'd put my money on, well, the money. Judges and other agitators for a judicial salary increase have been saying for quite some time that the...

I have been cited! Okay, not quite. But Judge A. Raymond Randolph did mention my namesake in his dissent for Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control v. United States Department of Commerce In the end all the majority can come up with is some free-floating congressional intent about the meaning of a statute that no longer exists. Alice once encountered...

Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Margaret H. Marshall (whew, that's a mouthful!) has decided to pull out of the candidacy pool for the deanship of Harvard Law School in a move to save the Massachusetts judicial system. The judiciary and the legislature have been fighting an antagonistic battle: the legislators taketh away, and the judges taketh right...

I was apparently struck with a dash of prescience last week. On Friday, Howard asks Judge Jerry Smith why he decided to defect from the law clerk hiring scheme: The current hiring plan . . . will fail, sooner or later . . . ... Any plan with tightly defined deadlines benefits mostly the judges in the I-95 corridor between...

The Federal appellate judge hiring plan is starting to show a few cracks. A quick perusal of the Federal Law Clerk Information System reveals the following: Several justices are apparently using creative interpretations of "fall hiring." For example, Judge Robert Sack (2nd), Judge Paul Kelly, Jr. (10th), and Judge Richard Tallman (9th) are all accepting applications beginning June 1. Judge...

There isn't much time, but the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have agreed 8-1 to lose their virginity by the New Year. Ginsburg, in a strategic move to keep Scalia all to herself, was the lone dissenter. (Okay, okay, it's from the Onion.) It brings a whole new meaning to the term "Most Valuable Justice". You...

What really happens behind the scenes! (Link via Lewis & Clark's Law Library News Site)...

I only skimmed this, but the graphic assistance is funny enough to pass along to everyone else....

Today's the big day! Check out Copyfight for news and updates specific to the case. I know better than to reproduce the same links in a spate of duplicativeness. You can check out the briefs at Eldred.cc. If you don't know how to read a brief, refer thyself to LawMeme's Law School in a Nutshell, Parts I, II, & III....

Yes, it has come and gone yet nothing much has changed, except Rehnquist accidentally announced Frank Lorson's retirement as his own. (Good one, Renky!) You can read about all of this and more at SCOTUSblog. Woohoo!...

I really thought Cosmo was the last place I would find anything remotely legal. I was wrong! In the October issue, Cosmo gives advice in one of their latest educational articles, (ahem) How to Seek Pleasure in Public Places. Yes, of course you could get busted for public indecency. But the laugh of my day was Judge Posner quoted as...

This has to be the most asinine quotation I've read in the past week: "[A] consumer attorney from Texas told me that there is not a single consumer-rights attorney in the state who feels he'd get a fair shake in her courtroom." -- Dianne Feinstein on the rejection of Priscilla Owen for a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of...

I'd like to think I am important and influential enough to have inspired this opinion piece (WSJ subscribers only -- if you have Westlaw access, 2002 WL-WSJ 3403839). Of course, I know that is entirely untrue -- most judges don't really surf the web for kicks. It's even less likely that they're huge blog fans. But you never know, do...

Sam Heldman is hosting an blogger's open!...

I'd like to direct you to these rare public comments by Chief Justice Rehnquist. It really is of the utmost national importance. Link via Lawblog.com....

Yay Reagan appointees! (Or at least two of them.)...

I had meant to return to the game of legal chess at a later date to discuss the dilemma of the defecting law student. Fortunately Garrett has beaten me to it and I am no longer on the hook for the flipside. His response provides an excellent counterpoint to my post. The very best law students will presumably wait until...

Politics is strategy -- and what better word than politics can describe the scheme of Federal clerk hiring? It’s hardly a surprise that chinks are starting to appear in federal appellate hiring “consensus.” (Thanks to Howard for pointing out Judge Smith's defection.) It's time for lawyers and legal theorists to wake up and smell the strategy! A Game of Legal...