There are a number of online places to read about law. Blogs are aplenty, as as student-led online law journals. But I tend to enjoy reading about the law from someone who isn't a practicing lawyer or law professor because I think its important to see law from a bird's eye view rather than simply [...]
After the ABA published employment statistics for new law school graduates that were the worst since 1994, the media has started to take notice. On Sunday, the New York Times wrote yet again about the struggling state of law school education. But what about law schools? Not so much. For the most part, law schools are [...]
Guest Post By Ann Marie Hopwood On July 12, 2012, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals summarily denied Blue Shield of California’s request for rehearing and rehearing en banc for the decision made in Harlick v. Blue Shield of California. In the decision made on June 4, 2012, the Ninth Circuit withdrew its prior [...]
Booklist Online is a collection of over 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers—from the experts at the American Library Association. I was excited to learn that a few weeks ago, David Pitt wrote a Booklist Online review of Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption. At 23, [...]
As SCOTUSblog noted yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts, after reading his most famous opinion, issued a public recognition to Supreme Court Clerk William K. Suter for his 50 years in government service. Fifty years at anything is impressive, but Clerk Suter's dedication to the law is unsurpassed. Clerk Suter has played a profound role at the Court, including syncing [...]
When I saw that halfway houses were trending on Twitter last week, I almost started laughing. I didn't know what the story was about, but I could take an educated guess. In case you missed it, the New York Times ran a series of pieces on the deplorable conditions at private New Jersey halfway houses. Then, [...]
Can our public officials arrest and torture American citizens without fear of accountability? The answer is a resounding yes. Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied the petition filed on behalf of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was arrested by the FBI in 2002 at Chicago O’Hare airport. The U.S. Government designated Padilla as [...]
While reading my first-year Constitutional Law textbook, I noticed a line that made me pause mid-sip from a cup of coffee. I reread the line written by Chief Justice John Roberts, and I stopped, again. No, can’t be. The line comes from a 2007 case called United Haulers Ass’n, Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management [...]
There are innumerable details about the U.S. Supreme Court that many, including practitioners, simply do not think about; mostly, because it just doesn't come up that often. About twice a year, I will receive a call from an attorney who is planning to file for certiorari, but who is waiting on the Court to rule on their motion for [...]
Adam Liptak at the New York Times has this great piece about a petition for certiorari asking the Court to grant a case involving some Seattle police officers, who tasered a pregnant woman because she refused to sign a speeding ticket. The police officers won on qualified immunity grounds in a divided en banc decision from the [...]