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The Cockle Bur Blog

Legal minds on legal matters and whatever else strikes our fancy.

5 May, 2012

The California Bar Wants to Force Law Schools to Provide Practical Skills

2012-05-05T19:44:50-05:00May 5th, 2012|

The California Bar Association is considering a proposal that would require bar applicants to have taken a practical skills course during law school in order to be admitted to the bar. The Bar Association, however, has received some pushback from two prominent law school deans. Stanford Law Dean Larry Kramer urged caution. And UC Irvine Dean [...]

1 May, 2012

Beating Distribution: The Curious Math of Late Petition-Stage Filings

2019-03-18T18:47:45-05:00May 1st, 2012|

What is Distribution? Very simply, distribution is the process of delivering petition-stage briefing documents to the Justices and their clerks for consideration prior to the conference. Shortly after distribution, a randomly assigned clerk in the Cert Pool (and a clerk for Justice Alito, who does not participate in the Cert Pool) will [...]

29 Apr, 2012

Paleo Diet Blogger Threatened With Jail Time

2019-03-18T18:47:45-05:00April 29th, 2012|Tags: , , , |

Steve Cooksey is a former diabetic, who decided to start the popular “Paleo” diet. Not only did he lose weight, he became insulin free on the low carb, caveman diet. So he decided to share his success on his blog.  But Steve ran into a problem in the form of the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition, [...]

23 Apr, 2012

Five Ways to Write Like Paul Clement

2019-03-18T18:47:45-05:00April 23rd, 2012|

On Wednesday, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement will take the lecturn at the Supreme Court to once again argue a vexing issue of the day. This time around he will be defending Arizona's immigration policy. By now, people are probably wondering how Mr. Clement ends up arguing so many cases before the Court. Well, [...]

23 Apr, 2012

The Skirmish (But Not War) On Discourse

2019-03-18T18:47:45-05:00April 23rd, 2012|

I have noticed a trend in the media, on Facebook, and during face-to-face confrontations. When people have genuine discourse about the issues of the day, the argument inevitably turns into what I call the argument by lowest common denominator: where people attack others rather than their ideas. I have seen more of this of late, usually between media bloggers, [...]

20 Apr, 2012

Judge Dismisses Government’s Attempt to Prosecute Man Handing Out Jury Nullification Pamphlets

2019-03-18T18:47:45-05:00April 20th, 2012|

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood dismissed jury tampering charges against retired chemistry professor Julian P. Heicklen after he stood outside a courthouse and distributed pamphlets containing information about jury nullification. Reason and the New York Times have coverage. If there was ever a time to reprimand an Assistant U.S. Attorney for bringing frivolous [...]