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Ohio runaway convert gains legal US residency
Topics |
2010/09/07 04:20
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| pA lawyer for a runaway Christian convert from Ohio who was also an illegal immigrant says the 18-year-old woman has gained permanent residency in the United States./ppKort Gatterdam, a lawyer for Rifqa Bary, said Tuesday the news means Bary can now start applying for a driver's license, Medicaid coverage and college scholarships./ppGatterdam says Bary, a native of Sri Lanka, received her permanent residency card last week and can apply for citizenship in five years. /ppBary had sought the green card as she argued in court she could not reunite with her Muslim parents, whom she alleged threatened her with harm for converting./ppBary also sought legal residency to achieve health coverage as she battles uterine cancer. /p |
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Mass. court to hear appeal in sex harassment case
Industry News |
2010/09/06 23:27
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| pThe highest court in Massachusetts is set to hear an appeal of a $1.85 million award in a sexual harassment and discrimination suit filed by a former Somerset highway department employee./ppDuring her 2007 trial, Kim Pelletier said she was touched inappropriately on the job and subjected to viewing pornographic pictures and movies at the Highway Department’s building./ppShe said her numerous complaints were ignored./ppThe $1.85 million jury award was reduced to $300,000 by a judge, then increased to $600,000./ppPelletier notified the court she would accept the $600,000, but the town later appealed and Pelletier withdrew her acceptance. She’s now seeking the original jury award./ppThe Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments in the case Wednesday./p |
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Choice of clerks highlights Supreme Court's polarization
Industry News |
2010/09/06 23:17
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| Each year, 36 young lawyers obtain the most coveted credential in U.S. law: a Supreme Court clerkship. Clerking for a justice is a glittering capstone on a resume that almost always includes outstanding grades at a top law school, service on a law review and a prestigious clerkship with a federal appeals court judge.pJustice Clarence Thomas apparently has one additional requirement. Without exception, the 84 clerks he has chosen over his two decades on the court all first trained with an appeals court judge appointed by a Republican president./ppThat unbroken ideological commitment is just the most extreme example of a recent and seldom examined form of political polarization on the Supreme Court. These days the more conservative justices are much more likely than were their predecessors to hire clerks who worked for judges appointed by Republicans. And the more liberal justices are more likely than in the past to hire from judges appointed by Democrats./ppEach justice typically hires four clerks a year. Since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court in 2005, Justice Antonin Scalia has not hired any clerks who had worked for a judge appointed by a Democratic president, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has hired only two. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, only four of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's clerks on the Roberts court came from judges appointed by Republicans. The early data on President Barack Obama's two appointees, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, show a similar pattern./ppBy contrast, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, a conservative appointed by President Richard M. Nixon who led the court from 1969 to 1986, hired roughly even numbers of clerks who had worked for judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans. Judge Richard A. Posner, a generally conservative judge appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, clerked for Justice William J. Brennan Jr., a liberal./p |
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SC law firm loses $390,000 in bogus check scam
Network News |
2010/09/06 23:17
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| pThe Secret Service says a South Carolina law firm lost $390,000 in a counterfeit check scam./ppAuthorities told The Post and Courier of Charleston the scammers called the law firm and requested an attorney to help collect on a debt, offering to pay a retainer./ppInvestigator say before any work was done, the scammer called back and said the threat of legal action settled the matter, then sent the law firm two checks, one for the retainer and the second the supposed settlement./ppAuthorities say the scammer asked the law firm to send the settlement to an overseas bank account. After the money was wired, the check was found to be bogus./ppThe Secret Service did not identify the Charleston firm, or a second firm that figured out the scam before being taken./p |
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Appeals court panel denies stay for Wash. inmate
Industry News |
2010/09/05 23:25
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| A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a Washington state death row inmate's request for an emergency stay of his execution.pAttorneys for Cal Coburn Brown could now ask the full court to review the case or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court./ppBrown is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 10 for the 1991 torture and murder of 22-year-old Holly Washa, a Burien woman./ppBrown is challenging, among other things, the state's new one-drug system for lethal injection./ppThe three-judge panel rejected his request for a stay in a 2-1 decision on Saturday./p |
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A Well-Traveled Path From Ivy League to Supreme Court
Law School News |
2010/09/05 23:23
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pJustice Clarence Thomas recalled the reaction from “self-proclaimed smart bloggers” when he looked beyond the Ivy League to hire law clerks from Creighton, George Mason, George Washington and Rutgers for the Supreme Court term that started in 2008. /pp“They referred to my clerks last year as TTT — third-tier trash,” he told students at the University of Florida in February. “That’s the attitude that you’re up against.” /ppJustice Thomas’s hiring was certainly out of step with that of his colleagues. About half of the law clerks who have served the justices since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court in 2005 attended two law schools — Harvard and Yale. Another quarter attended just four others — Virginia, Stanford, Chicago and Columbia. /ppIn remarks to law students at American University Washington College of Law last year, Justice Antonin Scalia was unapologetic about this trend. /pp“By and large,” he said, “I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, O.K.?” /ppJustice Thomas said he took a different approach. “I have a preference, actually, for non-Ivy League law clerks, simply because I think clerks should come from a wide range of backgrounds,” he said. “I don’t have that pedigree. I’m not part of this sort of new or faux nobility.” /ppJustice Thomas, who grew up poor in rural Georgia, attended Yale Law School, as did Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor. The other justices all attended Harvard Law School, though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg transferred to Columbia and graduated from there. Justice Ginsburg has said that she has chosen clerks based in part on recommendations from David Schizer, a former clerk of hers who is now dean of Columbia Law School, and from Justice Elena Kagan when she was dean of Harvard Law School.
/p |
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'Train geeks' give railroad agency high marks
Lawyer News |
2010/09/05 23:17
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| pOn the top three floors of an office building wedged between the railroad tracks and the Southwest Freeway in Washington, a tight-knit staff of lawyers, economists and analysts churns out reviews and decisions in one of the most obscure corners of the federal government. /ppThis year, the Surface Transportation Board has held hearings on coal shippers who ignore rules on coal-dust dispersal and a railroad's request to abandon a freight line in Northern Maine. It has investigated community complaints about the merger of Canada's national railway with a Chicago area railroad. /ppPretty dry stuff. Yet the 150 bureaucrats tasked with the economic regulation of U.S. freight railroads came out on top among small federal agencies last week in a survey by the Partnership for Public Service of the Best Places to Work in government. /ppThe self-described crew of train geeks and experts in the arcane field of railroad law gave their office high marks for teamwork (85 percent) and pay (81 percent) and their bosses winning scores for leadership (87 percent). They know it sounds trite, but they describe themselves as a family with parents who are demanding but fair and have pride in what they do, since not a lot of other people understand it. /p |
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