On a West Virginia lawyer being sued by a coal company

The West Virginia lawyer sued by a coal company said this:

"The biggest opponent of frivolous lawsuits has filed one against me. To hell with them."

On lawyers copying lawyers

As shown here and elsewhere, there is some discussion about whether lawyers can copy the writings of other lawyers without the risk of copyright infringement.

I know I do, every change I get, and it is getting easier all the time.

The No. 1 lawyer I try to copy, however, is myself - if the words were good then, and the law is still good now, why bother to rewrite it?

Five years ago, I was reading and writing about the Digital Divide

Now, the GAO says Broadband Deployment is Extensive in the United States, but It is Difficult to Assess the Extent of Deployment Gaps in Rural Areas.

Springtime for (deleted)

Professor Bainbridge is bummed over schools who won't let teachers show kids the film, Blazing Saddles. I've seen an interview with Mel Brooks, where he explains the premise behind The Producers, along the same lines as the Bainbridge post.

Having read this post about a college football player who punched a horse, as did Alex Karras in the movie, I have to wonder about its influence on America's youth.

11 months ago

At this meeting in Charlottesville, sitting at the table with Jeff Schapiro and Chad Dotson and Brian Patton, et al., I would have bet all the money in my pocket against Tim Kaine and the Chicago White Sox, but then again I'm not sure there was any money in my pocket.

If I can squeeze it in, I'll be there for Round Two - the 2006 Virginia blogger summit.

On the verdict in the Earl Washington case

TalkLeft has this post, the Norfolk paper has this article, the Richmond paper has this story, and the Washington Post has this story on the $2.25 million verdict reached by the federal court jury in Charlottesville after a two week trial before Judge Moon.

ABA kicks self in shin

Nothing good can come of the ABA committee's determination (reported in these links from How Appealing) that the black woman nominated by President Bush to the U.S. district court in Connecticut deserves an "unqualified" rating.

The Hartford paper's article included this bit of perspective:

"Poor ratings are equally rare in Connecticut. Legal scholars contacted Friday could recall only two by the American Bar Association - one of former Republican Gov. Thomas J. Meskill and another of Hartford lawyer Joseph Adinolfi Jr., both in the 1970s. The scholars said Meskill and Adinolfi were not evaluated by the state bar association.

Most observers now attribute Meskill's unqualified rating to opposition to his political policies - opposition that was led by the faculty at the University of Connecticut's School of Law. Meskill was probably further hampered by the fact that his nomination was one of President Nixon's last official acts. Within days of nominating Meskill, Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal.

Nixon nominated Meskill to one of the most influential courts in the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York, on the recommendation of Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. Despite the evaluation of not qualified, Meskill prevailed in the Senate in 1976, after President Ford endorsed the nomination and Weicker actively supported him.

Meskill continues to sit on the court of appeals and is highly regarded. He has received numerous awards from the state bar association, which one lawyer said Friday amount to a continuing apology for his treatment during his nomination process."

Contractor loses license for using the homeless to remove asbestos

The Roanoke paper reports here on a contractor whose license has been revoked on account of using untrained homeless people to remove asbestos from a downtown Roanoke building.

Great profile of General District Court Judge Lookabill

The Roanoke paper has this delightful account of how the new general district court judge made it from shoe shine boy to the judiciary.

It begins:

"Popular imagination has it that judges, like others at the top of their field, are hard-driving people who knew what they wanted to be at 12 and sprinted and clawed after it.

But as recently sworn-in District Judge Royce Glenwood Lookabill tells it, his trajectory from shoeshine boy to the black robe is more a tale of random choices and auspicious breaks."

One such break was that one pair of shoes he used to shine belonged to Virginia Supreme Court Justice Alex Harman, for whom Judge Lookabill later clerked after law school.

The secret docket

The Miami Herald is reporting on over 100 civil case files kept secret in a Florida courthouse.

On the late Bob Ritchie

Here is an interesting recollection of a Knoxville lawyer, who had some cases here in Southwest Virginia.

The story concludes:

"In private, many lawyers are known to wax cynical about one client or another, or the criminal-defense line of work in general. I was kind of a wise guy myself, and tried, but could never work any cynicism out of Bob Ritchie. He believed in the criminal-justice system and in the daily importance of his part in it. Sometimes I even suspected that Bob Ritchie really believed his clients were innocent. It may take that willful belief, no matter how much energy it requires, to do that job as well as he did."

Democrats get ready to fight over Judge Boyle?

TalkLeft has this post with a bunch of links outlining the opposition to the nomination of Judge Boyle of North Carolina to the Fourth Circuit.

I'm thinking that if Judge Boyle (and Mr. Kavanaugh) don't make it, Mr. Haynes won't make it, and there might still be at least two vacancies on the Fourth Circuit on January 20, 2009.

That Steve in the Bible

From this Steve Dillard post, On Being Named Stephen, I recollect that the missionary fellow in the New Testament went around telling people exactly what he thought they were doing wrong and making them mad.

I've done a bit of that myself, but no rocks have been thrown to date.

Another literary award

The secret judge has picked us once again as the winner of this week's Commonwealth Conservative caption contest.

I expected no more than an honorable mention, for most lines rhyming with "Martinsville". This was the first win since No. 38.

Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna Nicole wins her Supreme Court case

Anna Nicole won her case before the Supreme Court. The opinion, styled Marshall v. Marshall, was released this morning, and the opinion for the Court was written by Justice Ginsburg, who concluded that the Ninth Circuit went overboard in its extension of the probate exception to federal court jurisdiction.

All-time list of Cavaliers in the NFL draft

With D'Brickashaw Ferguson taken in the first round, I had occasion to revisit this list of all the Virginia players taken in the NFL draft (through 2003), and see that this is at least the third time a U.Va. man has been drafted by the Jets in the first round (the others being Jeff Lageman and James Farrior).