On Judge Kelsey

The VLW Blog has some lists of names of potential nominees to replace Justice Lacy on the Virginia Supreme Court.

Judge D. Arthur Kelsey of the Virginia Court of Appeals is one of my favorites, because he has written so many interesting articles, such as these available online:

Virginia’s answer to Daubert’s question behind the question

Appellate Review and Stare Decisis

PROCEDURAL DEFAULTS IN VIRGINIA TRIAL COURTS: The Adversarial Model & The Imperative of Neutrality

Legal Focus/Civil Litigation: Law and Equity in Virginia

and gave this speech

Law & Politics: The Imperative of Judicial Self-Restraint

in addition to the many cases in which he has written an opinion or cast a vote (such as these)

and he gave up the big-dollar partnership to be a judge (or so I have concluded),

even though I've met him just once

and he has ruled against my position every time (OK, just the one time).

I once heard former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger on C-SPAN opine in connection with one of the recent U.S. Supreme Court nominations: "there's something to be said for hyper-qualified candidates," or words to that effect.

Judge Shull's case to be argued in September?

The cases on the September argument document for the Virginia Supreme Court include the case of Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission of Virginia v. Shull, Judge, etc., or so it says on the argument docket page.

Rooting for one Maryland Terrapin

A fellow named Steffy went to my old high school and is the son of a girl in my sister's class and is the pre-season starting quarterback at Maryland (as described here, in a powerful article from the Baltimore Sun of which one of the commenters said simply, "This is the best article I've read all year.").

One of my high school football buddies, a fellow named Franciscus, was on scholarship at Maryland, and I saw him and his dad Rip on parents' night at Byrd Stadium in November of 1989 (with the Cavaliers winning, 48-21, as shown here).

OK, so that's two.

Today's links

South Carolinians are talking up former Chief Judge William Wilkins of the Fourth Circuit to be the next Attorney General, as written here and here, but the WSJ Blog puts former Fourth Circuit Judge Michael Luttig on its list.

The Norfolk paper has discovered that someone who has a computer on the Virginia Supreme Court system has done some work on Wikipedia.

This AP story tells about some kind of microtech solution to copper thefts from the CNX gas wells.

ABA Journal has this story about a judge appointing a lawyer to a criminal case and then holding him in contempt for not being ready for trial the next day. The closest thing to that I've experienced was when I was spotted at the courthouse, told to take my client and the store's representative and go work something out in a shoplifting case. (And, we did.)

Worth snatching

Here from somebody at the Kaufman and Canoles firm is an excellent article on Massie v. Firmstone, one of those Virginia law concepts that you usually learn about the hard away when your client's testimony goes a little awry and some good lawyer on the other side invokes it against you.

Man who shot Wallace to be released

This Juris post describes the upcoming release of Arthur Bremer, who shot George Wallace during the 1972 campaign.

About 30 years before the coining of the phrase, "NASCAR dad," Hunter Thompson described the efficacy of George Wallace's campaigning at auto racing events in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.

The popularity of NASCAR has broadened quite a bit since then, while the appeal of politicians with the then-held views of Wallace has withered to naught.

The one page with my name in the U.S. Reports

Check out the list of counsel for amici curiae in the footnote on page 128 of Volume 541.

Or, just take my word for it.

On e-discovery in state court

This post says the National Commission on uniform state laws has approved Uniform Rules Relating to Electronically Stored Information.

No doubt those working on e-discovery in Virginia courts with the Boyd-Graves Conference will examine this document.

Ray Ward sums up brief writing

I agree with almost 100% of this, and the rest is probably just my own stubbornness.