By Carlyn Kolker

Following in Goodwin Liu's shoes?

2/2/12

When Paul Watford was nominated to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by President Obama in October, conventional wisdom had it his nomination process would be smoother than Goodwin Liu, who had been nominated for the same spot, but blocked by Senate Republicans on the Senate floor. Watford seemed to have the right credentials, including a Supreme Court clerkship and partnership in the big Los Angeles firm, Munger Tolles & Olson. The Los Angeles Times even quoted conservative law professor Eugene Volokh saying he supported Watford, as did a representative from the Los Angeles chapter of the Federalist Society.

That was then. Watford's nomination so far has not been smooth sailing. On Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve Obama's choice, but in a vote of 10 to 6, along party lines. In voicing his opposition, Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had "substantive concerns" about Watford's work on immigration and the death penalty. In urging his fellow Senators to vote against the nominee, Grassley pointed out that Watford has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing Arizona's immigration bill and submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of groups opposing Kentucky's lethal injection protocol. He claimed that Watford made comments that went beyond simply advocating on behalf of a client in the immigration lawsuit.

"I'm generally willing to give the President's nominees the benefit of the doubt when the nominee on the surface meets the requirements [of a good nominee]. But, I don't think this nominee meets these requirements," Grassley said.

Most judicial nominees are sent to the Senate floor with unanimous or near-unanimous approval from the Judiciary Committee (this does not always mean they are approved unanimously on the floor - often they are sent up to the floor so they can simply be given a vote before the full Senate). So a party-line vote in committee could be a signal Watford may be headed for a close vote on the Senate floor - if, of course, he ever gets there. Since the Senate came back into session last month, it has voted on just one judicial nominee, and Republicans, angry over Obama's recess appointments, have signaled they may hold up future nominees.

I reached out to a White House spokesman for any comment on Watford's nomination, but haven't heard back.

Google gets fined $660,000

2/2/12

On Wednesday Summary Judgments posted about the harsh treatment Facebook was likely to face in Europe over its privacy settings. Lawmakers and courts on the continent have often been a bit, shall we say, unforgiving toward U.S. tech companies (remember that it took Microsoft years more of wrangling to resolve its antitrust fight in Europe than it did in the U.S.)

And so we bring you news of yet another tech company that has been caught in the crosshairs of the European courts. On Tuesday Google was convicted in France of abusing its market position in the map sector and was fined 500,000 euros, according to news agency AFP. The nitty gritty of the charge was that Google was giving away its mapping software for free, with the strategy to drive competitors out of business and then begin collecting fees. Blog Boing Boing notes that such an approach "seems implausible" and "contrary to Google's business model" of making money from online data mining. Nevertheless, it clearly worked for the French firm Bottin Cartographes that filed the lawsuit.

Lawyers behind the PACs

2/2/12

You've heard of PACs (Political Action Committees). You've heard of Super PACs (Political Action Committees that, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision, can collect unlimited donations to spend freely in campaigns). Well, now thanks to The American Lawyer, you can know about some of the big-money lawyers behind those Super PACs to the remaining presidential candidates.

-Restore Our Future (Super PAC associated with Mitt Romney): Boston and Palm Beach-based attorney has given $100,000; North Carolina-based attorney Bill Graham has given $50,000; Philadelphia firm Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg has given $25,000.

-Priorities USA Action (Super PAC associated with Barack Obama): The American Association for Justice, the lobbying group representing plaintiffs' lawyers, has given $50,000.

-Winning Our Future (Super PAC associated with Newt Gingrich): No major legal donors have emerged, Am Law reports.

Opening up the courts

2/2/12

A Los Angeles County Juvenile Court judge has taken a rare and controversial measure to open proceedings in juvenile court proceedings to the news media. It is a move that news organizations have supported, in the name of transparency, and advocacy groups, in the name of client protection, have opposed, as the Los Angeles Times reports.

Michael Nash, the presiding judge in Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, on Tuesday issued an order saying that certain cases in juvenile court, including cases pertaining to child abuse, foster care and adoption, will be open to the news media. Cases pertaining to crimes committed by minors will not.

The city's child welfare system has been accused of government mishandling in recent years, the Times writes, and the judge's order seeks to address the secrecy that has "allowed problems to fester outside of the public's view." Some in the child welfare community say they would consider appealing Nash's order, saying a child's protection could be in jeopardy.

For a related story - albeit different state, different circumstances - read William Glaberson's November article in the New York Times on transparency in the New York City family courts. Fourteen years after the city's family courts - which handle foster case, domestic violence and neglect cases - were ordered to be open to the public, in practice, Glaberson wrote they remain "essentially, almost defiantly, closed to the general public." (After Glaberson's inquiry, court administrators said they planned a review).

What's the real deal with law schools?

2/2/12

Legal education, as my colleague Moira Herbst has chronicled, is in a state of crisis, either real or perceived. To wit: The American Bar Association is considering taking a tougher stance on the job data schools provide. A law school is suing the ABA over a decision to deny it accreditation. And, as the Wall Street Journal reports, law students sued a dozen law schools on Wednesday, seeking tuition refunds and alleging that the schools misled their students about their graduates' employment rates.

And so in this roiling waters of legal education a new anchor, perhaps, emerges: a new legal blog about "trends, facts and ideas on law and legal education." Dubbed The Legal Whiteboard, the blog will be written by University of Indiana Law Professor William Henderson, who studies the economics of the legal profession as a professor at Indiana University School of Law, and University of Alabama Law Professor Andrew Morriss, who does scholarly research in labor and employment law. The blog will explore whether the sky is really falling in legal education, says Henderson, and kicked off in late January with some introductory posts looking at the ways that the marketplace for legal education is changing. The first substantive post, on Wednesday, examined three scholarly legal articles that take counter-intuitive positions about why law schools should change. The articles, writes Henderson "may be on the right side of history. Because of the overproduction of law school graduates and their high levels of debt, we are now at a point when survival for a large proportion of law schools can no longer be taken for granted," writes Henderson.

Summary Judgments for Feb. 1

Summary Judgments for Jan. 31

Summary Judgments for Jan. 30

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