Almost two months have passed since the last edition of Justice Is Blind, placing UTR at risk of losing its accreditation as a gossip blog. So Article III Groupie presents you with a belated Chanukah gift: federal judicial blind items!
1. Holiday Party Antics. This East Coast district judge attended the holiday party of the local U.S. Attorney's Office, where he proceeded to have a bit too much to drink. Late in the evening, he was seen (and heard) singing along with the music, karaoke-style, at the top of his lungs -- with his secretary, who also attended the party, serving as his backup dancer!
2. Did She Thank Larry Tribe and Charles Ogletree in the Star Footnote? A UTR reader submitted this scandalous tidbit about a high-profile, liberal lioness of a circuit court judge:
When it comes to scholarly work, she is a lazy, lazy writer. To wit: When I was a staffer on a certain scholarly legal publication, we published an article by [this judge]. Her citation skills were, to say the least, lacking. My personal favorite example was a block quotation -- perhaps 100 words -- with no attribution. No source, no author, no date, no nothing. The rest of her article was similarly challenging to cite-check.
The foregoing anecdote demonstrates that, as even Judge Posner concedes, student editors of law reviews provide valuable cite-checking services to legal luminaries -- many of whom are just too important to be bothered with silly things like attribution...
3. Don't Pee on Her Leg and Tell Her It's Raining! This liberal judicial diva, known to reduce her clerks to tears, is tough as nails -- and we're not talking about the Lee Press-On kind! One day in late 2001, around the time of the anthrax scare, a law clerk to this East Coast trial judge opened a piece of mail, found white powder inside the envelope, and fainted -- right in the chambers anteroom.
Moments later, the judge emerged from her private office and started heading for the chambers door. Casually stepping over the body of her passed-out clerk, she declared, "I'm going to lunch!"
Further affiant sayeth not,
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