Judicial Notice (04.07.24): Age Is Just A Number
Judge Aileen Cannon’s shrewd move, a conservative hire at Yale Law, Winston's interesting new offering, and other legal news from the week that was.
Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks!
April will be a month of travel and talks for me. On Saturday I returned from a visit to Charlottesville, where I spoke at UVA Law School—one of my favorite schools and now, according to the 2024 U.S. News law school rankings, the #4 law school in the country. So I missed the earthquake that hit New Jersey on Friday (but I’m happy to report that our family and home were unaffected).1
I also made some media appearances last week. On Tuesday night, I appeared on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight, where Alex and I talked about the latest developments in the Trump documents case. Alas, even though we taped around 9:30 p.m., we did not yet have the parties’ responses to Judge Aileen Cannon’s request for jury instructions (but I discuss them in detail below).
On Wednesday, the essay that my husband Zach Shemtob and I wrote about the importance of civil litigation in regulating Donald Trump’s behavior appeared in the hard-copy version of the New York Times. You can read the piece using this gift link, whether or not you subscribe to the Times.
Law school is on people’s minds—not just because of the new rankings, but also upcoming deposit deadlines. So this week’s testimonial for OJ comes from a leading figure in legal education, former U. Chicago admissions dean Anna Ivey, now CEO of Ivey Consulting: “I tell law school applicants: If you want to be up to speed or just get a head start, Original Jurisdiction is absolutely worth a subscription for future lawyers.” (If you’re a pre-law student interested in a free trial of a paid subscription, email me at davidlat@substack.com, subject line “Comp Sup,” and I’ll set you up.)
Now, on to the news.
Lawyer of the Week: Todd Blanche.
Why would you leave behind a successful career as a Biglaw partner to represent Donald Trump? That’s the central question raised in this interesting Times profile of Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead counsel in the Manhattan criminal case over hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, which will be going to trial in a few weeks.
I doubt taking on Trump as a client was just—or even mainly—about money. Blanche earned at least $2.3 million last year for his work defending the former president in the Manhattan hush-money case, D.C. election-subversion case, and Southern District of Florida documents case. But profits per equity partner at Blanche’s former firm, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, exceed $3 million a year—so he might even have taken a pay cut.
And he didn’t merely sign up to represent Trump. Blanche changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican, moved his residence from New York to Florida, and even took his family to a Trump campaign party for Super Tuesday. His transformation “has baffled Mr. Blanche’s former colleagues at the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York,” the Times reports. But the authors of the profile—Maggie Haberman, Ben Protess, and Alan Feuer—noted that defending the Donald has its advantages:
No longer just another high-priced defense lawyer in a city full of them, Mr. Blanche is handling the country’s most significant criminal case, raising his profile and creating a question about whether a door would open for him in a second Trump administration.
He jokes about having his eye on an ambassadorship to Italy, friends say, although he often says he has no actual interest in a government job. Still, many assume he would welcome the chance to run his old office, the Southern District, a role that the agency’s alumni covet.
Blanche has been pushing the envelope a bit in his Trump work. As noted by Andrew Weissmann on Twitter, Blanche has been willing to sign certain Trump filings—such as a new (and doomed) motion to recuse Justice Juan Merchan from the Manhattan hush-money case, based on the political consulting work of his daughter—that his co-counsel, the well-respected Susan Necheles, has conspicuously not signed.
Many lawyers to the ex-president end up worse after the experience—like former U.S. Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, one step closer to disbarment after a Thursday ruling from the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Will Todd Blanche join their ranks? Or will he wind up as U.S. attorney or ambassador? Time will tell.
Other lawyers in the news:
Speaking of the prospect of a second Trump administration, the conservative legal movement “faces an existential test,” as Gregg Nunziata of the Society for the Rule of Law argued in a thoughtful piece for The Dispatch. More specifically, according to Nunziata, “there are signs that the illiberalism of the Trump era has begun to infect how some legal conservatives think about their core commitments to the role of the courts.” (For respectful pushback on his thesis, listen to the latest episode of Advisory Opinions.)
Law360’s Jeff Overley conducted an in-depth interview of Jessica Ellsworth, a partner at Hogan Lovells. In this Term—her first one arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court—Ellsworth had not one but two turns at the podium at One First Street. See also my latest podcast guest, former Sotomayor clerk Easha Anand, who went from zero to three SCOTUS arguments in a single Term.
Judge of the Week: Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Speaking of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, she was all over the news last week—even though the Court released no new opinions. Why? There’s a push to get her off the bench—and it’s coming not from the right, but from the left.
In the past few weeks, as Howard Bashman has helpfully tracked at How Appealing, we’ve seen the emergence of a cottage industry of left-leaning legal commentators calling upon the Court’s first Latina justice to step aside. Their argument, in a nutshell: Justice Sotomayor is 69, she’s not in perfect health (a diabetic since childhood), and if she retires now, her successor can be selected by a Democratic president and Senate. But if she sticks around into a second Trump Administration and then departs the Court unexpectedly, her replacement might be picked by Donald Trump and a Republican Senate—and the Court, already 6-3 in favor of conservatives, would shift even farther to the right.
I understand why the left remains traumatized by how Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. That “switch in time” paved the way for overruling Roe v. Wade in Dobbs, plus a whole host of other right-wing rulings—comprehensively chronicled by my former colleague Elie Mystal in his latest column for The Nation, “No, Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court Is Not Our Friend.”
But I agree with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a prominent proponent in 2014 of RBG retiring and therefore a credible voice on the topic: calls for Justice Sotomayor to step down now are unwarranted. As Chemerinsky told Sahil Kapur and Lawrence Hurley of NBC News, there’s “a significant difference” between the two cases. Most notably, Justice Ginsburg was 81 when Chemerinsky wrote his widely discussed Politico piece recommending her retirement, while Justice Sotomayor is only 69. Furthermore, as noted by Matt Ford in the New Republic, Justice Ginsburg struggled for years with various forms of cancer, her ultimate cause of death. In contrast, Justice Sotomayor’s type 1 diabetes is eminently treatable and apparently well-managed.
There’s always going to be someone younger and healthier out there, so I’m not sure what the limiting principle is here. Should we ask Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who turns 54 later this year, to step aside in favor of, say, Judge Brad Garcia (D.C. Cir.), who’s 15 years her junior? While I agree that Democrats should focus more on youth in their judicial nominees—which the Biden Administration, to its credit, has done—there’s a point at which it starts to seem a bit silly. So I share Matt Ford’s view that “[t]he best way to ensure that Sotomayor retires under a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate majority is to elect them.”
Other judges in the news:
Chief Judge David Godbey said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that the Northern District of Texas would not be following the new policy recommendation of the Judicial Conference for how to assign cases seeking universal injunctions or similar nationwide relief, after the judges of the district met and reached a “consensus” to maintain the status quo. But Judge Sam Lindsay (N.D. Tex.), who attended that meeting, told the Times that the judges simply agreed to “postpone discussion of the matter,” not to reject the policy on the merits.
Judge Ana Reyes (D.D.C.) delivered what Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney of Politico described as “a remarkable, frenetic thrashing” of Justice Department lawyers—or to use a technical legal term from Black’s Law Dictionary, a benchslapping—in proceedings about Hunter Biden-related subpoenas issued in the impeachment probe of President Joe Biden.
Retired Justice Stephen Breyer will start sitting by designation on the First Circuit—on which he served for more than a decade, including four years as chief judge, before his ascension to SCOTUS. And retired Justice Anthony Kennedy has a two-volume memoir, Life and Law: The Early Years and Life and Law: The Court Years, coming out this October.
Speaking of elderly jurists, happy birthday to Judge I. Leo Glasser (E.D.N.Y.), who turned 100 on April 6—and continues to hear cases. On my last visit to see Judge Fred Block in chambers, we popped in to visit Judge Glasser—and he seemed to me to be doing great, not unlike Judge Pauline Newman (Fed. Cir.), who turns 97 in June.
Speaking of Judge Newman, she continues to fight her battle to return to the bench—and in her latest court filing, she reiterates her argument that the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act violates the U.S. Constitution.
Speaking of judicial misconduct proceedings, Judge Reggie Walton (D.D.C.) is the subject of an ethics complaint filed by Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, based on what Davis described as “an unprecedented, inappropriate, and prejudicial [CNN] interview” that Judge Walton gave, in which he “criticiz[ed] President Trump for raising evidence of judicial bias” by Justice Juan Merchan.
And speaking of allegations of judicial misbehavior, I’m working on a follow-up story about last week’s Judge of the Week, the unnamed jurist with an “overly harsh” management style (whom I plan to name). If you’d like to contribute to my story, whether on the record or anonymously, please drop me a line.
In nominations news, Judge David Hurd (N.D.N.Y.) announced his plan to take senior status—which hopefully he won’t retract this time. And in non-Article III judgeship news, retired Weil Gotshal partner Alfredo Pérez will likely be joining the Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court—replacing former bankruptcy judge David Jones, who resigned after revelations that he was in a years-long romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a bankruptcy attorney for whom he had approved legal fees.
In memoriam: Judge Roger Hugh Lawson Jr. (M.D. Ga.) passed away at 82. And because he “despised obituaries written by funeral home hacks,” he wrote his own—which is witty and well-done. May he rest in peace.
Ruling of the Week: United States v. Trump (denial of motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act).
Judge Aileen Cannon (S.D. Fla.) went off again. This time around, she trained her fire on both Team Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith—but in a way that’s more dangerous for Smith, despite some media coverage to the contrary.
Last month, Judge Cannon issued an order asking both the prosecution and the defense in the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case to submit proposed jury instructions concerning the interaction between the Espionage Act, one of the laws under which Trump has been criminally charged, and the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which Trump claims as authorization for keeping the documents. It was seen as a strange order, for at least two reasons: (1) jury instructions aren’t usually hashed out until during trial, and Judge Cannon hasn’t even set a trial date (despite holding a hearing on setting a trial date more than a month ago), and (2) the order took a highly unorthodox “choose your own adventure” approach, where Judge Cannon outlined two competing legal scenarios and asked for instructions under each one.
As I explained on Alex Wagner Tonight, both scenarios would be unacceptable to Jack Smith, since they both assume the PRA is relevant to the case. Smith and his colleagues argue that the PRA, a post-Watergate civil law aimed at preserving presidential records for posterity, has nothing to do with the criminal prosecution of a former president for unlawfully retaining classified documents.
Sure enough, in his response to Judge Cannon’s order, Smith emphasized that the order’s “legal premise is wrong.” He further stated that if “the Court wrongly concludes that” the PRA is relevant to this case, then “[t]he Government must have the opportunity to consider appellate review well before jeopardy attaches”—i.e., to appeal to the Eleventh Circuit and seek a writ of mandamus. Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy in which an appellate court basically tells a trial court, “You screwed up—big time—so we’re getting involved in the middle of the case, instead of waiting until it’s over, because if we wait too long, your screw-up won’t be fixable.”2
Two days later, Judge Cannon issued a three-page order, in which she denied Team Trump’s motion to dismiss the entire indictment based on the PRA. This was generally reported by the media as a win for Jack Smith—true enough, as far as it goes. But Judge Cannon also rejected Smith’s “please give us a heads up if you’re going to screw us so we can go to the Eleventh Circuit” request, calling it “unprecedented and unjust”—which is quite significant.
As I explained in a Twitter thread, Judge Cannon’s order is “kind of clever—in a devious way.” She walked back the crazy talk about the relevance of the PRA just enough so that it’s now difficult, if not impossible, for Jack Smith to obtain a writ of mandamus from the Eleventh Circuit. But by declining his request for a more definitive, comprehensive statement about the irrelevance of the PRA, she left open the possibility of buying into this defense of Trump’s—and driving a stake through the heart of the prosecution—at a later point in the case, maybe even mid-trial.
So if Jack Smith were to go up to the Eleventh Circuit on this record, he could get denied for failing to meet the requirement for mandamus relief of “irreparable injury.” His injury would not be “irreparable,” at least not at the current time; once it’s clear that Judge Cannon truly plans to instruct the jury that the PRA is relevant to this case, then he could go to the Eleventh Circuit. (As noted in this fascinating Lawfare post by Roger Parloff, there is precedent—admittedly sparse precedent, and not from the Eleventh Circuit—for prosecutors seeking and obtaining mandamus relief in the middle of a trial, to block a district judge from issuing erroneous jury instructions.)
But here’s the problem with blocking Jack Smith from successfully going to the Eleventh Circuit now: it’s also blocking him from requesting reassignment of the case to a different judge, which parties sometimes ask for when seeking mandamus relief (on the ground that the current judge has shown so much bias, reflected in the ruling that’s the subject of the mandamus request, that the appellate court should order the case to be reassigned). So for folks who have been waiting for this case to be taken out of Judge Cannon’s hands, you’ll probably have to keep waiting.
Other noteworthy decisions and dispositions:
Speaking of mandamus, in In re Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Judge Don Willett (5th Cir.) granted mandamus and held that Judge Mark Pittman (N.D. Tex.) shouldn’t have transferred out a case challenging a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule on credit-card late fees. Judge Andrew Oldham joined Judge Willett and also wrote a separate concurrence, while Judge Stephen Higginson dissented. As noted by Nate Raymond of Reuters, this ruling comes in the middle of a nationwide debate over “judge shopping”—in which the Northern District of Texas is a big battleground.
The judge-shopping debate arises in the context of universal injunctions and other forms of nationwide relief—an important issue that the Supreme Court will have to examine, hopefully sooner rather than later. Lower-court judges continue to reach divergent rulings on these questions. Compare State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Transportation, in which Judge James Wesley Hendrix (N.D. Tex.) vacated a Federal Highway Administration (FHA) rule about emissions on a nationwide basis, with Commonwealth of Kentucky v. FHA (W.D. Ky.), in which Judge Benjamin Beaton also held that the FHA exceeded its statutory authority—but denied, for now, the plaintiff states’ request for nationwide vacatur.
There they go again: the Fifth Circuit, in Clarke v. Gonzales, concluded that “because the State can point to no well-established tradition of forbidding dueling with pistols at the time of the Founding—indeed, because there was a well established tradition obligating men of honor to accept the challenge when the gauntlet was laid down—the Second Amendment” protects a right to duel. The opinion was written by Judge James Ho (because of course it was).3
In the state courts, the Court of Appeals of Indiana and the Florida Supreme Court issued noteworthy abortion rulings that should please the pro-choice and pro-life movements, respectively (both via How Appealing).
Litigation of the Week: civil lawsuits and a federal criminal investigation targeting Sean Combs.
Mo Money, Mo Problems? The net worth of hip-hop impresario Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy aka P. Diddy might have hit $1 billion at some point in recent years. But he might not be a billionaire any more, thanks to his lavish living—and large legal bills.
Last month, federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security raided two of Combs’s homes, in the Los Angeles and Miami areas. One of his lawyers suggested that the raids amounted to a “witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.” In the civil cases, four women accuse Combs of rape and sexual assault, while one man accuses him of unwanted sexual contact. Some of the lawsuits allege human trafficking, which could be the reason for the federal raids.
Who is defending Diddy? His full legal team isn’t known yet, but two lawyers quoted in news accounts are Jonathan D. Davis of New York, an experienced trial lawyer (although more on the civil rather than criminal side), and Aaron Dyer, co-leader of the investigations and white-collar practice at Pillsbury Winthrop. As a former federal prosecutor from 1994 to 2000, Dyer has the criminal experience that Davis lacks. Their help won’t come cheap—Mark Geragos, a former lawyer to Puff Daddy, estimates that the music mogul could end up with an annual legal bill in the high seven figures—but when you’re an international celebrity accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking, you shouldn’t skimp on your lawyers.
In other litigation news:
New York Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James questioned the ability of Knight Specialty Insurance Company, a California company, to provide a $175 million bond to Donald Trump in his civil-fraud case, noting that the company is not registered to issue appeal bonds in New York.
Trump asked Justice Juan Merchan to postpone the start date of the Manhattan hush-money case until after the Supreme Court issues its ruling on Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal prosecution in the D.C. election-interference case—but Justice Merchan rejected that request, leaving in place the April 15 trial date.
Major Lindsey & Africa (MLA), the prominent legal-recruiting firm, was sued by Gita Sankano, a Black female lawyer who previously sued her former firm, Troutman Pepper, for racial discrimination and retaliation. Sankano’s lawsuit against MLA complains that the recruiting firm cut ties with her after she sued Troutman, since an MLA recruiter had warned Sankano that the lawsuit would make her impossible to place. (I haven’t read the complaint, but I find the premise of this lawsuit puzzling; legal recruiters are selective in which candidates to work with, and plaintiffs in discrimination lawsuits aren’t most employers’ ideal hires.)
The estate of the comedian George Carlin, represented by Josh Schiller of Boies Schiller Flexner, reached a settlement with Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, two podcast producers who used artificial intelligence to impersonate Carlin for a comedy special. Under the settlement, Sasso and Kultgen will permanently remove the special and refrain from reposting it in the future.
Deal of the Week: Johnson & Johnson’s $13 billion acquisition of Shockwave Medical.
Global M&A activity increased by 38 percent in the first quarter, year over year, based on total dollar value. But the sheer number of deals hit a nine-year low, so this rising tide isn’t lifting all boats. Instead, the winners are firms like Wachtell Lipton and Skadden Arps, which topped the league tables of LSEG and Bloomberg. (Wachtell was #1 and Skadden was #2 in the LSEG table, and in the Bloomberg table, the two firms swapped spots.)
But neither firm was involved in the latest Deal of the Week, Johnson & Johnson’s $13.1 billion purchase of Shockwave Medical Inc., which provides a cardiovascular blood flow treatment. The law firms on this transaction are Freshfields for J&J, Fenwick & West for Shockwave, and Kirkland & Ellis for Perella Weinberg, financial adviser to Shockwave.
Other deals in the news, all in the entertainment space:
In another $13 billion deal, California private-equity giant Silver Lake is taking sports and entertainment company Endeavor Group private. The law firms are Simpson Thacher and Kirkland & Ellis for Silver Lake and Latham & Watkins for Endeavor.
Paramount Global, the entertainment conglomerate, is in exclusive talks to be acquired by Skydance, the production company led by David Ellison (son of Larry Ellison). A special committee of Paramount’s independent directors decided to enter into exclusive negotiations on the recommendation of its legal counsel, Cravath Swaine & Moore.
This Law360 article has the best title: “KISS Sells Their Souls To PE Fund, Throws In Music Too.” Members of the 1970s rock band are selling their music catalog to a Stockholm-based private-equity firm, Pophouse Entertainment. KISS is being advised by Morrison & Foerster, while Pophouse is getting counsel from Manatt Phelps & Phillips.
Law Firm of the Week: Winston & Strawn.
For several years now, observers of the legal industry have followed the trend of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) making inroads into Biglaw turf, picking up tasks for which clients might not want to pay Biglaw rates—e.g., ediscovery, due diligence, and contract management. And it generally seemed that Biglaw firms were content to cede this territory to the ALSPs, in favor of focusing on high-value, bet-the-company work—the kind of work for which they can charge $1,000 an hour for associates or $2,500 an hour for partners.
But could the Biglaw empire be striking back? I was intrigued by Winston & Strawn’s launch of Winston Legal Solutions, which sounds like Winston’s version of an ALSP. According to Law360, the new venture “will provide clients a less expensive option to handle low-complexity and routine legal tasks related to litigation, transactions and regulation,” such as managed review, information governance, and trial support.
In an interview with Legaltech News, John Rosenthal, chair of Winston’s ediscovery and information governance practice, emphasized that Winston Legal Solutions is perfect for work where clients “don’t want a partner-track associate at $700 an hour.” A key component of Winston Legal Solutions will be intelligent use of the best new technology—including, yes, artificial intelligence. But Winston, while not inventing tech products of its own, will be doing lots of vetting—because the AI market right now “is full of a lot of hype,” according to Rosenthal, and “there are a lot [of AI products] that are not ready for prime time.”
In other law firm news, when I noted in passing last August the creation of a spinoff firm from Clare Locke—the nation’s top plaintiff-side defamation shop, led by the husband-and-wife team of Tom Clare and Libby Locke—I figured there might be a backstory, but didn’t know what it was. In a new lawsuit, Clare Locke alleges that the offshoot firm, Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch, was formed by four ex-partners who wanted “to take for themselves a multimillion-dollar contingency fee case.” In a statement to Brian Baxter of Bloomberg Law, Daniel Watkins of Meier Watkins responded that “no law firm owns a client.” But according to Clare Locke, the firm devoted “more than 10,000 hours” and “countless long days and late nights” to the case, so it should share in any recoveries even if it’s no longer in the case.
Move of the Week: Yale Law School hiring Garrett West.
For many years, Yale Law School had zero right-of-center scholars focused on public law—e.g., constitutional law rather than corporations. As of fall 2024, it will have two—which is impressive progress. (I’m not a math person, but in percentage terms, is going from zero to two an infinite increase? Please explain in the comments.)
Last fall, Dean Heather Gerken revealed that Professor Keith Whittington, an expert in constitutional law, would be joining the YLS faculty—and launching a new center focused on free speech and academic freedom. Then last week, Dean Gerken announced the hiring of Garrett West, whose scholarly interests include federal courts, administrative law, and torts. Currently an associate in the D.C. office of Paul, Weiss, West clerked for three leading conservative jurists: Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.), my former boss; Judge Thomas Griffith (D.C. Cir.); and Justice Samuel Alito. West graduated in 2018 from Yale Law and in 2015 from Hillsdale College, a small, conservative Christian college with an impressive record of sending graduates into SCOTUS clerkships.
For years I’ve felt that things have been getting worse in terms of free speech and intellectual diversity, but right now I’m cautiously optimistic. If positive change can happen at Yale Law School—which seemed like a lost cause for a time, in the wake of Dinner Party-gate, Trap House-gate, Antiracism Training-gate, and Protest-gate—it can happen anywhere.
Meanwhile, in Biglaw moves:
Continuing its hiring spree, Paul Hastings picked up asset-backed finance lawyers Shawn Kodes and Matthew Nemeth from Weil Gotshal in New York. Kodes is now a co-chair of the asset-backed finance group at Paul Hastings.
White & Case hired Nadav Klugman, an expert in renewable energy and project finance, from Mayer Brown in Chicago.
Sidley Austin added John Godfrey, a private-equity-focused M&A lawyer, from Paul, Weiss in New York.
Antitrust remains active: Proskauer Rose hired antitrust litigator Mark Rosman from Wilson Sonsini in Washington, while Skadden Arps and Foley & Lardner hired James Fredricks and Mark Grundvig, respectively, out of the U.S. Justice Department, also in D.C.
Job of the Week: Head of Tax for a Leading Legal Finance Firm.
Lateral Link is recruiting a Head of Tax for a leading legal finance firm in New York, specializing in commercial finance for the legal sector. The ideal candidate will bring over 15 years of professional experience, including expertise in both national law firm and in-house settings, preferably with a U.S. multinational public company. Responsibilities include developing and overseeing complex global tax structures, advising on domestic and international tax strategies, ensuring global compliance, and managing external tax service providers. Requirements include a J.D. from a top law school, comprehensive knowledge of U.S. and international tax laws, and proficiency in GAAP tax accounting principles. Strong leadership and communication skills are essential to effectively manage tax matters and advise senior management. The role offers a competitive salary between $500,000 and $700,000, plus benefits, in a dynamic and innovative environment that values collaboration, flexibility, and a commitment to diversity. If you meet these qualifications, please submit your résumé to Amy Langan at alangan@laterallink.com.
This brings us to the end of another edition of Judicial Notice. I hope you had a great weekend, and I wish you an enjoyable, earthquake-free week ahead.
[UPDATE (4/10/2024, 1:51 a.m.): This post was corrected in two ways: (1) to change the reference to the year of the new U.S. News rankings (instead of naming after the next year, which I always found confusing, they’re going with the current year, 2024); and (2) to fix Judge Roger Lawson’s district (which is M.D. Ga., not M.D. Fla.).]
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Speaking of speaking, if you haven’t yet arranged a speaker for AAPI Heritage Month, which is May, or Pride Month, which is June, please drop me a line. I still have some availability, especially for remote rather than in-person talks.
Jeopardy “attaches” when a jury is sworn, which means that a not-guilty verdict for Trump after a jury is seated couldn’t be reversed because of double jeopardy. So if a jury acquitted Trump or Judge Cannon directed a verdict for him based on the Presidential Records Act, that would be the end of the matter—even if the Eleventh Circuit actually agreed with Jack Smith that the PRA is irrelevant. This is why Jack Smith wants pretrial appellate review of the issue; it’s effectively unreviewable after trial.
Yes, this was an April Fool’s Day joke—a very impressive one.
Minor correction: Hugh Lawson was MD GA, not Fla.
All I can say about the potential for Sotomayor to retire is this - if I was a Republican, I'd be celebrating if she chose not to. I'm guessing that she will be part of the "5" on an important 5-4 decision or two this term, and the chance to shift the balance even further right over the next few years would make me gleeful.