Who awards blue ribbons? And where can we get one?
The AP reports that a “blue-ribbon panel” in Carson City, Nevada, voted 18 to 2 to place before Nevada voters in 2010 a constitutional change to scrap the direct election of judges with a political selection process.
Similar plans have been put before the voters and […]
No sooner can you say “Soros” than an indignant letter-to-the-editor appears in The Wall Street Journal from Ann Beeson, U.S. director of the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute complaining about Collin Levy’s recent exposure of the cynicism and money behind the well-heeled campaign for the“merit selection” of judges.
She makes a stunning claim:
“Unlike current opponents of voter-enacted merit selection plans, we do […]
As a euphemism, the “merit selection” of judges is a doozey. It conjures up images of a committee of serious experts making careful, discerning selections while chewing the stems of their reading glasses. In practice, merit selection is the 21st Century equivalent of a smoke-filled room.
This was brought home by a powerful Philadelphia Daily News piece earlier […]
Opponents of state judicial elections can often accomplish the trick of sounding high-minded while opposing democracy. They have a point of sorts—if all the noise and heat of a political campaign strikes you as beneath the dignity of the American people. To the rest of us, it looks like the raucous political dialogue of a […]
In a contest of fact versus fiction, fiction has lately been getting the upper hand.
You can see this in movies - the latest example being Michael Clayton in which trial lawyers are portrayed as Don Quixotes jousting with evil corporations. A recent Wall Street Journal op-ed took John Grisham to task for The Appeal, a novel that picks […]
Like father, like son…
A proposed amendment to strip Minnesota citizens of their constitutional right to vote for state judges is “dead” – at least for now – according to MinnPost.com.
The Minnesota constitution declares that state judges “shall be elected by the voters.” Yet some of those occupying Minnesota’s legal establishment dislike the inconvenient fact that judges have […]
Is Dickie Scruggs’ criminal activity draining his bulging wallet? Roger Parloff over at Fortune magazine’s Legal Pad writes that a Washington, DC legal firm has dumped two Mississippi clients who were in cahoots with Scruggs and his attack on insurance companies over post-Katrina claims.
Scruggs had been paying the legal bills of Cori and Kerri Rigsby. […]
The Washington Examiner reports that convicted trial lawyers from the disgraced law firm Milberg Weiss funneled thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
“Clinton received $21,971 and Obama $5,300 from four senior partners of the firm or their spouses. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain got no money from […]
Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page asks an interesting question:
“In the wake of the felony admissions of Weiss and Lerach and last week’s bribery plea by Dickie Scruggs, where are the cries in Congress to crack down on these wealthy wrongdoers who abused their positions of legal trust.”
Congressional committees habitually parade CEOs before the TV […]
