We've all heard about the jurors who go home at night and Google the witnesses or the lawyers — and I'm sure the cases we hear about are only the tip of the iceberg.
But the feisty South Florida Lawyers Blog has got a story that tops any of that: a party text messaging with a witness during a break in that witness's testimony.
Instant mistrial when discovered. (Note: the lawyers were at a sidebar with the judge when it happened, so they're not to blame for this one.)
The Miami Herald reports that ferociously bigoted Westboro Baptist church plans a media event at our graduation. They call it a 'protest' but it's really just one of a whole series of made-for-TV events they'll be staging in the area that day.
That we've been included for our support of gay rights is, in some weird way, a badge of honor, although I feel bad for graduates and their families who may have a few moments of their day spoiled by the famously vicious demonstrators.
As it happens, I will be on an airplane at the time, so I will miss my chance to share with them what I think of them, or even to ignore them (which might be the better thing to do).
One of our better students, who had a job offer from a major firm was offered one of those do-pro-bono deals where you work for half pay for a year in the public interest by one of those firms that thought it wouldn't have enough work for all the new associates they hired. He took it. Now the firm wants him to start in October after all.
I hired a research assistant for the summer a couple of weeks ago. He just got a fabulous summer job offer with an international law firm in one of their foreign offices, and I told him to take it. Fortunately I had a back-up in mind….
Those who remember Khrushchev Remembers will see this smuggled taped memoir, by a Communist leader claiming to be a sometimes closet liberal, as a Chinese version.
Secret Memoir Reveals Dissent by Chinese Leader: In a long-secret memoir to be published in English and Chinese next week, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party claims that the decision to impose martial law around Beijing in May 1989 was illegal and that the party's leaders could easily have negotiated a peaceful solution to the unrest.
The posthumous appearance of Zhao's memoir, which he dictated onto audiotapes and the publisher has titled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,” marks the first time since the establishment of the People's Republic of China 60 years ago that a senior Chinese leader has spoken out so directly against the party and its system.
Reaching from the grave, Zhao pillories a conservative wing of the party for missteps that led to the bloody crackdown, which began after dark on June 3, 1989, and left hundreds dead. Few in China's leadership at the time escape Zhao's criticism. He castigates Deng Xiaoping, the man credited with opening China to the West and launching its economic reforms; Li Peng, the dour premier at the time of the Tiananmen tragedy; Deng Liqun, a hard-line party theoretician; Li Xiannian, a former vice president; and even Hu Yaobang, Zhao's longtime ally, whose death April 15, 1989, touched off the student-led protests.
I'm holding out for the North Korean version, myself.
Florida's Senator Nelson, whose party registration identifies him as a Democrat, voted against a provision in the credit card bill currently being debated in the Senate that would have capped credit card interest rates at 15% (see U.S. Senate: Legislation).
Today, one-third of all credit card holders are paying interest above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent.
We used to call that usury. Now, as Sen. Bernie Sanders noted, we call it loan sharking. But Senator Nelson is OK with that, it seems.
I wonder what sort of campaign contributions Senator Nelson gets from credit card issuers?
PS. Yes, an interest cap may mean that at the margin a tiny number of people who could pay off the short-term credit will be denied it. Compared to the large number of people stuck with an escalating debt not dischargable in bankruptcy, I think that's a net social win.
Having made a meal of the fact that a men's mag rated the University of Miami (college) as the #1 party school in the nation (UM Tops In “Scientific” Ranking), honesty now compels me to report that an equally “scientific” ranking system rates the UM Law School as only the 76th party school among the nation's law schools.
It seems that problem is that UM students are not very datable. Maybe they are too busy studying.
(Note: Yale is rated as the 12th best party law school in the country. Unless things have changed, or law schools as a class are grimmer than I ever imagined, this seems to overstate the case by an order of magnitude, at least.)
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