I found this link from the Daily Record's blog to a rare Daily Double about spotting a prospective hold out juror; it was both funny and educational. Of course, it would have been a lot more educational if Maryland had a voir dire process that allowed you to actually learn something about the jurors besides their name, rank and serial number.
The three finalists to replace Judge Salmon on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals are three Prince George's County judges: Toni Clarke, Michelle Hotten, and Melanie Shaw Geter.
The voice of car insurance giant GEICO, Lance Baxter (aka D.C. Douglas), the tag announcer who tells you that you can save 15%, has been fired by GEICO after leaving a voicemail for Tea Party group FreedomWorks questioning their intelligence.
In a voicemail to FreedomWorks, he questioned how the group will "spin it when one of your members does actually kill somebody, wondering if you've got a PR spinning routine planned for that or are you just gonna take it when it happens."
Piling political incorrectness on top of political incorrectness, I understand Baxter's point. The problem with the Tea Party is while it may have some good ideas, they get obscured by the extremists that end up being the face of the movement. GEICO's view is not so nuanced. Offending anyone means less market share. And I understand that too.
President Obama has nominated Maryland Court of Special Appeals Judge Ellen Hollander and Magistrate Judge James K. Bredar to two vacancies on the US District Court in Maryland.
Of course, I'm jumping the gun a little bit with the title of this post. Both of these nominees still need to be confirmed by the Senate.
These people do. They have all applied for the opening on the Baltimore City District Court:
Shannon Elizabeth Avery
Charles Mario Blomquist
Melissa Kaye Copeland
Martin Dominic Dorsey
William Michael Dunn
Nicole Rene Egerton
Matthew Butler Fraling, III
Karen Friedman
Lewyn Scott Garrett
Kristin Pickett Herber
Melvin James Jews
Darren Lee Kadish
Dana Kent Karangelen
Leonard Jay Levine
Ronald Mark Levitan
Zakia Mahasa
Dennis Patrick McGlone
Steven Thurman Mitchell
John Francis Purcell, Jr.
Mark Franklin Scurti
Julius Anthony Silvestri
Michael Stephen Studdard
Yolanda Alicia Tanner
Gerard Bradley Volatile
Anissa Jai Bonner
Michael Eric Braverman
Jennifer Etheridge
Joan Catherine Fraser
Michael Nathaniel Gambrill
Donald Edmund Zaremba
That National Law Journal has an interesting story on the testimony of Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas before the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on financial services and general government. The highlights:
The University of Baltimore School of Law continues its path north as reflected in the 2010 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. UB is back to the third tier of law schools.
I really think these ratings are silly. A large law school like the University of Baltimore is going to get skewed because larger schools, all things being equal, are going to be easier to get into which impacts the rankings. But the game is the game and the U.S. News and World Report rankings matter, for better or worse. So it is good to see UB continuing to compete well.
The 2011 U.S. News Law School Rankings have been leaked. I love how they call them 2011 rankings, these guys are worse than the car manufacturers. Anyway, University of Maryland law school is 48th this year. I only saw the top 50 on an Above the Law report but I'm looking forward to seeing how the University of Baltimore Law School fared this year.
The Maryland Court of Appeals underscored the scope of the "trial within a trial" doctrine in legal malpractice cases in Suder v. Whiteford, Taylor & Preston.
This is a trusts and estates case where the lawyer failed to timely file a request for an extension of time for his client to renounce her husband's will (geez, that sounds bad) and elect her statutory share of her late husband’s estate which resulted in a financial loss for her. The law firm admitted legal malpractice but denied the malpractice caused the Plaintiff any injury. Plaintiff's claim was eventually resolved in the underlying case.
Plaintiff's legal malpractice lawyer made an interesting comment in Talbot County Circuit Court to the argument that legal malpractice did not cause the injury. First, the lawyer argued that the "case within a case" doctrine - the requirement of proving the underlying claim in a legal malpractice case - applies only when there was no resolution of the case that gave rise to the malpractice claim. Second, Plaintiff's lawyer argued that the firm is limited to the defenses that had been raised by their client's late husband’s son.
These arguments, albeit creative, failed. You can read the entire opinion here.
Above the Law has a really interesting story on a judge who was posting anonymous comments to a local paper about lots of issues, including cases that were before her.
The judge registered her email with the paper's website and then became a frequent commenter. The judge had lots of comments about the cases and - quite comically - the lawyers before her. The funny twist is that the judge claims her daughter wrote many of the comments. I really love the daughter for jumping under the bus (and dislike the fact that the judge let her daughter jump). But, please, these are clearly comments from an insider who sat through a lot of these trials.
The paper has been criticized for breaching the trust of its anonymous comments. I think the idea that anonymous comments are required to be protected is without a lot of foundation. These individuals offer comments and have been given no assurances of anonymity. Besides, if you really want to make a comment, have some guts and put your name to it.
Is Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court? It would seems so based on the buzz in the legal blogosphere. Bloggers have already retired the yet to be retired Justice John Paul Stevens and replaced him with Elena Kagan.
I think Justice Stevens is going to resign. Soon. But I have no idea who President Obama is going to appoint and I'm not sure he knows either.
I'm back from vacation where I spend most of the time isolated from the outside world. I came in early this morning and spent an hour catching up on what was going on in the legal/personal injury world while I was gone. Happy Easter Monday to all.
