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Posted on August 6, 2012
In this month’s California Lawyer magazine, I have a story on President Obama’s judicial appointments in the state. In short, the administration has focused on diversity of race, gender and sexuality while largely avoiding potential confirmation clashes over ideology (with the obvious exception of UC Berkeley Law professor Goodwin Liu, who ended up withdrawing from […]
Posted on June 1, 2012
Subsequent to my previous post on footnotes in court decisions that caught my eye, Senior Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had one today in his opinion on a challenge to the Department of Energy’s collection of nuclear waste fund fees. In it, he takes the […]
Posted on April 17, 2012
Today it was the turn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to host the traveling roadshow known as Chevron Corp.’s fight to avoid paying up to $18 billion dollars for environmental damage in Ecuador. The case has famously gone on for almost two decades now. Last year, a judge […]
Posted on February 28, 2012
The question, Justice Stephen Breyer said, is not whether Blackbeard himself could be sued, but whether the holding company that oversaw the whole operation, Pirates, Incorporated, was liable for various nefarious acts on the high seas. Once again, Breyer had unleashed one of his famous hypothetical question (and, no, in raising pirate-related corporate entities, he […]
Posted on February 14, 2012
I interviewed Anthony Franze, an attorney at Arnold & Porter in D.C., about his debut novel, The Last Justice. The Q&A, which touches upon why he chose to have the solicitor general as his main character, is up at Washingtonian magazine’s Capital Comment blog.
Posted on February 7, 2012
As a reporter who is constantly reading court decisions, my eye is always drawn to the place where judges let it all hang out: the footnote. I have come across two of interest in the last week. The first was by Judge William Fletcher of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision […]
Posted on February 2, 2012
This month’s California Lawyer magazine features a cover story I wrote on the lawyers involved on both sides in the mammoth litigation between indigenous Ecuadorean plaintiffs and Chevron Corp. over oil contamination in Ecuador. It’s a case I’ve been covering a lot in my day job at Greenwire.
Posted on January 3, 2012
Back when I covered the Supreme Court for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, I always found it fascinating covering claims of ineffective assistance of counsel made against criminal defense lawyers by former clients. In particular, I was intrigued by what it felt to be one of those lawyers, especially when the case ends up at […]
Posted on December 7, 2011
Prometheus is best known for being the titan who, against the wishes of Zeus, gave mankind the gift of fire. Prometheus is also the name of a company that comes up with new diagnostic and therapeutic products. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a patent dispute between Prometheus (the company) and Mayo Collaborative Services […]
Posted on November 21, 2011
When I first took a look at the 100 questions on U.S. naturalization civics test, I immediately saw some potential traps. I hope not to fall into any of them tomorrow when I’m scheduled to take the test in Baltimore. To pass the civics test component of the U.S. naturalization process, applicants have to get […]
Lawrence Hurley 