November 24th, 2017

Count Your Blessings

This is a repost from last year — the message hasn’t changed, but I did run two more turkey trots this year in the costume…
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People in mixed families — some of whom voted for Clinton and some of whom voted for Trump — may be dreading Thanksgiving and seeing certain relatives.

But it isn’t up to me to tell you how to grow up and handle awkward and painful situations. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you are unlikely to learn how to do so here.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be thankful. As you likely should be, if you are reading this post.

The first time I did a Thanksgiving Day message, it was in the form of a Blawg Review, recounting the time Arlo Guthrie came to dinner at my house for a dinner that couldn’t be beat. That was 2009.

In 2011 I wished one and all a Happy Thanksgiving as I celebrated my fifth year blogging. I decorated my blog that year with the photo you see here: me dressed up in a turkey suit for a local race. That message is below.

In 2013 I came back with this message to put away those little pocket computers, unless you wanted to use the phone function that some of them have to talk with those dear to you, but perhaps not so near.

I am now a blogger for 10 years. And this past Sunday I put on that turkey suit that decorates this post for a local 5K, and I’ll put it on again for another on Thanksgiving morning. Because I can.

The costume does not come with a trigger warning. So if I scare the bejesus out of someone — and oddly enough it does frighten some small children — they will just have to deal with it.

Running around in a turkey suit sure beats one of the alternative lives I could be having: Living in the anarchy and horror of Syria. Or suffering with the terrorism in France. Or Lebanon. Or Israel. Or Nigeria/Cameroon. Or Yemen. Mali. Iraq. Libya. Egypt. Afghanistan. And I’m only scratching the surface here.

There are many different ways to count your blessings. This is the way I want to do it. My original posting from 2011 is below.

–Eric “Turkeywitz”

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Now you can see that I have a couple pictures here of me in a turkey suit, shot Sunday at a local Turkey Trot. And you might be wondering what the heck that has to do with blogging, or lawyering, or five-year anniveraries. And, you also might wonder if I’m nuts to put them up here, out of concern that it diminishes the seriousness of what I do for clients in the courtroom. Or that it might be seen by a potential client who will quickly hightail it elsewhere.

Glad you asked.

I see my fair share of human misery come through the doors with busted up bodies that shouldn’t be busted up. Anyone that deals with the consumer end of law will see variations on this theme, from divorce, criminal charges, bankruptcy, etc. And seeing those things gives me (and should give everyone) a greater appreciation for what we have. I know, from seeing it happen to others, that a car could blast through an intersection and instantaneously change my life and those of my family forever. Don’t say it couldn’t happen to you, because it sure happens to some people, who’s only fault might have been sitting patiently at a light. And it only takes a momentary lapse of attention on the part of a driver.

There is no limit to the number of ways that life could be quickly altered for the worse, and I’m not sitting in the middle of a war zone.

So I am thankful for each day that I get. And if I get the chance to dress up silly and run a 1-mile Gobbler race with a few hundred local kids, giving out gift certificates to a local cupcake shop for those that finish near my feathers, then yeah, I’m going to do it. And if I can have a few hundred adults in the 5K race chase the turkey, with a chance to win free entry into a little half marathon trail race I put together, well that is fun too. Community events are often like that. Fun. And it’s nice not just to participate, but to help create them.

In deciding to dress like a turkey for this event for the third year in a row — and with my name I’m the natural choice for this gig — I’m also mindful of Benjamin Franklin’s view of this particular fowl, as he advocated for it to be our national bird instead of the bald eagle:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

I decline the opportunity to put on the “serious lawyer face” 24/7. You might see the suit and tie shot on my website, but you won’t see it on my blog. Here I get to let my feathers down.

I write this blog the same way I go through life. I try to enjoy it, while at the same time taking what I do for a living very seriously. I think that’s reflected in the 1,000+ posts that I’ve done. And yes, this is the same reason that I have for running the occasional April Fool’s gag.

This week is Thanksgiving. Look around you. Be thankful for what you have. And live each day to the fullest.

I hate to use Latin phrases in law, as it invariably sounds pretentious, but I’ll make an exception today. Carpe diem.

Now if someone could please cue up a copy of Alice’s Restaurant, I’d be most grateful. I hear Arlo may be coming to dinner….

November 13th, 2017

Subverting the Constitution

Brett J. Talley

The news, if you care about the courts and the constitution, was pretty awful last week. The lede in this LA Times story was the the Senate Judiciary Committee rubber-stamping a grossly unqualified and incompetent judicial nominee.

How do I know he was grossly unqualified and incompetent? Because he has just three years of actual practice and has never tried a case:

Brett J. Talley, President Trump’s nominee to be a federal judge in Alabama, has never tried a case, was unanimously rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s judicial rating committee, has practiced law for only three years and, as a blogger last year, displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing “Hillary Rotten Clinton” and pledging support for the National Rifle Assn.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

And so while various politicos think and talk in terms of grooming judges for future higher judgeship where they can become activist in shaping policy and interpreting laws and the constitution in a way favorable to their political ideology, those of us in the trenches are forced to practice law in front of them. But this potential judge has never brought a case or even argued a motion:

“He’s practiced law for less than three years and never argued a motion, let alone brought a case. This is the least amount of experience I’ve seen in a judicial nominee,” said Kristine Lucius, executive vice president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Once upon a time, a judicial appointment was the capstone of a career spent in the law, with new judges bringing the wisdom of their decades of experience. Now it is turning into a political training ground for clueless baby lawyers.

But it is not enough to rail against Trump for doing this, because Trump only nominates. And nominating/appointing the most competent people to positions has not exactly been the hallmark of his administration.

Talley can only take the bench if the Senate says so. So far, the Judiciary Committee, which should know better than to sabotage the Constitution, simply bent over for Trump and took it. It is inconceivable that any person on that committee believes Talley has the competence for being a judge.

So what can go wrong? The people that will suffer are litigants who are force to come before him if the Senate continues the Judiciary Committee’s rubber stamping.

And if you think this will auger well for those of a conservative bent, under the theory that Talley is merely a political hack who will do their bidding, then I think you’re mistaken. Bad rulings lead to appeals. And delays. This is money and time. Getting a favorable ruling in the trial court only to be reversed on appeal is not a benefit.

There are many lawyers who, if a judge is about to commit reversible error, will stop the judge even if the ruling would favor them at trial. Because a tainted verdict is quite often a very bad problem. (Others, of course, will gleefully grab the bad decision and just worry about the ramifications later.)

The Senators know what they should do. The question is will they have the courage? Will they show respect for our Constitution? Will they allow incompetence to take the bench?

We will find out soon.

Addendum: I wrote this in 2009 about what I want to see in a SCOTUS nominee, but much of it holds true for lower level federal judges as well. I want to see experience: The SCOTUS Nominee and The Tissue Box Test

Elsewhere:

He has never tried a case, but Trump wants to make him judge for life (Phillips @ The Washington Post)

Brett Talley, a 36-year-old lawyer whom President Trump nominated for a lifetime federal judgeship, has practiced law for only three years and has yet to try a case….

…Talley’s lack of experience in the courtroom and his partisan commentaries, however, were repeatedly questioned by Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

“Your overall qualifications and preparation for becoming a lifetime-appointed federal judge are a concern to me,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, according to her written questions to Talley.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) did not mince words, asking questions like: “How can you claim to be qualified for a lifetime appointment to supervise federal trials on a daily basis when you have never yourself tried a single case?” and “Do you think it is advisable to put people with literally no trial experience on the federal district court bench?”

Donald Trump’s Unqualified Judges (Mataconis @ Outside the Beltway)

Where [Trump] differs from those predecessors is in the percentage of nominees who have been rated “not qualified.” As can be seen [in the attached chart], he is far ahead of any of his four immediate predecessors in this category, with roughly 20% of his nominees to date receiving the rating.

Talley Ban (Greenfield @ Simple Justice)

He worked in the Alabama Attorney General’s office for a couple years, and now for DoJ since January. Talley’s is the resume for a senior associate position at Biglaw, and he would almost certainly get the job. It’s not a bad resume. It’s just not federal judge material…

…So what makes Brett Talley unqualified? It’s the package. He’s a legal kid, a babe in the legal woods. Born in 1981, a year before I graduated law school, he’s been admitted to practice ten years. Had he been in the trenches for all ten of those years, he still wouldn’t be qualified to serve as a federal district court judge. Nobody knows their ass from their elbow in so short a time. Nobody gains the breadth of legal, or human, experience without paying their lawyer dues. Regardless of the pieces that comprise the package, the sum total of the package is what matters. His package is almost empty.