Monthly Archives: August 2011

No, really, are there limits?

Posted August 18th, 2011
Timothy Sandefur
Professor Orin Kerr has a post here arguing that opponents of the Individual Mandate are wrong to argue that an Obama Administration victory in the Individual Mandate cases would  mean that there are no limits to federal power under the Commerce Clause. Unfortunately, this is at most only half true. According to Kerr, advocates of [...]
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Medium Rare Burgers and the Land of Laws

Posted August 16th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
I’ve been away from blogging for about 10 days now. My wife and I drove across the country from Omaha to Seattle (my father-in-law and his wife flew our 19-month old son). We are somewhat moved into our new place and ready to start the next chapter, tentatively entitled “Baby Girls and Law School.” As many [...]
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CockleBur Fantasy Football Preview

Posted August 15th, 2011
Paul Rinn
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So, they finally got around to fixing that whole NFL lockout deal by figuring out a way to make the players happy and keep the owners rich by making the players rich and keeping the owners happy. And now that everyone is satisfied for at least another decade, we can finally go back to concentrating [...]
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New Merits Briefs Filed by Cockle Printing

Posted August 12th, 2011
Andy Cockle
We filed two merits briefs this week: Reply Brief in Howes v. Fields, No. 10-680, filed on August 8, 2011 Brief of Respondents in CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, No. 10-948, filed on August 8, 2011
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The Slippery Freefall

Posted August 11th, 2011
Sean Bradley
Dahlia Lithwick’s recent article in Slate covers developments in a couple of federal lawsuits brought by American citizens claiming they were unlawfully tortured and detained by our military while working in Iraq. (Both the trial court in one case, and the 7th Circuit in the other, held that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not [...]
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Same words, different meanings…and?

Posted August 9th, 2011
Timothy Sandefur
Prof. Bell has a blog post objecting to both originalism and living constitutionalism because both interpretive theories lead to what he considers an objectionable outcome: the same word being used to mean different things within the document. This outcome, he contends, “threatens the rule of law” because “an average citizen, using ordinary English, would not [...]
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My Top Three Questions Presented from the Supreme Court’s 2010 Term

Posted August 8th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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As I explained last year, there may be no more daunting task in all Supreme Court practice than distilling a 9,000-word—or hopefully less—cert petition down to one or two Questions Presented. Although crafting QP’s are difficult, you can improve your QP’s by combining a few of the following techniques with lots of practice. In this [...]
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The Case Against Law School: A Student’s View of the Law School Debate

Posted August 5th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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“F*** greedy law schools” seems to be the phrase of the day. At least on the blogosphere. A few weeks ago, David Segal had an excellent expose on the culture of greed that permeates the business of law school. He appropriately entitled his piece: “Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!” The NY Times followed up with a [...]
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Cockle Printing Says Good Luck (But Never Goodbye) to One of Our Own

Posted August 3rd, 2011
Andy Cockle
Last Friday Cockle Law Brief Printing Company said farewell to Shon Hopwood. This week Shon and his family–Annie, Mark, and the new baby on the way–will move to Seattle so that Shon can attend law school at the University of Washington. He promised us three things before he left: that he would always be more [...]
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Just Another Day in Court

Posted August 2nd, 2011
Sean Bradley
I came across this recent piece at Thomson Reuters–Oracle Judge Okays Damning E-mail Despite Google Privilege Claim–and I got to marvel, from a refreshingly safe distance, all the ways that things can go wrong in a courtroom. In its patent infringement case against Google, the Oracle team prepared an exhibit binder for a July 21st [...]
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