The Wall Street Journal-20080123-Best of the Law Blog - Excerpts from Recent Entries at WSJ-com-s Law Blog
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Best of the Law Blog / Excerpts from Recent Entries at WSJ.com's Law Blog
When should a judge disqualify himself from a case?
That often-sticky question was at the center of three separate stories in the news recently.
Elliott Maynard, the chief justice in West Virginia, agreed to recuse himself from a pending case involving Massey Energy Co. after photographs emerged of him and Massey's chief executive gallivanting in Monte Carlo during the summer of 2006 as Massey was appealing a jury verdict against it to the state's high court. Last year, Mr. Maynard voted with the majority in a 3-to-2 decision overturning the verdict.
In response to a petition to revisit the ruling, Mr. Maynard agreed to recuse himself, citing concerns about perception and public confidence in the courts but noting that "I have no doubt in my own mind and firmly believe I have been and would be fair and impartial in this case." Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that another justice on the court requested an investigation into the matter.
In California, a federal appeals court tossed the fraud conviction and 15-year sentence of a former dot-com executive, ruling that the trial-court judge should have disqualified himself because of stock holdings in a firm linked to the case. Stuart Wolff, the former chief executive for Homestore Inc. (now called Move Inc.), is entitled to a new trial before a different judge.
In perhaps the most unusual recusal item of the three, the California Supreme Court refused to hear a case after four of the seven justices disqualified themselves because they owned stock in oil companies that were tangentially related to the matter. "This is a very unusual situation, and I hope it doesn't recur," Chief Justice Ron George told the Associated Press.
Braxton Berkley, the factory worker who sued his company for alleged injuries suffered as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals and now won't get his day before the state's high court, told the AP: "It's unfair, and I am very disgusted with the courts."
Posner on Prose
There is no shortage of paeans to Judge Richard Posner, the noted federal appeals-court judge in Chicago. Project Posner is a Web site devoted exclusively to his opinions. And hot off the presses is a special issue from the University of Chicago Law Review commemorating the judge's work.
An opinion last week on an otherwise pedestrian reinsurance dispute demonstrated his abilities. First, he explained a basic principle of contract law. "If while you are sitting on your porch sipping Margaritas a trio of itinerant musicians serenades you with mandolin, lute, and hautboy, you have no obligation, in the absence of a contract, to pay them for their performance no matter how much you enjoyed it."
He also offered legal-writing advice to the lawyers on the case. While their oral arguments were excellent, he wrote, jargon made their briefs difficult to understand. "Every esoteric term used by the reinsurance industry has a counterpart in ordinary English, as we hope this opinion has demonstrated." He added: "The able lawyers who briefed and argued this case could have saved us some work and presented their positions more effectively had they done the translations from reinsurancese into everyday English themselves."
Waning Confidence
While many people are glued to the market indexes, this blog is following the "Managing Partner Confidence Index," courtesy of the Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group. The index, launched early last year, surveys some 100 managing partners at big firms each quarter to chart their confidence on topics from expected revenues to costs.
For the fourth quarter of last year, the MPCI Index Value checked in at 108, an all-time low and down 11 points from the third quarter. "A lot of managing partners are seeing a lot of the same signs that were there in 2001, when we saw a flat profitability year for the industry," says Dan DiPietro, the client head of the group. "You've got a ramp-up in numbers of lawyers and pressure in associate salaries, followed by a significant economic event."
This year could spell the end for some firms that don't "have what it takes to weather the storm," he says. "I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them merge into larger firms."
Debt Dilemma
Kirsten Wolf is a woman on a mission -- to talk people out of law school.
Her beef? Too many lawyers graduate laden with debt and without decent job opportunities. The 32-year-old Ms. Wolf went to law school after putting herself through undergrad by cooking at night. A law career would be intellectually satisfying, she thought, and "I wouldn't be . . . poor for the rest of my life." She got financial aid, took out loans and enrolled in Boston University School of Law.
Her grades landed her "right in the middle" of her class, and she didn't get a summer-associate position that could lead to an offer from a well-paying firm. She graduated in 2002 without a job.
"I was 27 years old and I had been trying to do the right thing, and all that had gotten me was upwards of $100,000 in the hole."
Ms. Wolf moved to New York City and fell into a job as an office manager for a literary agency, work that she says makes her happy. The legal education does help, she says, but she asks, "Is that worth paying student loans until five years before my Social Security kicks in?"
Readers posted hundreds of comments to her tale. "Most people entering law school do so for naive reasons and lack of imagination," wrote one. "That is why there are so many lawyers, and most lawyers are unhappy." Another advised: "People should focus on their lives like a person focuses on a business. Look at your overhead, your income and your potential. If something is wrong with any of the three, change them."
