I want to tell my best Judge Reavley story, that I think I've told before. Each Fifth Circuit law clerk gets a turn at robing the judges before argument. They mostly robe themselves, so this amounts to making sure they have their materials, but also.. "knocking them in" 1/
You knock on the big brass ring in the robing room to alert the courtroom that the judges are coming. I had heard through the grapevine that Judge Reavley liked a very loud knock. He thought it was important. And that he'd be disappointed if I only managed a wimpy one. 2/
So I hauled off and legit threw the ring at the door with all my force. The knock resounded in the courtroom - my fellow law clerks told me some people jumped. But it was *also* really loud in the robing room. /3
There was an embarrassed silence as all three judges turned to look at me. And then Judge Reavley chuckled and said something like "Now that's a Texan's knock!" in his wonderful voice, (or something like that, it was a long time ago).
I also had the privilege of having a dinner or two with the judge (and my judge). He was extremely kind to me, and served the court with honor for many many years.
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As I suggested it might be, this is a cold, clinical dismantling of the Trump campaign's claims and absurd legal strategy. Haven't yet finished the whole opinion, but it's a biting read.
An #AppellateTwitter side-note, Judge Bibas is a magnificent writer. Just wonderful. He uses all of those gifts here - so clear, so crisp.
My mom and I are splitting the T-day cooking duties. I claimed the Turkey, the pie, and the rolls. Roll time!
The base for my Turkey stock is working now.
Some advice for you less experienced cooks from one 6 weeks in culinary school years ago. Work clean! Clean your board after each ingredient. It saves so much heartache later.
I’m a pretty indifferent baker - I’m a cook - but I can be roused to a couple of pies.
It’s just a regular pie crust but with the slightly whole wheat flour I ordered from a mill at the beginning of the pandemic.
I was listening to a podcast tonight, and the guest said, in explaining that he thought Rudy’s out of court statements were worse than what he said in court, that it’s ok if a lawyer makes outlandish arguments in court because those are subject to dispute and testing 1/
I think that’s a common thought - that a lawyer representing a client should say whatever to help their client, and if they’re lying the other lawyers will catch them.
No. Yes, you can make arguments that are not 100% winners. One lawyer word we use for that is colorable.
But you can’t go in there and make up lies. You have an independent obligation as a lawyer not to lie to the Court, even if the lie helps your client. What Rudy and co. were doing was not zealous advocacy. It was deeply offensive to the way law is supposed to work.
The first argument is the mootness problem we've all been discussing. The DNC makes neat work of Trump's claim that the case isn't moot because you can just "decertify" - not a thing, the DNC says.
Similarly, the DNC says, if you want an order saying the legislature can choose the electors, no one who could possibly do that is a defendant in this suit.
I can confirm, this is normally a big problem for a lawsuit.