The biscuits were remarkable, but give me like 200 of the okras
Appellate lawyer at Wright, Close & Barger in Houston, with a Fifth Circuit and TX appellate practice. So-called Dean, #appellatetwitter. Host of The Appellate Wanderer podcast
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The biscuits were remarkable, but give me like 200 of the okras
This dish was bananapants good Also, Compere Lapin not campere
In New Orleans to argue, and I had my first dinner at Campere Lapin. That is a *good* restaurant.
Delicious!
Houston’s coastline pizza (margherita)
Etsy is in on it
It was good to see.
“The Happiest Place On Earth” is a trademarked phrase of the Disney company. Otherwise I might be tempted to use it to describe Cato today after the appeals court struck down the tariffs. @cato.org
5th Cir., 2-1, holds that Texas' ban on compensating people who assist voters with mail-in ballots is not preempted by the Voting Rights Act. Held: federal law does not really mean what it says. www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
Sigh
"Additional views" is also used on the opinion itself (even though the opinion joins the majority in full). Why isn't this just labeled as an ordinary concurrence?
By a 7-4 vote, the full Federal Circuit has *affirmed* a lower-court ruling holding that many of President Trump’s tariffs exceed his statutory authority. The ruling won’t go into effect until October 14, though—which gives the Trump administration plenty of time to seek intervention from #SCOTUS:
The idea is a little tongue in cheek, but I think it has the possibility for real use in some large cases to bring parties together to resolve a case. Tell me why I'm dumb!
My article in this month's edition of the Texas State Bar's Appellate Advocate is about a fun* idea I had - the Scrimmage Moot. I believe the full article is currently only available for members, but I'll link it when I can. *Fun if you're an appellate lawyer.
Oh no. Thank you!
As a Commanders fan, it’s as if the Giants traded LT out of the division in his prime.
Is it good to trade your generational star
I stopped using it due to the Kozinski connection. Maybe that’s stupid, but it made sense to me
Prepping for tonight’s class (I’m teaching peremptory strikes and strikes for cause but also a little mini lesson about the Fifth Circuit’s procedures) and it’s nice to be kept company by one of my favorite mugs cc: @jodyssanders.bsky.social
I’m sorry WUT
Oh right. Man, that's a challenge. Still (starts researching T. Swift lyrics).
I was trying to explain equitable estoppel to the Kid and he finally said "oh right it's like when you try to dupe a legendary egg in Grow a Garden and you get banned" and I said yes even though I don't know what any of those things are.
No. He's an enemy of the united states and must be opposed every second.
There's no good aspect to him. Democrats need to stop with the "well the dye stuff is good." No.
It's hard to keep straight exactly what the worst thing going on, but the US health system being led by an idiot conspiracy theorist really is high up there.
I don’t know what the logo is but now I feel compelled
To be clear, we have partisan judicial elections in Texas, those are all judges who have run for election as republicans. I’m not trying to insult them.
That’s the one. It’s 3 judges all appointed by Abbott.
To give you a sense of how nuts this is, Paxton claims a court of only Republican appointed Republicans is “Beto loving” because they asked for a response to one of his filings.
Appellate lawyers at parties.
Dumbest timeline imaginable.
Oh for sure. It boggles me, because it's an incredibly easy case to make.
" and to become a citizen you have to apply and pass background checks and pass a test and pay all this money and live here for 5 years without doing anything remotely bad hahahaha" {In fact a massive expansion in immigration}
You could loudly make immigration rules that sounded incredibly tough, with forms and checks and all the rest and it would still be a huge liberalization of immigration.
Look, I long ago made up my mind that the birthright citizenship arguments by Wurman et al. were not close calls, but I recommend @williambaude.bsky.social’s post here. “Visa holders are not like Indian tribes” is a good summary of the whole episode. blog.dividedargument.com/p/complicati...
Post-moot condition of the appellate lawyer: Baby falling over on sofa gif.
The bmi thing captures a huge group of Americans
gorgeous!
I get to visit cool old courthouses all over Ohio to look at paper records. The drive may be boring, but it’s a privilege to get to work in places like this, even if only for a few hours.
The concurrence says the majority has really made up the Taylor v. Riojas issue, fwiw.
This decision violates the "come on man" rule. (If describing the thing makes literally everyone say "come on man," then it was clearly established and QI can't apply. Here, 3 months of feces).
I read a lot of bad facts. I litigate torts for the defense, sometimes. But this, man.
These are some of the worst facts in this kind of case I've ever read.
I am agog.
+1 (well, not the frilly blouses, but not caring about others’ sneering)
Walking in circles around the office repeating half a sentence to myself until the words lose all meaning
True Story: I was involved in a Netflix docuseries. When we won the big appellate case overturning 1000s of wrongful convictions, we were, of course, not in court. So we were asked to capture the moment by... reading parts of the decision aloud from a computer. It went as well as you'd guess.
“So uhh, you’ve looked somewhere between pained and annoyed for like 4 hours.” Correct, correct. This is the art of writing.
Same for us appellate judges (and our teams), except on court day. They are welcome to come join us all the same, but they usually opt to wait for argument day.
This is why there's never been a popular show called Law & Order: Appeals Unit.
“So Mr. Melkonian, what are you doing now?” Still thinking about lunch. “How.. long do you do that for?” Until lunch
As I’ve always said, I’m delighted to have coffee with law students and aspiring appellate lawyers. The one request I always turn down, which I sometimes get, is “shadowing.” This would consist of sitting in my office staring at me rub my head at the screen.
I’m so sorry to hear that. You have my best wishes
But there are no limits with Trump, which we all should have learned in 2016.
I rather suspect SCOTUS thought they would not be asked this question.
Highly recommended with a tomato soup for lunch!
Immediately starts harassing a new student. And incredibly, even though everyone knew what he was like, the school district claims they acted lawfully when they rehired him!
![In fall 2017, Plaintiff-Appellee Matthew Loera enrolled in Villarreal’s theatre class at H.M. King. Villarreal asked students for their phone numbers to “coordinate . . . small group meetings” for his class and, a few days later, began texting Loera. The texts were “casual” at first, but within a few weeks, they escalated. Villarreal told Loera that he “wanted to know what all the hype was about” and repeatedly asked for photographs of his genitals. Loera sent Villarreal a photograph, thinking that “[m]aybe it would have made him leave [Loera] alone,” but Villarreal’s texts became even more insistent and explicit. Loera sent Villarreal five or six additional photographs. In addition to requesting photographs, Villarreal bought Loera food, shoes, watches, sunglasses, and a gold chain. He also kissed Loera on one occasion and, after delivering food to his home one evening, “[ran] his hand down [Loera’s] chest towards [his] private parts.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:b2zlnxrfackjw5h3lbemyqg5/bafkreie3h6lwafllanzjlbqxq3awu7e5fkeymq2hu2knfcyrf6xpykb6py@jpeg "Click to view full size")
In cases like this one, the Government should just take their checkbook out and ask how much should be paid, not mess around with ludicrous immunity arguments. A teacher openly "dated" a student and left the school. Then he's rehired and 1/ www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
Yeah, I’m not sure I lost anything from the 6 minute method. This is light and airy.
Once it cools down!
And here we have the finished loaf. It really made an incredible ear and it was very easy to score. I can’t tell yet if I lost some oven spring. But it’s a great product.
Ok, so here is the loaf 6 minutes in, and I’m scoring it.
Bonzi should have just served, though. Cut the antics off.
Ok, why does everyone think Medvedev is a lovable rascal? That whole thing was super jerky.
Totally ok with this sort of negotiation by the Ukrainians with Moscow, if that’s what he meant.
The negotiation was our armies tromping around Berlin.
Absolutely did not end with a negotiation.
It’s just rooibos and Coke Zero, at different times
Today is an oral argument prep day, and I am infusing myself with a mysterious tea drunk from this.
Bread pudding!
The bread? There’s no solution for that. It’s crouton time!
Obviously I’ve taken my starter Out of the fridge and am feeding it to do a loaf
Dutch oven! It doesn’t seem to matter at all - there’s more steam to be had.
We live in a society people! Scoring after baking? Cats and dogs living together!
On my sourdough adventures, I’ve discovered that people have started scoring their loaf after 6 minutes in the oven for a more pronounced ear and my mind is blown.
A place in that parking, yes
Definitely private
It was free for 2 hours, but I’m sure it would have asked for credit card
Had a very “oh so this is happening” situation. Went into a parking lot. No ticket was offered. Heading out, no place to put a ticket. It scanned your plate automatically coming in and out and charged accordingly.
Prof Lipton answers some of the Qs I had from before, but she agrees some of this is puzzling
Ok that helps me start getting my head around it. Thank you
I’m flummoxed
Yes.
Obviously I find the idea of the US taking a stake in a private company incredibly offensive, but that is not relevant to the points above.
6) What the heck is this? This is not compensation.
4) how are they doing this deal without some kind of shareholder approval? 5) what the heck is this?
Look, this intel press release makes no sense to me at all. Questions I have: 1) why would they sell shares at a discount? How is that ok? 2) how can the United States be a passive shareholder with no governance rights? 3) when is the transaction taking place? www.intc.com/news-events/...
One of my partners just told me that in law school he didn't know what a justified margin was. He would get assignments back with the comment "justify" on the side of the page and think, "I've already written a justification, what more do they want me to say!"
I suppose it sounds like the bleating of sheep, but I have no idea why Intel shareholders would accept this.
fwiw, I don't think this is crazy talk at all. He tried to retain power last time, and he was much weaker then.
NEW VIDEO: "So You're About To Start Law School: An Incoming Law Student's Guide to the First Month" My tips, especially for those first-gen students who don't know a lot of lawyers. Hope students find it useful. youtube.com/watch?v=Ayl3...
The statutory text is here. It's sort of pretty broad, but also so broad you can see why someone would say it wouldn't cover a life boat.
Really interesting statutory interpretation case from CA5: are the life rafts pictured below "equipment" under the Texas Dealers' Act? www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
He doesn’t act like he’s going to have to survive through a democratic administration at all, and we should take that seriously.
You can think what you want, but from where I sit there is no indication Trump intends on giving up power in 2028, and we should just assume he’s not.
Huh! It just doesn’t seem very intuitive that a voluntary bar association would have that authority and I never really thought about it
Before this episode I didn’t know the ABA told law schools what credits to require. Seems weird.
Today I heard the expression “it’s a horse a piece” for the first time - like half a dozen of one, six of the other. Huh!
oh no
I have not read it yet, but am reliably told the opinion is a mess of titanic proportions.