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Welcome back to the internet Mr. David Lat, former federal prosecutor, anonymous blogger, and, yes, co-proprietor of this very site. Mr. Lat is back in the warm, tubular embrace of the blogosphere with Elizabeth Spiers’ brand new legal weblog, “Above the Law” (rejected name: “Barely Legal”). MORE »
Last month we updated you on the apparent difficulties that Jessica Cutler, a.k.a. Washingtonienne, has been encountering in paying her lawyers. Those difficulties persist.
On Friday, Judge Paul Friedman, who is presiding over the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Cutler, ordered the following:
[O]n or before July 7, 2006, defendant Jessica Cutler must personally respond in writing to her counsel’s motion to withdraw and/or advise the Court of her retention of new counsel or her intention to proceed pro se.
The judge issued this order after Cutler failed to respond to her lawyer’s motion to withdraw (for nonpayment of fees). So Jessica, if you’re out there reading this, please get back to the court — ASAP.
Personally, we would give multiple body parts to watch Jessica Cutler represent herself. It would be the greatest pro se performance since Anna Nicole Smith. We suspect Judge Friedman would become very sympathetic to Cutler after having an ex parte conference with her in chambers.
For all you law geeks out there, the text of the full order appears after the jump.
No, this isn’t a Benetton ad. Left to right: Grant Vinik; Jeannie Rhee; Jessie Liu; Justice Samuel Alito (duh); Robin Meriweather; and Anna-Marie Roop.
Last night, one-half of Wonkette attended the annual dinner of the Yale Law School Assocation of Washington, DC, at the National Press Club. The dinner honored Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Yale Law School class of 1975, the newest member of the Supreme Court.
The proceedings were declared off the record, so we can’t tell you about Justice Alito’s thoughtful, erudite, and highly entertaining remarks. Nor can we share with you the fantastic conversations we had over dinner, at a star-studded table. All the journalists — and quasi-journalists — had to put away our notebooks for the night.
But no one said anything about cameras. So we took lots of photographs of the assembled legal luminaries — such as the picture shown above, in which Justice Alito “strikes a pose,” looking like a general about to head into battle.
Additional pictures — including photos of the evening’s other celebrity, Sen. Arlen Specter, Yale Law School class of 1956 — appear after the jump. (These are amateur photos; please don’t mistake them for the work of Liz Gorman.)
* “Podfisking,” it’s all the rage. [Andrew Sullivan] MORE »
Slept with a bunch of people and blogged about it? Actually, no. She’s about to lose the legal services of the attorney representing her in Steinbuch v. Cutler — for the third time.
Back in April, attorney William Bode, who had been representing Jessica Cutler, withdrew (hehe) as her counsel in the case. There was some speculation as to why Bode withdrew, which he denied to the media.
Now Jessica’s latest lawyer, John Umana — who, by the way, is a “leading proponent of intelligent design,” as reported by the Legal Times — wants out. Unlike Bode, Umana has spelled out the reason for his withdrawal, and it’s the oldest reason in the book: nonpayment of fees. (The text of his motion to withdraw, which one of you helpfully forwarded to us, appears after the jump.)
This is not the first time Jessica has had problems paying her lawyers:
Umana, for example, is Cutler’s third attorney in a little more than a year. Her original lawyers, Thomas Wilson and Alexander Vincent of Washington’s Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, sued Cutler last month in D.C. Superior Court, claiming she owed them $54,271.19. Cutler had already paid $35,000, they said.
Where did all the money go — the Playboy payment, the six-figure book advance, the HBO dough? Jessica’s website, where she solicits PayPal donations, hints at the answer: “Please — I need money for slutty clothes and drugs!”
But even the biggest cokehead/connoisseuse of slutty fashions would have a hard time burning through the cash Jessica has accumulated since she emerged as Washingtonienne. Sounds like someone could use a visit from Suze Orman.
Now, courtesy of the Legal Times, a quick update on a case that’s far more interesting than Enron: Steinbuch v. Cutler.
The article speaks for itself — res ipsa loquitur — and it’s well worth reading in its entirety. If you’re wondering about whether Steinbuch has a case and what Jessica’s best defenses are, they’re laid out in the piece, which features analysis from law professor and blogger Daniel Solove (among others).
Here’s our favorite excerpt, proving that truth can be stranger than fiction:
It’s hard to know why anyone would care to set the record straight about whether he is able to ejaculate with or without a condom or whether he likes to spank or be spanked. But [Steinbuch attorney Jonathan] Rosen says that’s exactly what Steinbuch intends to do.
“There are graphic and intimate details which are not true,” he said in a telephone interview. “Those are facts that are going to be litigated.”
To summarize the Legal Times piece: Steinbuch v. Cutler represents Robert Steinbuch’s attempt to clear his name. He wants the world to know that he’s good in bed. Really good.
Very well, Professor Steinbuch: you’re GREAT in bed. There, it’s established. It has been printed. In a blog.
Boy, that was an easy problem to solve. Did you really have to go make a federal case out of it?
A Man Scorned [Legal Times]
(For those of you who can’t get enough of Jessica Cutler, we share a random story about a reading she did last month in New York, after the jump. Note: It’s not for the squeamish.)
And sometimes they engage in stupid, even criminal, conduct: MORE »
John G. Roberts’s metrosexual style was the subject of much comment during his confirmation hearings as Chief Justice. And now that he’s presiding over the Court as Chief Justice, he has brought a kinder and gentler sensibility to its proceedings.
Linda Greenhouse, doing her best impression of Elisabeth Bumiller (or maybe even Robin Givhan), reports:
This is the week that the Supreme Court, done with its regular argument sessions, enters the stretch run. While it is too soon for substantive appraisals of the first year of the Roberts court, it is not too soon for stylistic observations about what is clearly, in the view of lawyers who have appeared there this term, a different court…
In common with every other Supreme Court specialist contacted for this article, [Georgetown] Professor [Richard] Lazarus listed several obvious changes. “They’re not stepping on each other,” he said of the justices. “They take longer before someone asks the first question. They give the lawyers more time to answer.”
[A] different dynamic seems to prevail throughout entire arguments. With justices sitting back and allowing colleagues to ask follow-up questions, and with lawyers given an actual chance to answer, there is a new coherence and civility to the sessions.
Well isn’t that special. The justices are now so… polite!
“Oh goodness, Ruthie, I’m sorry I interrupted you!” “Not at all, Nino, I was pretty much done — you go right ahead!”
Additional reflections appear after the jump.
