Sunday, September 15, 2019

FOR LAWYERS DREAMING OF APPEARING BEFORE SCOTUS...

(Ed.'s Note: Once in a while we run into a piece that is clever, well written, and speaks to a viewpoint rarely seen in the genre of legal writing. Take, for example, the analogy First Amendment attorney  Floyd Abrams [Pentagon Papers, Nebraska Press Association, Landmark Communications, etc.] draws in Speaking Freely that appearing as lead counsel before the United States Supreme Court [SCOTUS], is like baseball. This is rich. Enjoy.)
Argument:

Appearing before the Supreme Court as chief counsel in a significant case often reminds me of taking the field in a strangely transformed sort of baseball game.

Counsel who is arguing walks to home plate, the podium in the Court which faces the nine justices.

As in baseball (and baseball uniquely among our sports), the batter is alone, confronted by all nine fielders, the Supreme Court, the fielders are also pitchers, each of them throwing questions at his or her own pace, sometimes one after another, sometimes nearly simultaneously.

Balls thrown by each of the nine pass one another in the air, some pitched hard, fast, and straight; others high and inside, obviously designed to keep the lawyer/batter from digging in too comfortably at the plate.

Some of the questions are curve balls, sinkers, and virtually unhittable knuckleballs. But the lawyer/batter must hit them all cleanly, and if he/she does not, the game may be lost on a single pitch alone. An added fillip is that the nine pitchers are also the umpires.

As a result, however wild their pitches may be, they must be treated as strikes.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is rich? You're about as Mexican as a Mexican can be! smh

Anonymous said...

Juan, great legal reporting! I was almost a lawyer, but I fought the law and the law won, ese! If you ask me about torts, I say they go great with hash browns! LOL

- Booby Weightman-Ramirez

Anonymous said...

THE FAITH OF A AMERICAN CATHOLIC

BROWNSVILLE, Texas – After more than two dozen years in office, as Texas State Senator for District 27, Eddie Lucio, Jr. saying he’s had enough of the Good Political Life. Austin can be that intoxicating for most Brownsville men, that much of a blast and that much of a memory.

Anonymous said...

Doing oral argument before SCOTUS is the high point of a lawyers career, at least those who have the stones to do it. When you leave the court chambers there is a table that contains a jar with some white feathers sticking out. You can take one and that is proof you have been there and done that. They are the ultimate lawyers trophy, even more than a hot wife.

Anonymous said...

Two things come to mind about the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment. One is that I would rather live with mass shootings than walk past an armed guard at the door to Walmart or the library or the local school or the grocery store. I don't attend church; so, I won't have to sit with armed people for the service.

The second is that no civilian needs a military style rifle like an AK-47 or the AR-15 with magazines that hold 100 bullets.

We are the only modern nation that is gun-crazy, gun addicted, gun loving and in love with violence, murder, mayhem and general lawlessness from the top down. There is obviously no need to try to second guess the men who devised our Constitution. Trump has proved that we have no Constitution. It's as full of holes as a sieve.

If our country can be run by "executive order" subject to every whim, caprice or hiccup of the president, then there are no laws, no controls, no checks and balances in place, and we are a lost, chaotic, out of control nation.


Anonymous said...

When did executive order become vogue?

Congress is to make the laws, they are the ones who stopped doing their elected job, so the Presidents have started hording that power.

Until Congress gets back in line, any President will continue this crap

rita