One of my pro bono activities for years was serving as a small claims court arbitrator in Manhattan. My best guess is that I handled about 1500 trials, and it turned out that I was quite good at getting the parties to settle, which was generally a better outcome than issuing an award to one side, which had the problems of collecting and aggravating hostilities between the parties. It was far more art than science.

The American Arbitration Association announced that it’s introducing AI arbitration into its mix.

“The legal industry has long been cautious about adopting new technologies, but as demand for fair, efficient, and accessible justice grows, innovation is no longer optional – it is essential,” said Bridget Mary McCormack, president and CEO of the AAA-ICDR. Continue reading →

As Trump joked they could laugh and applaud before he launched into his childish grievance spiel to the generals and admirals who flew in for no discernible purpose, they sat silently. Stoically. What they were thinking remains a mystery, but what they were not doing was clear. They were not laughing. They were not applauding. They gave no indication they were ready to forsake their oaths by serving one man rather than one nation and its Constitution.

Then came the 250th Anniversary of the Navy, which did not fall on his birthday and thus didn’t get a very expensive military parade that turned out to be a massive bore. But the Commander-in-Chief took to a pier to speak to his sailors. Continue reading →

Donald Trump says he was poorly served by whoever told him to appoint Karin Immergut as an Article III judge in the district of Oregon. After all, she didn’t rule the way she was supposed to, and it couldn’t be his fault because nothing is his fault, when she restrained the use of the 200 federalized Oregon National Guard troops because, contrary to what Trump saw on the telly, Portland was not only not “on fire,” but was under control to the extent necessary with local law enforcement.

Accordingly, there was no justification to invoke 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and federalize the National Guard against the wishes of the governor of Oregon. Continue reading →

There is so much wrong on so many levels that this one twit by Trump is worthy of a law review article. But one particularly bizarre aspect of the twit is worthy of discussion. Why ICE first?

ICE, short for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, isn’t a general law enforcement agency. Granted, its budget under the Big Beautiful Bill dwarfs the other federal law enforcement agencies. Granted, its personnel are the worst trained by far. Granted, they are empowered to act without constraint, using unwarranted and unlawful force and routinely violating the Constitution by seizing without cause. Continue reading →

Greetings, friends! Have any of you driven two and a half hours away from your home to dine at a tourist bar owned by a country music singer because your spouse happened to be in that town for a continuing education seminar and they wanted to eat there? Did you have to listen to both of your kids bitch about traffic the entire goddamn way there?

No? I guess that’s pretty specific to visiting Gatlinburg.

If you’ve never been to Gatlinburg it can be pretty time consuming. Someone recently told me they thought it was what you’d get if you transported a beach resort town to the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. I said it was the only place I knew where you could buy a ninja sword and a funnel cake on the same city block. Continue reading →

You might wonder what legal basis might have existed for the United States Navy to bomb and destroy ships in international waters off Venezuela. You might also have taken comfort in the claims that these were “narco-terrorists” bringing shipments of drugs, which somehow causes people to ignore any legalities in favor of high seas murder since “narco-terrorists” is doubly bad and who could possibly not favor stopping them with extreme prejudice.

Of course, we can’t know that these were drug smugglers, or terrorists, since they were neither captured nor searched to ascertain what, if anything, was on those ships. Instead, we took Trump’s word for it. After all, he said he was certain that they were “narco-terrorists” and it’s not as if Trump would ever tell a lie or be wrong about anything. Continue reading →

I’ve never been a fan of federal judges writing cute or gimmicky opinions. Much as I may enjoy them on occasion, federal cases are serious matters and the court’s decisions should be serious as well. So I join the chorus of those who question why radical left lunatic Reagan appointee, Judge William Young of the District of Massachusetts, began his very lengthy decision in AAUP v. Rubio like this.

But from there, Judge Young got down to business. Continue reading →

After another United States Attorney appointee, wholly lacking in any qualification other than loyalty, failed to get Senate confirmation, she was flipped from “interim” to “acting” in an effort to circumvent the law and give the president what he wanted. Another judge ruled against her.

The A problem is that this administration isn’t like the old one. One of the hallmarks of Trump 1.0 was his stunning ignorance of law and governance was somewhat constrained by others in the administration who told him he couldn’t do some of the things that popped into his head because they were unlawful. In Trump 2.0 (or 3.0, as he informed a clearly impressionable group of generals who flew into Quantico at great expense and disruption, too rapt by the gravitas of Pete Hegseth’s warnings about “beardos” and fatties to utter a sound), he is surrounded by others bent on overcoming the limits of law and governance to accomplish Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s goals of hegemony. Continue reading →

A basic premise of First Amendment law is that the government can’t censor protected speech, but a private entity can for the simple reason that it’s not the government. Sure, the government can coerce a private entity to act, thus making it an agent of the government, but that’s a separate issue. If I choose to trash your comment, tough nuggies. The same is true for social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

So why did YouTube just pay Trump, personally, $24.5 million for a facially frivolous claim?

YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to President Trump and others who were suspended by the video streaming platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a legal document filed on Monday. Continue reading →

Some guy shot up a Mormon Church and another guy shot up seaside bar. They murdered people.

More FBI agents were fired by Ka$h Patel for not being believed to be sufficiently Trumpian.

Trump thinks former FBI Director Christopher Wray should be investigated because “he did a terrible job.”

BLA Joanne Chesimard, convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper and later escaping to Cuba, is dead. The Democratic Socialist Party and Chicago Teachers Union pay their respects. Continue reading →