Sensible shoes are for liberal chicks. Say hello to fabulous Federalist footwear!

As you may have noticed, from our two posts late on Monday night and one from Tuesday morning, we’re engaging in some after-the-fact blogging of last week’s Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention.

As in past years, the social highlight of the conference was the Thursday night banquet (black tie optional; and many availed themselves of the option, ‘cause that’s how conservatives roll). The speaker at the dinner was none other than Justice Samuel A. Alito, who delivered an insightful and hilarious speech that was a delight to listen to. Just as one might say of, say, a newscast by Jon Stewart, much of the entertainment value was in the delivery — Justice Alito is so dry and deadpan, and yet his remarks make you bust out laughing.

Interestingly enough, we haven’t come across many news accounts of Justice Alito’s speech. There was also no video recording allowed at the address. So we feel we can add some value with this write-up, despite its belated nature.

There may have been some confusion over the ground rules governing reporting about the speech. From the BLT:

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. spoke to the Federalist Society [last Thursday] night, but photos of him doing so are hard to come by. That’s because photographers other than the Federalist Society’s own were barred from the event. Keith Appell, a spokesman for the Federalist Society, said cameras were prohibited by Alito’s security detail….

Kathy Arberg, the court spokeswoman, said “The justice’s policy was that the event was open to still cameras and pencil press,” and that the Federalist Society was informed of that policy before the event.

Well, photos from the event aren’t hard to come by on Above the Law. Nobody told us that we couldn’t take photographs — so we did. And, as members of the “pencil press,” we jotted down notes in our reporter’s notebook. (We left the laptop at the hotel that night.)

Check out a slideshow of our pictures, along with a discussion of Justice Alito’s highly engaging and entertaining address, after the jump.

Time to resume our lateblogging — or can we call it early-blogging, in light of the morning hour? — of the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention. If you’re a conservative or libertarian lawyer (or law student), this is an event well worth attending every year. In addition to the lively and informative panel discussions (which offer CLE credit), the networking is excellent.

Here’s the next panel we attended, on a timely topic given the government’s increasing — and perhaps excessive — involvement in the national economy:

Breakdown of the Public-Private Distinction: Implications for the Administrative State

We continue our lateblogging of the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention. The conversations at the conference are always interesting. As far as we’re concerned, this has to be one of the most painless ways to rack up CLE credits.

Here’s the next panel discussion that we attended:

Regulation of Financial Institutions

Over the weekend, we had the pleasure of attending the Federalist Society’s 2009 National Lawyers Convention, down in Washington, D.C. As in past years, conservative and libertarian legal luminaries were plentiful, and the panel discussions and other events were excellent.

Some folks — e.g., Josh Blackman — were liveblogging the proceedings. We’re only writing up the conference now, so you can call this “lateblogging” (both because we’re late in blogging about the conference, and blogging late at night; hey, better late than never).

This year, sadly, we missed most of the Thursday events (because of a speaking engagement at the ABA’s Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference). The first Fed Soc panel we caught was on Friday afternoon:

Free Speech: The Fairness Doctrine

We mentioned this in passing yesterday, but in case you missed it, please take note of this event in D.C. next week:

On Wednesday, September 23, the Georgetown Federalist Society will be hosting a panel event on New Media & The Law at 7 PM in Hart Auditorium [at Georgetown University Law Center, 600 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC].

The panel will feature David Lat from Above the Law, Tony Mauro from the National Law Journal, and Matt Welch from Reason Magazine. Eileen O’Connor, adjunct professor at Georgetown and former reporter and bureau chief at CNN, will moderate.

The event will be followed by a reception.

The event is sponsored by the Georgetown Federalist Society. Hope to see you there!

New Media & The Law Event at GULC [Georgetown Federalist Society Blog]

On Tuesday night, we attended a very interesting panel discussion, “Do We Have the Legal Tools to Prevent Terrorist Attacks?” It was sponsored by the New York City Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society, and it featured the following panelists:

Andrew C. McCarthy (no, not that Andrew McCarthy) — Senior Fellow, National Review Institute, and author, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

Glenn Sulmasy — Professor, U.S. Coast Guard Academy and author, The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror.

Samuel J. Rascoff — Assistant Professor, NYU Law School and Former Director of Intelligence Analysis for the New York City Police Department and Special Assistant to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

Hon. Kenneth M. Karas — United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (moderator)

Read about the wide-ranging and thoughtful discussion, after the jump.

If you missed our recent event with Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (9th Cir.) in Los Angeles, and if you’re here in New York, feel free to swing by Columbia Law School at around noon tomorrow:

A Judge in Full: Personality and Jurisprudence

When: Thursday, January 22, at 12:10 PM
Speakers: The Honorable Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Ninth Circuit; David Lat, Founder, Above the Law
Where: JG 106, Columbia Law School, 435 West 116th St. (at Amsterdam Ave.)
Cost: Free and open to the public. Lunch will be served.

Thanks to the Columbia Law School Federalist Society for hosting the event. We hope to see you tomorrow.

Update: If you missed the talk, here’s a write-up, from Ben Hallman of the American Lawyer.

A Judge in Full: Personality and Jurisprudence [Columbia Law School Federalist Society]

Earlier: Kozinski & Lat: The Podcast

While David Lat’s west coast rampage continues — he just finished speaking at UCLA — the good people from the Federalist Society furnished us with a podcast of Lat’s lunch talk yesterday with Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (9th Cir.).

If you weren’t able to make it yesterday, or you live in the part of the country that the Sun God Ra has marked for eternal suffering, check out the podcast below.

Update: A write-up of the talk is available here.

A Judge in Full: Personality and Jurisprudence [Federalist Society]
Ninth Circuit Judges Remain Collegial, Kozinski Says [Metropolitan News]

Sometimes readers complain that Above the Law focuses too much on the East Coast. Since our headquarters is here in New York, and since we lived in Washington from 2006 to 2008, we may have an East Coast bias.

But we do try to run a national legal news site. Even if we’re physically located in New York, wherever two or more lawyers are gathered in our name, there we are.

In recent months, we’ve been making a conscious effort to do more for the West Coast. For example, we’ve started posting — later in the day, to account for the time difference — material aimed at a West Coast / California audience.

And next week we’ll be in L.A., to participate in three events (all kindly sponsored by the Federalist Society). One is with a leading light of the federal judiciary, and another is with a top law professor/blogger. Here are the details:

1. A Judge in Full: Personality and Jurisprudence

When: Tuesday, January 13, 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.
Speakers: The Honorable Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Ninth Circuit; David Lat, Founder, Above the Law
Where: Omni Hotel, 251 South Olive Street, Los Angeles
MCLE Credit: One Hour
Cost: $38 if paid in advance; $40 if paid at the door. Public employees, students and law clerks may pay the discounted rate of $15.

2. Cocktail Reception with David Lat

When: Tuesday, January 13th, 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Where: Bel Air Bar and Grill, 662 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles
MCLE Credit: No. This will not be educational in the least — just gossip and booze.
Cost: Cash bar. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served. YUM.

3. How Bloggers Changed the Legal World

When: Wednesday, January 14, 12:45 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Speakers: Professor Stephen Bainbridge, Warren Professor of Law, UCLA; David Lat, Founder, Above the Law
Where: UCLA Law School, Room 1357
Cost: Free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Please come to any or all of these events. We look forward to seeing you!

A Judge in Full: Personality and Jurisprudence [Federalist Society - Los Angeles Lawyers Chapter]
How Bloggers Have Changed the Legal World [Facebook]
Two Events / One Day with Chief Judge Kozinski and David Lat [Facebook]

ATL correspondent Laurie Lin, on the scene at the annual dinner of the Federalist Society, reports that Attorney General Michael Mukasey “literally collapsed mid-sentence at the podium,” while delivering a speech at the Society’s National Lawyers Convention. It is not clear what AG Mukasey suffered, but a stroke is possible.

“Medical people are working on him now as he lies on the dais,” according to Lin. “Secret Service FBI says no one can get up. Entire hall is shocked and silent.”

Update (10:38 PM): “They appear to have an IV in. They have taken him out. Now people are praying…. Everyone is saying it looked like a stroke. People are very somber. Some people from the DOJ are visibly shaken.”

Update (10:47 PM): According to radio reports, Mukasey did not immediately regain consciousness after collapsing, and was taken to an area hospital. More from Politico over here.

Update (11:03 PM): According to a different source, Mukasey had regained consciousness by the time he was taken out of the room.

Update (11:06 PM): People are now being allowed to leave the room. From Laurie Lin: “The party ended abruptly, needless to say. The tone of the man [perhaps David McIntosh] who prayed after they took out the AG seemed pretty grim. He asked for prayers for Mukasey’s wife, who was there according to the program, and the Mukasey family.”

More updates after the jump.

Prominent litigator Raoul Kennedy, a partner in the San Francisco office of Skadden, stuck his head in the lion’s mouth — and lived to talk about it. Legal Pad reports that Kennedy went to a Federalist Society meeting in San Francisco to defend gay marriage, where he didn’t pull any punches:

“How are any of us adversely impacted,” Kennedy asked, “when same-sex couples get married?”

The issue of gay marriage, he added, “is to the 21st century what slavery was to the 19th century.” Years from now, Kennedy insisted, the average person will look back and say, “How could people be so backward-oriented?”

He told the crowd there are so many problems in the world that gay marriage — in which two people only want to commit to a life together — shouldn’t be a problem. “You’ve got to have something better to do with your lives,” he said.

It’s easy to praise Kennedy for defending gay rights in front of a hostile audience, but how about the Federalist Society even existing in San Francisco? That’s like starting a Bill Maher fan club at Sunday school.

Kennedy presumably had the support of some of the Society’s more libertarian members. His debate opponent, Glen Lavy of the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, was the flag bearer for the social conservatives:

Lavy also said that only those “who oppose democracy” would try to challenge Proposition 8, the Nov. 4 ballot measure that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples, if it passes. He also argued that a defeat of Prop 8 would lead to legal attacks — on the tax-exempt status of churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriages and on pastors who preach that same-sex relationships are immoral based on biblical teachings.

It would be interesting to hear what Kennedy’s fellow partners thought about their colleague pissing off the Federalist Society.

Californians: Care to predict the fate of Prop 8?

Attorney Defends Gay Marriage to Tough Crowd [LegalPad]

Could this be a mini-U.S. Attorneys firing scandal in the making? That’s what a just-released report from the Justice Department’s inspector general seems to suggest. From the New York Times:

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

One reader who sent the article our way wrote: “Shocker.” A second quipped: “Quelle surprise.” To read the 115-page report, click here (PDF, via the WSJ).

Update: From a tipster comes this interesting info:

DOJ hiring practice report out. Doesn’t look good, though I would certainly say they’ve revamped the system in the last year or so. I was hired through Honors last fall to start this coming fall, and my resume is very leftist. I can say the same for two friends who were also hired through Honors last year.

Further Update: Lots of good stuff in the comments, including highlights from the report. E.g.:

2002 applicants: ACS, 0-7; FedSoc, 27-2.
2006 applicants: ACS, 5-2; FedSoc, 15-4.

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department [New York Times]
Auditors Say Justice Dept. Improperly Screened for Political Ties [Washington Post]
IG Report: Greenpeace Bad, Federalist Society Good [WSJ Law Blog]

On Tuesday evening, we attended An Evening with Justice Antonin Scalia, sponsored by the Washington, DC Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Justice Scalia spoke about his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges; took questions on a wide range of subjects, during an impressively long Q-and-A session; and signed copies of his book for the adoring masses.

The event took place in a packed ballroom — standing room only — at the Marriott Wardman Park. If you’re interested, you can read a more detailed write-up, after the jump.

Speaking of the Federalist Society, the Columbia Law School chapter has invited us to speak. We’ll be doing an event there tomorrow. It will be a pretty casual Q-and-A, less formal than last year’s appearance.

Here are the details:

Tuesday, November 20, 12:25 PM

A Q-and-A with David Lat, Editor of Above the Law

Columbia Law School
Jerome Greene Hall, Room 107
435 West 116th St. (at Amsterdam Avenue)

It’s free and open to the public. So if you’re a CLS student or otherwise in the area, please feel free to stop by. Thanks.

At the Federalist Society festivities: Ryan Bounds, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy; Deputy Associate Attorney General John O’Quinn; and Susanna Dokupil, Assistant Solicitor General for the Office of the Attorney General of Texas.

Last week, the Federalist Society celebrated its 25th anniversary, with a black-tie gala at Union Station. The official ATL report, by Laurie Lin, is available here; the account of the Washington Post appears here (via the WSJ Law Blog).

Since we were there also, we figured we might as well add our two cents. Some random tidbits about the evening, along with a few more photos, after the jump.

We now yield the floor to Laurie Lin. Who better to report on one of the year’s biggest social events than the writer of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch? Over to you, Laurie.

****************
Ambition and Old Spice wafted sweetly through the air last night at the Federalist Society’s 25th Anniversary Gala at Union Station — a kind of right-wing Golden Globes. Nearly two thousand G-ed up conservative lawyers packed the main hall to hear President George W. Bush blast the Senate on judicial confirmations:

“Today, good men and women nominated to the federal bench are finding that inside the Beltway, too many interpret ‘advise and consent’ to mean ‘search and destroy,’” Bush said.

Tickets to the black-tie affair were $250 — actually $249, because there was a new $1 Madison coin at every place setting — but that was a small price to pay to breathe the same oxygen as Ted Olson, Antonin Scalia, and Laura Ingraham.

More on the conservative legal fabulosity — including pictures of the people who didn’t hide when they saw us coming — after the jump.

We know how you all love to argue about affirmative action. It’s a hot-button topic here at ATL.

So here’s a proposal worth considering, from Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw (via Paul Caron):

If right-wingers are underrepresented in universities relative to the population and discriminated against by the left-wing majority, as [former Harvard president] Larry [Summers] suggests, should there be affirmative action for right-leaning academics?

It seems that, on principle, those on the left (who favor affirmative action to promote diversity and correct past injustice) should endorse such a university policy, and those on the right (who more often oppose affirmative action) would be against.

One could argue that a conservative law professor — especially a hard-core social conservative, not a law-and-economics or libertarian type — contributes as much to law school diversity (and discourse) as an African-American or female law professor from a socioeconomically privileged background, who went to an elite college and an elite law school, and has the standard liberal views of most legal academics.

Thoughts?

Mankiw: Affirmative Action for Conservative Professors? [TaxProf Blog]
Is academia serious about diversity? [Greg Mankiw]
The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate [Inside Higher Ed]

Not too long ago, we said we had a “gut feeling” that some Supreme Court clerk hiring was going on (despite the Court being in recess). We were right.

Meet Porter Wilkinson. And don’t hate her because she’s beautiful. Or brilliant. Or rich. Or the daughter of a top feeder judge and frequent Supreme Court short-lister, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Cir.).

Or, for that matter, a future Supreme Court clerk. We hear that Judge Wilkinson’s daughter — yes, Porter is a girl’s name, if you’re a WASP — just landed an October Term 2008 clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts. Congratulations, Porter!

Not surprisingly, we hear that the young Ms. Wilkinson is fairly conservative — in case you couldn’t have guessed that from the fact that she’s currently clerking for Judge Brett Kavanaugh (D.C. Cir.) (alongside the lovely, and recently married, Zina Gelman).

And where did we hear about Porter’s politics? From Judge Wilkinson himself!

In late July, we attended the excellent national convention of the American Constitution Society, in Washington, DC. Judge Wilkinson was on one of the panels. In thanking the ACS for inviting him, he noted that his son is a member of the liberal organization — but that he’s balanced out by his sister Porter, a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society. We bet the Wilkinsons must have interesting dinner table conversations.

Porter Wilkinson continues the trend of fathers and daughters who both clerked for the Court (as noted by Tony Mauro). See here.

Update: A tipster tells us, “FYI, Porter was an All-American lacrosse player at UNC. See here. Her husband [Christian Cook] was lacrosse Defenseman of the Year at Princeton and three-time national champion. Formerly of the Secret Service. See here. They got married this past summer in Charlottesville.”

With Porter Wilkinson added, the current list of OT 2008 clerks thus far appears after the jump.

Graduation Awards: Four in the Class of 2007: Porter Wilkinson [Virginia Law]
Carter Phillips’ Kin Is Alito Clerk [Legal Times]

Who says that conservative judicial icon Robert Bork, of the famously ill-fated Supreme Court nomination, is anti-plaintiff?

Judge Bork is all in favor of punitive damages — when, for example, he’s demanding them in his Complaint (PDF). The distinguished law professor and former judge has filed a slip-and-fall lawsuit against the Yale Club of New York City.

Bork’s fellow traveler in conservative circles, Ted Frank — who’s currently a fellow at AEI, where Bork used to be a fellow — “sympathize[s] with Judge Bork’s serious injuries.” But even Frank deems Bork’s claim for punitives a bit dubious.

P.S. Bork groupies, mark your calendars: On June 26, the Federalist Society is holding Borkapalooza in Washington, DC. More details here.

Note to Fed Soc folks: Do not place Judge Bork’s dais at an “unreasonable” height, and be sure to have handrails on the stairs leading up to it. You’re welcome.

Bork Sues the Yale Club [Overlawyered]
Robert Bork Files Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit Against Yale Club [WSJ Law Blog]
Bork v. Yale Club of New York City [Wall Street Journal (PDF)]
A Conference Discussing the Contributions of Judge Robert H. Bork [Federalist Society]

We spent a fair amount of time at Columbia Law School last week. We attended their moot court finals, gave a talk sponsored by the Federalist Society, and enjoyed ourselves at their Law Revue (more on that — including a video clip — later).

Here are a few photographs we took while up at CLS. If you’re a Columbia student or alum (the people most likely to find these pictures interesting), or if you’re on the fence about whether to vote for Columbia in ATL March Madness, check out the pics after the jump.