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April 13, 2009 |
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Supreme Court
On Shakespeare
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| Tonight! Join Elliott Bisnow, Mark Ein, Winston Lord, and Joel Holland for a great charity networking party from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at Rosa Mexicano, 575 7th Street. Open bar and appetizers. All proceeds to benefit the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Just $35. Sign up! |
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Imprisonment without due process. Limited access to counsel. Secretive doings at cabinet agencies. There was a topical ring to the mock trial at the Shakespeare Theatre last week, with Justices Alito, Breyer, and Ginsburg and five other Federal judges sitting on the Supreme Court of Illyria’s bench to hear an appeal arising from facts reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
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Rounding out the bench: Judges Brett Kavanaugh (DC Cir.), Merrick Garland (DC Cir.), Paul Michel (Chief of Fed. Cir.), Douglas Ginsburg (DC Cir.) and Rosemary Collyer (D.D.C.). Ginsburg (Ruth, that is) sat as Chief Justice, as the panel parried with petitioners’ counsel Roy Englert of Robbins Russell, who sought to overturn a $10 million award against six government employees for a nefarious prank hatched upon one Malvolio, which ended with him summarily consigned to a dungeon. Although the Bard doesn’t tell you this, naturally he ended up suing.
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Former SG Paul Clement, now at King & Spalding, found himself arguing the case of the wrongly imprisoned Malvolio, and got off the best quip of the night (at least to the legal insiders in attendance): “Somewhere there’s an OLC opinion saying all of this is perfectly lawful.” And when Justice Ginsburg accused his client of rushing to court without exhausting his administrative remedies, Paul had a ready answer: “It’s been 400 years!”
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“Isn’t this much ado about nothing?” Justice Alito asked. The Supreme Court trio relished the chance to play to the crowd, and Justice Alito even tucked some ribbing of Justice Breyer into his reaction to Breyer’s vote to overturn the verdict against Olivia (Secretary of Gender Affairs) on grounds that he “doesn’t like Malvolio.” “I always wondered what ‘active liberty’ meant,” said Alito in a comment that went over our heads until we referenced Breyer’s book on constitutional interpretation: titled, of course, Active Liberty.
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Artistic director Michael Kahn (center) moderated a Q&A session with Paul and Roy while the Justices retired for deliberations. Some actual law was discussed, including the (real) Supreme Court’s TXO opinion, the last to uphold a punitive damages award with a high ratio to actual damages. Roy cited other precedent (plus the Oracle of Delphi) for the proposition that 1:1 should be the limit for Malvolio.
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In the end, both the popular vote of the crowd and the Justice’s 6-2 opinion went in favor of Roy, overturning the verdict against Olivia (the other defendants were judgment-proof so it didn’t matter). We’d hate to see this thing written out—given the various rationales offered, we think there would have been four separate concurring opinions. All three Supreme Court Justices voted to let Olivia off the hook.
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| Legal Aid for the Hungry |
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Greenberg Traurig marketing manager Kathy Hooban and business director Tony Hatchett not only have a full plate in their Tysons office (two new litigation partners just hired), but provide full plates for others. They just helped their colleagues collect 3000 pounds of food and $16,000 cash for the Virginia Bar Association’s Legal Food Frenzy, providing 47,900 meals to the homeless; and in May, several attorneys and staff will cook a meal at Alternative House in Vienna, a refuge for abused women and homeless children. It’s nothing new for the firm; last year it was the top law firm sponsor of Fight Night, which also focuses on helping kids.
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| Potenza |
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No, our headline isn’t the name of a hip new law firm, but a brand new “rustic Italian” restaurant at 15th and H that seems filled with your brethren. Saturday night, we found Alston & Bird’s Carolina Reynolds (with friend Bobby Schwartz, a broker from Cassidy & Pinkard) and Steptoe & Johnson’s Tim Columbus, right, whom we borrowed from another table to create the “everyone is a lawyer” theme. In more important news, Carolina and Bobby just returned from their third surfing trip to Costa Rica (where she’s originally from), and in between she keeps in shape by doing yoga at Down Dog in G’Town. You may now return to your Shepardizing.
John Ford is Bisnow’s Shakespearean Scholar-in-Residence and Legal Editor. Send story tips to john@bisnow.com.
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This newsletter is a journalistic news source which accepts no payment for featured interviews. It is supported by conventional advertisers clearly identified in the right hand column. You have been selected to receive it either through prior contact or professional association. If you have received it in error, please accept our apologies and unsubscribe below. © 2009, Bisnow on Business, Inc., 1323 Connecticut Ave, NW Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.
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