News Blog

Today President Barack Obama signed legislation extending the statute of limitations for employees to sue for wage discrimination. The legislation is known as the Lilly Ledbetter bill in honor of an Alabama woman who worked for Goodyear Tire for twenty years for less money than her male counterparts (you know, the woman whose name kept coming up on the campaign trail?). The new law reverses the U.S. Supreme Court's 2007 decision that said Ledbetter could not sue for pay discrimination because her suit was filed after the tolling of the statute of limitations.

However, because of the Supreme Court decision, Ledbetter won't be able to personally benefit from the new law. "Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of . . .[b]ut with the ... president's signature today, I will have an even richer reward. I know that my daughters and granddaughters and your daughters and your granddaughters will have a better deal."

At the signing ceremony Obama noted that women in the U.S. make 78 cents to each dollar earned by men. He went on to point out that equal pay issues affect everyone (not just women). "It's about parents who find themselves with less money for tuition and child care, couples who wind up with less to retire on, households where one breadwinner is paid less than she deserves . . . [t]hat's the difference between affording the mortgage or not, between keeping the heat on, or paying the doctor bills, or not."

Critics of the new law say the measure could allow workers to file suits decades after the alleged discrimination first occurred.

*quotations courtesy of CNNMoney.com

Fish & Richardson is pleased to announce its 1L Diversity Fellowship Program for 2010. The program, which offers fellowships to diverse first year law students, is a key component of their ongoing firm initiative to recruit, retain, and advance attorneys who will contribute to the diversity of their practice and of the legal profession.

Their 1L Diversity Fellowship Program is comprised of three components: mentoring, a $5,000 scholarship, and a paid summer associate position in the domestic office of the student's choice.

Applications for the 2010 fellowship will be accepted from December 1, 2009 through January 15, 2010. For more information about the Fellowship or to print out an application and a checklist of required support material, please visit http://www.fr.com/diversity/DiversityFellowship.pdf. For more information about Fish & Richardson, please visit http://www.fr.com/.

Cheers to F&R for continuing this program!

Yesterday Clifford Chance announced the Clifford Chance International Public Interest Summer Fellowship Program in partnership with Georgetown University Law Center. Through this fellowship program Clifford Chance is "committed to providing outstanding J.D. students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with the ability to serve others in the international community."

The Clifford Chance Fellowships will be open to 15 first-year Georgetown Law students who will undertake unpaid summer internships with international non-governmental and governmental organizations. Those who participate will be selected through a competitive application process. The program will be overseen by an Advisory Committee, which will be comprised of Law Center administrators and Georgetown faculty, as well as two representatives of Clifford Chance. The first class of fellows will be chosen in the Spring of this year.

The ABA Journal is reporting that Kathleen Leavey, the chief of Detroit's law department, has resigned over criticism that she referred to one of the city's courts as a "ghetto court." Leavey, who is white, made the comment in a meeting with court staffers. She told Detroit newspapers that her statement was taken out of context. She said she told a court administrator that the facility is regarded as a 'ghetto court' on account of its poor treatment of people through slow service and long lines.

Nevertheless, the statement caused quite a stir. Chief Judge Marylin Atkins reportedly wrote in response: "Not only are your words insulting and racist to this court and the entire city, but they are highly unprofessional coming from the highest ranking attorney for the city of Detroit." Leavey told the Detroit News that she is not racist, and that she is "not going down without a fight."

We fail to see how resigning constitutes 'not going down without a fight', but whatever. We just report this stuff.

According to the National Law Journal, nineteen states are currently "positioned to implement" the uniform bar exam (UBE). The UBE would consist of the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), Multistate Performance Test (MPT), and the Multistate Essay Examination--all of which will be set by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Participating states will still conduct their own grading and set their own passage rates. Individual states will also continue to conduct their own character and fitness examinations.Question: if you pass this exam shouldn't you be able to get bar membership to the other 18 states? That seems only fair, right? Anyway, you can read the full story here.

Well, it's official . . . Barack Obama is president of the United States of America. And as we all saw yesterday, he's calling for Americans to give back to their communities through service.

 

So JD Diversity thought it would be great to provide guidance on service projects that lawyers can participate in. This will begin with our foreclosure prevention series. Helping a person stave off foreclosure is a great way to use one's legal acumen for good. You will find guidance on how to help clients prevent foreclosure in our articles section.

 

Also, here's a video of President Obama's swearing-in speech, for those of you living under a rock who missed it.

 

A group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Randy Terrill (author of Oklahoma's anti-illegal immigrant law) said they are re-filing legislation that was previously unsuccessful to make English the official language of Oklahoma government. Lawmakers claim that the bill is designed to save taxpayer money (spent on translation services and printing of dual signage) and help legal immigrants assimilate into U.S. society. Terrill reportedly said that "politically correct multilingualism has divided the nation into separate communities within the same geographic location."

If approved, the law would end multilingual driver's license tests and prohibit official state forms or signage in any language but English, unless covered by an exception (the bill exempts the languages of Oklahoma's 39 federally recognized tribes and allows the use of both Braille and sign language in government services and contains exceptions for public health and safety situations, as well as trade, commerce and tourism).

American Indian leaders are opposed to the measure, despite the exceptions. "We have Indians in this state who have lived under a regime of English-only; that was the rule in Indian boarding schools in Oklahoma for generations," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said in a statement. "The fact that the English-only policy being put forward today will not be applied to Indian languages does not mean that we think it is OK to do to another people what was done to our fathers."

How do you feel about English-only laws? JD Diversity would like to know. Leave a comment.

The Associated Press is reporting that leaders of California's Indian tribes are pressuring the Obama administration to appoint more American Indians to the federal judiciary and to move quickly on appointments to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The AP's Michael R. Blood explains that "[n]early 900 judges sit on the federal bench throughout the country . . .but only one claims American Indian ancestry: Frank Howell Seay, a senior district judge in Oklahoma." One out of 900 in the entire country?!

The popularity of Indian casinos across California has transformed many tribes into very wealthy corporations, which has brought them considerable political influence (the tribes rank among California's biggest donors to Obama's campaign). Therefore, they are now well-positioned to see some of their wishes come true. Obama has already distinguished himself as he is reportedly the first president to actually include tribal leaders in his considerations.

The diversification demanded by the tribes would likely lead to better results in federal cases involving American Indian tribes. "Frequently we find judges and people in administrative positions who don't understand tribal sovereignty," Richard Milanovich, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, is quoted as saying. JD Diversity will keep an eye on this story and whether any progress with respect to diversity is made in this area.

So, maybe we weren't all just imagining things when we thought that the Justice Department had been ultra-conservative and overly partisan over the past eight years. Apparently, the inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility have found that former senior Justice Department official, Bradley Schlozman, purposely hired right-leaning and Federalist Society members and assigned them to civil rights cases. He also reportedly denied jobs to applicants he deemed to be too liberal, and transferred three attorneys out of the Civil Rights Division because they did not adhere to his political beliefs. The IG and OPR's report apparently draws from Schlozman's own e-mails and voicemail messages in which he talked about reshaping the political makeup of the Civil Rights Division, doing away with "crazy lib" lawyers and others he did not consider "real Americans," and saying "as long as I'm here, adherents of Mao's Little Red Book need not apply." Schlozman, through his attorney, is denying the allegations. Click here to read the whole story.

Elena Kagan, Obama's choice for solicitor general, currently works as Dean of Harvard Law School. She also once served as Justice Thurgood Marshall's law clerk. So what is the Solicitor General, anyway? The SG is sometimes jokingly referred to as "the 10th justice," as it supervises appellate litigation involving the federal government and presents the government's views to the Supreme Court. As such, this is obviously a weighty position.

Folks suspect that this solicitor general nomination makes Ms. Kagan an early front-runner for a seat on the Supreme Court. We're not so sure about that. But Justice Marshall was solicitor general before he was appointed to the high court. However, first Kagan has to make it past the confirmation process, and as the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, that might be tough for her to do.

Apparently, in 1995 Kagan wrote in a book review that ‘when the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce.' Hmmm. Let the games begin. JD Diversity is keeping an eye on this confirmation hearing to see what happens.

It was pretty much expected that some time after the Obama election, the necessity of the Voting Rights Act would be challenged. However, I don't think very many expected for such a challenge to come this soon. Check out this New York Times Op Ed piece in which the Supreme Court's upcoming examination of the Voting Rights Act is discussed within the context of Chief Justice Roberts' history. Apparently, this case (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Mukasey) will be Roberts' first opportunity to weigh in on the voting rights issue from the high court. But given his history as part of the Reagan Justice Department, and as a Rehnquist law clerk, we can pretty much predict which way Roberts will swing. We'll still watch and see how it turns out.