On the Record

Back in September, I wrote about the University of Baltimore bringing back its long-forgotten alma mater. At the time, the only evidence of the song was a piece of paper from 1958 that included the alma mater and Auld Lang Syne.

The school’s archivists theorized the alma mater was sung as part of graduation programs, but were hoping alumni would come forward with additional information.

Bill Clift (Class of 1951) responded to inquiries with an answer. He checked his Reporter yearbook from 1951 and found two copies of the program from his senior banquet held in June of that year. The alma mater is part of the program, along with Auld Lang Syne. An insert with the program contained the words to both songs.

Both documents are now part of the university archives. So the only question that remains concerns the alma mater’s origins.

Incidentally, the university has also recently digitized all of its Reporter yearbooks, which were published between 1928 and 1975. The yearbooks were started by the first graduating law class.

On Saturday, I spent a rejuvenating morning serving as a judge for the semi-final round of a moot-court competition hosted by American University’s Washington College of Law.

My service to the Burton D. Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition stirred me in three ways:

1. It made me feel 20 years younger, when I nervously stood as a law student waiting to be grilled by “judges” at the same school;

2. It enabled me to step out of the role of spectator (I have reported on oral arguments for two decades) and participate in the enterprise; and

3. As a husband — and father of a teen and a tween — it was refreshing to have people listen to me and answer my questions.

It also didn’t hurt that the fact pattern and issue were right up my alley.

The head of research and development at a major high-tech company was suing for libel a blogger who had accused him online of running a Mumbaian sweatshop where child laborers built computer components.

The issue before the moot court was whether the company executive qualified as a “public figure” or “private person” under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, a critical distinction that largely determines who wins the case.

Public figures, to prove libel, have the heavy burden of showing that the reporter wrote an erroneous story either knowing it was false or with a reckless disregard for the truth.  Private individuals need only show that the journalist was negligent in reporting a story that was  untrue.

The three-judge panel on which I served — as “chief” no less — ruled for the reporter. Imagine that.

Sorry, University of Maryland and University of Baltimore law school students – you don’t have a shot of clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

An ABA Journal story about the composition of current and past clerks at the highest court in the land quotes Scalia telling an American University Washington College of Law student earlier this year she should look elsewhere for a clerkship: 

By and large, I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, OK?

(The real chutzpah of the quote is that Scalia said it on AU’s campus after being invited by the law school.)

For this upcoming term, the Harvards and Yales of the world still dominate the clerkships, although Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “caused a stir” by picking a Seton Hall alumnus as his one of his clerks, according to the story. The universities of Georgia and Texas and George Washington University are also represented this term.

One former justice who didn’t automatically gravitate to top-10 law schools was Byron White, who hired ”interesting people,” including a man who worked in a coal mine.

“Look, there are a hundred people a year that could to the job adequately,” the NFL-player-turned-justice told biographer Dennis Hutchinson. “I might as well have someone who’s interesting, and that doesn’t mean the ones that the fancy law profes­sors recommend.”

I was driving on Charles Street by our office this morning when I saw a woman walking across the street with the help of a cane and what I thought was a full cast on her left leg. Upon closer inspection, I thought the woman was Phoebe Haddon, dean of the University of Maryland School of Law.

Turns out I was half right. The woman was in fact Haddon, but she was wearing a brace, not a cast, according to Jamie Smith, a law school spokesman. Haddon has been rehabbing from a summer leg injury, he said, and part of the treatment is to wear the brace.

Haddon is on her way to her goal, incidentally, of a full recovery by Saturday, when she will deliver her first address since becoming dean in July. Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, will give the keynote address at the program, titled “Justice & the Global Economy”  but designated on the school’s Web site as “an event celebrating [Haddon's] appointment.” Registration for the event had to be closed after 500 people signed up, Smith said.

On the cover: With their progressive pilot potentially on the chopping block, the OPD’s Neighborhood Defenders in Park Heights are defending not only their clients but their problem-solving approach. Also, Caryn Tamber talks to University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron about her research into online gender harassment and the law.

In the news: An EPA official says the agency wants more weapons in its arsenal; Maryland’s top court upholds a sex-abuse conviction based on the testimony of a 6-year-old victim; Mike’s Train House is sued for infringement; and an offshoot of the “driving while black” case will be the subject of a rare Court of Special Appeals en banc hearing.

 Also:

• Verdicts & Settlements features the case of an HIV-positive teacher who was fired from his job at a private elementary school in Arnold.

• Before there was “The Power of Nice” or his success as a sports agent, there was the Modern Bar Review Course. In My First/Business, Ron Shapiro reflects on the lessons learned from his initial foray into commerce.

• In Opinion/Commentary, Jack L.B. Gohn weighs in on the narrowing difference between blogs and journalism, while Edward J. Levin points out a key requirement under a Maryland deed of trust: naming an individual as the trustee. 

• Catch up with our Week in Review and the Law Digest, this week with cases from the Maryland Court of Appeals, Court of Special Appeals and the Office of Administrative Hearings.

They didn’t set out to hang out their shingles — at least, not yet — but the economy made it the most attractive option for these new solo practitioners. Read The Accidental Solo, this related story on setting up shop, and these tips on running your own practice.

The University of Maryland law school’s Appellate and Post-Conviction Advocacy Clinic highlights its summer wins and is taking a setback in stride, as one of its recent clients got arrested on a charge similar to the one the clinic helped get expunged.

Topping the news are stories about the firing of Public Defender Nancy Forster and a citation against a Charles County judge for letting the air out of a court worker’s tire. In Legal Briefs, Chief Judge Bell sends another letter – this time, seeking Social Security numbers for the Client Protection Fund.

In Verdicts & Settlements, a Baltimore jury awards more than $1 million to the children of a young woman who died after surgery to resolve her blood clots. And, in Unbillable Hours, meet a Montgomery County lawyer who coaches high school football players in more ways than one.

PLUS: On the Move; columns by Legal Aid’s Joe Surkiewicz and Dolan Media’s Justin Rebello; and our weekly Law Digest, featuring eight opinions by the 4th Circuit.

Not mentioned in this AP story about Mark Sargent, the Villanova Law dean who resigned last week for “medical and personal” reasons after he was caught leaving a purported house of prostitution, was how close he came to being the current dean of the University of Maryland School of Law.

The timeline: In June 2008, Maryland Law Dean Karen Rothenberger said she would step down one year later. A search committee was formed to find her replacement.

That November, Sargent was intercepted at the Kennett Township, Pa., home whose owner recently pleaded no contest to running a house of prostitution. Sargent cooperated with the investigation and was not charged, police say.

This January, the search committee presented its list of five finalists for Rothenberg’s post. Sargent made the short list.

He took himself out of the running the following month, apparently telling Maryland his family would rather be in Philadelphia.

Last week, though, he resigned from Villanova. His involvement in the prostitution case was revealed by The Philadelphia Inquirer over the July 4th weekend.

Kind of makes you wonder how much the search committee knew, and when they knew it, doesn’t it?

p.s. The top spot at Maryland ultimately went to Phoebe A. Haddon, who started at the law school last week. Welcome, Dean.

In nearly every social setting I found myself in this past holiday weekend, the latest in The Continuing Story of Alaska Sarah came up, and the theories of why she abruptly quit as governor were as various as they were numerous. Here’s one the legal community can understand: her legal bills forced her hand. (And speaking of, er, atypical Alaskans, I wonder what this judge has to say about Palin’s resignation.)

How bad have law firm layoffs been this year? Here’s the latest on the recent rash of retrenchments. (HT: Above The Law)

Have you heard about The Chicago Tribune’s series of stories examining the controversial admissions practices at the University of Illinois? Well there’s now controversy about the newspaper’s coverage, too, and a group of law professors at the University want everyone to know their school isn’t unique. (Hat tip: ABA Journal, et al.) Are they right?

Leah Ward Sears, the just-retired Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court — and a one-time candidate to become dean of the University of Maryland School of Law — sounded off last week on no-fault divorces. (Hat tip: Maryland Family Law Blog)

Finally, everybody has word-choice pet peeves, and one of mine is the use of ‘verbal‘. As that word comes from the Latin for ‘word,’ I think it should be used in contrast to ‘numerical’ or ‘gestural’ when manner of expression is the subject at issue. But instead, ‘verbal’ is often used in contrast to ‘written’, which while legitimate according to lower-listed dictionary definitions, I think should be subbed out for ‘vocal‘. (By the way, this mini tirade — wait, can you have a typed tirade? — was triggered by today’s “Say What?!“). What do you think?

A Rockville special-education attorney, advocate and mother is lauding the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision Monday that parents may be reimbursed for sending their youngster to private school without first trying a public-school curriculum they believe would not meet their child’s special-ed needs.

“I hope school districts sit up and take notice” of the decision and ensure their special-ed programs meet the students’ requirements, thus eliminating the desire of a number of parents to send their children to private school, said Lyda L. Astrove, a solo practitioner.

“The vast majority of families do start out in the public school system,” she added. Parents who opt for private school generally do so “only after years of failure and frustration” with a public school curriculum that did not meet their child’s needs, Astrove said.

The high court’s ruling permits families to avoid what they fear will be that failure and frustration by opting for private school at the outset, she added.

Under the court’s decision, parents seeking tuition reimbursement for private school must still show that the public school’s proposed curriculum would not meet their child’s needs.

Astrove’s two children have attended public and private special-ed programs in Montgomery County, and she said she has nothing but praise for the education and support the county has provided.

* Disclosure: This reporter also has two family members in Montgomery County Public Schools’ special-education program.

I’m not sure whether Leo Wolpert’s summer internship at the ACLU of Nevada’s Las Vegas office is paid or unpaid, but it’s probably irrelevant now.

That’s because Wolpert, a University of Virginia Law School student, pocketed more than $650,000 this week by winning a World Series of Poker event. Wolpert survived an eight-hour final table in a no-limit hold’em heads-up tournament to get the cash and a coveted WSOP bracelet.

How did he celebrate his win? According to The Washington Post, Wolpert had a ”nice dinner with friends, watched some TV, fell asleep, and reported for work at the ACLU the next morning.”

Wolpert, a 26-year-old Fairfax native, played poker professionally for a while before using his earnings to pay for law school. He said he became fascinated with law after reading a blog entry about a Fourth Amendment case, according to the Post, and intends to return to law school in the fall.

But my favorite fact about Wolpert? He lost on “Jeopardy!” to the trivia buzzsaw that is Ken Jennings. I guess sometimes you have to know when to fold ‘em.