Stuart Langridge: Internet Explorer 8 standards-compliant by default

Dean Hachamovitch on the IEBlog:

We've decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we've posted previously.

This is really good news. The previous decision that IE8 would be IE7 unless you specifically told it to be IE8 was one that I was really quite unhappy with; it ignited discussion all over the web developer world. The reason that this is really good news isn't because IE8 will be IE8 by default (although that's exactly what was wanted): it's really good news because this is an example (the first example?) of Microsoft being prepared to break backwards compatibility in order to do it right. It's an example of trying to take people who are doing things wrong and help them to move into a world of doing it right, rather than bending over backwards to help those doing it wrong and punishing those doing it right. That's been Microsoft policy up to now, and I've always felt it to be penny-wise and pound-foolish; it keeps everyone working, but inhibits progress. This is a fundamental change in policy, based on the new Microsoft interoperability promise. And that's a brave move by Microsoft.

The IE team are to be congratulated, because making IE8 default to being as standards-compliant as possible is going to make the web better; it'll be easier to build web sites and web applications that work across browsers, and those applications will be able to do more things. That's bad for lock-in, but it's good for the web as a whole, and that's important.

Dean Hachamovitch again:

Shorter term, leading up not just to IE8's release but broader IE8 adoption, this choice creates a clear call to action to site developers to make sure their web content works well in IE.

What we need to do that is beta releases of IE8 that can be installed alongside previous IE releases. Nobody who's an IE user wants to replace their system browser with a beta, because betas break — that's the point of betas — but we do all want to test with them. Allow IE8 to be installed in some form of "standalone" mode in an official, supported, way. The IE team have said in the past that the existing standalone mode is not supported, but if we could have a supported standalone mode then testing is much more likely to happen, and testing is what we need here. (Note: "create a whole new Windows installation in a virtual machine and test IE8 there" is not really what I'm talking about here.) Working with the WINE team to allow IE8 to run under Wine would be pretty helpful, too, especially given that this change in IE's direction is being driven by a promise of interoperability.

This bodes well for IE passing the newly-released Acid 3 test, too. Hixie describes how the WebKit team are flying ahead on Acid3 support, just as they did with Acid 2; since Opera are pretty good at supporting recent standards, and the IE team are not only prepared to make serious standards-based decisions but have already committed to passing Acid 3, the Mozilla team might end up being last to pass, which would be a headline they don't want.

In short: well done IE team. Now let's see IE8 kick some arse.

James Henstridge: Two‐Phase Commit in Python’s DB‐API

Marc uploaded a new revision of the Python DB-API 2.0 Specification yesterday that documents the new two phase commit extension that I helped develop on the db-sig mailing list.

My interest in this started from the desire to support two phase commit in Storm – without that feature there are far fewer occasions where its ability to talk to multiple databases can be put to use. As I was doing some work on psycopg2 for Launchpad, I initially put together a PostgreSQL specific patch, which was (rightly) rejected by Federico.

He suggested that it would be better to try and standardise on an API on the db-sig list, so that's what I did. I looked over the API exposed by other database adapters that supported 2PC, and the 2PC APIs of the major free databases that did not have support in their Python adapters (MySQL and PostgreSQL). The resulting API is a bit more complicated than my original PostgreSQL-only but has the advantage of being implementable on other databases such as MySQL.

Below is a simple example of using the API directly (missing some of the error handling):

# begin transactions for each database connection conn1.tpc_begin(conn1.xid(42, 'transaction ID', 'connection 1')) conn2.tpc_begin(conn2.xid(42, 'transaction ID', 'connection 2')) # Do stuff with both connections ... try:     conn1.tpc_prepare()     conn2.tpc_prepare() except DatabaseError:     conn1.tpc_rollback()     conn2.tpc_rollback() else:     conn1.tpc_commit()     conn2.tpc_commit()

Or alternatively, if you've got one connection supporting 2PC and the other only supporting one-phase commit, it could be structured as follows:

# begin transactions for each database connection conn1.tpc_begin(conn1.xid(42, 'transaction ID', 'connection 1')) # Do stuff with both connections ... try:     conn1.tpc_prepare()     conn2.commit() except DatabaseError:     conn1.tpc_rollback()     conn2.rollback() else:     conn1.tpc_commit()

While it is possible to use the 2PC API directly, it is expected that most applications will rely on a transaction manager to coordinate global transactions, such as Zope's transaction module.

The hope is that by offering a consistent API, Python application frameworks will be more likely to bother supporting this feature of databases. Hopefully you'll be able to use the API with PostgreSQL and Storm soon.

Non-Sequiturs: 03.04.08

* So who's presiding over the criminal trial of former Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? None other than judicial hottie Amy St. Eve (N.D. Ill.) -- who, coincidentally, pursued the Clintons as one of Ken Starr's Whitewater prosecutors. [The Sleuth / Washington Post]

* If you're a Scrabulous addict wondering why a legal cloud still hovers over the game -- can't the dispute just get settled, like pretty much any normal civil case? -- here's some insight into the situation. [DealBook/ New York Times]

* Interested in clerking? Here's a new website you might want to check out. [So You Want To Be a Law Clerk?]

* Gawkers flock to watch a $1,000-an-hour lawyer take the stand. [Legal Blog Watch]

* It's still a few weeks away, but if you're looking for something to do on the evening of Friday, March 28, here's an idea. It's a fun event, and it's for a good cause. Hope to see you there! [AEF - APABA]

Nationwide Layoff Watch: An Update on Dechert

With apologies for the delay, here's our promised update on the situation over at Dechert LLP.

As we mentioned last Friday, back in this post (and its multiple updates), it looked like Dechert laid off 13 lawyers in its Finance and Real Estate practice ("FRE"). Then firm chairman Barton Winokur sent out this message, late on Friday afternoon:

Due to the major shift in market conditions affecting client demands in our Finance and Real Estate practice area, we currently do not have sufficient work for all the associates in FRE. As a consequence, we have told 13 associates in the U.S. FRE group that we see no demand for them in that group in the foreseeable future. However, due to increased and substantial demand in other practice areas, we will be offering those lawyers the opportunity to work in those other groups.

We think we've gotten to the bottom of what happened to the Dechert 13. And we've picked up a few other tidbits about the situation over there.

Read more, after the jump.

Lawsuit of the Day: Tapes on a Plane

Tired of being motherf**king taped on your motherf**king plane? Then file a lawsuit over it -- and win millions of dollars. From the AP:

The owner of a air charter service was ordered to pay attorney Mark Geragos and an associate several million dollars for ordering the secret videotaping of Michael Jackson and the lawyers as they flew with the pop star to his surrender on molestation charges in 2003.

According to court papers obtained Monday, Superior Court Judge Soussan G. Bruguera ordered XtraJet owner Jeffrey Borer and his company to pay Geragos at least $10 million and possibly up to $18 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Geragos' colleague Pat Harris was awarded between $1.25 million and $2.25 million in damages.

Wow. That's a helluva lot of cash for being videotaped. With your clothes on.

Lawyers Awarded Millions in Suit Over Michael Jackson Taping on Plane [AP via Law.com]

Sports and the Law: Supreme Court Might Hear Dispute Over Fantasy Sports Property Rights

On Friday, February 22, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. ("MLBAM") and the Major League Baseball Players Association ("MLBPA") filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 07-1099), seeking to overturn the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the first amendment protects free use of baseball players' names and statistics in fantasy sports games. MLBAM and the MLBPA both contend that the Eighth Circuit's ruling fails to properly balance important concerns about state-law publicity rights against first amendment interests.

The original case, C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P., emerged from a change in MLBPA policy regarding the licensing of player names to fantasy sports businesses. The district-court plaintiff, C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc. ("CBC"), for over ten years had licensed directly from the MLBPA major league baseball player names for use in fantasy sports contests. Then, in 2005, the MLBPA decided not to renew CBC's license—instead granting an exclusive right to use baseball players' names to MLBAM "for exploitation via all interactive media." MLBAM thereafter launched its own fantasy baseball contest on its website MLB.com and refused to grant a sublicense to CBC. This led CBC to file suit.

CBC originally filed suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, which granted it summary judgment, holding that CBC's fantasy games did not infringe on any state-law publicity rights that belonged to major league baseball players. The Eighth Circuit affirmed on other grounds, finding that while CBC was indeed infringing on major league baseball players' publicity rights, CBC's "first amendment rights in offering its fantasy baseball products supersedes the players' rights of publicity." The Eighth Circuit based its ruling on three factors: (1) fantasy baseball statistics are already in the public domain; (2) major league baseball players are already "rewarded, and handsomely;" and (3) there is no danger that any consumers would be misled into believing the use of players' names represents a product endorsement.

Discussion picks up, after the jump.

What's Going on at Penn Law?

Last year, the WSJ Law Blog posed this question: "Are law students emotional wrecks?" Their post generated hundreds of comments.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that some law students have, in modern parlance, "issues." The stress of law school may have a tendency to trigger meltdowns. See, e.g., here (University of Alabama law student who gave a strange speech in class), here (Indiana University law student who shot up his casebooks), and here (University of Arizona law student accused of kidnapping her ex-boyfriend).

One of last year's more memorable incidents was this one, involving a student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who riddled his neighbors' apartment door with bullets. Now we return to U. Penn -- where we recently spoke, and where the students struck us as happy and well-adjusted -- thanks to this Daily Pennsylvanian article:

Security has been increased around the Law School over the past several days in response to a student who has exhibited signs of unstable behavior. The student is being placed on involuntary leave....

The student had caused administrators concern because of an incident that happened at the Law School. It was then discovered that he had taken himself off of his psychiatric medication about a month ago, according to two Penn Law employees who were briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose this information. However, they were not told the specifics of the initial incident.

A tipster there tells us:

The Penn Law students have not received ANY formal communication about this, and the students are generally very upset that 1) we weren't told anything and 2) the first communication came from the undergraduate newspaper.

We'll keep you posted. If you have info to share, please email us. If you comment on this post, please do not mention any individuals by name, consistent with ATL's standard operating procedure.

Based on past precedent, we'd expect Dean Fitts to send out some vague email offering blanket reassurances, but declining to say more due to federal privacy law. That seems to be par for the course for these incidents.

Student prompts security increase [Daily Pennsylvanian]

Related: Law student arrested for firing at neighbors

Featured Job Survey: On Vacation

We received quite a few tips and comments after posting yesterday's table of clerkship bonuses, so we have updated the table (four times) to reflect new information on Arnold & Porter, Covington & Burling, King & Spalding, Patterson Belknap, Wilson Sonsini, Debevoise, Katten Muchin, and Munger Tolles. We also updated the running table of maternity leave policies (mirrored here) yesterday. Please let us know if your firm's information is out of date or missing.

Today's ATL / Lateral Link survey continues our exploration of perks and benefits by investigating the often overlooked subject of vacation time.

Morning Docket: 03.04.08

* Two new SCOTUS rulings: some obscure-sounding tax decision, and a 4-4 ruling in a case against Pfizer, which leaves intact a Second Circuit decision allowing suits over the company's Rezulin diabetes treatment to go forward. [SCOTUSblog; New York Times]

* California Supreme Court to hear case on gay marriage ban. (Judge Janice Rogers Brown, look at all the fun you're missing out on -- this is much sexier than all those D.C. Circuit admin cases.) [How Appealing (linkwrap)]

* Bernie Kerik got some lovin' from book publisher Judith Regan. Her lawyers, not so much -- which is why they're suing her for unpaid fees. [Reuters]

* Judge Mark Filip, formerly of the N.D. Ill., confirmed as Mukasey's #2 at the DOJ. [Chicago Tribune and Washington Post, via How Appealing]

* Musical chairs: Bill Ohlemeyer, the in-house lawyer who has overseen tobacco litigation for Altria for almost a decade, is joining Boies, Schiller & Flexner. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Suing Al Gore for "the fraud of global warming"? Good luck with that. [Business & Media Institute via Drudge]

Frustrated Hoops Fan Faces First Amendment Flap

Bret Adams, a lawyer, represents George Karl (pictured), the coach of the Denver Nuggets, an NBA team with a fairly respectable 35-24 record. Andrew Feinstein, a frustrated fan, started a blog called www.firegeorgekarl.com. Adams sent the blogger an email which reads:

Is your life really this boring and meaningless that you would spend the hours necessary to create such a website?

As Coach Karl’s counsel I am putting you on notice that I will sue you into bankruptcy should you cross the boundaries of permissible speech.

Intrigued, the Law Blog reached out to Adams. Via e-mail, we received the following response:

Thanks for your email. While George Karl may be a public figure within the sports community, there are limits to what is fair comment under New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). Many cases quote from the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 59 that a statement is defamatory if it “tends to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or deter third persons from associating or dealing with him.” Sure, people are free to criticize Mr. Karl’s record, his coaching style, or both. But free speech has its limits. My role as Mr. Karl’s counsel is to see to it that the line between free speech and defamation is not crossed. I stand by my statement that people should have better and more important things to do than to create mean-spirited blogs and that, while I respect (and exercise) free speech rights, there are boundaries and consequences.

LB’ers, we’ve perused the site and, though we’ve been wrong before, can’t find much that would rise to Sullivan’s defamation standard. In any case, for those who took last month’s MBE exam, how would you critique Adams’ representation of his client?

Laurence Tribe to High Court: Restrain Yourself

A few months ago, with news of the Supreme Court's decision to review a D.C. Circuit handgun case, Law Blog colleague Jamie Heller spoke to Meir Feder — a former SCOTUS clerk, Wachtell lawyer, and now the head of the "issues and appeals" practice at Jones Day in New York. Meir had recently served as a judge on a moot court panel that heard the D.C. case, which involves a D.C. resident who has argued, successfully so far, that a citywide handgun ban violates his Second Amendment rights. Feder offered this prediction about how the real court, which hasn’t ruled directly on individual rights under the Second Amendment since 1939, will come out:

“I think the court is going to reverse,” said Meir. “The more difficult question is how far they'll go. I think they'll find there isn't any strict protection for particular categories of firearms. But I would be surprised if they went so far as to say that the Second Amendment doesn't protect any individual right.”

With the Court set to hear the case later this month, Harvard’s Laurence Tribe weighed in today in the WSJ. Tribe’s conclusion? Framing the issue is key.

“Gun enthusiasts on the right are all but daring justices . . . . to trash the ‘right of the people to keep and bear arms,” writes Tribe, so they can “use that defeat to suggest that we need a president who will bring us a truly ‘conservative’ Supreme Court.” While those on the left, adds Tribe, are challenging “a Court that they see as already leaning hard right to live up to its conservative principles, follow precedent, and limit the Second Amendment.”

The Court would be “foolhardy,” continues Tribe, to accept either side’s invitation to “plunge headlong into the culture wars by accepting these extreme ways of framing the issue.” Tribe says that even “liberal scholars” like him have concluded, against their political instincts, that the Second Amendment protects more than a collective right to own and use guns in the service of militias, but that nothing he’s discovered “supports an absolute right to possess the weapons of one’s choice.”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found the District’s ban on concealable handguns in a densely populated area was unconstitutional. Tribe believes this went too far– that “a legislature’s choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence” should not be viewed as abridging the right of the people to bear arms. Therefore, Tribe believes the Court should reverse the lower court opinion, but go no further.

“Issuing a narrow decision would disappoint partisans on both sides and leave many questions unresolved,” writes Tribe. “But to do anything else would ill-suit a court that flies the flag of judicial restraint.”

Cuba and the Law: A Chat with Greenberg’s Cesar Alvarez

The Law Blog has been keeping a close eye on Cuba lately, waiting for some kind of legal angle to emerge in the midst of Fidel Castro’s passing of power to younger brother Raul.

Our search led us to Cesar Alvarez, the 60 year-old, Cuban-born head of Greenberg Traurig who left the country with his family in 1960, not long after Castro’s New Year’s Revolution of 1959.

“It was getting to the point where it was obvious that communism was coming, and it was getting difficult to get out,” said Alvarez, whose father attended law school with Castro at the University of Havana. “I was 13, and my parents were afraid because at age 14 the government considers you a ‘military agent’ and begins to train you. My father saw Castro long enough to know he disliked him. So the minute he got power we got our visas and came to the U.S.”

Upon arrival, Alvarez’s father, Licinio, hoping to put his law degree to work in the U.S., attended a program at the University of Miami that was designed to convert professionals from Cuba into U.S. professionals. But it didn’t work. “It was successful with doctors,” Alvarez told the Law Blog, “because the anatomy of Cubans and Americans — other than the fact that we talk more than Americans — is identical. But when you get to law, it's difficult for two reasons. First, Cuba has a civil law system, and the U.S. is common law. Second, to be an advocate you need to have great control of the English language, and if you don't you’re handicapped at competing with others.”

Instead, Licinio and his wife opened up a dress shop in North Miami called Anna’s Fashion Shop, named after Alvarez’s sister. The business became successful enough to put Alvarez and his three brothers — also now Florida lawyers — through school. At the time, according to Alvarez, Cubans could borrow $10,000 from the U.S. government to go to school. So he took the loan, and used it to get a bachelors, MBA and J.D. from the University of Florida — all with $10,000. “I paid it back and I sent them a thank you note,” he says.

After graduation, a lawyer named Mel Greenberg, who had just opened up a small firm in Miami and happened to know one of Alvarez’s professors at U of F, called Alvarez because, he says, “It was 1973, and Mel realized that Cubans weren't going back. He needed a Cuban lawyer, so I became the 13th attorney at Greenberg Traurig.” 25 years later, Alvarez was selected to lead the firm, which now wields 1,800 lawyers.

As for the future of U.S. firms doing legal work in Cuba, Alvarez says: “If you get a Democratic president, the likelihood of there being more of an opening is higher. If on the other hand you get a Republican president, then they will not be doing business with Cuba until a few things happen - the Castro brothers are eliminated, political prisoners are freed, and they open the island to trade and free elections. Those are the conditions that have been put into the model that we would like to see.”

2nd Circuit: Author Can’t Challenge Libel Tourism in U.S. Court

Shortly after 9/11, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an author who writes about terrorism, published “Funding Evil,” a book largely about the financing of Al Qaeda. In the book, Ehrenfeld (pictured) drew attention to Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi who was, she wrote, allegedly involved “in the funding of terrorism.”

Bin Mahfouz, whose website tracks his libel litigation, sued Ehrenfeld in Britain for defamation. Discouraged by the plaintiff-friendly reputation of Britain’s libel law — which many say brings non-Britons to the country to sue as “libel tourists” — Ehrenfeld decided not to contest the suit, leading a British judge to enter a default judgment against her that reportedly amounts to at least $100,000. Here’s a New Yorker article from 2005. (Gavel bang: How Appealing.)

Instead, Ehrenfeld challenged the judgment in the U.S., arguing that allowing British libel judgments against American authors violates their First Amendment rights. After more than three years of litigation in New York state and federal courts, yesterday the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court opinion that denied Ehrenfeld relief on the basis of a decidedly non-sexy issue: lack of personal jurisdiction. Here’s the opinion.

Calls placed to Ehrenberg’s lawyers at Kornstein Viesz Wexler & Pollard, and to bin Mahfouz’s lawyers at Jones Day, were not immediately returned.

$4.85 Billion Vioxx Settlement Moving Forward

Despite a controversial provision in the Merck-Vioxx settlement agreement, reports indicate that enough claimants have signed on to the $4.85 billion settlement to keep the deal moving forward. Click here for the WSJ’s story and here for the AP’s.

According to Merck, more than 44,000 of the 47,000 claimants who registered injuries eligible for compensation have submitted some or all of the documentation required to seek a share of the Vioxx settlement. Friday was the deadline for accepting the offer, and at least 85% of eligible claimants had to enroll to validate the deal. More than 93% have joined, though it isn’t yet clear how many meet the criteria. By March 31, claimaints (claims must be based on incidence of heart attack, ischemic stroke or sudden cardiac death) must provide medical records to determine what payment they qualify for. Settlement payments are expected to range from $50,000 to $1.5 million.

Back in November, Law Blog colleague Nathan Koppel reported on a disputed provision in the settlement agreement that aims to pressure as many people as possible to opt-in, and to keep lawyers from cherry-picking cases with the best odds of winning in court. The provision requires any lawyer who participates in the Vioxx settlement to recommend it to all his clients who qualify — and to take legal steps to drop any clients who decline. But in January, concerns over the provision were settled among the parties.

WSJ Editorial: Congress Shoots Marbles, Helps Lawyers

The WSJ editorial board sounds off this morning on what it suggests is another full-employment act for lawyers: a bill, sponsored by Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor, greatly expanding the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“Politics may not be child’s play,” begins the piece, “but Congress is back shooting marbles over consumer product safety this week. With consumers shaken up by tainted Chinese imports, toy companies have already been instituting internal safety checks — but the Senate wants to help the lawyers too.”

Under the expanded bill, the agency’s budget would double by 2015, to $155 million from $63 million. Also, civil penalties faced by companies in violation of consumer safety rules would rise to $250,000 from $8,000 for each incident, with a maximum of $20 million for multiple violations.

The editorial board’s doomsday scenario is that the new bill will: (1) Encourage whistleblowers with a provision that keeps employees from being fired merely by claiming knowledge of a product safety violation; (2) Distribute enforcement power among state AG’s to file lawsuits and enforce rules against manufacturers based on their own interpretation of consumer product safety laws (”Think Eliot Spitzer times 50,” writes the editorial board); (3) Hurt small and medium-size toy businesses that can’t afford the cost of navigating multiple enforcement regimes; and (4) Worst of all, create a new set of incentives for plaintiffs — and their trial lawyers.

Judith Regan’s Lawyers Sue Her for Fees

Once upon a time, not long ago, they were all on the same team, working together to sue News Corp. for firing Judith Regan (pictured, flanked by her two lawyers) for allegedly making anti-semitic remarks during a conversation with an in-house lawyer at her publishing house. In January, their work led to an "equitable, confidential settlement,” between Regan and News, “with no admission of liability by any party."

(Quick re-cap: Regan was fired a month after News Corp. pulled the plug on her plans to publish a book by O.J. Simpson, in which he gave a hypothetical account of killing his ex-wife and her friend. In firing her, News Corp. quoted Regan as having complained that she was the victim of a “Jewish cabal” after the book deal was nixed.)

But now the party’s over. And Regan’s legal team from Dreier, which includes Brian Kerr (pictured, right), the lawyer who filed Regan’s suit in New York State court in November, is suing Regan, saying she failed to reimburse them their $42,560 in fees, and also cut them out of her settlement agreement. The lawyers say she promised them 25 percent of any gross recovery “through judgment or out-of-court settlement.” Regan’s lawyers from Dreier are also suing Bertram Fields (pictured, left), the lawyer Regan hired to settle the suit, for allegedly interfering with Dreier getting its cut. Click here for the AP story.

Talking to the New York Post (link unavailable), Fields called the suit “utter hogwash,” and said: “Unless they dismiss that complaint, I’m going to sue them for malicious prosecution. I had nothing to do with them getting fired, or with not getting them paid.” According to Fields, he never saw Regan’s agreement with the Dreier lawyers.

Ind. Decisions - 7th Circuit decides one Indiana case today

In Banco del Atlantico v. Woods Industries (SD Ind., Judge McKinney), a 9-page opinion, Judge Evans concludes:

For these reasons, we see no basis on which to find that the district judge abused his discretion in dismissing the case as a sanction for the violation of clear and reasonable orders. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Some quotes from the opinion:

Understandably unsatisfied with the deposition, defendants moved to compel further testimony. In an April 28, 2006, order, Magistrate Judge V. Sue Shields called the deposition a "fiasco."

So, later, did Judge McKinney. Judge Evans writes:

The question before us on the plaintiffs' appeal is whether Judge McKinney abused his discretion in putting an end to this case. Ladien v. Astrachan, 128 F.3d 1051 (7th Cir. 1997). We have cautioned that a sanction of dismissal is a last resort which can only be employed in rare cases. See Schilling v. Walworth County Park & Planning Comm., 805 F.2d 272 (7th Cir. 1986). It is a "draconian" remedy, Marrocco v. General Motors Corp., 966 F.2d 220, 223 (7th Cir. 1992), which should be applied only in extreme situations, when there is a clear record of delay or contumacious conduct, or when other less drastic sanctions have proven unavailing. Webber v. Eye Corp., 721 F.2d 1067 (7th Cir. 1983). That doesn't mean, however, that it can never be used. Even Draco got it right every once in awhile, and today, when district courts have several hundred cases on their dockets, there are times when the "draconian" remedy is appropos. And that time was reached in this case.

On appeal, the plaintiffs argue, among other things, that "there was no finding or record of delay, contumacious conduct, willfulness, bad faith or fault . . . ." The argument is—if nothing else—audacious. There is, in fact, little else in the record.

Courts - 8-Year-Old Passes Brazil's Law School Entrance Test

Tales Azzoni of the AP reports:

An 8-year-old boy with dreams of becoming a judge has passed a law school entrance exam -- shocking Brazil's legal profession and prompting a federal investigation.

The Universidade Paulista, a multi-campus private university, issued a statement acknowledging that Joao Victor Portellinha de Oliveira had passed the entrance exam and that it initially enrolled him. But he was turned away from classes when he showed up on Thursday with his father.

The school said that the fifth grader has to graduate from high school before he can enter the university. * * *

The Brazilian Bar Association said the boy's achievement should be a warning about the low standards of some of the nation's law schools. * * *

The school earlier said the "student's performance, considering his age and level of education, was good, especially in the essay test, which revealed his good capacity to express himself and handle the language."

"My dream is to be a federal judge," the boy said, according to Globo TV's Web site. "So I decided to take the test to see how I would do ... It was easy. I studied a week before the test."

Ind. Courts - More on: "Marion County's chief public defender stepping down"

Updating this ILB entry from Dec. 7, 2007. quoting a story from the Indianapolis Star which began:

Marion County Chief Public Defender David E. Cook will leave his post in February after 12 years in charge of the agency that represents indigent defendants in Marion Superior Court, he confirmed this morning.

Cook resigned this week, but he won't step down until Feb. 15 to give county leaders time to appoint a successor.

Jon Murray of the Star reports today:

The two candidates for Marion County's chief public defender both have experience defending death-penalty clients and extensive ties to the agency. Robert J. Hill Jr. and Eric K. Koselke will be the choices when the Public Defender Agency's nine-member board meets Wednesday to vote.

The decision will determine the first new leader in 13 years for an agency that provides criminal defense for indigent clients in 37,000 cases a year. The board released the candidates' names Thursday.

Hill, who stepped down from the board so he could apply for the job, is a former deputy chief public defender under departing Chief Public Defender David E. Cook.

Koselke also has worked for the agency. Before its creation in the early 1990s, he was the chief public defender in Marion County's municipal courts.

Cook's last day is March 14. Jimmie McMillian, the board's chairman, said it may consider appointing an interim leader because ratification by the City-County Council may take a month or longer. The position pays a $110,500 salary.

The pool began with 10 applicants. A third candidate, Mark E. Kamish, made the short list but withdrew his name, McMillian said.

Wednesday's meeting, at 11:45 a.m. in Room 260 of the City-County Building, will be open to the public, with short final interviews with Hill and Koselke before the vote.