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Schadenfreude
QuizLaw loves when other legal blogs get themselves in trouble. So it’s been fun watching this little story develop over at the Above the Law blog.
On Wednesday, David Lat posted a long story submitted to him by a longtime reader. In this story, the reader discussed a recent flight they were on, which was shared with a Ninth Circuit judge and her family. Some minor chaos ensued pre-flight when Judge Berzon’s daughter spilled coffee on one of the seats, and the reader was recounting the story. Lat then when on to share some comments from a former clerk of Judge Berzon, who claimed that the Judge’s “chambers is a total gong show.”
Cut to yesterday, when Lat posted a lengthy letter from one of Judge Berzon’s colleagues, Justice Kozinski (who is probably one of the most well-known Circuit Judges, as much as a federal appellate judge can ever be “well known”). In this letter, Justice Kozinski basically bitch-slapped Lat for his post. He called the airplane story a “wholly gratuitous personal attack on Judge Berzon and her family…laden with pejoratives and half-witticisms.” And as for the comments from Judge Berzon’s former clerk? Judge Kozinski found the posting “[e]qually disappointing, and far more serious,” in large part because:
I can tell you that your source must have been smoking a controlled substance during working hours because nothing like what he (or should I say it?) reports bears any relation to objective reality.
And then, just to make things worse, we learn that Judge Berzon’s brother just passed away on Tuesday, making this whole incident rather unfortunate timing. Lat has offered his condolences to Judge Berzon, noting:
Take foot (or, in our case keyboard). Insert into mouth. Then push, as far as it will go.
Lat says he stands by the posting, however, and intends to provide an eventual defense of the post.
What I’m more curious about, however, is when Lat will provide an explanation for why he infuriatingly (to me, at least), insists on consistently using the first-person plural, when he’s the only writer for the blog? Is he some type of royalty that we’re just not aware of? (And I say “we” not as in “me,” but as in “the general blawg-reading public.”)
