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WASHINGTON — The American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships — and nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or members of a minority group, according to interviews. The White House has chosen not to nominate any person the bar association deemed unqualified, so their identities and negative ratings have not been made public. But the association’s judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person...

The American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships — and nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or members of an ethnic minority group, according to interviews. The White House has chosen not to nominate any person the bar association deemed unqualified, so the pattern of negative ratings has not been made public. But the association’s judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person familiar...

American Bar Association urges Congress to reject birthright lawBy: The Associated Press 9/08/2011 11:02 AM TORONTO - The American Bar Association passed a resolution urging the U.S. Congress to reject any changes to the constitution that would eliminate automatic citizenship for anyone born in the United States. **SNIP** Some Republican legislators have called for legislation to repeal birthright citizenship and have proposed a constitutional amendment. Outgoing American Bar Association president Stephen Zack says racism is underlying the call to change the constitution. Zack, the first ABA president of Hispanic origin, says it was important statement by the American Bar Association...

An NALP study finds Law School Class of 2010 Starting Pay Fell 20% as Jobs ErodedStarting salaries for last year’s U.S. law school graduates plummeted 20 percent as private practice jobs eroded, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement. The national median starting salary at law firms dropped to $104,000 from $130,000 in 2009, reflecting a shift in the distribution of jobs and salary adjustments at some firms, the NALP said today. The report cited information submitted by 192 laws schools and covering 93 percent of 2010 graduates. Aggregate starting salaries fell because graduates found fewer jobs...

Chinese security forces continue to surround the Kirti Tibetan monastery in Sichuan after local residents tried to stop them from arresting the 2,500 monks holed up inside. The standoff began earlier this week, when hundreds of people living in Sichuan's Aba region converged on the monastery determined to stop police from removing the monks for reeducation. The monks could soon face food shortages because they depend on offerings from locals, the Voice of America reports. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. is concerned about China's actions in Aba, which it called it inconsistent with the internationally recognized principles...

Tuesday, in an article called The ABA's Jihad in The American Thinker, I exposed the Islamic supremacism taking root at the American Bar Association, breaking the story of the ABA's support for Sharia law. I revealed the notice, circulated among ABA members, of an organized ABA campaign to oppose the anti-Sharia legislation that has been introduced in 14 state legislatures. Then on Wednesday the ABA issued a statement in response to my article , claiming that "the American Bar Association has taken no action in support of, or in opposition to, judges considering Islamic law or Sharia." How dishonest...

(CNSNews.com) - The executive council of the American Bar Association (ABA) is organizing an effort to actively oppose states that ban Sharia law. Included in the text of the ABA’s “International Policies 2010” is a section which organizes a “task force” to review anti-Sharia legislation that has been introduced in 14 states – Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The report reads: “The goal of the task force is to have a Report and Recommendation against such legislation as well as an informal set of "talking points" that...

The American Bar Association (ABA) has decided to undertake the fight for Sharia law. The ABA's Executive Counsel "has organized a Task Force to review the legislation of 14 states -- Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming -- in which anti-Sharia legislation has been introduced."

Do we need (or deserve) the government pimping shysters? ... One can nary step over a drunk obstructing the sidewalk without landing on a lawyer laying just beyond ... In some subsegments of society, you practically have to beat them off with a stick, which upon reflection does sound like an amusing pastime. ... ... the current and blessedly temporary administration is funneling disgruntled employees into the waiting arms of the lawyers lobby, namely the American Bar Association, which sounds like a drinking society. The Department of Labor, who nobody has accused of committing the same ... ... It is...

The American Bar Association has officially issued a warning on its website. The ABA is now making the case to persuade college students not to go to law school. According to the association, over the past 25 years law school tuition has consistently risen two times faster than inflation. The average private law student borrows about $92,500 for law school, while law students who attend public schools take out loans for $71,400. These numbers do not include any debt law students may still have from their time as undergraduates. Before the recession, the ABA cites statistics that show an average...

A man convicted of manslaughter and several other crimes in the death of a 14-year-old Prospect boy is now preparing to sue the victim's parents. Is it possible for there to be a more ridiculous lawsuit? Matthew Kenney of Prospect was riding his bicycle along Route 69 in Prospect on April 27, 2007, when he was struck by a car driven by David Weaving. Police said Weaving was passing another car at 83 mph in a 45 mph zone when he hit Matthew, who died the next day. Weaving was convicted in December 2008 and sentenced to 10 years in...

There are several precepts that American jurisprudence is supposed to be based upon. "Equal under the law," "justice is blind," "no man is either above or below the law," in the U.S. these basic ideas undergird the premise that we are all the same under our American law. But apparently someone forgot to tell the American Bar Association about all these simple, long-time American principles because the ABA is delivering itself a new charge: The search for Hispanic law. That's right, folks, the ABA is no longer concerned with "the law." The ABA is poised to become more concerned with...

The American Bar Association on Thursday denounced Arizona's strict new immigration law as racist and unconstitutional as they joined a lawsuit seeking to derail implementation of the measure that is set to take effect at the end of this month. The association is teaming up with the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups who filed a class-action lawsuit against Arizona in May, contending that the new law invites racial profiling, violates the First Amendment and interferes with federal law. "While the ABA typically files amicus briefs only in the highest federal or state court that will consider a...

During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting today, Sen. Harry Reid offered up criticism of the ABA's process of evaluating nominees for the federal bench, saying whether the individual is qualified shouldn't depend on prior judicial experience. Reid's comments came as he was introducing a nominee from Nevada, Gloria Navarro, the Blog of Legal Times reports.

Sen. Harry Reid criticized the American Bar Association this morning, saying it should "get a new life" in how it rates prospective federal judges, after one of his picks got a mixed review. In remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Nevada Democrat who is majority leader of the Senate, said the bar association's ratings board puts too much weight on whether judicial nominees have prior bench experience, and it overlooks their "real world" qualifications. Reid expanded his criticism to include the U.S. Supreme Court, whose present makeup, he said, consists of "people who have never seen the outside world."...

It is legal for lawyers, like anyone else, to give campaign money to politicians. But questions arise when the politicians are local officials with influence over the selection of legal counsel for shareholder lawsuits filed by public pension funds, a role that can be lucrative. A Wall Street Journal analysis documented the extent of campaign giving by plaintiffs' law firms specializing in shareholder litigation. It found that 25 leading firms, their lawyers and family members contributed a total of more than $21 million in the past decade to state-level candidates and party funds, as well as to national-party groups that...

A new California law that gives poor residents the right to an attorney in civil matters such as child custody and foreclosure is being hailed as a model that could transform the nation's legal landscape. But critics argue that the law will result in a wave of case backlogs and could further burden court budgets. The law, signed this month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, assures the poor legal counsel in an array of civil cases. Advocates for the change say poor people often wind up in court facing life-changing consequences -- such as eviction -- but go through the process...

The elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about is the very high and escalating cost of malpractice insurance that every health care provider must recover if they are going to practice medicine in this country. It all starts with tort reform -- putting some limits on the liability that our providers are exposed to whenever malpractice is charged or suspected. If there were some sensible limits in place, then there would not be the pressure to practice defensive medicine. Some estimates of the cost to our system of defensive medicine range upwards of 25-30 percent of...

When the ABA gathers for its annual meeting in Chicago on July 30, the organization's board of governors will weigh a key question: How does the association get membership climbing again? The board will receive a presentation from its marketing consultant Leo Burnett Co. Inc., which was hired in March to aid in spreading the ABA's message to more lawyers. The association has never pursued a marketing effort of this magnitude, said current ABA President H. Thomas Wells Jr. **** The recession, expansion of law firms, rise in industry competition and controversy regarding the judicial review process have conspired to...

[A] series of studies have found indications that liberal nominees do better in the [American Bar Association ratings] process than conservative ones. The latest, to be presented next month at the Midwest Political Science Association, found evidence consistent with ideological bias. “Holding all other factors constant,” the study found, “those nominations submitted by a Democratic president were significantly more likely to receive higher A.B.A. ratings than nominations submitted by a Republican president.” The differences matter, said Amy Steigerwalt, a political scientist at Georgia State and an author of the study, along with Richard L. Vining Jr, of the University of...

Controversy over the American Bar Association's ratings of potential judicial nominees is likely to continue with the announcement that the bar group will resume its role of evaluating candidates before their nominations. In fact, a soon-to-be-released study by political scientists concludes what conservative groups have long charged: The ratings are biased against potential conservative nominees. Political scientists Richard Vining of the University of Georgia, Amy Steigerwalt of Georgia State University and Susan Smelcer, an Emory University doctoral candidate, will present their findings next month at the Midwest Political Science Association's 67th Annual National Conference. The three academics, all of whom...

In an unexpected twist to the economic crisis, several US states are weighing whether to abolish the death penalty as the execution process proves too great a drain on dwindling resources. Death penalty laws remain on the books of 36 of the 50 US states, and capital punishment is supported by some two-thirds of the American public. But across the nation, states as diverse and far-flung as Montana, Kansas, New Mexico and Maryland are among those actively considering abolishing capital punishment in a bid to overcome ballooning budget shortfalls. "It is quite unusual that we've seen this blossoming of state...

Civil Justice: Litigation was up 9% last year, driven in part by a 6% rise in employment cases. But that'll seem modest in comparison if the Lilly Ledbetter legislation is passed by Congress and signed by President Obama.Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber for 19 years, but only after retiring in 1998 with benefits did she sue her employer over what she alleged were discriminatory wages set by a long-dead supervisor. Ledbetter claimed she wasn't paid on the same scale as men, and was victorious in the lower courts. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that she filed after the...

FDIC Ups Deposit Insurance Premiums; ABA Cautious By PAUL JACKSON December 16, 2008 Most banks are set to see their deposit insurance premiums double next year, after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Tuesday it had voted to adopt a final rule increasing risk-based assessment rates uniformly by 7 basis points (7 cents for every $100 of deposits), on an annual basis, for the first quarter of 2009. The move comes as a spate of bank failures, including large failures tied to IndyMac Bank and Washington Mutual earlier this year, have drained the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund, and forced a...

REVIEW & OUTLOOK The ABA Plots a Judicial Coup August 14, 2008; Page A12 Some bad ideas never seem to die, especially in the hands of a crafty attorney. That's the story now playing out at the American Bar Association, which voted at its annual meeting this week to endorse a version of "merit selection" for federal judges. What we have here is the latest lawyer-led attempt to strip judicial selection from future Presidents. According to the proposal, future federal judges would be selected not by an elected President, but with the aid of home-state Senators and a bipartisan commission...

The domestic violence industry is one of the most corrupt and unaccountable enterprises in modern-day America. Every year it sucks over $1 billion from the federal treasury and ships the money to a variety of radical feminist organizations dedicated to revamping the family unit. Thanks to the generosity of the Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence programs encourage women to file false allegations, strip fit fathers of their natural right to parent, and doom kids to live in a single-parent household — with VAWA picking up the legal tab. Of course many men decide to fight the wrongful accusations to...

Something very good has just taken place on a college campus. After a two-year ordeal orchestrated by a group of mutinous faculty members, the Ave Maria School of Law has been given a clean bill of health by the American Bar Association and can continue with its work. I spoke on the campus last autumn and departed burdened by gloom. I feared the mutineers might win. They were the typical professorial grumblers, and such unhappy philistines so often have the upper hand on campuses. Truth be known, I spend very little time on college campuses. The life of the mind...

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative program is searching for a consultant to help conduct a comprehensive review of the Kosovo legal system to determine its capacity for instituting a regulatory bar. The consultant will spend up to 20 days over the next six months conducting research on developing a regulatory attorney bar in Kosovo. The research and assessment should evaluate the attorney regulatory needs of Kosovo and develop a realistic plan to satisfy the needs identified. The consultant’s final report “will thoroughly explore all issues related to the topic; will provide comparative country and regional examples; and will provide...

My study found that Clinton nominees had more than 10 times better odds of getting the ABA's highest rating than similarly credentialed Bush appointees. In short, being nominated by Bill Clinton was a stronger positive variable than any other credential or than all other credentials put together. – Professor James Lindgren Northwestern University School of Law Show me a monopoly, and I'll show you a tyranny. – Ellis Washington ("Unpublished Thoughts," 2007) In a prescient article on the American Bar Association, "Yes, the ABA Rankings are Biased," Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren compiled a remarkable study outlining the clear-and-present...

Text of a proposed American Bar Association resolution urging state and federal officials to close public access to criminal court records. RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges federal, state, territorial and local governments to limit access, to the extent permitted by the First Amendment, except by agencies and employers that are engaged in law enforcement, to: (I) Records of closed criminal cases in which charges were dismissed, nol prossed, or otherwise not pursued; cases that resulted in acquittal; cases in which the judgment of conviction was reversed or vacated; or cases in which a guilty plea was set aside;...

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit claiming Maricopa County officials have violated the rights of a quarantined tuberculosis patient for months by treating him like a criminal. The U.S. District Court complaint filed Wednesday on behalf of Robert Daniels alleges that health officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have violated numerous constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit seeks what it calls appropriate accommodations for Daniels, rather than severe and "inhumane" jail conditions. "It's good news for me," Daniels said Wednesday evening. "I finally have a chance to get out of this black...

Search Topics Home FAQ Topics Top 10     Modules · Home· AvantGo· Downloads· FAQ· Forums· Open_Records· Search· Stories Archive· Surveys· Top 10· Topics· Web Links Search Languages Select Interface Language: ABA Hopes to Visit Hutto; Activists Head to Farmers BranchPosted on Wednesday, January 17 @ 19:44:03 MST by editor "We hope to have a delegation of volunteers to visit Hutto in the very near future," says Megan H. Mack, Associate Director of the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Immigration (see flyer pasted below). Mack expressed the hope in a Jan. 17 email forwarded by Jay J. Johnson-Castro. Although the results of the ABA visit to the T. Don Hutto...

Who is Anna Diggs Taylor and what does she have against national security? The answer to the first question is: a U.S. district judge in Detroit. The answer to the second is as mysterious as the decision she handed down Thursday. In her 44-page ruling, Judge Taylor ordered the National Security Agency to stop monitoring international calls to and from this country, aka "domestic spying" in New York Times style. The judge found the practice not just illegal but unconstitutional. And also un-American in just about every crass, rhetorical way she could. The crux of her opinion reads like an...

There has been a lot of talk about bipartisanship lately, notably from conservatives who say that Senator Joseph Lieberman’s loss in the Connecticut Democratic primary was a setback for the cause. But any message about the importance of interparty cooperation has not reached the White House’s judicial selection team or Republican leaders in the Senate. The latest judicial nominee they have dug in their heels to defend is a far-right lawyer who received a unanimous “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. The Bush administration should withdraw his nomination and four others that are in limbo, and replace them...

President Bush has made a habit out of attaching statements to the laws he signs. His purpose is to explain his interpretation of the law or to express his reservations about it. The American Bar Association has gone on record in opposition to this practice. According to Marvin Gecko, the bar association’s current president, such a statement might “undermine a future court’s creativity in how it interprets the law as applied in particular cases. We need flexible laws that can evolve with the times. The less said about the intent or interpretation at the time laws are passed and signed,...

An American Bar Association task force has concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, president Bush has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action. Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds. "That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers." Sen. Specter jumped into the fry by saying he will "submit legislation to the United...

In a letter in today's Wall Street Journal, American Bar Association President Michael Greco objects to our calling his outfit a liberal interest group that should lose its special role in vetting federal judicial nominees. Well, then what are we to make of the ABA's report last week accusing President Bush of abusing his power by explaining how he interprets the bills he signs into law? In its new "study," the ABA claims that Presidential "signing statements" are "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system" and urges Congress to pass a law giving itself the power to...

Your July 26 editorial "An ABA Hit Job" is irresponsible and widely misses the mark. It mischaracterizes the work of the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, and terribly misleads the public with respect to the evaluation of Mr. Wallace. For more than 50 years, for both Republican and Democratic administrations, the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary has provided nonpartisan, nonideological review of the professional qualifications of judicial nominees. A unique aspect of its evaluation is a peer review of each nominee--confidential interviews with judges, lawyers and others who have first-hand knowledge of the candidate's professional qualifications....

There are some real black marks on President Bush’s record on abiding by his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He signed a campaign-finance-regulation bill that he knew, at its core, exceeded the constitutional powers of the federal government. His approach to the constitutionality of governmental racial preferences has steadfastly avoided the temptations of principle. President Reagan regularly grounded the case for limited government in the Founders’ design; the notion seems alien to this president, who has therefore not even paid it lip service. But the loudest complaints about Bush’s constitutional record are not ours. At the moment,...

The Boston Globe ran a headline this week, “Panel Chides Bush on Bypassing Laws” (go here) detailing how a group commissioned by the American Bar Association has concluded, in a 32-page report, that President Bush’s use of the Presidential Signing Statement not only overreaches, but attempts to accrue to his Administration extra-constitutional powers for the Executive Branch of the United States Government The ABA panel was headed by Neil R. Sonnet, President Elect of the American Judicature Society (go here), whose former members and board of directors include Janet Reno, Ramsey S. Clark, and General Counsel to the NAACP, Denise...

Political payback against a judicial nominee. In March 2001, barely two months after taking office and two months before announcing his first judicial nominees, President Bush told the American Bar Association to buzz off. Specifically, Mr. Bush ended the tradition of providing the ABA's Committee on the Federal Judiciary with the names of nominees before they were made public. The ABA would still evaluate candidates for the federal bench, but it would do so from a status more consistent with the role it plays--that of a political interest group. Too bad Mr. Bush didn't go all the way and cut...

SAN FRANCISCO - Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides said Friday that if he unseats Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November he would sign a bill legalizing gay marriage in California. Angelides talked about the issue the day after New York's high court upheld that state's one-man, one-woman marriage laws and as a California appeals court prepared to consider whether a trial judge erred in declaring the state's marriage laws unconstitutional. "I would sign the marriage equality bill because I believe if we can get behind people to build a lasting relationship, that is a good thing," Angelides said at a news...

The ABA has unanimously rated President Bush judicial nominee Michael Wallace “not qualified� to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Liberal groups piled on, calling for the withdrawal of Wallace’s nomination after receiving the group’s lowest rating. According to the AP story, not counting the latest ratings only six of nearly 200 nominees since 2003 have received “not qualified� grade.

WASHINGTON - The American Bar Association rated one of President Bush's judicial nominees "not qualified" Wednesday, prompting a call from a liberal group for the president to withdraw the Mississippi lawyer's nomination. A panel of the nation's largest lawyers group unanimously agreed that Michael Wallace, nominated for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, should receive its lowest rating. Wallace, 54, was a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and special counsel to then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi during the impeachment trial of President Clinton in 1999.

Republicans yesterday blamed bias for the American Bar Association's decision to downgrade a Bush judicial nominee's rating from "well-qualified" to "qualified," before a second hearing demanded by Democrats. "It's telling that the only thing that lowered his rating was his service in the Bush White House," a Republican aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee said yesterday. "And the group that lowered it is more partisan than the ABA represents itself." A 14-member ABA committee changed Brett M. Kavanaugh's rating last month in part because six members downgraded their rating from the last time the White House aide was reviewed, panel...

The ABA orders law schools to practice racial preference--even if they have to break the law. According to its mission statement, a primary goal of the American Bar Association is to "promote respect for the law." In the interest of mandating racial preferences in admissions, however, the ABA has just ordered law schools to do the opposite--in fact, to violate the law--and is resorting to blackmail to achieve its end. Meeting in Chicago this past weekend, the ABA's Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted in favor of "equal opportunity and diversity" standards. Under...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The American Bar Association wants President George W. Bush to either stop domestic eavesdropping without a warrant or get the law changed to make it legal. The more than 500 members of the ABA policy-setting body passed a resolution saying that both national security and constitutional freedoms needed to be protected. Association president Michael Grecco tells reporters, "We hope the President will listen... We do not say surveillance should be stopped, only that it comply with the law." Authorized by Bush in 2001, the program allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor the international phone...

Chicago -- The American Bar Association denounced President Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program Monday, accusing him of exceeding his powers under the Constitution. The program has prompted a heated debate about presidential powers in the war on terror since it was disclosed in December. The nation's largest organization of lawyers adopted a policy opposing any future government use of electronic surveillance in the United States for foreign intelligence purposes without first obtaining warrants from a special court set up under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The 400,000-member ABA said that if the president believes the FISA is inadequate to...

ATLANTA - A moratorium should be placed on seeking the death penalty in Georgia because the state cannot ensure fairness in trials and appeals, according to a new report by the American Bar Association. The 323-page report found seven flaws in Georgia's administration of the death penalty. For example, Georgia is the only state in the nation that does not guarantee lawyers for death row inmates' habeas corpus appeals, which challenge the constitutionality of convictions and sentences and sometimes result in new trials, the report found. And, of the 26 states that prohibit executing the mentally retarded, the report says...

The American Bar Association—a liberal organization—conducted an extensive investigation of Judge Samuel Alito’s career as a lawyer and judge and unanimously gave him its highest rating of “well qualified” to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. The ABA interviewed 300 people, including 130 federal judges and numerous lawyers who had argued both winning and losing cases in Alito’s court. It also examined the purported controversies about Alito’s failure to recuse himself from a case involving the Vanguard company, which managed mutual funds he owned shares in (see Sen. Orrin Hatch’s piece on the cover), and his membership in the defunct...