Free Republic

"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop." So supposedly said Elihu Root, New York lawyer and secretary of war and of state, and U.S. senator from 1909 to 1915. Today it seems that many liberal "would-be clients" are in desperate need of what Root called "a decent lawyer." Take Texans for Public Justice, the so-called public interest group that has been pushing for the indictment of Gov. Rick Perry by a grand jury at the urging of special prosecutor Michael McCrum. The basis for the indictment...

Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group that masquerades as a religious organization, is known for their publicity stunts, but they may have bit off more than they can chew with this one. After a comedian offered to pay for them to fly to Iraq so they can protest real Christian persecution at the hands of Islamic militants, the group tweeted that they have accepted his offer. They want to take their picket signs and head over to a country currently occupied by a group that beheads Christian children without hesitation – this ought to go well. To bring you up...

Forget protecting and serving; we’re all potential bad guys in the eyes of the law that looks to jail us, fine us, and seize our property for profit. Retired LAPD Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing told FoxNews Latino, “The federal government has turned policing into policing for profit.” Cops are tracking down cash, rather than crime. Downing told Fox that departments now direct police assets to generate cash, instead of investigating murders and rapes. And there are plenty of abstruse laws to trip up even the most careful citizen. The American Bar Association task force reported that the body...

Ask Jason Fraser how many jobs he applied for after graduating from a St. Petersburg law school last year and this is what he says: “Maybe 10 or 20 when it was some place I wanted to work. Maybe 50 when I started getting desperate.’’ After searching as far afield as Ocala and Miami, Fraser finally landed a public defender’s post in Pasco County in June. But his months of job-hunting raises another question, one that nags at many in the legal profession: Does Florida have too many lawyers? Since 2000, the number of licensed attorneys has swollen from 60,900...

The American Bar Association will vote on the controversial notion that being and acting LGBT is a human right protected in international law. The resolution will be considered by the ABA House of Delegates at their annual meeting this August in Boston. The resolution, proposed by James J.S. Holmes, Chairman of the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, cites a number of international treaties as justification, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Holmes resolution relies on a broad reading of all the cited documents because none of them mentions LGBT, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Holmes claims,...

On Wednesday, in a move that was missed by most of the mainstream media, a group of so-called “civil lights” lawyers filed a lawsuit in Seattle. The purpose of their suit is to compel the government to assign court-appointed lawyers to every minor illegal alien so they can fight their deportation. Left-wing groups are moving quickly to make sure those illegals stay and ensure that more come. This lawsuit will be successful. How is it possible to see the future? Simple. The left is using a strategy known as “sue and settle.” To put it mildly, it is nefarious. Liberals...

The father of a 7-year-old boy who died when he was electrocuted in the family’s pool has filed a lawsuit against the company that made the pool light and the one that serviced the family’s swimming pool. Calder Sloan died on April 17 when he jumped into his family’s pool and was electrocuted. The child’s death was wake-up call to many pool owners around South Florida.

by Jason DeWitt | Top Right NewsOne thing we love about Mike Rowe, the former “Dirty Jobs” TV host and current head of Mike Rowe Works, is that he always speaks his mind. Monday, he did so once again — and took on a lawyer in doing so.Mike hit his local liquor store last week and noticed a picture near the front of the shop: a man in a white shirt that the store was identifying as a shoplifter. “Good for you,” Rowe says he told the owner, as he retold the story on a Facebook post: “I wish every store in the country did...

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. lawmakers announced legislation on Monday that would provide lawyers for thousands of undocumented minors streaming across the border into the United States, saying forcing children to face deportation proceedings alone goes against fundamental American values. "It is a fantasy to believe that they have a fair shot in immigration proceedings without counsel," New York U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries told a news conference. Jeffries and the other House of Representatives Democrats introducing the bill said as many as 40 to 50 percent of the undocumented children would have legitimate claims to remain in the United States under...

The Obama administration is turning to a community service program to try to provide legal help to children who have crossed the border without a parent or guardian and later face deportation proceedings. On Friday, the administration said it would try to enroll 100 lawyers and paralegals into AmeriCorps to provide the legal services. They also would help to identify children who have been abused or victims of human trafficking and assist in prosecuting perpetrators, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The Obama administration said on Friday that it was launching a program to help recruit lawyers for children facing deportation as it scrambles to deal with the soaring number of unaccompanied Central American minors illegally crossing the border from Mexico. Under the plan, the federal government will issue $2 million in grants to enroll about 100 lawyers and paralegals to represent children making their way through the immigration court system. “We’re taking a historic step to strengthen our justice system and protect the rights of the most vulnerable members of society,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a...

bill that has just passed the California State Senate could effectively make criminals out of many people- just for having sex. The bill, SB 967, would require “affirmative consent” before college-age couples can have sex. This would essentially outlaw sex that is had “while in the heat of passion”. From Breitbart News: SB 967, amended last week by state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), would mandate that college students obtain “an affirmative, unambiguous, and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity.” ……….. “Obviously, there is a problem,” he said in the report. “SB 967...

Strike one for the little guy, judge. With your fists, in his face. Anyway, that’s what one Florida judge did to a public defender. He took him out back and gave him a butt whipping. In the face, with his fists. With lawyers it’s the same thing as a butt whipping, because most of them are all ass anyway. They are 100% certified USDA ass. “A Florida judge allegedly punched a public defender after the two stepped outside the courtroom to settle a beef,” reports the New York Daily News. “The brawl erupted after Judge John Murphy began to argue...

A UC Berkeley graduate who was severely burned after spilling hot coffee on her lap filed a lawsuit Thursday against In-N-Out Burger claiming employees in Oakland refused to call an ambulance. Hedy Chen claims employees at the drive-through restaurant ignored her screams and repeated requests to call 911. Instead, she was given a pack of ice, which can exacerbate scarring, according to the suit filed in Alameda County Superior Court. "What they were supposed to do was call 911 because the operators know that" ice is bad, said Kirk Boyd, her lawyer. "They said there is a policy of not...

Brandeis sides with a spawn of Hamas over a champion of women’s rights. Author’s Note: This week, capitulating to Islamic-supremacist agitation led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Brandeis University reneged on its announced plan to present an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the heroic human-rights activist. In my 2010 book, The Grand Jihad, I devoted a chapter to the origins and purposes of CAIR, its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas-support network, and its aim to silence critics of Islamic supremacism. In light of the continuing success of this campaign — despite a federal terrorism-financing prosecution that...

President Obama celebrated “Equal Pay Day” on April 7. The next day, he attended a DNC fundraiser at the Houston home of Steve Mostyn, a fabulously wealthy trial lawyer who has donated millions to Democrats over the years, before leaving for another Democratic fundraiser at the home of multi-millionaire trial lawyer John Eddie Williams Jr. Democrats hoped to raise at least two millions dollars from the events.Both Mostyn and Williams have accumulated sizeable fortunes by winning large class-action lawsuits against corporations and state governments. Williams, according to his firm’s website, is “passionate about the law and helping the proverbial ‘little...

Iowa Democratic Senatorial candidate, Representative Bruce Braley’s assertion that Congress is no place for a farmer has not gone over well among the state’s rural population. “I’m not saying that farmers don’t have a meaningful role to play in our society,” Braley said in his own defense. “Obviously, someone has to grow the crops and raise the livestock to feed this nation. What I’m saying is that farmers lack the skill necessary to make our laws.” The persons with the necessary skills, according to Braley, are lawyers. “The job of Congress is to enact laws,” Braley observed. “Lawyers are trained...

Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, apologized for his critical comments of Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, that were posted online Tuesday by a Republican research group. Speaking at a fundraiser, Braley, who is running for the Hawkeye State’s open Senate seat, said the Senate could end up with “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” before identifying that person as Grassley. “I apologize to Senator Grassley and anyone I may have offended,” Braley said in a statement released a couple of hours after the video...

"Lawyers for two men on death row in Oklahoma say the state has informed them it has a new execution protocol that would allow it to choose from any of five lethal injections. The change comes days after the state revealed that it had been unable to obtain the chemicals for its existing protocol: pentobarbital and vecuronium — prompting a court to delay the executions of convicted murderers Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett for a month. In the revised protocol given to the men's defense team, prison officials outline five possible one-drug and three-drug injections it could use to kill...

FORT WORTH — What started as a murder case ended as a standoff at a two-story home on Permian Lane in Fort Worth on December 31, 2013. John St. Angelo, a contractor, had been here before, and chose it as a place to hide from Fort Worth police as they tried to track him down for the murder of his estranged wife, Suzanne Parsons. Police used tear gas and more to break into the home until St. Angelo finally gave up. All the owner of the house could do was watch. "We’re about 12 hours ahead, so I found out...