The other day, I needed some quick stats on the demographics of practicing lawyers. I found some on the ABA’s site (72 KB PDF with the specific data I used), and to visualize them I put together this chart:

Although I am still living in Canada, some recent decisions have turned me into an Idahoan, in spirit if not in law. This makes me a denizen of the 10th most Republican state, the least politically powerful in Congress (?), one of the most rural, and one that some say doesn’t even exist.
Even if […]

This week, my governor (kind of) is on a trade mission to Cuba. Despite Cuba’s successes in literacy and healthcare, Governor Otter says that the country’s “three great failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner, and that’s where we come in.”
While Idaho can sell its potatoes to our Martían friends (since 2000), as an American […]

Earlier this week, S. 442 (the “John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007″) [GovTrack | OpenCongress | Thomas] made it out of the Judiciary Committee and is bound for the Senate floor. This bill would fund a $25 million federal loan repayment assistance program (LRAP) for new lawyers working in prosecutors’ […]

I’ve just returned from a lecture given by Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was tortured in Syria after being sent there by the United States. Although Arar’s case is not unique, what makes it special is that he could not be any less of a terrorist, by pretty much all accounts, including the official […]

This week has been a complete Canadian freakout. Wednesday was the Arar, Canadian folk hero thing. Tuesday was the 25th anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the patriation of Canada’s constitution—a big… no, a huge deal. And then this coming Monday will be the 110th anniversary of the birth of […]

Junior Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (a Democrat) has introduced S. 1167 (”the Civil Legal Assistance Attorney Loan Repayment Act”) [GovTrack | OpenCongress | Thomas], which would create a $10 million loan repayment assistance program for legal aid attorneys. The bill text tracks the current prosecutor/public defender LRAP bills (S. 442 and H.R. 916) pretty […]

A number of courts around the US have begun offering RSS feeds of court opinions and news. So far, the Idaho courts have not (as far as I know). For my own benefit, I’ve used Feed43 to create feeds of the published opinions of the Idaho Supreme Court and Idaho Court of Appeals. […]

It almost seems like spring is trying to come to Edmonton. It hasn’t snowed in over a week, and the temperature has creeped above freezing for long enough that I even opened my windows today. Still there’s something not quite right about it—I’ve been saying to myself, “why does this feel like fall?” […]