Justice Scalia Goes on Hunting Trip with Plaintiffs Lawyer

U.S. Supreme Court

Justice Scalia Goes on Hunting Trip with Plaintiffs Lawyer

Posted Nov 18, 2008, 08:05 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Justice Antonin Scalia went hunting over the weekend with a plaintiffs lawyer who wrote an amicus brief in a pre-emption case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Scalia went on the outing with Houston plaintiffs lawyer W. Mark Lanier, a graduate of Texas Tech University law school who is underwriting a lecture series that featured Scalia, reports The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times and the Tex Parte Blog.

“The juxtaposition is fairly hard to imagine,” Legal Times writes. “Scalia, no friend of unbridled tort litigation (though not always an enemy), chowing down and stalking deer along with Lanier, the colorful trial lawyer who won the first Vioxx verdict and is known for quoting the Bible and slamming corporate America in front of juries.”

Lanier wrote an amicus brief in Wyeth v. Levine that urges the court to allow failure-to-warn lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies despite FDA approval of their drug labels, according to the Legal Times story. Oral arguments earlier this month left observers with the impression that the court would issue a narrow decision in the case.

Scalia also spoke last night at a $150-a-head steak and potatoes dinner sponsored by the Federal Bar Association, the Houston Chronicle reports. In response to questions, Scalia said he disagrees with the decision of his alma mater, Harvard Law School, to drop letter grades as Yale has done. "I want to know who's best in the class. I don't want to know just who went to Yale," he said.

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Posted by James O'Brien - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes ago

I usually have great respect for Justice Scalia’s legal acumen, but we differ on the proper interpretation of “...the appearance of impropriety…” [even if THIS hunting trip didn’t involve a trip on Air Force 2].
Posted by Martin Marshall - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 30 minutes ago

If judges weren’t allowed to spend private time with lawyers, they would be awfully lonely.
Posted by Ken Leggett - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes ago

I guess Tech is trying to be #1 in more than just football. Guns up Mark.
Posted by Bill - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours, 56 minutes ago

The guy wrote an amicus brief; he’s not representing one of the parties in the case. There is not even an appearance of impropriety.

I suppose some who would argue that this is an appearance of impropriety would argue otherwise if Justice Stevens or Breyer played golf with a plaintiff’s atty who wrote an amicus brief…
Posted by Steve Lombardi - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes ago

Someone with the highest grades is not necessarily “the best” and usually isn’t. It takes more than figuring out how to get an A in a particular class to be a great lawyer.
Posted by Bird Smack - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 53 minutes ago

It takes more than grades to be a great lawyer, but not to be a great professor. So the question is: why does Scalia want to know where someone stood? To determine if they’re a great lawyer, or an intellectual lawyer (the two rarely meeting in the middle)?
Posted by Attempt to be fair - 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days, 1 minute ago

The man wouldn’t recuse himself from Bush v Gore when his daughter was on the Bush transition team and you find this surprising?
Posted by William Cramer - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 23 hours, 51 minutes ago

Given some of his past entanglements, hunting with an amicus (not actually a party with a direct interest in the outcome of the case) is pretty small potatoes. And at least he is hunting with plaintiffs attorneys instead of oil men. Sometimes progress is measured in small increments.
Posted by jls - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 21 hours ago

Are you kidding me? Is the appearence of im-propriety is even debatable? The fact that the impropriety is “small potatoes” does not detract from the fact that it appears improper. The case is PENDING!!

Imagine that you are a litigant in the case. Do you think you are getting impartial justice from Scalia (who goes hunting with a lawyer who filed a brief supporting the other side)???

Equally disturbing is that there is no mention of a langstanding relationship between the two. What do we think that the “hunting trip” is designed to do???
Posted by NCLawyer - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 20 hours, 25 minutes ago

Where’s Ellen? Maybe she went on the hunting trip as well ...
Posted by binky - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 18 hours, 50 minutes ago

I just want to smack anybody who actually uses the word “juxtaposition”!
Posted by Paul Veazey - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes ago

Come on. Are you lawyers writing in ready to say you have never been hunting or on some other type of trip with a judge before whom you have something pending? Judges’ lives would be pretty lonely were that the practice. I ‘ve never seen a model ruled that requires recusal if the judge is friends with or goes on trips with a lawyer involved in the case. I know my state’s statutes and court rules don’t., and last time I looked the federal rule didn’t either.
Posted by The Texas Hammer (and Federalist supporter of Scal - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes ago

SINCE MY PRIOR POST GOT REMOVED BY A MODERATOR, LET ME TRY AGAIN.
WHAT A STUPID STORY…does anyone really think Scalia is the evil nemisis to free-thinkers who deserves scrutiny for going hunting (oh, the agony for the animal lovers) with a member of the Plaintiff’s bar of TEXAS - from whence came Bush and Cheney (I left out the “Evil” moniker here as my tongue-in-cheek humor was lost on the moderator and censured)
Posted by Rocco - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes ago

Is their the possibility that Dead Eye Dick Chenney could join Scalia on his next hunting trip?
Posted by B. McLeod - 1 month, 1 week, 2 days, 14 hours, 4 minutes ago

Or a Hunton partner?

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