Friday round-up

By Kiera Flynn
on Sep 2, 2011 at 10:43 am

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sat as a judge on the Ninth Circuit during a special session at the University of Montana.  After oral arguments, the Justice (as well as the other judges appearing on the panel) spoke to law students on topics such as the judicial confirmation process and the importance of thorough preparation for oral arguments.  NBC Montana and the Missoulian provide coverage.

SCOTUSblog’s symposium on class action lawsuits has added posts from the University of Minnesota’s Allan Erbsen and Andrew J. Trask of McGuire Woods.  Professor Erbsen focuses on class certification after the Court’s decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes; he argues that to determine whether a class should be certified under Rule 23(b)(3), lower courts should focus on its heterogeneity.  Trask reviews what he describes as possibly the Court’s busiest Term in history for class actions, and he concludes that – despite predictions to the contrary – the class action is “alive and kicking.”

Briefly:

• In light of the recent disputes between Congress and the White House over the scheduling of the President’s address to Congress, Ariane de Vogue of ABC News notes recent efforts by the Justices to praise the civility displayed at the Court.
• The reactions to Jeffrey Toobin’s recent New Yorker article on Justice Thomas (covered in last Monday’s round-up) continue.  Writing in the Washington Examiner (via the Boston Herald), Michael Barone characterizes Toobin’s portrait of Justice Thomas as “the end of the fashionable left’s attempt to portray Thomas as a lightweight,” and he criticizes calls for the Justice to recuse himself from the litigation over the Affordable Care Act.