I didn't round up the news last week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, so I'm awash in interesting stories today. Perhaps the biggest story is that the General Assembly has voted to amend the Racial Justice Act in a way that would effectively repeal the law. The News and Observer has the story here. The key question now is whether Governor Perdue will sign the amendment, veto it, or allow it to become law without her signature. If she vetoes it, a Republican override effort would need the support of a handful of Democrats in the House to succeed. In other news: 1. The federal criminal prosecution of former Senator John Edwards is set to begin in February. The latest legal wrinkle, as described by the News and Observer, is that "prosecutors . . . are trying to prevent two former Federal Elections Commission chairmen from testifying as expert witnesses." Essentially, the experts propose to testify that money given to Edwards to support his mistress and to keep her from public view cannot properly be characterized as campaign contributions. The prosecution contends that expert testimony on the law is inadmissible. 2. The New York Times ran a provocative article about law schools' emphasis of theory over practice, and the resulting skills deficit in new lawyers. The article is here, but perhaps predictably, I was drawn to this factoid about the legal professoriate: "One 2010 study of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience [...]
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