Legal blogs continue to buzz over the Court’s grant last week in City of Ontario v. Quon, (08-1332). While Scotus Wiki added a new page for the case, both Nolo’s Employment Law Blog and Slate’s Double XX Blog discussed the case at length. Last week, Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy noted that the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Quon was written by a liberal panel and drew a heated dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc by a group of conservative judges. “That one-two punch is hard for the Supreme Court to resist,” Kerr wrote.

On Monday, Cockle Law Brief Printing Company printed the Petitioner’s Brief in Hamilton v. Lanning, (08-998). The brief advocates a “mechanical” approach to calculating a debtors’ “projected disposable income” during Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceedings. Such an approach, the brief argues, is “faithful to the language of the statute and the expressed intent of Congress.” The Respondent’s Brief in Hamilton is due on January 22nd of next year.

Adam Liptak at the New York Times reported on Monday that a new study suggests that there is a correlation between the type of employment taken by Supreme Court clerks after leaving the Court and the ideology of the Justice that hired them. This article continues to merit a wide-range of response from legal bloggers, including posts from the Volokh Conspiracy, Cato Institute and the ABA Journal.

Cockle Law Brief Printing Co. will be open until 12:00 PM Central Time on December 24th and December 31st, but will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Cockle Law Brief Printing would like to extend Happy Holidays to all our readers.