FAIR PLAY- Order seems to be restored following the recruiting mess that ensued after federal judges five years ago abandoned a system for hiring clerks. Karen Sloan reports that appellate court judges, including Second Circuit chief Robert Katzmann, are giving a thumbs up to the new, two-week-old system that is intended to head off the hiring of law students before they have completed their second year. The system, currently used in the Second, Ninth, D.C. and Seventh Circuits, is voluntary, and judges are independent types, but so far they’re playing nice by not jumping the gun.
ER, NO - The Fifth Circuit has undone a contempt order against plaintiffs firms Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll; Outten & Golden; and Green Savits imposed by U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant. The judge had reasoned that by filing a wage-and-hour suit in New Jersey, the firms violated his nationwide injunction issued against the Labor Department that blocked the enforcement of an Obama-era overtime law. As Mike Scarcella reports, the appeals court found Mazzant, who said the firms were in privity with the Labor Department, did not have authority to hold the firms and their client in contempt.
