 NATIONAL LEGAL NEWS 5/24/13
Supreme Court Notebook:
Sotomayor at Yale
By Mark Sherman
Washington (AP) – Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the author of a unanimous decision delivered at the Supreme Court on Monday, but Sotomayor was hundreds of miles from Washington when the court convened.
While her eight colleagues donned their black robes and took the bench to announce opinions, Sotomayor was wearing Yale blue and receiving an honorary degree in New Haven, Conn.
Among her messages to graduates of Yale Law School, where Sotomayor received her law degree in 1979: A justice’s life isn’t all glamour.
“Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there’s drudgery in every job you’re going to do,” Sotomayor told more than 200 graduates. Yale posted video of the law school graduation on its website.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts read a summary of Sotomayor’s opinion in a case involving attorney’s fees. So, point taken.
And who can blame her for finding her day job humdrum at times after the whirlwind she’s experienced in recent months?
The 58-year-old justice has traveled the country and conducted many interviews to promote her best-selling memoir, My Beloved World. The book has been on the New York Times’ nonfiction best-seller list for 15 weeks, including several at No. 1.
She was greeted by adoring crowds in her parents’ native Puerto Rico. She has appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” bantered with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, toured her old school with Oprah Winfrey and sat with the co-hosts on ABC’s “The View,” where some of them called her Sonia.
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Becoming a ‘Bathrobe Lawyer’
By Cliff Ennico
Last week I had the privilege of giving the keynote address at the New York State Bar Association’s “Starting a Solo Practice” series, on the topic of “Becoming a ‘Bathrobe Lawyer’: Building a Successful Solo Law Practice Out of a Home Office.”
When we think of lawyers, accountants, architects and other professionals, we think of them first and foremost as professionals.
Yet, when a professional is working solo out of a home office, he or she is an entrepreneur or small business owner just like any other. And the challenges they face are exactly the same as all home-based entrepreneurs.
Here are seven key points I mentioned in my talk:
Tip 1: Involve Your Spouse or Significant Other. Your life is about to change in a big way. Instead of wearing suits and taking a train or driving to work, you will be hanging around the house in your pajamas, forgetting to shave and generally getting in your spouse’s way. He or she will need to learn to be quiet when you are on a conference call and keep background noise to a minimum.
If your spouse or significant other cherishes their privacy or doesn’t want your clients tracking up the house and possibly filching an antique or two, you probably shouldn’t work out of your home.
…
To view my talk online, go to www.nysba.org/2013StartingaPracticeGuestpassLink.
©2013 Clifford R. Ennico
Distributed by Creators.com
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 Senior Crime Technician Angela Harder has been with the Omaha Police Department for 10 years.
OPD Firearms Examiner Angela Harder
Selected From 900 Applicants for Her Current Job
By Elizabeth Elliott
The Daily Record
Microscopes. Computers. Guns and ammunition.
These are the tools used by firearms examiner Angela Harder at the Omaha Police Department.
Harder is a Senior Crime Technician and Firearm and Tool Mark Examiner. She has been with the Omaha Police Department for 10 years in March and has worked as a firearms examiner since 2008.
Harder said her work as a firearms examiner happened by chance. When Jerry Tosoni was retiring, Harder was asked to consider the position. She had already begun some of the work including test firing and working with the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS), which catalogs bullet casings for comparisons across the country.
“I was still relatively new at the time that he started talking about retirement and pretty low on the seniority list. As they were looking for a candidate to take on this specialty and replace him, they had to ask everyone who was more senior than me if they were interested first. I think I was second or third from the bottom of the list at this time.
Nobody was interested so I said that I would do it,” she said.
“I imagine that most people did not want it because they either had other interests or they saw how demanding the training and the work in firearms can be. Firearms examiners also end up testifying in court on a pretty regular basis, and while that is part of the job of every crime lab technician it can be quite stressful and most people do not enjoy it. For whatever reason, it was purely by chance that I ended up working with firearms. It is demanding and sometimes stressful but I have not regretted it for a second.”
In April 2007 through 2008, Harder was a student at the National Firearms Examiner Academy. She said that half of the program was completed in Omaha, while the other half was at the school in Laurel, Md.
While Harder now works as a firearms examiner she still keeps up with her other skills, working in the crime lab and at crime scenes, photography and fingerprints.
“I think that being trained in other aspects of forensic science makes me a better examiner and a better technician because I have an understanding of how everything fits together and can see the bigger picture instead of just one small piece of it,” she said. “In addition to that, some aspects of firearms examination, such as the microscope work, are incredibly tedious. It is nice to be able to take a break from it and focus on something else for awhile. I find that I usually have a much fresher perspective when I return.”
When asked if there was a typical type of day at work, Harder said there wasn’t.
“Things happen every day,” she said. “I never know what I’ll be doing until I get here.”
Harder said the most rewarding part of her job is her work with IBIS.
“Any time I can provide information to detectives and links where there were none before is rewarding,” she said.
Harder is surprised by one thing at her job.
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Harder demonstrates her role as firearms examiner in this youtube video provided by the Omaha Police Department: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxiGJmpU2YU.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
Here are some of our recent feature articles.
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From left, T. Geoffrey Lieben, Virginia Albers, David S.
Houghton, and John Slowiaczek are some of the leaders of the
law firm of Lieben, Whitted, Houghton, Slowiaczek & Cavanagh, P.C., L.L.O.
Big O! Excellence Awards
Milestones Reached by Area Law Firms
By Julien R. Fielding
The Daily Record
Two Omaha law firms – Brown & Brown; and Lieben, Whitted, Houghton, Slowiaczek & Cavanagh - are celebrating their 25-year anniversaries, but they won’t be doing it alone.
Brown & Brown
From left, members of the Brown & Brown law firm team are Matthew Heffron, Thomas Brown, Douglas Lash, William C. Brown, and Steven Olson. Not pictured is Erin Dahms.
– Photo by Robert Ervin
In 1988, James W.R. Brown was 70 years old, the age at which his former firm required its partners to retire. But Brown wasn’t ready to retire, so he founded Brown & Brown with his sons, James R., Thomas R., and William C. Their first office was on the 17th Floor of the Woodmen Tower. Three years later they moved to the Scoular Building at 2027 Dodge St., and have been there ever since.
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Medal of Honor winner Sal Giunta gives a riveting, and
humble, account of his courageous fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007.
Sal Giunta
Uncommon Valor: The Importance
Of Teamwork, Sacrifice, Leadership
By Lorraine Boyd
The Daily Record
Nebraska’s bankers got a lesson in the importance of “teamwork, sacrifice and leadership” at the Nebraska Bankers Association annual convention May 1-3. They learned it from a decorated expert: Salvatore “Sal” Giunta, the first living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War.
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