Featured Articles

"Hot-tubbing" the experts

Nan Hunter
August 13, 2008 03:03

Adam Liptak has a fascinating article in this morning's NYT about the move in Australia to diminish the opinion-for-hire quality of expert testimony. In a process called "hot tubbing," or more primly, "concurrent evidence," experts testify in a format that sounds more like a panel at an academic...

Recent Articles

Congratulations Judge Fitzgerald

Nan Hunter
March 16, 2012 21:49

From the Washington Blade: The Senate on Thursday confirmed to the bench a gay judicial nominee whom Republicans had held up for four months from receiving a floor vote along with other appointees. Michael Fitzgerald, whom President Obama nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the...

Matt Coles on the Perry decision: Can it be limited to California?

Nan Hunter
March 14, 2012 08:21

Matt Coles, former Director of the ACLU LGBT Rights Project and now Deputy National Legal Director of the ACLU, and I will be trading comments this week on the Ninth Circuit panel decision in Perry v. Brown [2012 WL 372713]. Following are Matt's comments on the decision. I will respond in a future...

Does the reasoning of the Perry decision hold water?

Nan Hunter
March 14, 2012 08:20

I have been traveling out of the country for the last two weeks, and so am belatedly responding to the post by Matt Coles, who defended the Ninth Circuit decision in Perry v. Brown as solid constitutional law. I agree (and will also post the more extensive essay on the same topic that I have coming...

Is Golinski a watershed decision?

Nan Hunter
March 13, 2012 12:39

An essay by Professor Julie Nice, University of San Francisco Law School, published in Jurist: [Those who have been watching the Prop 8 litigation and the progress of marriage equality legislation in several states] might have missed the importance of Golinski v. US Office of Personnel Management,...

LGBT officeholders now visible in Latin America, in tandem with continuing anti-gay violence

Nan Hunter
March 12, 2012 12:08

From USA Today: Tatiana Pineros, a man by birth and a woman by choice,...is the first transgender individual to be appointed to head Bogota's social welfare agency. Pineros, 34, is also a high-powered public servant who manages a $360 million budget and nearly 2,000 employees in Colombia's biggest...

Another federal judge finds DoMA unconstitutional

Nan Hunter
February 23, 2012 03:40

Judge Jeffrey White issued an opinion today in Golinski v. OPM, ruling that DoMA is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Golinski, a federal government employee, sought health insurance coverage for her spouse; the two were married in California during the period when same-sex...

Bill Eskridge on Perry and the constitutional politics of marriage

Nan Hunter
February 22, 2012 21:54

[posted at Stanford Law Review online] In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit ruled that California’s Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause.[1] Reacting to the state supreme court’s recognition of marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples, Proposition 8 was a 2008 voter initiative...

Prop 8 backers to seek en banc review

Nan Hunter
February 21, 2012 19:33

From MetroWeekly: Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the proponents of Proposition 8, tells Metro Weekly that the proponents of the California marriage amendment will be asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to review the three-judge panel decision issued on Feb. 7 holding...

The week ahead: February 20, 2012

Nan Hunter
February 18, 2012 21:46

February 23-25 - A conference on Democracy and the Workplace at UNLV Law School, exploring the dynamics of employee participation in workplace governance issues. February 24 - A conference on Reproductive Justice: Examining Choice and Autonomy in the New Milennium will include discussion of access...