JD Journal » Kenneth Starr

Morning Roundup

sara — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:30:52 +0000

Good morning everyone! Today is Tuesday, February 16, and here’s a look back at yesterday’s stories…

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, will not run for reelection…

The National Conference of Bar Examiners appeal a Federal Court ruling forcing them to allow a blind California law graduate to use specific software during portions of the bar exam…

Several Canadian law firms are involved with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver…

Kenneth Starr is named President of Baylor University…

The Chinese government says that missing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is living in Western China…

Kenneth Starr Named President of Baylor University

sara — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:16:42 +0000

Baylor announced today that Kenneth Starr has been chosen as the university’s 14th president. Starr will assume the office on June 1st. Since 2004 Starr has been the Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu. Starr earned his BA at George Washington University in 1968. He earned an MA from Brown University in 1969 and his law degree from Duke University Law School in 1973. Starr was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. From 1989 to 1993 Starr was the Solicitor General of the United States. He also served as Counselor to the U.S. Attorney General.

He is well known as the Independent Counsel in the Whitewater investigation and Monica Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Frost Brown Todd Cuts Incoming Associate Salaries

Erik Even — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:38:49 +0000

Incoming associates at Cincinnati’s Frost Brown Todd will get a lower salary, although specific numbers have not been released.

In addition, the new associates will spend their first 1,000 hours in an “apprenticeship program.” Clients will be billed at a lower rate for work done by “apprentices.”

I keep putting the word “apprentice” in quotes because an apprentice is a 16-year-old learning to swap out a transmission, not a professional with a college degree and a law degree.

Those who complete the apprenticeship program can earn a merit-based bonus, and the opportunity to get on the regular lock-step pay track after one year.

The firm’s most famous former associates are Jerry Springer and Kenneth Starr. So, way to contribute to America, guys.

Frost Brown Todd LLC is one of the largest law firms based in the Midwestern United States. It resulted from the 2000 merger of Frost & Jacobs LLP, a Cincinnati-based firm, with Brown Todd & Heyburn PLLC, a Louisville-based firm. It presently has 370 attorneys working in nine offices throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia.

Homophobes Attack California Attorney General

Erik Even — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:37:12 +0000

Sponsors of California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban accused Attorney General Jerry Brown of advancing a “far-fetched” legal theory to justify overturning the homophobic initiative. That bizarre theory? That the state Supreme Court has the power to overturn unconstitutional initiatives.

“The attorney general is inviting this court to declare a constitutional revolution,” reads a brief co-written by Kenneth Starr, dean of Pepperdine University’s law school. Starr previously exhibited his medieval moral code and complete lack of ethics as the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.

Brown initially said he would defend the measure in his role as attorney general. But in a dramatic reversal, he changed course two weeks ago and joined same-sex marriage supporters in asking the court to void Proposition 8, and to uphold the estimated 18,000 same-sex unions sanctioned during the four months gay marriage was legal in the state.

Brown argues that the amendment is unconstitutional because the Supreme Court established marriage as a fundamental right in its May decision striking down previous one man-one woman marriage statutes.

Starr and co-counsel Andrew Pugno maintain that the attorney general is asking the court to assume powers not granted by the Constitution. ”The judiciary is entirely a creature of the Constitution, not an independent, freestanding guardian of minority rights or natural law,” they wrote.

Brown responded that it was the sponsors of Proposition 8 who have misunderstood the role of the courts in a democratic society. ”Mr. Starr ignores the fundamental doctrine of judicial review and the historic duty of the Supreme Court to guard our fundamental liberties,” he said.

Lawyers for San Francisco and five other counties, as well as for gay couples who married during the four-month window, have asked the court to let stand the existing marriages even if it upholds Proposition 8.

Proposition 8′s sponsors have argued that the 14-word measure, which holds that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” effectively bars the state from acknowledging any same-sex marriages, regardless of when they were sanctioned.

The groups have yet to announce if they plan next to go after interfaith marriages, non-Christian marriages, interracial marriages, or marriages between people who cannot reproduce. All of these are also banned by The Bible.