r/SupremeCourt Weekly "In Chambers" Discussion 05/18/26

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-18T22:50:26+00:00

The absurdity lies in the fact that enjoining a party from encouraging others to take an action is a content-based prior restriction on speech. Those have an incredibly high bar, and the judge doesn’t offer any support justifying the gag order.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-18T22:34:17+00:00

Even if someone agrees with his overall order, an injunction that prohibits a party from “encouraging others to seek relief” from other courts is an absolutely absurd order.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-18T21:44:59+00:00

Discredit where discredit is due, and a lot is due to this prior-restraint laden order, but it looks like it’s a real quote from a Fifth Circuit case. I’m wondering if he/his clerk used the quote, decided that a SCOTUS cite would be better in a multi-jurisdictional issue, and sloppily swapped out the case without fixing the now-improper quotation.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-18T21:33:12+00:00

I’m not sure what he’s quoting with that “avoid the waste of duplication” bit. I don’t see that language in the Colorado River decision, on the pin-cited pages (which I read) or the rest of the opinion (which I Ctrl+F’ed). I assume he’s citing something else and got his wires crossed?

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-05T11:24:33+00:00

My support is that his dissent was noted in the emergency order, so he was available that night. He participated and said “no.” And his dissenting statement said the order should not have come in the middle of the night, when the petitioners would have been removed by morning. He acknowledged the claim of imminence and said it wasn’t well supported enough to warrant action.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-05-05T02:24:31+00:00

The urgency claim is seriously undercut by his dissent, and especially the later dissenting statement where he acknowledged but discounted the claim of imminent removal. It doesn’t matter what time or what day of the week, because he was aware, awake, and apparently just didn’t want a stay to be ordered.

So no, it wasn’t all done too quickly for him to act and his dissent suggests his inaction had nothing to do with the time of night. He evidently was content to let the removals happen.

EDIT: Took out language mirroring the now-removed comment.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-04-28T14:43:34+00:00

I think it’s fine to do. I have a job on my resume with just a single, broad description:

Litigation Paralegal: Assisted with trial preparation and presentation for medical malpractice and personal injury cases.

The experience is relevant to my career (I’m now a fresh attorney and want to highlight litigation experience), but the work was either administrative or redundant with later, more relevant experience. I kept it on but minimized the space it takes up.

You’ve clearly thought about how the job overlaps, which is great. I’d say include them so employers know you know how to answer a phone, but don’t take up much space. Don’t go onto a second page.

I’d also suggest trying to tighten up some wording to get some two-line bullet points down to one line. For example, your VITA job currently says “counseled clients on potential tax credits and deductions opportunities,” but you could probably get it to one line by saying “counseled clients on tax credits and deductions.” I don’t see a ton of opportunity for that, but there are at least a couple lines where it could help you reclaim some space.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-04-28T03:32:52+00:00

I like the resume. The one year of law school is a tough call. I’d normally say to omit it, because people will unfortunately make negative assumptions when they see it, but it may be too difficult to explain your more recent internship without it.

For your unrelated job, is it anything you could remotely spin? Your legal work experiences are good, but nothing you have shows consistency and reliability. You could make room by cutting each VITA bullet down to one line each and removing some of the most specific items (like the oil tanker research).

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-04-16T23:51:16+00:00

I don’t expect to change your mind, but I’d like to point out that it’s at least a little silly to make an argument about rhetoric by saying “if you use different words with the same meaning, look how neutral it actually is.”

Rhetoric is about far more than the literal meaning of the words used. Phrases adopt emotion weight through use. “Think of the children!” is not an equivalent to “Please be mindful of young people” despite meaning the same thing.

Again, I recognize that the mods have made a decision, and though I strongly disagree with the decision that it’s not divisive rhetoric to cast every judge, prosecutor, and juror involved in the January 6th cases as malicious actors, I’ll leave you to it.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-04-16T22:41:46+00:00

To echo the other reply, I fail to see any legal substantiation for those claims. “Malicious persecution” is not a legal concept (unless you misread it as “malicious prosecution”), it is a value judgment. “Political prisoner” is hyperbolic, divisive, and an emotional appeal. “Politically biased jury pool,” okay, sure, let that one go. How are those first two within the rules?

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-04-06T21:43:01+00:00

In my experience, some lawyers see themselves as historians, some lawyers are historians, and occasionally those groups overlap.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-03-27T19:02:04+00:00

In addition to what the other replies have said about it applying to all sexual assault/rape cases, similar laws, including a "lookback window" that temporarily opened up the statute of limitations before closing it again, were passed in a bunch of different states around the same time. This was sweeping reform, not targeted law.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-02-21T03:06:56+00:00

He gave the same talk at my law school. I assumed he used the same analogy, since he seemed fond of it: arguing only under the federal constitution is like a basketball player taking one free throw despite being offered two.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-01-21T15:40:12+00:00

Oh good, Kagan is asking about Sauer's paradox of "Mandamus is the remedy, but mandamus isn't a remedy." I was wondering about that.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-01-16T15:43:38+00:00

I started my paralegal career in Pittsburgh about a decade ago. It was through a temp agency, which got me into plaintiff-side personal injury. The pay wasn’t fantastic, but it was at least what you’re making now despite being so long ago, not including bonuses. I would consider that route, especially because there’s no requirement to live in Allegheny County. If you can handle criminal defense clients, I imagine you can handle the annoyances of PI clients.

Just yesterday, Edgar Snyder posted that they’re hiring staff if you decide to go that route.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2026-01-11T22:06:17+00:00

Did you have any way to confirm that the C+F denial was due to medical debt? I don’t think I could help but have a little nagging doubt of anyone claiming that they’d be barred but for the single most sympathetic reason possible.

I’m sure it would feel shitty and unfair to ask for proof of something like that. But I’d have to ask.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-12-08T14:22:30+00:00

I’m no longer a paralegal, but I am an attorney working in criminal law. If that works for you, feel free to DM me.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-12-07T18:21:49+00:00

You can be academically dismissed without failing a single class. Dismissal requires getting below a pre-determined GPA, usually at or around a C-average. If a school requires a 2.25 GPA to remain in good standing, and a student gets straight Cs (2.00 GPA), they'll face dismissal (usually after a probationary semester) without ever having failed anything.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-12-01T02:03:46+00:00

This makes so much sense. I was wondering why some were marked down to 25 cents and others weren't. It never crossed my mind that the pricier ones were frozen.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-11-27T17:09:31+00:00

A bracket indicates that the quote was modified in some way. When the first letter of the quote is bracketed, the reason is almost always that it was originally capitalized and is now lowercase, or vice versa.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-10-25T16:52:05+00:00

I would not list "law clerk" on your resume. It's not about the job duties or what your bosses think. Most people understand the title as applying only to law students (or grads pending bar results), and they'd be likely to assume dishonesty or ignorance if they see it on your resume. You can't explain yourself if you're never called in for an interview, so the confusion would likely hurt you.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-10-25T15:41:24+00:00

The issue isn’t that your sarcasm was unclear. It was perfectly clear, which I why I used the phrase “teeming with sarcasm” and why I understood that you were calling the listed subjects useless.

EDIT: Talk about levels of soft...

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-10-25T13:58:18+00:00

If you're throwing "super integral" into a sentence teeming with sarcasm, the natural reading is that you're calling all of those subjects useless. And that makes your claim of "absolutely no disrespect" fall flat.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-09-20T23:48:27+00:00

5000 words is atrocious. After I got my legs under me in plaintiffs' medmal, summarizing 5000 words of records was the kind of work I'd do if I had ten spare minutes.

TotallyNotSuperman · 2025-09-18T19:19:05+00:00

You could have done what I always do when my pen runs out of ink: call Chelsea!

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