Prince George’s County officials argued in vain to U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis that alcohol and exotic dancers shouldn’t mix. The combination leads to gun violence and other crimes, the county said.

Garbis on Wednesday struck down as unconstitutional a law calling for the revocation of liquor licenses to bars that feature exotic dancing. The judge, who sits in Baltimore, said the broadly worded law effectively banned the controversial dancing and infringed on the First Amendment freedom of expression.

County officials tried to defend the law as “narrowly tailored” to achieve the “substantial” governmental goal of preventing criminal activity that they said exotic dancing — mixed with alcohol — attracts. But Garbis rejected the argument, stating in his opinion that the county had failed to provide sufficient evidence of these alleged “harmful secondary effects” of what used to be called gentlemen’s clubs.

Meanwhile, the county this year has endured violence near bars, some which feature exotic dancing and some that do not.

Bernard Irvin was stabbed to death Jan. 31 at the Legend Night Club in Temple Mills, which has the dancing and successfully challenged the law, Gazette.Net reported.

On Tuesday night, a day before Garbis’ decision, a vigil was held near the Tradewinds nightclub. Family and friends of Darryl Robinson II gathered across the street from the Temple Mills establishment, near where the 28-year-old was shot and killed on Jan. 31, Gazette.Net added.

According to Gazette.Net:

Robinson’s death was among several in recent years near county entertainment hotspots. In March 2007, nine nightclubs were shut down after 11 people were killed in only 11 days. Former Police Chief Melvin High was granted the authority to shut down any venues he saw as an “imminent danger.”

The article also mentions the March death of a Bowie man at The Sideline Bar and Grill, the Largo sports bar owned by former Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington.

In light of these deaths, should Garbis have taken judicial notice of the county’s asserted link among alcohol, exotic dancing and violence and upheld the law as a justified restriction on the First Amendment?

Just a couple of years ago, big-firm associates would have rejoiced at the news of a cut in their minimum billable hour requirement. In my reporting on the business of law beat, I got the impression that some of them would gladly have accepted a slight pay decrease in exchange for the chance to bill “only,” say, 1,800 hours.

I doubt the Hogan & Hartson associates who just got their billable requirements knocked back are doing much celebrating.

Here’s the way Hogan usually works: the firm has two associate billable hour tracks, one at 1,950 and the other at 1,800. Associates had their choice, though I imagine those who wanted to make partner would feel bound to bill the higher amount. As of fall 2008, Hogan was paying first-year associates $160,000 at the 1,950-hour level and $137,500 at 1,800 hours.

Above the Law reported that Hogan is now actually bumping some associates down to 1,800 based on their low billables over the last five months. (Those low billables, of course, would be a result of the decreased amount of work the associates get now that, you know, the sky is falling.) Associates who started at the firm in 2008 and just got knocked back to 1,800 hours will now make $145,000. Those who chose the 1,800-hour track will still make $137,500.
“At first blush, you might say, well, that seems unfair,” Hogan chairman Warren Gorrell told me this morning. But, he said, the firm saw no reason to give those who chose the lower track a raise in this economic climate. Gorrell said that lawyers who bill above 1,800 will get a prorated increase in pay.

It’s one thing for an associate to get to choose how many hours to bill, confident that if she wanted at some point to move up from 1,800 to 1,950, the work would be there. It’s another for an associate to get involuntarily bumped down because there’s not enough work to go around. No, I’m thinking no one’s pleased here.

Really, though, Hogan is basically doing what other firms have done in cutting or freezing associate salaries, just in a more targeted way. Most associates at those firms surely have less work these days, too. Hogan is just making an explicit connection: less work equals less money.

On a related note, Hogan is laying off 93 staffers, but Gorrell said the firm will not disclose which offices were affected.