Still wish you were on vacation? Most of your co-workers out for week? Here’s some “work” you can do to pass the time:

• The strange (and sad) story of Ravens rookie Sergio Kindle takes another wrong turn.
• Morris L. Cohen, one of the nation’s leading law librarians, dies at 83. (HT: Above the Law)
• The title says it all: “Male nurse who was a former stripper failed to make out claims that he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.”
• OK, “Matlock” fans, stand up for your show’s egregiously-low ranking. (HT: Volokh Conspiracy)
• It’s still better than a lump of coal, right?

We’ve written about the tough legal job market for law school students, and the dean at UB Law recently told us he anticipates the number of law schools in the country will shrink in the years to come.

This apparently has not deterred administrators at the University of Delaware, which will study the possibility of opening a law school in Newark in the fall of 2015. The law school would be the second one in the state (after Widener) but the only public one.

Above the Law is skeptical of UD’s venture:

You see, the rationale for this new law school is that it’ll make the University of Delaware look good to have a law school. It has nothing to do with legal education or professional services. Sure, some will say that because of Delaware’s unique role in corporate governance, a state law school makes sense. But that’s not why they’re doing it. The corporate law stuff will be an add-on tagline some marketer weaves in as the school fights for funding and public recognition. It’s not going to be a core value of the new school. From the very start, the president is telling you what the core values will be: taking the University of Delaware to “the next rank” of American higher education — a “rank” that will decided by U.S. News, no doubt.

Any Delaware alums out there want to chime in? Also, do you think this new law school have any impact on Maryland’s two law schools?

Still upset about last night’s game? Just getting to work now because of last night’s game? Here are some links to take your mind off it.

• A former Baltimore County public defender starts a law firm in Annapolis focusing on “low bono” clients.
• Are we ripe for growth in the small-town lawyer arena? An Above the Law contributor says, “Possibly.”
• Turns out a stability ball in Sacramento might not have been all that stable.
• A primer on the “Repeal Amendment” you might be hearing more about once Congress becomes Tea Party-flavored next month. (The story has generated a spirited back-and-forth on The Volokh Conspiracy.)
• Say what you want about Eliot Spitzer, but “professional exerciser” Ron Miller gives the former New York governor high marks as a lawyer.

A month and a half ago I wrote about the addition of a young but high-profile lawyer to the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s office, Leo J. Wise.

When U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told me Wise, who policed Congressional ethics for the past couple of years, would prosecute white-collar crime as an AUSA, the bribery case against state Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George’s) and a pair of Shoppers Food executives immediately came to mind.

Well, Wise entered his appearance in Maryland’s federal court for the first time this week, and, sure enough, one of the two (sets of) cases on his personal docket is the Currie-Shoppers prosecution.

Presumably, no one will disassemble the U.S. Attorney’s office (as certain members of Congress reportedly have suggested re: the OCE) before trial in the case next summer…

Of course, Rosenstein’s office’s other major political corruption prosecution (and ongoing investigation) also involves Prince George’s County, and there was attorney news in that cluster of cases, too, this week.

In case you’ve been asleep for the past month, County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife, Leslie, were arrested Nov. 12 after the FBI overheard the couple scrambling to hide nearly $80,000 in cash and a check for $100,000 in, um, various places.

Prominent defense attorney William R. “Billy” Martin, who has defended people like Michael Vick and the mayor of Atlanta, seemed an appropriate person to represent Jack Johnson, but few had heard of Leslie Johnson’s counsel, Owings Mills attorney Roland N. Patterson Jr.

Apparently the county councilwoman-elect decided she needed a little more heft to protect her from federal prosecutors because this week a big-firm attorney, whose office is in the Watergate building no less, entered her appearance on behalf of Mrs. Johnson. Perhaps not coincidentally, Shawn M. Wright is a partner at Martin’s old firm, Blank Rome LLP.

So, dear readers, do you think these these personnel moves will significantly impact the evolution and outcome of these cases or were these politicos’ looking at jail time regardless of any clever attorney’s maneuvering?

The reverberations from Jack Johnson’s witness- and evidence-tampering charges continued to be felt this week, both in Maryland and in the ranking of the top 5 most-read law stories at The Daily Record’s website. And in some good news, congrats to the 1,088 who passed the bar exam!

1. Tapes will complicate P.G. County exec. Johnsons’ defense

The defense attorneys representing Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson have their work cut out for them, say defense attorneys observing the case.

2. Md. board recommends 1,088 for admission to Bar

Their admittance is subject to approval of their character and fitness qualifications.

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Just when it appeared a full-scale review of Maryland’s constitution had been approved by voters, it hadn’t.

And just when it appeared a Baltimore interior designer had won a seat on Baltimore’s Orphans’ Court, it turned out she hadn’t.

And, finally, just when it seemed Alison Asti was running on a slate with another candidate for Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge, it turned out she wasn’t.

It was that kind of week for Maryland legal news, as evidenced by The Daily Record’s top five most-read staff-written stories.

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Everyone agrees the Baltimore City Circuit Court buildings are “absolutely terrible” and that a new courthouse is in order, the city’s administrative judge declared at a meeting of city and state criminal justice officials last fall.

To this end, the city and its circuit court ponied up between $600,000 and $700,000 for a Maryland Stadium Authority-picked consultant to study the upgrade possibilities.

At that same September 2009 Baltimore City Criminal Justice Coordinating Council meeting, the representative from Los Angeles-based consultancy AECOM Inc. promised a final report with recommendations by this past spring.

In January, MSA spokeswoman Jan Hardesty offered assurances of that schedule.

“It’s on course, it’s on schedule,” Hardesty said. “It should be out in early spring.”

When nothing came out by June, I spoke with Judge Marcella Holland, the city’s administrative judge, who told me the study’s publication date was more likely to be late summer. When it still wasn’t out by late September, I asked again after its progress. The latest update came Friday from MSA Project Executive Gary A. McGuigan, who acknowledged the delay but said such an important matter should not be rushed.

“It’s still going to be a little bit,” he said. “My best guess right now is it’s probably going to be the end of the year.

“It’s very complicated. It’s a very large report, and we want to make sure we get this thing right,” McGuigan explained. “It’s taken longer than I had hoped, but like I said, we want to get this thing right.”

So, given that it’s already been several years that litigants, lawyers, judges, courthouse employees and members of the public have had to deal with a decaying — if still stately in some ways — pair of courthouses, and it won’t be several more years (or, God forbid, decades) until the problem is properly solved, what’s another year or so (and a half million dollars) more spent putting a plan together?

Tonight I’ll be attending Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service’s pro bono recognition reception at the University of Maryland School of Law. The event will honor lawyers and law firms for their pro bono service, including three lawyers who have taken at least one case a year from MVLS for the last 10 years.

Oh, and the keynote speaker is Juan Williams. Yes, that Juan Williams. It should be noted Williams was scheduled to speak at the MVLS event way before the whole NPR kerfuffle, and he is still going to talk about volunteerism. Whether he will address his own situation is not known; I’ve been told there is going to be no formal Q&A session, and it’s possible he won’t be taking  questions at all.

But that will not stop me from Tweeting live from Westminster Hall tonight. You can follow me here. I’ll have a full report of the event tomorrow.

Anything you’d like me to ask Mr. Williams?

Two items of interest from the November Issue of the ABA Journal (at least to me):

• The cover story is about how a 33-year-old solo practitioner in Cleveland named David Mills will be arguing his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1. The story provides a blueprint of sorts for building an appellate law practice. To say Mills was a longshot is putting it kindly:

“His law office is located in a spare bedroom in his apartment. He has no staff, except for his part-time paralegal, Elisabeth, who goes by another title: Mom. His client, for payment, offered him the title of her Jeep and made him an afghan.”

• Some people aspire to have buildings named after them. Me, I’d rather follow the lead of Bruce Freitag, who had a portable toilet named after him. Freitag served as longtime counsel for Porta-John Industries; the Freitag Comfort Station has hardwood floors, a skylight, working sink and ceramic toilet that flushes. The company’s CEO said they named it after the “classiest guy” they knew.

Last year at this time, Mike Hamburg was preparing to bike around northern Israel to raise money for a children’s hospital in Jerusalem. This year’s Wheels of Love charity ride will take him on a route near Israel’s borders with Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

“A bunch of Jewish doctors and lawyers biking near Gaza; nothing good can happen,” the Pikesville lawyer joked Monday. (For the record, police escorts accompany riders throughout the five-day bike ride.)

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