Conflicted Judges Are Classier With English Accents 74
An anonymous reader writes "Remember The Right Honourable Professor Sir Robin Jacob, Retired Lord Justice, who staged a temporary comeback on the bench of the England and Wales Court of Appeals last fall? He's the one who required Apple to publicly retract its claims that Samsung copied the iPad and imposed sanctions on Cupertino when he concluded Tim Cook's lawyers hadn't fully complied. He has now made worldwide headline news again because he signed up as a Samsung expert witness at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Samsung says he was hired by its law firm, not the company, but the ITC filing says 'Sir Robin Jacob working on behalf of Samsung.' His clerk issued a statement according to which Sir Robin had no idea of Samsung's desire to hire him before January — two months after he gave Apple a blast. Leading legal blogs agree that there is no evidence any law was violated, but they suspect that 'the general issue of what engagements retired judges are permitted to accept will be very much up for discussion' and that this was 'a less than savvy public relations move by Samsung' because it casts doubt on the widely-noticed ruling in its favor. As one of them puts it, in the U.K. you 'never know if the judge might be looking for a new job,' so you better 'make sure [you] have fat rolls of cash spilling out of [your] pockets' in front of a U.K. judge."
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"...when you drink it from the tap!"
Yes, that's right, like the retired judge, I too am marketing my effluent to the highest bidder. But on the English side of the "pond", they serve it room temperature.
so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:3, Informative)
looks bad but in reality a judge like this will probably preside over cases with most companies in a given countries and lots of other large organizations. even if you institute a 2-3 year rule of not taking a job with a party to a lawsuit you preside over that is a lot of potential work and probably infringes on non-compete laws
Re:so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it does. And as a judge, he should avoid "looking bad." Reverse the position: imagine that Judge Lucy Koh (you know, the one who awarded a big-ass judgement against Samsung here in the US) 'retires,' and goes to work in Apple's legal department two months later.
How many bloody murders are screamed by Slashdot, and how many petitions are generated at Whitehouse.gov by outraged neckbeards, demanding that Pres. Obama become a dictator, step in, and have her thrown in Gitmo, because she was clearly prejudiced, and Apple used its money to buy a friendly ruling against poor little innocent, beleaguered Samsung?
Repeat after me: It does not matter what company does it - if it's fucking bad behavior, it's bad behavior and deserves to be criticized. You lot need to stop making excuses for your teams. If Samsung does it and it's bad, it deserves criticism. If Apple does it and it's bad, it deserves criticism.
Re:so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it does. And as a judge, he should avoid "looking bad." Reverse the position: imagine that Judge Lucy Koh (you know, the one who awarded a big-ass judgement against Samsung here in the US) 'retires,' and goes to work in Apple's legal department two months later.
Funny you should mention that. Judge Koh actually did do work for Apple before she became a judge. Are you suggesting she should have recused herself?
Re:so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:4, Informative)
lucy koh didn't award a cent. in fact she reduced an award that a jury of 12 people awarded apple
if you're a corporate lawyer or judge presiding over corporate law lawsuits then you deal with so many companies that it would be impossible for you to get a job in your area if you had rules like this
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Right, and if you told politicians that they can't go work for lobbying firms the moment they're out of office, they'd never be able to find a job in the private sector, either! So you can't possible put limits on them going to work for lobbying firms who benefitted from legislation that was passed by the politicians!
Your argument is an argument in favor of tolerating - even encouraging - political corruption. You do realize that, don't you?
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All law firms have a formal process in place to make sure that they are not working for both sides in a law case. This can be difficult in large firms but they have to make sure that they are not conflicted. Even if the lawyers are working in different departments and on completely different areas of the law, they recuse themselves from one side of the case.
There is no reason the same procedures and prohibitions (ethical) should not apply to judges (whether working or "retired").
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No, this is a judge who retired 2 months ago, and suddenly he's employed by the beneficiary of his decisions in the highest-profile case he's ever adjudicated.
What patented technology does Facetime infringe upon? It's based on numerous open standards, I'd be surprised if Apple had patents, or claimed exclusivity, on any of the key patents for video, voice, or telephony. Given that, what reason would anyb
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Re:so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:5, Informative)
It is simply untrue that he retired two months ago. He retired in 2011 - he had to make an application to retire and have that application accepted. He was then _asked_ to return to the bench for the Samsung case because of his expertise, because retired judges can be asked to do that in their field of expertise.
So his retirement didn't happen in some convenient window between ruling for Samsung and then working for Samsung at all, which upsets your conspiracy theory interpretation apple cart a bit, does it not?
Which is not to mention that he's not in Samsung's employ at all, but has been contracted by their law firm. To provide advice. In a case in an unrelated area. In a different legal jurisdiction. At an ordinary consulting rate.
This is a lot of shit designed to attract this kind of aspersion on a judge's character, all kicked off by a dubious post by Florian fucking Mueller for Christ's sake. The summary has conflated a bunch of articles, some evenhanded and some not, into an allegation that Jacob is a 'conflicted judge', and that his expert consulting work for a law firm hired by Samsung is some sort of kickback.
Can we not try to actually understand the situation before we assume that it's simple, lazy corruption?
Captcha: retrofit.
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Well put. There should be reasonable limits put on expressions of conspiracy and paranoia particularly when the incident takes place in another country and political-legal culture entirly unlike that in the US.
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No it doesn't "look bad". Remember this is the UK not the US where paranoia and distrust of every form of authority runs rampant. Often with good reason with respect to the partisan US judicial system. The judge is no longer involved with the Apple-Samsung case; there is no evidence that his decision in that case was questionable on legal grounds; and he states that the Samsung job emerged well after the trial. Jocob is entitled by position and record to be taken at his word. I know, a strange concept in t
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i'm sure a 3 person start up is going to pay $200,000 to a retired federal judge to run their legal team
if you retire in the area you worked as a judge in then you're limited by local employment
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I'm sorry, are federal judges not given generous federal retirement benefits?
If you retire in the area you worked as a federal judge, you can...
1) Teach - many judges do this, and end up professors at a law school.
2) Write
3) Speak
4) Run for political office
5) Work in an unrelated field;
6) Practice law, with some sort of perfectly reasonable "no working for companies who had cases before you within 5 years of the closure of the case" clause;
7) Be on retainer for numerous 3-person startups in tech law,
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The Right Honourable Professor Sir Robin Jacob, Retired Lord Justice has never been, nor ever will be a Federal Judge.
He is British, and his tenure as a judge was served in the United Kingdoms.
As to your list:
1) He is currently a professor at University College London (thanks Wikipedia!). It is fairly common for professors of law to also work in that field: Alan Dershowitz is a full-time professor at Harvard, and I once took a class with a professor who was, at the time, representing a man held in Guantanam
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Did you read the person I responded to? He suggested that limiting a judge's ability to retire and go directly to work for someone whose case he JUST finished adjudicating is an undue burden on them, and that they wouldn't be able to support themselves or find work.
He also is the one who brought up "federal judge" - I'm well aware that the judge in this case is British. s/Federal/UK/g if you really want to be pedantic - I'm fairly certain that the UK isn't turning their retired judges out to a life of pov
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It is not just his ruling in the case and taking the job afterword. He also made a ludicrous ruling that looked like he was already working for Samsung's marketing department. Perhaps people in the UK don't hold their judges to a very high standard of conduct.
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i'm sure a 3 person start up is going to pay $200,000 to a retired federal judge to run their legal team
if you retire in the area you worked as a judge in then you're limited by local employment
Right, because depriving judges of opportunities to earn six figures after they've already chosen where and when to retire is a breach of fundamental human rights.
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This is exactly the kind of revolving door that I find the most revolting.
I'm in favor of Android prospering, but I'm not in favor of government officials (public servants?) being rewarded with high paying jobs. "I'm sorry, we can't give you cash outright, but we can give you a job where you don't actually have to do anything useful." How is that not still bribery?
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delicately speaking.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:delicately speaking.... (Score:4, Informative)
This former judge appears to be breaking the rules. The terms and conditions of service [judiciary.gov.uk] have an absolute prohibition on returning to practice:
Prohibition on Practice: A Salaried Employment Judge shall not practise as a barrister or solicitor or be indirectly concerned in any such practice (s.75 Courts and Legal Services Act 1990). The Lord Chancellor also regards a judicial office as a lifetime appointment. Any offer of appointment is therefore made on the understanding that appointees will not return to practice.
plus a prohibition on any activity that might appear to raise a conflict of interest.
Outside activities and interests: An Employment Judge should not in any capacity engage in any activity which might undermine, or be reasonably thought to undermine, his or her judicial independence or impartiality.
Note that the appointment is for life, so he is still covered by the second rule.
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Mod parent up!
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My mistake. However, in these respects the rules are basically the same for all judges. Here are the rules for High Court Judges [judiciary.gov.uk].
Re:delicately speaking.... (Score:4, Informative)
You are misunderstanding. The second one is about judges still acting as judges, which he isn't. He retired.
And the first doesn't apply either because he isn't practicing as a barrister or solicitor either. He was hired to advise a law firm as an expert. That
just isn't the same thing.
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.
I actually expected something about how people (defendants, claimants) perceive their judge or arbitrator to be "classier" or "fairer" or "more important" if they happened to speak with a particular type of accent. The title turns out to be just a snarky piece of bitchiness. That's so
re: delicately speaking (Score:2)
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Brave (Score:1)
Oh, Brave Sir Robin!
Appearance more important than fact. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the judge's expertise is due to the fact that he spent months listening to both sides of the matter, sifting through conflicting evidence and judging the validity of the positions to come up with an unbiased conclusion. There would be no better expert on the case than the judge that heard it. He would be the best person to explain why he made the decision that he did and be the best one to convince others of his logic. It is not necessarily a judge giving a decision so he can get a future job. This is another instance of appearance of conflict being more important that actual conflict.
Casting doubt is not an issue. If another judge reviewed the ruling and found fault then there would be an issue. Every ruling should be able to be reviewed at any time without the review causing issues. The whole "There is a review there must be something wrong" is stupid. Wait for the review to be over and then make a judgement. Many reviews are done to remove appearances of conflict and prove that no conflict existed.
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Perhaps the judge's expertise is due to the fact that he spent months listening to both sides of the matter, sifting through conflicting evidence and judging the validity of the positions to come up with an unbiased conclusion...
Or perhaps Samsung paid him a metric butt-load of English poundage, and the judge said "WHOOPEE!"
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Or perhaps Samsung paid him a metric butt-load of English poundage, and the judge said "WHOOPEE!"
In some circles a butt-load of poundage is not something to whoop about....
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It is possible but people need not jump to that conclusion without evidence.
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But they could have done that without hiring him for this. Which would be a lot less suspicious (particularly if it shows up on is tax returns). And presumably they would have had to also pay of the other two judges.
Of course, this still seems wrong to me, but the parent's reasoning (for why he would be a natural choice for either side) does seem to hold up - if it is within the rules for judges.
But it doesn't look good. And judges, even retired judges, should do so.
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His only expertise is as the judge of a case then the court transcripts are the entirety of the evidence.
According to this article [ucl.ac.uk]:
He started practice at the Intellectual Property Bar in 1967. From 1976 to 1981 he was the Junior Counsel for the Comptroller of Patents and for all Government departments in intellectual property.
Perhaps working in IP for 14 years, five of which as a IP council for the government, might make him an expert. Check out his books, articles and lectures. Yeah, this judge is an expert. UCL [ucl.ac.uk] seems to think he is an expert too.
You might want to at least put his name into Google before making statements.
Herp derp (Score:1, Insightful)
When the UK has judges sending kids to PMITA in return for kickbacks from for-profit prison operators you can bash us limeys and our legal systems all you like.
Till then just shut the fuck up already, you fat bastard.
One word for US citizens - lobbyists (Score:1)
Apparently when US corporations hire Washington DC power-brokers to represent their interests, this is an important part of the democratic process. The theory is that the corporations and those that represent them have a special insight into certain issues, making them qualified to advise the US government on policy. Sometimes generous (legal) campaign contributions are made as part of this process.
So it's fine for US corporations to funnel money towards currently elected officials. But oh no! In the UK, a
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What exactly are you trying to say?
Do you think no one realizes whats going in the US?
Do you think that something different is going on in the UK? I hope not, cause the point here is that ... he's doing the same shit that happens in the US. Find in their favor, retire, and go work for them ...
Crease and Desist (Score:4, Funny)
Apple already has the patent on buying judges.
I predict lawsuits.
Advice to judges (Score:2)
-- Slashdot career advice
Line 0: Summary and headline mismatch (Score:4, Insightful)
Other the the word 'judge', what the fuck does the headline have to do with the summary? Is slashdot trying to get some sort of record for worst 'journalism' ever?
Resume (Score:2)
He might have had no idea of Samsung wanting to hire him - but his verdict might have been a fine resume....
Integrity of Mr Mueller? Does he have one? (Score:3)
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he's a blogger, the other's as high court judge. If you are so pissed off with a blogger being hired by oracle, shouldn't you be even more pissed off at a high court judge who just 4 months ago finished a case for Samsung, and is now hired by samsung? don't bother with the fake argument of he doesn't really work for samsung. Samsung's footing the bill, and the judge is not working for free.
Investigate, at the very least (Score:2)
There should be an investigation, at the very least, started by the judicial departments to clarify this matter. There's a huge potential for corruption here.
By the way, I'm not sure why Samsung is given so much support here. If you replaced the judge above with the one who ruled in Apple's favour, and replaced Samsung with Apple, people here will be screaming "CORRUPTION", guaranteed.
Worse still, the top voted comments include ones mocking Apple (clearly off-topic, isn't it?).
Learn to look past your bias:
Jacob Not a Partisan Hack Unlike in US (Score:1)
In the UK the judiciary is generally highly respected for integrity and independence. Conservative, yes, but that is the way it should be for a healthy society. Change should not be easy or simply popular. The US on the other hand has institutionalized a partisan and corrupt juidiciary through the election of judges and through blatant political appointments. You would be an idiot to credit US justices on the whole with integrity and independence. All to say that I see no reasonable appearance of conflict o