Talk radio’s Neal Boortz is one of nearly three dozen lawyers who have been nominated for an opening on the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Governor Nathan Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission has released the names it has received since asking the public for nominees a couple of weeks ago. The JNC is taking nominations through May 25, although anyone interested in the position must also complete the JNC’s application packet by that date to move forward in the process.

Our story in Tuesday’s paper (online now) says that the JNC received several brief emails nominating Boortz for the opening. Boortz, who is listed in the Georgia State Bar directory as an inactive member, told the Daily Report he would complete the JNC’s application.

Daily Report subscribers (or those who want to sign up for a free 30-day trial subscription) can find the full story here.

In this piece from Sunday’s opinion section of The New York Times, the author laments the lost art of conversation–at home and in the office. For example, she writes:

A senior partner at a Boston law firm describes a scene in his office. Young associates lay out their suite of technologies:
laptops, iPods and multiple phones. And then they put their earphones on. “Big ones. Like pilots. They turn their desks into cockpits.” With the young lawyers in their cockpits, the office is quiet, a quiet that does not ask to be broken.

Does this happen at your firm? Do you do this at your firm? Do you agree with the author, a psychologist who has studied the effects of social media technology, with her assessment below?

In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people — carefully kept at bay. We can’t get enough of one another if we can use technology to keep one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right. I think of it as a Goldilocks effect.

The full article is here. Please let us know what you think.

A memorial service for Paul Webb, whose firm’s 1994 merger with Holland & Knight gave H&K its first Atlanta toehold, is set for Monday, April 23, at 1 p.m., at St. James United Methodist Church, according to a family-placed obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he voluntarily enlisted in the Army and served as Liaison Pilot directing artillery fire during the invasion across Europe with the Third U.S. Army,” the obituary said.

In 1994, Webb and his son-in-law, Hal Daniel, ran a six-lawyer litigation boutique, Webb & Daniel. When the merger with Holland & Knight was announced, the Daily Report wrote: “A key factor was the long friendship between Holland & Knight senior partner John Germany and Webb & Daniel senior partner Webb. The two attended Harvard Law School together, and both men
graduated in 1950.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve been approached by a major law firm, but [it is] the first time that we’ve looked at a merger with great interest,” said Daniel at the time.

Webb’s daughter, Laurie Webb Daniel, chairs Holland & Knight’s appellate practice.

The obituary said, “The family will receive friends following the service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Arthur J. Moore Methodist Museum and Library at Epworth by the Sea, 100 Arthur J. Moore Dr., St. Simons Island, Ga. 31522; or Loudsville United Methodist Church, 1493 Hwy 75 Alt., Cleveland, Ga. 30528.”

The full obituary can be found here.

So many lawyers credit Atticus Finch of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as their inspiration to join the bar that it’s almost a cliché. Yet there is one lawyer in Monroeville, Ala., who truly carries the mantle of Atticus—or, to be more accurate, Amasa Coleman Lee, the father of Nelle Harper Lee, “Mockingbird’s” author.

That would be 100-year-old Alice Finch Lee, Harper Lee’s sister, who still practices law in the firm her father started. Alice Lee is featured prominently in a documentary about her sister aired recently on PBS’ “American Masters” series.

Given that Harper Lee last gave an interview in 1964, Alice Lee’s perspective is important to the film, called “Harper Lee: Hey, Boo.” In it, Alice Lee offers insight into her sister’s friendship and eventual falling out with Truman Capote, the basis for the “Mockingbird” character Dill.

Alice Lee is significantly older than her sister, and her entry on the Alabama Bar website says that she graduated from the Birmingham School of Law and joined the bar in 1943.

Stories on al.com and The Daily Beast have more information about Alice Lee, called “Atticus Finch in a skirt” by a friend in one of the pieces.

The documentary, which tells how the book could not have been written without an act of generosity allowing Harper Lee to quit her job to have time to write, can be seen in its entirety here.

The accused don’t get lawyers, and the investigators, prosecutors, judges and jury all come from the same federal agency. So it goes if you are a grizzly bear suspected of hurting a human being.

But this story from Slate shows how seriously federal wildlife managers treat their probes of such cases, which included the extremely rare deaths of two hikers last year in Yellowstone National Park.

The deaths prompted a months-long investigation “replete with crime scene reconstructions and DNA analysis, and a furious race to capture the prime suspect,” writes Jessica Grose, who later notes that the possibility of civil litigation also is an issue the wildlife managers face.

The story focuses on last year’s Yellowstone deaths–a case, she adds, that ”opens a window on a special criminal justice system designed to protect endangered bears and the humans who share their land. It also demonstrates the difficulty of judging animals for crimes against us. The government bear biologists who enforce grizzly law and order grapple with the impossibility of the task every day.  In the most painful cases, the people who protect these sublime, endangered animals must also put them to death.”

Mama Mia's customers take a supply back to the capitol.

Health inspectors on Thursday gave the popular pizza restaurant behind the Fulton County Courthouse an “A” rating, allowing it to reopen for business after being shut down earlier this week when it received a third consecutive failing grade.

Jolene Butts Freeman of the Fulton County Office of Communications confirmed that Mama Mia’s received a 92 score on Thursday, just three days after it received a 45 score.

“They are back online,” said Freeman, adding that the restaurant’s latest health inspection report would be online Friday morning.

Freeman said it was not unusual for a restaurant to achieve such a high score only days after receiving a failing score. On Monday a health inspector cited a host of problems at Mama Mia’s, including employees’ not washing their hands enough and food not being kept at the proper temperature. Mama Mia’s received scores of 52 and 57 earlier this month.

Mama Mia’s owner Moe Dehdashti said Wednesday that the restaurant’s walk-in cooler and plumbing systems were being repaired.

On Thursday he said they were “just minor problems.”

The owner of a popular pizza restaurant near the Fulton County Courthouse said Wednesday that despite three failing scores from public health authorities in the past two weeks, he hopes to reopen for lunch on Thursday.

Moe Dehdashti, the owner of Mama Mia’s, said his walk-in cooler and the restaurant’s plumbing are being repaired and that health inspectors are expected to return Thursday morning.

The restaurant, which at lunchtime is often crowded with lawyers, judges, jurors and others from nearby government buildings, received a 45 score, or a “U,” on Monday. An orange sign on the locked doors showed that it was closed by the Department of Public Health on Tuesday.

According to the Fulton County Public Health Inspection Page, violations on the report included:

“Failure to provide consistent hot water under pressure at hand sink. Repeat Violation.”

“Failure to maintain potentially hazardous foods (i.e. poultry) at 41 degrees Fahrenheit while stored in cooler. Repeat Violation.”

“Failure of person in charge/staff to wash hands with soap and hot water between the change of duties, re-entry into kitchen area, touching of person (i.e. hair, skin, clothing, etc.) Repeat Violation.”

“Failure to post most current inspection report for the visibility of patrons. Repeat Violation.”

The website showed that on Aug. 31, 2011, Mama Mia’s received a “U” score of 55.

Two weeks later, on Sept. 14, it received a 73, a “C.”

This month the establishment received three “U” scores—a 52, on March 9, a 57 on March 12 and a 45 on March 19.

The public information officer at the county health department could not be reached immediately Wednesday to explain the process a closed restaurant must undergo to reopen.

Dehdashti sounded confident the problem would be short-lived. “Ninety-five percent of our customers are repeat customers,” he said. “If anything were wrong, they wouldn’t come back.”

Asha Jackson takes oath. Photo by John Disney, Daily Report.

Asha Jackson took the oath of office this morning for her judgeship on the DeKalb County Superior Court. Jackson’s mother, Jean Glover, held a Bible while Gov. Nathan Deal, who tapped Jackson for the post, administered the oath.

Jackson, a commercial and business litigation lawyer with Barnes & Thornburg, fills the seat vacated recently by Judge Michael E. Hancock. Jackson received a letter of recommendation from Hancock, for whom she clerked after graduating from Tulane Law School in 2000.

Emory University School of Law ranked 24th in the U.S. News & World Report study of law schools, the highest among Georgia law schools. The University of Georgia School of Law ranked 34th; Georgia State University College of Law ranked 58th; Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law ranked 110th; and Atlanta’s John Marshall School of Law was unranked.

Yale Law School was ranked the highest in the country. The full list can be seen here.

Good news for lawyers eating at cafeterias run by King & Spalding, Alston & Bird and Jones Day in Atlanta: these eateries received “A” ratings from Fulton County health inspectors.

We decided to check out the scores after reading a report by our colleagues at The Am Law Daily, which reported that cafeterias at four of 25 New York law offices received health inspection scores below the top rating. (King & Spalding, Alston & Bird and Jones Day were the only law firms we could identify as law firms on the Fulton County Department of Health & Wellness restaurant score site.)

The cafeterias at the four New York law offices that didn’t get As were Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Davis Polk & Wardwell; and White & Case.

Cravath’s cafeteria was cited for “filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas,” according to Am Law Daily. But the firm’s food vendor issued a statement saying it would challenge the inspection report: “In the past we have been successful in overturning the inspector’s findings during the hearing.”

The full story can be found here.