Mark your calendar: Cato Constitution Day Sept. 15

Two weeks from this Thursday, on Sept. 15, Cato is holding its annual Constitution Day in Washington, D.C., just down the street from the Institute offices (which are undergoing renovation). The event will celebrate the publication of the 10th annual Cato Supreme Court Review and panelists will include familiar names like Jonathan Adler, Orin Kerr, Roger Pilon, Ilya Shapiro, Andrew Trask and many others. I’ll be moderating a panel on “Federalism, Civil Procedure, Business, and the Proper Judicial Role,” which will discuss among other topics the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes. The closing lecture will be given by Judge Alex Kozinski. How can you not plan to attend?

“Drinking is a ‘handicap,’ fired former Florida State administrator says”

Fired after allegations of being abusive toward staff, Frank “Stephenson said the university should have provided ‘reasonable accommodations’ for his handicap of alcoholism, which the suit says his supervisors were aware of. State law prohibits discriminating against a person with a handicap.” [Orlando Sentinel; background; & welcome Above the Law readers]

Update: Mary Roberts disbarred

More legal consequences of the lurid Texas “Internet paramour extortion scheme” (as the ABA Journal calls it); Above the Law; earlier. Among highlights of the saga: testimony for the lawyer-husband at his criminal trial from a former bar president who said Ted Roberts was just behaving as lawyers do when he sent demand letters to his wife’s lovers under threat of exposing them in legal action (“litigation is coercive”); and an unsuccessful libel suit against the San Antonio Express-News, which had reported on the couple’s doings.