THE ROBING ROOM

The good news is he always comes to court on time. The bad news is that by the time you're done, you will wish he hadn't and question the Senate's wisdom in ever confirming this guy for a life time appointment to the federal bench. Let's just say FEMA is not the only victim of cronyism appointments in recent years. This is the guy who dismisses cases with prejudice and/or enters a default judgment, depening on whether it is the plaitiff or defendant who does not show up for a routine status. I don't know of any new Seventh Circuit law that would NOT call that an abuse of discretion. The guy's problem is that he has never been in private practice, and has spent his entire career working for the DOJ/INS as an Administrative Law Judge. If anyone has closely watched what the Seventh Circuit has been doing to those ALJ's lately, you would get a pretty good idea of this judge's ability.