Arkansas Blog

She may be a demo, but she is definitely not more qualified. She has never really practiced law herself. The breadth of her legal resume is clerking for Judge Crabtree who rumor has it was not too fond of her and in fact let her work from home just to keep her out of the office. (Longtime Court staffers aren't too discreet it seems)

The only reason she is even a contender is because of Ann and all of Ann's contacts in NWA.

It is a tough race, because the only two choices for an important court of appeals seat is a young, inexperienced attorney and an experienced wing nut.

Is this really all that NWA has to offer?

In response to Solon, I don't really know much about Courtney Henry and her experience, but I do know that she's pretty smart. I can also assure you that merely having practiced law a long time does not qualify anyone to be an appellate court judges, particularly in Arkansas. We have attorneys in this state who have practiced for decades who write no better than an average seventh grader. Many of them cannot perform even perfunctory research to determine if a rule is still applicable. The ability to reason and to write is vital for an appellate court judge, and being a judge of any stripe is quite a bit different from being a lawyer (some countries actually recognize this to the extent of providing judges with different educations than lawyers receive). I practice quite a bit in the state appellate courts, and I really hope to avoid having idiots, regardless of the amount of their experience, deciding cases that they wouldn't be capable of even briefing or arguing.

I would imagine that someone who has clerked on the Court of Appeals for a long time and done well enough to keep her job for eight years must be able to write and research well enough to be a more than adequate appeals court judge. Most of the cases that the Court of Appeals decides have very little, if any, ideological content, so what we really need are people who are capable of making a good decision that applies the law intelligently. Sometimes smart is a lot better than just experienced.

This really isn't a difficult choice. Any candidate endorsed by Jim Holt--any candidate who would accept an endorsement from Jim Holt--should be avoided like a case of genital herpes. Holt and his nutty ideas are like a boil on the backside of our state's body politic.

Williams was an attorney for 16 years at Wal-Mart. Yet Williams' legal skills have translated into NO support in this race from Wal-Mart while Henry's report shows solid support.

Solon---the whole "let her work from home" . . . because "not too fond of..." is . . . absurd. You've got to believe there's plenty of applicants for attorney positions, as the normal cycle is 2 years. Henry shows on her website she clerked for 6.5 with Crabtree, which is 3 times longer than traditional.

And, not many widows endorse people their husband was "not too fond of."

And that begs the question-- when you're referring to "(Longtime Court staffers aren't too discreet it seems)" do you mean longtime staffers of the Court system or are you speaking to longtime staffers of Jim Holt's Lt. Gov. or Senate race?