Inadmissible: Busting a Rhyme

It’s a new year in Washington, D.C. Back on Dec. 19, 2013, President Barack Obama nominated his first Texan, U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On Jan. 9, despite U.S. Sen. John Cornyn‘s massive differences with the president over just about everything, the Lone Star State’s senior senator blessed that nomination. “I have a lot of confidence in Judge Costa,” said Cornyn, a Senate Judiciary Committee member. He and former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison “recommended him for a district court nomination, and we are working very closely with the White House,” Cornyn said. “I support the nomination,” he added. “He’s a solid appointment.” Costa hasn’t been on the trial bench that long. In 2011, the president nominated Costa—a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Texas who helped send financier R. Allen Stanford to prison for 110 years—to the trial bench on the recommendation of Cornyn and Hutchison. Obama nominated Costa to replace Judge Fortunato “Pete” Benavides, who took senior status in 2012. Costa did not return a call for comment. A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who replaced Hutchison in the Senate, also did not return a call for comment. Speaking of Texas’ junior senator, Cruz has something in common with Obama’s Democratic nominee to the Fifth Circuit: Both served as law clerks for the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

Busting a Rhyme

When thinking about an attorney, the image of a poet doesn’t generally come to mind. But perhaps it should. “I think law can eat up your soul, especially trial law. I think being creative allows your humanity to come out. As lawyers, especially trial lawyers, we have to put up with a lot of negative things: difficult opposing counsel; extremely negative outcomes; a lot of frustration. I think this probably heals some of that,” explained Jeff Akins, a lawyer and a poet. He’s a member of a monthly poetry group that another lawyer, Darby Riley, started 20 years ago, after taking a poetry class at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. Each member writes a poem and passes it out; the group discusses each one. Two decades after Riley, a partner in Riley & Riley in San Antonio, started the group, six to 12 poets meet at his law office for the critique session. After 37 years counseling clients, Riley said he doesn’t write much about the law. Instead, news articles provided inspiration for Riley’s recent poems about the universe and the science of sex. Akins, a member of the poetry group for about 10 years, said some of his recurring topics are his loved ones and his work as a litigator. Both lawyers said practicing poetry makes their legal writing better. Akins noted that the poets sometimes spend five minutes discussing the placement of one comma in a poem. That level of scrutiny made Akins “pay attention to every word” in his legal writing, he said. Riley said he thinks judges neither want nor like “to see rote-type and unimaginative ways of presenting things. They want it succinct, and poetry is very succinct.” Better writing isn’t the only benefit of poetry. Both Riley and Akins said it’s a creative release from the legal world. “It is a release. You reach into your soul to write poetry at any level,” explained Akins. “I was amazed at the creative feeling that one had, and then you write something, and other people are moved by it or affected by it. …’” Visit the Tex Parte Blog to read the lawyers’ poems.

Johnny NFL