Yes he is. I got a chance to sit in on his court during the Google/Oracle trial and felt confident that what ever outcome came out of the trial, he would not allow it to be sabotaged by silly lawyer gambits.

If we could have 10 like him processing cases the world would be a more just place.

If he gets elevated to the Ninth Circuit and participates in hearings along with Judge Kozinski, the courts will need a burn unit on standby :)

I'm not a lawyer but I ended up having to take a number of courses on law. One of the most heavily covered topics is procedure. Courts love their procedure.

This isn't something I'm clear on. Maybe someone here is a lawyer and can offer some insight.

Yes, he's a badass but under what rules can the judge completely disallow courtroom access for specific individuals doing representation work? I can see malfesience, disruption, or ethics being reasons - but being illprepared resulting in sanctions (? maybe, not sure of the right word, perhaps censure) against specific individuals seems like it might require a high standard, as choice of representation is a pretty solid privilege.

Like you said, a badass. Judges have awesome powers in their courtroom, but I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like this and I'm unsure of the rules surrounding it. I'm sure there are rules. Courts love their procedure. They've got rules for everything.

>"At the end of the hearing, Uber's lawyer Arturo Gonzalez made a last-ditch plea that he had a scheduling conflict. He is scheduled to pick a jury in a different trial on November 27, the Monday after Thanksgiving."

The judge told Arturo he wouldn't reschedule for him. He's not barring him from the courtroom; the judge is simply saying he's not making any more accomodations for Uber.

Yes that, and Alsup seized the opportunity be an asshole right back to Uber's counsel for all their douchebaggery in this case. I'll bet they were laughing it up at Judge Happy Hour this evening

Ah, okay. Thanks.

A judge can kick a specific attorney out of the courtroom, but I think the standards are pretty high for doing so. I don't know if that's just custom or an established rule.

Judges have some awesome powers inside their courtrooms. I find law to be a pretty fascinating subject but that is a long post for another day.

Sure but presumably, two judges scheduled events pertaining to the same attorney at the same time.

I took the question to ask more or less, "Is their any judicial obligation to avoid scheduling conflict, when the attorney is already obligated to be present at a different court-related function".

I assume this is usually granted by courtesy, but a fed up judge has no obligation to do so.

Where did you get that that particular attorney is "obligated to be present"? He's not being sued, Uber is. Uber obviously has to be there in some capacity, but they have no shortage of lawyers, both inhouse and external counsel. (That particular one is external, he works for Morrison & Foerster).

IANAL.

How is it that Alsup ended up with both of these high profile cases?

Cases aren't allocated by any random process - once you're known as the guy who does tech things, you're likely to grab those cases.

Northern district of California is a proper venue based on the civil rules (defendant's HQ almost always is), so the plaintiff files there. After that, it’s randomly assigned to one of the 14 judges, so there was roughly a 0.5% chance of Alsup getting both.

is just because he works in the area where tech companies have their headquarters?

Also Judges can request cases, and it might be that since he understands what the tech mumbo jumbo is, he got the case.

Really? I didn't know federal judges can request cases. Is that specifically a N.D. Cal. thing? I always thought cases were randomly assigned to a judge in the relevant district.

Yes, it defines the venue for civil cases.