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Nov 9, 2020

Sidebar shakes family tree, finds N.C.’s first female lawyer

Sidebar knows that many attorneys are history buffs, and we recently came across a tidbit that’s germane to not only our history, but practice of law in North Carolina as well. It’s well-known in legal circles that Tabitha Anne Holton was the first woman in North Carolina to get a law license. Her attorney, Albion […]

Apr 17, 2018

The ghost of Charlotte past

We don’t intend to keep beating a dead horse. Or to kick a law school while it’s defunct. Or to imply that it didn’t produce some outstanding graduates and attorneys. But nearly nine months after the Charlotte School of Law was forcibly shuttered, it is still underperforming. The month before it closed, 34 percent of […]

Jul 5, 2017

Bring on the mimosa

A running “funny” in this Sidebar reporter’s household is calling mimosas — the wonderful concoction of champagne and citrus juice — “mimosos.” The colloquialism spawned from an episode of “Bridezillas” in which the nettled wife-to-be exclaimed that while she didn’t know what a “mimoso” was, she wanted one and didn’t have one. That same sentiment, […]

Jan 12, 2017

Seeking comment

An attempt to speak with a press person at the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office about an opinion from the state Supreme Court resulted in a trip down the bureaucratic rabbit hole earlier this month. The office is in the midst of a transition, as our readers know, and its longtime spokeswoman, Noelle Talley, followed […]

Jan 6, 2017

Ready to launch

Imagine heading out for a drive – a trip to the store or the cleaners, and the next thing you know, you’re on the roof of a house. It happened in Winston-Salem on Dec. 30. The Associated Press reported that at 4 in the afternoon, a woman was out for a drive, hit a hill […]

Mar 31, 2016

Cell sweet home

A facetiously nicknamed 30-year-old Colorado law aimed at protecting citizens in the friendly confines of their own homes has become deadly serious, prompting lawmakers to try and clarify what a dwelling is. In prison, it’s not uncommon to hear an inmate refer to his cell as his “house.” But who knew that two judges would […]

Dec 28, 2015

Fired trooper, take two

The state trooper fired in 2009 for lying to his superiors about what happened to his $45 state-issued, wide-brimmed hat has been granted a new lease on life by the North Carolina Supreme Court. In its Dec. 18 decision, the court ordered the case of then-22-year-old Thomas Wetherington remanded first to the Court of Appeals […]

Sep 15, 2015

No Sidebar?!

We here at Sidebar are generally not fond of things that aim to eliminate sidebar, but upon closer inspection of a recent headline, the proposition of a federal judge in Iowa seems to be more juror-friendly than Sidebar-detrimental. As reported by the ABA Journal, U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett of Sioux City hopes to implement […]

Aug 5, 2015

After Heien, exception now swallowing the rule

Ignorance of the law is no excuse—or it wasn’t until last December, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even a police officer’s incorrect beliefs about the law could sufficiently justify a traffic stop, so long as the officer’s mistake was “objectively reasonable.” According to a new report, police departments across the country have been […]

Aug 5, 2015

Medium is the message in quarrel over quaffs

In Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Antony describes his crocodile as “shap’d, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth; it is just as high as it is, and … of its own color too.” Sadly, Instagram didn’t exist in the Bard’s day, for Antony’s description really could’ve benefitted from the help […]

Jul 28, 2015

Two birds, one stone

If you are friends with a drug dealer, do not spend the night at his place. If you do spend the night at his place, do not have drugs in your car, lest the police raid his home and take you down with him. This life lesson was learned by David Lowe in September 2013 […]

Jul 23, 2015

Baked on a plane

Sarah Buffett once told our sister publication, The Mecklenburg Times, that she fought the Department of Homeland Security for a living. “But I don’t always win,” Buffett, 41, said in the 2012 interview. Well she now finds herself in another battle with the agency, and she’s losing. And losing badly. After allegedly causing a mid-air […]

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