We're standing by in the virtual courtroom for @CraigMurrayOrg's trial to begin. Our tweets will be on this thread. More info on the case can be found at

A thread on the most unusual “victim advocate” case I handled. Not, oddly, a SA case. This is a story for NCOs & JOs especially. 1/

I was a LT (O3) assigned to USS Mount Whitney. Not a surface warfare officer, so while they stood command duty officer watches in port, I stood the lesser officer watch: Officer of the Deck. A nonrate was often assigned to my watch team as Messenger of the Watch: 2/

Let’s call her Laila. She was a seaman (E3) w/no rating (MOS), so she chipped paint & handled lines etc in Deck Department. She was 35yo, had a BA, & spoke two languages flawlessly—English & Farsi. She was SQUARED AWAY. But: she was from Iran. Came to the US as a child 3/

to go to school & live w/her older brother, a doctor. This was 1979. She got stuck in the US during the Revolution, became a US citizen. Joined the USN when her brother was killed in a car wreck. Most of the sailors called her “The Terrorist.” She did not fit in. 4/

She was VERY squared away, & always chipper & upbeat. She was a runner. She saved every penny, trying to get enough $ to get her youngest brother to Jordan & then to help him apply for a US visa & eventually citizenship. She wanted to strike for linguist, but still had 5/

In a final address, @JusticeATR Makan Delrahim says some of the changes recommended by House Judiciary are "quite sensible." DOJ needs more funding for antitrust, and he backs higher filing fees for mergers.

He has six recommendations: 1) Create bright line rules and alter burden of proof for mergers.

“Courts need additional guidance in these cases.” In cases where a company has more than 50 percent market share, burden should be on merging parties for any transaction in that market, he says

DOJ would still have to prove the market definition and the market share of the dominant firm.

WHY DO BRITISH LAWYERS STILL WEAR WIGS?

WRITTEN BY LAURIE L. DOVE

- Wigs, when not used to cover syphilis-related hair loss, were a big help for those who had lice.

- Wigs began to catch on in the late 16th century when an increasing number of people in Europe were contracting the STD.

- Long hair was all the rage, and premature balding was a dead giveaway that someone had contracted syphilis.

The drama of a criminal trial has a macabre allure. In America, strangers line up to enter courtrooms as spectators of high-profile proceedings. Those who can't be there in person watch live-streamed versions on televisions and tablets.

And when there's downtime from real-life court battles, many turn instead to pseudo-fictional primetime portrayals.

But when was the last time you saw lawyer or judge wearing a powdered wig?

While this isn't a tradition you'll find in America (excepting historic re-enactments), in England wigs remain an important part of formal courtroom attire for judges and barristers — the term there for lawyers.

A #WomanQuestion thread about Brill's prestigious & long-running Studies Islamic Law & Society series. I'm looking at stats as I attempt to understad how gendered (& racialized) hierarchies of prestige operate to construct subfields w/in Islamic Studies

From its first in 1996 (Sherman Jackson on al-Qarafi) to its most recent in 2020 (Rudolph Peters' essays on Egyptian & Islamic law), the series includes 41 monographs & 10 edited volumes, of which 3 are festschriften.

Of the 41 monographs published over 25 years, 5 (12%) are by women. The first was Miriam Hoexter (#6 in the series), in 1998.

The next, the still-regnant study of maslaha by Felicitas Opwis, was published a dozen years & two dozen titles later (#31).

There was far less of a break before Sabrina Joseph's monograph exploring Hanafi regulation of tenants & sharecroppers in 17th-19th C Syria