The executive branch equivalent of a "cease and desist" letter is the latest round in an ongoing battle between Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley and the University of Maryland School of Law over a lawsuit filed by the law school's environmental clinic against Perdue Farms Inc. and a Maryland chicken farm that supplies Perdue. The Governor's threats earlier this year to penalize the law school through reduced appropriations fell flat when the state legislature did not back him up. This time, the Governor is playing a moral trump card instead -- his own clinical experience as a law student:
I am not advocating that the government should dictate the clients clinics may represent or the cases they should undertake. But it is my strong belief that this case, at this juncture, is a misuse of state resources. This case, at this juncture, perpetrates an injustice. This case, given the facts now discovered, uses the economic weapon of unlimited litigation resources––namely, taxpayer supported State resources––to potentially bankrupt and destroy a family farming operation which has no recourse to similarly unlimited litigation assets.
This is not what we were taught about the high calling of justice when I was a student at the Law Clinic.
Here's the full letter. (PDF)
