Judge Had The Skinny on A3G

The identity of the blogger behind the judicial gossip site “Underneath Their Robes� was outed by the New Yorker this week to much fanfare. First off — and in contradiction to his online persona — the blogger known as “Article III Groupie� is not a gossip-hungry female lawyer (he’s a man). And second, he doesn’t work at a big firm. In fact, David Lat is a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. This came as a big surprise to most Article III Groupie groupies, although many news outlets (including the New York Times) pointed out that Richard Posner, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge, last year speculated that the blogger was a man.

But for one Ninth Circuit judge, there was no mystery.

“I knew about a year ago,� said Judge Alex Kozinski, who bestowed the nickname “A3G� on Lat’s online persona. It turns out that during Kozinski’s attempt to get nominated to the list of federal judiciary “superhotties� (he eventually won), one of the judge’s clerks — a Lat law school classmate — had a hunch. And an e-mail trace proved him right. But Kozinski kept quiet, he said, out of fear that outing the blogger would bring her — um, him — professional repercussions.

— Justin Scheck