July 2, 2005

THE CANDIDATES -- All those whom President Bush is expected to consider for the bench may be conservative, but each has a different political and philosophical profile. PAGE A13 THE SENATE -- The Senate is girding for a confirmation fight, and the chairman of its Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, above, is facing a crucial test. PAGE A12 THE WHITE HOUSE -- The first real hint of a vacancy came Thursday when a marshal at the Supreme Court said she had a sealed envelope to be delivered on Friday. PAGE A12 THE TIMING -- A number of factors compelled Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to decide on retirement now, including the medical condition of her husband. PAGE A12

SITTING in the back of a town car this past Wednesday, as his driver pulled away from the federal courthouse and headed toward his hotel in Midtown Manhattan, William S. Lerach reached for a ringing cellphone in the pocket of his natty suit. How had his day gone, asked the person on the other end. ''We went two for two,'' said Mr. Lerach, the most aggressive, feared and controversial plaintiffs' lawyer in the land. ''It was a good day.'' No, he didn't mean he'd won two cases -- but what he'd won was almost as important. In two hearings, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, Mr. Lerach's San Diego-based firm, had been named lead counsel. For Mr. Lerach -- indeed, for every big-time lawyer who makes his living suing companies on behalf of an aggrieved ''class'' of shareholders -- being named lead counsel is the key to everything. The lead counsel controls the case. He negotiates the fees. And best of all, the lead counsel takes most of the lawyer's cut: 20 percent to 30 percent of whatever he ultimately extracts from the big bad corporation.

THE sun glowered, the traffic crawled, and the bay air reeked of salt on a wound. Things were hot again in Howard Beach, and there was nothing to do yesterday but wait once more for Sharpton. Wait, wait, wait. Two days earlier, a young white man named Nicholas Minucci had used a baseball bat to beat a young black man named Glenn Moore, who had the misfortune to stumble while being chased out of a white residential neighborhood at 3 in the morning. If he had doubts about the honor of Mr. Moore's intentions, Mr. Minucci could have called 911 -- but that might have summoned painful memories of 9/11, when he honored the fallen by shooting paintballs at Sikhs.

Around 9:30 Friday morning, C. Boyden Gray, founder of the Committee for Justice, a conservative group that is a leading ally of President Bush, was sipping coffee at his Georgetown residence and confessing mild frustration to a reporter for The New York Times about the waiting game for a Supreme Court retirement. Suddenly he got a text message and expressed that emotion rare for stage-managed Washington: surprise. ''An O'Connor resignation was not one we took seriously,'' Mr. Gray said, rushing out the door to begin deploying his troops.

Of the migrating species, the piping plover is one of those listed by federal conservationists as ''threatened,'' while humans with beach houses, to judge from current demographic trends, are thriving beyond measure. The plover flies up from the Gulf of Mexico in late March, mates, and begins nesting just above the high tide line of the ocean beaches here. The humans arrive in late May, spend roughly a month settling into their beach homes, then begin their party season. To coincide with local fireworks displays, the season usually begins with a big bash on the Fourth of July.