Wexis the Pusher

Still working on the “Wexis is Evil” paper and I ran across this great bit from this recent story in the DC Bar magazine:

And the new users who were entering the system—new associates—were already the focus of a massive marketing effort by LexisNexis and Thomson West that began in law school. The legal research giants spend millions every year providing free access to their services, countless hours of training, and unlimited printing to law school students. Add a hip tchotchke or two, and it might be possible to engender brand loyalty for life. “It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say they’re very much like drug dealers,” says Tanya Thomas, a lawyer and law librarian at Spiegel & McDiarmid. “They get you hooked so you don’t know how to do the research any other way.”

How are those Wexis points treating you today? How snazzy is that new insulated coffee mug? Hey look, did you know you can look up criminal records for people you know? Have another hit, kids, it's all part of the massive inflation of costs in the legal profession, starting with law school and permeating every little inch of the field. Addictive schmaddictive! That's why you're going to take that BigLaw job and sell your soul to the highest bidder, remember?

Posted 02:05 PM | Comments (9) | 2L law general

Didn't Wouldn't Couldn't Don't Won't Phooey!

As I work on this paper, I'm reminded: The prohibition against contractions in legal writing is as pretentiously ridiculous and meaningless as is the attempt to make a serious distinction between “lawyer” and “attorney.” To quote tph:

People. Get over yourselves.

See also tph's followup on the lawyer/attorney distinction, emphasizing the counseling aspect of legal practice. Excellent points. Why don't law professors talk like this more often?

Posted 08:29 PM | Comments (1) | 2L law school

Wexis Data, Anyone?

Since I know you're all full of knowledge on all kinds of crazy topics, I have another question for you: I'm writing a journal article (due very very soon) that basically argues that Westlaw/Lexis should be freely available to all, both as a matter of copyright law and public policy. (I recognize that this is quixotic, but I think it's worth making the argument, anyway.) Do you know of any anecdotal or statistical evidence that the cost of online legal research is a burden on solo practitioners, legal aid attorneys, or public defenders? I'm especially interested in any evidence that the cost of legal research can actually affect legal outcomes (e.g., cases where a solo or public defender lost a case b/c he/she was outgunned in the research dept.). If you have stories about this kind of thing yourself, or if you know where I could find this kind of information, please let me know. Um, ASAP. ;-) Thanks! p.s.: Also, if you have any thoughts on the topic generally, I'd certainly be interested in hearing those, as well. Do you see any legal or public policy arguments for/against the current scheme of for-profit legal research?

Posted 02:44 PM | Comments (6) | 2L law general

2L Summer Job Update

Thanks to everyone who threw in their two or twenty cents in response to my question about the 2L summer job. You all gave me a lot to think about and I was able to make the decision feeling confident I'd considered nearly all angles. The decision? I took the job with the PD office where I worked last summer. Although in an ideal world I would be able to get experience with a different PD's office this summer, I think this was the right choice for several reasons:

1. I know the office and the people and they know me so I can hit the ground running and get more experience and responsibility, hopefully making it into court representing misdemeanor defendents on my own all the sooner.
2. It's getting a bit late to be looking for summer jobs around here and the GW summer stipend deadline is approaching, so it seemed better to take a job where I knew I'd get good experience rather than holding out for a hypothetical job I might not even get and which might not give me the same level of experience even if I did get it.
3. While I almost certainly could have found another good PD job somewhere for the summer, I live with my girlfriend and my dog and I'd really rather not leave them for the summer, not to mention the added expense and hassle of doing so.
4. I'm currently in a civil law clinic and plan to take at least one crimlaw clinic next fall, plus I've been working for a civil law nonprofit for the past six months, so I'll end up with lots of diverse experience, despite working in the same office for two summers.
5. The next several weeks are going to be busy enough; it will be nice to be relieved of the worry of whether I'm going to have a good job this summer.

There are probably other things I'm forgetting, but that's the gist of it. The decision was complicated a bit by a really great interview with excellent people at the crimlaw policy nonprofit, as well as by a callback from another crimlaw policy place with which I also interviewed a couple of weeks ago. In the end, I realized that, while I do hope someday to work on the policy aspect of criminal justice, right now I feel compelled to work directly with people and do what I can on that level. Again, I thank everyone for helping me consider the options here, which special thanks to Blonde Justice and Arbitrary and Capricious who generously shared their first-hand perspectives. I'll definitely keep you posted on whether this turns out to be the right decision...

Posted 02:32 PM | Comments (5) | 2L law school

Best Simple Browser Shortcut Ever

I don't know where I read this, and it's probably not news to most people, but if you don't know about it and you use a web browser, you're missing out. What is it? Command-L. (Control-L on Windows. Or is it Alt-L? I can never remember.) Command-L is a keyboard shortcut in almost every browser (including Firefox, Safari, and Explorer) that moves the cursor to the browser's address bar and selects everything it finds there. This is incredibly handy when you're finished reading a page and know where you want to go next—just hit Command-L and start typing your next destination. It also makes it simple to copy a URL. For example, if you're creating a blog post and want to link to something you can:

1. hit command-L (to select the URL in the address bar),
2. command-c (to copy the URL),
3. command-tab (to switch from browser to ecto or whatever desktop blogging client you use), and
4. command-v (to paste the URL).

That might sound complicated, but it's only four keystrokes and once you're used to it, you'll do it in about two seconds. Trust me, it's awesome. It works on Windows, too, but I think with control as the modifier for the L, C, and V, and alt as the modifier for tab (to switch programs). If you're using ecto you don't need to do the last step (command-v) because in ecto you just hit command-u and ecto pastes the contents of the clipboard inside an anchor tag, then leaves the cursor ready for you to add the text for the link. Or if you've already selected some text when you type command-u, that text becomes your link text and the anchor tags appear on either end of the selected text (w/the URL you had on the clipboard pasted properly inside). If that doesn't make sense, download ecto and try it. You will find that it rocks, I promise. If you do not use ecto but you do use a mac, I also highly recommend BlogAssist, which gives you a system-wide drop-down menu containing whatever code you use most frequently. Like ecto, BlogAssist can also automatically insert the contents of the clipboard in the appropriate places. It can be a big time saver.

Posted 01:57 PM | mac geek meta-blogging

When Blogs Do Good

Changing the tone but continuing the discussion of how blogs are changing the media landscape, the accountability of public figures, and more, Peggy Noonan makes a convincing case in support of blogs as a positive force in public discourse. [link via Scripting News] To briefly summarize, she argues that one of the main advantages bloggers have over traditional journalists is that they are free to write about whatever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want, etc., allowing them to cover things in greater depth and with greater persistence and tenacity and candor than professional journalism allows. This is how blogs can make the invisible visible, and keep it that way, and I agree that this is a huge public service. Noonan also argues that the best journalists have been those who have learned their craft from experience rather than through formal “training” or education, so they've got nothing on bloggers there. Meanwhile, she suggests that the blogosphere uses peer review and an economy of status and respect to take care of the “fact-checking” or “ethical-checking” function that editors provide to professional journalists—if you're an unethical or untrustworthy blogger, no one's going to respect or read you, so you'll just disappear. There's more worth saying about this, but I've got to run so maybe later... See also: Thoughts on this from a j-school professor [also via Scripting News].

Posted 08:54 AM | meta-blogging

Lynn Stewart II

Following up on last week's post about Lynn Stewart: The Legal Ethics Forum has a couple of great posts on the subject. First, Lynn Stewart's Betrayal argues that:

For those of us who believe that criminal defense attorneys are sometimes targeted unfairly by prosecutors, Stewart’s status as the test case deprives us of the high moral ground, makes her unusual case appear to be the paradigm case, and detracts public attention from the more urgent issues.  Stewart betrayed the criminal defense bar itself.

Author John Steele goes on to explain what he means, providing great insight into what was at stake in the Stewart trial and what might be its possible ramifications for criminal defense lawyers involved in terrorism/security-related trials. He also offers pointers to some of the key parts of the Stewart trial transcript. Now I only wish I had time to go read them. See also: A first reaction from Alaskablawg in which he says “it appears that this case is not so clear cut and there is reasonable grounds for disagreement about what this means.” For a more pointed perspective, see David Cole's article in The Nation, in which he argues that the Stewart case “case illustrates how out of hand things have gotten in the 'war on terrorism.'” The piece follows what to me looks like the obvious line—what Stewart did violated an agreement, but at worst that's a matter for professional discipline rather than criminal charges carrying possibly decades of prison time. Cole argues that proving otherwise was no easy task, but Ashcroft's DOJ was up to the task:

So how did the prosecution meet its burden? With classic McCarthy-era tactics: fearmongering and guilt by association.

Cole's conclusion is the best part:

Let me be clear: I think Stewart crossed the line from zealous advocacy to wrongful conduct. But she is no terrorist. At most she deserves a disciplinary proceeding before the bar. Sending her to prison will provide another statistic in the Justice Department's desperate effort to show results in the “war on terrorism,” but it will not make us any safer. One of the defining evils of terrorism is that it uses human beings' lives to send a political message. Has the Justice Department done any differently here?

Posted 08:32 AM | law general

Tuition Dreams & Nightmares

Now that people are filling out FAFSAs and thinking about financing another year of law school, Mackenzie, a law student at the University of Wyoming, offers some thoughts on UW's proposed tuition hike:

It appears that the Law School may get a tuition increase of somewhere in the range of 40% over the next few years. Strangely enough, I'm ok with this. It's a big change, but these funds will be given directly to the law school, which is the big benefit (otherwise, I'd be up in arms). The school really needs the money, considering our entire budget is about $4 million. And it's not that our tuition will be that expensive relative to other schools. We're already probably the least expensive school in the country. To give non-UWLaw people an idea, my (resident) tuition and fees this year is south of $6k.

Damn! I should have gone to the University of Wyoming for law school! Imagine getting a J.D. for under $20k for the whole shooting match! Of course, if you add in cost of living, maybe you double that, but the in-state Wyoming tuition-payer would still be getting three years of law school for what I pay for one year. Excuse me, I must now return to selling my soul to satan.

Posted 08:19 AM | Comments (9) | law school

Capital Weather

It's snowing now in DC, with 4-6 inches likely. Schools are closing all over the place, but not GW. ;-( If you're a DC metro dweller and you enjoy accurate weather forecasts, there's absolutely no better resource than CapitalWeather.com. If/when I leave the DC area, I will miss getting candid and accurate weather updates like this. Their “staff” photographer posts incredible pictures of the region, as well.

Posted 06:13 AM | Comments (2) | life generally

Threads worth watching:

Lots of discussion going on at:

• Preaching to the Perverted who asks: What kind of wireless support does your law school offer?
• Jeremy Richey, who argues that his school's Christian Legal Society should be able to officially exclude students from leadership positions on the basis of their sexuality. Related: Since when is “sanctity of conscience” a “right”?
• One of today's guest posts at Notes from the (Legal) Underground in which a law student/software developer explains how his software could benefit other law students, leading to brief discussion of writing/research tools.
• Legal Quandary's request for info about moving to DC.
• For something totally unrelated: Dave Winer's argument against Google's new toolbar and it's autolink feature is on fire, comment-wise.

Posted 05:29 PM | Comments (1) | lists

“Blawg” & Blawg Republic

I learned yesterday that Denise Howell of Bag and Baggage coined the word “blawg” in the sense of “legal-related blog.” Since I use the word all the time now and made such a big (sort of) deal about it in this article, I wanted to give credit where it's due. I know some people do not find the word helpful, and it becomes less useful if you're speaking rather than writing, but I obviously think it's a great contraction in a web-writing context, so thank you, Denise. And speaking of blawg, have you seen Blawg Republic? Is your blawg listed there? This one isn't, but I'm wondering why Blawg Wisdom is listed under “Law Professors”. I mean, it would be nice if I were a law professor, or if professors wanted to contribute more to the advice on the site, but....

Posted 06:24 AM | Comments (3) | law general meta-blogging

2L Summer Job Question

One year ago at this time I faced a dilemma about what to do for my 1L summer. Several of you, my kind readers, offered advice that proved invaluable—you said work for the public defender, I did, I loved it, and now I'm planning to make that my career. With that in mind, the time has come to make another career/summer job decision, and once more I seek your advice. Here's the situation: I worked last summer for a great PD's office where I had a great experience and learned an incredible amount about being a PD. It's a small office (only about a dozen attorneys) in a medium-sized city. I'm thrilled that they have asked me to return this summer, and I'd love to do so. But my question is this: Should I go back to the same PD office I worked in last year, or will that look bad to future public defender employers? The benefits of going back to the same job are that I know them and how things work in the office so I should be able to help them out more and get more responsibility in return. The office is also in a jurisdiction that allows 2Ls to get a “second year practice certificate” so I could represent misdemeanor defendants in court (w/a licensed attorney present and ready to step in at any moment if I start to screw up). Also, returning to the same job should send a message to future employers that I did well there, they liked my work, which seems like a good message to send. So basically, it would be an awesome opportunity that would give me some really good experience. The drawbacks I see are simply that if I return to the same job, my only real knowledge of being a PD will come from this one office and it just seems like it might be a good idea to see how another office does things. What do you think? If you were looking at hiring a new PD, would it matter whether the candidate had spent two summers in the same PD office, or would that make no difference? Any thoughts you have would be appreciated. (Please feel free to throw in your two cents even if you're not a PD yourself or never have been. I'm just trying to make sure I see all the angles here.) Thanks!

Posted 08:51 AM | Comments (16) | 2L advice law school

Ambivalent Voices: Synecdochic

The latest edition of Ambivalent Voices is now available for your downloading pleasure (or you can get it via RSS here). This edition explains why “synecdoche” or some variation of it would make a great blog/blawg name. After recording it, I decided my favorite variation would be “synecdochic,” because it could be pronounced so many different ways, depending on where you put the emphasis, and it just looks and sounds cool. The podcasting experiment continues to slowly evolve, this time with the introduction of simple “bumpers” —little bits of music to lead into and out of the podcast. The bumpers come by means of GarageBand, which also helped reduce a little of the background noise in the recording and helped cut the file size in half for faster downloading. (Side note: This was my first time playing w/GarageBand and I can already see I probably shouldn't have started b/c I might never want to stop. It's very cool, esp. for something that comes free w/new macs.) If you would like to say anything at all on Ambivalent Voices (ok, anything w/in reason that can be said in five minutes or less), let me know and we'll set it up. Your soapbox or comedic stage is waiting!

Posted 06:46 AM | Comments (3) | voices

Goodbye Blogrolling, Hello Del.icio.us (maybe)

When Tucows bought Blogrolling.com last year, everyone figured the days of free were over. I was pleasantly surprised when nothing on my account seemed to change. However, I just got a message from Blogrolling telling me I'll need to pay $20/year from now on to use the service at my current level (I have 10 blogrolls, although I only actually use about four). Um, no. The links in the sidebar (“ambivalent links”) are now coming courtesy of the del.icio.us bookmark manager. (Thanks to the RSSfeed plugin and these tips from MovableBlog.) What you see here is only a selection; it's supposed to be the links I try to visit daily, or as often as possible. Unfortunately, it appears that del.icio.us is truncating the feed. The list should contain about 4o links, but only 31 are showing up in the feed. If you understand these things and can tell me if there's a way to make del.icio.us send the whole list, please let me know. At any rate, the current list includes a few blawgs, a few blogs, a couple of news sources, and a few photoblogs. Ironically, many of the sites I visit most frequently are actually not on this list b/c I visit them directly (by typing in the URL) instead of relying on a link list to get me to my destination. As I discover more of these, I'll add them to the del.icio.us list. The new sidebar also contains separate sections for GW blawgs and Blawgcoop blawgs (obviously), all of which I try to visit on a regular basis, as well. If you miss some of the additional links that have long appeared in the “ambivalent links” sidebar on this page, you'll probably find what you're looking for on my del.icio.us page under the tags blawg or blog. If you'd like to narrow further in the law-related category, or if you'd just prefer to surf links that are all of one type (all blawgs by law students, for example), lawstudent, attorney, and professor are all subcategories of “blawg.” If you're not yet familiar w/del.icio.us, it's a bookmark service that allows you to save bookmarks and “tag” them with keywords so you can find them later and so all similar content can be grouped together. It's also a social networking tool because in addition to your own links, you can see all the links all other users have tagged with the same keywords, or you can see all the other users who have bookmarked a certain page. It's cool. It's free. And considered as a replacement for Blogrolling.com, it's even more useful b/c it makes it even easier to add, sort, and display URLs, which were all the reasons I liked Blogrolling in the first place. Of course, if del.icio.us won't send the full feed, it's not really going to do what I want, so I may have to look for a new blogroll solution. Any suggestions?

Posted 07:44 AM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.

Gonzo journalist and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas apparently shot himself yesterday. Salon has a good selection of interviews with and articles about Thompson that cover fairly well the contributions he made to journalism and public perception in the last 30-40 years. Personally, I read Fear and Loathing early in college and it completely blew my mind. I'd dig up my copy but I long ago loaned it to someone and never got it back. This brief excerpt pretty well captures the flavor of it—stream of consciousness with a dark comic edge, Jack Kerouac flung headlong and screaming into the 1970s. I hope I never forget the scene in the book where Duke is sitting at a bar in a casino, high as a kite, and he becomes convinced the place is crawling with lizards. There's a bit of it here:

Right next to me a huge reptile was gnawing on a woman’s neck, the carpet was a blood-soaked sponge-impossible to walk on it, no footing at all. “Order some golf shoes,” I whispered. “Otherwise, we’ll never get out of this place alive. You notice these lizards don’t have any trouble moving around in this muck—that’s because they have claws on their feet.”

Trust me, in its proper context that bit will make you howl with laughter. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. I thought the movie was all right, as well. See also: The complete script from the 1998 film version of the book.

Posted 07:08 AM | Comments (3) | ai books

Audio Addictions & Sidebars

As I continue to swoon over “Bright Eyes,” I have also fallen head over heels in love with Annie, and specifically with a song called “Me Plus One” which I just happened to get ahold of through a serendipitous online find. The album ( “Anniemal”) hasn't been released in the U.S. yet, but it's described here as “electro, synth pop.” If you'd like to hear it, check out the website where you can hear it streamed just by loading the page (I assume that's the magic of Flash?). For a super strange, um, musical experience, try listening the “Annie FM” stream; it seems to be a very eclectic mix of music, possibly handpicked by Annie herself (she seems to be DJing, since she introduces some of the tracks and comments from time to time). I'm obviously a sucker for breathy vocals over relatively spare pop foundations. I am not a complicated connoisseur, to say the least. Plus, well, Annie is apparently Norwegian, so you just know it's gotta be good. I am also a big fat sucker for The Arcade Fire. As my very own most magical musical friend indicated when she told me about this group, The Arcade Fire is best played very very loudly, possibly in a place where you can jump around a lot. Especially “Rebellion (Lies).” Oh, and if you'd like to see what music is spinning the ambivalent head at any given time, you need only glance at “ambivalent musics,” one of the new sidebars here on the imbroglio. (It's way down on the right—scroll scroll scroll past all those links and you'll run into it.) The tracks are what I've played most recently in iTunes and they appear here via an RSS feed generated by Audioscrobbler, thanks to the magic of the MT RSSfeed plugin. The “musics” sidebar is joined by the new “voices” sidebar, which should always show the most recent podcasts I've created via Slapcast.com. That list may never change, depending on whether I figure out exactly what I want to do w/podcasts, but, well, it's there for now, just in case.

Posted 09:00 AM | Comments (3) | ai music

More Thoughts for Future Law Students

After Brett's question the other day, and thanks to the Scoplaw's recent note about Duncan Kennedy, I went back to the archives and found an extended discussion about the value of a law school rank in attending law school, along with a bit more about my impressions of GW as of last fall. The discussion is in the comments to this post, and those of you who are currently trying to figure out where to attend law school might be interested in some of what you'll find there. The discussion started when reader Phil asked whether I was satisfied with my decision to go to law school. I answered, in part:

I have not gotten to the point where if I had it to do over again I wouldn't go, but, I know this: If I had it to do over again, I would have done everything possible to minimize the cost. To do this, I would have picked schools to apply to based on cost first, location second, and rank third. I probably would have gone to a state school, and in order to get in-state tuition I would have moved there for a year and temped or whatever in order to qualify for residency. Unless you want to work at a firm, I really think the rank business is a crock of crap. So the most dissatifying thing is the cost and the way I'm feeling increasingly strait-jacketed with debt. Another source of dissatisfaction is the classes themselves, which I've complained about before b/c they're so large, allow almost no discussion of material, don't even attemp to teach critical thinking or a critical approach to the matieral [sic], etc.

GW professor Orin Kerr (who writes regularly at the Volokh Conspiracy) joined the discussion, and I especially recommend it to those of you thinking about GW b/c he offers his view of student satisfaction at the school. He also offers tips on getting the most out of law school that could probably apply to any school. For the record, I continue to disagree w/Prof. Kerr about how important school rank is for many public interest jobs. He argues that public/private employers give similar weight to where you went to law school and what your GPA was, but I've been told by countless public interest employers that that's just not true. Public defenders, for example, certainly care about your school and GPA, but they care just as much—or often more—about your extracurriculars, your demonstrated commitment to social justice, public service, and the kind of work they'll ask you to do (in this case, criminal defense). A high GPA does not necessarily correlate in any way with a commitment to the principles and mission of a public interest employer, and since there won't be a big fat paycheck to motivate their new hires, it only makes sense for public interest employers to care much more about demonstrated commitment than about grades or school rank. As I mentioned, this post was sparked by the Scoplaw's mention of Duncan Kennedy's essay, “Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy.” I can't help but point out in this connection that, according to Kennedy's logic in that essay, law professors, law school administrators, and many legal professionals will always tell you that rank, prestige, and GPA are important factors in your success as a lawyer. If you dare to think that's not the case, you'll be breaking out of the hierarchy for which law school is preparing you, and we couldn't have that, could we? Because I think tangentially, I'd also raise in this connection the whole idea of Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) statutes as yet another way the legal profession protects its status quo, preserves this hierarchy, and stands in the way of a legal system that really serves people rather than simply protecting property. That's a debate for another day, but I mention it only b/c, hey, if you're thinking about going to law school, it's another part of what you're getting yourself into. UPDATE: See also: Does Law School Rank Determine Success? [link via JD2B]

Posted 09:52 AM | Comments (2) | law school

What is Rational Discourse?

Professor Althouse, possibly the most prolific blogger ever,*is now, according to the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times, possibly one of the most widely read, as well. Whatever the truth of that, she's the subject of a story about blogging in the paper in which she reiterates an argument she's made recently on her blog:

Althouse said many of the politically left-leaning blogs are so strident they tend to be “self-marginalizing.” Conservative bloggers tend to be smoother and more reasoned, which makes for more convincing arguments, she said.

Althouse recently received an “instalanche” (an avalanche of links after being mentioned on Instapundit) for pointing out that the NY Times changed a headline several times on a story about the Iraqi elections. Althouse suggested that the Times was changing the headline from something positive to something negative, and that the text of the story itself never changed. (See also her followup.) Without getting into the merits of the ensuing controversy, what interested me most was that it sparked a dismayed post from Althouse about the differences she perceives in the tone and approach of bloggers on the left and right. She begins by claiming to be a “political moderate”:

More than any ideology, I care about rational discourse. In the year that I've been blogging I've taken a lot of different positions, some left and some right. What I've noticed, over and over, is that the bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side. Why is this happening? I find it terribly, terribly sad.

I disagree with some of the details of this, but I agree with the gist of it. First, I would point out that if you care about “rational discourse,” you care about an ideology—the ideology of rational discourse. It's an Enlightenment ideology that pretends that things like “objectivity” and “reasonable standards” actually exist, even as it actively attempts to deny the ways in which these concepts are continuously manipulated by competing factions in society to serve their own ends. I've seen from my own reading that Althouse does not follow a consistent “party line” in a sense that would be either Democratic or Republican, but that's the beauty of the ideology of “rational discourse” or the political middle—it enables its proponents to claim to be above the fray. This certainly has its advantages, and perhaps in some ways it's preferable to following a more consistent party line, but it's still ideological and a position that carries its own drawbacks and baggage. I'm also not sure that the characterization of bloggers on the left and right is accurate. Are those on the left really more polemic or negative? Perhaps. If so, we have plenty of reason to be. I cringe every time I hear talk of “bipartisanship” or “working together” because that's the rhetoric that has allowed the Bush administration to do so much damage in the U.S. and the world. “Work with us,” they say, “and we'll work with you.” But the truth is, every time the right has extended that olive branch in the last five years, it has quickly stomped on the good faith the left extends in return. From my perspective (and I think from the perspective of many on the left), the right has lied to and manipulated the U.S. and the world to advance a very antisocial and dangerous agenda, and it shows no sign of stopping. See, for example, the “crisis” of social security or the “crisis” in civil lawsuits that is so desperately screaming for “tort reform.” These so-called crises are certainly issues worth paying attention to; it's almost certain we could make positive changes to both social security and our civil litigation system. However, to predicate those changes on campaigns of fear (crisis! the system will be bankrupt by 2012! judicial hellholes!) is not just disingenuous, it's indefensible. Oh, and it's also extremely unreasonable and irrational. I probably don't need to add that this is exactly the strategy the right used to sell the Iraq war—it lied about a crisis so often and so menacingly that it manipulated the world into war. To ask the left to respond in measured or “reasonable” tones to this sort of irrational fear mongering is asking the left to submit passively to the dominance of the right. If one side is screaming it's head off (e.g. “we don't want the proof to come in the form of a mushroom cloud!!”), and the other side is merely making polite comments (“really, we think the inspections are working”), which side is going to prevail? Recent history answers that question pretty clearly. So perhaps the tone coming from the left has seemed more negative, more bitter, more implacably oppositional than in the past. And perhaps that's unfortunate; it would be nice if we could live in a society that could discuss important issues in civil and respectful ways. Maybe someday we can. But the left has tried “reasonable.” I'm happy to see more strident and vehement opposition for a while. Of course, what the left really needs is some serious leadership to help direct that stridency and vehemence, to get it moving in positive directions (so that instead of just being oppositional, it can lead). But that will be a post for another day... *Althouse and some of her colleagues sometimes stay up all night blogging. They blog car accidents from multiple perspectives and “simulblog” the dinners they have together. What's in that Madison water, anyway? UPDATE: See also “Further Ways to Argue Like a Conservative” by Tom Tomorrow

Posted 07:57 AM | Comments (3) | general politics

Survivor Palau 1

Ed. note: The following contains spoilers of the new Survivor. If you don't want to read spoilers, don't click “more.” And even if you don't care about spoilers, I'm certain you have better things to do than read about an episode of Survivor, anyway. Another “season” of Survivor began tonight—the 10th episode. Will it be worth watching? Let's see.... First we learn about Wrold War II and see some bits of wreckage from the big WWII battles that were fought here. Then it really starts with a terrific bit of symbolism: The boat filled with 20 people slowly paddles its way to shore where one immunity necklace is waiting for the first woman ashore, and another for the first man ashore. The two most impatient people (I think) leap off the boat, thinking they are tough and fast and can do better on their own than they can by cooperating with the group. Of course, the two jumpers almost immediately get left in the dust as the boat speeds on toward shore. This is why “reality tv” is awesome—you couldn't script human folly any more precisely. Jolanda eats a grasshopper. Why? Is that little grasshopper really going to make the difference on the first challenge? Oh, she's a lawyer. Coby immediately starts trying to make alliances and plot the first person voted out. Why? Does he want to be the first person voted out? Oh, he's a hairdresser. Koala Jeff (or is he Old War Battle Jeff now?) shows up and says they're going to get rid of two people immediately. Yikes! Ian and Jolanda get to choose teams, just like in gradeschool for kickball, boy-girl, boy-girl. Oops, but then their picks get to pick, just to mix things up even more. The field narrows and Crazy Wanda is one of the first to go. I now owe L. $5 b/c she bet Wanda would be off the show before the hour was up and she's been proven correct in the first 15 minutes. (Note to self: L. is never wrong!) Sad music enhances the melodrama, and some of the remaining survivors cry over losing “friends” they just met two hours ago. Yes, your lives are hard. Boo hoo. We get blue and brown buffs and everyone is all tribal now, except that they're going to continue to share the same beach. Whasup w/that? Tears from those picked last, while we get some reflection about the makeup up of the tribes and what their chances will be based on age, athletic ability, and number of nose rings per capita. Oh, and how many models. There are lots of “models” and “actors” here, so the vogueing challenge is going to be hard fought, for sure. Challenge! Military items, obstacle course, canoes, paddling and flags and racing to shore! Hooray! Immunity back up for grabs and the immunity idol is revealed. Covet covet. Lots of googley-eyed coveting going on. The big challenge is: “Do we take the food and water, or just the fire?” The H-team votes for just the fire, and the O-team falls behind bringing food and water. They'll be cold, but well-fed? Paddle paddle the canoes, tongues hanging out with exhaustion as H-team cruises to an easy victory. H-team wins immunity and gets to keep its fire. Ah-oh. Tribes have to split up. H-team chooses to head to the new beach. Was this a good decision? Um, well, first we have to tip over our canoe and dump our reward on the bottom of the ocean floor. Excellent. O-team decides to vote off the tattoos, which sucks, because I like tattoos. But then Jolanda starts bossing everyone around and effectively paints a big fat target on her back, so, um, who will it be? I know you're on the edge of your seat. I am. But my anxiety is spiced with the sound of the snare drum that they've added to the usual Survivor soundtrack to remind us that we're on Palau and there were big battles here during World War II! Oh, wait, we're at tribal (council, that is, but all the cool kids just call it “tribal”). Jeff schools the team on brains v. braun, Jolanda says she wants to be team dictator but not really, and tattoos says her head is on the chopping block. Vote vote votey vote, putting the little papers in an old ammo box because, did we mention there were big battles here during world war II? Oh and the snares! Tappa tappa tappa. The drama! Edge of seat, private! Votes are being read. Tattoos. Jo. Tattoos. Jo. Who will it be who will it be? Tattoos does some mental calculations, the tide shifts, and Jo's gotta go. Sadness all around. Koala Jeff gives a little lesson about making decisions and flying right, and that's it. So yeah, it's another Survivor. I have to watch, but now you don't. See you next week. Maybe. UPDATE: See also Changing the Rules of Survivor on Crooked Timber.

Posted 09:15 PM | tv land

GW Summer Stipends

Reader “brett” writes:

Hey ai, lurking gw prospective student here. Two quick questions: is there a lot of competition for those summer stipends (the 5k ones) - would a 1L have a shot at one? Also, how does the “ask-a-student” program on the gw admissions site work - are these students hand-picked trolls or random honest students?

I wish I had more to tell you, Brett. First, the summer stipends are pretty competitive, but I have no idea how many people apply and don't get anything. I get the impression that the big variables are whether the funding committee thinks your job is worthwhile (and they seem pretty liberal on that), but also whether you've shown some commitment to public interest law. If it looks like you're just taking a public interest job b/c you couldn't land a firm job and you're going to go to a firm ASAP, I think the funding committee is not as happy about that. I knew several 1Ls who got the $5k grants. A good way to ensure that you're one of them is to spend as much time as you can in your first year working for the EJF or some other public interest-type student organization so that you'll have some good stuff on your resume that shows your commitment to this type of work. You could also volunteer for pro bono legal stuff, or perhaps you're entering law school with a good public service and/or volunteering background so you've already demonstrated that commitment. All of those things will help. The ask-a-student thing I don't know much about. I don't recall using it when I was deciding whether to go to GW, and that's the only time I've heard of it. That suggests to me that the people who participate are self-selected or more hand-picked (b/c otherwise I would have seen some notice for volunteers around the school sometime in the last two years). That's just a guess though, I really don't know. Generally, I will confirm what you probably already know: GW is very concerned about its rank and giving prospective students a good impression, so it's very unlikely to leave that to any schmo who is enrolled. I imagine this is true of any law school. During this decision process, take everything you hear from GW or any other school with some serious salt—they want your money, and once you're locked in, they'll be much less responsive to you. This doesn't mean everything is awful once you accept and begin attending, only that as you make your decisions you should try to filter out the sunshine being blown up your skirt from the more substantive things that really are important: Cost, courses offered, professors you think you'll like (read their publications to see if they're working on anything you'd like), courses offered (e.g., I wanted to learn about labor law and many smaller schools don't regularly offer courses in that area, but GW does), location (considering especially where you'd like to work after you graduate), and whether they support macs. Oh, wait, that last one may only be important to me. ;-) For more insight on GW, I highly recommend you also consult others on this list of GW-related blawgs, but esp. Life, Law, Libido (written by GW grads who were very pleased w/their GW experiences), Extreme Indifference to Human Life (who is now apparently running for student body president), Luminous Void, and Idlegrasshopper. The more perspectives you get, the better decision you'll make. Note: I'm always trying to find other GW bloggers, largely for this reason—so that when people like Brett are looking for info about the school they'll have plenty of perspectives. If you're a GW student w/a blog, please say “hi” so I can add you to the list and send mountains of traffic (little tiny mountains; mountains that would look large if you were a flea) to your site. UPDATE: I just glanced at the above again and realized I forgot to include WonL on the list of highly-recommended GW bloggers to query about life at GW, and she should have been top of the list! I'm very sorry for the oversight. Partly in response to this post she has posted some thoughts on her experience thus far.

Posted 06:48 AM | Comments (3) | law school

Perpetratin' ta be a lawya

Thanks to LawRah for leading me to Gizoogle, I bring you the first paragraph of yesterday's post translated into foshizzle:

I’m in law school, although you may not always be able ta tell fizzle tha content here fo' real. Often, I rap `bout bustin' but law school, whizzich is coz I often thiznink `bout anyth'n but law school, n I sometizzles brotha if I should takes thizzat as a sizzay: Is this really sum-m sum-m I should be doing if I’d so often spend mah time doing sum-m sum-m else? But schoo` is not practice, so I dismiss tha question. In mah spare time (what’s that?) I’m perpetratin' ta read Should You Really Be A Lawya?. Perhaps that should be filed in tha “better late thizzay neva category,” but I do W-to-tha-izzish I’d read this book before frontin' on somewhere near $100k in debt. * To those of you who is going crazy wit anxiety before even start'n law school, I say: Go buy this book or chizzeck it out from yo local library keep'n it real yo. Read it . Keep'n it gangsta dogg. Challenge yoself ta give it tha time n rizzy considerizzles it suggests you devote ta tha question of its title . Boo-Yaa!. You’ll . Boo-Yaa!. be glad you dizzay n this will be an excellent use of this interstice between perpetratin' n actually going ta law school.

I'm perpetratin' ta read now so I can be a lawya fo' real yo. Word.

Posted 05:43 AM | Comments (1) | life generally

Overloaded Update

I'm in law school, although you may not always be able to tell from the content here. Often, I talk about anything but law school, which is because I often think about anything but law school, and I sometimes wonder if I should take that as a sign: Is this really something I should be doing if I'd so often spend my time doing something else? But school is not practice, so I dismiss the question. In my spare time (what's that?) I'm trying to read Should You Really Be A Lawyer?. Perhaps that should be filed in the “better late than never category,” but I do wish I'd read this book before taking on somewhere near $100k in debt.* To those of you who are going crazy with anxiety before even starting law school, I say: Go buy this book or check it out from your local library. Read it. Challenge yourself to give it the time and real consideration it suggests you devote to the question of its title. You'll be glad you did, and this will be an excellent use of this interstice between applying and actually going to law school. And why would you want to take this decision very seriously, even if you're already at the point where you've applied or even accepted admission somewhere and already feel pretty committed to going? Well, for one thing, law school can suck. But wait, this isn't supposed to be a big fat advice post. No, this is a big fat whining post. Or just an “oh my gosh I've been busy recently” post. Last weekend alone I had interviews on Saturday (they went well, it seemed), I had to pretend to judge a “client counseling” competition for the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Board,** and I had to complete an “editorial competition” in an attempt to become some sort of editor on the journal next year. It was a busy weekend. Today I have three different interviews to become a “Dean's Fellow,” which is what GW calls the group of 20 or 30? 3Ls who help teach a small section of the first year writing and research course. This weekend I have to finish the second draft of my “note” for the journal, and although I never quite got around to posting what the editors thought of the first draft, I vaguely recall their comments ranging from, “What's the point?” to “This would never work.” So, yeah, still a bit of work to do there. Meanwhile, I'm about 60 pages behind in every class (1-2 assignments), which is actually about the most caught up I think I've ever been at this point in a law school semester, so that's kind of a bright spot, actually. Another bright spot: I got a call-back from one of the employers I interviewed w/last Saturday so I've got interview #2 coming up. It would be an awesome job (the more I think about it, the more I like it), and, if they offered me a job in the next month I may qualify for a GW summer subsidy, so that would be nice. Oh, and did I mention that we're currently days away from a 3-day weekend? It's true. As part of our v-day celebrations, L. was kind enough to give me Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando for the PS2 that has been gathering dust on a dark shelf of our entertainment center for, oh, about the last 18 months or more. Will this 3-day weekend include at least a teeny bit of PS2 time? Um yeah, I think so. (Yes, Ratchet & Clank is kind of a kiddie's game, but I'm kind of kiddie player; I haven't even made it through the first one yet—I gave up at a tough spot after playing the same screens for days. Oh, and I started law school and didn't have time to fight the evil robots and fight for truth and justice and the American way all at once. Now that I see that truth and justice are basically dead and I no longer understand “the American way,” I'd really rather play Playstation.) (I'm kidding about the truth, justice, American way part. Really.) * Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher and will review it in full as soon as I finish it. From what I've read so far, it's worth the price of admission even if I'd had to pay for it—at least for me—but you should know that that opinion is so far based on just a brief skim of the whole book and a close reading of only the first chapter. ** Congrats to all who made the Board; I saw three very professional and polished teams. I hope if you competed you saw the humor in seeing 250 law students (mostly 1Ls) running around dressed up in dark suits and carrying pleather portfolios and bottles of water for their clients. Someone remarked that it looked like GW was holding mass funerals over the weekend b/c of all the dark suits (both for the ADR competition and the job fair.) Incidentally, I was shocked almost speechless by the 1Ls who actually gave their clients four-color business cards; I guess the student government's business card sale last fall was pretty popular with the 1Ls. Scary. I know, I shouldn't be scared of 1Ls with business cards that say “Juris Doctor Candidate” or whatever, but um, I am. Please keep your crazy cards to yourselves, thanks.

Posted 08:31 AM | Comments (18) | 2L law school

Not What I Wanted to Hear

Today's weather report does not please me:

Jason was right on the mark when he said in his Monday post that today would be a “significant day weatherwise.” After warm weather during the first half of the day, a sharp cold front will shift winds from southerly to northwesterly and plunge the area back into the heart of winter.

Temperatures around here have been yo-yo-ing from 60 to 20 degrees (with nasty wind chill on the lower end) and I'm really tired of it. Just be winter or spring, already, will you?

Posted 07:30 AM | life generally

When Blogs Do Bad II

Following up on the Eason Jordon story and the question of whether the ability of blogs to “take down” public figures is a positive development, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the recent unmasking of Jeff Gannon. Gannon was a highly partisan reporter who used a pseudonym and somehow gained a seat in the White House press corp where he asked questions with lots of Republican spin. Gannon may or may not have also been leading a somewhat salacious double life. Salon's coverage. So now we can add Gannongate to Easongate and Rathergate. Salon's “War Room” covers them all with lots of good links to more. As I said before, the ability of blogs to hold public figures accountable is a good thing, but it's one thing to uncover what's hidden, and another to destroy careers or lives. Maybe the destruction follows automatically from the uncovering, and maybe that's not the fault of bloggers. However, when prominent people make questionable statements or do questionable things, wouldn't we be better of as a society if we could learn from their mistakes instead of simply destroying the mistake-maker? UPDATE: See also:

• Closing Thoughts on the Resignation of Eason Jordon
• Comments on the aftermath from Jeff Jarvis
• A theory that Jordon got fired for basically doing what bloggers do: Speaking candidly.

Posted 07:59 AM | Comments (8) | general politics meta-blogging

Audioscrobbler: Also very cool

Yet another sound-related toy to play with raises a question for all you audiophiles: Why have you been holding out on me w/the Audioscrobbler scoop? This is muy cool! You create a free account, download a plugin for your favorite music-listening app, install it, and then the track names of everything you listen to get streamed to your user page on Audioscrobbler (like this). Over time it will tell you what your favorite songs and artists are (according to how much you play them), and connect you to other people who like the same music, through which you may find other music you'll also like. Pretty freakin' awesome, if you ask me. Many moons ago I installed iTunes Watcher here, and it also uploads track and album info for recently played tunes, but it doesn't have the “social networking” features and it's also more complicated to set up. The developer posted on his now-defunct blog that he wanted to give iTunes Watcher a lot of the features Audioscrobbler now has, but it looks like that ship has sailed. The one advantage I see for iTunes Watcher is how it allows you to customize the display of your recently-played page. Of course, that's something I never got around to doing, so maybe it's not that valuable. One problem with Audioscrobbler: I don't really listen to music on my computer all that often. More frequently I listen to the ipod through the stereo, or to the iPod itself, or just to a regular cd. Still, this is fun. It will be even more fun when you all set yours up so I can browse your musical collections. hint. hint. Now, could someone please explain to me (or point me to) the easiest way to get an RSS feed to display as a sidebar here on this blog? I futzed around with the RSS Feed plugin the other night and couldn't get it to work, so.... other options or tips for making RSS Feed work? Thanks!

Posted 08:06 AM | ai music

All Hail Slapcast

So you've probably head about this “podcasting” thing, and now that Notes from the (Legal) Underground and Jeremy Richey are getting into it, I thought I'd give it a try. And while creating podcasts sounds like it could be very complicated, thanks to Slapcast.com, all you need is a phone! Here's all you need to do:

1. Create a free account at Slapcast.com.
2. Call an 800-number and leave a message (up to 5 minutes).
3. Log in and enter the phone number you called from. Slapcast finds your recording via caller-id.
4. Give your recording a title and write some comments about it if you want.
5. Publish your recording (or Slapcast can just do that automatically).

That's it! Slapcast does the rest—it converts your recording to mp3 format, creates a webpage and RSS feed with enclosures for you so that people can subscribe to your podcasts, and it can automatically post a link to your podcast on your blog (supporting MT, Livejournal, Blogger, Radio, and WordPress so far) and/or email the mp3 file to you. If you want to get funky you can add sound effects to your recording like Jeremy has done, then re-upload it so it sounds more professional and entertaining. (According to the Slapcast creator, there may soon be an option to do something like this automatically via the slapcast web interface.) So hey, what are you waiting for? We all want to hear what you have to say! Oh, thanks so much to Mother and Sister Imbroglio for humoring me in my early experiments with this. The imbroglio is now seeking jokes, funny stories, deep thoughts, political or social commentary, legal criticism, or anything else you'd like to record. Send me your number (via email) and I'll call you and record and publish what you have to say through the magic of 3-way calling. Or maybe we could do 4-way calling or more -- imagine what two minutes of conversation between Energy Spatula and Soupie might be like. Whoo! UPDATE: Via Memory's Outbox I just also discovered Audioblogger, which allows audio-posting by phone to Blogger blogs (including all you Blogspot kiddies). Of course, I'd like to see Slapcast take off b/c it's multi-platform and b/c I've met one of the developers and he seems like a good guy. But hey, either way, posting by phone can be fun. Just ask Lawrah! (See the post from today, 2/13/05; I can't find her permalinks if they're there.)

Posted 11:07 AM | Comments (4) | life generally meta-blogging

Lynn Stewart Day Of Outrage

From the National Lawyer's Guild:

The National Executive Committee of the NLG calls on all Guild chapters to organize and to take part in local actions as part of a “National Day of Outrage” in response to yesterday's Lynne Stewart verdict, which we see as an attack not only on our cherished colleague and fellow NLG member but also on all members of the legal community who represent unpopular clients and causes. We are calling for this coordinated day of action to be held next Thursday, February 17 in your cities, towns, and, if you are a law student, at your school. We are putting together a list of suggested actions to take and will send this out ASAP. Please begin making arrangements and stay tuned for more information. This will be just one step in our ongoing support for Lynne Stewart and in defense of all of those who take on controversial cases.

Find your NLG chapter here. Read more from the NLG about the Stewart decision, and more coverage from all over the place. UPDATE: See also some good thinking points from Carey and Heidi, and “Selling Indulgences” on Slate, which compares what Stewart did to what Alberto Gonzales and the other “torture lawyers” in the Bush Administration did:

For the Torture Lawyers, the political polarities are reversed, but their gut-level affinity with the client's politics is the same, as is their willingness to bend (or break) the law to make their client's wishes come true. The torture lawyers' protestations that they never sympathized with a pro-cruelty agenda, or with abuses like those at Abu Ghraib, sound very much like Stewart's defense. Both believe that being a lawyer conveys a certain moral immunity. Fortunately for us all, it doesn't.

To me that's really the problem. It seems fairly clear that Stewart broke an agreement she'd made with the court about not speaking about this case. However, that's cause for professional discipline, not a criminal conviction. Meanwhile, the torture lawyers have not been censured in any way for their gross breaches of both professional ethics and basic norms of human rights. This is why the Stewart conviction is outrageous—it reveals the way the law has been manipulated for political purposes and the way the Bush administration continues to get away with murder (literally and figuratively) under cover of its “war on terror.” Instead of putting on their “reasonable” hats and saying, “well, Stewart really did break the rules,” legal professionals of conscience should be outraged at double-standards that make a mockery of both professional codes and the law.

Posted 10:17 AM | Comments (6) | ai action alerts

Leading by Example. Not.

I had two interviews yesterday, both of which went much better than the horror of last week, even if they were perhaps not for jobs I'd like as much. Who knows? Maybe I'd like one of these jobs even more? But the interviews were part of the GW/Georgetown Public Interest/Government Interview Program, and since the US Army and Air Force JAG Corps were there interviewing, the program marked their names with an asterisk followed by this disclaimer:

This employer discriminates against gay, lesbian and bisexual persons under the authority of 10 U.S.C. section 654. The George Washington University Law School policy on equal opportunity prohibits unlawful discrimination. The Association of American Law Schools — of which George Washington University Law School is a founding member — and the National Association for Law Placement each have policies forbidding discrimination against gay, lesbian and bisexual persons. The presence of this employer at the George Washington University should in no way be construed as an endorsement of this employer's practice of discrimination.

While I was pleased to see this disclaimer, and also pleased that it is so bluntly worded (“this employer discriminates”), I still wish there was more GW could do. And since GW and Georgetown were in this together (GULC had its own disclaimer, more or less similar), it seems they could take this as an opportunity to “make a federal case” out of this. I mean, these are big law schools; what if they gave the JAG Corp the finger and dared the federal gov't to take away all federal funds? I'm thinking the case would probably make it to the Supreme Court and the Solomon Amendment would be history. Or maybe not. Can someone clarify what is going on here? I mean, I see here that the Solomon Amendment was found unconstitutional, yet GW and GULC still apparently fear its consequences. So what gives?

Posted 09:54 AM | Comments (5) | general politics law school

Lawyers Investigate DC Arrests

From the DC City Desk:

Lawyers Susan Dunham and Dan Schember are investigating the arrests of approximately 72 persons in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in the District of Columbia on the night of January 20, 2005. Their investigation is on behalf of several persons who were arrested and who have sought their advice. The purpose of the investigation is to assess whether a civil lawsuit on behalf of those arrested should be filed against the District of Columbia for money damages, expungement of arrest records, and change in police practices. If you were arrested in Adams Morgan that night and would like to consider joining others in filing a civil suit, then please contact Susan and Dan by email at dclaw@radix.net and dunham_susan@hotmail.com. Please include “J20 Arrest” in the subject heading of your email message and provide your name; current address; permanent address (if not the same as current); telephone number(s); a narrative of your experience; and a list of any documentary evidence you have, such as film, photographs, and arrest or release papers. Please preserve these documents! As an alternative to email communication, you may call their office, 202/328-2244, and leave a voice mail message for Susan Dunham. Your communications seeking legal advice will be confidential. If you were not arrested, but witnessed the arrests in Adams Morgan that night, please contact Susan and Dan, as stated above, indicate you saw the arrests, but do not include a narrative account of what you witnessed. Susan will call you to interview you by phone.

I have no idea if this investigation will turn up anything illegal, but it's good to see someone looking into it. I think. I mean, I know DC recently lost a sizeable class action suit against the local police force for its conduct during a 2002 IMF/World Bank protest, so perhaps these attorneys are just gold digging here. Then again, I'd rather they investigate than not, even if it's only to find that the police acted perfectly appropriately.

Posted 07:29 AM | ai action alerts

When Blogs Do Bad

Blogs have toppled another semi-public figure:

Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN who was responsible for coordinating the cable network's Iraq coverage, resigned abruptly last night, citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month in which he appeared to suggest that United States troops had deliberately aimed at journalists, killing some.

I agree that one great function of blogs is to make the invisible visible, to shine a light on those issues, statements, actions, etc. that do not get enough attention in the mainstream media and popular discourse. However, this light-shining function can be a double-edged sword. Where's the line between a witch hunt and a critical, good faith inquiry into what's really going on? Did Eason really deserve this? Or did he just make an offhand comment at the wrong place and time that was blown out of proportion and twisted to suit the rabid radicals of the most jingoistic right? (Hey look, I can write just like the editors of the Hart and Wecsler's!) If you saw BSG last night (it's been renewed for another season!), you'll know it raised the same question of when healthy social inquiry might turn into egomaniacal power grab. L. (my personal guru in reading against the grain) noted astutely that BSG might have been making an argument that we shouldn't be questioning how Bush has handled post-9/11 security and foreign affairs. Apparently the show's creators have explicitly said they're trying to make the show parallel recent history to some extent, but it's hard to say what they were trying to communicate last night in that regard. Was Capt. Adama supposed to be George Bush, and the Independent Tribunal the 9/11 Commission? Remember, Bush at first tried to tell the 9/11 Commission that he was above their purview, and that's basically what Adama did last night with the tribunal. Then again, was the 9/11 Commission a witch hunt or power grab, which is how the Independent Tribunal was starting to look last night? Could the chief investigator have been Ashcroft trying to argue that all civil liberties should be swept aside in favor of “security,” while Adama was the voice of the reasonable civil libertarian upholding his and his officers' rights? See, it's hard to figure out. And really, these questions are L.'s, so if she comes up with any answers, perhaps she'll share. Anyway, BSG is only relevant to the extent that it shows that investigation can be a multi-edged sword. First it was Dan Rather (who may or may not have resigned b/c of the Bush national guard story), now it's Eason Jordan. Who's next? Are bloggers getting drunk with power and doing more harm than good in pursuit of their own agendas?

Posted 02:01 PM | Comments (2) | general politics meta-blogging tv land

Hey! You can't say that!

Ward Churchill: Discuss. Consider:

• “Some People Push Back,” Churchill's essay that started the brouhaha in 2001 (and many more links to the ongoing controversy on that page)
• “On the Injustice of Getting Smeared,” a response from Churchill to recent criticism.
• “Ward Churchill's Banality of Evil,” which defends Churchill's right to say what he likes, but argues that Churchill was “dead wrong.”
• What Ward Churchill Didn't Say, a brief list of polemic statements that may or may not have provoked the same level of outrage now attending Churchill's remarks.
• The recent survey showing 75% of high school students think flag burning is illegal and one third think the First Amendment “goes too far.”
• Native American Genocide
• Remarks from Professor Althouse: “I look askance at UC, not Churchill: Why did they hire and promote him? ”
• What else?

UPDATE: See also a lengthy post with many links and heated discussion in the comments at Three Years of Hell. I'm actually kind of surprised—although I don't know why I should be—to find AR come down as he does (I won't try to characterize his position since that will only be begging him to tell me I got him all wrong). Also, more from The Yin Blog, here, here, here, and here. UPDATE II: Thoughts from Carey and his readers, including links on the subject from Profs. Leiter, Bainbridge, and Volokh. Also Dahlia LIthwick's perspective on Slate. All of them appear to dismiss what Churchill has to say (Volokh calls it a “horrific screed” and Bainbridge says Churchill is an “ass”), yet seem to think they're taking the high road by saying that he shouldn't be fired just because he said some things that sound crazy. My original point in posting about this has been made fairly well: Rather than giving any serious consideration to the content of Churchill's words, people have occupied lots of energy and effort arguing about whether he should be allowed to say them at all. That's what passes for free speech and public discussion of what might be the most crucial topic in contemporary American history (by which I mean 9/11 and why it happened). Very very sad.

Posted 06:36 AM | Comments (3) | general politics

Bright Eyes

I'm not sure why, but I'm just addicted to Bright Eyes recently. Maybe it's because “Conor Oberst” is such a cool name, or maybe it's because I've mostly missed all the hype surrounding him so all the music sounds fresh and new and real to me. Or maybe it's just the plain greatness of lyrics like this:

No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter. Sometimes that's just the most comfortable place. . . . So when you're asked to fight a war that's over nothing, it's best to join the side that's gonna win. And no one's sure just how all this got started, but we'll make 'em goddamned certain how it's gonna end! Oh yeah we will. Oh yeah we will!

— “Road to Joy” from I'm Wide Awake It's Morning, courtesy of Super D., the bestest friend ever. I hope Mr. Oberst is right.

Posted 05:15 AM | Comments (3) | ai music

Guest Post: Life Sans Blogging—A response to some ??s by Mr. Imbroglio

Ed. Note: Today's Imbroglio is brought to by DG, formerly of Ditzy Genius, who generously agreed to share w/us the following update on life in DG-land after I pestered her with questions about what life might be like sans-blog. Thanks, DG! To get the full effect, imagine this post topped by a bright orange banner of flowers. Quote of the Day - Almost Everyday: “You haven't posted to your blog yet.” - KD, who doesn't necessarily want to read my ramblings but likes making the quote of the day. I'm enjoying life without blogging. It had become part of my daily routine and when I first stopped it was actually kind of weird. I would see a funny article or hear a funny quote and think, ha, I have to put that on my blog but alas there was no more blog. I do miss it sometimes and I think to myself: I should start up my blog again. I even went as far as to tell a friend that I would restart it. Now he mentions it every time we chat online (see above quote). It's only because he misses being the quote of the day every once in a while. :-) I find that in place of blogging I play more games online. I've gotten fantastic at Bejeweled! Woo, that game is addictive. I don't think blogging or the lack thereof has had any effect on my performance or enjoyment of law school. That being said, I have some policies in place that I'm not sure if I blogged about before but have greatly added to my enjoyment of law school. The first of which is I stopped checking my grades after the 1st semester of 1L. I think grades are useless so I decided it wasn't worth the 30 seconds it takes to look. I've decided that I will look at them in May 2006. This always brings up a slew of questions so let me answer them for you:

1. What do you do about employers/your resume? Well, at my school you can look at your GPA and class rank on a totally different screen than the one that shows all of your actual grades. I put my percentile on my resume and no employer ever asks about my specific grades. The only people that ask are classmates (the ones that are wonks). Answering them gives me the opportunity to be incredibly smug sometimes. Rest assured, I always take the opportunity. Answers to this range from I don't know, I didn't check to I don't know but I'm sure I got an A.
2. Well, don't you ever have to get your transcript? Yup, and I always get an official one that's sealed in an envelope.
3. Aren't you curious? Uh, not really. It's just letters on a piece of paper. My GPA has changed .02 since my 1st semester and I am in the exact same percentile with the exact same rank as I was before. I'm sure if my percentile dropped dramatically I'd look. At this point it hasn't come up.
4. So you don't know any of your grades since 1L? Well, that's not true. My policy has been ruined twice by professors. So I know two of my grades. And anyway, I could probably guess what they are.
5. So why don't you look, really? I find that I enjoy classes a lot more because I'm just there to learn rather than to excel. I suggest that people try it. I actually know one other person who does not check. I'm sure it was pretty obvious from my blog before that I just didn't care about them but now it's at the next level. In addition, it bothers me to see how they change people's attitudes. Some people become incredibly depressed over them, others become incredibly prickish. I'm starting a movement to deemphasize them. Yale has got it right - pass/fail is the way to go. Everyone else should join my movement.

I'm still amazed that people still read my blog. Most people still have it linked so someone new will stumble on it and send me an email or an IM. I enjoy that a lot. I still read blogs, but only my favorites. I still talk to other bloggers online which I really enjoy. My run-ins with random hilarious people have become fewer and far between - this might be the suckiest part of law school. You asked about summer jobs. I ran the OCI marathon back in the fall for some stupid reason and got offers but only from firms. I think I've said this a million times but I don't want to work at a firm. There's nothing wrong with it and I enjoyed my experience this summer, but criminal law is where I want to be. I want to be either a prosecutor or a public defender (probably the latter not the former). Those two things seem radically different, but I don't think they are. So, I rejected all offers and have just begun the process of sending out my resume to prosecutors and pd offices. If that fails, my summer employer told me that if I change my mind, I should give them a call. Lest you think everything is all sunshine and roses, it ain't. I still hate the midwest, probably more than before. It's not a bad place really. I think it's just my own crappy attitude. I alternate between being ok with this and having a somewhat bad disposition. Anyway, what am I doing now? I'm still going to classes and I'm enjoying them. I'm taking Crim Pro/Evidence/Professional Responsibility/Pre-Trial 2. Crim Pro is my favorite. I succeeded in scheduling my classes on only Monday and Wednesday. This sounds more relaxing than it is. It seems like I always have something to do on Thurday and Friday. I do get all of my reading done for the week on the weekends and that's nifty. I still clerk at the tax court. Who knows why? I like it most of the time, at other times it's boring. I'm still on law review, which doesn't suck nearly as much as it did in the beginning. The law review office has become my new study place (what with the big leather chairs and the tv and food) and I've made some buddies on there. I'm even thinking about running for the board. I've deciced to write my comment on decriminalizing prostitution. My faculty reader is totally against my assertion that it should decriminalized (on moral grounds, not necessarily legal) and this has led to some interesting conversations and what is turning out to be a pretty decent comment, (in my opinion, of course). If you've never had a discussion with one of your professors about the differences between prostitution and the actors in hardcore pornography, I suggest you try it. It will make life that much more interesting. ha! It also freaks people out who are walking by the office but that's what they get for being nosey. I still go to a lot of movies. I have not been watching as much T.V. as I would like. :-) 24 is back on but I have a night class this semester so I tape it. Married with Children comes on at 1 A.M. Update on the Enemies: I have added AT&T wireless to my enemy's list. I know that they have been taken over by Cingular and are basically dead, but they are still an enemy. I wondered how the evil squirrels were communicating and now I know. Last but not least, will my blog be coming back? Maybe. Everytime I think about restarting it, I get busy and forget. So I guess that's a maybe. It's also a maybe not. Anyway, I've rambled long enough. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Ambimb goodness....Toodles!

Posted 03:13 PM | Comments (7) | guests

Stay Tuned...

I've got to prepare for class (reading Hart and Wechsler's!) so no time for a real post, but come back later today for a special treat—a guest post from a legendary blawgger! Oh, and on the Hart & Wechsler's, I feel compelled to clarify that I understand many of the questions are not intended in the least to be anything other than questions. Much of the material the book covers involves legal issues to which there really are no “correct” answers, so the book is attempting to raise the issues and get readers to think for themselves. That said, I still think it's a crap approach b/c the authors certainly have opinions about the issues they raise. I'd prefer they state their positions, then discuss competing views as thoroughly and fairly as they can. The pretend neutrality they attempt to achieve through the questions is disingenuous and a little bit condescending, as if the authors thought readers would just blindly follow their positions on these issues if they (the authors) were more honest and straightforward about what those positions were. Wait, didn't I say I had reading to do? More later....

Posted 07:50 AM | Comments (3) | 2L law school

Reading Hart and Wechsler's

If you're in law school and you take a course with a name like “Federal Courts” or “Federal Jurisdiction,” chances are probably 100% you'll either use or hear a lot of references to a text that was originally written by Henry Hart and Herbert Wechsler and first published in 1953 (at least that's the earliest publication date listed in my 5th edition). Many people find this book maddening, because it asks as many questions as it answers. However, after reading several hundred pages, I've learned a trick: If you read most of the questions as statements instead of questions, then it's really much more clear. For example, H&W will often write something like: “Haven't courts recognized a power to enforce executive compliance with statutory duties since Marbury v. Madison?” That looks like a question, but it's not. What that really says is: “Courts have recognized a power to enforce executive compliance with statutory duties since Marbury v. Madison! (Duh.)” Do you think most of the questions are really statements? Would you be likely to enjoy reading a book written like this? Is writing in questions a sign of intelligence or a good way to teach, or is it just really, really asinine?

Posted 07:11 AM | Comments (6) | 2L law school meta-blogging

Picture Worth Thousands and Thousands of Words

Once again I thank everyone who has sent paintings in response to my request the other day. The gallery is getting rather large and I'll definitely be making a special display page for all your masterpieces just as soon as I can. Meanwhile, because the paintings are disappearing from the “front” page here, I just wanted to make sure you see this one in action: Lawrah with “Law Student View” (action!) If you go to GW you'll know that Lawrah has almost precisely captured the experience of sitting in most large lectures there. I have a funny feeling the picture is not too different at many other law schools around the country. Absolutely frakkin' priceless (nodding to BSG for the otherworldly adjective). Painting is therapy, and come on, you know you could use some of that. If you haven't painted a picture on ArtPad yet and sent me a link, um, why not? ;-)

Posted 09:36 PM | Comments (1) | law school life generally

Scripting News Brunch

I just got back from the “Geek Brunch” with Dave Winer of Scripting News. In attendance were:

• Dave Winer, of course (see his thoughts on the brunch)
• Ray Daly of ABCEDmindedness (see Ray's notes)
• David Welker
• Marcus of Kmax Blog Links
• Andy Williams Affleck of Webcrumbs (see Andy's photo of the brunch)
• Lou Josephs of Medianetwork (see quick comments from Lou)
• Roger Strickland of Slapcast.com
• Greg Gershman of Blogdigger (see Greg's notes)

You can see from that list a lot of what we talked about—blog link aggregators (Kmax), blog search (Blogdigger) and podcasting by phone (Slapcast). Below the fold: Some highlights from the conversation, including Channel Z, desktop blogging clients, and making the invisible visible. Of the “new” technologies we discussed, I think the podcasting by phone was most interesting to me. One of the major drawbacks to podcasting is it seems to take too much equipment and time to create an mp3 for people to download, but being able to just call a number, say what you want to say, and have the resulting conversation/monologue converted to mp3 and posted online (even directly to your blog) is pretty awesome. It doesn't get much simpler than that. One obvious great thing it would be good for—reporters (both “professional” and non) covering demonstrations, strikes, and other breaking news. Pretty cool. Blogdigger also looks like it has a lot of potential. If it's true that AskJeeves just bought Bloglines, it might be time to look elsewhere for online RSS aggregation, and Blogdigger's groups could be a good place to look. I'll have to check it out. Winer also talked a little about “Channel Z,” the outliner he uses to create and update Scripting News. As I mentioned last month, I've long admired the way Scripting News smoothly integrates both short and long posts into one smooth flow of daily content w/a permalink for each item. Plus, I love outliners (my current favorite is NoteTaker), so using an outliner to update my blog(s) would be great. Winer said he maybe might possibly who knows? release his cool tool someday, maybe in stages. He's waiting for the right moment, and I for one hope it comes soon. He also mentioned I should look at Manilla, but for $1100, I think, um, probably not. While I was fascinated by the tech talk, I could only participate in a limited way since I'm not a programmer/developer. My only sort of contribution to the tech conversation was when I mentioned that even though Movable Type is clunky (Winer said it was “too modal,” I think b/c the controls you need the most are too scattered an hard to reach), that doesn't bother me b/c I use a desktop blogging client (ecto) so I almost never have to log into MT itself (except to delete comment spam, but that's easy w/Blacklist). This was, in fact, one of the reasons I switched away from my old Radio blog—I didn't like being so tied to the browser and having to do so many things through the browser itself. Winer seemed surprised to hear that desktop clients were popular, and wondered aloud how many people use them to post to MT and other blogs. If a lot of people are doing it, then the blogging platform you use almost becomes irrelevant; what counts is how well your desktop blogging tool works. That's true, of course. I could do just about everything I want a blog to do with WordPress or probably w/a number of other things, but my day-to-day workflow wouldn't change so long as the blog software was open to ecto. In addition to talking about technology, we talked a little about the media and why it doesn't seem to work. See Winer's recent posts on this here and here. For example, Winer asked, “why are they [meaning Republicans, I assume] trying to convince us there's a crisis in social security?” We tossed out possible responses, but his point was not to arrive at an answer, but to point out the fact that the media just aren't talking about the question. It's invisible. The only thing the media talk about is what Bush is proposing and whether it's feasible and what might be cut here, added there, etc. That's necessary, of course, but why are so few people investigating the reasons behind this whole agenda? The question is just not on the radar, which, according to Winer, is where blogs come in:

When things are invisible, it's the job of bloggers to make them visible.

It's a somewhat utopian notion—that blogs are going to be able to shine a light into the dark corners of society and thereby make a positive difference. Whether it's true or not, it's a worthwhile goal for bloggers to strive toward, it seems to me. Other “invisible” questions we discussed: Why did the media replay the dean scream a million times? On this question the media covered the scream, but didn't cover the fact that it didn't sound insane if you were actually in the room, nor their own role in replaying it again and again, etc. Those questions were overlooked at the time, invisible; they've been considered somewhat since then, but on a comparative basis they're still invisible. Also: Why are Ward Churchill's ideas so repugnant that some people want to throw out the first amendment as far as he's concerned? On this topic all we get from the media are “wow, those are some crazy ideas” and “lots of people are furious and they want Churchill's head.” Why no consideration of the ideas themselves, or the reasons behind the fury? Those questions are invisible. Why don't bloggers raise them? I could go on; with two hours of fast-paced conversation, we covered a lot of ground. Overall the brunch was a great time, featuring excellent conversation, great to meet so many fascinating and talented people. If there's ever a Scripting News meal in your area and you're sort of a tech/blog geek, I highly recommend it. NOTE: This post has been updated to add links to the brunch attendees who commented on the event.

Posted 02:39 PM | Comments (9) | meta-blogging

Ambivalent Art

Thanks to those of you who sent links to your ArtPad Paintings, a small gallery of Ambivalent Art is beginning to take shape. Click the “action!” links beside each thumbnail below to watch masterpieces in the making from: Divine Angst with “untitled” on a vacation theme (action!) Energy Spatula with an “abstract homage to Miami Vice” (action!) Second Person Singular with “untitled” (action!) Ashley with “untitled” (action!) Anonymous “Beret” (action!) Anonymous “Monkey” (action!) Anonymous “Moon” (action!) Why Law with “untitled” (action!) E. McPan with “E. Takes A Holiday” (action!) Screaming Bean with “Enter the Bean” (action!) Bamber with “dog” (action!) Res Ipsa Loquitur with “untitled” (action!) kmsqrd with “Keep Droning, I'm Not Done Yet” (action!) Lawrah with “Law Student View” (action!) Spycygrl with “self-portrait/portrait of a law student” (action!) Idlegrasshopper with “los pantalones” (action!) Idlegrasshopper with “any questions?” (action!) Sui Generis with “nothing inside” (action!) Aren't they fun? Thanks again for sending paintings—more are always welcome! (Note: This post will update as I learn about new paintings. If we get enough, I'll create a more proper gallery. Thanks!)

Posted 09:23 AM | Comments (5) | life generally

DC Geek Brunch

FYI: If you're a DC area blogger, Dave Winer, author of Scripting News and one of the most influential pioneers of blogging and related technologies (SOAP, RSS, OPML, and more) is having a “geek brunch” tomorrow (2/6) in Alexandria at the Royal Restaurant. I might be able to make it, but I'm not sure I'm geeky enough. Blogs I can talk about. Programming? Not so much. (Homework? What's that?)

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (1) | meta-blogging

Please Send Paintings!

Ok, so this wasn't the most stellar week around the old imbroglio. In addition to flubbing an interview, I also lost another (the employer pulled out of next week's job fair after it scheduled an interview with me!), my journal editors told me my “note” is “extreme” and “unrealistic,” and I learned that my next three weekends are basically packed with special class meetings, ADR competition judging, interviews, paper-writing, and something else I know I'm forgetting—oh! applying for more jobs! With my weeks so full already, losing weekends to even more obligations is really, really not cool. So the week has not been the best; not awful, but not great. (Perhaps these weeks have to happen from time to time in order to justify a name like “imbroglio,” eh?) But you know what has been great this week? Watching people paint pictures on the artPad! For example, yesterday two friends (who will remain nameless to protect their identities and their future art careers) traded paintings back and forth and seeing them was the highlight of my day! Another friend also got into the act, although on an obviously different theme. (Be sure to adjust the replay speed to “fast” or watching those stars draw will take all day!) This is, in fact, so much fun, that I hereby request paintings from any and all! If you have 5 minutes to spare this weekend, please create a “painting” of anything you'd like and send me the link (or post it in the comments). (To get a permalink for you painting, click “send to friend” and send it to yourself, then copy the URL out of the email to post here in the comments or email to me.) I'll link to your creations here on ai, w/or w/out identification of the creator (your choice; just let me know) so that everyone can join the fun and appreciate your creative expression. (If you have a blog, you should, of course, feature your own work there, if you'd like.) Unless you specify otherwise, I'd also like to take a snapshot of the finished product so I can create an “ambivalent artpad gallery” of sorts. (Because who knows when art.com will decide it no longer wants to host all these paintings and they disappear into never-never land?) So hey, get painting and send me links! Pretty please? Your effort will bring the imbroglio joy, and how could you say no to that? Your friendly neighborhood imbroglio thanks you.

Posted 08:18 AM | Comments (3) | life generally

Margin Notes to the SCOTUS

If you're a law student, do you make notes in the margins of your books as if you were talking to the writer of the book or the case you're reading? I do. It's kind of like talking to the tv, which I also can't help doing, much to the dismay of everyone who watches television with me, I'm sure. Example: I was reading the opinion in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), in which the Supreme Court held that the “critical element” required to justify a search warrant “is reasonable cause to believe that the specific 'things' to be searched for and seized are located on the property to which entry is sought.” The facts of the case are that the cops thought a newspaper photographer had taken photos of some “demonstrators” who “attacked” a group of police officers. Since there was no reason whatsoever to believe the photographer (or anyone else at the newspaper) had committed any crime, did the police have “probable cause” to get a warrant to search the newspaper offices for the photos? Of course, the Court said “yes.” Then it turned to the newspaper's First Amendment argument that such a search infringed upon the guarantee of freedom of the press. The Court wrote:

There is no reason to believe . . . that magistrates cannot guard against searches of the type, scope, and intrusiveness that would actually interfere with the timely publication of a newspaper.

My margin note: “The timely publication won't matter much if the content is vapid b/c the paper's free expression has been trampled by intimidating searches!” The opinion continues:

Nor, if the requirements of specificity and reasonableness are properly applied, policed, and observed, will there be any occasion or opportunity for officers to rummage at large in newspaper files or to intrude into or deter normal editorial and publication decisions.

My margin note: “That's a lot of ifs.” And finally:

Nor are we convinced . . . that confidential soucres will disappear and that the press will suppress news because of fears of unwarranted searches.

My margin note: “Well, you're stupid, then, aren't you?” I know my notes don't do any good for anyone, but they do make the reading more entertaining. Speaking of which, I've got some more “entertaining” reading to do....

Posted 07:59 AM | Comments (1) | 2L law school

Interview (f)art

So I had an interview yesterday for a job l really really wanted. Here's the whole story. UPDATE: For the low-tech, and for the sake of posterity, the gist of the story is here.

Posted 06:46 AM | Comments (12) | 2L law school meta-blogging

Tsunami Point Drive

The Tsunami Charity Drive I mentioned yesterday has been wildly successful, exploding into something like a blawg “meme.” The proof is at Jeremy Richey's Blawg, where you can see that more than 26,000 Lexis points have been donated. At $1.60 per 100 points, that' s just over $400. The goal is now set at 50,000 points by February, so if you have any Lexis points you were just going to selfishly exchange for personal swag, donate them to tsunami relief and let Jeremy know you did so so he can add your points to the total. I threw my points in, despite my own reluctance to do anything to help Lexis look like a good member of society. If I can do it, you can too. Come on, you know you want to. ;-)

Posted 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | 2L law school meta-blogging

Say Hello to MultiBlog!

The two “sideblogs” on ai—ambivalent images and ambivalent bits—are now being brought to you by the MT MultiBlog plugin by David Raynes. MultiBlog allows updates to one of the sideblogs to trigger a rebuild of the main page of ai. Although this may make no difference to you as a reader, it's a nice change from my perspective b/c it means that any updates to the sideblogs appear immediately and automatically here on the main page. (Previously changes to the sideblogs didn't show up here until I rebuilt this main page, either by adding a new post or if someone left a comment.) MultiBlog replaces the older and less sophisticated OtherBlog plugin. Although I said a while back that I wanted to get rid of the ambits sideblog, that may never happen (or I might change my mind), so in the meantime, this simple upgrade satisfies my need to tweak—for now.

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Death In Connecticut: Paused

Following up on yesterday's post about Michael Ross: he was not executed last night. His attorney asked for a stay to investigate Ross's competency and whether he is exhibiting “death row syndrome”—whether “years of harsh conditions on death row have coerced Ross to drop his appeals.” More about that in this article:

Haney, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, added, “I have seen it in other death-row inmates who just give up and relinquish appeals and, in some cases, appeals that legal experts believe have a very high chance of being successful.” Someone with death-row syndrome, he and Grassian say, can appear quite rational and in touch with reality. But because the inmate's day-to-day existence has become so intolerable, that person wants life to end. “There's a debate in the courts about whether that constitutes incompetence,” Haney said.

Whatever the merits of “death row syndrome,” this means the first execution in New England in 45 years has been postponed for at least a month (probably much longer), and I'm certainly not sad about that.

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (8) | law general

Blawg Tsunami Charity Drive

Jeremy Richey is encouraging law students to donate their Lexis “Ultimate Rewards” points to tsunami relief. He's hoping people will donate 4000 points by Friday. I have 2990 points at the moment, and I'd be happy to donate them all; they're relatively worthless to me and I've always thought the whole points thing was a stupid gimmick to get law students to like Lexis and forget how evil it is. Still, I hesitate because

1. I don't know how much money Lexis will give to the Red Cross if I give my points. Are 100 points worth $1 for the Red Cross, or what?
2. I don't want to help give Lexis any credit for doing anything positive b/c I think Lexis, West, and their competitors are parasites on society. (They take public information (legal decisions, statutes, constitutions, etc.) that is and should be free to the public, package it in complex ways designed to maximize their profit, then sell it back to the people it belongs to in the first place—you and me!) Lexis is probably going to take the points that law students donate and cut a check to the Red Cross, then release a statement congratulating itself for being such a good global citizen. “Lexis generously donated $5000 to the Red Cross today....” Lexis should be making a donation to this effort, sure, but law students shouldn't have to give points for that to happen.
3. I get the impression the tsunami relief effort has been pretty well funded already. I could be wrong.
4. There are many other worthy causes that need our attention and aid as much or more as the tsunami relief. For example, as I noted here (quoting this editorial), “ Each month more than 150,000 African children die of malaria; that's about the death toll of the Asian disaster. Yet those deaths do not sear the public's mind.” Yet Lexis, the good and generous corporation that it is, does not offer us any options for charitable point donations except tsunami relief. Why not? When this donation opportunity expires on Feb. 4th, will Lexis replace it by giving us another worthy cause to which we can give our points?
5. I'm a cynical, mean, cold-hearted person. I don't think so, but I bet a lot of you will when you read this. ;-)

All that said, I may throw my points in, anyway. Like I said, they're largely worthless to me, and since I think the whole idea of the points is evil to begin with, this would at least be some way to squeeze something good out of them. Anyway, if you're less cynical than me, please join Jeremy's campaign. He's trying to collect a total of how many points have been donated, so if you give, drop him a comment so he can add it to the tally.

Posted 06:52 AM | Comments (4) | 2L law school

Legal Advice and ULP laws

What's the difference between providing information and giving legal advice? If you ask my clinic manual, this is what it will tell you:

In essence, giving information is not dependent on particular facts or circumstances. Your answer would be the same no matter who the caller is or what his/her particular factual situation is. For instance, if someone calls and asks the maximum dollar amount you can request in D.C. Small Claims Court, the answer is $5,000.00. You may tell the caller that the jurisdictional limit is $5,000 because you don't have to analyze all the facts and particulars of the situation. On the other hand giving legal advice involves applying the law to a particular set of facts and imposing your professional judgment on your answer. If the same caller asks you, “I bought a lemon. Can I sue the dealer in D.C. Small Claims Court?”, you would have to delve into the facts, know the D.C. lemon law, and impose your judgment in order to provide an answer.

At first I thought this was a nice thumbnail definition of legal advice—if your answer would change if you knew the facts of the case, then you're giving legal advice. Fine. But the purpose of the rule against law students giving legal advice in the first place is to prevent them from practicing law without a license. Law students (and everyone else who has not passed the bar exam and been admitted to the bar) must be careful not to ever “practice law” because it's illegal to practice law without a license. Why? Ask Anthony Rickey (after he's gotten this note monkey off his back)—he's probably thought and read more about laws against the “unauthorized practice of law” (ULP) than I have. I would say these laws exist to protect the monopoly lawyers have over providing legal services. Anthony might say the same, but he might note other reasons, as well. I don't have time to go into a full-blown rant about why ULP laws are ridiculous, except to say that generally they're vague and broad and allow lawyers to bully non-lawyers w/charges of practicing w/out a license. This often happens when non-attorneys start doing simple things for very low cost that lawyers once did for a very high cost. For example, in the 1970s, lawyers viciously harassed a man named Norman F. Dacey for popularizing the idea that people could avoid probate court (and its attendant fees) by establishing living trusts. Lawyers didn't like this because it threatened a nice little source of profit for them. See also the more recent attempt by Texas lawyers to shut down certain publications by Nolo Press, the largest self-help legal publisher in the U.S. And see also here and here for the story of Della Tarpinian, who was harassed by Kentucky lawyers for helping consumers complete basic legal forms. All of these are good examples of lawyers trying to protect their monopoly over “legal services”—at the expense of the social good. In that light, this little line between “legal advice” and providing mere “information” becomes much more dubious. Of course, I'll respect this line until I'm admitted to the bar, but I'll continue to disagree with it long after that.

Posted 06:11 AM | 2L law general