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Breyer's Active Liberty
NPR today features an interview w/Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer about his new book, Active Liberty : Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. The bits played on Morning Edition suggest that, although conservatives have been the ones to most vehemently denounce “judicial activism” and the evils of “legislating from the bench,” the conservative justices (primarily Thomas) have been the ones most likely to invalidate laws passed by Congress, while Breyer is the justice least likely to do so. (ACS Blog has the details of that study.) So I guess those who condemn judicial activists are really condemning Scalia and Thomas, huh? Yeah, right.
The full, hour-long interview w/Breyer is available for streaming, but the following are some highlights from my listen:
Breyer defines “active liberty” as a distinction between freedom guaranteed by law from the government (freedom of speech is freedom from gov't action to restrict speech), and another, more ancient concept, that citizens of a community will share legitimate authority in that community. He traces this latter idea back to the Greeks. The notion today is that each individual shares the power of authority—it's called democracy. He wants to stress “active liberty” because that democracy only works if the average citizen participates.
The judiciary's role is to recognize the importance of active liberty and to understand that the Constitution wants to create a set of institutions to enable people to decide things democratically. When deciding conflicts between majority and minority interests he says we should return to fundamental principles of democracy. So in the Michigan affirmative action case, Breyer argues that all the amici briefs from the business community, the military, educational institutions, etc., showed that the people wanted the diversity that affirmative action provides, so upholding the constitution was consistent with democratic principles. In other words, he's a big believer in majoritarian rule.
On campaign finance laws, he argues that there are speech interests on both sides of spending restrictions, but the laws have the objective of leveling the playing field to make more equal exchange possible. The first amendment exists in order to allow people to elect the kind of government they want, and certain forms of regulation are necessary to promote that kind of conversation.
Speaking of campaign finance laws, I recently and somewhat foolishly entered the debate on this issue over at Althouse and basically got schooled by Stealth Law Prof who, like Althouse, disagrees w/Breyer on this point. I still maintain that conflating dollars and political contributions with speech is dangerous and antithetical to the democratic process b/c it inherently privileges those w/the most money and we should do what we can to prevent that. But I'm not prepared to defend that position against conlaw profs so I'll have to leave it there.
Anyhoo, the Breyer interview is interesting, but disappointing b/c his explanation of his philosophy does not seem as rigorous or clear as I was hoping. Perhaps the book makes it more clear, or perhaps he is really just as deluded about what he's doing as Scalia is w/the difference being that I tend to agree more w/the outcomes of his delusions than I do w/the outcomes of Scalia's delusions.
That said, how cool is it that we can all listen to this complete interview whenever we want? Before the internet, all we could have had was the 5-minute radio version and we would have had to listen when the radio station chose to broadcast it. Now, we can listen to that 5-minute bit whenever we want, and we can listen to the full interview whenever we want, and that is just very cool.
Posted 10:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | law general
Getting Green
The polar ice caps are melting, and that only speeds global warming. We're running out of oil and even Yubbledew is asking people to conserve. (I'm still in shock about that one.) We've got problems, people.
That's why one of the highlights for me at the D.C. Green Festival on Sunday was listening to Lester Brown, director of the Earth Policy Institute, and author of Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. The following are just some notes I jotted down while listening to him speak.
First, the Earth Policy Institute recently learned that for the first time China is now consuming more than the U.S. in four of five basic resources—grain, meat, coal, and steel. The only thing the U.S. still leads in is oil. (Surprise.) That's total consumption. If China catches up to us in per capita terms, which it will do by 2031 at its current rate of growth, China will need: 2/3 of the current global grain harvest, 300 million tons of paper/year (world output today is only 156 million tons/year), and 99 million barrels of oil/day (total world output today is only 81 million barrels/day). If Chinese citizens owned cars at the rate Americans own them, China would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars; the current world car fleet is only 800 million cars.
The point of this is that the western economic model will not work for China. It won't work for India, which will have more people than China by 2031. It won't work for most of the world, and it can no longer work for us. We're running out of resources and the results are going to be catostrophic if we don't do something. (Speaking to this point, Brown also recommends Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.
So what do we do? Plan B.
If everyone who owns a car in the U.S. owned a Prius we would cut daily fuel consumption by half. If we added a second battery to those Priuses and added a charging plug so we could plug them in at night (so they could run longer on electric only w/out the gas engine kicking in), the vast majority of daily driving in the U.S. could be powered by electricity alone. And if we invested massively in wind power, all of that electricity would be generated w/out polluting the environment or using up some non-renewable resource.
Biodiesel figures in somehow—comes from soybeans. Ethanol from sugar cane could also replace lots of our oil consumption. Brazil currently gets 40% of its automotive fuel from cane ethanol and it may soon get much more.
By 2020, 50-100% of European households could get their electricity from wind power, depending on how quickly Europe continues to invest in this resource. Just three states (North Dakota, Texas, and third I missed) have enough wind and land to build wind farms available to provide all U.S. energy needs via wind power. We just have to build the wind farms! (No need for the “nukuler” energy Bush wants to invest in.)
Brown said he's not discouraged about the future because often social change comes very quickly and we can't anticipate it. For example, look at what happened in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. One day it was the communist bloc, the next it was a bunch of democracies. Or look at December 6, 1941. If you had polled Americans on December 5, 1941 about whether the U.S. should get involved in WWII, the answer would have been a resounding “No.” But after December 6, that turned around completely. We also followed that by restructuring the economy almost overnight to produce all the ships, tanks, aircraft, guns, and ammo required for the war. How did we do that? We made the sale of private automobiles illegal and converted auto factories into munitions factories. So we've revolutionized our economy before on short notice; we can and need to do it again.
One way to make this happen is to force the market to be honest about the cost of our actions. For example, the cost to society of smoking is about $7/pack. The production cost of cigarettes is about $2/pack. So the total cost of a pack of cigarettes really should be $9/pack. In another example, the cost to society of burning a gallon of gas is about $9, so added to the current price at the pump, a gallon of gas should cost about $12/gal.
To convert our economy and our lifestyles to sustainable methods would cost money. But put it in perspective. The U.S. budget for Iraq is $400-500 billion and climbing. That's roughly equal to the total annual spending of the rest of the world combined. To do everything called for in Plan B would cost about $150 billion worldwide of additional spending.
And we need to do this. Terrorism is a threat to our future, but not as big a threat as climate change, population growth, water scarcity, or the lack of planning to deal with these issues. The key solution is grassroots political action. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport; we all have to be involved.
Posted 10:41 AM | TrackBack | ai books general politics
Locked Up to Die in Templeman III
Since hurricane Katrina hit we've all heard many stories of poor planning, and poor-to-horrible choices made by people who were in various positions of responsibility in terms of helping to reduce the human cost of the storm. But among those stories, yesterday was the first I'd heard of the Orleans Parish jail where guards and officials just left the prisoners locked up to die when the floodwaters started rising. L. pointed me to yesterday's Democracy Now which has many of the details about the facility known as Templeman III.
Thumbnail sketch: The storm started and no one did anything about evacuating the jail; instead, many area jails transferred prisoners there so the place was totally overcrowded w/people just wandering in common areas, etc. Water started rising, the guards abandoned the jail. Eventually some of the prisoners who were sort of “free” in the common areas helped others break out of lower cells so they wouldn't drown. And when prisoners eventually got out of the jail, the guards were waiting outside to transport them to an overpass where they were made to sit, some for three days or more. They were not allowed to move and had to relieve themselves where they sat. They were also not given food or water. When they were eventually bused out, they were scattered all over the place to approximately 39 facilities. This has made tracking them down and helping them get out of jail a nightmare. Many of them were moved to a prison football field somewhere where death-row prisoners were mingling freely w/misdemeanor defendants who hadn't even had a trial yet and had just been picked up for reading taro cards w/out a permit. Guards would come to the football field once a day and throw peanut butter sandwiches over the fence.
Currently over 500 prisoners from Templeman III are still unaccounted for, though it seems unlikely that that many died. Thank goodness for criminal defense attorneys Phyllis Mann, Ben Cohen, and Marcia Widder, who have been investigating all of this and have filed writs of habeas to get as many of these people released as possible.
Imagine: You're picked up for something ridiculous like reading taro cards, you face a max of 1-3 days in jail maybe—if you're even convicted—and you end up being in jail for weeks and going through all of the above horror. Many of these people were just being held pending trial!
How the heck could this happen? What were those guards thinking when they just left the jail w/thousands of prisoners locked inside as the water began to rise?
Women, Listen to Your Mothers
We saw the White Stripes last night at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. Cool venue, great show. Look, that's them in the pic at the right. Really. Ok, no need to enlarge that photo; you'll just have to trust me that we were there. Hey, and check it out, you can be there, too! NPR recorded the show and it's now available for your listening pleasure! Or if you subscribe to NPR's All Songs Considered podcast, I believe today's download will be this show.
As you can tell from the recording, for two little people, Jack and Meg sure can make a lot of great noise! Before the show L wondered whether the Jack and Meg ('cause, you know, I'm on a first name basis w/both of them, now that I've seen them play live) were going to play everything themselves. I figured they'd be using taped loops or whatever to augment their own instruments; I was wrong. It was just the two of them the whole time, and that was awesome!
They also did a great job of adding variety to the set—keeping the big hits recognizable, yet jamming them out to keep reminding you that this is live. (I hate it when bands just play their songs exactly as they were recorded; that always gives me the feeling I might as well just be listening to the CD at home.) The two of them are also relentless—they just kept playing and playing and playing at this frenetic pace (they played almost all the songs much faster than the recorded versions) w/out pause for water or even catching their breath. Pretty impressive, really.
Watching these two perform, I was thinking that maybe one of the reasons they're so popular (besides creating catchy rockin' tunes, of course) is that they sort of seem like humble, normal people. I don't know why this is; maybe it's just that they don't both look like supermodels or something, or maybe it's because I know Jack used to be a manual laborer (a furniture upholster) before he became a rock star. They're just cool people who like to rock out. At least that's the vibe they seem to project.
Anywho, good show. Worth a listen if you're even a sort of fan.
Althouse Express!
Congratulations to Professor Althouse for being quoted on page 37 of Tuesday's Express newspaper. The paper is available here in PDF format (caution: huge file!), but the relevant portion is reproduced at right (click to enlarge). The paper quoted Althouse's comments on the risk that the flood of money into the hurricane-ravaged areas of the gulf coast will lead to a different form of looting as unscrupulous individuals and corporations vie to get their hands on those recovery dollars.
Somehow Althouse seems to have become something like an A-list blogger—she's on lots of radar screens. Is this because she's a law prof and therefore has some kind of automatic credibility? Is it because she claims to be a middle-roader politically? Or is it simply the fact that she posts so frequently and on such a wide range of topics? The world will probably never know.
Oh, for those not familiar, the Express is a tabloid daily that's printed by the Washington Post and available for free throughout the city (but predominantly around metro stations so people can read it on their commute).
Posted 10:02 AM | TrackBack | meta-blogging
Blawg Review #25
Welcome to Blawg Review #25, the Protest Edition! Since “the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began” was just last Saturday, I've been thinking a bit about “protest” as both a way of life and a mode of expression. I realized that, whether they're protesting for themselves or on behalf of others, lawyers are almost always protesting something—that's their job. Isn't every lawsuit a form of protest against something or someone? Today's Review will highlight a wide variety of such protests that appeared in the blawgosphere in the last week and will feature a selection of images from the Sept. 24th peace march in D.C. But before diving into all the protests I want to invite you to check out some great new blawgs—they're popping up all over the place! Give a hearty welcome and read to:
- bk!: The blog of Brandy Karl, f.k.a. “alice” of A Mad Tea-Party. Thanks to Bag and Baggage for the tip! I'm sure anyone who used to read and enjoy the Tea-Party on a regular basis will agree that it's great to see Brandy/Alice blogging again. Unfortunately, just as we discover Brandy's new identity and home—as well as the fact that she's a happy lawyer!—we must also extend our sympathies as she copes with a death in the family.
- Blackprof.com, a new blawg by nine prominent black law professors. I've had the good fortune to be able to work with Professors Spencer Overton and Paul Butler in setting up and designing this new blawg and it's been great to see it take off and start generating hits and great discussions. Check it out for lots of insight into critical right-to-vote issues, law school diversity, the difficulty Americans seem to have in talking about the racial implications of hurricane Katrina, and much more.
- The Clerkship Notification Blog, a group site whose goal is to distribute information about the clerkship notification processs. This will only be a useful resource if lots of law students participate so the blawg's author has asked for help to get the word out about the site. And if you're a law student who has applied for a clerkship, be sure to visit and leave any information you know.
- Law Spouses, a new “blog community for those who love a law student.” This blog's author aims to create a resources for spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, etc., of law students to help them deal w/the challenges that arise when their loved ones give their lives to law school. If you're a spouse or partner or other loved one of a law student and you'd like to become a contributor at Law Spouses, get thee to the comments and let the author know!
Protest This!
Starting us off, Timothy Sandefur at Positive Liberty is protesting the hypocrisy of U.S. drug laws via this Slate article discussing William Rehnquist's alleged addiction to sedatives. Sandefur writes:
“The point here is that our government looks the other way, and gives light slaps on the wrist, to people in positions of power and notoriety for the sort of drug 'crimes' that ought not to be crimes to begin with, and that bring substantial punishments when committed by the underclass. That is the sort of hypocrisy that really does do damage to a society's moral standing, and serious damage. To Rehnquist's credit, however, he did not partake of that hypocrisy in the Raich case, where he had the courage to join the dissenters. I'm not a big Rehnquist fan, but he deserves props for that one.”
Speaking of white collar crime (and can you get much more white collar than the Chief Justice?), last week Professor Bainbridge invited protests both for and against white-collar crime sentencing policy when he asked, “As a matter of sound sentencing policy, should first offender white collar criminals serve their sentences in a maximum security prison?” The question prompted a lively discussion, both on the professor's blawg and on Crime and Federalism, where Mike asked, “Why are white collar sentences so long?” He says it's because otherwise these crooks would go unpunished:
The Stopped Clock riffs on a similar theme, protesting that problems in criminal justice go unresolved because we figure criminal defendants are “probably guilty of something anyway.” And we call this justice?
Our discussion of white collar crime would hardly be complete without input from the White Collar Crime Prof Blog, so check out that blog's analysis of the “CSI effect” on white collar prosecutions.
Moving from theory about white collar crime to its real practice in the wild, Professor Bainbridge also notes that Bill Frist is being accused of insider trading (followup here). And in the news we see that the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal is has reached the White House. Lock up the crooks!
Over at Wordlab, Abnu protests that a couple of lawyers have filed a trademark application for the word “Katrina”:
PHOSITA also reports on other Katrina-related trademark applications and provides the first connection I've seen between that storm and a certain 1980s pop-band.
In other Katrina-related news, J. Craig Williams of May it Please the Court® fame wonders whether insurers are going to get a pass on paying storm-related claims. The answer is all tort-o-rific and depends on proximate, concurrent, and principal cause. But hey, if you don't want to read about it, you can just sit back and listen because Williams kindly records most of his posts as podcasts. Where does he find the time?
Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise protests a law suit by the Mississippi attorney general against five insurers “to force those insurers to pay flood damages suffered by their Mississippi policy holders despite clear exclusions in those policies and the ready availability of flood coverage from federal programs.” Samuels calls this a brazen and irrational encroachment on freedom of contract. And he's not alone; as Jonathan B. Wilson notes, Walter Olson doesn't like this lawsuit either. Be sure to read Wilson's post to see “what really chaps Olson's briefcase.”
Katrina has also prompted Evan Schaeffer and Dennis Kennedy to ponder how such a devastating storm might affect e-discovery. Schaeffer also notes that trial lawyers cause hurricanes. Gee whiz; all this time I thought money was the root of all evil...
But Katrina played second fiddle last week to its little sister, Rita. Before Rita hit, Ernie the Attorney—who lived through Katrina in New Orleans—offered tips for evacuees. One recommendation was to have plenty of “calming agents like wine” on hand; better yet, you could just evacuate to a vineyard. Tom Kirkendall at Houston's Clear Thinkers expected that the economic effects of Rita would be huge. However, when the storm wasn't as devastating as predicted, he revised those expectations. Check out the posts in between for more on the storm, including some interesting thoughts on the chaotic evacuation of Houston. Beldar Blog also updated frequently on Rita's progress, including great posts on the evacuation gridlock, a nearly hour-by-hour update of living through the storm, and observations on the aftermath.
Back to political protests, the gentlemen at the Power Line blog are protesting the fact that Yubbledew President Bush recently appointed someone who was foolish enough to admit she doesn't know everything to a position in the DHS. The post wins this week's award for best title with: “Stuck on Stupid, and Not Too Brite.” Are they talking about their president, or....?
Continuing the “stuck on stupid” theme, Retired Army JAG Officer suggests that Democrats are exactly that. Al Nye The Lawyer Guy doesn't use the exact phrase, but it seems applicable to some of these crazy quotes from consumers and creditors.
But not everyone was stuck on stupid last week. 
Professor Tung Yin used the mid-season cliffhanger of Battlestar Gallactica (BSG to those of us who are addicted to this, the best show on tv possibly evar!) to protest torture as a tool of interrogation.
Norm Pattis at Crime and Federalism protested some of the stupid questions senators asked John Roberts last week.
Monica Bay at The Common Scold managed to get quoted and pictured in the NY Times for her protest against spotty cell phone reception in rural areas.
Professor Althouse protested the cancellation of The Comeback, the Lisa Kudrow show on HBO. The good professor has also begun podcasting, joining Professor Gordon Smith of the Office Hour Podcast on the Wisconsin Law Prof podcast team. Come on you other law profs, it's time to step up to the mic!
At Between Lawyers, Dennis Kennedy responds to a critique of the “non-commercial use only” Creative Commons licenses. Kennedy asks: “What do you really intend 'non-commercial use' to mean?” Personally I intend it to mean something like “quit being a greedy capitalist pig!” but I welcome Kennedy's call for the Creative Commons to “take a stronger leadership role in providing interpretations of the license provisions.”
Reporting Protests
When lawyers aren't protesting anything themselves, they frequently excel at reporting on and analyzing the protests of others. For example, Andrew Raff is in this reporting mode at the IPTAblog where he presents an exhaustive roundup of the Author's Guild's lawsuit to prohibit Google from scanning copyrighted books without obtaining permissions from the copyright owners. The gist seems to be that a majority of commentators think Google's “fair use” claim will win the day, but read the full post for much more.
Also in the reporting mode, Paul L. Caron at Tax Prawf Blog notes that Harvard has changed course and is allowing military recruiters on campus in order to make sure the school maintains access to federal funds. However, Harvard is continuing its protest in a different form:
Todd Zywicki comments on this at the Volokh Conspiracy, as well. Hey, maybe if Congress didn't support sending U.S. troops to die in unjustified wars of aggression it wouldn't see so much opposition to the military's recruitment efforts. Of course, there's also that completely discriminatory and irrational “don't ask, don't tell” policy the military maintains, so there's quite a bit for Harvard and other schools to protest, actually.
But speaking of the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr reports that the new war on porn is “a running joke” at the FBI. Protest at the FBI by agents? That's a good one.
They already gave at home, indeed.
Robert Ambrogi reports on the boatloads of cash NY lawyers take home, and since he's not really protesting, let me fill that gap: Judge Judy makes $30 million/year!? She's awful! Am I the only one that finds that not only shockingly ridiculous, but morally offensive, as well? Oh, and while we're at it, why do public defenders make less than prosecutors?
From money to sports (a pretty natural jump, don't you think?) Mark at the SportsBiz blog reports that several college football players have sued the NCAA “alleging that the NCAA's scholarship limitations are an illegal restraint of trade adopted in the name of cost containment by an organization that illegally monopolizes 'big time' college football.”
And in one other sports-related post, Richard Radcliffe of the Law Religion Culture Review notes that O.J. Simpson continues to have a talent for generating lawsuits. It's good to be good at something, you know?
Implicit Protests
Lots of blawg posts fall into the category of implicit protests against something or other (or, perhaps I should say that a determined blawg reviewer can force them inside that box). David Swanner of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog files such an implicit protest against poor law office management with his keys to a smoothly running law office. It's all about having a plan for cases, finances, marketing, business, and life. So what's your plan, man?
Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog joins Swanner by offering tips for using desktop search tools. Calloway also covers the interesting bits from the ABA's Legal Technology Survey. Only 19% of responding lawyers have used a wireless internet connection? If my own school is any indication, that number is going to skyrocket when the class of 2006 enters practice; just about every law student at GW uses wifi every day!
And speaking of law school, in an implicit protest against unhappiness in the legal profession, Jeremy Blachman recently called for feedback from law students about their perspectives on working in the legal profession. He writes:
Since he doesn't have comments on his blawg, Jeremy has been publishing some of the emails he's received. In chronological order, here's what he's got so far: post one, post two, post three, post four, post five, post six, post seven, post eight, post nine. There's a treasure trove of interesting perspectives there, so dig in.
One theme of those posts is the varying level of satisfaction with working as a legal professional, but there is more than one way to find happiness in the field. Just ask Dave Johnston, who left law school a few years ago and is now the chief blogger (or “Internet Content Manager”) at the Cato Institute in D.C. And if you decide you do want to be a lawyer rather than just working in a law-related position, yet you don't really dig law school, fear not! Who says a lawyer needs law school? Not me, that's fersure! As those of you who read the imbroglio regularly already know, getting rid of or generally improving law school is one of my favorite topics. Therefore, it was with relish that I noted several recent discussions about whether the third year of law school is really necessary, including this great summary post from Andrew Raff.
Oh, and if you're moving on from law school and looking for a job with a firm, rethink(ip) reminds you to be sure and ask your potential employer two important questions: “Who are your clients? Who are your best clients?”
- - - - -
Well, that's it for this little protest review. Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions for getting your blawg posts included in upcoming issues.
From time to time, the Editor of Blawg Review also posts reviews of law blogs, sometimes republishing a review. Last week, there was a lengthy review of Crime & Federalism originally published by Mark Draughn. If you've seen a good review of a law blog, or would like to write one
for Blawg Review, please contact the Editor.
Posted 07:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | law general
One Great Weekend in DC
The weekend has been just about as busy and action-packed as the last post predicted. What an incredibly cool weekend to live in D.C.! My photos from yesterday's peace march are here. I'll have more about all of it in the coming days, but for now it's all about Blawg Review #25.
Posted 08:55 PM | TrackBack | life generally
Overload of Goodness
This weekend promises to be simply packed packed packed. First, there's the big war protest and concert, then there's the Green Festival. Simultaneously is the big National Book Festival on the Mall. Finally, we're committed to attending a “charity event” Sunday evening, and I'm supposed to compile Blawg Review #25 by Monday. Oh, and just in case I had hope of catching my breath after all that, I have two court appearances on Tuesday—just for status hearings, but still.
Most of this activity isn't really related to law school, but I'm nevertheless finding 3L just about as crazy busy (in completely different ways) than I found either of the first years. I'm obviously doing something wrong here.
Posted 09:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L
Blawg Wisdom: Thing One & Thing Two
It must be law school application season because Blawg Wisdom is now featuring requests for your help on Thing One & Thing Two in the application game: GPA and LSAT scores. Please Mr. Please, don't play b-17.... I mean, please please please if you have any expertise or just an opinion on how to deal w/less-than-optimal GPA/LSAT situations, get on over to Blawg Wisdom and offer these requesters your thoughts. Thanks!
13 or 14? The GW Academic Calendar Imbroglio
This is mostly GW inside baseball, so if you don't care about such things, there's an interesting discussion at Leiter's Law School Reports about the value of the socratic method. Don't care about that, either? Hmm... Go read Think Progress then, ok? There's always something good and snarky there...
Anywho, in the fall of 2004, GW changed its academic schedule from 14-week semesters with 50-minute “hours” for classes, to 13-week semesters with 55-minute “hours” (or something like that; I just show up when the tell me to). The goal was to compress the ABA-required class time into 13 weeks to make space for the Fall Interview Program (FIP) in the fall. At the time, the SBA (Student Bar Association) and faculty discussed other reasons for the switch, but none of them seemed as important as catering to the big firms that dominate FIP and the students who so dearly want to work for them.
The 13-week schedule was just an experiment that was set to end after a year or two, so now the school is having a bit of a discussion about it. This has generated two fascinating emails from partisans on either side of the issue.
Proponents of the 13-week calendar write:
On the other hand:
* The odd end/start times of classes and the cramming of 14 weeks into 13 has led to no available times for organization meetings, panels, speakers. We used to have the 5 - 6 pm timeslot with no classes scheduled.
* No available classrooms for organization events - they are all scheduled for classes.
* 26 weeks instead of 28 weeks gives less time to do all the activities that the organizations have planned for the year.
* Not an advantage to have graduation the same time as the whole university. You'll be competing with undergrads for hotels and restaurants and get a generic GW experience rather than a special law school experience.
* If you don't like the idea of missing 1L Fall break, think about the poor evening 1Ls who have to give up Spring break (and don't get Fall break) under the 13 week system. Evening students make up close to 20% of the JD population here and they overwhelmingly supported keeping the 14 week schedule.
* Less education for your money. Although the total minutes in class is longer under 13 weeks, we all know the end of class period is the least productive part of our education.
In many ways it is cheaper for the administration to have the 13 week schedule, but more expensive for the students in terms of their diminished law school experience.
Are your eyes glazed over? Probably, but what's interesting about this is just that it shows that some law students actually seem to care about how their school experience is designed! This may not be a huge issue, but at least its a sign of life from the student body.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty firmly in the 14-week camp. As mentioned above, the 13-week schedule produces crazy class start/end times (i.e. 3:50-5:15!?) that don't mesh well w/other activities, such as work or social life. The problems the compressed schedule causes for student organizations are real and, although I have no hard evidence of it, I do not doubt that support for student groups (or at least turnout at meetings and events) has dropped b/c of this schedule. In the long run, this could decrease the quality of student life overall. But perhaps most important, the 14-week schedule simply gives more time to cover and digest class material and makes doing so feel just a bit less harried and hectic. I'm all for long summer breaks or whatever, but I prefer a slower, steadier academic pace and I think we had that w/the 14-week schedule.
Posted 10:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L
Blawg Review #24 & Improving Law School
Jaybeus Corpus posted a great Blawg Review on Monday. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. And since the next one will be right here at the imbroglio, please be sure to submit your best posts—both those you've read this week and those you've written. A good Blawg Review depends on you!
But in keeping with the theme of late, Blawg Review #24 contains a link to a great post from the [non]billable hour about how to improve law school from a blawgger's perspective. There are lots of great ideas in there; I especially like
- 9. Ignore big firms. Seriously.
- 11. Guarantee student satisfaction. (By making the first semester free!)
- 12. Remember, the law is not rocket science.
On the other hand, #2, “Bring in BarBri as a curriculum consultant,” seems like a royally awful idea. One of the problems w/law school is that it teaches too much for tests already at the expense of teaching practical skills and knowledge; bringing in BarBri is only like to exacerbate that problem.
Number 4, “Auction off legal research access to West or Lexis,” is interesting and it would be a good start—Wexis should definitely have to pay more for its captive audience—but I'd definitely take this further: Put Wexis out of business, either by using eminent domain to buy them out (replacing their for-profit services with non-profit analogues), or by simply creating a publicly-funded competitor that offers the same material for free to anyone with an internet connection.
Isn't it fun to dream?
See also: A recent survey of which schools produce the most BigLaw Drones Associates.
Posted 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L
Who's Gonna Kill 3L?
Following up on yesterday's post about whether the cost of law school should prevent people from pursuing public interest careers, Andrew Raff points to an ongoing debate at the Legal Affairs Debate Club over the oddly-phrased question: Abolish the third year of law school? Check out the give and take between Laura I. Appleman and GW's own Daniel Solove (who blogs at both Balkinization and PrawfsBlawg). Appleman seems to be the proponent of change (although she's not arguing explicitly or forcefully that law school should be only 2 years, only that something needs to change), while Solove is defending the third year (but grants that the current landscape of legal education has problems that law professors and law schools could do more to address).
I've written about this topic before, but let me be more clear: While I see pros and cons in both positions, I'm all for getting rid of the third year for cost/debt reasons alone. Saving students lots of money would reduce barriers for them to enter public interest careers, and it could theoretically reduce the cost of legal services for everyone, so it would be good public policy. An added benefit is that it could take some of the snobbery and pretentiousness out of law school and the legal profession generally because at two years the JD would become a Master's degree, plain and simple. In fact, why don't we change that pretentious name, anyway? Let's all get our Master's Degree in Law (drop the whole pile of Latin b.s.) and get on with our lives. The world would be a better place. Perhaps people would even have less disdain for lawyers if they dropped some of their pretensions.
That said, I'm willing to consider alternatives. A few pretty good ideas were floated in the comments here, any of which would probably be improvements over the current system. The debate between Appleman and Solove is generating other interesting points to consider. (Unfortunately I don't have time now to consider them in detail, but soon, I hope.)
More obscurely, does it strike anyone else as peculiar that the question posed by the Legal Affairs Debate Club does not name an actor who would do the abolishing? Is the question whether the ABA should abolish the third year (it could), or whether law schools should do it, or law professors, or law students, or...? Any of these groups could take on this cause and, with sufficient organization, could probably succeed in rolling law school back to two years. But the form of the question gets to the truth that this is an issue for which no one really wants to take responsibility. Perhaps the status quo in legal education remains largely undisturbed because the constituencies involved are so diffuse and at odds that none of them can get together well enough to really change things. If that's the case, this seems a place where the ABA, as a sort of umbrella over all of these groups, should really be taking the lead...
UPDATE: See also this post on PrawfsBlawg about states that allow people to take the bar exam w/out attending law school. That post also links to previous debate on the issue by Appleman and Solove.
Reality Testing Law School Debt and the Public Interest Career
You hear it all the time in law school: “I need to get a big firm job so I can pay off my loans.” Sometimes the statement is prefaced with, “I'd like to do X, but...” where X is some form of public interest work. Supposedly studies show that a large majority of entering 1Ls express a desire to go into public interest law, yet only something like 3% of law graduates (on average) actually take public interest jobs upon graduation. There are many reasons for this, including that there just aren't enough public interest jobs, and that's because the government keeps cutting funding for them because, hey, if you're poor, you don't deserve legal representation so buck up!
Tangent. Sorry. So there is stiff competition for public interest jobs, but another reason people choose the firm route is that they think it's going to be a good way to pay off their debt. But is that true?
According to my Public Interest Lawyering instructor (hereafter PI Prawf), it's really a load of crap—at least at GW. PI Prawf claims the median income at GW last year was about $65k/year. That means half of GW graduates are making less than $65k. Only about the top 8% are making the mythical $100-120k—the big firm starting numbers. Lots of PI jobs pay $40-50k to start, plus you might be able to get around $5-10k/year in loan repayment assistance—either from your job/fellowship or school—so the PI career could pay nearly as much as 50% of GW grads make, yet only 1-3% of GW grads are going to do public interest. The point is that the money difference between public interest and what at least half of GW grads makes is not really that big—certainly not big enough to be an excuse not to pursue a public interest career for students who are sincere in their desire to do so.
My thoughts on this are that an extra $15k/year (the difference between the GW median of $65k and the top you can reasonably expect from a public interest job, which I would say is $50k) can be significant—that's your loan payments right there. Also, I think statistics showing large majorities of law students expressing a desire to do public interest work are bogus. When surveyed, students are much more likely to say something like “I want to help people” than they are to say “I want to make buckets of cash!” So I'm skeptical of arguments like these that the lack of financial assistance for public interest lawyers is what keeps their numbers low. Still, if such arguments work to increase the number of law schools offering LRAPs or to increase the amount of funding those schools pay out in the LRAPs that exist, I'm happy to forget my skepticism and jump on the bandwagon. ;-)
And speaking of LRAPs, kudos to BU Law, which has just doubled its LRAP program.
For prospective law students who really do think they want to do public interest law and are trying to decide where to apply, the ABA offers a guide to Law School Public Interest and Pro Bono Programs, but it looks like it was last updated in 2003. The ABA is also trying to collect information about LRAP options at various schools, although EJW is also doing that (see below). Finally, the ABA is pushing federal legislation to provide some form of federal loan forgiveness for law students. You can find links to the legislation in the Law Student Division's legislation page—it's HR 198 and HR 507. If you are a resident in a jurisdiction that gives you representation in Congress (IOW, if you're not a DC resident), please write your reps and ask them to support these bills!
Finally, Equal Justice Works has just published The E-Guide to Public Service at America's Law Schools, its first attempt to give prospective law students some measure of the relative support for public interest law at law schools. It's certainly a start and it provides some really great data, such as average amount spent on LRAP per student (if a school has an LRAP), average debt load for students at the school, and much more. Unfortunately, not all schools participated so it can give only part of the picture.
The bottom line in the law school public interest money game is what we all know if we're honest: On average, public interest jobs pay less. However, when you add in LRAPs and job satisfaction, you're likely to come out ahead in a PI career if that's what you want to do. If you're using money as your excuse, you're just kidding yourself. Drop the excuses and just admit you want to do something else. On the other hand, if all they hype has convinced you that money was a barrier to a PI career but it's really really what you want to do—stop worrying. Make smart choices about where you go to school (forget US News; choose the school with the best LRAP!), apply for fellowships that provide loan forgiveness, work for passage of federal loan forgiveness, and just do what you want to do. Like every PI lawyer I've ever met says—it will work out, it won't be as hard as you thought, you won't be as poor as you thought, and you'll be so very glad you followed your bliss.
Posted 10:34 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | 3L
Bar Exam Requirements
If you're a 3L like me, you really don't know where you are going to take the bar exam, but you know there are things you should learn as you try to make that decision. So where do you go to learn about the different exams—what each tests you on, the format of the test, dates of the test, deadlines for registration, etc? How about BarBri?
Whether you're enrolled in BarBri or not, you can still access the info they've compiled about the various bar exams. In fact, from two URLs you can access info about any state. Start with these:
- http://www.barbri.com/states/mt/index.htm
- http://www.barbri.com/states/mt/inc/mbe_exam_page.shtm
(Yeah, I know this is basic stuff, but I'm obviously taking this in baby steps, ok?)
Posted 11:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L
Blogroll Dive #1
Introducing what I hope will become a regular feature here at the imbroglio—the Blogroll Dive, in which I click through some of the links in the blogroll on the left and share with you brief bits about what's up with these people. So, without further ado, the Blogroll Dive for today, the mostly-GW edition:
- Idlegrasshopper: Going on “near-permanent hiatus.” I hate it when that happens—especially to a fellow GW blogger.
- Jack&Coke: Also bailed. Come on people! Where's your commitment? Your dedication to the cause!?
- Life,Law, Libido (or L-Cubed, for short): Also gone, and that is the deepest cut off all. Scott has been around for years (although unless I'm missing something, he's left us no link to his archives). I have begun to understand, I think, the types of forces that lead 3Ls and new J.D.s to stop blogging, but it's still a loss to see people like this stop tapping the keyboard for us. Best to you, Scott, and thanks!
- Caravan4Christmas: Ok, here's the dedication to the cause. “I am learning a lot about building an organization from the ground up.” Sounds challenging, but she's still going strong.
- Actusreus: He posts infrequently, but it's always great. Check back once a month just in case he's posted a new satirical gem.
- Extreme Indifference to Human Life: Reckless Murder likes the baseball.
- A Mad Tea-Party: Leaving the GW blawgosphere for some delightful news: Alice is back! Hers was one of the first law blogs I read and loved, but after posting only rarely for many months, then not at all for many more, she officially retired last March. Now, although she's not returning to the Tea Party, she's started a new blog that appears to be part personal, part professional. Oh, and she's not Alice anymore, she's Brandy. Apparently, she's always been Brandy, but, well, only a few knew. And Brandy is a happy lawyer, which is why she's decided to reveal her identity and start a new blog:
Congratulations, Brandy/Alice! I'd thought many times over the last months and even years of removing the Tea Party from the blogroll, but now I'm very glad I didn't!So, what's the point of me saying all this now? It's that you can take the traditional legal industry and career paths and unhappiness and walk away from it. Despite what everyone in law school tells you, you are not doomed to that particular life. You don't need it, not for your career, and not for yourself, and certainly not for the people around you. And your clients sure as hell don't need it. Happy lawyers are good lawyers. 
Posted 11:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | blogrolldiving
Patent Bar Question
Blawg Wisdom currently features a question about whether there's any value for 1Ls in taking the patent bar. Since I know nothing about this, I beg any reader who does know something to get on over there and share. You all did a great job responding to the last request, so it would be great to keep all that helpful sharing going.
Thank you!
Which Island?
I'm looking at the employers who will be interviewing at the Equal Justice Works Career Fair next month and I had to chuckle at these instructions for applying to Hawaii Legal Aid:
Yeah, don't forget your preferences for island, if any.
Sounds awfully tempting, doesn't it?
Disoriented
The DC NLG Disorientation was great. I didn't take copious notes, but it's just always great to get to talk to and learn from lawyers who are in the trenches everyday fighting what I see as the good fight.
The keynote was by distinguished civil rights attorney John Brittain of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. He's also the former president of the NLG, and former Dean of Thurgood Marshal School of Law. He presented three propositions on which lawyers with conscience should base their careers:
- Human rights are superior to property rights
- “A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society,” and “I'd rather die fighting on my feet, than live begging on my knees.” (Both quotations attributed to Charles Hamilton Houston.)
- “Tell no lies and claim no easy victories.” (Attributed to Amilcar Cabral.)
We also heard some interesting thoughts from solo practitioner Thomas Ruffin, including:
- Once you graduate and pass the bar, there's no difference btwn you and any other lawyer. You can go into court for anybody else in the jurisdiction where you've been admitted to practice law. A corporation, George Bush, the richest capitalist, the governemtn—these cannot go to court for others. They can go to court for themselves, but not for others.
- Never succumb to an employment situation that compromises what you want to do in your practice. You can always practice law. Never feel you cannot quit a job and go to another job. As long as we are admitted to a bar, in good standing, even if we have to practice in the homeless shelter where we're living, we can still practice law. [This is a cool idea; however, how many people in the homeless shelter have $150k in student loans to worry about?]
- There are a lot of things that can be accomplished in the realm of “people's lawyering.” Political prisoners need lawyers like you can be.
- About criminal law: If you practice criminal defense anywhere in this country, you'll see a lot of shysters.
- About losing: It can be a good lesson. It humbles you. Learn from it and redouble your energy for next time.
DC Law Student Disorientation—Today!
D.C. law students: The D.C. chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild is holding a disorientation today, from 2-6 p.m., at UDC law school. Here's a PDF with the details, and I'm told there's going to be a good ol' fashioned keg party following the event. I'm going to try to make some or all of it. Hope to see you there!
Posted 09:28 AM | TrackBack | 3L ai action alerts
Reality Testing Yubbledew: Election '04 to Katrina
Recent polls show that a majority of Americans are not satisfied with the Bush administration's response to hurricane Katrina. Some are saying that the response was so bad it's caused some sort of crisis of confidence in the ability of our government to do the right thing and protect American values and interests in times of great stress.
Of course, I'm thrilled that my fellow Americans are finally waking up to the fact that this administration is not only incompetent but nearly pathologically focused on its own agenda and interests at the expense of what's best for the American people and the rest of the world. Thank goodness people are finally waking up!
But, um, how is it that an administration can start a war based on lies, send thousands of American soldiers to their deaths, be responsible for killing thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens, and increase hostility against the U.S. all around the world because of all this aggression—how is it that this administration could do all this and still win the 2004 election!? And why now, after the tragic lack of response to hurricane Katrina, are Americans finally saying “enough!”?
I think I understand this apparent mystery, but I'm not sure. First, a little psychoanalysis for you:
When people of normal intelligence behave in a way that rejects what they experience as real, it requires some explanation. Psychoanalytic theory assumes that inadequacy in reality-testing fulfills a psychological function, usually the preservation of an attitude basic to the individual's makeup. If inadequate reality-testing threatens to undermine such [a] functionally significant attitude, it is avoided.
Charles R. Lawrence III, The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning With Unconscious Racism, 39 Stan. L. Rev. 317, 332 (Jan. 1987).
This is basically what I said after the 2004 presidential election—the horror of what the Bush administration had done in its first term was so great it created a sort of paralysis on the part of those who could sort of see what was going on. If there's a silver lining in the federal government's completely inept response to hurricane Katrina, it's that a majority of Americans finally became—at least for a few days—so shocked, so appalled, so horrified that the defensive mechanism that had previously forced them to deny how awful this administration is turned around and urged them to demand some accountability.
Bush's approval rating is now at an all-time low. How long will it be before our overly-developed psychological coping mechanisms overcome our critical faculties once more? Bush has now promised to spend “unprecedented amounts” of federal money to help rebuild the region affected by the hurricane. Can he buy his way out of this? And do we really want that, knowing that this administration has demonstrated that its number one spending priority seems to be to transfer as much federal money as possible into the hands of private corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel? In addition, it has already said that workers hired in the rebuilding effort will have to work for substandard wages. From where I sit, Bush's speech last night can do nothing to change the fact that this administration doesn't care about the average American; it cares about the corporate American, the only “person” it will ever love.
Be that as it may, the question remains: Why did Katrina wake a majority of Americans up when the Iraq war didn't? Does it have anything to do w/coping and repression? Was the horror of the lack of response to Katrina somehow greater than the horror of waging a war of aggression based on lies? If so, what would that say about our country? Or is it simply that the horror of the lack of response to Katrina was so immediate and obvious and unambiguous, whereas people were able to construct some sort of plausible rationale for accepting Bush's war?
Posted 09:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | election 2004 general politics
Kurt Vonnegut is my hero.
For the past week or so life around the imbroglio has been almost completely tv-free because, for various reasons, we temporarily had no cable. The cable has now been fixed, which allowed me to watch a recent episode of The Daily Show which featured an interview with Kurt Vonnegut. One Good Move has the interview available here, and it's totally worth your five minutes to watch. As others have noted, Vonnegut is still very much on his game, dishing out the dark irony better than just about anyone else does. A couple of choice quotes:
And:
Posted 06:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | general politics tv land
Subpoena Cell Phone Records?
Hey all you google sleuths and communications law peeps: Help!
1) If you have a cell phone number and the name of its owner, how can you find out who the cell service provider is so that you can subpoena the call records for that number?
2) When you send such a subpoena, what kinds of records can/should you ask for? What are you entitled to get? What's free, and what costs money?
Any help would be very appreciated! My client thanks you in advance for your help!
Posted 10:07 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack | 3L
You Need More Coffee
I've been so busy running around like a chicken with my head cut off third-year law student without a job that I missed the opening of the Will Work For Favorable Dicta CafePress Store! My mug is already in the mail and winging its way to me—what about yours?
Now you know what I really need is a bunch of stickers I can put on my job applications, whenever I get around to actually doing any of those things, that is....
Blawg Review #23: The Dynamic Sortable Table Edition
Holy cow. Check out the coolness that is Blawg Review #23 at Preaching to the Perverted! It's brilliantly organized using a dynamic table that lets you sort its content by post title, content descritption, post author, and topic of post. So instead of reading through the links in the order Dave! decided to present them, you can read through the links in whatever order your heart desires. Pretty snazzy, Dave!
In addition to being technically super-spiffy, this edition of Blawg Review also contains—surprise!—some terrific links, including:
Robert Ambrogi: "Lawyers including Ted Frank, Glenn Reynolds and David Kopel are calling for the shooting of looters. I am appalled that members of the legal profession would call for unbridled, vigilante street justice. This is contrary to every fundamental principle we should stand for as lawyers." I couldn't agree more.
White Collar Crime Prof Blog: "Richard Hatch, the first Survivor winner, has now been indicted on ten counts of tax fraud and using funds intended for a charity for personal expenses." Greedy greedy.
But wait a minute. If I tell what all the great links are, you won't read the Review. So go there, ok? I'm apparently supposed to do another of these things in about two weeks and there's really no way I'll be able to top this so enjoy it while you can....
Posted 09:35 PM | TrackBack | meta-blogging
Request for Wisdom: A variation on that pesky GPA question
Blawg Wisdom has just been updated with a request for wisdom on whether an English PhD should go to law school. Oh, wait, that's not the question, even though it's a more interesting one to me. The real question is: Does undergrad GPA really matter in the law school admissions process for an accomplished non-traditional applicant? If you have any thoughts on this question, please get on over to Blawg Wisdom and share!
Oh, there is also a recent post about bar review flashcards over there. If you're taking the MPRE in November, you might want to use the instructions for making some flashcards for that, too. Maybe.
Posted 09:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | advice
21 Miles? Yeah, baby!
How long does it take me to run 21 miles at my “training” pace? That would be five hours. Yes, I ran yesterday for five hours straight. Am I sore today? Yes. Do I feel good anyway and glad that I did it? Absolutely. I'd feel better if some generous soul would donate a bunch of money or if thousands of people would [nevermind. This has been edited to comply with commercial restrictions], but well, I do understand I can't have everything and I feel pretty lucky just to be able to do this at all.
So here's the funny thing about this marathon business: I'm able to “run” 21 miles, albeit very slowly, yet I don't really feel like I'm in any better shape than I was before I started this little adventure. How can that be? Well, I think it's because I've worked pretty hard to remain in pretty poor shape (more cookies, please!). Sadly, the simple truth remains that even if you're running 15-25 miles/week (and that's actually pretty low mileage for most marathoners, I believe), you can still gain weight if you take in more calories than you burn. When you're burning so many calories, you might think it would be hard to consume more than you burn, but it's actually surprisingly easy. ;-)
Posted 07:12 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | marathon
An Appellate Perspective On 4th Amendment Issues
As part of clinic class time yesterday we got to hear from an experienced criminal appeals attorney who had the following thoughts on how criminal defense trial lawyers should think about 4th Amendment issues (illegal searches and seizures):
1. Preserve issues for appeal. If it's not preserved at trial, it's waived. So your goal at trial is to make sure you raise issues, even if you know you'll lose, in order to preserve them for appeal. Suppression hearings are almost always a good idea. In most jurisdictions, you have to raise the precise issue that will be appealed, so raise lots of issues, don't just say “hey, I think there's a 4th Amendment violation here.” You don't want to raise frivolous issues and or waste the court's time or annoy the judge, but if in doubt, err on side of raising 4th Amend. issues.
2. If there's no warrant, you've got a 4th Amendment issue. Most of our cases won't have warrants b/c of all the exceptions to the warrant requirement. Remember: The rule is that a warrant is required; anything less is either an exception or unconstitutional. If there's no warrant, the burden is on the Gov't to explain why the search was constitutional. Be aggressive; they didn't have what they were supposed to have, so make them prove what they did was legal.
3. Check the paperwork. If there is a warrant, check it. Check the affadavits. Look for mistakes. The Leon good faith exception is bad for defense attorneys, but the officer still has to rely in objective good faith and if the warrant is facially deficient, objective good faith is not possible—it's the officer's mistake. See Groh v. Ramirez (U.S. 2004).
4. Always go back to the very beginning of the story—the police encounter that got you here. A lot of police encounters that lead to evidence you want to suppress are the result of a chain of actions, any one of which may have been illegal. Too often young lawyers just look at last step when really the first step may be more helpful (invalid). You only need one weak link; gov't has to win every single one but you only have to show one part of its case invalid to win.
Good stuff. Mostly review, but still all good to keep in mind. I love this clinic.
Posted 10:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L
The Job Search Nightmares
My condolences and thoughts of encouragement go out to Woman of the Law who has had a hell of a time nailing down a job since graduating from law school last spring. If I have the story straight, it seems that first she thought she had a fellowship, then the state thought the idea was so great they took it over to do it themselves, leaving WoTL w/out a job. Then she had an offer somewhere, which she accepted, but they seem to be not getting back to her. The whole traumatic experience has brought her to the point where she writes:
Man. What can you say to that? Ok, first I had to laugh. Is that the best pickup line ever, or what? I mean, it's so sad and full of wierdness that it might actually work. At the same time, it's so gut-punchingly scary that I basically have to laugh or else I'll seize up with anxiety because what I see here is basically a variation on my own worst fear: That this time next year I, too, will be unemployed and at loose ends with mountains of debt walling me in on every side. OMG, the sky is falling, the sky is falling! I can't even really think about it. And I guess, when all is said and done, the best thing to do is to keep trying, and to maintain your sense of humor. That's what WoTL seems to be doing, anyway, and I definitely admire her for that.
In a sort of different take on the unemployed recent law grad, Andrew Raff (from whom you can look forward to a great little interview on Ambivalent Voices soon) seems to be not overwhelmingly worried about the situation. In fact, he's spending at least some of his time being a rock star and releasing some kick-ass tracks for our musical pleasure. Cool.
Posted 09:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | 3L
Caravan4Christmas
So are you wondering how you could help some of the people most seriously affected by Katrina? How about making sure all the homeless kids from the region have a terrific Christmas? That's Law-Rah's plan -- she's abandoning her blog for now to start a new project, and it looks like it could be a big one.
Say hello to Caravan4Christmas:
Law-Rah's already getting lots of support on the project but she's depending on getting everyone she can to participate to make this as successful as possible. At this point there's no address to which you can send gifts or toys or whatever, but I'm guessing that will come soon. Just watch the Caravan4Christmas blog for more details as they develop and let Law-Rah know if you think of ways you could help out.
Posted 09:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | ai action alerts
OMG: I'm Really Running A Marathon!
It's now less than two months away! This Sunday we'll be running 23 miles (although for various reasons I might only do 20) and in a couple of weeks we're supposed to run a complete “practice” marathon before we sort of relax for the week or two before the real deal. Is it just me, or is this all rather hard to believe? ;-)
p.s.: I know if you're inclined to give to good causes Katrina is at the top of your list right now, but [nevermind. This has been edited to comply with commercial restrictions].
Posted 08:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | marathon
Ambivalent Voices #16: An Interview with Deborah Schneider
The latest episode of Ambivalent Voices is a special back-to-school edition featuring a conversation with Deborah Schneider, co-author of Should You Really Be A Lawyer? If you're a law student or thinking about becoming one, I almost guarantee you'll find this conversation helpful and informative in terms of making the most of law school and finding the right area of law for your own career. Check the show notes for more details of what you'll hear.
The Podcast Learning Curve Is A Sine Wave
Blawg Review #22 is up at Blawg Wisdom and it's packed with links about how hurricane Katrina affected the legal community, what's going to happen with the SCOTUS with two new Justices on the way, some great links from various practitioners, and a few notes about people starting and returning to law school. I think it's a fine Review (I'm biased) and I encourage you to check it out. That said, it's not everything I'd hoped it would be.
This was my first time hosting Blawg Review and I wanted it to be special. The theme was back-to-school so I had hoped to read or scan as many law student and law prof blogs as I could and compile more links than you could shake a stick at about the return to school. I also planned to supplement all that law schooly goodness with about 8 great podcasts featuring interviews with students returning to school. Well, I praised Gizmo a while back for giving me one-click, high-quality, phone recording. And while it's great, it has one problem that I didn't discover until way too late: The sound files it creates are not compatible with Garageband! After many attempts to convert the files into something Garageband would accept without destroying their quality, I finally found that all was well if I burned the files to CD as regular aiff files, then imported them into iTunes as mp3s, then imported those files into Garageband. Needless to say, that all takes a lot of time, none of which I was planning on when I sat down to work on the project, so my big plans had to be reduced considerably in order to make the deadline. Oh well.
And then, as I was enjoying a great hike on Labor Day, I realized that I had produced a Blawg Review on Labor Day that said almost nothing about labor. How sad. I was so focused on my big podcast plans that I just forgot. So I'm sorry about that. I know labor is pretty used to be discounted and dismissed, but I really hate being part of that.
In my final podcasting lesson for now, I also learned why Garageband is not the ideal podcast creation tool: It doesn't allow you to create "songs" longer than 999 "measures." That's apparently about 33 minutes, which is fine because I prefer podcasts that are shorter than that and I think most listeners do, to; however, it's not fine when you have a great interview that happens to be longer than that. Garageband also has other drawbacks as a podcast-creator; primarily, it doesn't have a very good way for you to save and reuse bits, such as promos or transitions or little intros or outros that you'd like to use in multiple shows. You can sort of do this with the loops, but it's pretty limited. You can also just create single files with those things and import them again for each project, but that's a pain. I wonder if Apple has any plans to create a real podcasting tool. I hope so. If not, I hope someone else will make one that has Garageband's great mixing capabilities but adds lots of nice little features just for podcasting.
Anyway, as I said here, I'll be working on publishing those interviews w/law students as soon as I can. Meanwhile, thanks to all those I've had the pleasure to interview—your podcast is coming soon!
The Fisherman and the MBA Grad
I heard this joke a few weeks ago and forgot it, but just saw a variation of it over at George's Employment Blawg. It's about a fisherman and a businessman (MBA for short):
MBA: You spend your morning fishing, but the you spend your whole afternoon sleeping. Why not go fishing all day?
Fisherman: What's the point?
MBA: With the money you get, you could buy another boat.
Fisherman: What's the point?
MBA: You could invest your money, go public, buy more boats, and become a leader in your country.
Fisherman: What's the point?
MBA: As a tycoon, you could sleep the whole afternoon.
Posted 07:45 PM | TrackBack | life generally
Why We Do This
I had my first contempt hearing last week; the issue was: Could the government show probable cause to believe my client committed the crime of contempt? The government had to show that my client intentionally violated a condition of his release. I was loaded up with just over 25 questions for the arresting officer and a half-page of argument, even though my supervisor said we were destined to lose b/c probable cause is such a low standard. The point of this hearing was simply to give us as much information as possible to prepare for trial on the issue. Apparently many defense attorneys just waive such hearings because they so rarely win, but I'm told that's a really poor thing to do because you miss the chance to possibly gain that extra bit of information that will help you at trial. While waiting in court for my case to be called I actually saw several attorneys waive their clients' contempt hearings. Maybe they had good strategic reasons for doing that, but, well, it didn't look like such a great idea.
It looked like an even worse idea after I actually won mine! To just about everyone's surprise (including the judge's, I think), somehow the judge became convinced that the government had not shown probable cause. I'm thinking this is why having law students in court can sometimes be a great advantage for clients—judges don't want to shoot the puppy, so they sometimes give you a little extra benefit of the doubt. I was also lucky. The cop said exactly everything I hoped he'd say in response to my questions (in my first real cross examination ever), so he basically made my argument for me. The prosecutor seemed caught off guard that the judge was actually taking my argument seriously and so was unable to mount a real counter-argument. He could have easily shot me down, but I think he just hadn't thought much about it because he hadn't planned on needing to argue the issue.
The hearing lasted about 35 minutes and when it was over I could barely believe what had happened. And to blow my mind further, after the court had recessed another prosecutor who had been watching the hearing came up to me and said in what seemed a very serious way, “Nice job.”
My client was pretty happy, and he's free for now, so all in all it was a very good day. Even though this was a teensy tiny little hearing, a very simple legal issue, there's really nothing like the feeling of prevailing in court when even you think you're going to lose. And although it's inevitable that I will lose more than I win, the hope that next time might do the trick and you'll get that feeling again is least part of what keeps criminal defense attorneys going.
Posted 01:55 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | 3L
What is Allocution? Take II
Last week Blonde Justice and I exchanged notes about the meaning of the word “allocution.” I noted that the U.S. Attorneys' plea offers generally indicate whether the AUSA (Assistant U.S. Attorney) wants to waive or reserve allocution. I thought that meant they were waiving or reserving the right to argue at sentencing about specific terms of the sentence, such as how long a period of incarceration might be, or how how many hours of community service, etc. Blondie explained that, in fact, “allocution” is a term of art that usually refers to a defendant's formal recitation of guilt. That made sense to me and I thought I had it figured out.
However, now I'm looking at a plea offer from the AUSA and it says (among other things) the United States will agree to:
___Waive _X_Reserve Allocution (the right to allocute at the time of sentencing)
So what does that mean? It doesn't make much sense to me that the prosecutor is saying she's reserving the right to demand a formal recitation of guilt from the defendant. Instead, the prosecutor reserves the right “to allocute”—that suggests the prosecutor is going to do something, not the defendant. That's why, in this context, “allocution” seems to refer to argument, and the verb “to allocute” seems to mean “to argue.” And if that's true, it's stupid. And if it's not true, it's still stupid because it confuses me and I don't like to be confused.
The lesson here is really this: If something confuses me, that means it's stupid. If everyone will just remember that we'll all get along much better.
Confusing matters further, the plea offer also has a blank for the prosecutor to check that reads:
_X_Limit allocution to: ___(insert period of time here; e.g. 30 days)___
So what can “allocution” be if you limit it to X days? Does that mean the prosecutor reserves the right to argue, but agrees not to argue for more than X days in jail? Or, um, what?
But, and so, if anyone has any more thoughts on this allocution question, I'm listening. It's very possible I'm just being dense. It's also possible I'm looking for reasons to say the prosecutors are being pompous and stupid, even if such reasons don't really exist. Hmph.
Posted 06:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L crimlaw
GW Helps Loyola & Tulane Students
This in email from GW's student body president:
As a result, we will be accepting around 20 students for this semester to attend GW as visiting students. The plan is to have them start on Tuesday.
Cool. If we had any extra space, I'd be happy to host one of these students. Since we don't, I hope other GW students are in better places for that sort of thing. According to the temporary Tulane website the Association of American Law Schools is sort of coordinating this temporary student thing and lots of schools are helping out. Although these students would probably have preferred to just stay at their schools w/no hurricane, this might end up being a pretty cool little part of their law school careers. I mean, how cool would it be to be able to just sort of visit a different school for a semester (or two)? Would you go to Arizona? Boston? California? D.C.? I think I'd try to go to Idaho, but that's because youdapimp I'm strange.
Posted 06:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L
Katrina: Police Behaving Badly
Sean over at Objective Justice has been tracking news about police participating in looting in New Orleans. I was actually skeptical at first b/c the whole looting angle is something I expect the media is blowing way way way out of proportion because it gives it something sensational to talk about and because looting is perversely more palatable than “gee, this is a human tragedy and no one really seems to be doing much about it.” However, it seems pretty clear that the cops—at least some of them—are part of the problem. Salon reports that in the French Quarter the cops were using their guns and authority to protect their barbecue from hungry residents:
So the cops are “gladiators” in a classical sense? Does that mean every man for himself? Read on in the story to learn how the cops are offering protection to upper-class restaurant owners in exchange for prime rib. Meanwhile, thousands of people are basically trapped in the city's convention center and FEMA didn't even know authorities had been telling people to go there. Who knows how many thousands are still on the streets, or who knows where, without drinking water or food.
You all know this, and maybe it's still too early for recriminations, but there's a growing realization that the relief response has been inadequate. And why is that? Um, Iraq? Does anyone believe that we wouldn't have tens of thousands more National Guard troops working on relief and evacuation efforts on the ground in the affected area if we didn't have so many National Guard resources committed in Iraq? Don't you think they'd be doing airdrops of food and water, or mass helicopter evacuations—if those helicopters weren't already in use in Iraq? And it's not just Iraq; a Seattle disaster-response leader put it:
”New Orleans shows the result when known problems aren't addressed because we're fixated on something else.“
Meanwhile, Yubbledew holds press conferences and flies over the area like a perverse tourist. Yeah, he's got my full support for that.
Posted 06:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | crimlaw general politics
Contradictions of Disaster Porn
We call what's happening in New Orleans a natural disaster, yet its worst effects were almost entirely man-made. We say it's a surprise that the results of this storm have been so severe, yet something exactly like this has been predicted for years. We're amazed to learn that so many people apparently ignored warnings to evacuate before the storm, as if we don't know full well that probably close to a third of the people in New Orleans simply had no resources to leave. We decry the looting, pretending again from high atop our horses of righteous indignation, that we don't understand what it means to live in utter poverty. There are so many questions we won't see asked or answered on our idiot boxes because the asking and answering might make us uncomfortable, disrupting the hypnotic trance of our voyeuristic fascination with the latest footage of poor people waving for help from their rooftops or climbing out of store windows with arms full of goods they didn't pay for (forgetting, apparently, that there was no one there to pay and people still need to eat!). Do you wonder why it fascinates you? Do you wish you had cared about these people and their problems before they were placed in mortal peril? Do you wish that acknowledging all of these contradictions would force us to face them and do something about them?
I do.
Posted 09:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | general politics
