ACS Blog via Lexblog

A few weeks ago the ACS was seeking applications from law students to act as volunteer editors for a new ACS blog. Well, the ACS blog is now online, staffed by a crew of six law student editors. So far all posts come courtesy of the editor in chief, but I assume that will be changing soon. The site looks good, and considering the amount of support for the ACS nationwide, this blawg is well-positioned to become very popular and influential. I'll be visiting often to see how it grows.

But since it's still just getting started, what's most interesting about the ACS blog at this point is a little logo in the bottom left-hand corner for something called LexBlog. LexBlog apparently "builds blogs for lawyers."

Yeah, that's right. Someone is now in the business of building blogs for lawyers.

LexBlog offers several packages, the most extensive of which take care of every possible detail of building and maintaining a blog, including the writing of content. LexBlog even claims its "lexPremium" plan comes with a "customized plan to establish lawyer or firm as 'go to' resource on topic." And it's all powered by Movable Type.

So law blogging has now taken the next step toward commercialization. On one hand I'm thinking, "why didn't I think of that?" Who needs a J.D. to build and maintain blogs for lawyers? Also, if the culture of law school teaches you anything, it's that you have to pay people to get stuff done. This makes lawyers a rich market of suckers who are pre-programmed to pay exorbitant fees for people to do things for them that they could do for themselves if they gave it half an effort (e.g. BarBri). Mr. LexBlog Kevin O-Keefe might make a mint this way. Nevermind the fact that thus far blogs have been almost completely noncommercial, an anomalous little pocket of the web and the world where there's virtually no profit to be gained or lost, where value is driven and measured by links rather than money. Nevermind how wonderful that is, and how fresh the air is in the blogosphere when it's unpolluted by profit motives. Nevermind that the foundation of the blog as a form is that it allows individuals or small groups to express themselves to a wide audience for free or virtually free, and that it offers very little incentive for manipulation or dishonesty, that the blog as a form has become a phenomenon precisely because of its honesty and freshness and originality and candor. Nevermind all that. I'm sure there's lots of money to be made here.

Don't you look forward to the day when you can pay a fee to become the "go to" resource on a topic? Forget about building credibility and earning the respect of your readers by dint of effort and intelligence and the love of what you do. In the brave new world of for-profit blogging, you'll be able to work as hard as you like to build a popular and reliable online resource, but there will always be someone (i.e. a big corporate law firm) with enough money to pay an army of bloggers-for-hire to make sure its own "blog" is the "go to" resource on your favorite topic. Hooray.

I anticipate comments reminding me that people have been making money from blogging for years now. For example, Radio Userland started charging for its blogging software years ago, and Movable Type recently started charging for its software, and you have to pay for hosting, etc. People have also been running ads on their blogs, trying to make money from them. And I'm sure LexBlog isn't the first blogger-for-hire. I know all that. It's ok. I understand that the complete commercialization of blogging is almost inevitable. I wish LexBlog a bright and prosperous future. Like I said, part of me wishes I'd thought of it first. Still, just because I understand how our world works, that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Ambivalence rules.

Posted 08:20 AM | Comments (6) | general politics law general meta-blogging

Notes for Votes

"Let no medium go unsaturated" seems to be the motto of this year's election season. First it was the web w/the campaign blogs, flash animations, dueling videos, and convention bloggers, and now it's all about the music. First there's the Future Soundtrack of America from the MoveOn PAC featuring 22 big songs for only a $25 donation to the MoveOn PAC. Then there's Rock Against Bush, Volume II, featuring 28 crazy punk rockers for only $6! I hope this kind of thing catches on; I could get used to this.

Posted 07:54 AM | Comments (1) | ai music election 2004

So many things

So much has been happening at work the last few weeks and I just haven't had the time to write about it, but I promise I will do so this weekend. Coming your way: an explanation of the "drinking privilege," notes from a visit to federal court, some comments from Federal Public Defender Ken Troccoli on his work for Zacharias Moussaui, thoughts on a career in criminal defense from Jonathan Shapiro (who has been defending John Mohammed, the D.C. sniper), and the case of Wilbert Lee Evans — an example of just how high the deck of justice can be stacked against criminal defendants.

Meanwhile, I have a half dozen or more new gems in the Blawg Wisdom hopper; if you've passed something my way, don't worry, I'll be posting it soon! Thanks again to everyone for their help with this, and if you write or read advice about law school, please do pass it along.

Posted 07:14 AM | 1L summer

Voting Rights Volunteer Opportunity

Ed. note: This just in via email:

Friends,

We are compiling a list of attorneys throughout the nation who would like to volunteer to help with the DNC Voting Rights Institute's efforts to ensure that all votes are counted this November. We envision an army of "field attorneys" roving the precincts of the battleground states, ready to advocate on behalf of voters who are turned away or wrongly denied the right to vote. If you are interested in helping with this effort -- either as a field attorney who can travel to a battleground state for Election Day, or by taking calls in our attorney "war room" -- please sign up now!

Also, please pass this message on to any other attorneys who may be interested.

For those of you who are law students, we also are assembling teams of law students as "research strike teams."

Thanks for your time and energy. Even if you can't join us on Election Day, sign up to help the effort! And sign up others too!

Posted 06:56 AM | Comments (1) | ai action alerts election 2004

MT 3.0 Glitch?

I haven't had a chance to upgrade to Movable Type 3.01D, so maybe this is fixed, but I seem to have found some kind of glitch in 3.0. Since 3.0 is not compatible with MT-Blacklist, I've spent at least 5 minutes each day (often more time) banning IPs and deleting spam comments. (I sometimes get 30-40 spam comments/day; other days only two or three.) When I check comments to delete, a little confirmation window pops up, asking if I'm sure I want to delete the comments. I click the delete button, then wait. And wait. Nine times out of ten, the delete times out and returns a "can't find server" error. If I click the delete button again, it always works. I've also found that if I click the delete button once, then immediately cancel loading the page (command-period), then click delete again, it works.

Why does it take two tries to delete comments? Is this just my installation, or is this a bug?

I can't wait for MT 3.1 with built-in Blacklist. I have high hopes it will dramatically reduce the time required to keep a blog spam-free.

Posted 06:17 AM | Comments (1) | meta-blogging

Spatula Serves Up Sweetness

I'm on the verge of being late for work but I wanted to thank Energy Spatula at Will Work for Favorable Dicta for meeting me for lunch yesterday. She is every bit as take-no-prisoners funny in person as she is on her blog, and it was terrific to finally put a face to the hypothetical weapon. At the risk of offending any of my secret readers (those who read but don't tell me so), the short time I spent with Energy Spatula made me realize how great it would be to have more friends like her. The lunch lesson: Life is better with more exuberant candor and less obsession with money, career, grades, etc. In other words: cut the bullshit. That's a lesson I'll keep in mind next time I start catching the freak anxiety disease around finals or whatever. Thanks, ES!

p.s.: Thanks to everyone who has sent me links and suggestions for Blawg Wisdom! The response has been terrific, as you'll all be able to see when I get a free moment to update the site tonight. Until then, keep the wisdom flowing!

Posted 07:38 AM | meta-blogging

Amazing Race Jerky Brothers

Are Russians the most miserable people on the earth? Somehow I doubt that they are. But leave it to the Jerky Brothers, Marshall and Lance from Dallas, TX, to take one look at St. Petersburg and declare Russians both miserable and "angry-looking." The brothers' brilliant theory: The cold makes people unhappy in Russia. My theory: The pollution and heat in Texas makes the Jerky Brothers stupid.

I believe it was someone on L-Cubed who I first saw commenting about what an awful image of Americans the Jerky Boys represent, but I can't find the post right now. Not to worry. I see Professor Yin has already commented on last night's episode and had the same impression. This show will be better when these guys go.

Posted 06:03 AM | Comments (8) | tv land

Wisdom Grows

Shout out to Letters of Marque, Sua Sponte, Screaming Bean, Jeremy Richey, Jeremy Blachman, and Transmogriflaw. Thanks to them, Blawg Wisdom is slowly becoming populated with links to great tips and gems of advice from successful law students around the "blawgosphere." As I read through some of the posts I'm impressed once again with the generosity and breadth of knowledge and experience and opinion displayed by so many blawgers. If I could only go back about two years and know then what I know now thanks to all of you...

But even though that's not possible, that's no reason to keep the benefits of our experience from those who are following in our footsteps. So again, if you have written or read a law school advice post on a blawg somewhere, please drop me an email so I can add a link to that post at Blawg Wisdom.

New: If you don't have a blawg of your own, but would like to pass on any tips or bits of advice to other law students about your law school experience, please send your wisdom to me and I'll make sure it gets posted at Blawg Wisdom.

Finally, here's a little experiment: Can the LazyWeb tell me the best way to automate Blawg Wisdom so that when someone writes a blog post containing advice for law students, that post automatically gets copied (and posted) to Blawg Wisdom?

Posted 10:41 AM | Comments (5) | advice meta-blogging

Private v. Public Defenders

One lesson I've learned this summer as an intern for a public defender is that, if you qualify (which means, if you're poor to penniless), you're likely going to get better representation from a public defender than you'll get from a private defense attorney.

But wait! Before I get pilloried by private defense attorneys, let me qualify that. Different jurisdictions may be different; I only know about the one I'm working in where time and again this summer I've seen private defense attorneys forget things or pass up opportunities that the public defenders would never miss. The public defenders work in the same courts every day, they develop relationships with the prosecutors and learn how to "pitch" cases in order to secure the most favorable plea offers, and they know the everyday criminal procedure inside and out so they can give their clients the benefit of every possible loophole or trick available. Also, because they're in the same courts before the same judges every day, they learn what kind of arguments work best with different judges, how to read the judges' moods to know how far they can push, how to read the subtle signs judges send when they want to hear more on an issue or when they want you to shut up. (Sometimes this can make all the difference; if you talk too long, you may just anger the judge and he'll decide to rule against you just because you annoyed him by talking too much about something he'd already made up his mind about.)

In contrast, private practitioners often just don't seem to know what's going on. They don't understand court procedure, when to speak, when to stand, where to go to file papers, what papers need to be filed or signed or by whom or at what time. Of course, this varies a great deal; a lot of private defenders are simply excellent. Also, some private defenders are much better with certain types of cases in which they specialize, such as capital cases, or rape or other serious offenses.

However, there's one more drawback to private defense attorneys: the profit problem. Since private defenders sometimes bill by the hour, it's to their advantage to drag cases out, while the client just wants the case to end. For example, a private defender might encourage her client to go to trial, even if there's little chance this will help the client. Public defenders have the same incentive as their clients—both want to get the case over and done with as soon as possible. The client wants this because no one likes the uncertainty of unsettled criminal charges against them. The defender wants this because he/she is busy and needs to make time for the next case.

I'm told that many private defenders charge a flat fee according to the type of crime a client is charged with; in such a case, the private defender has the same incentive to end the case quickly as the client does. That's a good thing.

On the other side of the coin, private defenders can potentially make a lot more money than their public counterparts. However, at least in the jurisdiction I've been working in, you don't always get what you pay for; in this jurisdiction, the cheaper defense is the best defense. That's the kind of economy I can love.

Posted 10:14 AM | Comments (4) | 1L summer

WIR #7-8: That switch in your head

I'm way behind in my Week In Review series, which I hoped would be a weekly summary of the highlights of my experience as an intern for a local public defender's office. Somehow, just after week 7, I dropped the ball, and now memories of those weeks are hazy.

I do recall that I got to speak with a couple of clients who are mentally ill, which isn't that unusual since many of our clients are arguably mentally ill to one degree or another. My experience has been that these clients require a lot of patience, and to a large extent they just want to be listened to and to get some affirmation for what they're thinking and going through. I went to jail and talked to one client who's now serving the last three months of a year-long sentence and he was very distraught that he'd been forgotten, that no one outside the jail cared about him or even knew where he was, and that maybe he'd never get out because did they even know why he was in there, anyway? It was a little strange, actually, because I and two attorneys had to do some research to figure out exactly why he was there, and for a little while we thought he had, indeed, been forgotten—it looked like he'd served his time and we couldn't see any reason he was still in jail. Turns out, we were missing some records, he's supposed to be there, all is as it was supposed to be. And once we figured all of that out, and I explained it to him, he calmed down. We haven't heard from him since (he hasn't called the office to ask for help). Part of helping people as a public defender really is listening, providing reassurance, and just letting them know they're not alone. Sometimes that's the best you can do.

Somewhere around week seven or eight I also got to see videotape of a supposed "confession" one of out clients made to the police. I can't say anything about it, really, except that it was shocking the tactics the police used to get this person to say exactly what they wanted him to say. Truth is irrelevant on this tape; the police had an agenda and they hammered on it until their agenda became the "suspect's" agenda. I wish every law student could see something like this in his/her first year of law school. But I also wish I had some basis for comparison. Is this normal police conduct, or was is this an unusual interrogation? The attorneys in our office can't say for sure since this is among the first taped confession they've received from the cops. The attorneys are more or less outraged about it, as well, so I feel like my shock has some basis.

But watching this video and thinking about it got me to thinking: It's like people have a little switch in their mind. It's something like a fear switch, or a guilty switch, or a trust-in-the-system switch. Whatever variable it's switching, it works like this:

Person A views a video like this and says, "Oh my gosh! That's horrifying! We can't allow the police to treat people that way!"

Person B views the same video and says: "That guy was lying all along. The way he acted in that video shows he was lying when he said he didn't do it. That's awesome police work that they finally got him to admit his crime. Thank goodness we have such great police!"

Some people can switch back and forth in their minds between being Person A and Person B, and this is a valuable skill. I can kind of do it; it's interesting to try to imagine what the prosecutor is going to say about this tape, to guess which little bits he/she will pick on to convince him/herself that the police acted appropriately.

Other people don't even realize they have such a switch in their head; they're permanently programmed one way or the other. Where this programming comes from would be an interesting question to explore, but what matters is where the switch is set in people making policy and law. If Person A (i.e. a public defender) is making policy, defendants might get more of a fair shake. If Person B (hello John Ashcroft) is making policy, kiss your civil rights and liberties goodbye.

Note: We have a huge prison industry in our country; more people per capita are in prison here than in any other country in the world, I think . So how did we end up w/so many people switched to Person B?

Posted 06:42 AM | 1L summer

Who do you work for?

A question for anyone who has worked in a law firm as a summer associate: How often did you do work (research, writing, document review, whatever) without knowing who, exactly, you were working for?

I ask because I was talking to a friend who's spent the summer at a big firm and she says she generally didn't know who she was working for. She just got assignments to research this or that topic of law based on a general fact pattern. Is this a common experience? I understand you're usually not allowed to tell people outside your firm who you're working for, but do you generally know, even though you can't talk about it?

And if summer associates often don't know who they're working for, is it common for junior associates to also be ignorant of such details? I'm guessing the answer is "no," but can anyone give any confirmation of that?

Posted 05:50 AM | Comments (3) | 1L summer

Collected Wisdom

Law students who blog are constantly offering advice to other law students-to-be. This means there's a wealth of up-to-date information available for those who are interested, but it's not always easy to find. I wonder if we could devise some sort of advice aggregator, some central location to collect all this wisdom (or at least links to it) so that people would know where to go when looking for advice from people who have gone before them.

What do you think? Would it be good to have a blawg about blawgs (that would be a metablawg), specifically focused on advice from law students to law students? It seems like the alternative is what has been happening, which is that law students who blog all just randomly collect the advice we see here and there and hope people just happen to find it. That means we might spend a good amount of time and effort putting down some thoughts that we hope will help someone else in the future, yet that effort is wasted if the people who need it can't find it. Also, I've found numerous times that I read some good advice somewhere, but don't really need to think about that topic until later. Then, when I need the advice, I can't remember where it was. If we had a central repository of links to all the advice we read or write or know about, maybe it would be easier to find the exact information you need, when you need it.

So I propose this:

Blawg Wisdom: Advice about law school from those who are in it.

The idea is to create an advice aggregator. If you write or read a post from a law student, professor, or legal practitioner primarily containing advice about any aspect of law school or job searching while in law school or immediately after, please tell me about it (via email) . Tell me where it is (the URL), and if you can, provide a short summary of what readers will find there. I will post a link to it with your summary (or mine). Eventually, we should end up with a nice collection of advice that will be easily-accessible to all who are interested.

If you are a coding wizard of some sort and could help create a web form to collect advice submissions (so that people don't have to do it via email), that would be terrific.

And if you would like to share in the joy of keeping Blawg Wisdom up-to-date, let me know and I can add you as a poster. If you're part of the BlawgCoop, you'll be automatically set up to post at Blawg Wisdom, as well.

Posted 05:02 PM | Comments (4) | advice law school meta-blogging