Question: Small Firm Private Blog?

Below is a question I received from a friend, and since I don't really know the answer, I thought I'd see if anyone else does. My friend writes:

Is there a way a small civil rights type law firm could get a free or extremely cheap blog that could be personal to them? Or is blogging essentially public? There has been talk about trying to have some sort of newsletter that people could easily post to, with comments about whats going on with them, their clients, their kids etc. but it would HAVE to be private as client information would be internally discussed......not a blog?

Does anyone know the best way to accomplish what my friend seeks? I know that WordPress allows you to password-protect posts, but I'm not sure if that would be secure enough for a private, small firm blog. I'm thinking they need some sort of intranet or otherwise secure network. If they ran their blog off of their own server and required a password to access the server, then a blog would work fine, wouldn't it? But then, that could be a little costly to buy and run a server, couldn't it? Or could you do this with a virtual server (shared hosting) with htaccess or some more secure password-protection for the directory in which the blog resides? Obviously, this question is a bit over my head. For those of you with more knowledge than I, please leave any suggestions in the comments or send them via email so I can pass them on to my friend. Thanks!

Posted 12:01 PM | Comments (5) | law general meta-blogging

Public Defender in Traffic Court

Blonde Justice posted a story a couple of weeks ago about a public defender in traffic court. It's an awesome story if you haven't seen it. She offers more insight into traffic court here and here. Public defenders rawk.

Posted 08:40 AM | law general

Blogging: Call for Papers

The other day I noted a couple of academics are studying blogging. Now, the academic journal “Reconstruction” is devoting an issue to the theme of “blogging” and is inviting “papers/projects/manifestos” on the subject.

We are especially interested in the experiences, theories and perspectives of those who actually blog. Feel free to propose other topics to the editors.

Interesting.

Posted 08:33 AM | meta-blogging

CounterInaugural Constitutional Issue

A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), one of the big anti-war organizers, applied for a permit to occupy space along the route of the presidential inaugural parade on January 20th, but apparently the National Park Service is stalling on that permit. According to A.N.S.W.E.R., the Park Service is giving permits to Bush supporters first, and if there's anything left over at the end, maybe protesters will get it. Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a problem with “constitutionalizing the gatekeeper,” meaning making sure that the permit process is fair, equitable, and consistent with the demands of the First Amendment. According to “Constitutional Law in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series)” by Jerome A. Barron, C. Thomas Dienes, “[b]road delegations of authority, even when cast as content-neutral, indirect controls, invite censorship of unpopular views” (427). I wonder if A.N.S.W.E.R. will be able to argue that the National Park Service has an overly broad authority in the protest permit process, and that by denying protesters permits while granting permits to supporters, the Park Service is censoring “unpopular” views. (Putting aside for the moment that some 49% of the country voted against Bush, which hardly makes expression of protest against Bush “unpopular.”) In City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. (1988), the Supreme Court said that “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” (Barron 428). Here, it appears (from the little I know) that A.N.S.W.E.R. could bring an “as applied” challenge to whatever permitting statutes or procedures the Park Service is supposed to follow, arguing that, regardless of how those rules are worded, they give the Park Service substantial power to discriminate, as applied. Of course, by the time such a legal claim came before a court, the inauguration might be long over, so this strategy may be pointless. And I'm sure A.NS.W.E.R.'s lawyers know all of this much better than I do, and I'm sure they know even better strategies for challenging the permit process. I'm just saying, maybe I learned something this semester after all. Maybe.

Posted 08:26 AM | Comments (5) | election 2004 law general

Moving On

Now a full month after Election 2004, the future of the Democratic party remains unclear. Move left? Move right? Fight fight fight? The fighting is in effect. According to this story, Peter Beinert wrote a popular analysis of what went wrong in which he bashes groups like MoveOn.org, but MoveOn's not backing down. It sent a letter to its members saying:

“We can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers. In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.”

By “we” MoveOn meant the grassroots supporters who gave time and money to help defeat Bush. And that's the most startling and meaningful thing to come out of this so far, as far as I'm concerned—the size of that grassroots base. Get this:

Financially, the DNC has not suffered terribly under this new regime -- it raised $309 million this year, compared with the Republicans' $385 million. As Arianna Huffington has pointed out, however, the DNC raised its money from a much wider pool this year. In 2000, its donor base was 400,000, while in 2004, 2.7 million people gave to the party.

2.7 million donors, up from 400,000! That's incredible. Maybe the DNC should organize a donor poll and ask all those 2.7 million donors to vote on the direction of the party. At least then it couldn't be accused of ignoring its members. How many donors gave to the RNC? According to the FEC, it looks like the Bush campaign had 210,109 individual donors; however, the number may not be directly comparable to the DNC's 400,000 because many more people may have donated to the RNC generally. The directly comparable number for just the Kerry campaign (not including donations to the DNC as a whole) is 219,493. Pretty similar. Meanwhile, another volunteer inside the Kerry campaign says the campaign itself was utterly incompetent, badly organized and badly run. I don't have much commentary to make on this; I'm just noting it for the record.

Posted 08:01 AM | election 2004

Congratulations, Eva!

Ok, I'm going to admit it: I kind of enjoyed watching most of “America's Next Top Model” this season. It's L's thing, really, but I get sucked in to watching it most of the time. Yeah, I know, that's a problem. But admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery, right? But since I did enjoy it, I just wanted to congratulate this season's top model, Eva. At times I thought maybe Nicole should have won, or Norelle, but I liked Eva all along and she was hands down the best choice of the final four or five. Heather Havrilesky (who now has her own blog) has a great piece in Salon about why Eva was the best pick, and about why the show is so wrongly watchable:

See, this is what makes “America's Next Top Model” so much less predictable and more fun than shows like “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” -- it's not based on the whims of fellow contestants, or worse yet, the whims of The Donald. (Who in the world thinks inept political femme bot Jen should have made it this far?) Tyra Banks and a carefully selected panel of extremely egocentric, bizarre, sadistic human beings pick out the next top model, and they do it by looking at actual photographs and footage of the girls strutting on the runway. These women do real work, as silly and staged as a lot of it is, so that by the time a winner is chosen, we have a very concrete idea of how good each woman might be at this profession.

Unfortunately, according to Havrilesky, a lot of the show's appeal has some deep connection to the trauma of growing up playing with Barbie dolls. I can't say I share that exactly, but still, the piece is a fun read if you watched the show. For the record, I do not watch “Desperate Housewives” or “Runway” or anything else like this (except insofar as “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” are like it, which isn't very far), so maybe there's hope for me yet.

Posted 04:27 PM | Comments (1) | tv land

Free Time Pays

I pulled $1.17 in change out of the tub of our washing machine today. Who knows how long those coins had been skating around in there, but from the looks of a few of them, it had been a while. Very clean money, though, that's for sure. Ah yes. Free time (as in: not a single stitch of homework to do) is a wonderful thing.

Posted 01:18 PM | life generally

Break Reading 2

One more potential pleasure read for the upcoming break is “John Henry Days” by Colson Whitehead. I started it over the summer but only got about 50 pages into it when I had to put it down for some reason. I think that reason had something to do with class, but I'm not sure. Has anyone read the book? I really loved “The Intuitionist”, so I'm certainly prepared to enjoy “John Henry,” as well, and what I read was a great start.

Posted 11:43 AM | Comments (2) | ai books

Halfway

And then the third semester of law school was over. Evidence was 78 multiple choice questions in three hours (thanks to “Undercover Classmate” for that info ahead of time!—he/she should start a blog!). I felt like I was basically guessing on probably 60 percent of them. Not good. About three people in my testing room finished in about 1.5 hours, so I'm guessing those are the people who knew the rules cold and didn't have to consult their notes at all. I assume they got 70-78 of the questions right, or if they didn't, other people did. The curve may not be kind. But it's over. I feel great relief, though obviously nothing like last year at this time. I was just going through the motions of being a student this semester; I put very little in, and feel I got very little out of the semester. That's disappointing, and there's no good reason or excuse for it. Sure, I was busy working two part time jobs and writing a “novel,” but those were choices. I plan to make better choices next semester. I have no desire to be a gunner, but I would like to make better use of my time in law school so that I can get more out of it. The fact that doing more reading and thinking about my course topics might also make finals and grades less of a disappointment and nightmare is obviously a good thing, but I'd also just like to feel like I've learned something when the semester is over. I learned a great deal this semester, I'm sure, but I could have learned more, and I hope next semester I will. As of now, the schedule for next semester includes:

• Federal Courts (3 hrs)
• Criminal Procedure (3 hrs)
• Feminist Legal Theory (2 hrs)
• Ethics (2hrs)
• Consumer Legal Clinic (3 hrs)

All of those are classes I picked because they focus on topics I want to learn more about, which is a good start. I'll still be working for the non-profit where I worked this semester, I'll still be posting every two weeks on that other blog (which eats up a surprising amount of time, actually), and the clinic will require some unknown amount of extra time (6-8 hours/week, I think is what they say), so I'll certainly be busy. Still, I hope to prioritize better, use my time more wisely, and balance the load a little more toward my class subjects. That's the plan at this point, anyway. Of course, now it's time for a complete break from all of that, and when I get back, my good old devil-may-care attitude may have returned. We'll see.

Posted 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | 2L

Welcome Future Rabble Rouser!

Congratulations to my good friend and frequent ai commenter, Famous P, who became the proud father of a healthy baby girl late last night! Famous P is, among other things, a rabble rouser who hates nothing so much as social injustice and abuse of power. I'm guessing his daughter will be much the same, for which we can all be thankful. The world needs more people with the strength and courage to stand up for what they believe. (We now return to our regularly scheduled programming: Evidence evidence evidence...)

Posted 07:43 AM | Comments (2) | life generally

The Finals, The Finals

Gee, that was not fun. Forget what I said about finals being overhyped. Well, don't forget it, just qualify it. They're overhyped if you followed and understood things fairly well during the semester, which is like saying they're easy when you know what you're doing, which is like saying nothing, so nevermind. Forget it. I know nothing. Nuteeng! Ok, I know that multiple choice questions are no longer my friends. So much for the edumacated guessing. It works fine if you've edumacated yourself ahead of time; otherwise, those questions can kill you. And evidence is going to be all multiple choice. Let the mindgames begin! Now, after three finals in less than a week, I'm getting a little weary of the process. The last one is tomorrow. If you have any secrets for remembering and organizing all the rules of evidence in your head, now is the time to share!

Posted 08:44 AM | Comments (8) | 2L

Corps Study Break

What better way to take a short break from studying the antisocial behavior of American corporations than to read this short piece on a new test for psychotic CEOs?

Ever wonder what leads a lavishly compensated C.E.O. to cheat, steal and lie? Perhaps he's a psychopath, and now there is a test, the B-Scan 360, that can help make that determination. The B-Scan was conceived by Paul Babiak, an industrial psychologist, and Robert Hare, the creator of the standard tool for diagnosing psychopathic features in prison inmates. The B-Scan is the first formalized attempt to uncover similar tendencies in captains of industry, and it speaks to a growing suspicion that psychopaths may be especially adept at scaling the corporate ladder.

Yeah, I bet this test is going to go over like gangbusters in the halls of corporate power. People are going to be banging down the doors of these researchers to get a chance to take this test. Not. Still, what fascinating data might we find if we really could screen all CEOs and other top corporate officers for antisocial tendencies? In my class notes for corporate law I quoted Prof. Corps saying “Greed is a perfectly understandable human emotion.” Perhaps he's right. It sounds reasonable; we're all familiar w/greed, right? To quote Morpheus:

It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.

But how understandable is greed, really? What's understandable about gain for self at the expense of others? It's anti-social, and another name for antisocial is psychotic. In this view, greed is contradictory to human self-preservation, and therefore not understandable at all. The only thing that makes it understandable is culture, and American culture teaches us that there is, in fact, almost no higher value than greed. Greed is exalted in our society precisely to the extent that it is against our best interests; the social structure must constantly struggle to convince us of the value of individualism, independence, and self-interest in it's ugliest form—greed. If it were so natural, we wouldn't need the constant stream of rhetoric about how great these values are, would we? What if, instead of thinking of greed as natural, we thought of it as abhorrent? What if we valued interdependence, cooperation, social-interest, community strength, equality, and justice for all? Hmm. Wouldn't that be weird?

Posted 04:59 PM | Comments (8) | 2L

Studying Blogs and Blogging

Now is apparently the time in the history of blogging when academics decide to study the phenom. First, a researcher at UNC is studying blog ethics, while another seeks “thoughtful adult bloggers (a18 and older)” to interview for what sounds like a very interesting master's thesis. Follow those links if you'd like to help out.

Posted 09:22 AM | meta-blogging

10 Best Books 2004?

The NY Times has released its list of the 10 best books of 2004 in both fiction and non. Funny, none of the books on my potential reading list are on the Times' list. I think I'll stick with my list, along with the suggestions you all have made. So far it seems like Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is winning the race, although I do very much like Care's advice to read Into the Forest first, then try to get to something else. Or maybe Jonathan Strange. . . or I'm still into The Baroque Cycle. I mean, I want to read it someday, for sure, but is now the time to start? Hmm... Isn't thinking about reading great fiction so much more fun than studying for finals? Yeah, it definitely is. In addition to reading, I'd like to catalog all the books L. and I own so we can see what we have. I have a CueCat barcode scanner, I have the free and very impressive Books for Mac OS X software, and I have the books to scan in—I just don't have the time. L. thinks I'm a big fat geek for even wanting to do this, but once you've got them all cataloged, you can do cool things like find them when you want them. You can also do something like putting a list of your books online, which could be useful somehow, I think. Anyway, it sure would be better than studying corporations. But then, the bar for that is really, really low.

Posted 08:45 AM | Comments (6) | ai books