Trial Question Peccadillos

I got to watch an interesting jury trial yesterday. Voir dire (jury selection) was especially fascinating and I may say more about that later. But one thing I noticed as the trial went on was that the prosecutor tended to greatly overuse the phrases “Did you have occasion to...” or “Did there come a point in time when...” For example, she'd ask a witness: “On or about May 25th, 2005, did you have occasion to look inside your closet?” Or: “Did there come a point in time when you spoke with Joe Smith?”

Why would an attorney ever want to frame questions this way? It just sounds stupid when instead you could just say “On or about May 25th did you look inside your closet?” and “Did you speak with Joe Smith around that time?”

I wonder how many cliche phrases like this lawyers end up using without thinking about it and just because they've heard other lawyers speak this way and think it makes them sound more lawyerly.

Here's a little related lesson from my private book of language peccadillos: “point in time” is almost always a useless and redundant construction. Next time you're tempted to use it (either when writing or speaking), see if dropping two of the three words would really change the meaning of what you're saying or make it less clear. Chances are, simply saying “point” or “time” alone will say everything you want to say. Thus: Did you look in your closet at that point in time? becomes, either: Did you look in your closet at that point? or Did you look in your closet at that time?

Simpler and more concise is almost always better.

(We all have our little hangups, ok?)

Posted 11:28 AM | Comments (6) | 2L summer

Effects ripple outward

Following up on my comments from the other day, Evan Schaeffer has offered a more complete explanation of the changes he's making to his blog in the comments here. One of the things he's changing is he's getting rid of what was my favorite part of the his site—the weekly law student blog roundup. Someone needs to take that over. It was not just a great weekend read, it was a public service. Who's in?

Posted 06:27 AM | Comments (6) | meta-blogging

Neutral Factfinders?

Judges should never apologize to the prosecution after delivering a verdict of “not guilty.”

Discuss.

Posted 09:14 PM | Comments (4) | 2L summer

Law-Related Things That Suck: When Lawyers and Law Students Stop Blogging

According to this podcast, the comments there, and this post, Notes from the (Legal) Underground is no more. Instead, it's going to be called Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground and “is going to come to an abrupt halt.” It's unclear what this means. Evan has promised to explain, but for now it seems that the Legal Underground as we've known and loved it is no more.

Why? Evan has apparently seen evidence that becoming a popular blogger can actually hurt a lawyer's business. That news is itself almost as sad as hearing that the Legal Underground may no longer be the fun and happening place we've all come to know and love. It makes me wonder: What the heck do people want from lawyers, anyway? Lawyers are criticized for being stuffy, bloodthirsty sharks. Then, if they show a more human or friendly side, they get criticized (via lost business) for not being stuffy bloodthirsty sharks? I just don't get it.

Along with all the talk recently of why law students shouldn't blog summer jobs, the bad news about law blogging just keeps rolling in. Oh, and now this: Blonde Justice notes that Soupie's BBQ Daycare has gone fishing for the summer.

I guess it's good that I've started my job and don't have much time to read (or write) blogs anymore, huh?

Posted 06:57 AM | Comments (6) | meta-blogging

Mistake? Really?

Just really quickly: I just saw this story that Muslims are skeptical over the Newsweek back-track on the Koran story—the one Newsweek ran last week saying that U.S. soldiers at Gitmo had abused the holy book.

It would be shocking to think that Newsweek has somehow been convinced by the U.S. gov't to retract the story, but hey, I'm pretty used to being shocked. How about you?

Posted 07:06 AM | Comments (6) | general politics

Blawg the summer job? Take II

My summer job starts today. I've thought a bit about all the commentary generated by my post last week about blawgging a summer job, but I'm still not sure what to say about it. Thanks to a fat link from Professor Kerr (that Conspiracy is a flow machine!) lots of people read the post and many chimed in either in the comments or on their own sites (or in comments on other sites). The response was nearly universal: Don't do it. While I understand where much of this is coming from and agree to some extent, I agree w/Cathy that law student and associate blawgs have a positive role to play in destroying the “black box” around the law. For example, I think the Public Defender Law Clerk is a great example of how this can be done. If he/she is hurting clients or his/her own future somehow, I'm missing something.

I also found much of the bandwagoning on the “don't blawg your summer job!” meme depressing for some reason. Although I know it was well intentioned, some of it was patronizing and failed to address the harder aspects of the issue, choosing instead to fall back on a blanket and simplistic “don't!” I understand that lawyers are risk averse when it comes to controlling information because that's part of their job; however, line-drawing is also something good lawyers must do all the time and much of the responses seemed to avoid that task.

That said, I do appreciate all the input and I'm still actually mulling it over. These are just some of the thoughts I've had about this and I'll be thinking more about this as the summer continues. As I said in that original post, I didn't write about anything last year that came even close to raising model rules issues (at least I don't think I did), and I don't plan to this year. I'll write what I can and we'll see where it goes....

Posted 07:01 AM | 2L summer

Happy Birthday Blonde Justice (and more!)

Happy Birthday to Blonde Justice (the blawg), which is one whole year old today!:

Blondie is probably watching the big Survivor finale right now, and I'm headed there soon, too. (The magic of Tivo means I generally start watching about 20-30 minutes into a network program so that I can then skip through the commercials.) What big surprises are in store? It's supposed to be television like you've never seen it before! Oh my gosh, I can hardly wait!

Really, after such a great season of the Amazing Race, Survivor has had a hard time keeping up. It's gotten better recently, so tonight could be good, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's been quiet around here recently as I worked on a little freelance project which is now mostly finished. Work starts tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it, but it's also been nice having a bit of freedom the last few days. More on all that soon.

Posted 08:38 PM | Comments (3) | meta-blogging tv land