Habeas Schmaebeas?

I just heard the 3/10/06 episode of This American Life and I urge you to find some way to hear this program. It's episode 310, it's called “Habeas Schmabeas,” and it provides a horrifying summary of what the Bush administration has done by creating “enemy combatants,” declaring them outside the reach of the Geneva Conventions, and locking them away indefinitely in Guantanamo where they can be tortured at will. The show is great because it puts these acts in their appropriate context and reminds us, as U.S. citizens and voters, that we are responsible for this.

It's sickening, really. The other day Dave! praised Molly Ivins for articulating his utter frustration with the Democratic party. I'm with both of them, and agree wholeheartedly with Ivins that “it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.” One of those stands must be against the whole idea of “enemy combatants” and the train of evils that has followed in its wake. I want a candidate for President in 2008 who will, immediately after taking office, grant full habeas proceedings to all prisoners in Guantanamo, who will forbid the U.S. military from declaring anyone an “enemy combatant,” and who will make clear the the Geneva Conventions apply to all prisoners of war (including those formerly known as “enemy combatants”).

What point have we reached that we can allow these things to go on in our names?

Posted 04:22 PM | TrackBack | general politics law general

Good Luck MPRE-takers!

Today is the spring administration of the MPRE—the “big” test of “professional responsibility” for lawyers and law students. When I took it last fall, I followed Bar/Bri's advice and ended up doing fine. I hope everyone taking the exam today will have a similar experience.

This means my spring break is over. I can't believe that. Where did it go?

Posted 07:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L

Victory for Alaskablawg!

Congratulations to Alaskablawger Steven Wells on his nearly complete victory in the case of Rachel Waterman, the Alaska teen blogger accused of plotting her mother's murder. Yesterday, the judge dismissed all charges and it seems unlikely the state will try to bring the case back, based on Alaskablawg's explanation of things. He calls yesterday the best day of his professional life and I can only imagine what it must feel like to get such a result after so much work (the case has already been tried once and ended in a hung jury) and with stakes so high. I'm in awe.

[Thanks to Blonde Justice for bringing this latest development to my attention.]

Posted 12:14 PM | TrackBack | crimlaw

Fingerprinting in DC

I know it's not something most people need or want to do very often, but if you find that you need to have police take your fingerprints for some reason and you live in D.C., here's what you do:

Bring proof of District residency (driver's license or utility bill) to 300 Indiana Ave., NW, Room 3058, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. The cost for D.C. residents is $10. Call 202-727-4409 for more information.

I'm posting this here because I couldn't find the info online and I just went through a few phone calls to get it so I thought I might save someone those steps.

Note: If you're a VA resident in the DC metro area, try the Arlington Sheriff's office.

Posted 09:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L advice life generally

Say it ain't so, Half-Cocked!

Sadness. Mr. Half-Cocked says he's hanging up the keyboard. He's a 3L and says:

I have nothing left to say about law school other than incoherent rants about the state bar association and Bar/BRI.

That's exactly what I'm looking for these days—like-minded individuals! Bring on those incoherent rants, please!

As I said before, I understand the impulse to stop blogging. I've taken more and more frequent breaks from it myself recently (such as the last few days), but I'm still sad to watch blogs I've read regularly for years now start to drift away into internet oblivion. It's really too bad b/c I'm sure the next year of our lives (for those of us who are graduating from law school) is going to be packed with uncertainty and new experiences—exactly the kind of thing that makes for excellent blog posts and comment conversations. Law student blogs have become a great resource for law students to commiserate with and learn from each other as we all go through this roughly similar process. Why should that end at graduation?

Ok, I know why—or at least some of the reasons why. It's one thing to blog about how you were so scared you almost peed your pants when you were a 1L getting cold-called, but it's an entirely different thing to be a new law firm associate or other lawyer feeling exactly the same way. The two situations are very similar in how they make us feel—stupid, scared, totally unprepared. Yet, in the law school setting we feel free to blog about it because we know we're expected to be clueless, while in the work setting we seem to think we're expected to know what we're doing so we become afraid to admit to the world how clueless we are. That's silly, really. Anyone who expects a newly-minted J.D. to be anything but clueless about the actual practice of law is sadly misinformed about the nature of law school. We don't learn to practice law, we learn to live with huge amounts of debt!

Another reason I suspect recent graduates don't want to blog is that they aren't sure what they can say in their new lives as working attorneys. In law school you can talk about pretty much anything that happens in your daily life without concern about professional privilege or ethics or whatever. That's obviously not true once you've started working with actual clients and cases. Lawyers who have been at it for a while (e.g., Evan Schaeffer) probably feel more confident about what they can and can't say with regard to work. They are also not overwhelmed by the newness of their working lives and so have time and energy to think and blog about other things.

Still, it's possible to blog about the transition from school to work, about the bar exam and about being a recent grad just starting your first legal job. If you don't believe me, just check out Woman of the Law (WotL). As she noted in the comments here, she's one of the few law student bloggers to make the transition to practitioner blogger. And although she doesn't have much time to post these days, I know I'm willing to wait for each and every post, and I know I'm not alone.

I understand that not everyone can or wants to try to do what WotL is doing. Who knows? I may even end up hanging up the keyboard in the next year or so. But until that happens, I'll still be sad to see great law student blogs die as their authors move into the working world.

Best of luck to you, Half-Cocked. I'll stay subscribed to your feed so if you ever decide to post one of those incoherent rants, please know you'll still have at least one reader.

Posted 08:57 AM | Comments (1) | 3L meta-blogging