|
|
By Casebook Sherpa, on March 31st, 2010
If I spent more time at home, we’d have a dog.
Not a yippy little dog that makes you think, “Aw. You think you’re cute? Well, when your owner’s not looking, I’m going to punt you off this balcony.”
But a reasonably-sized dog that could tear an intruder’s arm off if need be.
Kinda like Jansen’s, minus the drool. Or this guy:
Why am I talking about this?
Well, (a) it’s an ongoing discussion between Mrs. Sherpa and me, and (b) Above the Law posted this discussion last night. (And I had to get that health care post out of the top spot on the homepage.)
What is the best pet for lawyers (or law students)?
At ATL, Elie Mystal mentions all the things that make me a “dog person” and describes cats perfectly:
Sure, when a dog “loves” you, it’s really thinking something like, “I hope he has some chicken. Do I smell chicken? Chickenchickenbaconwithchicken … oh look I can pee on that.” But what the dog is actually thinking doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the animal has been designed to make you feel good about yourself.
Not so with the cat. No, the cat is a tiny predator that has been shrunk to fit into our homes. It doesn’t need you, it doesn’t really want to be there, and it would just as soon kill you as look at you. Cats are sneaky and deceptive. To them, you’re just a monkey to be scavenged from. While you’re sleeping, your cat is thinking of ways to end you. As I said, you can get a wife if you like sleeping with one eye open.
Now, tell me what lawyers need more? Another malefactor looking to destroy them, or the unconditional love they’ll never get from work? It seems obvious to me. Lawyers have enough enemies and saboteurs in their life. And they’re lonely. What they need is a best friend.
Yes, I do prefer a shallow animal.
I also prefer an animal that’s been bred to love and protect me and my family, rather than loathe and despise me.
The former is there to serve me. The latter expects to be served, but if you just leave the food doesn’t really even care about you at all.
As Cesar Milan would say: I prefer to be the pack leader in my home, rather than a mere inconvenience, a necessary evil that provides food, to a pint-sized predator.
So how about it cat people? Why am I wrong?
By Casebook Sherpa, on March 24th, 2010
Joe Biden is worth his weight in gold for his gaffes and ill-timed quips. When he whispered to the President in range of a live microphone before the signing of the health care bill: “This is a big f—ing deal!”, you could see the President purse his lips. At least one of them realized there was a live mic right there, though it would have been classic if he’d said, “That’s f—in’ A right.”
The health bill is a big deal. No doubt about it. Sure, I think it’s misguided and unfunded. But it sets up a huge new government program that, it’s easy to say fairly, is one giant leap towards a single-payer health care system in the United States. That’s a big deal.1
Anyway, to this law student trying to write a blog, the bigger f—ing deal is the pending constitutional challenge to the law. Most of the media coverage is worthless, but I AM really f—ing grateful for some pretty f—ing serious dialogue about what a constitutional challenge looks like and what the f—ing issues are. This one in particular is well worth the lengthy read.
I’ll poorly paraphrase the main arguments, which really focus on a discreet issue: does the Constitution anywhere authorize an individual mandate to purchase health insurance through either the commerce, taxation, or spending powers?
Continue reading This IS a big F-ING deal – the constitutional challenge, that is
By Casebook Sherpa, on March 15th, 2010
Do clothes make the man or woman? Is there anything to be said for giving some more thought to what you wear in a professional setting rather than just settling for whatever you’ve done in the past?
I’m spending this summer at a law firm in Northern Virginia where the attorneys dress business casual. Obviously for client meetings and court dates, lawyers suit up. But the rest of the time they’re fairly casual. This is actually similar to the dress code my current company has. Yet, I think the contexts and expectations are a bit different.
By Virginia standards, the firm I’m working at is slightly larger than average (27 attorneys), has been around for 100 years, and has a very collegial environment.
What’s a Summer Associate to do in this situation?
When I asked Interwebs this question, this was among the leading search results: “Your first day at the firm is really important. More than likely, someone will take you on an office tour on your first day and introduce you to other associates and partners. Try to make a good first impression on everyone. Be very respectful. Wear a suit, even if your firm has business casual dress code. Also, you will be filling out tons of forms. Make sure that you have all the important documents and information with you (I.D., SSN etc.). Do NOT be late!!”
The ABA Journal quotes a fashion consultant: “Business casual, he says, means wearing a mix of slacks, shirts, blazers and ties. Yes, ties. “Ties show that you respect your peers, your position and your environment,” he says, and they should be de rigueur for every male attorney.”
The law firm Andrews Kurth advises the following: “Remember the business part of business casual. Business casual is a nightmare to fashion-police any time of the year, but it can be brutal during the summer, particularly among law students whose wardrobe consists of shorts and T-shirts. Err on the side of business when you’re in the office. As for after-hours events, keep your “casual” dress on the conservative side. Nothing too skimpy or grungy.”
And this discussion at The Style Forum is quite helpful.
I was certainly planning on wearing a suit at least for the first day. I have a fairly decent business casual wardrobe. It’s nothing to write home (or to GQ) about, but it’s decent. My initial thinking was wearing a blazer without a tie as my predominant “style.”
What do you think?
Is a mix of ties and suits and sport coats what I should be going for?
What are some things I might need?
What are the “staple” items – blue blazer, charcoal slacks, etc?
What did you find helpful?
Where is the line between too casual and too dressy?
How is the calculation for women different?
By Casebook Sherpa, on March 8th, 2010
The furor generated by the Liz Cheney ad – or rather the organization that Cheney run, Keep America Safe – is interesting to me. (Ad and story here)
Isn’t it all just a question of whether a current client should consent to a potential conflict with the interests of a former client? Or is it really something more?
By now, you’ve probably heard about this discussion (or rather shouting match). The organization produced an ad, demanding to know the identities of those current Justice Department lawyers who were hired by the Attorney General, are now engaged in formulating detainee policy (or prosecuting detainees), and who formerly represented alleged terrorists in custody. The furor has centered on the risk this ad has of demonizing (McCarthy-style) those who defend bad people:
The ad—in one frame, a headline refers to the DOJ as the “Department of Jihad”—has been denounced as McCarthyism by liberal critics. It’s also being condemned by a growing number of former George W. Bush administration lawyers. Ted Olson, who served as Bush’s solicitor general, says he has the “greatest respect” for lawyers who represented Gitmo clients; they were acting “consistent with the finest traditions of the legal profession,” he says. He calls the attacks on one of the targets, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, “outrageous.” Four years ago, Katyal represented Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver, in a landmark Supreme Court case that overturned the military tribunals that Bush created. (Katyal did a “marvelous job” on the case, says Olson.)
(links omitted)
I get that point. But I also get the importance of asking the question: does their prior representation of detainees impact the ability of these lawyers to carry out their duty in the Justice Department?
Setting aside the question of whether the ad itself is the most constructive way to raise this question, people have a right to ask the queston, right?
These lawyers are representing us today. Because their prior representation of the detainees could present a conflict isn’t the question merely one of an actual or potential conflict with a former client? If it is, shouldn’t it be disclosed and consented to by the lawyers’ clients? Or is the fact that they’re working for the government change the calculus?
It doesn’t work like that, I know. But raising the question is a way for a democratically-governed people to shed light on the potential conflict and, in a manner of speaking, consent to it. Is it not?
Setting aside whether there can really be a constructive dialogue over this or whether there is really a way to determine whether people consent to something like this, raising the question is not unreasonable it seems to me. Just as it’s not unreasonable to push back with concern asking the question at all (let alone in such a provocative fashion) would result in the demonization of those who have represented the accused.
Is it even possible to raise the point without unleashing the fury?
By Casebook Sherpa, on March 3rd, 2010
Pardon my ending of our recent hiatus with a bit of whining…
Sometimes the accumulated fatigue of working full-time and going to law school part-time catches up with you and you need a day off. This normal mental health breather is to be expected.
Other times school and work stand in direct conflict. Even when you are eager to do both, your commitment to one must override the demands of the other. I ran smack into such a time yesterday – or rather, learned yesterday that next week such a collision was going to happen.
For my day job, I’ll be in California next week for some market research we’re doing for a client. It’s a good project and the research will yield good results. I travel Tuesday evening through Friday morning with my flight on Friday getting back to DC around 4:30 p.m. Next week is our Spring Break so I thought it would be a good time to take my turn traveling since my co-workers often pick up the slack when my school schedule keeps me from traveling or attending evening events. No problem, right?
Enter the clinic.
Yesterday, I received a call from the professor who serves as Managing Attorney of the clinic I’m working in. It seems that the Judge in a case I’m managing would like to hold a hearing on a request we filed in November 2009. The hearing is set for next week. On Friday morning. Of the 15 weeks I’m working in clinic and the three months this request has been pending, the hearing is scheduled on one of the three days I’m traveling this entire semester. One of the three days I just can’t be there.
Ugh.
I’ll be out of town, but I know my partner in the clinic is spoiling to get into court so I gladly point out to our supervisor that I’m sure he could do it.
Later that night I begin to wonder whether I can rearrange my flights and meetings in California to get back.
The airline I’m flying offers either a 2:55 p.m. flight on Thursday or the Friday morning flight that I’m already booked on. The Thursday flight won’t work as it’s right in the middle of our work in CA.
Okay, what about other airlines? The cheapest one-way ticket I can find is more than $350. Since I’d be paying this one myself that’s just not doable right now. I could drive an hour or (during rush hour) two to get to another airport but even the Thursday night redeyes I can afford don’t get me back to DC until late morning.
Ugh.
Work and school have collided in the past. But it’s never really bothered me in the past. It’s just how it is.
This one bugs me.
The important thing is that our client is in good and capable hands in court next week. I just wish they could be mine.
By Casebook Sherpa, on February 9th, 2010
On Sunday morning, I measured 25 inches of snow on my car. We’re allegedly supposed to get 10 more inches today and tomorrow. We’ll see.
While I remember some big snows early in life when my family lived in the Poconos, I don’t think I’ve seen a bigger snowfall where I live. I will say the 21 inches we got in Pennsylvania in 1994(?) yielded the most epic series of snow football games the Keystone State has ever, or will ever, see. We’re talking the 11-on-11, 5-hour, triple-overtime, smashmouth variety.
So anyway, Sunday morning. I spent a few hours shoveling out our cars. At our complex we get one reserved space and a permit to park in an unreserved guest spot. Upon shoveling out the guest space where I’d parked on Friday, I got this overwhelming fear that I never wanted to leave that space. Looking around, there were a bunch of empty guest spaces that yet to be shoveled at all. What if I left to pick some stuff up, and came back and my space was taken? Two-and-a-half hours of work wasted.
Of course, you can do this…
That’s obnoxious to me. But my sense of entitlement to the space I had cleared only grew. And placing a chair there only seemed more reasonable, the more I thought about it.
I realized that I was experiencing a mind meld with John Locke. His labor theory of property holds, poorly paraphrased, that a natural right to property flows to those who invest labor in improving it. That right includes the right to exclude others, those who did not participate in improving the property. This right creates a positive encouragement to engage in improving property which, in turn, has benefits (albeit somewhat minimal) to the community at large. The idea is that because man owns himself, he owns the product of his labor and it should not be taken from him by force or by sneaky, parking space stealing, good-for-nothing neighbors who should shovel out their own space and reserve it with their own lawn chair. (It seems I’m not the only one to point this out in the wake of the weekend’s snowstorm.)
By the authority of John Locke, therefore, I exert my natural rights over guest space #10 at our condominium complex.
Take that, you parking spot stealing bitches.
By Casebook Sherpa, on January 26th, 2010
Dr. Bombay and I talked about the Citizens United decision recently. If your head has been so far in a casebook that you missed it, the bottom line is that the Supreme Court ruled that First Amendment protections apply to corporations as much as to individuals. Corporations as associations of individuals, therefore, may make independent expenditures to engage in “express advocacy,” calling for the election or defeat of specific candidates.
As with many things political right now, my response was rather ambivalent.
Frankly, I’m open to seeing how it works. I’m certainly sympathetic to the idea that the First Amendment provides a blanket protection for political speech, regardless of corporate identity. My gut also tells me that (a) corporations like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Exxon-Mobil will tread lightly in this arena and (b) allowing such direct expenditures and requiring disclosure of donor identities to groups like Citizens United will increase transparency, a principle that should be central to political spending.
Because of this my negative reaction to the decision was more tempered than Dr. Bombay’s. However, I’m sympathetic to the notion that the use by corporations of economic power can distort the political marketplace. That’s really the heart of the competing strain of decisions. Frankly, I could care less whether corporations have the fundamental “right” to air advertisements in support of one candidate or another and I doubt the Framers felt they were granting such a right. Call me a raging liberal, but the idea of yet more money flooding the process does not sit right with me and the people should be able to control the flood gates.
Continue reading Random Rumination on Citizens United
|
|
Popular Posts