Andrew Sinclair has tortfeasor shirts.
Yes. Do that. Please.
UPDATE: You can also get this law school blogger on a t-shirt. So many choices.
What does a law school blogger write about during the summer? Now that school's out, I'm having a difficult time finding some direction. Unlike the 1Ls who are all wrapped up in their writing competitions, 2Ls have nothing more to do for school except grade those damned submissions. We're not as lucky as the 3Ls that are looking forward to graduation and the horrors of the bar exam. I think I'll be studying for the MPRE this summer, but that's not nearly as exciting. I don't even know how much studying this thing requires -- my guess is not much. I figure if I fill in the bubble of the opposite of what they do on The Practice, I'll be okay.
As for the job -- I know you all are dying to hear about it -- I'm not really giving away too many details. It's a low-paid, highly specialized job with lots of experience and contacts. Unlike working at a big firm (which I almost did, just to blog about it), it's not really weird or funny. Just good interesting work. Well, except that my boss has already disturbed some seriously drunken sleep with a 3am call from the other side of the globe. We have since come to an agreement that my schedule is on my local time.
So this leaves much unsaid and much left to be said. At the moment, I'm feeling pretty dissatisfied. My career is pretty much up in the air and I am longing for the finality that being a summer associate brings to the process (except, of course, they could all still get canned a few months after starting work). I snagged myself a great summer job with seriously flexible hours but have found myself sitting at home, screwing around and doing nothing (punctuated, of course, with frenzied bouts of drinking). I guess it's time to buckle down and figure out what I'm doing -- both this summer and for the long haul.
I really hate giving up the illusion that I'll be young forever.
My vacation has taken its toll. My liver is barely alive and I have hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts to read. I'll be back as soon as I recover.
By the way, if anyone can read this page, please tell me what it is and why they are linking to me!
Law Professor David E. Bernstein is blogging. This is happy news, because his take on Lochner v. New York, Only One Place of Redress, is probably the most eloquent piece I've read on the subject. (And there's some awfully written stuff. I won't name names, but if you've read it, you should know what I'm talking about.) I am even in possession of my very own signed copy of Bernstein's book.*
To be sure, I can't say that I agree with Bernstein's contention that Lochner-like decisions would have benefited African-Americans. I don't think he made out causation in this case. But I think his work is interesting and a good addition to legal thought. You don't have to be right in order to be thought-provoking. Hopefully his blog will be just as interesting.
To kick off his blog, Professor Bernstein asks a very serious question affecting law professors everywhere, "Why do people who would never, ever, eat cake for breakfast, happily eat fatty and sugary muffins? And why do some conference hosts think that blueberry muffins, coffee, and fruit=breakfast?"
I'm not sure, because I would so eat cake for breakfast.
I have completely lost my faith in the secondary meaning doctrine of trademark law. Half the time I go to the grocery store I buy the wrong brand of popcorn. Why? Because both Pop Secret and Orville Redenbacher* make "HomeStyle" varieties of microwave popcorn. Pop Secret's is vastly superior to Orville Redenbacher's. Obviously my lack of association of "HomeStyle" with either producer is precisely the reason neither can use it exclusively. But I still get confused and just want the saltiest possible popcorn. My friends tell me I am remembering the wrong thing (that would be "HomeStyle") - they say I should remember Pop Secret. However, that requires two dimensions; I want to remember only one.
That, my friends, is why the doctrine of secondary meaning is wrong. Because I want the easiest way to buy salty popcorn. Congress should get out their red pens and start writing things out of the Lanham Act right now.
* I met Orville Redenbacher when I was in high school. It was cool. But Pop Secret is still better.
Brad at [Blog Goes Here] likes to have exam fun and throw in funky words in his answers. Guess what? I do too! [Yeah, big surprise people.]
I drive my friends crazy soliciting words for inclusion in my tests. As Brad says, if you're not done yet, there's always time to play this ever-fun game!
p.s. Defenestration is so over done. Pick something unusual.
Finishing this paper sure would be easier if I would stop procrastinating on blogshares.
The Duke Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems contains an article by Yochai Benkler entitled Through the Looking Glass: Alice and the Constitutional Foundations of the Public Domain.
I haven't read it, but the section headings for part one are immensely cute:
You may remember that Adobe's eBook version of Alice in Wonderland -- a public domain work -- contains the following provisions:
The DMCA, of course, supports Adobe's claims because the eBook is in an encrypted format; unlicensed decryption, even to do something that is otherwise perfectly legal, is a criminal offense under the DMCA.
Thanks to Ernie for the link!
In addition to the books I have on my first shot at a summer reading list, I am adding the following:
An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries.
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It, Arthur Herman.
I was skeptical of Lane's suggestion until I read "[t]he influence of the Scottish Enlightenment in revolutionary America was magnified enormously by [reprints of Scottish Enlightenment books]" this morning in A History of the Book in America (vol. I) by Amory & Hall.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami, trans. Jay Rubin.
Thanks (again) to Lane for the suggestion. I have also heard only good things!
A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel.
I have a freakish love for books about books.
Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes and Seminar Papers, Eugene Volokh.
I am still taking suggestions. I also need to buy a new bookcase. Even now, my bookshelves runneth over (and there are many many shelves). I am an addict. I admit it.
The Oxford English Dictionary is looking for a few good words. The Editors are engaging in the first complete revision of the Dictionary and need legal specialists and word hounds to help redefine the legal terms in the OED.
If you're an English legal historian, you're likely to be able to help find the first recorded use of a word. Others can still assist the OED by tipping them off to omitted words or significant meanings of included words that have not been included.
I can't think of anything else cooler than being able to say you contributed a definition to the OED. Plus, the power of an OED definition is kind of scary. Consider their question, "Has society moved on since the OED originally defined marriage and matrimony in the 1900s?" In one hundred years, will lawyers be reading your definition as the authoritative source for current social and legal terms?
So, logophiles, get out your magnifying glasses, crack open those OEDs,* and start searching.
* Or use your university's subscription to access it online. The online edition is updated quarterly with new words.
A blogger makes a plea to her professors to refrain from emulating Satan:
Site found via Law, Life, Libido.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
"No, I give it up," Alice replied. "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.
"Nor I," said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers."
bursting at the seams
i marvel at your unhuman ability
to bring forth unto the world
your constant prolixity.
how appealing
your proclivity for obscure
music, words, and judicial garments.
elevated to deity status
the heretofore downtrodden and ignored appellate universe
your influence is unmatched.
o, for a search button
that i might sift and plunder
your voluminous archives.
In case you are as unobservant as I -- the Dictionary.com Word of the Day is now at the bottom of the page. You don't have to sign up for the email list to get the word.
And you thought law school was bad... While all lawyers and law students know what the Socratic method is, I've not yet seen such a thorough discussion of using it to completely decimate a student's will to go on. Doctors, apparently, like to write all about the medical analogue to the Socratic method. And how could they not? They call it pimping.
From Force of Mouth.
Actually, draining the hand-raisers of their self-esteem might be quite a good thing indeed. Here's to pimping!
I don't have a summer reading list! Not yet, anyways. So while you all are procrastinating from working, take two seconds and tell me what I should include. Legal, non-legal, fiction, non-fiction, book, not book, it's all good.
So far on my list is the following:
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer.
The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World, Jenny Uglow.
A Court That Shaped America: Chicago's Federal District Court from Abe Lincoln to Abbie Hoffman, Richard Cahan.
The Anarchist in the Library: How Peer-to-Peer Networks Are Transforming Politics, Culture, and the Control of Information, Siva Vaidhyanathan.
To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution, Robert A. McGuire.
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, Ben Mezrich.
Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing, Darian Leader.
Larry Solum really really really doesn't want you (that is, judicial clerks or law students) to read his most recent post.
Apparently we're too immature, we don't have enough time, and we should be doing other things than worry about high and low politics. God forbid we lowly little students worry about such silly things like what makes a justice system just.
Fortunately at least one of my professors thinks otherwise -- we spent a good chunk of time on this topic. (In fact, it was only this morning that I re-read the Balkin & Levinson piece.) Perhaps Solum thinks he's disillusioning our optimistic little heads with his flat pronouncement that the law trumps any other value in judicial decision-making. However, I think he oversimplifies the complexity of judicial work and underestimates the ability of students and clerks to understand and participate in these ever so high-minded discussions.* I shan't say any more about it -- wouldn't want to allow my brain to dwell too long on matters so lofty, you know.
*To be clear (although I certainly can't be sure), I think Solum is being a bit facetious, but it doesn't really discount the fact that I have seriously been rubbed the wrong way.
UPDATE: Apparently Alice has spent too much time deciphering bluffs and counter-bluffs lately (massive poker game stretching over several days). We were supposed to read it.
It seems as if everyone is currently in exam frenzy mode (too many to link -- you know who you are).
I have only one short take-home exam.
I tell this to you only to taunt you.
I noticed while reading the Globe this morning that today is Law Day. The White House says it's about judicial independence. So, it's kind of funny (in a very dark and twisted way) that Judge Maria Lopez insists that her behavior is being targeted because of her judicial independence.
Lopez has done such lovely things as castigate a state prosecutor in open court, let a confessed child molester walk on probation, and lie under oath.
Perhaps not the best timing ever.
While preparing a recent piece for publication (that should send you all into a frenzy!), I've done a complete 180 on my thoughts about citations. Don't want to bother with an esoteric Blue Book citation? Leave it for the editors. Feeling tired and don't want to look up another article to find support for a statement. Leave it for the editors!
What would they have to do without lazy writers? Nothing! Of course, this power must be exercised judiciously, else they become very very angry. Sloppiness is not the key. However, carefully neglecting to put your weird citations in the correct form will save you about 5% of total writing time. They might even succumb to the idea that you're just one of those absent-minded types.