Adam White reports that dumping his laptop in class has made him pay more attention to class discussion, in part because of his "unobstructed view." I have to say that today was the first day I barely lifted my head. When I write notes, I have to look at the page. My writing turns into unintelligible soup if I don't....

Edward Tufte (Professor Emeritus at Yale) is the grand-daddy of using graphics to convey information correctly. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized he had his very own website! This kind of stuff isn't something that's taught in law school, yet I'd imagine that any courtroom lawyer could use a good dose of it. Lawyers should know how to use...

Faithful readers might know I have a mini-obsession with Vannevar Bush. Matt Webb says Google are building the Memex! He argues that the Blogger/Google combo -- the integration of authority and layered information gathering -- realizes Bush's vision. Interesting. I'm still waiting for the dark, cynical commentary on the merger. I'm sure there's a way to make money there, I...

Dahlia Lithwick's column on professor-student dating is good, but this sentence is the best part: All of this scholarly work proves that schools are making a bad situation worse with these ham-fisted efforts to regulate consensual sexual relationships -- particularly among the kinds of emotionally fragile, supremely bored, socially backward people who cluster around our law schools. (emphasis added) Dahlia...

If you just can't get enough of law school, there's help for people like you!* LLM-guide.com is a whole website devoted to listing all the LL.M. programs worldwide (via Lawsites). Jurist also has a page listing LL.M. programs in American schools, with the added bonus of sorting by topical area. * I would also recommend a trip to a psychiatrist,...

Starting out on one's own is an option that is increasingly ignored by new law school grads. Even if you're not thinking about doing it one day, I doubt it's a bad idea to figure out the nuts and bolts of the business of law. I couldn't provide a more comprehensive list than the one for those who want to...

District Judge Stephen Orlofsky is resigning from his appointment after a whopping eight years on the bench. The spin is that he's ticked that he didn't get confirmed for his Court of Appeals nomination. I'd put my money on, well, the money. Judges and other agitators for a judicial salary increase have been saying for quite some time that the...

When wondering how to pronounce the tongue-twister of a firm you're interviewing with the next day, don't sweat it. Just call the main line in the morning. A very nice secretary will answer with the name of the firm veryveryvery quickly. Note pronunciation. Apologize for wrong number. Go happily to interview knowing that everyone else will bungle it....

Give eternal rest to my laptop, O Lord. It served me well through many a trying time. That little laptop, ever my constant companion, was a refurb, yet she always seemed brand new. She toiled ceaselessly in pursuit of better outlines and higher Snood scores. She grew heavy as my classmates bought featherweight laptops, but her weight served as a...

My laptop was stolen yesterday. I feel like vomiting. Repeatedly....

I've just realized (because I'm not in the habit of visiting my own site) that my posts for the last five days or so have vanished. I've no idea what happened. This is very sad. Fortunately I didn't write anything ground breaking. I am now going to practice a severely affected British accent so I can say Crikey! in an...

You know, I think Larry Lessig fan fiction is just taking things way too far. I'll be okay with it, though, as long as people don't start writing slash. I just couldn't see a Lessig/Valenti hookup....

Mr. Poon sent along this very cute cartoon. Unfortunately, there's no Alice to set things right!...

I made a pre-emptive strike on the snow last night, but, alas! It was not sufficient to reduce the amount of work I had to do today. My downstairs neighbor and I dug for two hours. My pinkie toe got somewhat frozen, but I think it's going to be okay. So, send some happy thoughts to my toe, and perhaps...

Stanford Law is now allowing students in the Stanford Pre-Law Society to shadow law students and be a law student for the day. I'm pretty sure to get the full effect they should be required to do some asinine bluebooking assignment and then carry their mentor law student's books around for a day. They should actually prep by carrying small...

My brief (yet wry) comment on Judge Jones and the Federalist Society has sparked an onslaught of text over at Sub Judice. Also quite an interesting discussion of blogs, flattery, and visitor stats. I won't sum up any further; go read!...

Intrigued by a friend's recent description of depression rates among various populations* -- in order, married men (happily or not), single women, unhappily married women, happily married women -- I picked up a book that's been in my "in-box" for a bit. It's Wifework by Susan Maushart. It's a quick read and quite interesting. Maushart describes the inequality that exists...

New laptop diversion: Yahoo Games Text Twist. Very, Very Dangerous....

I regret to report that I indeed have not been away on a refreshing restorative. Indeed, Professor X has seduced me with legal wiles. X is so amazingly mind-numbingly brilliant it actually hurts, but likes to have toadies like me to bounce ideas off of. X is also (unfortunately for me, because I have to finish reading it all) a...

I almost thought it was April 1 when I read this....

Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones recently spoke at a UVA Federalist Society event arguing that the Supreme Court has contributed to social decay in America. She argued, "Judges should not issue decisions that are fatal to society." Funny, the Federalist Society's statement of purpose explicitly says: "that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what...

Grades really do matter. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher requires all hires, including lateral partners, to rank near the top of their class in law school. They recently turned down a lateral hire with $7 million in portable book because he didn't make the grade. Ouch....

I have been cited! Okay, not quite. But Judge A. Raymond Randolph did mention my namesake in his dissent for Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control v. United States Department of Commerce In the end all the majority can come up with is some free-floating congressional intent about the meaning of a statute that no longer exists. Alice once encountered...

"Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on call the millions of...

Law.com recently posted a little piece implying that lawyers' cynicism comes before law school, not after. Liable asked if there is "a relationship between an individual's motivations for attending law school and his or her success in it?" Well, like any good lawyer, I would have to say it depends. I went into law school dreaming of oodles of cash....

They're going to have some real trouble getting women to use this security device. Really, what woman would consent to a machine storing information about the "unique shape and weight distribution of [her] rear end"?...