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Category Archives: Legal System

Looking Back from Law School

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Over the last few days I’ve heard from two former students who are now in the first year of law school.  The first relayed two “things I wish I knew at SMG about law:”
The first is the fact that jurisdictions have different standards and different tests to apply to the same concept.  It seems obvious, [...]

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No Bell

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The recession has whacked salaries of associates of big law firms, but has not reduced the disparity in starting associate salaries according to Study Shows Sharp Disparities in Law Associate Compensation.  The study is based on 2008 starting salaries.  Since 2000 starting associate salaries abandoned a bell-curve distribution for a distribution with two peaks.  The [...]

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Juror #131

Monday, March 9, 2009

I’ve not had jury duty for at least a dozen year.   A jury summons used to arrive in the mail every three years and then–nothing.   Last year the jury commissioners rediscovered me but the date, October 9, conflicted with teaching.  (That conflict existed only in my eyes.  It would not likely have excused me from [...]

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How Not to Serve

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

If someone asks how to get out of jury duty I tell them what they don’t want to hear–it’s their civic duty, everyone should serve on a jury, etc.  Massachusetts makes it easy to preach this line its “one day, one trial” system provides little wriggle room to escape jury service.  Everyone does serve on [...]

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Kozinski’s Capers

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Legal blogs are a-buzzin’ over the story of the porn stash of Alex Kozinski, Chief Justice of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Some time ago Kozinski posted sexually explicit pictures on his personal, publicly-available website. The pictures have since been removed. I’ve read nothing to suggest that the pictures were obscene or [...]

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Reboot if there’s a mistrial

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

This amusing New Yorker cartoon captures in one panel a judge befuddled in mid-sentencing by a computer program, a clerk providing instructions over his shoulder, and a criminal defendant awaiting whatever happens next–technology’s inexorable influence on the institution of law.

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Praise for Salaried PDs

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

There are two types of defense attorney for indigent criminal defendants: salaried employees of state and federal court systems, and private attorneys appointed by courts from time to time to represent defendants at an hourly rate. My anecdotal experience is that full-time salaried public defenders tend to do a better job than court-appointed [...]

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