The problem never arose in New York, as admission to, and regulation of, the bar was handled by the courts. We’ve got bar associations for everything, but they’re all voluntary membership organizations. No lawyer is required to join any bar association in order to be a member of the bar. Over the years, I’ve been a member of a great many bar associations. I’m no longer a member of any.

That option isn’t available to lawyers in North Dakota.

The case began when Arnold Fleck, a North Dakota lawyer, sued his state bar association after he learned it had contributed $50,000 to oppose a state ballot measure. Fleck had contributed $1,000 to support the same measure. He objected to being compelled by state law to pay $380 a year to support the bar association.

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Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout had his twitter account hacked. When he informed twitter, their response was so very, very twitter.

UPDATE: I received this message from Twitter Support late last night:

We’ve investigated the reported account and have determined that it is not in violation of Twitter’s impersonation policy. In order for an account to be in violation…it must portray another person…in a misleading or deceptive manner.

So that’s how Twitter Support responds when my verified account is hacked, obscene and racist messages are posted on it, and a ransom request is made to me by telephone. Is it any wonder that more and more people are getting fed up with Twitter?

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The announcement itself was shocking, to say the least, that women who went to a hospital after being raped were subsequently charged for their forensic rape examination.

A.G. Underwood Announces Settlements With 7 New York Hospitals To Stop Illegal Billing Of Rape Survivors For Forensic Rape Examinations

Hospitals Will Pay Restitution to Survivors Plus Costs and Revise Billing Procedures; At Least 200 Rape Kits were Illegally Billed to Rape Victims

The nature of a forensic rape examination is the collection of evidence of a crime. There is a palliative care aspect as well, as there should be, but this isn’t the same as when a mugging victim appears at the emergency room for treatment. Continue reading →

Wasn’t it embarrassing enough that Payless shoes pranked social media fashion mavens with its pop up store, Palessi?

But you ain’t seen nothing yet. Meet Alexa. Continue reading →

The opening sentence of the complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts is cringeworthy.

Undeniably, private universities like Harvard have the authority (and under Title IX, the obligation) to protect their students from sexual assaults committed by other students.

Not only is it quite “deniable,” but this sentence is deeply misguided. First, there is the distinction between “protect” and “punish,” as if colleges (or is it just private colleges, or just Harvard?) can anticipate complaints of sexual assaults and prevent them from happening. There is no authority for this. There is absolutely no Title IX duty to do this. Yet, the complaint begins with the word “undeniably.” An ignominious start. Continue reading →

At a time when a person’s history magically disappears in a flash, like former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Southern District of New York United States Attorney Preet Bharara, for whom being fired by Trump was all that was needed to morph them into social justice heroes despite their entire careers being dedicated to mass incarceration, the naming of former chief of Sex Crimes of the New York County District Attorney’s office as the winner of the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America was surprising, to say the least.

Mystery Writers of America announced the recipients of its 2019 Grand Master Award on Tuesday, but the announcement has been met with more outrage than celebration.

The Grand Master Award, presented at the annual Edgar Awards banquet in New York, is one of the most prestigious distinctions in the mystery genre, an honor held by the likes of Stephen King, Walter Mosley and Agatha Christie. Next year, the award will go to Martin Cruz Smith and Linda Fairstein. I’d heard of Smith, but not Fairstein. And really, I should have known her name. Not for her internationally bestselling Alexandra Cooper series, but because in her former life working for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, she oversaw the prosecution of the Central Park Five. She shouldn’t be the toast of a black-tie literary gala — she should be notorious.

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We had the occasional exchange on the twitters while he was a lecturer at Harvard Law School, including these when he was promoting court-packing the Supremes. Ian Samuel was about as much of a social justice poster boy as there could be, smugly self-righteous of his tribe and not reluctant to be disdainful, if not attack, the unwoke. We did not, for the most part, see eye to eye.

But when one of his gigs, First Mondays, a podcast about the Supreme Court, twitted about him, I was concerned.

Announcement: Until further notice, Ian Samuel will be on a leave of absence from First Mondays while he tends to personal and family issues. In the meantime, Leah Litman will step up to serve as co-host and co-manager with Dan Epps. The weekly episodes will keep rolling!

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Old jokes to some aren’t jokes at all these days. Its not just Lenny Bruce or George Carlin who are awful, but the same banal old jokes that, to those who either never heard them or just love being outraged, evoke outrage. Dirty old man? Ladies’ Lingerie? Outrageous!!!

You don’t find it funny? Fair enough. Nobody can make you find something amusing if you don’t want to, and you’re entitled to not find something funny any damn time you want. So don’t laugh. Or if it offends you, say it. Go ahead, say it.

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Attempting to raise any point about Michael Cohen, Trump’s “fixer,” is an invitation to the unduly passionate to outrage. After all, he’s pleaded guilty, but more importantly, he’s implicated the First Individual in his crimes and there is nothing more important than that. There can be no question raised, even if a nuanced understanding of what happened to Cohen remains unanswered.

This is where we are, making up excuses and fighting against any doubt that the hated Cohen deserves to be hated, because it moves us ever closer to the end of Darth Cheeto’s reign.

When all is said and done, the April raids by federal prosecutors targeting Michael Cohen’s office and other premises in Manhattan may be seen as a turning point for Donald Trump’s presidency. Continue reading →

In what may be a red-letter day at the New York Times, two knowledgeable voices are speaking to the peculiar actions of Paul Manafort, both of whom (I humbly note) were writers at Fault Lines. First, there’s Cristian Farias’ editorial, “What is Paul Manafort Thinking?” Then there’s Ken White’s “Why Did Manafort Cooperate With Trump Over Mueller?”

Both of these posts try to make sense of the nonsensical, that Manafort, at least theoretically, chose to cast his lot with Mueller by becoming a cooperator, whereupon he chose to lie rather than cooperate. To what end? And then there are the consequences of this misbegotten choice, that he will get whacked by the judge at sentence for his actions, will be amenable to state prosecution so that no presidential pardon will protect him from consequences, and most bizarrely, expose his attorney-client communications to disclosure by his attorney continuing to reveal to Trump’s lawyers what was happening behind the scenes of his cooperation.

Who does this? Why would anyone do this? Continue reading →