It would be fair to say that no one, even a judge, would take issue with a woman attorney using the salutation “Ms.” It’s not because a state Supreme Court ordered it, but because it has evolved into standard use. And, indeed, there is good reason for that happening, since the marital status of a woman is irrelevant in most contexts. But when a court has to order it, it means that it’s not standard and the court has compelled the introduction of a politicized non-standard usage into its legal proceedings.

That is what the Michigan Supreme Court has done. Continue reading →

When a dear buddy lost his brother in a car accident while we were in college, I came home for the funeral to be with him and give him someone to talk to. One of the things that brought him comfort was told to him by the rabbi, that if all the people in the world threw their troubles into a big pile and got to pick anyone’s trouble to take out, they would choose their own.

We all have our problems and, much as we care about others and would like to be there for them, help them if we can, we no more want their problems than they want ours. We are not them. They are not us. So be it. So how did sympathy become something only bad people gave? Continue reading →

After test driving that cool new Toyota Corolla, you ask the salesperson at the dealership “what’s the best price you can do?” He tells you he has to talk to his manager, then returns with a price written on a piece of paper and tells you, “That’s the best deal we have, and it’s only good if you buy it now.” He’s lying to you, of course. You know it. He knows it. Then the negotiating begins and maybe you buy or maybe you walk, but the one thing you know with absolute certainty is that it’s neither the best he can do nor a deal that disappears if you don’t take it.

That’s the way that business is conducted, over and over, and everybody knows it. Yet, it violates New York Executive Law § 63(12). Continue reading →

In a saner world, a presidential candidate suggesting that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff should be put to death would be a big deal, not to mention the sort of assertion that would kill any presidential aspirations and raise serious questions of the need for committment for mental health observation. But that’s not our world, and it’s little more than Trump’s daily call for violence against his detractors and enemies, which seems to grow hourly.

Should he not be asked by journalists why he would say such an insane thing? Since he won’t take the stage in the Republican candidates’ debate where he has nothing to gain and much to lose if something too batshit crazy for even his adoring fans comes out of his mouth. Or perhaps another lie too obvious or too stupid to overlook? The pitfalls for Trump are many, but then, isn’t that true when he’s being interviewed? Continue reading →

During the height of #MeToo, random stories, true or false, honest or exaggerated or completely fabricated, made the rounds with almost no pushback. After all if you were accused, that was all others needed to know to demand that your job be lost, your friends abandon you and your future be ruined. Good times. But are such accusations immune from attack because of the public concern surrounding #MeToo?

Kaija Freborg decided to post an implicit accusation of rape(?) against her dance instructor and sexual partner, Byron Johnson, on Facebook. She was being #MeToo fierce. Continue reading →

At Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman notes yet another academic arguing how the dreaded plea bargaining should be changed. Georgia State prawf Russell Covey’s law review article, Toward a More Comprehensive Plea Bargaining Regulatory Regime, which he argues addresses the harmful effects of unregulated plea bargaining.

America’s plea-bargaining system is famously informal. While there is a smattering of state and federal regulation of guilty pleas, the practice of plea-bargaining itself remains almost entirely untouched by law. Because plea bargaining is the mechanism by which the vast majority of criminal convictions are secured — upwards of 95% by most estimates — this means that almost all criminal convictions are the product of an essentially unregulated, and in many ways entirely lawless, process. There is an increasing awareness of the harmful effects of an unregulated plea bargaining system and the ways that this lack of regulation enables highly coercive practices that effectively deprive most criminal defendants of their constitutional right to trial. The corrosive effect of plea-bargaining’s dominance is unmistakable and the continuing lack of meaningful regulation of it threatens the basic integrity of the criminal legal system.

Continue reading →

Cheerleading has become more varsity sport than the old idea of young women in short skirts shouting “go team.” Cheerleaders are recruited like top athletes and given scholarships if they  are at the top of the pyramid. At Northwestern, the cheerleader coach and athletic staff decided to get the most bang for their buck out of cheerleaders, including Hayden Richardson, who sued under Title IX and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,

For her participation on the team, Richardson received scholarships in both 2019 and 2020.  In 2019, she received a $5,500 scholarship, and in 2020 the scholarship amount was $4,041. Id. As part of joining the team, Richardson was required to sign a contract. The contract, referred to by Richardson as the Spirit Squad Contract, laid out the terms of her membership on the cheerleading team. Continue reading →

To be fair, shorts and hoodies were pretty much John Fetterman’s brand, and they reflected the reason he was elected to be the junior senator from Pennsylvania. To also be fair, he ran for Senate knowing that there were rules of decorum which included a dress code. If he wanted to wear hoodies on the job, Fetterman should have run for a job where hoodies were part of the deal. Instead, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer decided that it was better to change the rules for Fetterman than require Fetterman comply with the rules.

The recent decision by Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, to relax the Senate’s informal dress code and allow members to enter the chamber in casual attire, or even gym clothes, has set off waves of consternation and cries of dismay in the stuffy upper chamber. Many senators, mostly Republicans, have publicly expressed concerns along the same lines as Mr. Vance’s, and privately have said that the change could harm America’s standing on the international stage.

Continue reading →

Perhaps the thing I find most unforgivable is lying. In the past, I’ve written that the one thing lost that cannot be regained is integrity, the belief that you can trust a person’s word to be true, or at least presented with the sincere belief that it’s true, even if it’s mistaken. I can tolerate mistakes. I can tolerate stupidity. Tolerating liars is another matter.

Am I a dinosaur? It appears that I may be, as Kat Rosenfeld writes about how the righteous no longer concern themselves with lies, per se, as long as the lies serve to allow them to feel virtuous about themselves. Continue reading →

Had she not pounded over and over that her “When They See Us” Netflix drama was the truth, not like “the lies they told us,” Ava DuVernay might not be looking forward to finding herself at the defendants’ table for the defamation trial brought by former Manhattan Sex Crime Chief Linda Fairstein. Had Netflix prefaced its pseudo-docudrama with the standard disclaimer, that they made it all up to get people to watch it, they wouldn’t be sitting next to DuVernay.

But they didn’t, and now they will be sitting together as Southern District of New York Judge Kevin Castel has denied the defendants summary judgment on all five instances where they defamed Fairstein. Continue reading →