Standardized testing, right? Sure, they serve the purpose of enabling comparisons across different students, schools, states, but they unfairly favor the privileged students who have good schools, take special prep courses and have tutors, so they’re unfair to students for whom these resources are unavailable. Let’s get rid of standardized testing!

But college admissions based on “soft” rather than numerical criteria won’t be more equitable or progressive. Privileged students are likely to gain the most. A new paper from Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis shows that “essay content”—that is, the quality of admissions essays—“is more strongly associated with household income than is SAT score.” Continue reading →

Who doesn’t appreciate the need to maintain infrastructure? Well, that depends on how one defines infrastructure, which most of us understand to mean bridges and roads, electrical grids and pipes, all of which have been neglected because there wasn’t much to be gained by politicians doing the unsexy work of maintenance.

But to his credit, particularly after Infrastructure Week, perhaps the only thing to which Trump’s limited skillset could apply, failed to appear (like his beautiful health care plan), President Biden seized upon the opportunity and need and went big. Huge. $2.3 trillion dollars huge. which should give us some sweet new infrastructure. Continue reading →

At first blush, the phrase seemed useful to make the point, even if it wasn’t quite as prosaic as it seemed.

The U.S.-Mexico border is a “bleeding scar.” That is how Mexican author Carlos Fuentes described it in 1997. According to the Pew Research Center, 1.2 million immigrants, authorized and unauthorized, entered the United States that year. Back then, just like now, there was talk of an overwhelming crisis at the border.

The problem is that scars don’t bleed. Wounds bleed. Scars are what happens when wounds heal, and this wound hasn’t healed. If anything, it’s bleeding worse than ever. Continue reading →

On the twitters, lawyer Marc Elias offered what he perceived to be a strong condemnation of one facet of the Georgia law, that mail-in votes would require some form of identification to connect the person voting with the right to vote.

Continue reading →

Georgia enacted a law that changed voting in the state. It’s got some serious (and less serious) flaws. It’s got some fair points which are fairly common in other state’s voting laws. It’s got some good things buried in there too. It’s entirely fair, if not our duty, to be critical of laws when and to the extent we disagree with them and believe them to be bad law.

Calling it “Jim Crow on steroids,” on the other hand, is bizarrely inflammatory and illuminates nothing. Yet it worked. Continue reading →

There has been an ongoing argument over civility in law for years now, with the simplistic side arguing “don’t be a jerk,” the pejorative “jerk” falling somewhat shy of a definition, and the less sensitive side arguing that a lawyer should be whatever best serves the client, whether that means being civil or, when necessary, hoisting the black flag and slitting throats.

For the most part, the argument is one of sensibilities, where gurus of goodness implore lawyers to be kinder and gentler because it makes lawyers feel better about their career choice. But in an odd California case, Karton v. Ari Design, replete with a number of other influences that won’t be discussed here but shouldn’t be ignored, the Court of Appeals put a price on the question. Continue reading →

[Ed. Note: This page intentionally left blank. This is a family blawg, Seaton.]

There were two things about this particular horrific random attack that made it stand out. The first was that it was caught on video in such a way as there could be no doubt that it was so utterly lacking in any excuse, no matter how manufactured by fertile yet insipid minds, that no one could deny its brutality. The second was the image of the perpetrator of the attack was clear as could be.

The cops might not be very good at investigating crimes where thought and effort are required, but even the NYPD can find a guy when it’s this clear. Especially when they have all his info in their database already. Continue reading →

I’ve told the story a few times, about the cop who made the stop testifying that he smelled unburnt marihuana (that’s how it’s spelled under the New York Penal Law; don’t blame me) emanating from the car.

“Poignant,” the officer replied.

I turned to the judge. “What did he say?” The judge, Herbie Adlerberg, who was actually a former judge, now aged out but sitting as a Judicial Hearing Officer at the Suppression Hearing, knew exactly why I asked. “He said ‘poignant.'” Judge Adlerberg wryly replied, letting me know that he, too, heard it clearly. We both gave each other “the look.” Continue reading →

There is a curious belief that there is some duty on the part of the court to make trials available for all to see from the comfort of their couch, as if this lends legitimacy to a trial that wouldn’t otherwise be tolerable if unless every person who wanted to watch had complete access at their fingertips. It’s not about the case, or even the defendant, but about you, random watcher, and your entitlement. Strange days, indeed.

But without detached explanation, do people understand what they’re watching? The prosecution called the teenage clerk at the store where Floyd passed the counterfeit $20 to testify. While the testimony is proper and necessary as background for what followed, that wasn’t the part that’s being emphasized. Continue reading →