Another dirty little secret about law is that much of what lawyers produce is repetitive crap. Back in the olden days, we went to the corner legal stationer and bought pads of fill-in-the-blank forms for the sort of stuff like contracts of sale, authorizations and releases that had all the magic words already printed on the page and we would put in clients’ names and act as if it took a brilliant lawyer to make it happen. Truth is, we told the secretary to prep a release for Joe Smith and our work was done.

When computers came along, we input the same forms into the computer and did pretty much the same thing. You only had to type it in once, and it was there forever. Whenever someone came up with a new clause or some new language, we added it into the form and the form grew from one page to 25, which by definition meant we could charge 25 times as much because the client had no clue that it was invented just for him. And clients were thrilled, because they never read the forms, but merely felt the heft and were invariably impressed with our lawyer brilliance based on the weight of the paper. More paper, better lawyer. Continue reading →

A couple weeks ago, a professor of Africana Studies at Villanova University, Vincent Lloyd, wrote a powerful essay about being “a black professor trapped in anti-racist hell.” It’s a fairly long essay, but worth reading as it provides one of the best “insider” views of anti-racist indoctrination around.

To cut to its chase, Lloyd’s pretense of running a seminar for “multicutural” students where they could “think deeply” about “uncomfortable ideas” was taken captive by dogmatic “factorums” running simplistic workshops. Continue reading →

A Greek and an Irishman are sitting in a cafe arguing over whose culture is superior.

The Greek sips on his latte and says, “My people built impressive temples to the sun and moon!”

“Aye,” says the Irishman, “and the Irish discovered the Summer and Winter Solstices.”

“My people were some of the finest mathematicians the world has ever known,” the Greek continues, “and they came up with the measurements we use for time!”

“That may be true,” says his companion, “but the Irish invented the first timepieces.” Continue reading →

The defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News is that rarest of beasts, a viable defamation suit against the media. Then again, it’s not as if Fox News personalities and management didn’t pave the way to overcoming the most brutal of tests, actual malice.

Soon after the election, informed observers at Fox (like those elsewhere) already knew that Trump had lost legitimately. But they chose to conceal this truth on the air, for fear that broadcasting it would anger the channel’s audience and lead to lower ratings: Continue reading →

It’s largely agreed that the Supreme Court is now well aware that it would have been wiser not to have granted cert in Gonzalez v. Google, the case conservatives hoped would enable the Court to rule Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, or as Jeff Kosseff called it, the “26 words that created the internet.”

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The expectation now, after oral argument, is that there will be no major shift in interpretation, although fears still fester that the Court might say something stupid in its decision that could have disastrous unintended consequences. Continue reading →

In the aftermath of the purely coincidental day when both GLAAD and terminally woke contributors to the New York Times demanded that the paper of record only publish articles and op-eds that adhered to the orthodoxy of transgender activists, the New York Times did something completely unexpected. It grew a pair.

Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy.

We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.

Continue reading →

Ross Douthat blamed the cellphone. Icon of the young set, Taylor Lorenz pulled her head out from between someone’s legs to disagree.

Some might argue that there was no time in the history of mankind when there weren’t serious problems to be overcome, but rather than squarely face the problems and strive to overcome them, Lorenz suggests her generation has given up, accepted if not embraced failure, and has lost hope. Continue reading →

Many, though not all, of Trump’s judicial appointments fell below the level of quality, experience, temperament and impartiality that any reasonable person would expect of a federal judge. Many, though not all, saw their appointment as a mission to achieve ends that were radical, the undoing of the past century of jurisprudence that the right wing despised, stare decisis and judicial humility be damned.

Some were decidedly unqualified, bomb throwers in robes relishing the opportunity to wreak havoc on an institution that survives solely on its institutional legitimacy, the publics’ acceptance of its rulings, whether the outcomes were perceived as right or wrong, as coming from an honest effort to apply the law with integrity, without fear or favor. This didn’t start with Trump, and certain ploys, like the refusal to give Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing, lit a fuse that was almost certain to eventually explode. Continue reading →

As usual, New York is following California’s lead, this time by seeking to turn independent contractors into employees, or else.

A bill before the New York state Senate seeks to reclassify many independent contractors as employees, advancing a standard similar to that of California’s ruinous Assembly Bill 5, or A.B. 5. The proposed S2052 would implement the “ABC Test,” which classifies workers as employees unless the (a) worker is free from the control of the hiring entity, (b) the work performed is outside the hiring entity’s bailiwick, and (c) the worker is “customarily engaged” in the type of work he is hired to do.

Continue reading →

One of the earliest reactions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 dealt with whether customer preference constituted a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ), an exception built into the law to provide an escape hatch for what would otherwise constitute unlawful discrimination.

Was upper body strength a necessary requirement of the job of firefighter such that women were not physically qualified to perform the necessary functions of the job? Must prisons allow female guards when part of the job required they oversee showers, thus denying male prisoners privacy? Could movie producers only cast women in roles of women? Continue reading →