In 2012, at the request of the ABA Journal, Dan Hull and I wrote an article about the importance of mentoring, both as a duty of experienced lawyers to give back and a duty of new lawyers to get up to speed as quickly and effectively as possible for the sake of clients. Despite their having asked for the article, and our having put in the time to write it, the ABA Journal decided not to publish it because they felt our expectations of young lawyers to be good mentees was too hard and might hurt their feelings.

But mentoring has been a very important part of my career, and I’ve mentored many law students and young lawyers over the years. Some have been white. Some black and brown. Some male. Some female. None told me they were of another orientation, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t. With a couple exceptions, it’s proven very fruitful. Continue reading →

A few years back, I queried whether David Cole, the legal director of the organization that uses the legacy name American Civil Liberties Union, could save the ACLU from becoming the apologist for the termination of civil liberties and the enforcer of the woke brand of political correctness. Experience since suggests that he won’t be its savior.

Cole has now pounded the final nail in his coffin in what may be one of the most shamefully unprincipled arguments ever proffered to eradicate constitutional rights and subjugate people to the will of the woke.

Can an artist be compelled to create a website for an event she does not condone? That’s the question the Supreme Court has said it will take up on Monday, when it hears oral arguments in 303 Creative v. Elenis. The answer would seem to be obviously “no.”

Continue reading →

Why did they go after Jack Phillips? Why didn’t Jack Phillips just bake a cake? Why must this war play out in Masterpiece Cake Shop? As it turned out, it didn’t get resolved by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s punt of a ruling which compelled Phillips to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court only to end up with a non-answer. This is why the Court will hear oral argument in Lori Smith’s case today.

Ms. Smith, in an interview in her modest but cheerful studio in an office building in a suburb of Denver, sat near a plaque that echoed a Bible verse: “I am God’s masterpiece.” She said she was happy to create graphics and websites for anyone, including L.G.B.T.Q. people. But her Christian faith, she said, did not allow her to create messages celebrating same-sex marriages. Continue reading →

It’s not the Onion. It’s not even surprising. It is, however, nuts.

Continue reading →

Orin Kerr noted that the writing was remarkably good for a college sophomore, but even more remarkable was that Brooks Anderson, ’25, had the guts to write it, and the Crimson the guts to publish it. The “it” is a stinging takedown of Harvard University’s bureaucracy bloat, living proof of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

Harvard is one of the world’s preeminent universities; surely it has used its billions of dollars of accumulated wealth to primarily invest in its educational program, building an unparalleled roster of top professors, expanding offerings to students, and reducing class sizes. Right? Continue reading →

My mean-ass editor wrote a post earlier this week outlining San Francisco’s recent decision to use remote controlled “killer robots” to beef up their police force. Being something of a fan of the sci-fi genre, I pointed out in the film “Terminator: Salvation” Skynet — the artificial intelligence villain of the Terminator series of films — was actually based in what remained of San Francisco. At the time, I made the remark that police using killer robots was essentially one step closer to Skynet becoming self-aware. Continue reading →

Not that it applies here, as SJ does not exist for “profit-making purposes,”* but the New York lege enacted a new law that would require any website that allows users to post public comments to become the hate speech police by calling it “hateful conduct” rather than hate speech, which is fully protected by the First Amendment and for which liability is precluded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Not that New York cared. Continue reading →

The question is not (I repeat, not) whether people who are suffering from mental illness and homelessness need and deserve societal care and concern. They do. They do for their sake. They do for our sake. They do. But as passionately as some want to either help them out of compassion or be rid of them out of annoyance, there remains one thing that we learned all too well following the Willowbrook scandal (thanks, Geraldo) and the horrors of  forced institutionalization of the mentally ill. They, too, have rights. Continue reading →

San Francisco, of all places, approved a measure to use killer robots. No, not robots that will run around with their own deadly agenda, but robots that will be armed and sent into situations where they can be used to kill.

Police in San Francisco will be allowed to deploy potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. The controversial policy was approved after weeks of scrutiny and a heated debate among the city’s board of supervisors during their meeting on Tuesday.

Continue reading →

I remember very well the discussion among a small group of fencing parents whose kids trained with my son. It was back when our children were applying to college. They were all top students with top grades and scores, and each was a top nationally ranked fencer. I complained about how colleges had no interest in my son, a white Jewish boy from Long Island.

The other parents laughed. What about their children, Asian kids with perfect SAT scores who played all-state cello and won national science prizes? They didn’t stand a chance.** Continue reading →