Over at Prawfsblawg, Howard Wasserman poses a provocative free speech theory. It arises from New York University’s choice of Jonathan Haidt as graduation speaker, which some students found disagreeable. Ironically, given that Haidt contends that universities insulate students from unpleasant ideas, student government leaders wrote a letter to the administration requesting that Haidt be disinvited.

Since the announcement on Thursday, April 30, many students have reported feelings of
disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment – feeling that their
commencement, intended to be a celebratory moment, has instead become another instance
of being misunderstood.

What to make of students trying to cancel a strident critic of cancel culture? Wasserman offers a paradigm within which to consider the options. Continue reading →

With some exceptions, part of the bundle of burdens assumed when becoming a member of the guild is to adhere to the Rules of Professional Conduct. This is one of the basic requirements that distinguishes a profession from an occupation. You have to pass the bar examination to become a lawyer, and subsequently abide by the rules to remain one.

Auditioning Attorney General Todd Blanche, on the taxpayers’ dime, rejects the notion that lawyers working for the Trump administration should be held to the rules of professional responsibility, and he’s suing the District of Columbia bar to stop it from disciplining Jeffrey Clark, the former environmental law assistant at DoJ willing to pretend that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump when no one else would, and Ed Martin, for his abusing his position at DoJ to attack Georgetown Law School, which barely scratches the surface of Martin’s sleaze. Continue reading →

There’s a quiet split among the MAGA faithful. Most say they only support deportation for the “illegals,” assuming your definition of illegals includes anyone with an Hispanic name, accent or appearance who is not a citizen. Then there are those who don’t care about such niceties as citizenship, and just want them all gone because they aren’t “heritage Americans,” basically white Christians of European heritage, even if they were the dreaded Irish or Italian immigrants of last century.

As far as Immigration and Customs Enforcement is concerned, such details as citizenship aren’t their problem. Leo Garcia Venegas found that out. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Continue reading →

Santa Clara Judge Kelly Paul says it’s a conflict of interest for District Attorney Jeff Rosen to prosecute five pro-Palestinian Stanford students following a mistrial, and recused Rosen and his office from the case.

Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Kelly Paul has ordered lead prosecutor Jeff Rosen to step down from the case against five Stanford pro-Palestine protesters who barricaded themselves inside the University president’s office in June 2024.

Paul recused Rosen and the entirety of his office from retrying the case, which ended in a mistrial on Feb. 14 after a hung jury. The move comes after defense attorneys raised concerns about Rosen’s conflict-of-interest, which included placing the case on a campaign website titled “fighting antisemitism” and using it in a December fundraising email blast.

Continue reading →

Despite Eugene Volokh’s almost daily post about lawyers (and occasional judges) shamed for using AI to perform their work, producing hallucinated citations, phony quotes and generally mediocre content, it has nonetheless managed to finds its way into the offices of a great many law firms. To say they’ve been warned is unhelpful. AI is quick, easy and crappy, unable to defy the iron triangle. Yet that is apparently good enough for these lawyers.

But unlike the use of AI to produce insipid written arguments in court, what could possible be wrong with using at as the magic note-taker to reduce to writing the discussions, whether as a helpful way to remember the details or for later use as evidence of what transpired? Note taking is a bore. It’s often difficult for the note taker to keep up. Often times, the note taker fails to appreciate the “hidden meaning”  or subtleties behind words and misstates the meaning when written in shorthand notations. Could AI be any worse? Continue reading →

The confluence of a few unfortunate circumstances resulted in the Virginia Supreme Court holding that the state constitutional amendment to allow the redistricting plan as a counterbalance to other states’ legislative redistricting plans to eliminate congressional districts deemed “safely” Democratic was unconstitutional. Wags and cynics will imagine this ruling to be the product of radical rightist activists. It was not.

Unlike a state like Texas, which can redraw its districts by legislative fiat, Virginia’s Constitution required that congressional district be fairly drawn by commission to avoid the plague of gerrymandering. It further required that any change to the Constitution span an election, so that two legislative votes, one before the election and one after, be required to prevent whimsical changes, enabling voters to decide whether to vote for, or against, legislators based on their position toward the change. Its purpose was to create a process so that the state constitutional amendments would only be approved after “deliberate consideration and careful scrutiny that they deserve.” Continue reading →

Prefatory Note: My son is eleven. He is awesome in ways that would fill up this post describing. He’s also the reason I carry a notebook around as he’s prone to spouting off some very…interesting…statements. Enjoy a few—CLS

ON STAR WARS
“I feel like if Darth Vader held up a sign that said ‘Come to the Dark Side: We Have Free Cake and Pie,’ it would get him more attention than him talking about it all the time.”

ON BRUSHING TEETH
Excitedly “Daddy, look! I’m cleaning my skeleton!” Continue reading →

As a general concept, historic preservation is a good thing. After all, once an historic structure is gone, it’s gone forever, and so is the history it embodies. For reasons both aesthetic and, as expressed by George Santayana, practical, remembering history matters. That said, it can also be subject to dumb abuse and be used to unfairly damage unwitting homeowners who are trapped by proponents who demand that historic structures be maintained, but refuse to shoulder the burden of their convictions.

Ilya Somin relates the story of what is very generously claimed to be the Marilyn Monroe house in Los Angeles.

The case began in 2023, when a California couple bought an unoccupied, deteriorating property on a dead-end residential street, intending to demolish and redevelop it after purchase. They applied for the appropriate permits, which the City of Los Angeles granted without objection after a standard 30-day hold. One day later, a local government official filed paperwork to designate the property a historic monument. The City then revoked the permits and approved the historic designation, rendering the property untouchable to its new owners, Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank. Continue reading →

In the relative scheme of things facing the United States, is a ballroom really that big a deal? After all, “Patriots” still have immigrants, illegal or otherwise, to expel and then there are prices, gas, food, housing and health care, and those darn Iranians who desperately want a deal but keep telling Trump to suck eggs as he begs for an exit ramp from his adventure in warmongering. With all that, who cares about a ballroom?

It started as a $200 million boondoggle. Then $250, $300,  and then $400. We know this because Trump talks about the ballroom incessantly, whether anyone asks or not. What about Iran? Ballroom. Gas prices? Ballroom. Physical fitness for children? Ballroom. Continue reading →

It’s not exactly unusual for criminal defendants to ask their lawyers to dissemble to the court. There are facts that the government may not possess, or at least not be capable of proving, in the absence of the defense lawyer conceding them in court, and the defendant, understandably, strongly prefers that his lawyer, the person he’s paying to stand between him and a criminal conviction, not provide the government with the evidence it lacks. Maybe it involves withholding information. Maybe it involves denying information. Either way, by omission or commission, our clients might want us to lie to the court for their benefit.

Yet, we don’t. We shouldn’t. We can’t. While our duty is to provide our client with a zealous defense, to pursue every non-frivolous argument possible if, in our professional judgment, it furthers their cause, we also have a duty of candor to the court. We can spin it. We can rationalize it. What we cannot do is lie about it, no matter how much our client would wants us to do so. We just can’t. Continue reading →