Reactions to my post about non-lawyers offering legal advice have raised some interesting points, ranging from the distinction between talking about the law and giving specific advice about what to do to avoid being a guest of the government for a long stay.  It went on to questions whether simplified generic advice was good enough, or the best we can do.  It’s important stuff, and seemed worthy of further discussion.

On my sidebar to the right, it says: Nothing in this blog constitutes legal advice.  This is free. Legal advice you have to pay for.  It’s a snarky way of saying that what you read here is not, by definition, responsive to any individual’s legal situation. If I were to give you legal advice, I would ask you very specific questions, delve into the material aspects of your conduct and what happened, and then tell you what I think is appropriate to your particular circumstances.  That isn’t what happens here. Continue reading →

The new syllabus for Professional Responsibility, a mandatory class for all law students, provided that they would no longer study the Model Rules. It announced that it’s perfectly appropriate for non-lawyers to own law firms and practice law; the bar is dead.

It said that lawyers are no longer limited by jurisdictional admission and can ply their trade wherever they want.  It said that the only limits going forward would be how well lawyers could get money out of the clutches of unsuspecting clients, with no duty of zealous representation or honesty.  Deceit was now an outdated concept. It’s all about the money. Continue reading →

Videos of the “knock out game” spread last week across the media, from the internet to television.  That it existed, which it obviously did, was a terrible thing, but whether it was worthy of so much attention remained an open question. My hope was that it would end quickly and that no other person would be harmed.

But as with anything that goes viral today, there is someone out there who will try to capitalize on it.  Before the week was out, a New York legislator was preening for the cameras.

A New York lawmaker is proposing legislation that would require that youths charged with assault or gang assault in connection with the violent knockout contest will be treated as adults in the criminal-justice system. Continue reading →

The first email from Alisa Martin seemed ripe enough for some fun:

Hi,

I found your blog (http://blog.simplejustice.us/) quite interesting and therefore am interested in guest blogging. I have quality and unique posts on topics like “Law”,”Legal Service”,”Legal Advice” etc.

I have the skill to research and write on lots of different topics. My posts should really resonate well with your readers. Continue reading →

The reply brief is in on behalf of Ladar Levison’s Lavabit, and it appears that Marcia Hofman, et al., has worked hard to salvage her strong and critical arguments from the government’s response of waiver.  Did she do it?  Is it enough to overcome the neglect below?

The brief relies on the Supreme Court opinion in Yee v. Escondido, a 1992 takings clause case where some weighty constitutional arguments were raised for the first time before the California Supreme Court, and then again before the big bench.

In this Court, petitioners attempt to challenge the  ordinance on two additional grounds:  They argue that it  constitutes a denial of substantive due process and a  regulatory taking.  Neither of these claims is properly  before us. Continue reading →

It seemed an interesting gesture for Wal-Mart to announce by television commercial that it would give any returning honorably discharged veteran a job. Given my peculiar view of good deeds, that an act isn’t truly charitable if there is a self-promotion component to it, Wal-Mart’s commercial was banal pandering. Still, it was a better advertisement than “come to Wal-Mart and meet interesting people.”

But a post by Turley’s permanent weekend guest-blogger, Mike Spindell, put a different light on the offer.  While I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Wal-Mart, and frankly have neither a clue nor interest in finding out whether there is one anywhere near me to visit, I have enjoyed images of Wal-Mart shoppers from time to time, which makes me feel as if I have a connection to it. From a distance. Continue reading →

Not that anyone who isn’t a former employee of the Long Island Rail Road feels the slightest sympathy, mostly because everybody hates the LIRR and is so innately biased against its people that allegations of fraud are par for the course, but their handling by the Railroad Retirement Board has reached a new depth of bizarre.

After unilaterally terminating the disability payments of hundreds of retirees because a doctor who was involved in their application, Peter Ajemian, copped a plea, which only makes the slightest bit of sense to someone deeply inclined to hate the LIRR in the first place and otherwise not big on anything approaching logic, the RRB doubled down when another doc, Peter Lesniewski, was convicted for fraud.  So what if the RRB’s physicians examined every applicant and confirmed their disability. This is no time for facts, when there are heads to roll. Continue reading →

One of the earliest posts at SJ was about the case of Martin Heidgen*, a 25-year-old who, drunk and driving the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway, caused the decapitation of a beautiful 7-year-old flower girl, Katie Flynn, on her way home from a wedding, along with the driver of the wedding limo, Stanley Rabinowitz. It was a horrible death, the sort that raised bile in anyone’s throat.

That post was written March 1, 2007. Yesterday, more than six years later, the New York Court of Appeals ruled on the case.  In the interim, similar cases came along, suffering from the same legal flaws, such as Franklyn McPherson, another drunken kid who killed.

Other things happened in the interim as well. The Legislature passed “Katie’s Law,” creating the crime of aggravated vehicular homicide.  And the Court of Appeals decided People v. Valencia, Continue reading →

The first I learned of this was a few years ago from Mike at Crime & Federalism, though I can’t find the link now (Here it is, thanks Mike).  Now, it’s all over the news. The knockout game.

I imagine it’s some variant on stupid, powerless youths attempting to substitute brute force and cowardice for their feelings of worthlessness.  Coming from a criminal defense lawyer, and some will most assuredly need a criminal defense lawyer if they aren’t killed before reaching that point, please know this:

You will get no sympathy. You will get no admiration. This is a dehumanizing blight, and it will come back to haunt not only those who do it, but as it appears to be a game played (at least for now) by young black men, your age and your race.  A lot of people worked very hard to try to end racism, and many died for it. It was not so you could devolve into animals for some sick amusement and pretend machismo.

As much as I hate to put it this way, no one will weep if you do this and terrible harm comes to you.  This is about as sick as it gets. Your moment of glory doesn’t make you tough or manly, but a pimple in need of popping, and there will be no shortage of people willing to do so.

And for any others who think this is funny, your encouragement of this disgrace will come back to haunt you as well. Any fool can sucker punch someone.  It proves your haters right. That is the only thing this accomplishes. Don’t do it. Don’t tolerate anyone else doing it.

Occam’s Razor is a principle of logic that says the simplest solution that accounts for all known facts is usually correct.  It’s neither absolute nor necessarily easy to figure out what is fact or assumption, given many people’s tendency to replace reality with the crutch of “common sense,” but this isn’t about the joys of lex parsimoniae.

Whether it’s a picture or the story that goes with it, or a combination thereof, when what purports to be “known facts” are so inherently contradictory or nonsensical that Occam’s Razor can’t be applied, there is a problem.  That’s what comes of Tim Cushing’s post at Techdirt, and it’s very ugly: Continue reading →