Blog Posts

Blame the Internet gods, or, at the very least, my webmaster.
In an effort to accomodate the complaints of several readers who had difficulty posting comments to this page, I requested yesterday that someone fix the settings in the comments section. They did. But at various points last night,...

I detoxed on Scott Greenfield and Simple Justice a year or so ago, and have had few occasions since to go back to his page. But when I read this morning that he was unplugging his keyboard, I was surprised. I will miss him now that he has gone. Indeed, I suspect he will be back soon enough, perhaps...

Journalists and bloggers glory in the role of iconoclast. Nothing falls with quite such a crash as a hero toppled by disclosure of their failings. The writer who wields the toppling axe struts like a hero. But the line between iconoclasm and gratuitous mudslinging is a thin one. The New York Times...

I will count 2011 a good year, despite the dire economy. It was a year of focusing, getting lean, re-examining priorities. As 2011 ends, I am uncharacteristically optimistic. Despite a world of trouble, the sum of it all seems to represent a gathering storm. There’s a certain energy in the...

Asking five law school professors to debate how best to educate lawyers is like asking a bartender which alcohol best promotes abstinence: So long as the patrons keep buying drinks, the bartenders are happy. A truly sobering debate won’t take place in a bar.
So what was the New York...

The Sunday New York Times nailed what’s wrong with legal education in this country: The legal academy educates lawyers by long exposure to professors who don’t practice law. The chattering class teaches theory, not practice. Mere practitioners are scorned. We have nothing to teach. We...

I am sick to death of the Cheshire home invasion cases. They linger, like a nightmare that will not go away. If there is a reason for good cheer, it is that this final trial, the penalty phase in the case of Joshua Komisarjevsky, is now upon us. It is fitting in a gruesome sort of way that the...

My holiday gift card list did not grow shorter this week when an American missile struck and killed Anwar al-Awlaki in a Yemeni desert. He was a top-dog in the rag-tag band of fundamentalist creeps who would just as soon kill me as any of some 300 million other folks just like me. He hated the...

I generally avoid writing about the so-called "blawgosphere" – the universe of bloggers who write about the law. There’s an inbred quality to such writing that destroys interest in the subject matter. It is said that those who can’t do teach. What of the cast of lawyers who write...

Welcome: I'm the "deep and progressive thinker" you linked to. I also have a pony tail. And, what's worst of all, I think Rakofsky's claims are pretty interesting. But then again, I turned my card in to the guildmasters on the blawgosphere long ago.
Joseph Rakofsky made a little money this...