Dueling Law Professors.

Over at Balkanization, Brian Tamanaha, one of my favorite "outside the box" thinkers among law professors, has another of his interesting posts in which he takes to task the current model of legal education. As Brian notes, this model emphasizes "interdisciplinary study" over professional training for law students and academic research and writing over teaching for law professors.

Another law professor I admire greatly, Daniel Solove, posts this counterpoint over at Concurring Opinions, in which he defends the current educational model.

Both of these dueling law professors make some excellent points but on balance, I'm siding with Professor Tamanaha on this one. I grant Professor Solove's point that studying the history, philosophy and sociological impact of the law is not a bad thing. (A point succinctly made in the movie "Animal House" with Faber College's motto - "Knowledge is Good.") However, granting that point, the problem is that most law school graduates actually plan to practice law - a profession they are ill equipped to engage in after three years of purely "academic" study in today's law school school environment.

The result is very bright, well educated men and women who, unless they get substantial additional training in a law firm or government agency, don't know how to properly advise or represent a client in the real world outside the halls of academe.

In the 30 years I have been a lawyer and judge, I have observed a steady deterioration in the overall level of professional competence in the way in which lawyers interact with clients and with each other and I attribute that decline directly to the lessened emphasis in law schools on instilling professionalism and teaching professional skills.

As an accrediting agency, the ABA has resisted any experimentation which might provide more balance between academic study and nuts and bolts professional training. Can you imagine the result if the AMA forced the country's medical schools to focus on the history, philosophy and sociological impact of medicine and the healing arts but neglected teaching medical students how to properly examine, treat or operate upon a patient?

Brian and Dan have performed a tremendous service to the legal profession by beginning a dialog that needs to continue. I fervently hope that it will.

Virginia is for lovers, not swordsmen.

Apparently in Virginia, it is perfectly legal to carry a gun past the metal detector set up at the entrance to that state's Capitol but they draw the line at swords.

A man dressed like an 1880's sheriff and appropriately named for the 11th Chief Justice of the United States (pictured), apparently wanted to discuss changes in the Old Dominion's concealed weapon law with some legislators. He advised the Capitol Police at the door that he had a sword concealed in his cane and was forced to leave it behind although he apparently could have brought a gun into the building. I guess the last guy they let carry a sword into the Virginia Capitol was Robert E. Lee.

Via InRich.com

Canadian asserts an "inalienable right to publish whatever the hell I want?"

Canada doesn't have a First Amendment (and after seeing this clip, maybe they should) but it seems that at least the concept of freedom of the press is alive and well in the hearts of some of our cousins to the north.

I also have to admit that I loved seeing an officious bureaucrat get dressed down by a pro.

If you haven't been keeping up with this, the Human Rights Commission of the Province of Alberta (Canada) is investigating a complaint made by a couple of Calgary Muslims against a publication called The Western Standard which offended some in the Muslim community two years ago by re-publishing those Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

More Darwin Awards wannabes.

What's wrong with this picture? Well let's see. We have several guys soaking in a pool of water while they soak up more than a few beers and listen to some tunes thanks to all the electrical cords connected to an apparently live power strip floating on a pair of flip-flops!

Assuming they have not been removed from the gene pool by qualifying for a Darwin Award, these idiots are awfully lucky.

Via Splurch.

From HOWT's "Stating the Obvious" Department .

Ranking right up there with news items like "Dog Bites Man" or "Dr. Phil Says Britney Spears Needs a Shrink" is this gem from the Palmetto State.

The South Carolina Court of Appeals has determined that it is indeed contempt of court to endorse a court order with the phrase "Kiss my ass."

Judith Law will now have to serve 90 days in jail for endorsing her probation revocation order with a suggestion that Judge Diane Goodstein osculate upon Law's buttocks.

South Carolina now joins the United States District Court in Georgia in holding that telling trial court judges to "Kiss my ass" is a singularly counter-productive persuasion technique.

Of course, if Ms. Law had the right attorney, he could probably have found a slightly more subtle way of getting that message across.

Adventures in intellectual property law.

As we begin 2008, I would be remiss if I didn't take brief note of two intellectual property stories from the last week of 2007.

First, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities told reporters on December 25 that the country's parliament would likely pass a law requiring anyone who reproduces one of its famous monuments to pay royalties.

I am hardly an expert on international IP law but under U.S. copyright law, at least, the design of a building can be copyrighted, but only if it was created on or after December 1, 1990. Experts disagree on the exact completion date of the various pyramids, but it seems fair to say that we're talking about things built at least 3000 years before that. In any event, there is still the problem that the design of a pyramid involves making it in the shape of, well, A PYRAMID, and I don't think any nation recognizes that you can copyright a geometric shape. (If you can, let me know, because I'm going to claim "trapezoid.")

If this law passes, I guess the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas (shown) is going to owe the Egyptian government a lot of money.

In other IP news, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has decided that even more of their customers are thieves. The RIAA is apprently preparing to sue an Arizona man who copied over 2,000 songs to his computer, presumably for download to his mp3 player. The wrinkle here is that he legally purchased every one of the CD's from which he "ripped" the songs.

The irony I see here is that Sony Corp. is an RIAA member and in that role has pushed for RIAA's aggressive actions but if you happen to own a Sony Walkman Video mp3 player, the accompanying instructional video tells you how to load it with music as follows:

So you have your brand new Walkman video MP3 player from Sony. Now let's get some music on it. There are two main ways to get new music for your Walkman video player. You can rip CD's that you already own, and you can get music from multiple online stores. So let's rip some CD's.

I just went out and bought a new album. With the CD in the drive, I can navigate Windows Media player to the "rip" tab....

(They next demonstrate how to rip this Sony CD.)

Strangely, Sony neglects to mention that any of their customers who follow the company's instructions are thieves as far as Sony is concerned.

Happy New Year!

I want to wish a very Happy New Year to the 21,887 people who visited Have Opinion, Will Travel over the last year and I hope to see you here again in 2008.