Law Students

First month update

Posted on September 14, 2009
On Thursday I will have completed a full month as a public defender. The move out here went smoothly and we're pretty much settled in. It's been busy, with two trips back to the east coast, so not a lot of time to rest.Life as a PD is busy. I have over 100 cases right now, and should have over 150 by the end of this week, as more are transferred to me...

It's been too long

Posted on July 30, 2009
I'm not dead yet.There's a lot of change in my life. I'm married now. We're moving to Colorado within the next two weeks, and I start my job as a Deputy Public Defender. I'm renting out my house in the DC area and am in the midst of a mad scramble to do all the things necessary to prepare the place for tenants, e...

Stress Testing the Banks

Posted on March 17, 2009
If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone. -Walter BagehotTimothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, has come out with a plan (really more of a vague idea) to "stress-test" American banks to determine whether they can survive this current recession...

This I Believe: Everyone Deserves Defense

Posted on October 20, 2008
I found out last Friday that my career as a public defender will be starting later than I'd like. Placement is by attrition and people aren't quitting as often as normal in this troubled economy. I'm disappointed, but still committed to being a public defender, albeit later than I had planned...

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I passed the Colorado Bar Exam

Posted on October 09, 2008
Results of the Colorado Bar Exam were posted this morning and my name was listed in the list of people who passed. Now I just need to pass the background check, take a professionalism class, and swear in and I'll be a real lawyer.

Stop the bailout in the Senate

Posted on September 30, 2008
The Senate has scheduled a vote for Wednesday night at 7:30 pm on the bailout package. Now is the time to call your Senators and tell them not to support the bailout. Instructions on how to find your Senators and what to say are in my previous post.

Action: Stop Congress from giving away your money

Posted on September 29, 2008
Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. The bar exam is over, though it's still 10 days away from results.This morning I urge you to take three minutes (literally only three minutes) out of your day to stop this insane $700 billion dollar bailout...

The Kooks - She Moves in Her Own Way

Posted on July 26, 2008
I was listening to Pandora the other day and heard an awesome song by the Kooks. Catchy, with a nice acoustic guitar riff running through it, I keep listening to it over and over after buying it from iTunes. If you want to pick it up, click

How to write with style

Posted on July 15, 2008
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a lovely essay on style. Why should you read it? I'll let him answer:Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them...

Supreme Court Upholds Individual Second Amendment Right

Posted on June 26, 2008
The Supreme Court ruled today in District of Columbia v. Heller that the District of Columbia's ban on possession of a handgun for self-defense within the home violated an individual right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution...

Update from Colorado

Posted on June 20, 2008
Sorry for the lack of posting. Since my last post, I have:Graduated from law school cum laude.Temporarily moved to Denver to study for the Colorado bar exam.Set a wedding date and time with my fiancee and booked a venue for same.Started growing a bar exam "playoff beard"...

Outdoor Animation in Brazil

Posted on May 15, 2008
This is, without a doubt, the coolest video you will watch today. MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

New Blog: Trust Me, I'm a Used Car Salesman

Posted on April 18, 2008
My father has started blogging, focusing mostly on auto advice (buying and using, not repairing). Not only that, but he started a radio show too.

Infoporn: Where people go after law school

Posted on April 18, 2008
The National Law Journal has an interesting chart that breaks down where the class of 2005 went after graduation.Note the steep decline in large firm placement outside of the top 10 schools. Also, Yale sent almost half of it's graduating class into judicial clerkships...

Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Law

Posted on April 14, 2008
"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."-Martin Luther King Jr.

How Financial Markets Really Work

Posted on January 29, 2008
With the recent crash in housing prices, the credit crisis, the Fed cutting rates right and left, many people are left scratching their heads and wondering how this all happened. The following short video gives an excellent and detailed explanation:

A Soldier Died in Iraq

Posted on January 05, 2008
He blogged about his experiences. His message, to be posted in case of his death, is here.I didn't know him. I didn't read his blog. I only heard about this from a posting somewhere else. And yet, I was moved near to tears.Tempus fugit, memento mori.

Five Dangerous Things You Should Let YOur Kids Do

Posted on December 26, 2007
Jeremy linked to a fascinating talk by Gever Tulley in which he describes dangerous activities you should let your kids do. I don't have kids (yet), but when I do, we're gonna do all this stuff.

New Job and a Move After Graduation

Posted on November 29, 2007
A quick update on the job search: I've accepted a job offer from a Public Defender's office in a Western state. I'll be moving out there very shortly after I graduate from law school in May to find a house and study for the bar.This isn't the plan I had when I started law school, but it's one of the best opportunities available for me to get trial experience and I get to stick it to the Man (or at least his representatives from the State's Attorney's office)...

Supreme Court to hear D.C. Gun Case

Posted on November 20, 2007
The announcement from the Plaintiff/Respondent:Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case of Heller v. District of Columbia, and decide whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right to own guns. At issue is a 31-year-old Washington, D...

ABA Journal article on the D.C. Gun Case

Posted on November 02, 2007
The November issue of the ABA Journal has a feature article about the D.C. Gun Case. This is the first article I've seen that carefully examines the role of the NRA in trying to torpedo the case and obtained comment from all of the lawyers. After they had assembled a group of six plaintiffs, Levy and Neily filed Parker on Feb...

Why People Have to Make Their Own Mistakes

Posted on October 11, 2007
Found in an Economist article on how a central bank can (or cannot) stop a bank run:"the ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools."- Herbert Spencer, State Tampering with Money and Banks

Being a Happy, Healthy, Ethical Lawyer

Posted on October 10, 2007
Orin Kerr posted a question on the Volokh Conspiracy from a not yet employed 3L looking for career advice. There are good suggestions in the comments, but the best one is from "Anonobvious," who linked to Patrick J. Schiltz's law review article, "On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession...

Muckraking of the First Order

Posted on October 09, 2007
Radley Balko has a shocking account of how Steven Hayne cornered the autopsy market in Mississippi. During his years, he's testified that a skeletonized woman was strangled (even though there was no muscle tissue to make that determination), testified that two people's hands were on a gun from the bullet wound, and performed 1,800 autopsies per year (the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) says a single medical examiner should perform no more than 250 autopsies per year and will not accredit a practice with more than 325 annually)...

Poker Stars Blogger Tournament - October 14

Posted on October 06, 2007
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.Registration code: 7483439UPDATE: I finished 1046th out of 1337 players with this hand:PokerStars Game #12625899736: Tournament #63028692, Freeroll Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (150/300) - 2007/10/14 - 15:50:16 (ET)Table '63028692 113' 9-max Seat #4 is the buttonSeat 1: MarnieT (16175 in chips) Seat 2: CarlosMuch (12350 in chips) Seat 3: CK Pony (5625 in chips) Seat 4: HappyStoic (7700 in chips) Seat 5: confieri (26375 in chips) Seat 6: L'ildeveau (5950 in chips) Seat 7: G...

Brutal Bimodal Distribution

Posted on September 07, 2007
...or Why Law Students Get Ulcers.The Empirical Legal Studies blog has an excellent post analyzing a salary chart graphic for 2006 law graduates. Click through to see this shocking bit of infoporn and the analysis thereof.As an aside, I've spent about $200 in postage and burned through three reams of paper in the last few weeks applying for Federal judicial clerkships...

Better presentations

Posted on August 23, 2007
Merlin Mann has a new post up about how he made his presentations a little better. One of the best recommendations he has is to use Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule for PowerPoint.* Both posts offer excellent advice for anyone who has to give presentations...

The Economist style guide available online

Posted on August 16, 2007
I was reading last week's Economist on the metro and noted that they've published their style guide online. I'm fond of their clear, pithy style, especially after a day of reading legalese. More modern and accessible than Strunk & White, it should serve you well in all your writing.

What would you ask a famous economist?

Posted on July 24, 2007
Tyler Cowen, economist, cultural omnivore, and proprietor of Marginal Revolution, has written a new book called "Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist." As an incentive for people to pre-order the book, he has offered to create a personalized podcast for anyone that pre-orders before Thursday, July 26th...

Good things to know about the workplace

Posted on July 12, 2007
Guy Kawasaki has an excellent post with the top 12 things he wished he had learned before graduating from college. My experience is that there are quite a few people well into their careers who still have not learned some of these lessons, such as how to write a five sentence email ("All you should do is explain who you are, what you want, why you should get it, and when you need it by...

Iowans for Tax Relief: Ron Paul not "Credible"

Posted on June 21, 2007
According to a press release from Iowans for Tax Relief, they invited all "credible Democrat and Republican Presidential candidates" to speak at the candidate forum on June 30, 2007. However, the Free Liberal confirms that Ron Paul was not invited.Iowans for Tax Relief will not allow Dr...

Results Oriented Thinking in the War on Terror

Posted on June 13, 2007
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr works himself into knots in two convoluted posts about the al-Marri case (4th Circuit rules that Qatari student living in the U.S. can't be held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant"). Prof. Kerr trots out a hypothetical familiar to anyone who has studied Criminal Procedure generally and the 4th Amendment exclusionary rule in particular...

Kenyan Economics Expert: "Stop the Foreign Aid!"

Posted on June 07, 2007
Spiegel International has an interview with Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati about foreign aid. They seem shocked that his main plea is for foreign governments to stop sending aid.SPIEGEL:Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

What is Atheism?

Posted on June 04, 2007
There's a common misunderstanding when talking about atheism that has reared its ugly head in the stoic philosophy forum I participate in. This post seeks to identify the problem and work toward greater understanding between those who believe and those who do not...

Bostonians: Still Stupid

Posted on May 31, 2007
No, it's not blinky cartoon characters this time, it's a garbled fax from marketing.In a scene reminiscent of the Cartoon Network bomb scare that paralyzed the Boston area in January, police shut down a strip mall yesterday in this small western suburb after employees at a Bank of America branch mistook a botched fax for a bomb threat...

Congress Buys Pork with Soldiers' Lives

Posted on May 25, 2007
Yesterday afternoon, right before they went on vacation, your 110th Congress (including the Maryland Senate delegation) decided to go against the wishes of almost 3/4 of the American people and give in to the President to pass a no-strings-attached war funding bill...

Games and Poems

Posted on May 15, 2007
Bruce Godfrey tipped me off to a nice blog post about the five games you need to play to live well. It's a good post, and worth the read. In the section on gambling, there was a snippet from Rudyard Kipling's poem, If:If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;You really should read the whole poem; it's a wonderful litany of what it means to be a man and worth reading periodically to focus one's endeavors...

Rep. Wayne Gilchrest on the War

Posted on May 08, 2007
Reason has an excellent interview with Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) in which he talks about the GOP, the war in Iraq, and what history can teach us.The whole thing is excellent, but I especially enjoyed the stoic overtones in his final answer:Reason: You don't worry about another primary challenge from a Republican who thinks this war has to be won or those issues are important?WG: I don't worry about a primary challenge...

Gun Control on the Way to the Supreme Court

Posted on May 08, 2007
The D.C. Circuit has denied a petition for en banc rehearing of Parker v. D.C., so the way is clear for the Supreme Court to hear the case. Analysis of the denial and the likely timeline for Supreme Court review.Interesting article about how liberal law professors have been instrumental in shifting the gun control debate in this country.

Interhash 2006 Photos

Posted on April 18, 2007
I went to the World Interhash in Chiang Mai, Thailand last October. Over 6000 hashers from around the world in one place with unlimited beer and official sanction from the Thai government. Imagine the insanity, if you dare. There's an album of pictures from my trip up here: InterhashThailand2006As usual, I didn't take enough pictures and few of them include me, but there's some nice shots...

Prodigy + Apache = Video Mashup Madness

Posted on April 18, 2007
So freaking awesome!