More MCLE Madness

I am admitted to the Illinois and New Jersey bars which makes for MCLE tracking somewhat interesting. New Jersey just adopted a MCLE system effective 2010 replacing its 3-year post-admission MCLE program. The New Jersey system has some quirks which make for trying to make sure credits transfer from jurisdiction to jurisdiction rather interesting (NJ requires a certain number of face-to-face hours amongst other things). As of Wednesday, I’ve added another wrench to the works:

I passed the New York bar examination.

Featured by Lawyer Connection and Other Tidbits

Much thanks to Gwynne Monahan for featuring me on Lawyer Connection this week. For the new (which is pretty much everyone), I am an ‘08 graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law and a licensed attorney in both Illinois and New Jersey. Having graduated right into everyone’s favorite worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, I’ve been on the road less traveled in terms of finding that elusive first job. A few months, many resumes, and a handful of interviews later, I returned to Chicago-Kent as a full-time LLM in Taxation student, diving into my other favorite subject in law school (IP was my first but the lack of a Bachelor’s of Science the USPTO is willing to look at took me out of that market fast). These days I spend lots of time with my friend 26 USC (the Internal Revenue Code).

I continue to write in order to keep the skills sharp and continue to learn the ins and outs of networking the best I can between school, the Chicago Bar Association, and my newfound compatriots on Twitter. I also continue to ponder whether I should make that final leap and seize my own destiny by starting my own law practice right off the gate. However, like a good lawyer, I know that I’m going to need lots of information and help waiting in the wings before I go off on my own.

Gwynne, TweetCamp Chicago (@MauraHernandez, @kdc, and their helpers), and the Chicago Bar Association folks have been very helpful in keeping the spirits up and providing guidance as to what I can do to get to where I want to be. Although they get very little if any money for doing this, I think the big picture is that of the human tendency to help others in the eventuality that one day you may need help yourself. There is more to life than pursuit of the almighty dollar although even I admit that they are kind of a required element for bills to be paid =).

More of what used to go up here as short commentary has moved over to Twitter although occasionally I’ll plug something here as legal analysis does not lend itself well to being expressed in 140 characters.

• This is a lesson that many lawyers learn the hard way but it is worth repeating for those who serve on juries. Do not disobey a judge’s order, even if you disagree with it. There is a time and place to argue but in that very judge’s courtroom and presence is not one of them. Juror Who Caused Mistrial With Online Research Must Pay Jury Fees [Lowering The Bar]
• Sometimes I wonder how our predecessors survived as children having such dangerous weapons as knives and hunting rifles. First-Grader Beats Rap for Knife Charge [Lowering The Bar]
• Not sure but I’m fairly certain this is probably one of the largest claims in the nature of qui tam I’ve ever heard about although one does wonder why the informant who got the IRS a case against UBS for $780M plus the back taxes and interest from taxpayers was also thrown in jail. The UBS Informant [TaxProf]

One last thing, I have a new hat to wear in addition to student and attorney – I’m also now the Legislative Liaison for the CBA’s Law Practice Management & Technology Committee. Time to see what Springfield has in store for me come next legislative session.

Short Quips: September 6, 2009

Thank goodness for an extended weekend – it gives me time to catch up after quite a busy week between contract work and class. After next weekend life gets somewhat easier as I’m moving back downtown. Rent will hurt but I’ll be getting about 12-15 hours of my life back commuting each day.

• The Fourth Amendment never ceases to hound me from my 1L Legal Writing days. Expelled student sues over “unreasonable” cell phone search. [Ars Technica]
• I forsee the mobilization of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen if certain Saudi lawyers ever intend to effectively carry out their threat to erase a well-known cartoon from the Internet. Saudi lawyers demand Mohammed cartoon apology. [Overlawyered]
• We, as a country and as people, generally try to make policy choices that get it right 99% of the time. 100% is the goal but if we wrote laws at 100% you’d have so many exceptions and exclusions that it would take an army of lawyers to sort it all out. It is because of this that you get corner cases like this: Convicted Thief Sues Store He Robbed [Overlawyered]

Until next time, I will be making friends with quite a few pages of 26 USC.

Back to School, The Gameplan, Odds and Ends

I’m back and already a week deep into the Tax LL.M. program @ Chicago-Kent. It appears to be last minute summer vacation week as two of my instructors were off and had stand-ins who were quite impressive in their own right. Of the classes, International Transactions and Sales and Exchanges scare me the most. The former was a veritable wall of alphabet soup on day 1 (thank you Congress) and the latter’s professor reminded me of my high school calculus professor – potentially very good but I’ll have to fight for every point with blood, sweat, and tears (probably in that order). Paper topic for the independent study seems to be decent and can be done without any advanced knowledge that I’ll need to learn here. Soon as I get my research accounts turned back on I should be ready to rock and roll – hopefully no one scoops me between now and the time I finish the paper.

Sat down with Career Services last Friday to sort out the gameplan for securing some kind of employment (solo or firm) in the next 9-ish months. Already doing many things on their list such as going to CBA meetings but need to do more such as pounding more pavement. I’d like to not say I’m living on borrowed time but I think that’s the best way to be living right now in order to make sure I really do land something by the time I get out.

As for odds and ends, Judge Wu finally issued his written decision overturning the three misdemeanor jury verdicts against Lori Drew. As expected, and hoped for by civil liberties groups, the decision was based on a constitutional challenge under the Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine holding there to be definitional and actual notice deficiencies as well as no minimal guidelines governing law enforcement. Many including myself were concerned about the delegation of the definitions of criminality to a civil contract amendable at any time by the opposing party and Judge Wu noted that under normal circumstances, breach of contract exposes a party to civil but not criminal liability. Orin Kerr has a more complete discussion @ The Volokh Conspiracy as well as the decision itself. Although I’m sure there are many who are disappointed that Ms. Drew got away without criminal penalty for her morally reprehensible acts, I believe that this is the correct result in that Ms. Drew was not convicted using a law not intended to proscribe the acts she committed.

Short Quips: August 11, 2009

Less than two weeks from now and it’s back to law school with me – this time as a Tax LL.M. student. The new game plan gives me an academic and experience edge over others in the market and buys me a year to ride out the less-than-stellar marketplace.

The New York exam wasn’t nearly as horrifying as I have been told but it was no walk in the park either. It’ll be until half way through November until the results come out but at least I am already licensed and not in that same rushing-to-wait situation as the 2009 graduates.

Odds and ends:

• There seems to be no end to the list of advocacy blunders surrounding the Joel Tenenbaum litigation – it’s almost a poster child for what not to do. Team Tenenbaum to fight on for those the “RIAA has screwed over.” [Ars Technica]
• Although vigilantism is discouraged, it is odd that the reward for foiling a bank robbery is to be fired from your teller job. Bank Teller Fired For Catching Robber [Lowering the Bar]
• Tuition, books, and what will be 7 years in higher education I don’t think will ever be recoverable for me in the form of a lawsuit. Jobless grad sues college for 70G tuition [Overlawyered]
• I wonder if a do-it-yourself indictment counts as the unauthorized practice of law? Judge dismisses Obama “indictment” [via Overlawyered]
• I think I’d seriously consider advising my client to pick another name for his/her incorporated business because I’d find it terribly awkward to land in this situation: Wait. They offer those in court? NYC is so craaazy. [Legal Antics]

On vacation starting this weekend, will return around the 24th.

Short Quips: July 25, 2009

4 more days left before the New York Bar Exam and yeah… not feeling overwhelming confidence. Perhaps if I channel the power of WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome I’ll blow out the curve? Yeah, not going to happen. Anyway odds and ends for the last two and change weeks:

• Any lawyer who tells you something is absolutely certain has never met a jury. Gives new meaning to the common financial world legal boilerplate: “past performance is not indicative of future results.” Star Attorney in $8 Million Bungle: Gamble Backfires for Tragic Li Family. [New York Post]
• This motion warrants a place in my folder of epic filings. Lots of competitors have superstitions that help channel their physical and mental energies to maximum performance. Lucky number, lucky shirt, lucky shoes, heck I myself have a lucky charm which although I have not been religious about it does seem to have some subconscious magic of its own. Apparently now we have a Motion to Compel Defense Counsel to Wear Appropriate Shoes because having shoes with holes in them constitutes some form of unfair prejudice. [Lowering the Bar]
• A follow up to the Shoes motion resulted in a mistrial when jurors disregarded instructions on reading outside information about the case. It did validate the lucky shoes by dodging a 2.2 million judgment that the jury was allowed to come to an advisory verdict on. Appropriate-Shoe-Motion Case Ends in Mistrial After Jurors Read About Motion. [Lowering the Bar]
• Kindle users were greeted with a delightfully ironic twist when what was revealed to be unauthorized copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm were remotely deleted and refunded. Alot of people including myself were initially surprised at that course of action seeing that in the real life context Amazon couldn’t exactly reach into my house and retrieve an unauthorized copy of a physical book. However, it does turn out that under 17 USC 503 and 509 that a court could authorize the destruction of all copies made in violation of a copyright including those already sold to third party bona fide purchasers for value. Although perhaps the legally correct and properly advised by Amazon’s counsel, Public Relations could have done a much smoother job of communicating why those actions were taken. Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others. [NY Times]
• Many jokes have been had about the lengths certain lawyers go to find clients. Although I find it better to have clients come to you than the other way around, this isn’t quite what I had in mind: Truck smashes into auto accident law office. [via Overlawyered]
• A poster child for why you should not volunteer information and exercise your right to stay silent: Man pulled over for not using blinker admits to sex with teen. [via Overlawyered]
• Contempt of court is a coercion tool but in civil matters, if it is apparent that continued detention is not going to coerce the contemnor to comply, he must either face due process for criminal contempt or be released. 14 years seems to be a safe number now. Lawyer Jailed for Contempt Is Freed After 14 Years. [Lowering the Bar]
• Disclaimers I like: “OF COURSE IT’S HOT!” [Overlawyered]
• When making copyright claims on behalf of your client, ensure that you are not suing your very own client (or at least one with less propensity to flame out on Twitter). Musician angry after BPI forces YouTube to pull his video. [Ars Technica]

Due to the New York Bar Exam, the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (although I have a previous score it wasn’t high enough for New York but was sufficient for Illinois and New Jersey), and a short family vacation to Yellowstone I will be on limited availability for about the next month. See everyone on the flipside.

Short Quips: July 9, 2009

First doc review project is over and although I got an offer for another project lasting one month from the same place, I had to decline it due to the upcoming NY bar exam (yes, I am slightly nuts for attempting a third bar). On to the speedlinking:

• Fundamentals of Trial Advocacy: Do not, if at all humanly possible, irritate your judge. This applies doubly to ignoring or intentionally disregarding his/her orders. Judge Mulls Sanctions Against Berkman Center Founder [Wired]
• On round 2, Jammie Thomas hit for 1.92 million dollars versus her previous verdict of 0.222 million. Jury seemed to really want to stick it to Ms. Thomas despite the generous 1:5333 ratio of the cost of the music she allegedly pirated vs. judgment. Somehow I think between counsel for Ms. Thomas and Mr. Tenenbaum (in the above link) the precedent in this area is being set through less than artful advocacy. But what do I know, after all I’m still fresh from the lawyer mint. Jammie Thomas challenges “monstrous” $1.92M P2P verdict [Ars Technica]
• Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose; why the NSA thinks a new surveillance program will go over easy with the public I haven’t a clue. NSA Shields Government Networks With More Secret AT&T Rooms [Wired]
• There’s zealous advocacy, and then there’s advocacy asleep at the wheel like Rip Van Winkle. Toole County Montana judge Ronald McPhillips issues decision in long lost lawsuit, Ayers v. Rubow 24 years after trial [Popehat]
• There is a remarkable difference between a thing, and a picture of a thing. Sadly, some folks at the TSA haven’t quite grasped that concept quite yet. TSA Detains Mark Sable Because He Is Carrying Script of His New Comic Unthinkable [Popehat]
• There will be those who will be truly unhappy with the end result but I for one applaud Judge Wu for getting the legal argument right: that crimes can only be defined by the legislature and not by civil contract. Judge Aquits Lori Drew in Cyberbullying Case, Overrules Jury [Wired]
• Statutory construction for those of us unable to go to law school – The Food Stays in the Kitchen: Everything I Needed to Know About Statutory Interpretation I Learned by the Time I Was Nine [via Overlawyered]
• Saving the world from the obvious in that sand is an uneven surface – Elf n’ safety warning: You could die laughing
  at these amazing pictures of the Nanny State stating the obvious [via Overlawyered]
• I really ought to forward this on to my old torts professor Richard Wright. I’m sure this has got to be an improvement over the steering wheel with a knife jutting out of it: Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk of Being Burned by Burning Man, Says Court [Lowering The Bar]

Short Quips: June 29, 2009

It’s been a week in since starting this doc review project and my brain is overflowing with the odds and ends of X Corporation. 55 hours later, the first week is done and it looks like we’ll actually finish this project on time provided we don’t have any more surprises from hiring counsel. In the meantime:

• There are long and protracted probates, and then there’s what’s likely to come out of Michael Jackson’s estate. Jackson’s Death Puts Lucrative Beatles Copyrights In Play. [Wired]
• Interesting enough since I myself took a minor burn from spilled hot tea this morning, at least we won’t be banning such beverages due to toddlers invading our doc review pods: Pensioners’ coffee morning banned for health and safety reasons. [Telegraph via [Overlawyered]
• My law school professors lavished praise on Posner (after all, he is from the local Circuit) but I’m going to join in the shaking of heads on this one with respect to his apparently-serious ideas on copyright in the digital age since this very link would be illegal under his regime. Someone remind him that copyright begins at the moment the work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Bar “linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials?” [Overlawyered]
• And we all thought the CPSIA stopped at products intended for children under the age of 12: Product safety law imposes major burdens on auto suppliers. [via Overlawyered]
• Back in the joyous days of Legal Writing, I was taught that some poor soul has to end up reading my briefs – the shorter and easier to understand, the better. Either this was one monster case or someone got a bit carried away down under. Australian prosecutors’ brief: 24,736 pages. [via Overlawyered]
• Obviously my law school (Chicago-Kent) wasn’t in on this or otherwise I’d be happily employed right now. U. of I. jobs-for-entry scheme [Chicago Tribune]
• There are just some things we can’t make up that show up on dockets: San Fransisco Docket (June 2009) [Lowering The Bar]
• It was only a matter of time before the widow of the fly President Obama swatted down would secure representation: Widow of Murdered Fly Seeks White House Apology
• I can only hope that most of my compatriots buried under law school debt don’t resort to sleeping in trash cans (unless as a result of superior alcohol consumption): Indiana lawyer found asleep in trash can
• I’ll take a volunteer rescue organization over it being sued out of existence for failure to promptly rescue because of my lack of sense to stay by my own SOS signs. This Is Why We Cannot Have Nice Things [Popehat]

The Great Job Hunt: June 2009 Edition

It’s taken a long while but I’ve finally caught a little break in the job search process. I’m scheduled to start at a temporary staffing place on Monday @ 9AM. Sure, it’s document review but these days I’m thankful for just that much. Also, everyone’s got to start somewhere. As a reminder of what I’ve been staring down since about 9 months ago:

• Putting a Face on the Unemployed
• Discouraged about your job search? 5 ways to move ahead

Short Quips: June 18, 2009

• Last I checked, I’m fairly certain the Commerce Clause (and in particular the Dormant Commerce Clause) would stop Massachusetts from requiring a New Hampshire business to collect MA sales tax from customers coming over the border to purchase goods to be brought back to MA. Although MA would be perfectly fine to tax its own residents (and nominally does in the form of a “use” tax) it seems a bit of a reach to presume that all purchasers with MA identification will be consuming their goods in MA. There’s also the logistical nightmare of every vendor across the nation having to track 50+ state jurisdictions for sales tax plus the innumerable local jurisdictions imposing a local sales tax. Interstate Confiscation Clause.
• Given that newspapers are less than solvent these days this might not be quite the perfect analogy but I believe it is fair to say that newspapers haven’t been driven into the ground by lawsuits alleging that they should have policed their classified sections better to prohibit the sale of a gun to a party who subsequently commits a crime with it. Apparently someone thought Craigslist should get special treatment (and it does, but in the form of Section 230 immunity): CraigsList Not Liable for Shooting That Used a Gun Sold Via a Craigslist Ad [via The Volokh Conspiracy]
• If title insurance companies are paid to search the chain of title on a property and issue insurance based on their search, then A: why would they sue an attorney who relied on the title report when it turns out that there was a defect in the chain of title not found during the search and B: if it’s the attorney’s job to verify the chain of title, why are attorneys paying the title insurance companies to verify chain of title? Chicago Title Suit Warns Lawyers About Relying on Title Reports [via ABA Journal]