Thread of legal hubbub

tifosi77
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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby tifosi77 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:23 pm

Just in: My share of the Apple e-books class action settlement is $2.10.

I shall endeavor to not spend it all in one place. Altho, since it was awarded as Amazon credit, I literally have to spend it in one place.

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Postby dodint » Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:51 pm

I used my $1.90 from the Apple eBook Settlement to buy a 10% stake in a pair of running shorts. Wooo.

I hope the lawyers were also paid in Amazon store credit.

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Postby columbia » Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:37 pm

In a post-cable world, having to find the game on FS1 seems like poor marketing.

Baseball deserves better than MLB.

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Postby dodint » Thu Nov 02, 2017 4:13 pm

My Constitutional Liberties class should really be subtitled as "This week in Gay Rights" as about 10 of 13 weeks so far have had the lectures centered around that topic. It's not improper on its face but it tells me my prof is either pushing his agenda or wildly non-creative, or both.

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Postby Shyster » Thu Nov 02, 2017 5:08 pm

Ask him when the class is going to get to the most important constitutional right, namely, the Second Amendment RKBA. That should reveal his leanings.

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Postby columbia » Thu Nov 02, 2017 5:11 pm

More important than the 3rd?

redwill
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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby redwill » Thu Nov 02, 2017 5:31 pm

My Constitutional Liberties class should really be subtitled as "This week in Gay Rights" as about 10 of 13 weeks so far have had the lectures centered around that topic. It's not improper on its face but it tells me my prof is either pushing his agenda or wildly non-creative, or both.

Out of curiosity, is the argument the penumbra rights thing, or the 14th Amendment, or both, or something else?

Because those two are a huge fount of creative legal thought (whether you agree with them or not).

tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:48 pm

I think it might also have something to do with the fact that gay rights are the most topical over the last decade or so, and thus the most current eventsy.

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Postby slappybrown » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:07 pm

10 of 13 weeks in a "Constitutional Liberties" class on one single Constitutional issue cheats the student immensely.

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Postby columbia » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:19 pm

Transfer to Pitt.

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Postby dodint » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:20 pm

They don't have a night program. I do plan to apply to Duquense.

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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby Shyster » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:22 pm

Oh yeah. Even if the class is sticking more to "liberties" and avoiding criminal or quasi-criminal topics like warrantless tracking, warrantless email interception, etc., there are still plenty of topical matters. The RKBA is in fact an evolving area of law, as are other topics like contraception coverage, free speech and "hate speech", and the intersection of public-accommodation laws and the First Amendment (before the SCOTUS right now in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ).

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Postby dodint » Thu Nov 02, 2017 8:09 pm

This is a Con Liberties course, so it's not all encompassing. I'll take Con Powers and Con Crim Procedure next semester. I don't expect everything right away, nor do I want it with both barrels like that.
Ask him when the class is going to get to the most important constitutional right, namely, the Second Amendment RKBA. That should reveal his leanings.
He openly derides Libertarians in his lectures so I already have a pretty good idea; he chides us as being ineffectual dreamers, which isn't completely wrong.
I think it might also have something to do with the fact that gay rights are the most topical over the last decade or so, and thus the most current eventsy.
It saddens me when you fail to give me any credit. I know my prof is a LGBT advocate, it's his pet cause. He goes on MN NPR and talks about it, panels our diversity conferences, teaches LBGT centric-courses, etc. I don't have any issue with that on its own at all. I do feel the 'cause' is shoehorned into an awful lot of discussions that are out of place. This isn't the first prof that has done something similar since I've been here but he's the most persistent by a mile. I looked over the syllabus for this week and this was our video lecture schedule:
View Professor's video on sex discrimination under Equal Protection analysis.
View Professors video on sexual orientation discrimination under Equal Protection analysis.
View Professor’s video on classifications based on status as an alien and the status of being intellectually disabled.
Many of our weeks are like this, that second video is redundant and self-serving. It's his right and I'll study it either way but it's tiresome, is all. Not because I don't enjoy the perspective but I wonder what he's not bothering to include as relevant examples that might affect other groups.

This is what we've done so far:
Wk1: General Constitution foundational stuff; compare and contrast to the Swiss Constitution.
Wk2-4: 1A, unprotected speech.
Wk5: 1A, Religion Clauses
Wk6: 14A
Wk7: Abortion / Planned Parenthood / Gonzales v. Carhart
Wk8: Privacy (redwill's penumbras)
Sample of what we studied that week:

Read materials covering the expansion of the fundamental right to privacy, relating to the general right to marry, and the rights to live in less conventional family groups, to engage in same-sex sexual relations, and to marry someone of the same sex.
View the Week 8 videos, on the expansion of the right to privacy, the same-sex sexual relations cases, and the recent same-sex marriage decision.
Prepare a short bench memorandum addressing the criminal prosecution of a person accused of crimes that raise issues covered in this week’s readings.
Wk9: Right to Travel, Right to Bear Arms, Equal Protection Clause.
Our study points on RBKA, comprehensive (*** denotes a topic I had the ability to respond to in writing):

2. [***] The case of District of Columbia v. Heller (CB p.575) begins our review of the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms. There’s no question that the text of the Constitution addresses the right that the majority discerns here. But the question, of course, is the meaning of the textual provision. Do you think the majority’s judgment is faithful to the text, or is it basically supplying a new provision, other than the one drafted by the Framers? Is this a close question or an easy one? Some authorities and commentators view non-textual rights (such as the right to privacy) with suspicion, because of their asserted indeterminacy. Does the controversy in Heller cast light on that view?

3. [***] Would you characterize the majority decision in Heller as being broad, or do you think it’s more accurate to view it as narrow? Why?

4. Continuing with the Right to Bear Arms, we are presented with McDonald v. Chicago (CB p.583.) Why is this case necessary? That is, why weren’t the issues involved in this case disposed of in Heller, two years earlier? One trick question I might pose during a video might be: “Who wrote the Opinion of the Court?” It should be easy for you to determine the answer, and to explain why that is the answer. The case primarily turns on a topic addressed when we started looking at the 14th Amendment; what topic is that? Justice Thomas has a distinctive view on this topic; are you persuaded by his approach?
Wk10: Race discrimination and Equal Protection, marriage, AA
Wk11: Equal Protection and sex.
Wk13: Fundamental Rights and Equal Protection

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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby dodint » Thu Nov 02, 2017 8:11 pm

I've been 'following' Masterpiece through podcasts like First Mondays. I'm going to campus next week for my residency requirement and presume we'll discuss it as a group then.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Nov 08, 2017 7:28 pm

Bryan Garner was in town yesterday doing one of his "Advanced Legal Writing and Editing" CLE seminars, which is the first one he's done in Pittsburgh in many years. Of course I went, because I view an opportunity to meet Garner (again) much the same way a devout Catholic would view an opportunity to meet the Pope. Great program as always. Garner is the master of legal writing. I also learned that Garner is writing a book that will cover his friendship and collaborations with the late Justice Scalia.

Really disappointed in the turnout, though; there were only about 20 lawyers there. There should have been hundreds.

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Postby dodint » Wed Nov 08, 2017 7:55 pm

It was expensive af.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Nov 08, 2017 8:11 pm

Not for me; my firm pays for CLE. :)

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Postby dodint » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:32 pm

I thought about going even though I'm not the target demographic. I have the feeling that if I'm going to make it in this profession it's going to be as a writer and not an orator, so I'm working to build that skillset early.

But he didn't have any kind of reduced pricing for non-lawyers, and I'm out of town anyway. Shame though given the sparse turnout.

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Postby dodint » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:48 pm

The shitty thing about law school, and I guess any program with a grade structure like this, is that when you do poorly on an exercise of some sort the only comfort you can find is reaching deep down and hoping everyone else does worse.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:55 pm

I would also comfort myself with the fact that most of what one does in law school has bugger-all to do with the actual practice of law.

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Postby dodint » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:58 pm

Tell that to the JARO pls k thx.

I'm carrying an A this far, I'd like to keep it.

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Postby slappybrown » Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:47 pm

law school is basically a trade school, only the trade is "law professor" and 99% of students aren't there for that job

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Postby columbia » Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:54 pm

Anybody thoughts on the paranormal author, would be federal judge for life from Alabama? If I read correctly, he's been practicing law for 3 years.

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Postby dodint » Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:55 pm

Wait.

Are you saying I'm not actually equipped to argue a 12(b)6 motion in open court?

Nawwww.

columbia
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Thread of legal hubbub

Postby columbia » Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:56 pm

Anything goes.

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