Posts Tagged Law
Review/Reaction: The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court
On November 29, 2009, I finished my reading of Bob Woodward’s The Brethren, which I set out to read in order to form a more perfect understanding of law. My interest in the courts has grown enormously, therefore, I am immediately preparing a draft review for circulation.
Woodward
Knowing of Bob Woodward from his involvement in Watergate and then from his recent Bush book, I knew I was getting into a quality piece of writing. Woodward pieced together all of his sources to form a beautiful, descriptive narrative that flowed sequentially from the Warren-Burger transition to the resignation of Douglas and appointment of Stevens in the 1975 term. The author’s slant is obviously anti-Burger, but some of the suggestions that made him look like a dope seem to have been originated by the other Justices rather than Woodward himself.
I love how the book travels around the bench at key junctures at least once per term. That frequent exercise illuminated the way Justices operate, the way their ideologies are involved (or not) in decisions, and the way legal reasoning works in general.
History
The Brethren attuned me further to Nixon era history in that, for example, I watched the Nixon resignation speech for the first time. I saw Vietnam from an angle other than the protest or war zone settings that have comprised the extent of my exposure thanks to popular movies and documentaries. Perhaps most importantly to my future, I saw a slice of Court history almost completely ignorant of the surrounding eras. Sowell talked about the Warren court quite a bit so I had a conservative taste of Burger’s predecessor, but now I have my sights set on The Nine, the news, and any other recommendations you might have for a more complete understanding.
Court Practice
For all the times I’ve heard SCOTUS referred to as “a club” and for all the calls for its reform or abolishment I wasn’t too surprised at some of its secretive inner workings. But I was still shocked by how much power over the outcomes of so many lives a man like Earl Warren held. This influence, the impassioned opposition to it of court colleagues among any set of disagreeing justices, and then their camaraderie afterward and in general was hard to digest.
With respect to the rules, both de facto and de jure, I see many opportunities for FDR-like exploitation. Depending on some unlikely but possible circumstances some crazy outcomes could possibly be reached. Most notably, had Nixon stayed around and Douglas and Marshall both retired at the same time, say, Nixon would have had six appointees! In a more general sense the fluid and unarticulated nature of many of the court’s internal regulations is suspicious.
Issues
The main issues highlighted across the terms included are segregation enforcement, abortion, obscenity, the death penalty, Watergate and executive privilege, and mental illness. Not sure what may have been skipped over but these seemed like a representative sample of what mattered in the early seventies.
Key Takeaways
Number one: Supreme Court Justices, while they usually arrive at their station via a fiercely political process, seem to be some of the most independent-minded people in Washington. My major support here would have to come from Hugo Black, the deep south justice who tended to vote heavily on the left. Despite his already surprising, effectively anti-deep south philosophy, he still remained to what would politically be considered “the right” on issues like busing, a stance he took for actual, logical, legal reasons. Other polar justices doing the same on other issues and the centrist justices’ unpredictability confirm the feasibility of cultivating a flexible set of beliefs. I like this.
Number two: this stuff is cool. My desire to participate in the courts either as an appellate lawyer or clerk has risen ten-fold. Maybe approaching this aspiration with Vince Lombardi’s “strive for perfection settle for excellence” in mind could propel me a long way.
In any case, I’m happy for the recommendation given by Tom at Alabama Law’s Career Services and would recommend the book to anyone interested in either law school or what happened in the judiciary in the Nixon era.
5 day, 5 week, 5 month, 5 year plan
One choice for a law school essay instructed applicants to describe how the particular school’s program would fit into their “five year plan.” I chose a separate essay, but ruminating on this question along with multiple other obsessive short, mid, and long-term plans inspired me to write this post. Being able to take stock of your plans on multiple dimensions like this can help stabilize your life if you ever feel that it’s random, chaotic, or otherwise directionless.
Five Days
Get my wind back, succeed in November at work
A couple of weeks ago, to avoid the winter lung attack and to get into shape Andrew and I committed to Lakeview Athletic Club for a year. So far every day has been a mix of struggle and victory, leading to feelings of wondrous exhaustion the following mornings. I’ve talked to many people about my goals and can’t really articulate them that well. But among them:
-Fit into a medium tee
-Lose the geek frame; reduce my thickness below the belly to thickness above ratio
-Have enough physical strength and energy to spill over into boosts for mentally exhausting tasks
Anyway, more concretely, for the next week I’d really like to get my wind back, get past that initial hurdle that makes you sickeningly sore every day, and start on an upward climb to some seriously ambitious goals.
With respect to numbers at work, last month was incredible. So far this month we need to pick it up as we’re hovering around a 100% (just meeting goal) trend, but my personal goal is to hit at least 110% for November and December so as to be competitive for a downtown transfer directly after the holidays.
Five Weeks
Survive the onset of winter, start climbing the wall, hear from more law schools, get a new job
Winter is going to be hell for me on days that my dear and generous coworker can’t give me a ride. It will indeed be the winter of my discontent. As another prolific wordsmith once said though, I will survive.
By climbing the wall I mean to gain enough upper body strength to effortlessly perform 10 pullups, or boulder a few pegs on the climbing wall. Should I hit this target my upper body should be on its way to shredded!
Anxiety is taking over re: law as two key letter writers have not yet sent their LORs. Once they’re in I’ll be submitted everywhere, but right now I’m only accepted at AL and pending at UT and BU. This is nerve wracking as the applicant pool almost certainly will be jam-packed. I don’t want to go to T14 for Biglaw, completely, rather I’d like to maximize my options geographically and with respect to sector and field.
Then, on the job front, I’d like to either be tutoring full-time or transferred to within an hour’s commute for AT&T. Either way, I hope that the holidays help me to amass cash to give me some freedom for the months leading into law school.
Five Months
Continue to develop a love for law, bench 250, meet new people, travel the country
Bob Woodward’s The Brethren has begun to radiate, and Toobin’s The Nine along with many more books and podcasts should follow. This stuff is very cool.
I moved downtown to meet new people, and although that end was crippled by my denial of transfer, the post-December outlook ought to allow for a lot more goings-out. In addition to meeting new people locally I’d love to move around and meet new potential classmates while visiting law schools, visit new and old friends before the onslaught, and stay connected with my dear family.
Five Years
Ah, the challenging one.
Here, overall, I’d like to reverse two trends: 1) apathy and lack of accomplishment academically and professionally 2) visions of grandeur with leisurely endeavors, like games (a sort of moderation in all things thing).
Attacking #1, I’d like to compete and thrive in law school, and find a calling that lends itself to adding value to society. Possibilities abound: environmental law, international trade/tax/relations, financial institutions, digital rights, and many more. Short-term, finding a few specific jobs that would match these arenas would be lovely.
On #2, I’d like to keep my ambitions for greatness in games buried as they have been for a while. Spreading the gaming royalty house over the next 25 or 30 years will keep things sustainable I suppose. Playing WoW sparingly if at all and finding reasonable, finite substitutes should keep the irresponsible play in check too. These are neatly intertwined: sacrificing FFXIV in law school should be a confirmation of my commitment to #1.
Of all these…
Everything is pretty firm save for a few things. I’ll definitely have to think more about the five year component, and may be considering a run at poker (with less than 5% of net cash as risk capital!) I want to game when it is valuable – with friends and at milestones like FFXIII. I want to cook. I want to get a piano and get into it. I want to not only brush up on but re-master Japanese as well. All the usual wishes reoccur, there’s just the problem of making time.
Knowledge and Decisions after Common Sense Economics
Wanting to shore up my ignorance about most substantive economic arguments I requested of my good friend a couple of books to do just that.
He lent me Common Sense Economics by James Gwartney, et. al, and Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell.
Results
Both works contributed to a tempering of my unchecked bleeding heart, which I believe stemmed from both a harsh rejection of the moral leanings of the right to which I was exposed in childhood and an enchantment with the oratory and narrative of Barack Obama. Each work contained massive amounts of evidence for the superiority of free markets and argued for free markets, although much of Sowell’s substance flew over my head.
The Theory
One shadow of doubt convincingly cast was that of “hoped-for” results. Defining governmental programs and organizations up front by their hoped-for results helps mask their truly important parts: processes and actual results.
However, articulation also comes under fire as a force opposed to free market decision-making where inarticulate actions like purchases communicate many processes and actual results.
Sowell’s thesis seemed to focus on the differences in the costs of knowledge to different decision makers. He used this framework to explain various societal problems, historical events, and the economic/political/legal status quo. To be honest, the applications of this main point tended to fly over my head. What I take away from it is that those for whom knowledge is cheap and accessible (for example, connected politicians, organized labor unions) tend to hold more power in decision making. But should they? Another component of the argument seems to be that in our current societal setup these groups make damaging decisions because those making them are so distant from the first-hand knowledge held by those affected.
Oh who knows, I probably missed it completely. Seemed libertarian. But plenty of background in history, law, economics, and politics made the read well worth it.
The Content
A few crucial turns in recent American history were highlighted, most notably the expansion of power of the Executive and Judicial branches during the Warren court. I’m now reading Bob Woodward’s The Brethren, which has begun with an expository of how Burger follows Warren.
Certain commonly fallen for fallacies also made a lot of sense. For example, the democratic fallacy often hits American voters who think that options are unlimited and because we live in a democracy we can vote for anything we want. The animistic fallacy describes when one believes order must have been created by design, whereas many disparate chaotic events can actually amalgamate into order.
Common Sense Economics was a great brush up of aspects of econ that I had once known more closely in high school and college. The chapter on personal finance was especially great.
Provoked Thoughts
Telecom executives will complain about regulation stifling their investments then turn around in less than a month and try to perpetuate the regulation that has propped them up in the face of competition from Google. First, hypocritical. Second, a system in which that can be done is one in which government seems to be bought and sold with no real ethical direction.
The power of government with its “threat of violence” as the key mechanism for getting certain behaviors out of the populous is indeed vast, and as Sowell describes overwhelming to all individuals and organizations. Was it overwhelming just now to Goldman Sachs?
I agree that the term “self-made man” is ignorant and arrogant.
Unmonitored monitors, for example, mothers and entrepreneurs, are the most productive people in society. Again, I agree!
The sections on antitrust made me want to lawyer my way into M&A.
Sure, the Constitution has survived for 250 years. But I would ask those who decry some of its stretchier interpretations as perverse: hasn’t the leeway for such changes allowed that very survival?
Upon reading that the founding fathers explicitly rejected Utopian speculations, well, again, I found my suspicions about the left increasing.
Review: The Wire
After months of wavering from computer to TV to frantic iPod sessions on lunch and on the train, today marked the end of Bert’s “The Wire” marathon. Three reasons the series succeeds marvelously:
Raw Reality
First, The Wire might as well be non-fiction.
I constantly felt like asking the questions: “Did something like this event actually happen?” ”Can this show possibly be based on reality?” As with every HBO series I’ve seen to date, The Wire seems to depict raw reality. From the tragic flaws explored in depth for nearly every character to the visceral gunshots and ghetto scenery, I feel like the show compromised nowhere and fabricated nothing. That’s not to say I have experience in any of the many contexts visited over the course of five seasons, but the settings, surprises, conflicts and lack of advantage given to either the “good” or “bad” side are something absent from most series that are obviously exaggerated.
The Range of Issues
Second, The Wire delves into scores of contemporary social problems
I’d suggest this show to anyone interested in law enforcement, drug trafficking, gang violence, substance abuse, wiretaps, labor unions, the lagging American education system, shady European drug suppliers, middle aged singlehood and family life, criminal law, local party and race politics, urban blight, journalism’s vulnerability as of late.. well, I know I missed a bunch, but I hope by now you’re getting it. The social commentary here is all over the place. Each segment gets its own arc over a number of episodes in which the issue is introduced, tossed around, shown as horribly complicated, and resolved in an oft unexpected, imperfect manner.
Characters
Third, through rise, fall, life, death, bust, escape, and/or redemption, just about every character is genius.
For the super-deep, super-tragic I’m thinking Omar, Ziggy, Marlo, Stringer, Prezbo, and D’Angelo. But even the simpler guys were great: Wee-bey, Bodie, Herc, are all wonderfully memorable. My biggest question to anyone who’s seen it: do you really think McNulty could be considered the main character? I felt like the others were so well done, their lives so well-related, that I couldn’t see McNulty as any sort of protagonist. Not to detract from his role whatsoever, but just as the show’s creators never really took sides in the outcomes in terms of who wins or loses, they sufficiently keep the focus on characters other than Jimmy to make it a truly epic story.
Well, learn more here. Now I start talking about how the show relates to contemporary me-life. Just one point.
Juking the stats
“Juking the stats,” a crime reduction strategy frequently employed by politicians trying to reach higher office and police higher-ups looking to do the same, is a phenomenon from The Wire that hits close to home. Cedric Daniels, perhaps the most principled cop in the entire show, argues toward the end that the very focus on performance improvement by improving statistics is what has ruined the department.
Level one statistics (those without context) are so savagely abused in the real world. Without the level two statistics, those values that both indicate validity and create the context necessary for those simple stats to become meaningful, most are broken down to garbage. Without being too specific about my work, I have been compelled to juke the stats on a continuous basis. Context, reason, and at many times simple logic, are defenestrated in favor of looking good to someone who is just too busy to look, for more than two seconds, at more than the two digits (or one if we’re doing a particularly bad job) at all costs. I cannot stand how blatantly and frequently this behavior is asked of me not only tacitly but also explicitly.
Looking forward to a potential career as a lawyer in a swell firm, I hope to be adept and thus valuable enough to mold my situation into one where struggling to make billable hour quotas, etc, doesn’t infect my central charge. So if I take away one key lesson from this show, it’s that so as not to become mired in the hell that is compromising principles and reason for meeting arbitrarily set goals, I can be supra-competitive. What I mean by that is, I need to be focused on goals that transcend average competition. This uncommon methodology is something I succeeded at pretty well in high school as a big fish in a small pond, but thereafter I haven’t fared too well. Maybe it’s not the right way of looking at things. Maybe it’s not the only way to remain ethical. Prevention, specialization, and sustainability all come to mind!
In sum, in the long run I don’t want to be forced into juking the stats.