Gender: Female
Industry: Law
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Blogging out

The recent Harvard law blog conference brought up the question, “Should blogging be fun?� Or, more importantly, “Can a fun law blog be scholarly?� At the conference, Ann Althouse http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blo g/2006/05/former_porn_sta.html stated that her blog was a perfect combination of fun and scholarship. While academics are free to pursue whatever kind of fun blog they want in their free time, many sticklers say a blog can either be fun or academic, but it cannot be both. Lawrence Solum of the Legal Theory Blog http://lsolum.blogspot.com/archives/2006_04_01 _lsolum_archive.html#114625528226700393 says that while a scholarly blog can, technically, be fun, in order to compete with the abundance of law blogs currently on the Internet, a new law blog would have to “opt in,� or make the focus of your blog strictly serious. As for me, I prefer a nice balance between ghastly violence and hardcore nasty chat. That’s why I hang out on Judged.

05-15-2006

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The Best and the Worst

This week, the firm coming in at the very bottom of Judged's law firm survey is Proskauer Rose with a score of 1.38 out of 10. Topping the list is Nutter McLellan & Fish with 9.21 out of 10.

Nutter is a large regional firm in Massachusetts. Proskauer is a gigantic international firm with offices from New York to Paris. The disparity in the lifestyles of their attorneys may account for the differences in the scores they received in our survey.

Nutter attorneys claimed the firm was pretty laid back, though there was some grumbling that it's not as laid back as it used to be and that the partners can be too demanding. The attorneys at Proskauer were more resolute in their claims that the partners overwork them. In addition to an arduous work schedule, Proskauer attorneys also cited the slow partnership track, lack of training after the first year and a high turnover rate as strong negatives.

Oh, and I also learned a bit of trivia. Nutter was co-founded by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. I didn't know that before.

05-12-2006

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The Internet Police and You!

If you go on the Internet and write something controversial, whether it be about the President, the immigration debate, the war or whatever, you may find yourself in trouble with your boss. Should your boss find your Internet activities to be potentially offensive or alienating to clients or damaging to the company, you could be disciplined or fired. The esteemed Volokh Conspiracy (http://www.volokh.com/) posted an article about how California, South Carolina and Louisiana are protecting bloggers and Internet chatters from reprisal by their employers.

The pertinent legislation is as follows (courtesy of Volokh):

Cal. Labor Code § 1101: No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office. (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities.

Cal. Labor Code § 1102: No employer shall ... attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge ... to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.

La. Rev. Stat. § 23:961: [N]o employer having regularly in his employ twenty or more employees shall make … or enforce any ... policy ... preventing any of his employees from ... participating in politics, or from becoming a candidate for public office … [nor] adopt or enforce any ... policy which will ... tend to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of his employees, nor ... attempt to coerce or influence any of his employees by means of threats of ... loss of employment in case such employees should support or become affiliated with any particular political faction or organization, or participate in political activities of any nature or character....

S.C. Code Ann. § 16-17-560: Whoever shall … [discharge from employment] any citizen because of political opinions or the exercise of political rights and privileges guaranteed to every citizen of the United States by the Constitution … thereof ... shall be guilty of a misdemeanor [and subject to civil liability]….

This is different from saying something libelous online. Obviously if you say your boss engages in sexual congress with ostriches it’s different than if you said President Bush engages in sexual congress with ostriches. If you don’t live in California, South Carolina or Louisiana, you might land in trouble for writing things your boss doesn’t agree with on the Internet. Of course, even if you do live in those states, you could still wind up in hot water. Volokh’s assessment points out that each individual jurisdiction determines what constitutes “political action� and that anything you say that is directly damaging to the company can still get you canned. This is important for Judged members. While we’re protecting your identity here, if you go elsewhere online and speak freely, you could be subject to backlash if you run afoul of your employers.

In terms of speaking out about the President, recent trends have shown that the latitude granted in criticizing the Executive Branch is inversely proportional to his approval ratings. When his approval ratings were up, you could get kicked out of the mall for wearing an anti-Bush shirt. Now that his ratings have dipped, they’ve finally let the Dixie Chicks out of Guantanamo Bay.

05-11-2006

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Shout Out

I'd like to direct anybody who is interested to this funny Zen-like blog.

http://www.disassociate.net/

Check that thing out.

It's written by the guy who does the Disassociate column for National Law Journal. It's low on content, but its cute. Take a minute and ponder some of his reflections.

05-10-2006

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What the?

http://www.theconglomerate.org/files/jgaustins pirit2.wmv

That thing is pretty funny. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I won't spoil this thing by revealing to much about it. I'll just say that I wish my workplace was as funky/fresh.

Thanks to johndoe1 who found this thing.

05-10-2006

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