John Lennon Was Wrong

Did He Really Say It? Probably.

John Lennon said, sometime about 27 years ago, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

He was wrong. Work is what happens to your when you are busy making other plans. And, boy, did work happen to me. It's been one, steady grind since before Thanksgiving. And the worst part of the whole megillah is that the things that are coming in are not very interesting. In fact, they are downright boring. I should spell that with a capital B.

Oh, yeah. The phrase is part of the lyrics of Beautiful Boy from Double Fantasy, Lennon's last album. The song is about his son, Sean.

I'M A WHAT?

One Of Those Silly "What Sort of {Fill In The Blank} Are You?" Quizzes That Actually Makes Sense, of A Sort. You scored as A college textbook. You're an authority on something, you just know it. Everyone else does, too, but that doesn't mean they like you. Since you think very highly of everything you say, you charge a pretty penny to entertain your listeners. Those forced to pay do so grudgingly and try to defray the costs of learning from you by selling portions of their access to your charms to others. As a result of this speedy dissemination of your knowledge, you constantly add to your repertoire--and then hike your price. Despite your usefullness, which is rarely in doubt, nobody likes you. They find you didactic, boring and irrelevant--but still necessary. A college textbook 61% A classic novel 61% A coloring book 57% A paperback romance novel 54% Poetry 32% An electronics user's manual 29% The back of a froot loops box 25% Your Literary Personality created with QuizFarm.com

What I find interesting is the fact that I tied for a Classic Novel and was barely ahead of a Coloring Book or a Paperback Romance Novel. Go figure.

If Anyone Cares, Here's The Classic Novel Blurb

You scored as A classic novel. Almost everyone showers praise upon you for your depth and enduring relevance. According to your acolytes, everything you say is timeless, erudite and meaingful. Of course, none of them actually listen to you. Nobody listens to you at all, but it's fashionable to claim you as a friend. Fond of obscure words, antiquated notions and libraries, you never have a problem finding someone to hang out with. The fact that they end up using you to balance their kitchen tables is an unfortunate side effect, but you're used to being used for others' benefit. Oh the burden of being Great. A college textbook 61% A classic novel 61% A coloring book 57% A paperback romance novel 54% Poetry 32% An electronics user's manual 29% The back of a froot loops box 25% Your Literary Personality created with QuizFarm.com I kind of agree with this one, too. Geez, no wonder no one reads this thing.

Be On The Cutting Edge!

What Cutting Edge, You Ask?

The cutting edge of electronic publication, that's what cutting edge. What, you ask, the Hell does this have to do with Law, Prosecution, all that stuff up in the header? Well, I actually can make the connection.

One of the hot "new" areas of law is Intellectual Property. New, you understand, in the sense that people outside the patent bar and the practice of entertainment law actually have heard of the subject. When I went to law school, 20-mumble years ago, there was one, three credit, intellectual property survey course at my law school at a large, Midwestern research university. Last year, one of our interns graduated from an other law school in the state, also at a big, Midwestern research university, with an actual endorsement on his degree that he had specialized in intellectual property law. Of the roughly 90 credit hours needed for his JD, almost a third of them were IP courses.

Electronic publishing, and its benefits and pitfalls and potential to make money, is still publishing and the question of copyright is a large part of the discussion. The purpose of Digital Rights Management, the digital millennium Copyright Act, and other, even more obnoxious legislation pushed by the MPAA, the RIAA and other trade organizations is to protect copyright. That is to say, money. They can dress it up any way they want, the bottom line is still the bottom line. Because this is law, and law that includes treaties and international trade agreements as well as statutory law in virtually every country on earth, lawyers are involved. Both civil and criminal penalties are involved in the law of copyright. So there -- That's the link.
And this is the electronic publication I want to talk to you about. Jim Baen's Universe. For those of you who have followed this blog from the early days, it will come as no surprise that Mister DA is a science fiction fan. I've talked about my DVD collecting habits in the past, particularly Stargate: SG-1 and others. Until very recently being an SF fan meant a science fiction reader almost exclusively. The movies and television just didn't provide all that much in the way of worthwhile SF for the enthusiast, adult or teenager, so if you wanted SF, you read books and/or comic books. I started reading the stuff so long ago, I still cringe, just a little bit, at the term Sci-Fi. But I'm getting used to it. Today, it's a very different world in SF fandom. There are media fans of the various SF video franchises who have never been exposed to written SF outside their particular niche. Star Wars fans may read a Star Wars novel, but may have never heard of Robert A. Heinlein or John W. Campbell or Isaac Asimov, let alone contemporary authors like Larry Niven or John Scalzi or Charlie Stross. But this is a digression. If you are not a reader of fiction, Jim Baen's Universe is not going to make you one. If you are a reader, and anything of a video SF fan, Jim Baen's Universe wants to make you a reader of quality science fiction and fantasy by offering an electronic magazine that showcases the best of the past the present and the future of written science fiction.

Jim Baen had very strong ideas on the proper place of copyright in the world. With Baen Books he was a (maybe the) pioneer in providing electronic versions of his authors' work for reasonable prices, in multiple formats, with no Digital Rights Management nonsense. Jim Baen's Universe works the same way as Baen Books - copious amounts of free stuff combined with multiple formats and ease of access once you've paid for something.

Go to this site http://www.baens-universe.com/ to see what I'm talking about. The third issue is out and there are a number of stories and articles available on the page, in full, for you to sample. The subscription rate is $30 for six issues. The first issues have been running about 200, 000 words, plus illustrations, so it's something of a bargain. You can also read the third installment of editor Eric Flint's analysis of why copyright is a necessary evil. The third installment discusses how long is long enough.

Enough from me. Go take a look. Let me know what you think.

Still Here

No, I haven't {DiedQuit ProsecutionExperienced My Own Personal Rapture}, yet!

Still working my fingers to the bone on appeals. Still having problems finding stuff to write about that won't blow my cover. Although the declining number of folks who check this page may make that a moot point.

I can make a recommendation, though. If you want a real picture of what it means to be a prosecutor specializing in child abuse prosecutions get your hands on Bronx DA by Serena Straus. Amazon Link here.

Ms. Straus is also a blogger. Blogspot Link here.

Yes, I'm Compusive. So Sue Me.

But Not All That Compulsive.

Yes, I did re-edit the last entry to make it prettier on the page. Every time I looked in, it bugged me. Just not enough to do anything about it until today. So I'm not that big a nerd.

The inability of Blogger to actually deal with block quotes and other simple-minded formatting stuff (like tabs, for God's sake) is one of the low level irritants that makes it easy to keep putting off adding entries to this page.

And, yes, I know about the Word add-in that will let me compose in Word and post to the blog. Have I mentioned my near pathological dislike of Word? My path to modern (Ha!) word processing was Scripsit (big thumbs up and props as a real OTMCU [Old Time MicroComputer User] to anyone who knows what that was without resorting to Google or some other search engine), WordStar 3.3 to WordStar 4 (which, running on a Sanyo PC, got me through law school), WordStar 5 to WordStar 5.5 to WordPerfect 5 for DOS to WordPerfect 6 for Windows to WP 7, 8, 9, and now 10. At about the time we were upgrading to WP 8, I had to come to some accommodation with Word in my capacity as an online instructor. Hated it then, hate it now. Someday I'll even think of a good reason.

Something Diverting

Something Diverting

I received an interesting email from a law student Blogger and found the topic interesting enough that I though I’d share my response with whoever still drops by here.

Hi there, I run the blog at www.anonymouslawstudent.com. [interesting site] I'm trying to compile a post about relationships after law school. However, I don't know anything about that because I'm still in law school. So my plan is to email about 10-15 blawggers and ask them a few questions about their experiences and observations. If you'd take a second and help me out, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Well, thanks for asking.

1. What areas of law, in your opinion (assuming some areas are worse than others), tend to be harshest on a marriage or long term relationship?

Bearing in mind that, First, I’m a prosecutor, in an office full of prosecutors, which sort of limits my day to day contacts with the more mundane areas of the law, and, Second, I work in a moderate sized community where there are no pressure-cooker law firms to be found (I mean, we’re the biggest “firm” in town), and, Third, I’m 20 years out of law school and have pretty much lost track of my classmates, most of whom were of an age where serious relationships
were just starting, my answer is that it’s not the area of practice as much as it is the type of practice that screws with relationships. That is, my marriage was screwed up from things that had nothing to do with my job. The same is true of the other two or three marriages among my of the bench and bar that hit rocky patches. It wasn’t the job, it was the people in the relationship. Six of my colleagues are married to lawyers or judges and none of the marriage
troubles related conversations we’ve had over the years has ever involved the practice of law. One of my classmates divorced his wife shortly after law school, years ago. That seems to have been based on long-term incompatibilities that only came to light (or became intolerable) when they both started working more or less normal hours (she was a nurse, he’d been a student almost the entire time they were married) and were thrown into each other’s company for
hours and hours every day.

2. What mistakes, if any, do you think new attorneys make that cause problems or contribute to the end of their marriages or relationships?

Again, based on a very small sample - my classmates who took associate job with the “big” law firms in the Big City seem to have had more problems connecting with someone for the long term then my unmarried colleagues in the office do. Hours worked is my guess. Which is, in the current legal employment environment, even more of a dilemma for the new associate than it was when I graduated. If you are not billing some incredible number of hours, you are not going to find it all that easy to advance in the firm If you are working the hours necessary to honestly bill those hours, your are not going to find it all that easy to maintain any kind of relationship, let alone a marriage. One of our former interns took a job with a silk stocking firm in the Big City and is working the insane hours the partnership track seems to require with out too much damage to her marriage. However, by prior arrangement, her husband took up the mantle of househusband when she passed the bar and began to work in earnest. It helps, I’m sure, that they had their first child while she was still in law school.

3. Do you have any advice on how to balance work and home life?

Sorry to say, based on my own experience, it’s the job that has to give over the long term. Yes, when you are starting out you can work those 70+ hour weeks and a marriage will survive - as long as there is light at the end of the tunnel. But when I was active in the State Bar ssociation, I constantly met partners at big firms who were still putting in 60 or more hours a week. The only difference was, many of those hours were on behalf of the Bar or other volunteer supported organizations. Maybe that says something about the sort of drive (Type A personality, anyone) you need to make partner in a traditional law firm more than anything about the practice of law. I guess it comes down to simply having a balance and not letting work become the be all and end all of your life.

4. What seems to be the common thread in the relationships that survived law school and that went on to survive the new career as an attorney? What seems to be the common thread in the ones that didn't make it?

Can’t say. Except for the guy mentioned above, everyone I know from law school who was married is still married. And the legal work environment where I live and practice is such that the successful and failed marriages alike seem to succeeded or failed for the classic reasons. I’m sure work played a part in some of the failures (one local attorney divorced her husband and married the accountant she rented office space from, but I don’t see how the nature of her
job had much to do with that) but only in the way work relationships torpedo marriages all the time.

5. Is getting married right out of law school a good or bad idea?

I have to say it’s going to depend on all the circumstances. Assuming for the sake of discussion that we are talking about a fairly typical law school grad - 24-25, been in school non-stop since he or she was five years old, starting a new job, maybe in a new town, a ton of school related debt, you know the drill -- I’d have to say why would you want to add just one more brick on the load? On the other hand, if your debt load is moderate, you are going into partnership
with your Dad, and you took five years to do law school while working full time as a bookkeeper for the old man, why not?

I can't think of any more, but if you have anything else to add, please do. I appreciate your time..Thanks again,

aLs

Anyone else have any thoughts or comments?

Still Here After All

Still Here After All These Days

Sorry, it’s been way too long between posts, but I’ve just been unable to muster the writerly wherewithal to post anything. Work is still work. The bad guys still do terrible things to people, and we do our level best to lock ‘em up for as close to forever as we can. See, if we did not do that, then the parole board would have no one to let out because they’ve “found Jesus! Praise the Lord!” I, of course, was not aware that He was missing. The more fool me, ‘eh?

The end of Senior year is here for number two son, out youngest. The Perfect Local High School Student. Four years of football, two as a varsity starter (offensive line, thanks for asking) 3.5+ GPA (4.0 scale) in AP and college prep courses, no discipline problems, the kid is practically the poster child for what the school administration wants a typical male student to be. It’s been a helluva strain, believe-you-me.

I mean, the other two were anything but models of the modern Senior High School Student and I think we’ve been waiting for the genetics and/or hormones to come roaring to the fore, leaving nothing but smoking ruins in their wake.  But we’re just about five weeks from the last day of classes for Seniors, and just six weeks from graduation, so, we’ve crossed everything that can be crossed and are holding on to our sanity as tight as we can.

Oh, The Things They’ll Do
There is a certain class of defense lawyer that simply thinks the rules are for fools. (I actually had one say that to me, once upon a time) and that if they get 50 miles away from the big city to the south that no one will know those rules and they will be able to bullshit their way to whatever they want. Sigh.

Of course, we have an arraignment court chief judge who is totally clueless about most of the substantive rules (like Miranda only applies to custodial interrogation) and virtually all of the procedural rules. One can make some excuses about substantive rules like Miranda because in most cases they are derived from case law, not statutes or codes and can change without warning. It’s a bit harder to excuse a failure to know about the court rules published by the state supreme court. I mean, they come out in a nice little book from West/Thompson, every year, and changes are prominently displayed in the monthly bar journal as well as on the state court web site.

We had an out of town attorney try to get the chief judge to issue a writ of habeas corpus for his client, who was pending arraignment, on an oral motion. And the dummy was going to grant it! Happily for the chief’s reputation in the building, the clerk of the court is also an attorney and was able to advise him that the writ could only issue on a properly filed complaint. And Mr. Out-of-Towner had not filed such a complaint. Oh, and in the same breath, while he was issuing an illegal writ, he was ordering our office to appear forthwith and arraign the defendant. Aside from the fact that we were still waiting on the police report/request to charge, there’s a tiny little separation of powers thing going on there. Ya think? And the final insult? Mr. Out-of-Towner may have outright lied to the judge about the circumstances of his client’s detention. We don’t know. Why? Because the judge ordered the court reporter to go to lunch (don’t want to incur any comp time) and shut down the Dictaphones. Another attorney was in the courtroom while this was going on and left to call my boss and give him the heads up. So, two of us spent an enjoyable hour drafting a complaint in mandamus against the arraignment court, just in case. We didn’t need it, thank God, because who needs to be in the middle of that kind of firefight between the courts.

Ah, yes. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.