The Criminal Lawyer made the ABA Journal Blawg 100 today, much to our surprise. We are quietly proud. Be sure to check out the list, there are a lot of excellent blogs there that might be new to you. And weren’t you just saying to yourself how you need some...
There seems to be a growing recognition that there’s a lot more law to deal with these days than there used to be. But when you say “more law,” what does your audience think you’re talking about? Are you addressing policy makers and the sociologists who influence their thought? If...
We probably shouldn’t have titled our last post “Free Time.” Apparently that was too hubristic for the gods, who have denied us any more for the writing of a post this week. At least one that’s more wheat than chaff. (The blogosphere has more than enough chaff as it is.)...
We love reading the advances of real scientists doing real research. It puts us in our place when we’re feeling all smart — here are people actually advancing knowledge and doing stuff for real! — and at the same time we get to learn some really cool stuff. For example:...
The Facebook post above was posted to Reddit earlier today. We don’t know if this is an accurate copy or not, the internet being what it is, but it’s close enough to what we’ve heard actual officers say that it is useful to illustrate a couple of points. First, the...
We’ve just adopted a nifty little tool we’ve noticed on a few other blogs we follow — When you’re leaving a comment, if you provide the web address of your own blog, then it’ll provide a link to your latest blog post at the end of your comment. A harmless...
We have more and more college graduates these days, but is it doing any good? On our first day of college, at UVA back in the late summer of ’87, we didn’t feel the usual nervous excitement one gets from moving away from home, meeting new roommates, trudging through...
The decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court often have important repercussions around the world, so it’s perhaps not surprising that is studied by lawyers and academics far beyond the Court’s jurisdiction. The results of such studies are often more useful for their insights into how others see us, than for...
If you’re looking to start an argument with a loved one, or a fight, moral relativism is an excellent way to start. Specifically the position that, because different people do have different ideas of what is and is not ethical, your loved one’s morals are not true. Nor are they...
One of our favorite topics here at the Criminal Lawyer has been the interaction of brain science and criminal law. So it’s with a pleased tip of the hat to Mark Bennett that we have the video linked above, an excellent summary of modern neuroscience as it applies to...
Hey. Gen-X lawyer here. Could those of you whining about your law schools and sucky job market please shut up? Thanks. There’s something about the gripes of new and rising JDs that’s not unlike the same bleats we’re hearing from many “Occupy Wall Street” types: It’s the complaint that...
“You are saying it was unfair to have a fair trial?” That was a fair question put by Justice Kennedy at oral argument today. The issue is whether a criminal defendant can be deprived of the effective assistance of counsel (for Sixth Amendment purposes) when a lawyer screwup prevents...
Over at Edge, in a short video, we get an intriguing look at criminal justice from the perspective of neurological science. Put all this together, as you can see here, and we discover little areas that are brighter than others. And this is all now easily done, as everyone knows,...
On the New York Times op-ed page today, Clifford Winston asks the question “Are Law Schools and Bar Exams Necessary?” The writer, an economist with the left-ish Brookings Institution think tank, answers with a resounding “no.” They only increase the cost of entry into the profession — and thus the...
Recent Comments