Archive for December, 2006
Economics of Law Firm Associates
Marginal Revolution tipped me off to a really interesting paper - When Knowledge is an Asset: Explaining the Organizational Structure of Large Law Firms (.pdf, save as). Here’s the abstract -
We study the economics of employment relationships through theoretical and empirical analysis of an unusual set of firms, large law firms. Our point of departure […]
Barely Legal: The Blog
Barely Legal Blog is by far the most widely read and discussed law student blog among my section. Russ and Mike, both law students in the upper mid-west, were hilariously insightful observers of the peculiarities of law student life. Both have graduated and judging from the last few posts, they appear to be moving on […]
America’s Back Asswards Immigration Policy, Exhibit A
My general impression of America’s current immigration policy is that it’s somewhere between xenophobic sadism and Kafkaesque incompetence. Both of these instincts were confirmed by this WSJ article - A Disabled Son Imperils Family’s Immigration Hope ($), which follows the path of Zandro Souza, an immigrant from Brazil who went from dishwasher to upscale […]
Reading over the Break
Part of my winter break re-socialization process is to catch up on some blessedly non-legal related reading.
Blind Side, Michael Lewis - Lewis takes a relatively obscure position in football, left tackle, and traces it’s evolution from just another lineman to one of the most highly paid if still almost invisible skill positions on the field. […]
Do you have a fixed or growth mindset?
Stanford Psychology Professor Carol Dweck’s recent book Mindset splits people into two groups – fixed and growth mindsets – and explores the ramifications on their choices and performance. Assess the following statement – Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t really change. You can learn new things but you can’t change […]
Eben Moglen
The O’Reilly Distributing the Future Podcast turned up this interesting talk at OSCON 2006 by Eben Moglen, professor of law and history of law at Columbia University. Moglen, pro bono General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center is an unabashed champion of open source software development and staunch […]
Google Patents
Patent Geeks will be interested in the new search product from Google, Google Patents. Google Patents allows searching patents available through the Google interface. It’s actually kind of fun even if you aren’t a patent geek. My personal favorite - the lawsuit board game. Check out the real deal in all it’s glory.
If you didn’t […]
Life without Law (for a little while at least)
We took our torts final last night so I’m beginning my slow rehabilitation to rejoin society. Today, for instance, I have focused on reminding myself that pointing out potentially negligent behavior to people is not as welcomed as one might think. Same goes for areas of potential landowner liability in people’s homes. Also, I’ve come […]
The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law
Procrastination is a powerful motivator. WSJ Law Blog turned me on to The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law. While finishing up my torts outline last week in the library all of a sudden I just had to read it. Procrastination well spent though. It’s an excellent stocking stuffer for any lawyers or would be-lawyers. Hell, […]
Documentary Film Producers Challenge Licensing Fees with Fair Use Doctrine
Here’s an interesting case. In short, a documentary film exec. is balking at the hefty licensing fees companies are asking for use of clips, so he’s decided to use the fair use doctrine as both carrot and stick. He offers to pay companies drastically reduced fees or won’t pay them at all, relying on fair […]