Archive for August, 2008
Why is Admission Based on Anything but GPA and LSAT, “Gaming” Law School Admissions?
While I’ve been following the recent rumblings about changes in the U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of part-time or evening law school programs, Amir Efrati’s recent Wall Street Journal article Law School Rankings Reviewed to Deter ‘Gaming’, struck a nerve. It begins:
The most widely watched ranking of U.S. law schools may move to stop [...]
Elizabeth Warren on the link between Healthcare and Bankruptcy
Video of Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren discussing the statistical links between health care and bankruptcy. The most revealing statistic -
75% of the families who ended up in bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem had health insurance at the onset of the illness or accident that ultimately landed them in bankruptcy; they had health insurance - in other words they played by the rules in every possible way - got a good education, got a good job, bought a home, had health insurance and yet the system is so misdesigned in terms of how big the bills can be and how narrow the protection from health insurance is.
Carnegie Council: The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World’s Cases
In the course of some research, I came across this very interesting introduction to the world of international judges from a Carnegie Council forum earlier this year. The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World’s Cases, Cesare P. R. Romano, Stephen M. Schwebel, Daniel Terris. Click the links below [...]
Moderating Blog Comments - A Word from Your Sponsor
Kevin O’Keefe at LexBlog brought up an excellent conversation on Moderating law blog comments : The New York Times protocol. Comments are just a part of life in the blogosphere and even a local cable access blog like this one gets its fair share. The comments range from the silent majority, to the regulars, an [...]
Molecule Identification Technique Promises to Identify Presence of Drugs, Explosives in Fingerprints
International Herald Tribune’s Fingerprint test tells much more than identity portrays a future with tools CSI has never dreamed of. Desorption Electrospray Ionization, or “Desi” uses mass spectrometry to identify molecules at a previously unheard of level of specificity.
In Cooks’ method, a tiny spray of electrically charged liquid – either water or water and alcohol [...]
MPRE
I will be flexing my ethical muscles today. It won’t be pretty. Anonymous girlfriend duped me into signing up for the MPRE since she enjoys sharing misery. It didn’t occur to me at the time that with my second-half summer course final looming in a week I would be in no mood to brush up [...]
Dilbert: We find in favor of the plaintiff dude
Classic.
Neuroscience and the Law Conference on Video
Via Grits I notice that video from the proceedings of the excellent Neuroscience and the Law Conference I attended in May at Baylor College of Medicine is now available on the web. Dr. David Eagleman, who directs the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law also conducts a seminar on neuroscience and the law and will no [...]
Indecent Exposure, Defined and Illustrated, Helpful Chart
Take a moment to ponder the implications of this image. This sort of informational graphic requires the kind of reasoning that can only seem sensible in a bureaucratic environment, idiocy aforethought, we might call it. It requires a regulatory judgment (gasp! even statutory perhaps?) which gives definitions to the degree of buttock exposure that constitutes ‘indecency’. Lastly this was professionally rendered, requiring someone to explain and hire an illustrator on the basis of his skill at exposed-buttock-rendering (cheek-aroscuro?) and even a round of proofs and revisions - ‘oh no, this is entirely too much buttock’ or ‘yes, I think you’ve captured the essence of the offense nicely here.’ Sigh…
via ffffound
Bar Exam Debriefing
I’m fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) not all that close to taking the bar yet. In any event, the following definitions might be useful for anyone who has spent time in close proximity with a recent bar exam taker:
Brief Psychotic Disorder
The patient has at least one of the following that [...]