September 22nd, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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irst of all, I’d like to thank everyone who contacted me about my blog being down.
I was in the midst of upgrading WordPress when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. After finally figuring out how to complete the upgrade, I no longer had time to do so.
Until now.
For the incredibly few of you who occasionally glance at this blog, I hope to start posting again soon.
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May 11th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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finally got around to actually reading the decision in State of Wisconsin v. Michael Sveum instead of viewing all the typing heads. (On the blog circuit they’re all typing heads, not talking heads.)
At first glance, I felt that the court came to the difficult but correct decision — after all, we do drive in public. I was going to go my merry way when I realized that the decision still bothered me, so sat back and tried to think it through.
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April 1st, 2009
by mglickman 3 Comments
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arolyn Elefant’s recent post on her blog asks the question, what should we do with the small and solo firms who are behind the times and don’t even seem to be aware that there are times to be behind? In short (don’t believe me, go there and read it yourself) she suggests that we should lend a helping hand to the technologically-stunted for the sake of their clients.
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I’m not content to let the old firms simply rot and die off if they take clients down in the process.
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March 4th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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his article in the Washigton Post (h/t @marylandmoment) describes how the Maryland House of Delegates have passed a bill to allow Marylanders to create trusts for their pets.
This is truly a groundbreaking piece of legislation; precisely what Maryland needs. Crime? Housing slump? Unemployment? Recession? Death penalty? No, let’s focus our efforts on an important topic — pet trusts. I had dogs growing up, and they were part of the family; I shed tears when they died. There was no burial or memorial service for them.
Do people need trust accounts for their pets? Maybe — according to the article, 39 other states already allow their citizens to create trusts for their pets. However, when our state Senate decides to put the issue of repealing the death penalty to rest for this session by not repealing the death penalty, why is our legislation spending the time on pet trust funds?
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March 4th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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he Maryland State Senate has voted to amend the death penalty bill. I guess at the last minute they decided that the bill, instead of repealing the death penalty, should not repeal the death penalty.
I think Sen. Raskin said it best:
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Amendments saying that the death penalty can be imposed only with DNA evidence and with more than just eyewitness testimony do not change current law but are merely “camouflage for the status quo.”
Why is our state legislature wasting everyone’s time making bills that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever?
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February 19th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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et me give you some background about myself: I’m more attuned to absorb broad knowledge than deep understanding. I can work at truly incisive wisdom about a topic, but my default mode is sound-bites and headlines. What can I say, at least I recognize it. For that reason, I was aware of some Supreme Court nominations and cases that came and went, but I had no more than a vague awareness that they were there.
Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court was a fascinating read. It gave me historical and legal background about the major Supreme Court cases of my time. It gave me historical and political background about the Supreme Court justices of my time. I found the style engaging and interesting, if a bit long winded. There were entirely too many occasions when I said to myself, “haven’t I read this before?” However, Toobin repeated entire passages for reasons — obviously he didn’t repeat himself by mistake — and it’s a nit-pick when viewing the entirety of the work.
There are critics of Toobin who claim he is too partisan one way or another; too pro or con one justice or another. I know that the Volokh Conspiracy in particular has issues with his views. They are probably right, but I wasn’t expecting an erudite treatise on constitutional law; I was expecting a description of the Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what I got.
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February 6th, 2009
by mglickman 2 Comments
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Let me be honest here: I know very little about SEO. I have vague ideas of links and headers, but I know that there are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous. (10 points to who gets the movie reference) One thing that bothers me about the SEO craze, however, is that most people aren’t looking to generate their revenue from the web.
If you have a web-based business or you’re specifically looking to get customers via the web, by all means, optimize to your heart’s content. I would assume that most people, including law firms, are not looking at web surfers for the bulk of their business. If you’re in this category, why spend time, effort and possibly money on SEOizing your site? (I know that’s conjugated incorrectly. I don’t care.) Every firm should have a website, but the website is something you point potential customers to rather than the site pointing potential customers to you.
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January 29th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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Religious institutions hold a particular niche in our society. After all, America was founded on religious freedom (and turkey dinners). We have to respect each other’s religious beliefs, and a religious institution — such as a school — has the right to follow its tenets even in the face of Constitutionally protected rights. The question I find myself asking is: how steep is that slope?
Sure, a private, religious school can only accept students of the same faith; that’s a given. What about if the students are doing things the religion reviles? Can a Lutheran private school expel two girls for being suspected lesbians?
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-school28-2009jan28,0,3503114.story?track=rss
The truth is, there are two different issues at play here. One is the private ownership of the institutions; since the State is not officially involved, there is no Constitutional protection. Now, there are all sorts of arguments that any school, private or otherwise, should constitute “State actors”, but the current legal climate is that private schools are not subject to the State Action Doctrine.
The other issue is that a religious institution must be allowed to practice and adhere to its faith. To paraphrase Bill Cosby, “I know religion! I practice religion!” Are there aspects of most religions that those not within the faith would take offense at? Yes; hell, I know people in my religion who have a hard time with some of it.
Normally I would view a case like the one linked to above as correct since the person has two outs: she can choose to use a different school and she can choose not to take part in the offending religious practices (again by leaving the school by choice). However, since this is a school situation, and the student is notfree to make the choices I just mentioned, this decision does not sit soundly with me — but what are the alternatives?
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January 15th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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The most recent Lawyer2Lawyer podcast had guest appearances by @KevinOKeefe and @ScottGreenfield concerning the use of twitter by lawyers.
Kevin had requested questions or concerns people had with twitter, and the first thing that popped into my mind was oversharing. I’m obviously not talking about when you give too many graphic details at the dinner table; rather, when you share information regarding what you are working on.
I recently volunteered to help do research on a case. (As an aside, this is the first bit of practical legal experience I am getting. To give credit where due, I was referred to the attorney through my law school. One of my professors mentioned — in passing — that he knew someone who was looking for help and I approached the professor after class to get the attorney’s contact information.) In my excitement to be working on something real, I twitted the general issue I was researching. Before I hit the “tweet” button, however, I hesitated. How much information does someone really need to piece together the rest of the picture?
That started me thinking about the possible pitfalls of twitter in general — the biggest one being the complacency we fall into when there is a perception of security. Password breaches aside, twitter’s “direct message” feature poses a huge risk for people hoping to direct message sensitive, confidential or private communications. If someone uses the wrong format in sending the message, even if it’s only a single character discrepancy, the private message is posted for the entire globe to read.
I hardly ever use the SMS functionality to update my twitter status, yet I still allow SMS notification of direct messages. When I tried to respond to someone with my email address I completely failed to preface my message with a “d”, thereby publishing my personal email address for all to see. Fortunately I’m a nobody, so I’m safe and unhassled.
Privacy Disaster At Twitter: Direct Messages Exposed (Update: GroupTweet Is Likely Culprit)
dm fail!
There are a myriad of articles on how to use twitter (some days it seems that’s all anyone ever writes about. And it’s not as if each article is chock-full of original information…) and many of them suggest that you use the direct message function rather than @replies so as not to overburden the poor people who voluntarily asked to be shown your every last fleeting thought. This theory works hand-in-hand with the theory that twitter is a useful way to communicate with coworkers, as a sort of mass IM mechanism. I think that it’s safe to assume that your communications with your coworkers will include privileged information. Try to remember that unless you very, very carefully direct message someone, the information is knowable to anyone with an internet connection. Or people sitting next to someone with an internet connection.
I don’t mean to harp on twitter — the issue is the same with all social media:
Apple staffer’s online leak points to new iPhone processor | Betanews
I simply feel that the nature of twitter more easily lends itself to be misused.
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January 8th, 2009
by mglickman 0 Comments
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I read with interest the blawrgument (I might need an intervention with all these pseudo-words) regarding whether breaking the law is, in itself, an immoral act. The discussion went from prosecutor to defender, across the country, and it covered most of the issues, specifically revolving around the morality of pleading not guilty when the defendant did commit a crime.
The point I found myself pondering is this: When the founding fathers rebelled against the English, breaking the laws of their parent nation, did that make them immoral? Are we, as Americans, a nation founded on immorality? If not, where lies the difference?
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