I am constantly amazed at how unprofessional Ann covers the Russian collusion and obstruction investigation. She constantly cites unprofessional and partisan analysis and coverage by the usual hacks-NYT and WP. She never cites an in-depth judicial analysis from legal professionals like Andrew McCarthy or give an in-depth analysis herself. You would never know she is a career lawyer and was a law professor. As she would love to say, that's weird.Commenter Carol reacts succinctly:
A professional gets paid for her analysis.Yes, you could say I do this for love and you'd have to pay me to do what would not amaze Otto. But I think I deserve to be paid for amazing Otto and the Ottocrats. I do what I do and I'm entirely proud of it, even though I only do what I like.
Having been a lawyer — having lawyering in your past — can be a foundation for something else you go on to do. Who are the contributors to the human experience who have legal training and experience in their life story but went on to do something else? I'll snag a few from this list (and I'll exclude all the political figures, because there are so many):
Charles Perrault. Perrault, better known to some as the author of Tales of Mother Goose in 1697, practiced law for a few years...
John Cleese. One of the funniest men in the history of comedy has a law degree from no less than Cambridge...
Ben Stein.... He was the valedictorian of his Yale Law School class in 1970...
Ozzie Nelson. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet star graduated from Rutgers, law degree in hand, in 1930. This no doubt came in handy when he negotiated the first-ever "noncancellable ten-year contract,” an agreement with ABC that gave the Nelsons a salary for 10 years, even if they weren’t working.
Nina and Tim Zagat. The husband-and-wife team met when they were both attending Yale Law School. They were at a dinner party in 1979 when friends began discussing how unreliable a certain major newspaper’s restaurant reviews were. Tim suggested surveying a larger population of people on their foodie opinions...
Henri Matisse. Mostly to make his lawyer father happy, the French artist went to Paris to study law in 1887. When he came back to Saint-Quentin, he got a job as a clerk in a law office - and promptly came down with appendicitis. His mother brought him oil paints to pass the time during recovery...
Wassily Kandinsky. The abstract artist was more involved in abstractions of a different kind during his younger years. He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow and taught them both not long after getting his degree.
Howard Cosell. Believing that having a lawyer for a son would make his parents proud, Cosell enrolled in the NYU School of Law and started practicing in Manhattan after WWII. His clients included Willie Mays and the New York Little League. He organized a radio show to help promote the latter and ended up being a natural at interviewing....
Will Shortz. The puzzlemaster could have been a lawyer - he got his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1977, but passed up the bar to get the world’s only degree in enigmatology instead. Despite eschewing the bar, Shortz believes his schooling was helpful. “Law is great training for the mind for almost any career. It was good for me because the thinking skills you get from law school are important in puzzle-solving and puzzle-making.”
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82 comments:
Well, you could have pointed out that you have cited McCarthy in just the last month, not to mention other well known legal analysts.
Otto made the mistake of overestimating lawyers.
I thought it was "And you, a law professor"
I've started reading Papadopoulos book and found he was the son, grandson and brother of doctors but decided to go to law school. He was sitting in a library with an LSAT application open in front of him when a guy he didn't know sat down and talked him out of law school. he told him it was hours of drudgery.
So far sounds like an interesting guy.
“Otto made the mistake of overestimating lawyers.”
A mistake usually only made by lawyers. Often wrong but never in doubt.
Althouse writes as a woman, not a lawyer. If anything against lawyer.
“Law is great training for the mind for almost any career. It was good for me because the thinking skills you get from law school are important in puzzle-solving and puzzle-making.”
This is sort of what they told me about an English degree in 1970. Not that I'm saying they were wrong.
I don't think this blog is covering (in the sense of reporting about) the investigation or anything else. Rather, this blog provides a discussion forum about various topics.
Otto -- or any other commenter -- is welcome to contribute information or links to other, more informative webpages.
My father was an outstanding lawyer. He taught me "the problem with lawyers is they think a law degree makes them an expert on everything". And he made the family fortune off the arrogance of other lawyers.
Remember that awkward thread about wind and solar battery storage capacity a few months back?
Hehe.
Sorry Otto. But be thankful you weren't front-paged as homophobic bigot for the sin of expressing boredom over yet another discussion about homosexual issues.
Robespierre was a lawyer; so was Ferdinand Marcos. Karl Marx studied law.
In my former life (working) I was a civil engineer.
No, Otto, I'm not going to pave your driveway.
Lol, somebody just "you, a lawyer'd" Chuck in another thread. It's going around today!
Lawyers are argumentative. And we never admit we are wrong . That leaves out 90% of enjoyable social life. But God invented alcohol to help.
Part of any legal training is developing reasoning skills. These include deductive and inductive reasoning. For example, using inductive reasoning, one might infer that the lack of legal analysis of Russian collusion or a case for Obstruction against Trump, on a blog hosted by a career long legal scholar, might be that there are no really important legal questions in those matters.
Or perhaps the political theater is generally more interesting because that is almost certainly what will have the biggest effect on the nation's politics.
Also, lawyers don't like to do an unthorough or incomplete job when it comes to legal matters, and that takes time and effort, and they like to get paid for that.
I got my Master's Degree in Slavic Languages. I suppose that that education has been the foundation for the other things I have gone on to do.
Since I studied in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, I had to satisfy a requirement to take a class on Germanic literature. Just because of the convenient schedule, I took a seminar in Germanic Drama of the Nineteenth Century. I had avoided studying literature, but this seminar turned out to be the best class I ever took during my entire university education. For the first time in my life, I appreciated literary analysis.
Now my main mission in life is to write my blog about the movie Dirty Dancing.
However, I would be much more successful and wealthy now if I had continued in pre-med and eventually become a doctor.
There's a ton of well-trafficked law blogs, things written by lawyers for (mostly) lawyers. And there's a number of regular commenters here that claim to be lawyers, no doubt most of them really are.
But I don't come to Althouse for legal analysis. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy when Althouse or one of the regular commenters around here who are lawyers tackles a topic from a legal perspective. But that's not why I personally visit and comment on this blog fairly regularly.
“Legal training sharpens the mind by narrowing it.” - Traditional.
Also, I am not convinced by the list of people who had legal training but when on to notable careers in other fields. Generally smart and motivated people tend to go to law school. Those qualities will help nearly anyone in any field they wind up in.
Just because of the convenient schedule, I took a seminar in Germanic Drama of the Nineteenth Century.
Teddy White was a scholarship kid at Harvard and found the Oriental Studies library a good place to study,
Afternoon Otto: Maybe Ann, as a retired law professor, does issue comprehensive, in depth opinions, but for compensation. Many of her ilk do. I know, I've hired them to help me on several thorny matters. One, however, tires of such, it's tedious work. Whether she does or not is none of our business. So, get over the cheap shot.
You? A lawyer?
Generally smart and motivated people tend to go to law school. ... among others.
An interesting list but the idea is not particularly surprising or unknown. Stipulating that my comments are *not* intended to be derogatory and that there are of course myriad excellent people who start out and proceed with a dedication to studying law, in my experience law school attracts a lot of aimless sorts as well. It is predictable that a lot of them will end up doing things unrelated to law.
Being the easiest of the professional schools to get into, law school attracts a lot of unfocused people and also-rans who don't know what to do with their baccalaureate degrees but just must keep going for some reason or other. "Mom wanted a doctor or a dentist but she'll settle for a lawyer" being high on that list. Also, "Oh, I'll just go to law school and figure out what to do with it later." It is sort of the final common pathway for irresolute or average scholars. I've seen this over and over. I even saw a number of pre-meds who didn't make the med or dent (the 2nd step) cut end up in law school.
Althouse saves her lawyerly analysis for non-legal matters.
I know a lot of people who went to law school--per ice nine, I suppose my social circle includes a lot of "mom wanted a dr..." and irresolute scholar types--but only a small handful still practice law. Seems like a real grind at those big firms. The most interesting and remunerative post-law careers I've seen are a few of them who've traded not just on their legal education but their litigation experience to go into for-profit litigation finance. I find that fascinating: publicly traded companies and non or lightly regulated investment vehicles hiring lawyers to choose cases to "invest" in, which could include everything from identifying defendants and creating the defendant class to picking which law firm will represent it. What a country! I should say "what a world," since it's a global business with big UK players, but still, wow.
John Cleese was a lawyer. But, but he was born to be the Minister of Silly Walks.
Otto has it exactly backward: Althouse is interesting and perceptive despite that she's a lawyer. It gives hope for others similarly afflicted.
W.S. Gilbert.
I think that law degrees and lawyers are great.
As a minor note of potential bias, my father was an attorney for more than four decades, and most of his friends were also so afflicted. Oh, and my next brother and I followed him, going to the same law school, and having the daughter of the guy who taught him Real Property teach us the same class (my father claimed that that prof’s Future Interests was his best class in LS).
Several friends from college had interesting careers after law school. One flew private jets around the world for most of the last 30 years. Before retirement, he flew a top of the line Gulfstream. Flew into every country in the world except for NORK and a majority of the countries in S America. His stories esp about flying into former Soviet Republics are epic. Another has moved from beer distributing to pizzas to airline food, and thence to other food related endeavors. Made a decent fortune along the way. He was the one who outscored me in an Economics class as undergrads, so wasn’t surprised.
Re: The Vault Dweller:
Part of any legal training is developing reasoning skills. These include deductive and inductive reasoning.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing lawyers tell themselves, but I don't recall law school involving all that much emphasis on reasoning skills. And I went to Columbia, which is generally accounted one of the better law schools (or perhaps you will say, it's because I went to Columbia that I don't recall law school emphasising reasoning).
I honed my reasoning skills with my math degree as an undergraduate. Something of a necessity seeing as you can't get past Analysis without doing proofs, and proofs require logical reasoning. But I realised midway through my degree that I was rather too stupid to be a good mathematician (I was, I believe, ranked 25 out of 50 people in my major), so I just gave up and became a lawyer instead. Law school -- at least the way I approached it -- made me intellectually slovenly, prone to the types of arguments lawyers often make where you just kind of smear everything around, dress the resulting mush up in latinate language to make it sound very precise, throw in a bunch of the usual rhetoric, leaven with some humour, and then pretend your facts support whatever conclusion you're trying to reach (perhaps you've, ah, seen this style of argument in my comments here?). My writing also suffered terribly. I've spent my entire career since then trying to unlearn the lazy habits I picked up as a law student.
Commenter Carol reacts succinctly:
A professional gets paid for her analysis.
Plenty of people will give you analysis. You pay a professional to leave when they're done.
Maybe I'm thinking of a different profession...
Lawyers are great! We sent our lawyer’s son to Stanford we love lawyers so much! They send us really nice gifts around Christmas time, too.
Ann i think most of the people you cited were not career lawyers. I'd say they were people who made a mistake ( at least to them) of their educational major. And I think you are somewhat of the same ilk but in reverse. I think your first love was/is art -> english but since it didn't pay the bills you decided to become a lawyer for the rest of your career.
C'mon Ann give us some pro bono action.
Mike Sylwester said...
I don't think this blog is covering (in the sense of reporting about) the investigation or anything else. Rather, this blog provides a discussion forum about various topics.
Otto -- or any other commenter -- is welcome to contribute information or links to other, more informative webpages.
Exactly.
Earnest Prole said...
Otto has it exactly backward: Althouse is interesting and perceptive despite that she's a lawyer. It gives hope for others similarly afflicted.
And again it is demonstrated the strength of this blog is that it draws on the insights of many, not just the one.
Tchaikovsky studied law. His father wasn't optimistic about his making it as a musician.
(eaglebeak)
The most interesting thing about Andy McCarthy and Jonathan Turley, for two, is how they have changed their views of the DOJ, FBI, Comey, probably Mueller, and many other things, over the months.
McCarthy started out thinking that Mueller was the soul of probity, but doesn't think that any more.
Turley was, once upon a time, tickled pink to have had Michael Avenatti as a law school student (talk about reptilian! Avenatti, not Turley), but we don't hear so much about that in Turley's columns any more (after a December 2018 tour de force in which he attempted to defend Avenatti against Stormy Daniels.)
Or look at William Barr--there's a sober-minded lawyer whose views have (I'm guessing) undergone a certain upheaval in the past year.
How about Larry Tribe? He lost his mind.
Or Alan Dershowitz? All his Dem friends on the Vineyard stopped speaking to him.
Or Lanny Davis? He reminded us how much of a Clinton bootlicker he is.
Or Lindsey Graham? He found himself in the middle of the Kavanaugh hearings.
Some pretty exciting times in the world of American law.
Kandinsky a lawyer? Makes sense. He paints like a lawyer.
But I don't come to Althouse for legal analysis.
Mehhhh. I don't either but there is an expectation being set up. Althouse has traded on her status as a law professor to help brand her site. I don't think Althouse the Fry Cook would have garnered(!) as much attention or traffic. People came because they were hearing from YOU A LAW PROFESSOR! about current events, mostly political.
Again, I don't expect legal analysis, but when she brushes up against them I DO expect opinion from a sharply trained mind.
But what interests me most are the omissions. For example, during the Clinton Impeachment she signed a petition of "1000 Law Professors" or somesuch, advising that perjury did not meet the standards "high crimes and misdemeanors" as outlined in the Constitution. I may have some of the details wrong, but what stuck in my memory was her claim that they switched the cover letter after they got the signatures, ie. these law professors were victim of a bait and switch. And it made me wonder how many other of these "experts all agree" petitions were done that way.
Fast forward 20 years, and we have "400 Former Prosecutors" signing a letter all claiming that in expert opinion they find enough evidence in the Mueller report to indict Trump for obstruction of justice. Now sure, 400 is less than 1% of former prosecutors in the nation.
But... this is a topic Althouse has personal experience with, both as someone who has gone through the "4 out of 5 dentists" petition process and as a legal scholar. Her input on this would be very enlightening.
And yet she won't touch it. Why? Too dull, or something else?
I read Althouse for her "literary" take on news coverage. She draws attention to word choice, metaphor, how public behavior provides hints about character's interior life. She seems to be doing this for the pleasure of close reading, rather than for some ideological purpose. This approach is far too rare online.
There are plenty of excellent lawyer blogs to be read, I follow some of them too.
I only come here for the philology.
"Some pretty exciting times in the world of American law." Exactly and that's what got me thinking about why hasn't Ann ,a law professor her whole life , published an in depth post on this. I don't mean she should deviate from her usual modus operandi but hey at least one in-depth post on the current happenings.
Lawyers charge a lotta money (at least the good ones do), and ya gotta hire them as a part of any business now, which drives up the cost of said business.
Some are smart, some are stupid.
The dangerous ones are the ones who are grammatically smart, and highly detailed, but can't see and shape the big picture.
Emmett Flood -- counsel for Trump -- is the best of the best.
The thing Is professor, at a certain point, you can't risk these publications enough, Lee Smith of the tablet, John Solomon at circa fox and now the hill, Kim strassel and Holman Jenkins figured out the story, so it's like malware putting up any times or journal reporrees
Now Lanny Davis is interesting because his earlier client was a Russian oligarch and he and never trumper Chertoff also defended him.
>>Law school -- at least the way I approached it -- made me intellectually slovenly, prone to the types of arguments lawyers often make where you just kind of smear everything around, dress the resulting mush up in latinate language to make it sound very precise, throw in a bunch of the usual rhetoric, leaven with some humour, and then pretend your facts support whatever conclusion you're trying to reach (perhaps you've, ah, seen this style of argument in my comments here?). My writing also suffered terribly<<
Balfegor - I beg to differ, sir, because that nicely demonstrates that your writing skills did not suffer, as you captured there in a few amusing words the essence of what I've always thought. That is, from corporate litigators to strip mall ambulance chasers, lawyers are like hired guns, hit men (I usually compare it to a lesser profession but too many lawyers here that I'd like to stay "friends" with) - you pay them and they do anything you want done for you, with few reservations that I've noticed. Their instrument is the verbal mishmash you describe of course - whatever it takes to make black, white, or up, down. The art and skill manifests in the keeping of straight faces while doing so.
If somebody were writing this story as a novel, they never would have had the balls to write something so absurd as to make Lanny Davis Michael Cohen’s lawyer. Not even Tom Wolfe.
Am I missing something?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” - Mark Twain
Here's an actual story that I would be interested in hearing from a lawyer about:
Pence: Admin Will Seek to End District Courts’ Nationwide Injunctions
Basically, from a constitutional standpoint I've always been somewhat mystified that a random district judge (not even a circuit one) can effectively determine the laws for the entire nation. What's the history of that? Does it make sense? Has it ever been challenged? Those questions are things that a constitutional lawyer might have some knowledge about.
When in law school, I acquired many friends there who had no intention of practicing law. One wanted to be a sports agent, and he did with success. Another wanted to be an executive in a sausage manufacturing concern, and she did. Yet another wanted to patent his own inventions, and thought he'd be his own patent lawyer, and, by damn, he did just that. Again, another wanted to be a banker, and thought having a law degree would be his ticket in -- and it worked. There were more, but the message is printed. As for me, I was a mathematician working for a big three auto manufacturer who wanted out of that rat race. And I got out, and jumped into another. As stated above by someone, law school does not facilitate advancement in logical thinking, but it helps to have that skill going into the game.
Pro-bono, Otto? That's for those who have no means and for those who screw their lawyers after all the hard work! Are you one of those?
"She draws attention to word choice, metaphor, how public behavior provides hints about character's interior life. She seems to be doing this for the pleasure of close reading, rather than for some ideological purpose. This approach is far too rare online."
Good point. This blog is really a thought experiment.
Actually I'd love too read Ann's analysis, if she feels like writing one.
But I think RussiaGate is mostly about facts and not much law.
Probably the most influential second careers after being a lawyer , in the last 500 years, was a French lawyer from the Delano River Valley French/Belgium border area. He became the best Bible Expositor and Teacher of the Age of Reformation. His name was Jean Calvin.
The influence of Calvin among American Presidents who had also started out to be lawyers include Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I've used this blog as a resource in both my Copywriting and Radio Performance classes. Althouse has an advertisers tone when she is selling an idea, and it generally works. Also, creative word usage and a respectable vocabulary.
Speaking of lawyers, the New York Times reports that Rudy Giuliani plans a visit with the newly-elected leaders in the Ukraine to encourage the ferreting out of dirt on Sleepy Joe sticking his nose into Kiev's affairs traced back to son Hunter Biden's serving on the board of Burisma Holdings, an energy company owned by a local oligarch named Mykola Zlochevsky - who was allied with none other than former Ukrainian president Viktor F. Yanukovych.
So the circle is complete. Surely you recall that federal prisoner Paul Manafort owed his soul to Yanukovych.
But Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani connections with ex-USSR satellites trace deeply into money laundering over there. Just ahead of the 2016 election, The Financial Times reported an investigation into Trump's Russian-born "Sales Manager," Felix Sater setting up a laundry in Kazakhstan, likely involving the Trump SoHo property. About the same time, DCReport.org reported on a Netherland investigation involving the washing of $10 billion through Dutch banks. The complaint mentions Donald Trump 16 times and asserts that a small slice of the missing billions was run through Dutch shell corporations from Rudy Giuliani’s old law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani.
Yes the bureau and company informant, gaddie.
Law Trolls
"Your analysis is crap"
"Case studies are stupid"
"Jurisprudence is degrading, and you're opining ?!?!"
Kazakstan was where McCain worked with akmetshin to topple nuzurbayev in favor of putinz candidate thanks for playing
Speaking of philology, here's one you have to read in a Mike Meyers as ‘Wayne’ voice: Collation: [FORMAL] Informal meal.
Gee gadfly, it sure looks like the walls are closing in now!
I hope you didn’t get that from the same source that you got your “Workhorse” analysis from.
The first thing a working litigator must do is ferret out the weakness of of his argument or opinion. Anticipate the opposition and respect it. Then he must entirely throw out the concept of safe spaces. Everybody is or could be his opponent at a moment's notice - including his client and his boss. Then he must be able to immediately recover from a loss or even humiliation. These are extraordinary skills to exit a modern university with.
Re: Nonapod:
Basically, from a constitutional standpoint I've always been somewhat mystified that a random district judge (not even a circuit one) can effectively determine the laws for the entire nation. What's the history of that? Does it make sense? Has it ever been challenged? Those questions are things that a constitutional lawyer might have some knowledge about.
Justice Thomas's concurrence in Trump v. Hawaii discusses this question, at least from his perspective. See here starting at page 47. There have been a couple news reports recently anticipating that Trump is going to ask the Supreme Court to opine on the practice of nationwide injunctions.
Seems like the easy riposte would be something like "facile point from you, a jackass."
If you are reading Althouse blog just to find out what Althouse thinks, you are making a big mistake. In my opinion it has the strongest comments section on the internet. Certainly more thought provoking than NYT, and WaPO -- don't make me laugh. I'd be happy for nominees of competitors. Marginal Revolution has good comments, but they are mostly on economics articles and data.
As an example of my comment just above (strength of Althouse commenters), notice that Balfegor provides us a link to a Justice Thomas concurring opinion on the question of whether or not Federal judges should be able to make decisions (for example on immigration) that set policy for the whole country. This is a very important question, and anyone who thinks Justice Thomas is a legal lightweight needs to read this: even if you don't agree with him, the opinion is trenchant. I expect it will be decided in a number of other supreme court arguments and decisions.
I dont see how an appeals court can be binding on any but their territory, that's why there are appeals.
Otto.
We are here fir the Amusement of Althouse. Not the other way around. So make with the insights wiseguy.
I only come here for the comments.
THEOLDMAN
for
Certainly law school is the proper path for some, what with that famous logic and all.
---A prominent gay rights attorney who led lawsuits legalizing same-sex marriage set himself on fire in Brooklyn on Saturday morning in a fatal plea for action on issues related to the environment.
The body of David S. Buckel, 60, was found near Prospect Park's baseball fields about 6:30 a.m. on Saturday after a passerby reported a severely burned individual, the New York Police Department said.
"I am David Buckel and I just killed myself by fire as a protest suicide," read a handwritten suicide note, according to the New York Daily News. "I apologize to you for the mess."
Another note found near his body, which was also emailed to local news outlets, said his self-immolation was a call to action, according to The New York Times.
"Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather," he wrote in an email, according to the Times. "Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves."--- https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/david-buckel-gay-rights-attorney-suicide/index.html
Emmett Flood -- counsel for Trump -- is the best of the best.
Is he Back From The Future?
I wonder what he knows already!
Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius IIRC all started out (or were forced by paternal coercion) to be lawyers.
Talk about wasted talents.
Narr
Gave law school six seconds thought, but the library school practicum was an interesting (and confirmatory) experience.
So make with the insights wiseguy.
Naaah. Free Speech. Bring it, Otto.
One semester of con law, with a late very left professor, but he never let his viewpoint cloud the facts
Also, creative word usage and a respectable vocabulary.
I have a respectable vocabulary. Our host is so much further up the scale, that I can't see her from my position.
Rusty said...
Otto.
We are here fir the Amusement of Althouse. Not the other way around. So make with the insights wiseguy.
We all come for our own reasons.
We all have our own needs and wants.
Placing your expectations on people comes at your own peril because they can choose to let you down.
At this point people should know our hostess is not here to please you or answer your questions.
If that is why your are here you will be disappointed.
Carol said...
Actually I'd love too read Ann's analysis, if she feels like writing one.
But I think RussiaGate is mostly about facts and not much law.
The facts divide the combatants.
The law is one of the fundamental contentions in this conflict. Specifically whether we are all equal under the law or not.
The globalist minions and the globalists want a system with two tiers. One for them and one for their political enemies.
We want one set of laws and an equal application of those laws. Due process and a presumption of innocence are also fundamental to our demands.
We are going to defeat the stalinists one way or another.
I only come here for the phrenology.
C'mon Ann give us some pro bono action.
What do you think she is? Queen of the Mercy Brief?
I used the “You… a blogger!” variant recently, which I thought you would appreciate.
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