Temple Law

Apr 3, 2013 ∞

Why I Chose Temple Law

I originally posted this to one of my old blogs, The Rotten Word, in April 2009. I wanted to publish it here as well because I plan to write a follow-up soon, having graduated in January of this year. Many thanks to Philadelphia litigator Max Kennerly for his advice and kind words about this post when it first ran. Also, this post by my Temple law classmate and friend Kishwer Vikaas Barrica was humbling, so thanks to her too!

In the Beginning…

It’s not a choice easily made. First of all, just the decision to take the LSAT is a journey in itself. It requires research, asking the right questions of the right people, preparing for failure and, perhaps most importantly, preparing for success. It’s the success that can be most confusing. After all, if you do poorly on the test the first time, you resolve that you probably didn’t take it seriously enough, or that it was just a bad day. There’s a “choose your own adventure” feel to it. The first time I took the LSAT, my score was embarrassing. The only saving grace was that the average friend and family member has never had any reason to learn the how the test is scored, so they don’t know how poorly I did.

I could have gotten off the train right there. I almost did. I almost decided that maybe it isn’t meant to be. But then I thought about it, and remembered that I don’t think anything is meant to be. That’s the great liberating foundation of my personal moral value system: freedom at the cost of accountability. Things happen to me because (a) I have made a decision that caused them or (b) someone else has made a decision that caused them. Thus, I can decide that I’m not cut out for lawyering, or I can decide that I am, and then act.

So I took it again. And I did better. Much better. Suffice it to say that I am no longer embarrassed, even by my first score, because my second vindicated me. I studied harder, focused more deliberately, and made executive decisions about which questions I could answer well and which ones I could not.

But getting a score you can respect yourself for is only the beginning.

Decisions, Decisions

Will you devote all of your time to your studies, subsidizing your living expenses as well as the cost of your education? Or will you retain your current employment, making the (in my opinion) far more daunting commitment to maintain your financial standing and continue to accrue work experience while you submit to the rigor of a legal education?

On the one hand, going to school full time looks like the most sensible decision. Everything you have heard about law school is true: it’s hard. It’s not an afterthought, or a hobby. It’s at least as mentally stressful as your job, and probably more. Like any graduate school, every hour of class time requires at least an hour outside the classroom. So, the ability to go to class all day and devote your evenings to study and work is a precious resource.

On the other hand, the economy is (still) bad, and even if previously borrowed loans are deferred while you are in graduate school, there are bills and rent to be paid, not to mention food and (dare I say) the occasional drink. Borrowing money for these expenditures is inadvisable at best. Working through law school is difficult, but, since the evening division is a part-time program, credit requirements are flexible: you must complete a certain amount, but you have summer sessions during which you can earn credit, as well. You can keep earning money, and producing promotable deliverables. But you’ll be spending a few hours a night, a few nights a week, in a classroom. And that’s before you even start your homework. It may be a part-time education, but it’s a second full-time job.

So why did I choose Temple Law?

Well, even taking into account the (generous) aid package Drexel offered me, I would have had to borrow more money to cover living expenses than I’ll likely need to borrow to go to Temple. Also, my 401(k) account makes me smile, and cutting it off for a few years would mean less smiles. Finally, I’ve got a good thing going at my current job: good work, good people, good benefits. These are not things to be taken lightly in today’s job market. For every lawyer making $80k right out of school, there are three more at the unemployment office. And we’re talking partners here. People with experience.

I made the commitment to work and go to school at the same time. I want to be confident about it, even arrogant. But the truth is that it’s terrifying. After all, I might not be able to do it. Then what? I don’t know. But I know that it’s what I want, and people do it every day. People with more stressful jobs, people with children. There are really no excuses.

Classes are technically from 6pm to 10pm. I’m going to be in danger of succumbing to my burgeoning caffeine addiction. I’m going to be in danger of burning out. I’m going to be in danger of driving the girlfriend (more) insane (than usual).

But maybe I’ll quit caffeine and start meditating. Or running. Maybe I’ll apply my work ethic to my studies, and develop a schedule that includes class time, study time, and mental stability time. Maybe I’ll do well.

Closing Argument

This absurdly long post has served primarily as a “thinking out loud” session for me, in which I’ve tried to express what has been going on in my head as I near the next and most important part of my journey: actually going to law school. But this is the tip of the iceberg. This stuff takes me away mid-conversation at work, puts blank stares on my face while Meg’s talking to me, and keeps me wide awake in bed. It worries me, aggravates me, scares me. This is the stuff I always thought adults had to deal with, the stuff that I got to watch other people figure out while I wrote stories or played my guitar.

Now I’m one of those people. I have a job, investments, credit cards, an actual (and good) credit score. I don’t think I could afford to work a side job and go to school. So it might take me longer to finish, while I take fewer classes. But my sense of financial security is young and, with the exception of some indinspensable help (for which I’ll always be grateful), largely self-wrought. Risking it doesn’t seem right. So wish me luck.

I’m going to need it.

Apr 1, 2013 ∞

2nd Circuit: Aereo streaming of individual over-the-air TV feeds via internet doesn't violate copyright law

2nd Circuit: Aereo streaming of individual over-the-air TV feeds via internet doesn’t violate copyright law

The Second Circuit has held in WNET v Aereo (PDF) that sending a unique stream of over-the-air TV signal to customers via the internet isn’t a copyright violation.

Aereo assign each of its subscribers their own personal antenna and stream to comply with a previous Second Circuit decision. In other words, Aereo could provide its service with one antenna, but it needs to use one for every subscriber. The use of one antenna for all subscribers, as the Second Circuit held in its 2008 Cablevision opinion, would likely constitute an unlawful public performance.

Judge Chin says in his dissent that he isn’t pleased by this technique:

Aereo’s “technology platform” is, however, a sham. The system employs thousands of individual dime-sized antennas, but there is no technologically sound reason to use a multitude of tiny individual antennas rather than one central antenna; indeed, the system is a Rube Goldberg-like contrivance, over-engineered in an attempt to avoid the reach of the Copyright Act and to take advantage of a perceived loophole in the law.

Aereo’s technology isn’t an attempt to avoid the reach of the Act. It’s an attempt to comply with the Second Circuit’s own characterization of the Act’s meaning and purpose. The absurdity of the situation arises not from Aereo’s attempt at a “sham,” but from the outdated Copyright Act itself.

A quick glance at the rest of Judge Chen’s dissent suggests he may make some reasonable points distinguishing Aereo from the DVR service at issue in Cablevision, so I’ll withhold my own final thoughts on this case until I’ve read the Aereo opinion through.

But copyright law needs fixing. It was written during a time when the cost of copying was non-trivial, and copies were typically finite and controlled centrally by the rightsholder. There is no longer any non-trivial cost to copying. Whether between servers or from a server to your computer, the internet is nothing more or less than a giant copy-making machine. This doesn’t mean we need to weaken copyright law (although shorter terms would be more in line with copyright’s Constitutional imperative), but we do need to adapt it to the modern world.

Professor David Post, whose copyright class I took at Temple Law, signed an amicus curiae brief in this case late last year—here’s my post about it.

Oct 19, 2012 ∞

Nebraska court strikes down restrictions on internet use for sex offenders on free speech grounds

Professor David Post of Temple Law served as an expert for the plaintiffs — yes, sex offenders — in this case. His focus, as he points out in his Volokh Conspiracy post, was on the overbroad nature of the statute barring internet use by sex offenders, which he believes, and the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska agreed, was beyond what the First Amendment allows.

Your first thought might be “who cares about a sex offender’s free speech rights?”

The answer, of course, is that the Constitution cares, particularly after they have served prison time and otherwise complied with constitutionally sound penalties for their crimes.

The core of the court’s holding lies in the following passage:

The ban not only restricts the exchange of text between adults; it also restricts the exchange of oral and video communication between adults. Moreover, the ban potentially restricts the targeted offenders from communicating with hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of adults and their companies despite the fact that the communication has nothing whatsoever to do with minors.¹

This looks to me like a well-meaning statute, meant to keep sex offenders away from kids online, that was very poorly drafted. You could achieve the desired goal using far narrower provisions. I hope someone proposes a corrected statute to that effect.

The decision, filed on October 17, is not yet “reported,” but it can be accessed by those with Westlaw access using the cite Doe v. Nebraska, 8:09CV456, 2012 WL 4923131 (D. Neb. 2012), and Professor Post also uploaded a PDF here. ↩

Oct 10, 2012 ∞

US Is Bleeding High-Skilled Immigrants

Gregory Ferenstein, writing at TechCrunch about Vivek Wadhwa’s latest research:

Nearly a quarter (24.3 percent) of engineering and technology companies had at least one foreign-born founder; in Silicon Valley, it’s nearly half (43.9 percent). Nationwide, they’ve helped employ more than half a million workers (560,000) who contributed $63 billion in sales just in 2012.

Those numbers demand superlatives: they’re staggering. The common assumption is that immigrants do jobs US citizens don’t want to do. This research would seem to turn those assumptions upside-down: immigrants often do jobs for which US policy, educational institutions, and deeply-ingrained social strictures simply leave our young people unprepared.

My Citizenship and Immigration class meets twice weekly, on Monday and Wednesday evenings. It really is a fascinating class, and offers a broadened perspective on a hot political issue this election season.

One thing I’ve learned from Professor Peter Spiro (of Opinio Juris and much scholarship), and from research like Mr. Wadhwa’s, is that immigration policy is not as amenable to applause-worthy one-liners as political candidates would prefer it to be.

The angle on Mr. Wadhwa’s recent research, and Mr. Ferenstein’s TechCrunch post, is that immigrant participation in US entrepreneurialism may have peaked already. I wonder, not cynically or rhetorically, but genuinely wonder, whether the US will be able to replace them with adequately-inspired and prepared citizens of its own, and whether the nation wouldn’t benefit from incentivizing continued and increased opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike.

I don’t know what that policy direction should look like, but I think it’s worth thinking, and most importantly, talking about.

Sep 21, 2012 ∞

Temple Law Profs Feed

I used Yahoo Pipes to make a feed that unites all posts by Temple profs writing at their various law blogs. The feed still needs some work, specifically to ensure that the author name, and preferably the name of the blog at which they’re writing, is published in every entry. But overall I’m very happy with it.

I didn’t get permission from them or from their respective blogs, but since the stuff is posted publicly, all the content in my united feed is available freely in each separate feed, and all the entries in my united feed link directly out to the source posts, I don’t see why anyone would object.

But, of course, if anyone does object, I’ll remove them from the feed immediately. In fact, at any point in time, and without warning, I may need to delete the feed altogether, so consider yourselves warned.

For now, though, it’s a convenient way to follow what interests Temple Law professors on a day-to-day basis, particularly with regard to current events in their respective areas of expertise.

So, here’s the feed, and here’s the Yahoo Pipes URL so you can see how I did it.

Sep 19, 2012 ∞

David Hoffman on quotation approval

Two days ago, I mentioned a piece by David Carr on quotation approval. This morning, I found that Professor David Hoffman, whose corporate law class I took at Temple Law, had posted his own thoughts at Concurring Opinions.

Specifically, this part stuck out to me:

There’s a simple reason that most sources (including me) ask for quote approval: we don’t trust reporters to avoid making a hash out of our comments, pulling quotes selectively to fit a pre-existing narrative, and consequently turning the source into the reporter’s sock puppet.

Professor Hoffman’s reaction illustrates an important distinction that we need to make in thinking about the integrity of quote approval. I think that experts have a right to approve not only their quotes, but the context in which those quotes will appear.

After all, a journalist’s use of an expert extends beyond the quote, and can be honest or manipulative depending on the integrity of the journalist in question. The press seeks quotes from experts like Professor Hoffman, and I believe their seeking creates an obligation to accurately report not only the words but the context.

However, David Carr’s thesis on the problem with quote approval holds true when those approvals are coming from public relations departments or firms, campaigns, or others who actively seek press coverage. The difference is between controlling the narrative (in the case of PR) and ensuring accurate context (in the case of experts).

Aug 18, 2012 ∞

Blog Post Cited in a Ninth Circuit Opinion

Mr. Eugene Volokh congratulates my former copyright law professor David Post of Temple Law on having a blog post of his cited in a 9th Circuit opinion (PDF).