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Class Notes for Wednesday, 16 January 2008 |
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< | I will clean up this raw draft today. -andrew |
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> | I decided to take a transcript since I couldn't predict what other people would find important. -andrew |
| | -- EbenMoglen - 16 Jan 2008 |
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< | 1. Listen. Something law school does not teach you to do. Something your career requires you to do, and you will have to do in this class. |
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> | LESSON ONE: LISTEN. Something law school does not teach you to do. Something your career requires you to do, and you will have to do in this class. |
| | [I didn't catch the next stuff] |
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< | Will anyone please volunteer to takes notes? (Andrew raises his hand.) Andrew. |
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> | Every day someone should volunteer to take notes, so you learn to share. Will anyone please volunteer to takes notes today? |
| | General admin RE course. |
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< | Comment on the class notes page. We will all go back and look at the comments; some of us will mark them up. |
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> | I made a topic page, Eben Moglen intro: less than a hundred words on what I wanted from being a lawyer. In the course of the next 24-36 hours, write 100 word: [yourself]Intro, 100 words or less, about what you wanted out of being a lawyer. So that we can begin to understand about who we are, why we care, as we talk about what creative legal ideas are.
Participate on the wiki. Comment on the class notes page. We will all go back and look at the comments; some of us will mark them up. |
| | No exams: Exams are stupid, they don't test anything useful, as you've now found out. |
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> | FORMALLY you owe 3 written exercises not more than 1000 words each.
The first two essays will be public, though the wiki structure has access control if you want the classmates not to read. But in general it's better for all to read what others write. These essays are not practically different from your other contributions.
Owing to foolish rule, fifty percent of the grade, must be based upon some anonymous activity. Though it doesn't really remain anonymous since it has to be correlated with the attributed part. Odd, that I put a bag on your head, then take the bag off and correlate with the rest of the grade. But at the end of the semester we'll set up the bizarre halfblind mechanism and you'll write your third essay anonymously. And then I'll put that alongside your other two essays and your other contributions to the wiki, and that constitute your grade as a whole.
It's about developing conversations. The goal is to treat all your contributions as communal. Everything you do will be signed in the wiki, and I can evaluate the quality of your contributions, including to what degree they interacted with others students' contributions.
I'll give you the highest grade I can possibly give you. Watch out how meaningless your grades are. The 1L grades are the most meaningless of all. I've taught second semester courses: 1L property, this lots. And so I have seen lots of first semester transcripts. They all bear a very deceptive mark: First semester transcripts plus or minus a half a grade, are almost always the same thing in every course. And ahe same thing is measured: the speed of language uptake. What you just went through in the first semester is language training by immersion: immersion IN LAW TALK. Semantically similar to English, but grossly culturally distorted.
The speed at which you acquire law talk as a 1L is irrelevant. It doesn't predict anything useful. Whether you learn it this year or next year, you'll know it seventy years from now. Whether you got lawtalk in 2007 and only acquired it in 2008 is not going to be relevant to anything you say in court. All over nothing, over an illusion, over a simple alphabet with a diacritical mark, placed there by what you will see as an irrational process.
Note how the world is ruled by words, and if you are to be a erson whose specialty is to be done using them, you should be able to cultivate some critical distance form them or you'll be cooked But cultivating critical distance from the grading system is something the school won't teach you. Grades are designed to make you feel better at someone else's expense. When I came here in the 70s, there was a thriving industry to associate names with the social security numbers posted on the wall. This is a wall made of invisible grades, yet I have watched heads beating themselves bloody against it year after year. Like William Blake, Everyewhere I go I hear the sound of mind-forged manacles clanking.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
| | We should make law school more like business school: foster cooperation and teach 21st century technology.
Another gripe about law school is that it refuses to learn, so it doesn't stop doing things that don't work. Teachers don't change it because they're lazy, students don't change it because they're frightened. |
| | But I wouldn't take those odds with my life. Even leaving aside the question of whether you want to get anything done in the world. Which, when you were applying to law school, most of you told us you did. |
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< | For thousands of years, in English-speaking law, when you finished being trained to be a lawyer you got a law license: a unilateral license to do something otherwise not permitted. The license permits seeking and soliciting clients -- to be a person who says, I think you need help, and I can help you; I think you have goals that need furthering and I can help you further those goals. As a lawyer, I’m a specialist at making something happen in society using words.
That will be my defintion in this room of what lawyering is.
There are of course other ways of making things happen, apparently more effective in the short run: bullets money.
The premise of what we do is that using words, rather, makes it possible, not certain, to achieve a state we call justice; which it is our postulate that money and bullets can’t do.
The license is, A RIGHT TO TRY THAT OUT.
Yet I have watched as thousands of people have taken the license to a law firm, which is a pawn shop for licenses; where they have immediately pawned the license in return for a job.
So the law firm takes the license, tells you which side you’re on, what to do, and tells you you’re not allowed to rprestent anybody except of the pawnshops choosing.
Because the pawn shop’s job is to farm out your labor and maximize the number of hours that you work which will maximize the income which you pawned for
The argument in this course will be that pawning a license is a bad idea.
I spend a lot of time figuring out how to free music. Musicains are the people who benefit if it is done right. But I rew up at a time when musicians pawned their instruments on fifth avenue etween gigs
The problem with the lawyer who pawns her license, she never gets it back.
Even if the pawn shop lets her go, she never gets it back.
They’ve gotten used to working as a pawn. Too scary to work with the license. Because the pawn shop trained them to be horses in harness, and so they go and find another owner, and they hope it’s a good one. |
>
> | For thousands of years, in English-speaking law, when you finished being trained to be a lawyer you got a law license: a license to do something otherwise not permitted -- seeking and soliciting clients -- to be a person who says, I think you need help, and I can help you; I think you have goals that need furthering and I can help you further those goals. |
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<
< | So the second part of the course is to set, in the beginning of law school,
To put some questions there for you as a backstop.
Think of them as questions t keep in mind when at cocktail parties held by pawn shops. |
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> | You become a specialist at making something happen in society using words.
That will be my definition in this room of what lawyering is. |
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< | When the weather gets warm there will be concern |
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> | There are of course other ways of making things happen, apparently more effective in the short run: bullets, money. The lawyer's premise is that using words, rather, is more likely to achieve the state we call justice. The license is A RIGHT TO TRY THAT OUT. |
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>
> | Yet I have watched thousands of people take that license to a law firm, which is a pawn shop for licenses; and immediately pawned the license in return for a job. The law firm takes the license, tells you which side you're on, what to do, and that you're not allowed to represent anybody except of the pawnshop's choosing. Because the pawn shop's job is to farm out your labor and maximize the number of hours that you work. |
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<
< | Those two themes in tandem: looking at tings written about law. But never to read a case or statute or regulation in this room: I’m not interested in the official materials of the law for these purposes.
There are llos of peopole who have to say
My question is,
How do we think about the law when we look outside thet little box – the what do we think about when we think about law AS OURSELVES, as subjects of our lives, rather than as peolple doing __ for someone else.
Hypothesis that if we’re to live
My general purpose is to present a scheme, a skeleton, for understanding the organization of knowledge about the law: an alternative to the structure that presents it largely by organizing doctreine.
This is called legal realism. But I want to afford some sense of how legal realism might work for you. How it might work in your own encounter with the law.
The places where all of this goes on is in the wiki.
Your formal responsibility, work product: 3 written exercises not more than 1000 worsd each.
Owing toa oolish rule, fifty percent of the grade, must be based upon some activity that was anonymous in character. Though ti doesn’t really remain anymous since it has to be correlated with the other part.
Odd that I put a bag on your head, then take the bag off and correlate wit hthe rest of the grade.
So the first two essays will be public, though the wiki structure has acess control if you want the classmates not to read.
But in general it’s better for each to read wwhat others write. They’re not dfferent from other contributions, like in class.
At the end of the semster we’ll set up the bizarre halfblind mechanism and you’ll write your third essay anonymously. And then I’ll take and put that along with your other two essays and your other contributions to the wiki, and that will be part of your grade as a whole.
The goal is to treat all your contributions as communal. Everyting you do will be signed and there in the wiki, and I can evaluate the quality of your contributions, including to what degree they interacted with others’ contributsion.
It’s about defveloping conservations.
I made a topic page, Eban Moglen intro: less than a hundred years what I wanted about be ing a lwyer.
In the course of the next 24-36 hours, write 100 word:
yourself intro, 100 words or less, about what you wanted out of being a lawyer.
So that we can begin to understand about who we are, why we care, so we can use it as we talk about what creative lagl ideas are.
If you don’t make an intro after a day or two I’ll get the wiki to rely to you.
I’ll give you the highet grade I can possibly give you.
Watch how meaningless what’s asaid about the grades.
The 1l grades are the most meaningless of all
I’ve taught second semester courses – property, this lots.
And therefore I have seen lots of first semetster transcripts
They all bear a very deceptive mark.
First semeter transcripts plus or minus a half a grade, are almost always the same thing in every course.
And this
The same thing is measured.
Namely speed of language uptake.
What you just went through in the first semester is language training by immersitoin – IN LAW TALK.
Semantaically simlar but grossly culturally distorted by being art of a
The speed at which you acquire You can measure law-talk absorption but it’s utterly worthless as a measurement because it doesn’t predict anything useful for seventy years. Whether you got lawtoalk in x 2007 and only acquired it in 2008 is not going to be releveant to anything you say
All ofver nothing, over an illusion – over a similpe alphabet with a diacritical mark, place d there by what you will see as an irrtional process
Note how the world is ruled by words, and if you are to be a erson whose specialty is to be done using them, you should be able to
Cultivate some critical distance form them or you’ll be cooked |
>
> | The argument in this course will be that pawning a license is a bad idea. |
| | |
|
<
< | But cultivating critical distance from the grading system is something the school won’t tach you |
>
> | I spend a lot of time figuring out how to free music. Musicians are the people who benefit if it is done right. I grew up at a time when musicians pawned their instruments on fifth avenue between gigs and got a day job. If they had another gig soon enough the instrument would still be there for them to buy back. |
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>
> | The problem with the lawyer who pawns her license is, she never gets it back. Even if the pawn shop lets her go, she never gets it back. She's gotten used to working as a pawn. Now it's scary to use the license. The pawn shop trained her to be a horse in harness, and so she goes and finds another owner, and hope it pays well. |
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<
< | It’s designed to make you feel better at someone els’es expense |
>
> | So the second part of the course is to offer you, in the beginning of law school, some questions as a backstop. Keep these in mind when you're at the cocktail parties held by pawn shops.
[pregnant pause]
We'll lok at those two themes in tandem: we'll look at things written about law, but we'll never read a case or statute or regulation in this room: I'm not interested in the official materials of the law for these purposes. There are lots of other people who have things to say about that. |
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<
< | Wehen I came here in the 70s, there was a thriving industry to |
>
> | My question is, how do we think about the law when we look outside that little box? What do we think about when we think about law AS OURSELVES, as subjects of our lives, rather than as someone else's objects? |
| | |
|
<
< | This is a wall made of invisible grades, yet I have watched heads being blodied against it
Everyewhere I go the sound of mind-forged manacles clanking.
Being a lawyer is not simply |
>
> | My general purpose is to present a scheme, a skeleton, for understanding the organization of knowledge about the law: an alternative to the structure that presents it largely by organizing doctrine. This is called legal realism. But I want to afford some sense of how legal realism might work for you. How it might work in your own encounter with the law. |
| | This is why I emphasized what you
You can figure it out by listening in between our sentences. |