Sep

30

Burglary, Violence, and the Armed Career Criminal Act

Posted by: | September 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has issued a new report on victimization during household burglary, which might have important implications for the application of the Armed Career Criminal Act.  First, here are the report’s highlights on the burglary-violence connection: A household member is present in about one-quarter of residential burlgaries. A household member is violently [...]

Sep

30

Pickering Free Speech Rights and Cyberbullying by Public Employees

Posted by: | September 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I can’t make this stuff up.  From CNN and Anderson Cooper (with video): For nearly six months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, has waged an Internet campaign against college student Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Using the online [...]

Sep

29

Oprah v. Judge Judy

Posted by: | September 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I was intrigued by last week’s rankings of the most popular daytime television shows in America.  For the first time in over a decade, “Oprah” had fallen from the top.  Perhaps the appeal of the long-time queen of daytime television is in decline.  What replaced Oprah’s smarmy, ingratiating patter?  My goodness, the most popular daytime [...]

Sep

29

Foreclosure Mediation Take 2?

Posted by: | September 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I am grateful to Paul Kirgis (in this post) for restarting the discussion on foreclosure mediation—it is useful to keep revisiting what is working and what is not. The New York Times article he cites is interesting in a number of ways. First, as Paul notes, it confuses the process of mediation with the underlying [...]

Sep

28

Can You Be Forced to Turn Over Your Social Network Passwords in a Civil Case?

Posted by: | September 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

Let’s say you’re the plaintiff in a civil case against a neighbor, an employer, or a company you’ve done business with. One of the many pains of litigation is the discovery process–the process whereby each side collects information that it believes will help it win the case. Discovery can come in many forms, such as [...]

Sep

28

Ralph Huiras, Hail and Farewell

Posted by: | September 28, 2010 | 2 Comments

The area on the second floor of Eckstein Hall, running west to east from the elevators to the dean’s office, is the Huiras Lounge. It honors the extraordinary support that Ralph J. Huiras, L’41, gave to the building project — indeed, even though he made substantial gifts within the past decade to improve Sensenbrenner Hall, [...]

Sep

27

Craigslist “Adult Services” Proponent Fired by School District

Posted by: | September 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Interesting education and employment law story in the New York Times brought to my attention by one of my employment law students: A teacher at a Bronx elementary school has been reassigned after writing on a Web site about her past as a sex worker. In a short online article in The Huffington Post on [...]

Sep

27

District Court Keeps Out Social Framework Evidence in Employment Discrimination Case

Posted by: | September 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Thanks to Colin Miller over at the Evidence Prof Blog who has an interesting post up today at Feminist Law Professors about an evidence issue near and dear to my heart in a recent employment gender discrimination class action, E.E.O.C. v. Bloomberg L.P., 2010 WL 3466370 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (can’t find a non-pay version, sorry). The [...]

Sep

26

The Singing Mayor from Marquette Law School

Posted by: | September 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Although his tenure as mayor was quite brief, Carl Frederick Zeidler (1908-1942) was one of the most colorful men ever to hold office as mayor of Milwaukee.  He was also the most important Wisconsin public official to be killed in World War II. Zeidler was born on January 4, 1908, in Milwaukee.  His father, Michael [...]

Sep

24

New Criminal Law Blog

Posted by: | September 24, 2010 | 2 Comments

I’ve recently launched Life Sentences Blog (http://www.lifesentencesblog.com/), in which I intend to track new legal developments and research relating to long prison sentences.  Here’s how I explain my interests in the “About” page: I am using this blog as a way to organize new information and ideas about sentencing and related topics, and to do [...]

Sep

23

A Modest Proposal for Ending Gridlock in Washington

Posted by: | September 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I have a proposal to vastly improve politics in Washington, and it should have bipartisan appeal—or, at least, it should appeal to one party this year and to the other party 2 or 4 years from now. Given the new practical reality that it takes 60 votes to get anything done in Washington, and that [...]

Sep

23

Writing Is The Right Way To Go

Posted by: | September 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Professor Fallone left a thoughtful comment on my last post, pointing out that Marquette goes farther in emphasizing practical lawyering skills than many of its peer institutions. I agree with him, and from my experience, one of the most important practical “lawyering skills” that is emphasized here at Marquette is legal writing and research. I [...]

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