Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Tracey Meares to Deliver First Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:February 17, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Speakers at Marquette

Professor Tracey Meares of Yale Law School will be here on Thursday to deliver the first annual George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law. Tracey is one of my favorite authors on criminal justice issues, and I am looking forward to hearing what she has to say on a topic that should be of particular interest in Milwaukee: “The Legitimacy of Police Among Young African-American Men.”

Tracey has coauthored a number of publications with her Yale colleague Dan Kahan, who spent a couple days here in the fall as our Boden Lecturer. In connection with Dan’s visit, I commented here on one of the seminal Meares-Kahan articles. I expect that Tracey’s talk on Thursday will touch on some of the same themes that were raised in Dan’s exchange with Mike Gousha and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm in October (webcast here).

In addition to the short-term prospect of Tracey’s visit, I am also delighted to know that the Barrock Lecture will provide many future opportunities for us to bring other criminal law luminaries to Marquette. The lectureship was established through a generous gift from the estate of Mary Barrock Bonfield to honor her parents. Her father, George, was a Marquette lawyer, Class of 1931.

Can You Bug Your Own Cellphone?

Post author:Bruce E. Boyden
Post published:February 17, 2009
Post category:Computer Law Privacy Rights

This recent post over at Consumerist caught my eye: A person loses his cell phone. Before he lost it, he set it up to blind-copy him on all emails sent from the cell phone. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that he did this (as the post recommends) as a “pretty brilliant low-tech security solution for tracking down a lost/stolen phone or laptop.” Pretty soon, someone finds the cellphone and begins using it, evidently with no attempt to locate the owner. The readers of Consumerist are collectively able to track the finder down within 55 minutes and get him to promise to return the phone, which he actually did.

Naturally, I had the same reaction to this story that anyone else would: Is that a violation of the Wiretap Act?

Dollars and Sense

Post author:Alison E. Julien
Post published:February 17, 2009
Post category:Legal Education Legal Practice Legal Research

I was scanning the Legal Writing Prof Blog this afternoon, and I noticed a post stating that, in an effort to save money, one large law firm is now requiring its attorneys to use Loislaw, rather than Lexis or Westlaw, for some of their research. Evidently, the firm has imposed a three-part policy:

All non-billable legal research involving case law, statutes, or regulations at both the state and federal level should first be performed using Loislaw.
Loislaw should also be used for billable research where appropriate, resulting in a much lower cost to the client.
If additional research is required on Lexis or Westlaw, that research must be billed to a client/matter.

This post raised two issues for me. First, it made me think about what sources I should be including in my first-year courses.