Half-a-Lawyer

When I left my last exam of the fall semester, one of my classmates commented that we were now halfway to becoming lawyers. This comment made me reflect on my experience in law school and think about what it means to be half-a-lawyer.

I describe my law school experience as tough but worthwhile. The first semester of classes were a whirlwind of inquiry, excitement, and worry. However, upon reflection, I know I have truly benefitted from learning in an environment with so many intelligent people. There is always a person to bounce ideas off of and a person to learn from. It is great to be challenged as it encourages me to strive to do my best work.

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The Problem with a Grand Bargain on the Senkaku Islands

Lately there have been a variety of proposals for cooperative solutions to the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Senkaku Islands, but these proposals seem to suffer from a common problem in that they misapply international law in ways that uniformly disfavor Japan. Today I published a short article with The National Interest to explain this point; it’s available here.

 

 

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A Social Trust Theory of Criminal Law, Part III

The first two posts in this series are here and here.  In this concluding post, I will share some thoughts regarding the various mechanisms by which criminal law potentially enhances social trust.

Deterrence: The criminal law’s deterrent threats help to make people feel more secure.  It seems to be a matter of widely shared intuition, and not without basis, that the possibility of punishment will cause many individuals to think twice before harming or endangering others.  The difficulty with deterrence is this: just because the threat of some punishment tends to reduce the frequency of undesirable conduct or outcomes does not mean that the threat of more punishment will achieve further gains.  

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