The Criminology of “Oliver Twist”

oliverLet’s face it.  The protagonist of “Oliver Twist” just isn’t a very interesting character.  Things start out promisingly enough with his famous request, “Please, sir, I want some more.”  And who can resist applauding when he gives the boorish Noah Claypole a well-deserved thrashing?  But we’re then forced to endure nearly 400 pages of Oliver as an insufferable milquetoast, passively cast here and there to suit the needs of Dickens’ laughably improbable plot, weeping copiously on cue to amplify the author’s sentimental excesses.

No, Oliver himself gives us no good reason to continue to read past page 50.  It’s the villains who really carry the show.  Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, of course, supply some darkly memorable comic relief, and they are villains of a sort.  Venal and hypocritical public servants, we might think of them as the forebears of some of today’s white-collar criminals.  (Mr. Bumble is also the source of a perennially favorite statement about the law; upon being informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction,” Bumble sputters helplessly, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass–a idiot.” (402))

But the real scene-stealers are the criminals of a more conventional sort.  Is there any doubt that Fagin is the most memorable and richly realized character in the book, with the murderous Bill Sikes not far behind?  

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Paul Dacier (L ’83) Assumes Presidency of the Boston Bar

Paul Dacier
Paul Dacier (Boston Globe)

An important part of professionalism is, well, participating in the profession. The Law School has a rich record of alumni and faculty involvement in most walks of the profession, including leadership positions in local and state bar associations. Many alumni have also been recognized for their outstanding work as lawyers.

Paul Dacier (Arts ’80; L ’83) is part of this distinguished cohort. In 2013 Paul has garnered well-deserved recognition for his legal work on behalf of EMC Corp., while also serving as the President of the Boston Bar Association (BBA) for 2013-14. Indeed, the Boston Globe reports that Paul is the first general counsel to assume the BBA’s presidency in its over 250 year history.

Paul is general counsel for EMC, a $20 billion, publicly traded corporation with over 60,000 employees and a legal department of over 100 lawyers. EMC is one of the nation’s leading corporations specializing in information storage (“the cloud”) and related technology. Under Paul’s direction, the legal department has successfully defended EMC’s position in high-visibility patent litigation and developed innovative approaches to mergers and acquisitions. The National Law Journal recently named EMC’s legal department as the Boston Legal Department of the year (August 2013).

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Milwaukee Area Divide in Voting Is Unusually Deep, Gilbert and Franklin Say

 

It isn’t just that we disagree whether we prefer pepperoni or anchovies on our pizza. We disagree about what pepperoni and anchovies are. And we disagree in increasingly strong ways.

That’s one way that Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy at Marquette University Law School, described the sharply partisan atmosphere of American politics. He spoke Thursday in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall in the first session of the 2013-14 season of “On the Issues with Mike Gousha.”

Franklin and Craig Gilbert, Washington bureau chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, presented some of the early findings of research the two are conducting on polarization in politics, especially in the Milwaukee area and Wisconsin. Gilbert is on a six-month leave from the newspaper to take part in the project, supported by the Law School’s Sheldon B. Lubar Fund for Public Policy research.

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