Pickering Free Speech Rights and Cyberbullying by Public Employees

Cyberbully 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 moniker “Concerned Michigan Alumnus,” Shirvell launched his blog in late April.

“Welcome to ‘Chris Armstrong Watch,'” Shirvell wrote in his inaugural blog post.  

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Oprah v. Judge Judy

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 television show is now “Judge Judy.”

The staying power and influence of “Judge Judy” are noteworthy, especially for those of us in the law.  The show premiered in 1996, and Judy’s aggressive pontificating has inspired literally a dozen copy-cat shows.  Large numbers of Americans love to watch the good Judge and her ilk, and in Milwaukee it is literally possible to watch daytime judge shows continuously from breakfast to dinner.  Dasha Slater, writing in “Legal Affairs,” has dubbed the most avid viewers of these shows not “couch potatoes” but rather “court potatoes.”

Is there cause for concern?  On the one hand “Judge Judy” and the other daytime judge shows are only fleeting entertainment, but on the other hand they project and endorse a particular variety of courtroom justice.  It is meted out without the help of counsel and refined procedural rules by authoritarian figures prone to intense and stinging moral condemnation.  Maybe we’d be better off if people turned back to “Oprah.”

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Foreclosure Mediation Take 2?

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 applicable law. Mediation—voluntary as in our program or mandatory as in Nevada—occurs in the shadow of HAMP and other regulations and financial realities governing the ability of the parties to make loan modifications.

Second, the article highlights some of the issues with mandatory mediation where, it appears, there are a whole bunch of lenders showing up with little interest, or even ability, to modify the mortgages.  

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