- Justice Stevens defends his Kelo opinion while simultaneously criticizing Justice O’Connor for alleged inconsistencies in her dissenting opinion.
- If you play video games on your computer, it’s likely that your personal information, and maybe your credit card, were compromised in the recent Steam hacking. Lifehacker has some tips on what you should do if you have a Steam account.
- Gizmodo makes some persuasive arguments about why you should be very concerned about the HR 3035 bill, which would effectively legalize most robocaller services.
- While I don’t typically report on legal gossip, apropos of Veteran’s Day, Above the Law today published what can only be labeled a diatribe written by Professor Michael Avery of Suffolk Law School. In the email, he vehemently objects to students soliciting the staff for donations that would go into care packages for deployed American soldiers. Incidentally, this man was largely responsible for my decision to cross Suffolk Law off my list of potential law schools.
- Judge orders divorcing couple to exchange dating website and Facebook login credentials, in violation of Terms of Service. I guess we finally have definitive proof that absolutely no one reads click-wrap agreements.
You can find all of these links, as well as previous Roundups, on our Delicious page.
[Edit 11.12.11: Factual correction thanks to Louis Grube]
Incoming search terms:
- michael avery suffolk law
- suffolk law michael avery
- michael avery suffolk
- avery suffolk
- suffolk law school mock class
- suffolk law mock class
- suffol law email
- professor michael avery suffolk law school
- professor michael avery
- most evil
Related posts:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
As a student of Suffolk Law and of Michael Avery (best Evidence professor in existence) I object to the comments made on this blog about my school.
First, there are factual issues with both posts. The law staff was not soliciting students for donations. The students were soliciting the staff for donations. Last week, a small group of students, including myself, organized around the problem that soldiers go to war without all of the necessities fairly often. A student in my section last year was called up from the reserves right in the middle of 1L. Two other students have close family and friends that had been deployed as well. We are attempting to brighten the holiday seasons of people we are close with by collecting stuff they don’t have and sending it to them. As much as Professor Avery might have egg on his face right now, the reason he does is that he is going up against some very organized and generous members of the student community, not because he was dissenting from a staff initiative. I believe he is correct in stating that we were making a political statement about sending troops abroad. Insofar as we are attempting to assist our friends that the US government has sent to war without some things they should probably have, we are supporting the deployment of troops. We also have a GIANT American Flag hanging in our gorgeous great hall that has been there since September 11th. I have to come to Avery’s defense to the extent that he is correct about the statement we as a school are still making. If Professor Avery had argued that this was a dated and no longer relevant expression of our patriotism, it would have been less of a problem I hope.
Second, I think it is a little hasty to cross Suffolk off the list of good law schools. The fact is that Professor Avery is going to have to justify his statements in front of the students. He will be engaged by the rest of the law faculty to do the same. Suffolk is the kind of place where dissenting voices are given respect, not dismissed as silly or out of touch. While he might have made a politically difficult statement to support, he did it at a great school that trains great lawyers. Make no mistake, Michael Avery has been integral to this achievement.
Professor Avery’s comments are no reason to dismiss a school with a rock star faculty that just came out in National Jurist as a school that produces more partners in the very competitive legal market of Boston than most of the Top 14 do, producing only fewer than Harvard, BC, and BU. I think I should also mention that our clinical programs and Legal Practice Skills program are ranked nationally in the top 30, we have the best national trial team on the east coast, and we are number 33 in the nation for producing lawyers that end up on the list of super lawyers. Suffolk claims all of that AND an engaged and generous student body that makes time to collect supplies for troops abroad. Most importantly, our faculty and student body are not afraid to have a public discussion about why we are doing this rather than doing it mechanically like a bunch of patriotic robots. Sounds like a great place to attend law school, even if we have one professor that made a silly comment.
Josh, I would love to do an interview with Professor Avery if you and he are interested.
@Louis Grube, I’ll edit the factual recitation since you’re a better source than ATL, but I don’t necessarily think that it changes my opinion of the matter. There are some things you just don’t do, and laying a political diatribe onto the student body of a law school about people soliciting goods for overseas troops is one of those things. It is literally the definition of a faux pas.
As to your second point, I never said I crossed Suffolk off my list of good schools. I said I crossed it off the list of schools that I was considering attending. Point in fact, I think Suffolk is a great school, and I’ve been pretty vocal about my regret at not accepting a full ride there. At the same time, Prof. Avery showing up to the mock class ~15 minutes late wasn’t a welcome start for me. We were told these things happen because many of the faculty are practitioners. Maybe that would have been a selling point to some, but not for me. The mock class was replete with obnoxious gunners, which I chalked up to 0Ls trying to get noticed. Then I witnessed an actual class with just as much gunnery.
So a good school? Sure. I know all about the stats — they probably had three practicing attorneys call me before I made my decision. But it wasn’t for me.