I was inspired to write this post following Josh Fenton‘s recent appearance on TWiL. Denise Howell asked Mr. Fenton whether he believed that existing laws should be interpreted to encompass the internet and applied accordingly, or whether new laws should be drafted and previous laws updated in lieu of the omnipresence of the internet. The relevant transcript from the podcast follows:

Denise Howell: Josh, you had a piece on your JetLawyer site that I read that was basically urging . . . we’ve talked about cyberspace exceptionalism before on the show — a term that Eric Goldman uses quite a bit, and your piece on your site was basically arguing against that. That you should treat property in the real world and property when it takes the form of bits the same way. I’m wondering if you feel like there’s a parallel here as we’re talking about communications. Should you treat them differently when they’re in the form of bits?

Josh Fenton: I don’t think so. I think that the easiest way to deal with the questions that arise in the digital age is to make the connection to the analog concepts that existed before the internet came along. And to that extent, things like piracy, and conventional larceny, they are comparable.

I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Fenton here because I think that his position that old laws should be interpreted to encompass the internet is perfectly reasonable. In fact, such a position was my gut reaction when posed this same question by Professor H. Brian Holland during his cyberlaw course. More to the point, I can appreciate that it might be the default position of a digital progressive. The internet is a ubiquitous part of our lives, and many of our daily activities on the internet have real-life analogs: chatrooms are like parties; instant messages are like phone conversations; email is like snail mail; YouTube is like television; blogs are like newspapers (or journals, depending on the blog). So it’s easy to appreciate why people like myself, who have effectively grown up using the internet, might assume that the easiest solution to legal questions arising in light of the internet is to treat the virtual world like the real world.

If advocates would simply acknowledge the issue as a legitimate concern, and offer an argument as to why it should not govern, their counter policy arguments would seem much more credible.

The problem is that every single example I gave above is far more complex than its real life analog. Imagine that I’m hosting a party and I want to play a board game with my friends. I’ve already gone out and purchased the game, it’s in my house, and we’re ready to go. No complex issues of law arise. Now imagine that I want to play the same board game in a chatroom.¹ Perhaps the easiest solution is to take a digital picture of the actual board or stream a video of the board over the course of the night. Can I transmit those images to the chatroom? Have I already violated various trademarks and copyrights just by taking the picture? Suppose I digitize the entire board game for archival purposes, converting manuals into PDFs and using high resolution images for the content, and then my computer is hacked, and a copy of the game is made and downloaded from my computer. The latter hypothetical is particularly apposite because traditionally speaking, I will have been entirely divested of the tangible property if it’s stolen from me. This is especially true where the original copy of the “good” was digitally distributed. The hacker now finds himself with an exact copy of the software I purchased, with no degradation in quality whatsoever.²  Am I now culpable for negligently assisting in infringement?

Regardless of how superficially similar the virtual world may appear to the real world, we are faced with an entirely new set of problems that have arisen merely by virtue of the prevalence of goods that can be infinitely copied without loss of quality. For the most part, these problems could never have been anticipated by the legislature, and expecting their rationale for enacting these laws to hold up in light of new problems that arise only in a digital medium is presumptuous at best.

I am strongly in favor of giving citizens the traditional property rights to which they have grown accustomed over the centuries

Does that mean that intellectual property owners should have a trump card that reads, “I need X because my property is infinitely reproducible and I need protection?” No, it doesn’t. But it does mean that these arguments shouldn’t be thoughtlessly dismissed. I read far too many scholarly articles that advocate for laws more favorable to internet consumers, that subsequently fail to address the issue of harm to producers in light of infringement. In actuality, I have found that these types of arguments made by content producers generally are meritless (e.g. the producer claims to need more stringent protections on its IP even where its revenue derived from IP is consistently outperforming other aspects of its business and thriving in an economic downturn). If advocates would simply acknowledge the issue as a legitimate concern, and offer an argument as to why it should not govern, their counter policy arguments would seem much more credible.

Please do not misunderstand me: I am strongly in favor of giving citizens the traditional property rights to which they have grown accustomed over the centuries,³ but in our fight for digital equality, I firmly believe that ignoring the fact that tangible property and virtual property are fundamentally different only hurts the cause.

[Photo Credit to Erik Mallinson]

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1. First, consider that such a task was likely impossible prior to the invention of the internet.
2. In the real world, a tangible good will exhibit some quality loss when it’s reproduced thereby rendering copies, for the most part, less valuable.
3. See, e.g., the law review article I am currently writing advocating for the application of the First Sale Doctrine in most instances where companies purport to be licensing rather than selling goods.

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I’m starting to become legitimately afraid for our country. Althouse called my attention to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Orin Kerr opining on the likely scenario that Congress will grant the request of the Obama administration in the name of “cybersecurity,” and make violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) felonies rather than misdemeanors, as they currently stand.

The unenlightened may think, “Good, punish those computer terrorists!” The problem is that the CFAA has consistently been interpreted incredibly broadly. Kerr points out two particularly disturbing cases:

1. A woman was charged with participating in a group that “conspired” (yes, conspired) to set up a MySpace group with a fake picture. The problem was that the MySpace Terms of Use Agreement required all profile information to be correct.

2. A former employee was charged with violating the CFAA for violating company policy and using his work computer for reasons other than “legitimate company business.”

Let’s face it. If violating website terms of use policies and official office policy is a federal offense, we’re all potentially criminals subject to the whims of federal prosecutors. My sister who formerly listed her age on MySpace as “99″ was potentially violating the CFAA, and if your office policy forbids instant messaging, statistics tell us that you’re probably violating it too. Daily. Any of my readers that have had the misfortune to read my notably unpublished law review article know that I am generally opposed to click and shrink-wrap licensing, but this is a whole new level of insanity.

Why isn’t there a big fuss about it already? Althouse suggests that federal prosecutors tend not to prosecute misdemeanors. If this legislation changes CFAA violations to felonies, it’s reasonable to assume that we’ll be hearing about this statute a lot more in the coming months.

What say ye, felons?

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Summer is here, as you know, and with it comes many a few summer clerkship opportunities. Having summered at various firms and non-profits, and now having clerks of my own, I offer the following tips to keep in mind while facing your summer rite-of-passage:

1. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Your attorney has been facing the same niche issues for so long that he or she will inevitably forget that you just started looking at this legal doctrine earlier this week. No one will think you’re dumb if you ask for clarification on a passing reference to “Section 230.” That’s not to say that dumb questions don’t exist, because they do, but if you’re forced to decide between smiling and nodding like an idiot while not comprehending your assignment,¹ and interrupting your junior associate for clarification, always err on the later option. I would much rather you ask me 50 questions up front and hand in a solid work-product, than have you ask no questions up front and hand in something that will create more work for me.

2. Be outgoing.

Some attorneys are better — or more trusting — than others at divvying out work to summers. In the rare event that you find yourself sitting around with nothing to do, or pacing yourself because you know you’ll be out of work soon, start knocking on doors. Figure out who in your office is doing the kind of work you want to try out and go express your interest, regardless of how intimidating they may be. After a while, the attorneys may get an idea of where your interests lie and you might find people with that type of work seeking you out.

3. Don’t be discouraged by seemingly menial tasks.

Don’t kid yourself: a great rank and law review alone don’t buy you trust. Some attorneys want to know that they can trust you, and your work-product, before they’ll trust you with more important assignments. Knowing this, it should be self-evident that slacking off on the seemingly unimportant task you’ve just been assigned could be a terrible idea. That associate asking you to flowchart statutory exemptions might be hiding some cool work up his sleeves. If this hazing continues for more than a few weeks though, you have my permission to start secretly hating the aforementioned associate.

4. Always double-check your work.

Even if your work-product is purely advisory and will never make it into the final work product in any way, shape, or form, you should always hand an associate a proofread, final draft of your work. Excessive abbreviations,² slang, poor grammar, and typos all lean in favor of the opinion that you’re not taking pride in your work. This problem is exacerbated in prestigious summer positions, where you’ve been accepted as a direct result of your stellar credentials: in that case, any shortcomings in your work product are presumptively due to laziness rather than a gap in intelligence.

5. Learn your limits.

It can be intimidating to tell an associate considering assigning you a high-priority task that you have three assignments from a partner, and two from another associate, all in progress. From a purely egoistic perspective, as an attorney assigning work, I want solid work-product back from you. If you can’t give me your best work because you’re overtasked, I need to know that. The likelihood that you’re my last ditch effort before I can’t get a brief filed on time is very low. As long as you’re tactful in how your present your conundrum, it probably won’t mean the difference between an offer and a no-offer; and you won’t become “that guy who does the lackluster work.” Protip: try to couch it as, “I’m being up front with you about my tasks. If, knowing that, you still want me to do it, I’m happy to do it.” That way you’re not actually turning down an assignment, and if you’re absolutely forced to not give the assignment 100%, it’s arguably not your fault.

So that’s my obviously non-exhaustive list of tips for summer clerks. Think I’ve missed an important point? Throw us a comment!

Disclaimer: I have never worked for biglaw. This advice is based on my experience in mid-sized and small firms, larger non-profits, and academia. Your experiences, particularly in biglaw, may vary.

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1. Generally with the false assumption that you will figure it out later, on your own, later.
2. I’m admittedly guilty of this; sorry, Julie.

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Just a quick note to our law student readers in the market for a new Mac: BGR reports that credible sources say Apple’s yearly back-to-school special may be $200 off the purchase price of an iPad (with the purchase of a new Mac).

Even if you’re not interested in an iPad, the buyer market is still super strong. Why not pick one up at a discount and sell it to recoup some of the costs of your ridiculously overpriced new piece of hardware? (I can say that because I am typing this post from a brand new 15″ Macbook Pro.)

[Source]

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It’s all about the E Ink, baby.

Like all lawyers and law students, I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the written word. As far as I’m concerned, it would be stupid not to make the process as painless as possible. For me, that means reducing eye strain and maximizing hand and arm comfort while reading.

Obviously a 19 oz Kindle DX is more comfortable to hold than a traditional book weighing several pounds—that’s a given.¹ But compared to the 20 oz iPad, the weight and dimensions are basically a wash.

Normally, like Alton Brown, I’m anti-unitasking. In this case, though, I think a unitasking reading device makes sense for people in our profession. If Alton Brown spent 95% of his time peeling apples, I suspect he’d find a device specifically made for apple-peeling to be a reasonable investment.

Regular LG readers know that I love my iPad: I take it everywhere, it organizes my life, and in a pinch it substitutes for a real computer. None of those qualities describe my relationship with my Kindle, and that’s okay. Why? Because the Kindle is fantastic at doing the one thing I want it to do: displaying text. Anyone who has seen an E Ink display will tell you that compared to backlit pixels, E Ink is a vast improvement for purposes of reading text. The Kindle is made for one thing and one thing only: staring at text on a screen without straining your eyes, and does that one thing extremely well.

From a financial standpoint, there’s no reason to make a purchase from iBooks: in my experience, ebooks from iBooks are generally more expensive than their Kindle counterparts and the catalogue on Amazon.com is significantly more extensive. Moreover, once you buy an eBook from Amazon, you can read it on your Kindle device, on the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad, on your Android, you can download the software to your PC, and soon you’ll be able to open it up in a browser. The same versatility can’t be said for books purchased from Apple.

If you’re considering using your Kindle to read cases, you should consider going with the larger Kindle DX. In my experience, the DX can display cases nearly at full-size. It’s not completely ideal as you either need to have extremely good vision to see the small text when it’s scaled down, or you have to magnify the text which will make it such that it’s not a 1:1 display, meaning that you’ll have to scroll through the page to see the entire case text.

There are some downsides to the Kindle: It’s not terribly easy to get documents onto the Kindle. Okay, there is an easy (read: wireless) way, but it costs money. The second is that compared to an iPad, the Kindle is extremely slow. The speed is limited by the mechanical action of having an ink-like substance realign when polarized a certain way. The speed can be improved with firmware, and the current generation of eReaders is significantly faster than the original iterations. Eventually the speed will catch up to pixel displays, but not for a while.

Even with the constraints, I’m happy that I own both a Kindle and an iPad. Plus, as a side benefit, the Kindle came in really handy during my Post Bar Exam Mexico Vacation, where I had no internet save the free Kindle 3G connection, and had no chance of seeing my iPad with the glare from that glowing yellow ball in the sky. Obviously, most of us never get to see the sun, so it’s a minor benefit, but a benefit nonetheless.

Do you use an E Ink eReader? Are you with me on the obvious benefits?

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1. Of course, annotating traditional books is far superior to the electronic analogue.

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As someone who sold his first generation iPad to pick up an iPad 2, I have spent the past month considering whether the upgrade was worth the cost. The short answer is: probably not.

The increased processor speed is great and noticeable. Unless you find the first-generation iPad speeds unbearable, however, the speed increase just isn’t substantial enough for me to justify having spent a few hundred dollars to upgrade my tablet.

Admittedly, it makes my life a bit less stressful when I can pull out my iPad, open Fastcase, do some quick research, and give a citation to a judge without experiencing any operating system lag. Another less well-known feature is that due to the memory upgrade in the iPad 2, the infamous checkerboarding effect in Safari is, for the most part, a thing of the past. Moreover, on the original iPad, switching between Safari tabs would require a webpage reload. If you happened to travel into a dead zone while switching tabs, it was often impossible to pull up content from another tab. It seems that the content in tabs generally live in cache now, so 90% of the time switching between tabs requires no data exchange. If you’re blessed with a huge disposable income, that feature alone theoretically could be worth dropping a few hundred dollars. It had better be anyway, because as far as I’m concerned, this is by far the most useful of the new iPad 2 features.

What else do you get for your money? Two cameras and the ability to FaceTime. If you travel away from your family with nothing but your iPad, it could be a useful feature for keeping in touch with your family. For me, it’s not a terribly important feature. As a camera, they’re extremely sub-par, and you’re almost guaranteed higher quality from your smart phone camera (even your iPhone 4, hands down). I’ve also seen some very strange color artifacting when recording video.

You also get a gyroscope on par with the iPhone 4 technology. As of yet, this is nothing more than a gimmick. Admittedly, there are some cool uses, generally involving augmented reality,¹ but for the most part, it’s going to take some genius developers to make this feature anything short of an afterthought for game-developers.

It’s thinner and lighter. The effect is noticeable with a side-by-side comparison, but both iterations are light enough and thin enough that the improvement isn’t a game changer. If you tend to travel very light, you might appreciate the weight reduction. I carry a large briefcase everywhere, so it makes little difference to me. I do notice a slight improvement in comfort when holding it up for extended periods, though.

And while it’s technically an accessory, I’m considering the new cover in this article because it’s not compatible with the older iPad. In fact, compatibility with the cover required Apple to insert several magnets throughout the new iPad design. The end result is actually really awesome. Unlike most accessories, it’s aesthetically pleasing and yet has a utilitarian purpose other than mere screen protection.² When the cover is engaged, the iPad display automatically shuts off. Fold the cover one way and it’s conducive to typing; fold it another way and it supports itself upright so you can display photos or watch videos comfortably. The downfall, at least for the Apple brand cover, is that no backside means that the rear of the iPad is exposed and vulnerable to scratches. Because of that, I end of carrying my iPad face-down in my law review portfolio.³

And that does it for the benefits of upgrading your iPad. I’m not saying that the iPad 2 isn’t an amazing device. If you don’t have an iPad yet, I’d recommend you either pick up a used first-generation iPad or jump right into the iPad 2, depending on how much money you’re willing to spend. For me, I’m not convinced that the inconvenience and cost of upgrading to the newest iPad iteration was worth the cost when I already owned a perfectly great tablet.

Have you upgraded your iPad already? I’d love to hear your thoughts and whether you agree or disagree.

Note: If you’re an HD nut like me, you should consider that HDMI mirroring from the new Apple HDMI adapter, while compatible with the original iPad, only displays at 720p on the first gen, while the iPad 2 will output full 1080p mirroring.

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1. Star-gazing apps, for instance, will assuredly benefit from the gyroscope
2. Apple says the cover contains microfibers to clean your screen while protecting it. While that may be true, the cover also sometimes creates lines of dust that I have to clean off.
3. It’s doubly obnoxious and pretentious when I throw down the law review portfolio and then whip out the iPad when most people are content using a legal pad

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The most recent comScore Smartphone Market Share Report reveals that Android is now the most widely-used mobile OS in the United States. So why is it that most legal app developers are either (1) testing the waters with; or (2) developing exclusively for iOS rather than Android?¹

There are a few answers, but the most likely candidate in my opinion is the issue of fragmentation. Google campaigned hardware developers with the promise of a robust audience and an open-source operating system that would essentially be coded for them. Moreover, hardware vendors would have the option to tweak the OS and add their own flair.

That sounds great in theory, but the problem is that now we’re in a situation where we have one centralized app store, and close to a hundred different combinations of hardware and operating system variations.

Why is that? Because once Google releases a new flavor of Android, they keep exlusivity for a while for marketing purposes (e.g. they want a bump in Nexus sales). After it’s released to hardware developers, the third party companies need to decide whether they’re going to implement the upgrade, and if so, they have to set off to begin their own development cycle on the new operating system.

With iOS, Apple encourages developers to test their apps on previous iterations of the iPhone/iPod/iPad, but generally speaking there are only two or three tests that a developer really need be concerned about (iPad vs. iPad 2, Original iPhone v. iPhone GS v. iPhone 4, etc.). And even there, Apple threw down the gauntlet and decided that future iOS upgrades won’t be compatible with the original iPhone, making it even easier for developers to develop and test their iOS apps.

On Android, developers have to consider whether their app will run on HTC’s Nexus One (Android 2.3.3) or LG’s Optimus 2X (Android 2.2) or Samsung’s M910 Intercept (Android 2.1) or Motorola’s Droid X (Android 2.2). And the list goes on and on due to Android’s success. Testing on a few versions of an OS isn’t difficult (it’s done with Windows all the time), but because the actual operating system is manipulated by most vendors, adequate testing quickly becomes an unwieldy proposition.

Google is clearly concerned with fragmentation as evidenced by a very new policy that licensee edits to the Android OS must be approved by Google. From the standpoint of ameliorating the fragmentation issue, it’s a step in the right direction. Whether and to what extent they anger third party developers remains to be seen. I’ve heard rumors that Facebook is fairly upset with the change.

In my opinion, is Android doomed? No. As a general rule, is it easier for developers to churn out bug-free iOS apps? Probably, yes.

With that said, the BarBri iPhone app has been out for a long time now. If they weren’t working on an Android app at this stage in the game, I would be more than a little concerned.

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1. Gavel bang to Daniel from the Corner In The Middle for the question and post idea.

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A paper entitled “Citation Advantage of Open Access Legal Scholarship” was co-authored by James M. Donovan of the University of Kentucky College of Law, and Carol A. Watson of the University of Georgia Law School earlier this month.

The authors are convinced that this is the first paper focusing exclusively on the role that open access plays in influencing legal scholarship.

According to the article, in a given journal, articles that were available via open access received 58% more citations than similarly situated closed access articles.

[Read the full article here.]

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A few weeks ago, I happened across this guest post on the Law Librarian Blog, written by Fastcase CEO (and friend of Legal Geekery) Ed Walters.

I’m making some assumptions about LG readers: I’m betting a lot of you were too young to have experienced AOL at its peak. To be sure, AOL was a force to be reckoned with in the formative years of the internets. Pretty much everyone I knew in high school (mostly geeks, to be fair) had a screenname. You didn’t really have to specificy which service you used, because your options were effectively limited to AOL. For reference, think of it like trying to give out your Orkut username at an undergrad party.

AOL was something of a self-contained internet. There was a programming language called FDO which was basically akin to HTML in that it was the language used by content developers to build “keywords” (somewhat superior to URLs in that they were generally one word, but clearly inferior in that they were not available for public creation). There was a rich community atmosphere. There was also a seedy underworld. Kind of like the internet in general, only both the cool factor and the seedy factor were somehow amplified by the fact that billions of people hadn’t yet found the internet.

So around age 13, I became what was known as a “Community Leader” for AOL, which as future lawsuit settlements would implicitly agree, was something akin to an AOL employee. I had timecards and minimum hours, I created content, I performed customer service, I had a free account that could do myriad things “regular” accounts couldn’t do.

I’d love to hear from our readers with inside info who may see either similarities or dissimilarities between Wexis and AOL. Drop us a comment or an email at podcast /at/ legalgeekery /dot/ com and let us know!

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1. Aka: “Brat.” Note: I’m not using her full name so she can’t google herself and find this post

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This is a guest post by Bryan DePowell. Bryan is a graduate of the University of Hawaii Manoa in Honolulu, and he received his J.D. from Widener Law. Bryan is a former police officer turned district attorney turned defense attorney. His full bio can be found here.

I have a confession to make: I’m not a “techie.” My knowledge about everything electronic is — I’m embarrassed to say — generally limited to turning devices on and off, and sometimes I even fall short of that. So you’re probably wondering, “What the heck is this guy doing posting on a blog about legal technology?” Fear not my geeky friends; bear with me and it will all come together.

I was given the honor several months ago to produce something for this site. The exact instructions escape me, however I’m pretty sure it was something like this: “Just think of something interesting . . . .” Normally, that would seem to be a pretty straight-forward assignment. I mean, I’m a criminal trial lawyer for heaven’s sake; most of us picture ourselves as the “007” of the courtroom. Under normal circumstances, we drop in with our crisply pressed suits and our contrived, slightly British accent, to rescue our clients from certain doom at the hands of the politically-fueled conviction machine — perhaps slightly over the top but you get the point. I must have something interesting and technologically savvy to say, right?

After much time and even more anxiety searching my experiences for the perfect topic, I discovered that I had nothing. I had to face the facts. I am technologically-challenged. I have been technologically-challenged for a very long time. I suppose that does give me a unique perspective for this blog, though.

The law, as with many other aspects of life, is an exercise in resourcefulness. The idea is reflected in what I like to term “The MacGyver Effect” (for those of you who are too young to get the reference, I’m sure you can Google it or do whatever it is you techies do). Anyone who has survived a law school class will tell you that when you are cold-called, the most important part of your answer is that you at least sound like you know what you’re talking about. So with that in mind, I give you my topic: “Over-Dependence on Technology and its Effects on Client Relationships.”

Sounds fancy, huh? That’s the beauty of “The MacGyver Effect”. Perhaps a story will assist in clarifying the issue.

As part of my practice, I am appointed to represent patients who are involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation clinics under Pennsylvania’s version of The Mental Health Act. Essentially, if someone believes that you are a clear and present danger to yourself or others, they can attempt to have you hospitalized against your will. With that over-simplification in mind, enter Ms. Doe.

Ms. Doe has a history of mental illness that can be traced back nearly 20 years. She has been forcibly hospitalized on at least four occasions, the most recent of which occurred over four years ago. Since her last hospitalization, she had been placed on a medication regimen that controlled her symptoms and she was essentially living a normal life. Recently, however, she began experiencing shortness-of-breath and dizziness. After fainting in her home and being rushed to the hospital, she was admitted and diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. The doctors told her that her condition was so severe that without medication she had only weeks to live. Presented with that diagnosis, Ms. Doe’s answer was simple: she refused medication. She understood what the doctors were telling her and she simply didn’t want to take the medicine. Normally, that might be the end of the story. Recall, however, that Ms. Doe has a documented history of mental illness.

Based primarily upon that history, Ms. Doe’s doctors decided that she should be placed in a locked psychiatric unit as her decision was obviously due to her history. Over a three-day period the psychiatrists conducted extensive review of charts and tests. As is often the case, by the time I entered the scene, the attending psychiatrist had myriad data “tending to indicate” that Ms. Doe was “profoundly mentally ill.”

My typical routine with these cases is to meet with the psychiatrist first and then talk to the patient. This case was no different. After meeting with the doctor I was relatively sure I knew how the judge would decide. There was a diagnosis, based largely on medical technology and diagnostic testing, which clearly indicated that the patient was sick and needed to be hospitalized. Resolved to do my due diligence, and even though I already knew how I would handle this case, I decided to speak with my client.

Generally these conversations last less than five minutes with me doing all of the talking (for those of you who know me, this is likely no surprise) and getting little to no response from the client. At first, by all appearances, this case was no different. Ms. Doe was frail, withdrawn, and seemingly uninterested. When I first entered her room she was seated in a hospital-green reclining chair, staring out of a window and clutching a piece of unlined, white paper with unintelligible writing on it. Again, not particularly abnormal for the environment. Relying largely on what the doctor had told me, I began my boilerplate speech about the Mental Health Act and its implications. Shortly after I began my speech and much to my surprise, I noticed something that did strike me as unusual: Ms. Doe was paying attention. She was focused — fixated, in fact — on every word I said. Moreover, I could tell that she wanted to ask questions. I was so taken aback by all of this that I paused, pulled up a chair next to her and asked, “Do you want to talk to me about something?”

That was all the prompting she needed. The floodgates opened and she peppered me with question after question about her situation. I spoke with Ms. Doe for approximately forty-five minutes. She was articulate and her concerns were intelligent and well-developed. Although I am not a clinician, it was obvious to me that the person with whom I was speaking was not mentally incompetent, but simply someone who was afraid and in need of information and support.

My experience with this case was a wake-up call for me. The fact that I was so quick to rely on the doctors and the technology that they used to arrive at their diagnosis blinded me to the real reason I was sent there. I was there simply to listen to Ms. Doe.

My Torts Professor, Randy Lee, for whom I have a great deal of admiration and respect (regardless of the fact that his exams were crushing both to my G.P.A. and my ego) once explained why he felt that lawyers, as a whole, were separate and distinct from other professionals. “By virtue of this wonderful education,” he said, “we have been given the keys to doors no one else has and trusted with matters so delicate no one else dare get involved.” That has always stuck with me. (Though as I write this I know how disappointed he would be that I didn’t use a conclusion, rule, and application in the same sentence).

We, those of us practicing and those of us preparing to practice, have a responsibility, both to our clients and society, to act with care and due regard when exercising our legal muscles in this noble profession. We all rely on technology; this is especially so in the practice of law. We must be cautious, however, not to become so engrained in our technology and modern conveniences that we lose sight of our clients, who are the single most important part of our career. All the conceivable technology in the world will never replace the trust we will lose if we forget the simplest and most profound tool in the lawyer’s arsenal: the ability to talk with people. There is a reason we’re called counselors, after all

Picture Credits:
[1] Aston Martin by Crystal666
[2] Rube-Goldberg by sebastien.b
[3] Psychiatric Hospital Photo by underclassrising
[4]  XRay by glsims99

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