Interesting news over at Legal Ethics Forum

I cross-posted this story and the related hat tip here. 

We've learned nothing from Enron.

See today's Wall Street Journal article (here) about manipulating debt at ends of quarters to make debt "disappear."  We've learned nothing.

Shameless plug:  our latest Enron book (here) explores just why we never learn from prior corporate malfeasance.

Good law and ethics story of the day.

In today's Wall Street Journal (here).

"In" isn't a synonym for "during."

Today's New York Times has a story (here) about Richard Blumenthal's exaggerations about his military service.  He apparently didn't serve "in" Vietnam; he served "during" Vietnam.  The Times reports:

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive. 

 There's nothing wrong with serving in a military reserve unit; what's wrong is misstating what one's service record was, especially for personal gain. 

Words matter.

Want to vent? I have a forum for you!

Over at our other blog, Law School Survival Manual: From LSAT to Bar Exam, I'd like to take questions and comments from those of you who wonder why some students might behave the way that they do.  (For an egregious example, see here.)

So I'm looking for such things as

1. Question of the week.  Now's your chance to throw a question our way.  You can email me, or you can post a question by clicking here.  This is your chance to vent about behavior that puzzles you, frustrates you, or amuses you.  If the behavior horrifies you, then please send us . . .
2. Horror stories.  These can be from legal employers, from faculty members, OR from law students themselves.  (I have a few of my own from my law school days.)  We'll post the best horror stories (or should we say the worst ones?) on our blog.

Thanks, and Jeff & I both look forward to hearing from you!

Our Law School Survival Manual is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

See here for details.

Question for you Blogger programmers out there.

Do any of you know how to change the color of the banner background in our Law School Survival Manual blog from this:

to HTML color #335C33 or thereabouts?  I don't like the light green color, but I can't find a website that will teach me how to edit the HTML for the part of the blog that's above.  I'm officially out of my comfort zone.  Thanks!

Brava, Elena Kagan!

Some may disagree about the President's choice (see here), but there's no question that Solicitor General Kagan has a wealth of experience in different roles.

(Yes, I'm happy that the President chose a former law dean.)

We'll see what happens during her confirmation hearings.

Weekly tips over at our other blog:

We've started handing out some weekly tips for law students (this summer's theme is, not surprisingly, summer jobs) over at our Law School Survival Manual blog (see here and here).  Here's hoping that folks find them useful.  If you want to weigh in, either agreeing or disagreeing--or even adding ideas for us to consider--please take a moment to click over to the Law School Survival Manual blog.  I'd sure love your thoughts.

Darn it.

The Enron play is closing on Broadway, long before Jeff & I could go see it.  See here. 

More shameless self-promotion.

We now have a blog attached to the Law School Survival Manual (see here).  Our first post, about summer jobs, is here. 

A few updates about bankruptcy fees.

In yesterday's New York Times, Nelson Schwartz and Julie Creswell wrote a fascinating article about the magnitude of bankruptcy fees, especially in the Lehman case (see here). 

Look:  I know how hard lawyers work, and I also know how non-lawyers perceive many of us.  (As does Eric Van Horn--see a piece we wrote for the ABI Journal here or here about handling the misperceptions of bankruptcy lawyers in the media.)

In a world of still-rampant unemployment, we need to remember that we don't have a lot of friends on the "outside" (the world outside bankruptcy law).  If we're not careful, we'll lose the friends we have on the "inside," too.

Here's a plug for an article I'm publishing with the University of Maryland's Journal of Business and Technology Law, an up-and-coming journal with author-friendly editors and a great work ethic.  My new article's called Rethinking Professional Fees in Chapter 11 Cases, and it explores why there are so many problems with the moving parts that make up fee requests.

Shameless self-promotion.

See here.

You've got to love this noir-ish YouTube clip about law school life.

See here.  Hat tip to Bernie Burk.  C'est merveilleux!

Best comment about the Goldman Sachs brouhaha.

Take a look at Steven Pearlstein's column in yesterday's Washington Post (here):

There was a time when issuers would pay a premium to have Goldman Sachs underwrite their securities, just as there was a time when investors would pay a premium to buy into a Goldman-sponsored offering.

Today, Goldman has fully monetized the value of its reputation, and anyone who pays such a premium is a fool. 

No one's said it better.  Just because something might be legal (and we don't know enough yet to know whether Goldman's acts were legal here) doesn't make it ethical--and being unethical has ramifications all its own.

And I thought that financial fraud was porn.

But apparently I was mistaken:  see here.

Ah, so many jokes, so little time.  Let's start with:

I guess that the SEC didn't know financial fraud when it saw it.*  But porn, on the other hand, was obviously easy to identify....

Just amazing.


* Cf. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring) ("I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description] [of pornography; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.").

The answer to hateful speech is more speech.

And there's some very hateful speech going on in Denver right now, along with some counter-protests (see here).  I'm glad that there are people out there countering the Westboro Baptist Church speakers (see here). 

And when I say that the answer to hateful speech is more speech, I don't mean that the people answering the hateful speech have to acknowledge that the hateful speech is somehow equally morally equivalent to the non-hateful speech.  It's ok to tell people with whom you disagree that what they're saying is wrong, or even that you find what they're saying to be morally abhorent.  But it's not ok to prevent them from airing their views.

After I post this message, I'm going to join the Facebook page (here) mentioned in the articles.

VERY cool new publication....

Take a gander at what my buddy, Alan Childress, has done lately:  here.  Hat tip to ALL my buds at Legal Profession Blog!  Congrats, Alan!

Best presidential fund-raising video EVER.

Hat tip to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Here it is:  enjoy!

A new social networking "first" for me....

So I'm taking a break from work by checking my Facebook page, and one of our Boyd law students IMs me to ask me to supervise his summer research paper.  I've got to say that's the fastest I've ever been asked (or have answered) such a request.

And it proves that our students are creative about finding ways to reach us.