Second Person Legal

New firm of Ross and Viscosi

2011-02-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

I have set up a separate blog for my firm, Ross and Viscosi, a partnership with attorney Michael C. Viscosi. That blog isn't particularly active yet (something it has in common with this one, unfortunately) but it is located here:

http://rossandviscosi.blogspot.com/

Our website is Ross and Viscosi.

Our Facebook page is here.

Wearing a Cross is Offensive?

2010-10-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Visitation by Skype

2010-08-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

In the case of Debra Baker v James Baker, 29610-2007, NYLJ 1202464436957, at *1 (Suffolk Cty. Sup., August 4, 2010), New York State Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo conditioned a mother's right to relocate with her children from New York State to Florida upon providing online visitation between the children and their father three times a week through Skype.

The Petitioner, at her own cost and expense, will see to it, prior to re-location, that the Respondent, as well as the children, are provided the appropriate internet access via a Skype device which allows a real time broadcast of communications between the Respondent and his children. Thereafter, the Petitioner will make the children available three times per week for not less than one hour per connection to communicate via Skype with their father.

Hello Capital District Linking Group

2010-06-16T18:20:00.001-07:00

This is a test of linking from SlideShare to Blogger

Hello Capital District Linking Group

View more videos from Ellen Ross.

Can one be libertarian without being mean-spirited? An essay in progress

2010-06-14T05:08:00.000-07:00

Can one be libertarian without being mean-spirited?

Must a libertarian sound like a paranoid and self-pitying whiner? Does the attempt to argue about principles, instead of about people, necessarily have to devolve into attacking those who do talk about people?

The tone of political discourse has never been remarkable for its politeness, but there are times when the accumulation of venom makes it nearly impossible to discern the principles behind the pettiness. Libertarians and conservative Republicans alike have fallen into such rhetorical traps in the past few years.

One of the main reasons why libertarianism is less attractive to young idealists than contemporary liberalism is the relentless negativity of the most popular arguments. Unfortunately, most of them sound to the twenty-first century ear very much like "Waaahhh! The Big Bad Black Man is gonna take away all my toys!"

I have recently found myself wondering why I feel a need to support a health care bill that I haven't actually read through. (Be honest, most of you haven't read it through, either.) The most compelling answer I find for myself is in the nature of the arguments made against it. Most of those arguing against it haven't read through it any more than I have, but merely label it as "THEY are going to try to take away what we have. We must fight THEM."

Many conservatives and libertarians assume that whenever a liberal talks about helping people, he really means "I want to control what YOU have." Everything is personalized as an attack upon the "haves." It seems impossible to believe that anyone involved in political activism could ever genuinely want to help others; such a posture is simply labeled without question as hypocrisy, with the assumption that short-sighted greed is the natural state of human beings, and that all else is pretense.

And yet - rational and enlightened self-interest DOES consider the long-term effects of actions, both upon oneself and others. Long-term planning is part of "rational selfishness." Grabbing for the immediate goodies, even if it happens to be the government giving them out, and disdaining all thought of the bigger picture, is not.

Conservatives, and many libertarians, often talk as if the Hobbesian state of nature, the "war of all against all," is an inevitable and even desirable condition. All other aspirations are rejected as the lies of thieves. How can such a world view appeal to anyone who wants to believe the best about people?

Merely reversing an argument is not the same as countering its premise. If the basic argument of many on the political left is, "Whoever does NOT have something deserves it, and whoever does have something doesn't deserve it," that argument is not correctly answered simply by saying, "No, we who already have deserve what we have, simply because we have it, and those who do not have it don't deserve it."

The answer needs to go deeper than a mere switch of positions, just as arguments about limited government cannot be confined to "we want our guys in and theirs out."

The rule of law needs to be about more than "who gets the goodies this year," and politics needs to be about more than "no, you shouldn't get a turn, that's not fair, it should still be my turn."

A rational argument on principles cannot be constructed upon mere fear of "the other." As long as most of the conservative and libertarian political talk boils down to an appeal to fear that "those other guys are gonna get what's yours," it is not really about principle at all.

Freelance writing

2010-06-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

While I've been away from this blawg, I have been working elsewhere! I'm now writing for Examiner.com and FreeLegalAid.com, and about to start writing for Helium, Demand Studios, and probably some others as well.

I'm the Albany Church and State Examiner at Examiner.com.

Here's one of my articles at FreeLegalAid.com:

Grounds for Divorce in New York State

I'm working on some more articles, which should be posted soon.

Facebook Post as Alibi: Teenager's Facebook Status Saves Him - Strange Crime - Legally Weird

2009-11-13T13:23:00.001-08:00

Facebook Post as Alibi: Teenager's Facebook Status Saves Him - Strange Crime - Legally Weird

Posted using ShareThis

Practicing Law in a Virtual World

2009-11-04T07:34:00.001-08:00

The Second Life Bar Association is holding a free mini-conference on "Practicing Law in a Virtual World" on Saturday, November 14:

Practicing Law in a Virtual World

I haven't been in-world in a long time, but I might sign back in for this one.

Time to learn how to preach it and teach it ...

2009-09-30T16:53:00.001-07:00

On Friday and Saturday I'll be attending a refresher Collaborative Practice Training. I originally took the training in Rochester, NY in September 2005, but haven't been able to take any collaborative cases because no one in my area was doing this. Now there are finally some attorneys in the greater Capital District area who will be accepting collaborative cases. There is even a new Collaborative Divorce Association of the Capital District, so I can finally get started with something I've wanted to do for a long time.

I was trying to explain collaborative law to the other attorneys in the Family Court conference room, but I guess I'm not explaining it well because all they could say was "sounds like a sure way to go bankrupt - why would clients pay for this? I'm not interested." After this training, maybe I'll do a series of posts here and at my other blawgs to try to explain more effectively what collaborative practice is all about and why it is a good idea both for attorneys and for clients.

Neat idea ....

2009-09-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

I'm now following the Untethered Lawyer blog - sounds like an interesting approach to the challenge of working from home.

And in the "whew, it's about time" department ....

2009-08-27T06:01:00.001-07:00

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has handed down a decision which puts reasonable limits on data searches and sets specific guidelines for the use of electronically stored information seized under a warrant.

In order to execute a warrant for the retrieval of specific data from a computer, entire hard drives and other electronic storage media are often seized and then browsed at will for other incriminating evidence against those who are not even the specific targets of the investigation.

In USA v Comprehensive Drug Testing the court firmly slapped down the "plain view exception" claim which has been used to justify the use of other computer evidence observed while searching through electronically stored information for the specific data sought under a warrant.

Both a summary of the case and the full text of the decision are available at the above link. It's worth the time to take a look. These guidelines actually make some sense.

"Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see"

2009-05-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

In the lecture which includes the famous "wise Latina woman" quote, Judge Sonia Sotomayor was addressing the same basic issue that many of us have been arguing about for years: how do our life experiences affect our perceptions, and to what extent can we correct for that, and to what extent should we TRY to correct for that?

She went on to say: "I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate."

I can't argue with that premise, and the more I read the entire speech from which the "wise Latina woman" quote was taken, the more I see Judge Sotomayor as someone who has given exactly the kind of thoughtful and careful consideration to this issue that we need from our judges and other policymakers. Yes, a judge is a policymaker. Anyone who deals with trial-level judges in courts like Family Court sees that judges on the trial level bring their individual experiences, beliefs and philosophies to the application of the law to the facts. How can they not? Look at the obvious struggle, for example, of the justices of the California Supreme Court to separate out their personal views on a social issue from the narrow legal question which was before them for decision on the Proposition 8 case. It's not an easy thing to do. Whether one agrees or disagrees with a particular court ruling, the process of recognizing one's own values and how they affect one's opinions is an ongoing one for all human beings in general, and most powerfully and significantly for those whose decisions affect others.

My first blog post at cuttingedgelaw.com

2009-03-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

Just signed up at Cutting Edge Law, a really interesting-looking legal community. Here's my first blog post there.

**************************

Today at Family Court, I found myself running out of patience with a client who was reluctant to accept the best settlement that I could negotiate under the circumstances. That may sound to many lawyers like an everyday occurrence, but for me it is a distress signal and wake-up call. I felt that I was doing my best, in the circumstances handed to me by "the system," and the client felt that "the system" was inherently skewed. The problem is that both of us were right. I was doing the best that I could with the options available to me, but the options which were available to me to present to the client were far more limited than I would have liked to offer. I wasn't conspiring against my client, but when my client complained that what was happening was not fair, the client wasn't completely wrong, either.

In Family Court, more than in any other forum, the "system" needs to maintain a sensitivity and flexibility that goes beyond sifting differing versions of the facts to reach a conclusion about what really happened. We need to go beyond who is right and who is wrong, beyond fact-finding and finger-pointing, to a view toward a solution that is best for all the individuals involved.

Twenty years ago, when Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" was published, everyone was talking about win-win thinking and about paradigm shifts, but now the topic seems so yesterday to most people that they will no longer listen. Unfortunately the need to change our thinking in the legal system has not gone away. Many of us are still thinking in terms of winners and losers, good guys and bad guys.

It has been over three years now since I attended a collaborative law training, and I have yet to handle a collaborative case because no one in my somewhat rural area is interested. It takes at least two to collaborate, and it takes a community to make real changes in the philosophy and attitude of the court system. None of us can do it alone, and trying to change the system alone is a surefire recipe for burnout: keep it up and you're toast. Only by working together on changing our goals, for our clients, for the system, for ourselves, can we achieve any deep or lasting change.

The FTC weighs in on virtual worlds

2009-03-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

Virtual Worlds and Kids: the FTC advises parents on the potential risks

Reading an article by Nathaniel T. Noda

2009-03-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

I'm just reading an article from the Sturm College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, Fall 2008 issue (you can "log in as guest"), entitled "When Holding On Means Letting Go: Why Fair Use Should Extend to Fan-Based Activities," by Nathaniel T. Noda, 5 U. Denver Sports & Ent. L.J. (2008)[26]. This one's a keeper.

My thanks to the "Fandom Lawyers" community at LiveJournal for pointing me to this one.

Clio

2009-02-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a serious look at Clio and wondering if any other attorneys have any experiences to report about it. I never like to rely on the product website as my sole source of information about any product, especially something as sensitive as web-based law practice management. Thoughts?

Attorney marketing and online social networking

2009-02-23T11:22:00.001-08:00

I've been recommending to others (including someone who is running for Family Court judge this year) that it's time for attorneys to start using Facebook and Twitter as part of our professional identities, so I guess it's time to put my identity where my mouth is and start using my Facebook and Twitter accounts accordingly. It's easier with Twitter to separate the personal and the professional because I already have two Twitter accounts, a personal one and a professional one. I only have the one Facebook account, and there's "fun" stuff there, too, not just my professional face. So, I'm thinking about how best to accomplish for myself what I have been recommending to others.

Too funny .....

2009-02-16T05:43:00.000-08:00

Gotta love the idea of making a federal case out of iPhone fart applications.

Broadening the scope ....

2009-02-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I think I've been limiting myself too much with the "Second Person Legal" concept. I'm interested in a lot of interrelated techno-law/cyberlaw issues which go beyond just virtual worlds, so I haven't really used this blawg (or the WordPress version of the blawg, or the associated Ning). I'm going to broaden the scope of this and I'm working on a few more ideas, so .... hope to be back here with some of those ideas under development soon.

Testing Flock

2009-01-23T09:45:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from Flock.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Wow ....

2008-12-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

Looks like "the man himself" on all things virtual-law-related, Benjamin Duranske, is now following this blawg! Wow! I'm going to have to make sure to post some interesting content here soon. :-)

Benjamin Duranske is moving on .....

2008-12-13T06:21:00.000-08:00

The first and foremost "virtual law" blawg, Benjamin Duranske's Virtually Blind, will no longer be updated, since he has taken a position with a law firm. The blawg will be missed. A new blawg like Second Person Legal can never take the place of a pioneer like Virtually Blind, but maybe I can have a few things to say.

Let's try this again .....

2008-12-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

I wanted to set up a blawg for my law-related stuff, but the last time I tried, the blog was marked as spam. Let's try it again and see if the same thing happens this time.