1. Stay in shape, eat right, and don’t short change yourself of sleep. The mind is a manifestation of the body. Healthy systems keep the brain and CNS safe, well nourished, and efficient. Think of consistent cardio, strength training, and martial arts as physical foundations for mental learning and integrate these with study plans .
2. Studying with others is okay. It is a way to bond as a community of students and professionals. This is essential for online students. Part of professional preparation is cultivating the network we will depend on in practice. While students at traditional schools accomplish a measure of this simply by being in the same place for a shared purpose, it doesn’t happen for online students without a conscious effort. But don’t make a study group the focal point of your effort to make the grade. Make friends instead, taking care to find your own way through the material. Be a friendly skeptic.
3. Trim and prioritize your responsibilities. Most law students are law students and that’s it. By working and going to full-time graduate school we are already pushing ourselves into a zone that most people would find downright painful. Prune all the activities, relationships, jobs, once in a lifetime experiences, etc. that you can without becoming depressed. Be prepared to pass on golden opportunities. Not everything can be cast callously aside of course.  And determining what can and can’t is a deeply personal decision. I’ll admit that to get through 1L I had to say “no” to people in ways that will leave deep scars.
4. The more we read like lawyers, the better we think like lawyers. Go way beyond the casebooks and the horn books. Don’t wait for someone to show you Westlaw or Lexis. When you get your account dig in and learn them. Both companies provide free training. See their respective home pages for details. If you have both available, learn both. They are huge, but  organized in parallel to physical libraries. Once in a while wander around the stacks and pull something off the shelf at random. Or make a natural language query on a topic, hobby or historical event that interests you. It probably has legal aspects you hadn’t considered. Once, I searched for David Koresh on a whim. I found court cases about him and the Branch Davidians that weave a fascinating melodrama stretching well beyond what is widely known and talked about. I like to browse American Law Reports (ALR) and American Jurisprudence (AmJur). These provide surveys and detailed articles on all the 1L topics and their nuances. In contrast to the academic ponderings of LaFave, Perillo, and company the encylopedia and annotations strike a concise, practical tone because practioners don’t have time to play hide and seek with the rules.
5. Read lawyer magazines like Trial from the American Association for Justice (AAJ) or the Journal of the American Bar Association. These are less heavy reading than those above and you can learn a lot from them.  They emphasize practical matters like trial and discovery strategy, dealing with rules of ethics, the business of running a law firm, and aspects of different practice areas. They also have news which you can use for networking leads.
6. Discover what you love about the law and share it. Discover what bothers you about the law and share that too. Hang out with lawyers and other law students. Get know law librarians, and paralegals, and cops, and court clerks and everyone one else who loves and hates this stuff right along with us. Join a group like AAJ, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, or your state bar association and take advantage of their educational programs. Ask lawyers that you meet to critique your understanding. Even if you’re certain you know the elements of negligence cold go ahead and test yourself against the pros. Again, be a friendly skeptic.

That’s how I’ve succeeded so far and my approach continues to evolve. I can’t say that the exact opposite or something in between wouldn’t work for you–but I wish all my colleagues every success.

Facts

• Crystal Chambers (Chambers) [P], a single black woman, worked for Omaha Girls Club, Inc (Omaha) [D]  teaching arts and crafts.
• Omaha [D] is a private, not for profit corporation established to promote life opportunities for young girls.
• Discouraging pregnancy in the context of promoting life opportunities for young girls is one aim of Omaha [D].
• Omaha[D] adopted a role model policy prohibiting unmarried staff from becoming pregnant.
• Chambers [P] became pregnant and revealed this to her supervisor.
• Omaha [D] terminated Chambers [P] for violating the role model policy.

Procedural History

Chambers [P] complained to state equal opportunity commission. Commission declined to find illegal discrimination based on sex or marital status. Chambers [P] sued in federal court on civil rights, Title VII, and state law claims for bad faith discharge, defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy to deprive a person of livelihood. A district court dismissed most claims and ruled for Omaha [D] on the balance. See Chambers v. Omaha Girls Club, 629 F.Supp 925 (D. Neb. 1986). Chambers [P] then brought this appeal.

Issue

Is an employer policy prohibiting pregnancy by unmarried women in order to provide a staff of role models to young girls consistent with Title VII because the policy is a justified business necessity or articulates a bona fide occupational qualification?

Rule

An employer policy that is not motivated by animus at a protected class but has a significant adverse impact on members of a protected class is discriminatory unless the employer proves the policy is clearly essential to the position. If the policy appears to be driven by animus the employer must prove that the policy is driven by legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons. Evidence that these reasons are a pretext for illegal discrimination can be rebutted by showing that the policy implements a bona fide occupational qualification.

Decision

Affirmed.

Rationale

Chambers’ [P] claims encompassed discrimination through both disparate impact and disparate treatment.

As to disparate impact, Chambers [P] introduced evidence that black women have a higher fertility rate. This established that the policy had a “significant adverse impact on members of a protected minority group.” Omaha [D] argued that the presence of an unwed pregnant woman on the staff would convey approval of her pregnancy, undermining the organization’s purpose of promoting life opportunities for young girls. Omaha [D] offered evidence, including expert testimony that:

•  The role model policy was rooted in Omaha’s [D] belief that teen pregnancies curtailed the life opportunities of young girls,  and was not put in place to enforce a religious or moral norm.
• The policy was one part of Omaha’s [D] broader program to discourage teen pregnancy.
• The policy could be effective in reducing teen pregnancy, while Chamber’s [P] expert countered that this conclusion was speculative.

These were sufficient to conclude that the policy was a business necessity. The court also noted that alternatives to termination, such as furlough or change in duties, were unsatisfactory solutions in this case because these did not fit Omaha’s [D] operational needs.

As to disparate treatment, Chambers [P] established a prima facie claim for discrimination and Omaha [D] proved that the policy served a legitimate, non-discriminatory purpose.  Chambers did not prove that these purposes were pretextual, however the court suggested that even if she had the evidence supporting the policy as a business necessity was probably sufficient to establish it as a bona fide occupational qualification as well.

Dissent

A dissent in this case suggested more empirical evidence was necessary to meet Omaha’s [D] burden of proof and would have held the district court’s findings of business necessity and legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the policy to be clearly erroneous.

In reality, the revelation of who Felt was raised serious questions about the accomplishments of Woodward and Bernstein, the actual price we all pay for journalistic ethics, and how for many years we did not know a critical dimension of the Watergate crisis. At a time when newspapers are in financial crisis and journalism is facing serious existential issues, Watergate always has been held up as a symbol of what journalism means for a democracy, revealing truths that others were unwilling to uncover and grapple with. There is truth to this vision of journalism, but there is also a deep ambiguity, all built around Felt’s role. This is therefore not an excursion into ancient history, but a consideration of two things. The first is how journalists become tools of various factions in political disputes. The second is the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and governments in a Democratic society.

Watergate was about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. The break-in was carried out by a group of former CIA operatives controlled by individuals leading back to the White House. It was never proven that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon knew of the break-in, but we find it difficult to imagine that he didn’t. In any case, the issue went beyond the break-in. It went to the cover-up of the break-in and, more importantly, to the uses of money that financed the break-in and other activities. Numerous aides, including the attorney general of the United States, went to prison. Woodward and Bernstein, and their newspaper, The Washington Post, aggressively pursued the story from the summer of 1972 until Nixon’s resignation. The episode has been seen as one of journalism’s finest moments. It may have been, but that cannot be concluded until we consider Deep Throat more carefully.

Deep Throat Reconsidered

Mark Felt was deputy associate director of the FBI (No. 3 in bureau hierarchy) in May 1972, when longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died. Upon Hoover’s death, Felt was second to Clyde Tolson, the longtime deputy and close friend to Hoover who by then was in failing health himself. Days after Hoover’s death, Tolson left the bureau.

Felt expected to be named Hoover’s successor, but Nixon passed him over, appointing L. Patrick Gray instead. In selecting Gray, Nixon was reaching outside the FBI for the first time in the 48 years since Hoover had taken over. But while Gray was formally acting director, the Senate never confirmed him, and as an outsider, he never really took effective control of the FBI. In a practical sense, Felt was in operational control of the FBI from the break-in at the Watergate in August 1972 until June 1973.

Nixon’s motives in appointing Gray certainly involved increasing his control of the FBI, but several presidents before him had wanted this, too, including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both of these presidents wanted Hoover gone for the same reason they were afraid to remove him: He knew too much. In Washington, as in every capital, knowing the weaknesses of powerful people is itself power — and Hoover made it a point to know the weaknesses of everyone. He also made it a point to be useful to the powerful, increasing his overall value and his knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the powerful.

Hoover’s death achieved what Kennedy and Johnson couldn’t do. Nixon had no intention of allowing the FBI to continue as a self-enclosed organization outside the control of the presidency and everyone else. Thus, the idea that Mark Felt, a man completely loyal to Hoover and his legacy, would be selected to succeed Hoover is in retrospect the most unlikely outcome imaginable.

Felt saw Gray’s selection as an unwelcome politicization of the FBI (by placing it under direct presidential control), an assault on the traditions created by Hoover and an insult to his memory, and a massive personal disappointment. Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Ni xon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.

Woodward and Bernstein were on the city desk of The Washington Post at the time. They were young (29 and 28), inexperienced and hungry. We do not know why Felt decided to use them as his conduit for leaks, but we would guess he sought these three characteristics — as well as a newspaper with sufficient gravitas to gain notice. Felt obviously knew the two had been assigned to a local burglary, and he decided to leak what he knew to lead them where he wanted them to go. He used his knowledge to guide, and therefore control, their investigation.

Systematic Spying on the President

And now we come to the major point. For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.

Instead of passing what he knew to professional prosecutors at the Justice Department — or if he did not trust them, to the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing — Felt chose to leak the information to The Washington Post. He bet, or knew, that Post editor Ben Bradlee would allow Woodward and Bernstein to play the role Felt had selected for them. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all knew who Deep Throat was. They worked with the operational head of the FBI to destroy Nixon, and then protected Felt and the FBI until Felt came forward.

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it. The story of Deep Throat was well-known, but what lurked behind the identity of Deep Throat was not. This was not a lone whistle-blower being protected by a courageous news organization; rather, it was a news organization being used by the FBI against the president, and a news organization that knew perfectly well that it was being used against the president. Protecting Deep Throat concealed not only an individual, but also the story of the FBI’s role in destroying Nixon.

Again, Nixon’s guilt is not in question. And the argument can be made that given John Mitchell’s control of the Justice Department, Felt thought that going through channels was impossible (although the FBI was more intimidating to Mitchell than the other way around). But the fact remains that Deep Throat was the heir apparent to Hoover — a man not averse to breaking the law in covert operations — and Deep Throat clearly was drawing on broader resources in the FBI, resources that had to have been in place before Hoover’s death and continued operating afterward.

Burying a Story to Get a Story

Until Felt came forward in 2005, not only were these things unknown, but The Washington Post was protecting them. Admittedly, the Post was in a difficult position. Without Felt’s help, it would not have gotten the story. But the terms Felt set required that a huge piece of the story not be told. The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn’t what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat’s identity.

Journalists have celebrated the Post’s role in bringing down the president for a generation. Even after the revelation of Deep Throat’s identity in 2005, there was no serious soul-searching on the omission from the historical record. Without understanding the role played by Felt and the FBI in bringing Nixon down, Watergate cannot be understood completely. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee were willingly used by Felt to destroy Nixon. The three acknowledged a secret source, but they did not reveal that the secret source was in operational control of the FBI. They did not reveal that the FBI was passing on the fruits of surveillance of the White House. They did not reveal the genesis of the fall of Nixon. They accepted the accolades while withholding an extraordinarily important fact, elevating their own role in the episode while distorting the actual dynamic of Nixon’s fall.

Absent any widespread reconsideration of the Post’s actions during Watergate in the three years since Felt’s identity became known, the press in Washington continues to serve as a conduit for leaks of secret information. They publish this information while protecting the leakers, and therefore the leakers’ motives. Rather than being a venue for the neutral reporting of events, journalism thus becomes the arena in which political power plays are executed. What appears to be enterprising journalism is in fact a symbiotic relationship between journalists and government factions. It may be the best path journalists have for acquiring secrets, but it creates a very partial record of events — especially since the origin of a leak frequently is much more important to the public than the leak itself.

The Felt experience is part of an ongoing story in which journalists’ guarantees of anonymity to sources allow leakers to control the news process. Protecting Deep Throat’s identity kept us from understanding the full dynamic of Watergate. We did not know that Deep Throat was running the FBI, we did not know the FBI was conducting surveillance on the White House, and we did not know that the Watergate scandal emerged not by dint of enterprising journalism, but because Felt had selected Woodward and Bernstein as his vehicle to bring Nixon down. And we did not know that the editor of The Washington Post allowed this to happen. We had a profoundly defective picture of the situation, as defective as the idea that Bob Woodward looks like Robert Redford.

Finding the truth of events containing secrets is always difficult, as we know all too well. There is no simple solution to this quandary. In intelligence, we dream of the well-placed source who will reveal important things to us. But we also are aware that the information provided is only the beginning of the story. The rest of the story involves the source’s motivation, and frequently that motivation is more important than the information provided. Understanding a source’s motivation is essential both to good intelligence and to journalism. In this case, keeping secret the source kept an entire — and critical — dimension of Watergate hidden for a generation. Whatever crimes Nixon committed, the FBI had spied on the president and leaked what it knew to The Washington Post in order to destroy him. The editor of The Washington Post knew that, as did Woodward and Bernstein. We do not begrudge them their prizes and accolades, but it would have been useful to know who handed them the story. In many ways, that story is as interesting as the one about all the president’s men.

On the MBA side I completed a great course in cross-cultural management, but decided to hold-off on MIS for. I’m inclined to take that subject at a local university and transfer the credit to AMU. A virtual campus has tremendous advantages, but sometimes it’s also fun to be immersed in a academic landscape.

So, here’s the expected line-up:

MBA

1. Management Information Systems (changed my mind, I’ll do this later possibly at a brick n’ mortar school)
2. Marketing Management (currently taking this engaging class with Dr. Joe LeVesque and about half of the way through)
3. Financial Accounting (starts in a few days)

LAW SCHOOL (2L - all start on January 9, 2009)

1. Civil Procedure
2. Criminal Procedure
3. Constitutional Law
4. Real Property

The Net Promoter Score or NPS is a particular statistic that some researchers propose can predict whether overall customer loyalty will encourage your business to grow or not. The main idea of NPS is alluringly simple. Take the percentage of customers who are highly likely to recommend you (promoters), subtract those who are disinclined, indifferent, or only somewhat likely to give you good word of mouth (detractors). There you have it: %P - %D = NPS. The prediction is that a higher score allows for better top-line growth.

NPS has been adopted by some large companies including GE and American Express. Smaller firms may be drawn to its low cost and simplicity. It can be adapted to personal networking and even dating. As a way of measuring customer loyalty the NPS falls within the broad realm of marketing and more specifically into the discipline of relationship marketing. Relationship marketers take the view that continual customer satisfaction is more important than the upside or downside of any single transaction.

This makes a lot of common sense and the underlying theory may be strong too. The research behind NPS was first presented by Fred Reichheld in a 2003 ‘Harvard Business Review’ article. He later expanded on the concept in his book ‘The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth’. On the other hand, some market researchers claim that the correlation between growth and NPS does not hold up over the long run. Also certain markets, like business-to-business service buyers or senior technology executives, seem to respond more accurately when adjustments are made to the basic approach.

In any case, adherents of NPS find that it is a useful indicator and focal point for customer loyalty efforts because it is easier to grasp than the statistical intricacies of other models. An NPS survey is inexpensive and appealing because it asks one straight forward question such as “how likely are you to recommend our work to a friend or colleague?” A short survey like this is quick to tabulate and probably gets a better response rate than lengthy customer satisfaction questionnaires

As Reichheld described in the preface to his book: “The real issue is how a company knows what its customers are feeling and how it can establish accountability for the customer experience. Traditional satisfaction surveys just aren’t up to this job. They ask too many questions and generate too little usable information.” In contrast, the Net Promoter Score is about one question that generates information you can use as soon as you hear the answer.

For further reading:

Keiningham, T.L., Cooil B., Andreassen T. W., & Aksoy, L. (2007). A longitudinal examination of net promoter and firm revenue growth,” Journal of Marketing, vol. 71, no. 3 (July), 39-51.

Reichheld, F. (2003, December). The one number you need to grow. Harvard Business Review, 81(12), 46-54.

Reichheld, F. (2006). The ultimate question : Driving good profits and true growth. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Once or twice a semester I ask a volunteer in charge of sorting donations to check the back room for any big red or green tomes that haven’t made their way out front. The stack librarians and volunteers love my backroom raids because the volumes take up so much of their work space. Usually I walk away with at least one extra casebook this way. Although, the only yield of my last sortie was the hardcover of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince that I needed to complete my set.

So, if I say I am committed scrounger you will agree. If you’ve watched the scene in 300 where the young Spartan is sent into the wild to fend for himself—-cold, nearly naked and half starving so that he will build the courage and character to lead similarly hardened men to their bitter demise in the name of liberty and glory—-well then, you have some notion of what attending law school on financial aid does to a man.

Here are some tips for stretching any textbook budget.

Tip 1. Get your book list as soon as possible. Ideally, find out what books you need for the next term well before the end of your current classes. This gives you time to shop around, find friends-of-friends who already took the course, and get ILL (see Tip 4 below). If the official book list isn’t available as early as you need, just go ask the professor, the department chair, or a cohort.

Tip 2. ISBN’s are your friends. You do not really know what book you need until you have the ISBN from a reliable source, preferably the professor or off the back of the edition being sold in your college’s textbook cartel bookstore. Having an ISBN makes ILL easier and helps prevent the expense of obtaining the wrong book, or worse a useless edition of the right book. Once you’re certain of the ISBN chuck the title,  publisher data, and learned author’s name. They exist only to deceive you.

Tip 3. Get to know someone who is on the faculty or senior staff of a university and has a library card. It does not need to be the institution you attend. But if you are a teaching assistant, faculty member or other mid to high level employee of a college do stop by and get your own card. Professors and staff often have special library privileges, like checking out circulating materials one academic year at time unless another patron calls for the item. When I was a university staffer, even my egregious late fees were routinely waived as a professional courtesy.

Tip 4. Unlock the power of inter-library loan. This is actually one of the best book scrounging tips ever, and it’s not just for textbooks. If you belong to one college or public library, then you pretty much belong to all of them! Every regular edition book is available in some library or another. This is important because if your college library has the texts for current courses they will probably be on reserve or checked out when you need them. But, at some other college they are just another circulating reference.

Tip 5. Be nice to librarians. Befriend librarians. Seduce librarians.  The time spent searching for any tangible thing in the known universe is inversely related to the quantity of librarians the searcher can comfortably call at 2:00am.

I have met more than a few lawyers who don’t care for lawyer jokes. I hope I don’t lose my willingness to laugh at myself or our profession when I grow up.

To her credit, the VP wanted to make sure that my experience was not a sign of a yet undiscovered problem. She also tried to do the right thing by getting me the information I had been after in the first place. As a higher ed exec she had some great insights into the financial aid process. In light of lenders fleeing Federal Student Aid markets, I think her advice may be at least as useful as the information that I really thought I wanted. On the other hand, I still haven’t seen the lender links in my inbox that I was promised . Overall, mixed results. But I admit, the personal attention stroked my ego and placated me—-for now.

On another note, thanks go out to Steve M. for checking with the dean and reminding our section that classes from 2L onward start twice a year (January and July). For my part, this means I will have a good window between First Year Law Students Exam (FYLSE) and the start of 2L classes to concentrate on an MBA course. That will be Management Information Systems. Meanwhile, I’m optimistically anxiously awaiting final exam grades and preparing for the FYLSE on October 28th. Speaking of finals, I think mine were pretty solid–not perfect, just solid. The only thing bothering me about FYSLE is that I missed the earliest registration period. I had been checking calbar.org religiously, then lost track of it when I went to Europe. Oh well, I ended up having to pay a $25 late fee. That’s not nearly as bad as the $200 fee that kicks in on Sep. 15th.

I’m Trevor Reid (lately many people call me “Ti”) in hot pursuit of the online JD/MBA. As of tonight, only final exams stand between me and successful completion of my first year (1L) at Concord Law School. For a more complete story, please check out the About Trevor page. Anyway, the inspiration for this blog struck while I was attending a 2008 trial lawyers’ convention in Philadelphia. On the first day there was an orientation session especially for law student attendees and as I mingled we almost universally introduced ourselves by name, year, and school affiliation. Although Concord is among the largest law schools, it is still an unfamiliar name for many of my bright, young colleagues who attend traditional schools. In fact, becoming a licensed attorney by earning a law degree online is still vanguard enough that it actually takes a lot of guts–more on that later. Anyway, by the end of the circuit I had explained how I studied law online so many times that my impromptu capsule sounded more like a well rehearsed presentation.

The most common reaction was curiosity. I heard “how does that work?” and, “how do your professors use the Socratic method online?” the most. There were also a few horrified, did I seriously just move across the country because I didn’t know all my options stupors and–occasionally–some skepticism. I really enjoyed engaging my fellow law students on these points and walked away with a great deal more perspective on advantages and disadvantages of the way they go to school too. All this made me realize, that there is a lot of genuine interest in the realities of online legal education. This blog will be a candid forum to share what I’ve found out so far, pro and con alike.

Online MBA’s may be less exotic than online law degrees, but since I study both it just seems natural to include both experiences in my posts. I will try to keep an open mind, but my enthusiasm is bound to show. Overall, I think there has never been a better time to go for a degree online. It’s exciting that technology is putting these vital professions and knowledge in reach for more people than ever before.

Here, I should mention that I study each degree independently at separate institutions. I am responsible for coordinating between the two programs and managing my time accordingly. This is not strictly speaking a dual degree and I will probably undertake more credit hours than if it were. This, of course, means investing extra time and money.

So, that’s me and those are the aims of this blog. I also want you to know that I welcome your comments at every turn. This goes for questions and criticism as well. Please keep comments civil. I am not easily offended, but other readers may be. I’ll be looking out for them.

Finally, if you are a student from Concord Law School or another school and would like to setup a companion blog hosted on this server please leave me a comment letting me know. I believe varied perspectives on education and on the professions are Good Things.