WEEK 8 BOC: Progress in finding a lawyer

Before looking for random Las Vegas lawyers for the homework, I decided to start with lawyers I know, of which I know a few. There is Beth Brands, the lady on facebook that I play games with. There is Ward Skinner, who was the in-house lawyer for the worker's compensation insurance company that I used to work for and who also went to USC like I did. There is Ash Naraynan, an old family friend who I haven’t heard from in many years and I am not sure if he remembers me. And finally there is my cousin Amina, who passed law school and is studying for the bar exam. I figure she would know some lawyers if she doesn't quite qualify as a lawyer.

So I started contacting them. By chance, Beth was online on facebook when I contacted her in chat and she immediately agreed to help with my assignment. Beth is a lawyer in Iowa. I will use her for the assignment. As a backup, I sent a linked in request to Ward, but haven’t heard back from him. And I plan to see Amina this weekend to discuss this with her.

WEEK 7 EOC: Finding a lawyer

I decided to try a few lawyers that I know before cold calling random lawyers in the Las Vegas area.

There were 4 that I could think of:

·      Beth, a lawyer friend that I chat with online on facebook,

·      Ward, a lawyer at the insurance company I used to work for. I used to fix his computer as part of my job doing in-house computer support. The drawback is, it has been awhile since I have seen him and I don’t even know if he still works at that company or even if he would remember me.

·      Ash, a family friend. But it has been years since I have heard from him and he was more my brother’s friend than mine.

·      My cousin who is studying for the bar now. She is not a lawyer yet, but I am assuming she would know some lawyers.           

I went online and contacted the first one, Beth. I got very lucky, she happened to be online at the time. I explained my homework to her and she immediately agreed to help. I am not sure what type of lawyer she is but in law school you are required to have a very broad education and know about all types of law so I think she is a good choice.

            I plan to ask her legal questions related to photography. For example I would like to know what are your rights when shooting strangers in public places and when you do and don’t need model releases and property releases. Another question would be if you didn’t register your pictures with the copyright office can you still sue someone for copyright infringement if they use your image without your permission. Also I had a Russian guy steal the text content of my website, when I contacted the ISP to have them take it down, they said they needed a court order and I figured that would cost money so I never pursued it, there could be some legal questions to ask related to this.

WEEK 6 EOC: Illicit

I think the movie was very interesting in how it showed that something that seems like no big deal – buying an imitation handbag, for example, is actually just the tip of an iceberg and supports a huge chain of illegal goods and illegal activities. The crime itself might not seem to be such a big deal, but when you consider the millions in lost revenue by the companies being scammed and the money laundering and other crimes involved to support the illegal activities, then you realize that it really is a big deal, that without the demand on the consumer side for such knock offs, the supply would shrivel up. Plus you see that while buying a purse might not be dangerous, buying pills of unknown quality could put you at risk for serious injury or even death because you have no idea if they are what they say they are or how they are made, and it is all just to save a few bucks. It is not worth it.

            Personally I have never downloaded an illegal song, I buy songs legally on Itunes for a dollar. I see downloading songs illegally as no different from stealing something and I have always discouraged others from copying software when I knew they had the means to buy the software legally. I do admit that when I was younger I did copy a few computer games illegally and that was wrong, but that was a long time ago when I couldn’t afford the software. Now all my software is legal.

            On the other hand as a photographer, I am really annoyed at how nonchalantly people copy images off the internet and never once think about the rights of the artist who made them. Such free images have hurt the market for photography because people see  no reason to pay for something they can get for free.

Week 5 EOC: Patent Trolls

Such validations by the courts of the right to sue and collect money over such trivial things like putting an outdated patent number on a product by people who were not harmed by the products in question only serve to give courts and lawyers a bad name and show how out of touch they are with the values of society. They only serve to reinforce the public’s already low opinion of lawyers and courts.

Allowing a company to be sued for each product with a wrong number will create lots of work for manufacturing companies. They will have to hire people to find out which patents of theirs are expired, take those products off the shelves and then change the molds of all such items. They will need a team of people looking for infringements and dealing with all the lawsuits. Alternately, they would have to settle out of court, which is legalized extortion by these patent trolls. In the long run, most companies will probably stop putting patent numbers on their products altogether to avoid such hassles. This will make their patents harder to enforce and may serve to reduce the value of the patents.

All of this extra work created and money spent is unproductive and could be better spent on things like advertising or research and development. The main beneficiaries are lawyers. No wonder countries like China have such low manufacturing costs – they don’t have to put up with such frivolous regulations.

If a company has the wrong patent number on a product, they should be allowed to change it in future versions within a certain amount of time and only if they fail to do so should those who bring about such lawsuits benefit. Alternately, the courts should rule that the only people allowed to bring about such lawsuits should be those who can prove they personally were harmed by such practices, like if they are competitors to those companies. 

Week 4 EOC: Jeopardy Game

I think the game is a very effective learning tool for many reasons. To start with, creating the questions is difficult and makes you learn about many topics in the reading because you read a lot while trying to find suitable questions. Figuring out which categories to put the questions in and what value to assign the questions is also challenging.

The game itself forces you to think and remember what you read, and the open book format lets you learn while playing the game. Having the game played in teams, rather than as individuals, is a very good idea as it fosters teamwork and rewards those who work together.

The effect of changing the games before they were finished is to give a greater variety of questions of different difficultly levels. It also lessens the impact of bad questions and allows different people to take on the role of game creators. More importantly, it provides a convenient time to change the teams around.

Switching the teams around from game to game lets people meet other people and prevents any one team from dominating the game by redistributing the good players from team to team.

Varying the size of the teams changes the dynamics somewhat because large teams are more likely to come up with the correct answers. On the other hand, having small teams gives more people a chance to participate, even those who don’t participate normally. However, some people rarely participate, even when they are on smaller teams. They choose not to answer the questions and let their teams lose. Whether this is because they didn’t study, they were shy, or they were just apathetic I don’t know.

The system of giving extra credit for the midterm to people who are on winning teams or who participate is a good one because it rewards the good students. Also this being Las Vegas, letting your team gamble with their points in the last game is a nice touch.

Personally I had a lot of fun in the game. It’s a cool way to study. Creating the questions prepared me well for the game. Being a new student in the school and not knowing anyone, it allowed me to meet most of the people in the class. The teams I was on always came in first or second place and our team’s decision to gamble most of our points on the last game, while the other teams played very conservatively, turned out to be the right one. The reward of all those extra credit points means I don’t need to study much for the midterm.

Week 3 EOC: Stolen Valor Act

The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act that congress passed in 2006. Under the act, it is a crime to lie about winning US military medals..  The court ruled that the act was unconstitutional because it violated the free speech rights of those making false claims about winning medals.

            The court apparently didn’t want to get involved in the messy business of determining which about which subjects lies are legal and which ones lies are punishable.

“The prospect that Congress might move to outlaw other kinds of statements understandably prompted rights groups, writers, publishers, and news media outlets to urge that the Supreme Court overturn the Valor Act.[… At stake was whether the government could decree that otherwise harmless speech on any subject could be prosecuted. – Philadelphia Inquirer

           

As Reuters says, “The nation well knows that one of the costs of the First Amendment is that it protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace, so while lying about receiving a Medal of Honor may be "contemptible," it is constitutionally protected free speech, as the Stolen Valor Act was struck down.”

Others are not so sure:

According to TIME, “the court held the First Amendment’s right to be vile pond scum protects those who boast falsely of military decorations as well as your normal, garden variety slime. “

Veteran’s groups are dismayed by the ruling. Meanwhile, The defense department announced plans to create a stolen valor website to help people determine if someone is lying about military medals. Lawmakers are trying to pass a revised, narrower version that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone to benefit financially from lying about military service or awards.

I can see how on the one hand this ruling protects speech which has no good purpose, but at the same time I agree that if the act was allowed to stand it would bring about all sorts of questions about what subjects it is ok to lie about and what ones it is not ok. I agree that sometimes people go to far with their lies, but where do you draw the line and who gets to decide where that line is. So I can see that a more narrowly worded law would be better.

Week 2 EOC:
Facts about the Erin Brokovich case, Anderson vs Pacific Gas and Electric:

• both sides agreed to arbitration in order to speed up the process
• because of the arbitration, details of it were kept secret, which angered some of the victims
• the case was settled in 1996 for $333 million in damages
• the plaintiffs attorneys got 40%, $133 million, then billed the clients an extra $10 million for expenses
• Erin Brokovich got $2 million
• 650 residents got part of the settlemen
• the average was $300,000 per victim
• some of the victims were upset about the amounts they received
• the plaintiffs attorneys didn't disburse the settlement money until 6 months after they got it, which is very unusual, no explanation was given for this
• unlike in the movie, once the case got going, the plaintiffs attorneys hired some big law firms to help them win the case

My opinion of the case:

I think the case is very interesting in that it shows how attorneys can help the victims of environmental damage get large settlements, even against very large and well connected companies like PG&E. If parts of the movie are to be believed, it also shows how the presence of a beautiful woman like Erin Brokovich can open doors and get information that would be unobtainable by normal means. This probably wouldn't be possible if our society wasn't so male dominated, with most power in the hands of men.

My opinion of lawyers:

Lawyers are a necessary part of our society. I think quite highly of those lawyers that fight for what I believe in, like environmental and consumer protection. Without them, the big companies would get away with far more things than they do now. On the other hand, some lawyers have a bad reputation in society and I feel it is deserved by the tactics they use and the ethics they have.