Ask Howard Treesong About Law or Lawyering

[Howard Treesong]

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what kind of pro bono work do you do, if any? what area of law do you find the most interesting?

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In my current role, none -- although I was highly tempted to go roust up a class to sue the Flying Imams on an intentional-infliction of emotional distress case. In the past, I've represented several indigent criminal defendants.

Oddly enough, I'm a process geek and generally avoided a subject-matter specialty. Of all the areas I dabbled in, I liked litigating in bankruptcy courts the best. That's because trials there have no juries and are usually on an accelerated time frame, avoiding the stupid discovery fights that burden down most civil litigation. Plus, a ton of my opponents were bankruptcy lawyers rather than litigators who didn't know enough about the rules of evidence or other trial issues, and at times, litigating against these guys felt like spearing fish in barrel. One transcript I'll remember for a long time:

Witness: Well, the banker told me . . .

Me (interrupting): Objection. Hearsay.

Court: Well?

Enemy lawyer: We really need this testimony, your honor.

Me: shrugs shoulders.

Court: Sustained.

[BPA234]

Thanks for taking the time to start this thread. I always value any perspective that comes from pesonal experience.

1. Please provide your thoughts on conflict criminology strictly as it relates to crime being a busines for the state. There is, in my opinion, validity in the argument that some laws and sentencing strutures appear to be designed to ensnare and retain people in the criminal justice system.

2. Your position on capital punishmet. Although I believe that people can commit acts that remove their rights, including their right to life, due to the state's inherrent inefficiency (inequality of representation, potential for outside influence, prejudice etc.) I can not support the death penalty.

3. What is the least amount of money over which you would kill someone?

4. Generally speaking, with regard to the legal system as a whole (including the criminal justice system), I think that most of the people working in the profession, most of the time, are doing the right thing. Agree/disagree?

[Howard Treesong]

Good questions. I can't get to 2p2 from work and will answer these tonight rather than jam out a really quick response now.

[Howard Treesong]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Please provide your thoughts on conflict criminology strictly as it relates to crime being a busines for the state. There is, in my opinion, validity in the argument that some laws and sentencing strutures appear to be designed to ensnare and retain people in the criminal justice system.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't generally think states have a business interest in imprisoning people, so I discount your proposition at a structural level. In contrast, I do think it benefits prosecutors to have high conviction rates and make names for themselves (e.g. Mike Nifong) and prosecutors tend, in my judgment, to take an adversarial rather than an objective view.

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2. Your position on capital punishmet. Although I believe that people can commit acts that remove their rights, including their right to life, due to the state's inherrent inefficiency (inequality of representation, potential for outside influence, prejudice etc.) I can not support the death penalty.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a close question. On balance, I think I support it, but I do so on deterrence grounds -- because I think there's an empirical case to be made that a threat of death deters particularly heinous conduct and may end up saving lives. I admit that this empirical argument is impossible to prove and its pure-utilitarian premises are questionable. As a practical matter, the habeas death case law is highly political, highly technical, highly abstract -- and highly costly to navigate. As a general matter, I'd leave substantial authority to the individual states to govern this issue as they see fit. And I don't feel strongly about this one.

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3. What is the least amount of money over which you would kill someone?

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There isn't any. No amount of money would change my life sufficiently to even consider this proposition.

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4. Generally speaking, with regard to the legal system as a whole (including the criminal justice system), I think that most of the people working in the profession, most of the time, are doing the right thing. Agree/disagree?

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I generally agree. I don't think lawyers are categorically different from accountants, engineers, firemen, or anyone else in this regard.

[Adebisi]

Why do you think juries are so pro-prosecution in criminal cases? I've seen statistics that indicate conviction rates of 75%+ in some jurisdictions. Given how easy it is for prosecutors to get indictments, There should be a LOT more aquitals in our court system. It's very very difficult to prove that a person did something beyond a reasonable doubt. Especially given constitutional limitations and rules of evidence. Just looking at the design of the U.S. criminal justice system on paper, I would guess the conviction rate should be somewhere between 15-25%.

I think the two factors that contribute most to this phenomenon are the facts that sample of the population that serves on criminal juries is skewed towards excessively pro-government people, and the police/prosecution have exponentially more resources at their disposal than your average defendant.

Any thoughts on this?

Do you think there's a chance that this bug in the system can/will be fixed?

[ahnuld]

this is very me specific, but im hoping you could answer anyways:

My brother is debating between law schools and has a full preacceptance scholarship offer from GWU. If he accepts the conditions is he has to go there. Im wondering 1) What can they do if he doesnt? And 2) It is that much more highly regarded than a canadian school like University of Toronto or Mcgill?

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
this is very me specific, but im hoping you could answer anyways:

My brother is debating between law schools and has a full preacceptance scholarship offer from GWU. If he accepts the conditions is he has to go there. Im wondering 1) What can they do if he doesnt? And 2) It is that much more highly regarded than a canadian school like University of Toronto or Mcgill?

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I would be surprised if it weren't less regarded, generally. Looking at rankings online, it looks like Toronto and McGill are 2 of the 3 most esteemed law schools in Canada, and GWU is in the 20s in the US. Especially if he wants to practice in Canada, the Canadian schools seem like a better bet, but a free ride is nothing to sneeze at here.

[ahnuld]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
this is very me specific, but im hoping you could answer anyways:

My brother is debating between law schools and has a full preacceptance scholarship offer from GWU. If he accepts the conditions is he has to go there. Im wondering 1) What can they do if he doesnt? And 2) It is that much more highly regarded than a canadian school like University of Toronto or Mcgill?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would be surprised if it weren't less regarded, generally. Looking at rankings online, it looks like Toronto and McGill are 2 of the 3 most esteemed law schools in Canada, and GWU is in the 20s in the US. Especially if he wants to practice in Canada, the Canadian schools seem like a better bet, but a free ride is nothing to sneeze at here.

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Yes, those were my thoughts. However because of the fact that american school put so much weight on LSAT scores (he got 171) and less weight on GPA (3.3) he has a much better chance of getting in to a tier 1 american school than the best canadian school (U of T).

Is law something where if you learn it in the states you can only practice in the states? I know quebec/montreal is very unique because we have civil law as opposed to common law. But if you learn common law its transnational as long as the other country/state has common law as well?

[FlyWf]

The distinction between common and civil law is philosophical, not procedural.

Also civil law is more popular than common, continental Europe is all civil law. Louisiana and Quebec are unique when compared to the rest of Canada and the US, UK/Canada/US are unique compared to the world at large.

[BretWeir]

Where is your brother hoping to practice? If he wants to practice in Canada, then it's a no-brainer--go to one of the Canadian schools.

If he wants to be in the U.S., then a solid middle-first-tier school like GWU is probably going to open more doors than even a top-ranked Canadian school. (Incidentally, if UT and McGill were lumped in to the U.S. market, I doubt they'd be ranked that much higher than 20th.)

Some major U.S. firms might hire an applicant or two a year from top Canadian law schools, but recruiting and alumni networks are much more focused on American schools.

Also, GWU has some very good young faculty members and is aggressively building its reputation. I wouldn't be surprised to see it move up in the rankings over the next few years--I think it'll certainly break the top 20, and may move up to the mid-teens.

No idea what the consequences of breaking a "preacceptance condition" would be. I imagine the school would just blackball you if you tried to reapply in the future; not sure if they'd be able to do more than that.