Bases covered

My monthly issue of the State Bar’s Wisconsin Lawyer went in the trash a little sooner than it normally does.  It wasn’t some overused top-ten title — like, “the top ten ways to upset your judge,” or “don’t do these ten things if you want to keep your judge happy” — that turned me off.  In fact, there might have even be some good material in it.  But I wouldn’t know because I never got that far.  Instead, I was completely grossed out by the cover.  For some reason, it featured a child’s bare feet, large as life, and I just couldn’t get beyond that.  To leave this monstrosity sitting out on my coffee table — even if only to collect dust — was simply not an option.

I didn’t even learn what the main article was about until I got a call from a colleague.  We had a chuckle over the bar’s latest topic of choice: “assistive reproductive technology & parentage law.”  I offered to refer all such cases that came my way to my colleague, if he would send me his “maritime law” clients in exchange.  I think it will be a mutually beneficial referral scheme.  

My beef here, of course, is not with the author of the article, but with the mandatory bar and its misleading motto, “your practice, our purpose.”  In reality, when the bar is not actively opposing its own membership, it’s using my dues to produce a monthly rag for which I have no use.  Admittedly, this is among the least harmful of the bar’s activities, but I still don’t want to pay for it.        

Meanwhile, at PrawfsBlawg, the law professors are covering equally important issues for the practicing lawyer, including these:  Should e-sports qualify as sports? [Here.]  How much fear, if any, is “optimal” for a first year law student to have? [Here.]  And my personal favorite, how many times was the word “undertheorization” used in law review articles compared to “under-theorization”?  [Here.]  My spell checker did not flag the hyphenated version, so I’ll go with that should I ever be forced to choose.

So between the bar and the academy, I think they covered all of the major bases.  And me?  Well, I’ve just been putting together this resource page to help ensure that, before the state of Wisconsin can take a person’s liberty, it must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.  If the bar or the professoriate gets some spare time, maybe they can jump on this bandwagon and chip in.  I hear that writing about the burden of proof doesn’t qualify as a sport or even an e-sport, but it is a much “under-theorized” topic.