Commentary and Opinion

October 15, 2007

Internet Evolution: Don’t Fight the New Wave of Digital Content

Does access to social networking, video sharing, and other new media online capabilities mean wasted time, lost productivity, and possibly security concerns or are there legitimate business reasons to include them on organization web sites? Many of us are encountering these and related issues in our own organizations. Stacey Peterson, the editor of Information Week Daily Newsletter, raises these questions in the following excerpt to the October 15, 2007 issue. Also included is a link to a related but more extensive article by Aditya Kishre;

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“The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this year banned access to YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, StupidVideos, MTV, and a bunch of other Web sites by soldiers stationed abroad. It makes sense. We’re at war, and soldiers shouldn’t be playing around on the Internet, sucking up bandwidth, and opening up the military network to security compromises.”

October 12, 2007

State of New York: Bench and Bar Respond to Judicial Pay Deadlock

by David Badertscher

The following was received from the New York Law Journal. We appreciate their efforts in compiling this material:

October 12, 2007

Editor’s Note: As the Law Journal receives commentary from sitting judges and members of the bar on the fallout from the lack of compromise in the state’s budget on judicial salaries, we will publish those remarks in this space.

October 11, 2007

Researchers: Hackers Could Affect Presidential Election

by David Badertscher

Source: Washkuch, Frank Jr., “Researchers: Hackers Could Affect Presidential Election”, SC Magazine Newswire. October 9, 2007.

BY Frank Washkuch Jr.

Hackers could affect next year’s presidential election by using keyloggers, phishing messages or hacking, researchers said this week.

October 9, 2007

Court Demeanor: The Theatre of the Courtroom

by David Badertscher

A recent paper very useful to all who are involved with the courts and the judiciary. The Abstract appears below:

LAURIE L. LEVENSON

Loyola Law School Los Angeles

October 9, 2007

The Pulse of the Legal Profession

by David Badertscher

Since 2001 the American Bar Association has commissioned four surveys of the legal profession, including both members and non-members of the ABA. The most recent survey, The Pulse of the Legal Profession is reported in some detail by Stephanie Francis Ward in the October 2007 issue of the American Bar Association Journal. The following is a brief summary of survey responses as included in her report:

RESPONDENTS TO SURVEY:

Type of Pracitice:

October 5, 2007

Exactly What Is A Hate Crime?

by David Badertscher

Source: : Website: In Chambers…a commonplace book of interesting legal things,http://www.inchambers.us

“Arizona, like a number of states, punishes certain crimes when they are done with hate. For instance, if A, who hates homosexuals, attacks B because B is a homosexual, A may be charged with assault and punished more harshly than he would be if B were not gay.”

“Okay, now what if A attacks B and B is gay, but A did not attack for that reason? Is that attack also a hate crime?”

September 14, 2007

Law, The Brain and DSM

by David Badertscher

David Badertscher

Usually four times a year I make a presentation to Psychiatric Fellows associated with our forensic psychiatric clinic. In these presentations I discuss updated reference sources including databases, and review with them various searching and other techniques useful in their research. When preparing for an upcoming session I noticed two items, one a small OP-ED article in the New York Times, and the other a review of a book published by Oxford University Press.

One book that is consulted repeatedly is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, a respected reference source, currently in its fourth edition, prepared by the American Psychiatric Association. While this source is often relied upon without question, there is a concern among some that future editions may need to focus in a more precise way on issues such as symptoms and the linkage between diagnosis and treatment.

August 30, 2007

Legal Scholarship: It should be relevant again

by David Badertscher

The following is a brief description of an article by Aaron Tiberski that is scheduled for publication as an opinion column in the September 3, 2007 National Law Journal.

“The legal academy has played a vital role in its interaction with both the bench and bar by providing lucid analysis of case law, and setting forth a theoretical framework for new and yet uncharted causes of action. For those of us in academia, it is our responsibility to continue to contribute to the discourse with the legal profession.”