Dowbrigade

Any
first year law student worth their salt will tell you that the law consists
of rules and exceptions.  For the past few years the only exception
to my strict rule against inviting students into the sanctity of my home
has
been the annual summer Lobster Fest for my foreign LLM students.  This
year there are five lawyers from Japan (3 men and 2 women), two
from Taiwan, and one each from the PRC, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

These are foreign lawyers whose firms or governments need someone able
to represent their interests in US courts.  They are doing a one-year
LLM degree in American Law or Banking Law, at the end of which they will
be eligible to take the bar exam, and if they pass, to represent clients
in US courts.  And they don’t know lobsters from legumes.

Of course, I’m too cheap to actually go out and buy lobsters for 18
people (several brought spouses and one a drop-dead gorgeous 14-month-old
China doll), so I had each of them bring their own personal crustacean.  Two
of them actually went to Cape Cod this morning to try to catch theirs
(they ended up at a lobster pound). Figured it would be a good entree
to a distinctly New England experience – lobster shopping. We supplied
everything else: potato and garden salad, corn on the cob, iced tea and
beer.

But our apartment is tiny and the academic lifestyle is always a lesson
in living small. We didn’t have enough plates or silver, and people were
sitting on stones and footlockers. Why then did I not only permit but
invent and organize this
egregious invasion of my own precious privacy? Well, you never know when,
or where, you’re going to need a good lawyer..

I’ll try to post a picture of the LobsterFest later tonight….Meanwhile,
if you’ve got a few seconds to waste, play the Dancing Lobster
Game..

"You know, that
would probably be the coolest thing"

California Gubernatorial candidate and ex-actor Gary Coleman,
when asked about California Gubernatorial candidate and ex-actor
Arnold Schwartznegger
naming him (Coleman) as an advisor in a hypothetical future Schwartznegger
administration.

Three years ago, Amy Stahlecker, a freshman at Wayne State College,
got a flat tire. In a tragic series of events, she tried to hitchhike
to get help and was brutally murdered by the driver who picked her up.

Amy’s parents, Susan and Dale Stahlecker of Fremont, sued Firestone,
which made the Wilderness AT tire and Ford, which made her 1997 Explorer
she was driving, on the theory that their negligence and defective products
set off the chain of events that resulted in
her death. Bridgestone/Firestone has recalled
millions of ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires since August 2000 after
federal safety officials found they were prone to losing their tread
while traveling at high speeds.

In a decision yesterday, the Nebrasca Supreme Court failed to find a
"narrative of events, acts,
and
things done
or
omitted which
show
a legal liability
of the
defendant
to the
plaintiff."

article on case from the Guardian
Full-text decision from Nebraska Supreme Court

Research
slowed amid shortage, spike in prices

Rhesus monkeys have long been mainstays of late-stage medical research
because of their similarity to humans and the detailed knowlege of their
metabolisms developed over the years. National Institute of Health-funded
AIDS research alone used more than 2,000 monkeys in 2001.

Now, the increasing demand and high turnover in their
hazardous work environment has created a monkey shortage, with scientists
scientists paying
$5,000 to $10,000 each, buying one another’s ”used” primates
and even
trading
in monkey futures — rights to rhesus macaques in the womb.

In addition, the
shortage is holding up scientists’ efforts to create cures from new
knowledge, such as the human genome sequence,
organ transplant techniques, and the use of stem cells to replace diseased
or damaged tissue

from the Boston
Globe

BloggerCon,
a one-day conference celebrating the art and science of weblogs, will
be held on the Harvard Law School campus, on October 4, 2003.
Presenters include: Glenn Reynolds, Joshua Marshall, Doc Searls, Scott
Rosenberg, Adam Curry, Elizabeth Spiers, Jim Moore, and Susan Mernit. In addition,
Lance Knobel ,Ed Cone and Christopher Lydon will lead panels. And of
course, our favorite Master of Ceremonies, Dave Winer, will be orchestrating
the entire three-ring circus. Not to be missed. Only a few seats at
this historic shindig are still up for grabs.

For more information, contact
the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at
Harvard Law School or visit the
Blogger Con web site, from whence you
can request an invitation by joining.