Law in Contemporary Society
1-17-08 - Thursday

The biological layer of a theory of social action for lawyers Lawyer’s MIND should have rich associative memory regarding the matters for which they’re being paid. The right brag for a litigator is “able to learn a new subject quickly.” →you want to become able to hear enough to make an association that makes a bell ring. →Because an argument/essay is a constructed entity, you should be able to find a quotation with reference to the structure in your mind. →Litigation support technology—full-text search—is still way inferior to a well-stocked lawyer’s mind.

What impedes good memory? 1. sleep deprivation and 2. stress. But you must learn to form good memories under sleep deprivation, because you’re going to law firms. What you do affects your body, and your brain is no exception. 3. “Vegging out” = “time spent forgetting what you read 45 minutes ago—–the neurological process antecedent to losing memories.” Could the professor please define the boundary line between vegging out, and not vegging out that's also not working? Prof: The overstimulated mind needs rest and relaxation. But COMMERCIAL TV is a social [something]: it induces a state of mind that facilitates selling to you, which is "vegging out." That a by-product of vegging out is poorer memory is not their problem. Moglen suggests transcendental meditation.

Holmes - The Path of the Law

  • Intro to 19th C. legal realism
  • knowledge of the law requires looking at it as a bad man would
  • focus on the practical consequences (what the law does, not what it says)
  • the limiting principle of legal realism (how much extra-textual knowledge one should have) is where the public force will be applied

2 fallacies:

1) confounding of morality & law

  • contract law - formalism (offer & acceptance) v. realism (damages)
  • separate moral stock from legal talk
  • isolate the language of the law

2) the notion that the only force at work in the development of law is logic

  • Logic results from the human need to comprehend our environment
  • we impose logic on the structure of the universe
  • logic is a human frailty
  • The language of judicial decisions is that of logic
  • Holmes uses it as term of derogation in his opinions
  • Any proposition can have a logical form
  • To say that legal consequences occur as deduction from axioms is wrong

  • The sound of the new century: "But certainty is generally illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man."
  • Creativity emerges from focus


How do I edit without overwriting FeliciaGilbert? 's credit at the bottom? Is it wrong to edit the document by clicking "edit"? -andrew And how do I make a single line break? -andrew -- AndrewGradman - 17 Jan 2008

 

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r5 - 17 Jan 2008 - 22:40:28 - AndrewGradman
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