Featured Website: The Georgia Civil Justice Foundation

The Georgia Civil Justice Foundation maintains a website with a wealth of materials to assist in educating students about the law. I have made regular use of their videos and animations, accessed by scrolling over the book titles on the bookshelf exhibited at the webpage.  Some of the videos are available at a YouTube channel, if that gives you more flexibility in using these resources.

Ponzi Scheme Lawyer: What Does This Story Say About the Profession?

Upon viewing the 60 Minutes report on NY lawyer Marc Dreier's ponzi scheme a cold chill ran up my spine. The video was brought to my attention by Mark Spurling, a colleague at the University of Connecticut.  Mark uses the video for a discussion of Business Ethics in his Legal Environment class.  I hope to use the video in the class that I teach for freshman honors students entitled, Law and Lawyers in Song and Story.  In that class we examine popular cultural representations of the legal profession and the legal system and compare them to reality.  A recurring exercise in that class is to analyze various movie character lawyers as either "good lawyers" or "bad lawyers" in an effort to distill out the characteristics of each designation.

While viewing this video, I couldn't help but think that the qualities that made Dreier a "good" lawyer may also have served him well in his criminal enterprise. What does that revelation say about the legal profession?

Click on the image below to be linked to the video:

Law Music Video - I Might Have Been a Lawyer But I Couldn't Pass the Bar

This week's installment in the "Law Music Videos" series is I Might Have Been a Lawyer But I Couldn't Pass the Bar by Bill Kirchen. Bill was the lead guitarist for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, if anyone can remember that far back. Law music videos played before your class starts will positively contribute to learning.

The Story of Citizens United

The video below was shared on the ALSB listserve some time ago.  Unfortunately, I don't remember who shared it so I can't acknowledge the credit that is well deserved . Since this blog has a potential reach beyond the ALSB membership and the video is now available on YouTube, I am embedding it below.

I think that there are a number of ways to use this video in class.  I use it in an ethics lecture, emphasizing the video's description of the history of the corporation and leading into a discussion about different ethical standards and considerations for human persons and corporations (fictional persons).

To aid in discussing the Citizens United v. FEC case, I have also added below a trailer for the movie Hillary and an ad for the prospective DVD release of the movie that prompted Citizens United to seek judicial determination of its rights.

Featured Case: Pennsylvania v. Noel: Is a Horse a "Vehicle?"

Here are the facts from the majority opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Noel:

On April 7, 2002, the Pennsylvania State Police stopped Appellees Richard Carroll Noel and Keith Douglas Travis while they were riding horses on a public highway in Springfield Township, Mercer County because they appeared to be intoxicated. Appellees were subsequently charged with Driving While Under the Influence of Alcohol ("DUI").

The relevant part of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code states as follows:

Every person riding an animal or driving any animal-drawn vehicle upon a roadway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this part, except those provisions of this part which by their very nature can have no application or where specifically provided otherwise.

The defense argued that "by their very nature" the DUI provisions did not apply to horseback riders.  The trial court stated that it could not clearly determine what provisions "by their very nature" did not apply to horseback riders and, therefore, the statute is unconstitutionally vague in violation of the due process clause.

I like this case for class for two reasons. First, it is a "two-fer."  The case is a natural to illustrate two legal principles. I use it to explain the requirement under substantive due process that a criminal statute must give unambiguous "fair warning" of the conduct that has been criminalized. I also use it to explain the need for statutory interpretation by courts.  As is often the case, a statute which seems reasonably clearly written when read in a vaccuum, becomes noticeably ambiguous when applied to a challenging set of facts. Therefore, the court's interpretation is necessary.

Second, there is an witty dissent in the case written by Mr. Justice Eakin. After opening his opinion by quoting the theme song to Mr. Ed, a 1960's sitcom about a talking horse, Justice Eakin summarizes his rationale by composing it to the Mr. Ed theme. (Here is another link to the dissent.)

Here is a short clip to illustrate to your students the premise of the show, Mr. Ed:


Here is the Mr. Ed theme song:
And here is the excerpt from Mr. Justice Eakin's dissent set to music:

Featured Case: Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon

In this contract law classic, Justice Benjamin Cardozo of the NY Court of Appeals establishes the doctrine of an implied obligation of good faith. Here is the hornbook brief summary of the case: Lady Duff Gordon is a fashion designer.  Otis Wood is a NY advertising man.  They enter into a written contract whereby Gordon grants Wood exclusive rights to market and sell her goods and Wood agrees to account to Gordon for 1/2 of the proceeds. Eventually, Gordon begins to endorse products marketed by others and Wood files suit for breach of contract. Gordon claims that Wood's promise is illusory -as he has not bound himself to actually try to sell her fashions, but merely to account for profits, if any. Cardozo determines that serious business peole would not have taken the time to negotiate such an agreement if they had not intended some perfomance. He finds expressions of implied intent to perfom on Wood's behalf:  His promise to pay the defendant one-half of the profits and revenues resulting from the exclusive agency and to render accounts monthly, was a promise to use reasonable efforts to bring profits and revenues into existence.

So, the case is interesting and illustrative for class.  But, this is just the beginning.  If you like to personalize cases - to help students understand that these cases involve real people making real decisions, the resources available to you are plentiful. Start with an article by Columbia Law Professor Victor Goldberg. Goldberg looks at the historical evidence to conclude that, ironically, the shrewd Wood had probably carefully crafted the Gordon contract so as to refrain from binding himself to performance - precisely the course of conduct that Cardozo concluded was unlikely. However, for me, his historical information on the principal players in the litigation is even more valuable than his insightful legal analysis.

Through his paper we learn that Otis Wood was one of somewhere between 14-17 children of colorful NY Mayor Fernando Wood.  Father Fernando was famous for, among other things, having supported the Confederate cause during the Civil War. A loyal Tammany Hall Democrat, Fernando later served in Congress from NY.  Other exploits of the colorful Wood family are documented online. Read here about Otis's involvement in the estate of his aunt Ida Mayfield Wood.

For her part, Lucy Lady Duff Gordon had already lived through at least one major disaster prior to the Wood business debacle. Lucy and her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, survived the sinking of the Titanic, but not without controversy. Her story is dramatized in the video below. There is a wealth of images of Lady Duff Gordon available on the web - here at the Encyclopedia Titanica, and here. I was unable to find any images of Otis F. Wood. But here you will find an image of a drawing book most certainly produced by Wood's lithography company in NY.

In 2008, the Pace Law Review published results of a symposium on this interesting case.  Other useful articles may be found here and here  and here.



Image of Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon from:  http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8328862/Lady-Duff-Gordon-fashions-forgotten-grande-dame.html



Image from: http://dawndefined.blogspot.com/2009/04/milwaukee-museum.html



Imageof Lady Duff Gordon (third from left) and Sir Cosmo (standing directly behind her)  from: http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-10-08/news/24117249_1_titanic-memorabilia-andrew-aldridge-sir-cosmo

My Favorite Things: Judicial Interpretation Illustrated #3

In an enlightening essay, Professor Desmond Manderson suggests that the process of statutory interpretation by courts may be illustrated by considering the song My Favorite Things as composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein compared to the performance by John Coltrane. I have added some additional examples below.

See also earlier posts: Judicial Interpretation Illustrated, Judicial Interpretation Illustrated #2, and Statutory Interpretation