My family has a tradition. Five years old, maybe a bit more or less. It doesn't matter, but I'll say five.  You can't fact check this.

 We don't give Christmas gifts to adults. Period. We have a tree, and spend Christmas Eve and Day together, but we do not give gifts.… Read full post »

This week, Mr. Cusp's old friend, a writer like Mr. Cusp, was visiting our area to give some readings.  The reading I went to was in a bar in the western part of the state, somewhere between the last shreds of farm country, collegeland, and tourism-funded New Englandland. 

 It was pack… Read full post »

People always like to talk about tort reform.  Malpractice reform is the sub-species currently in season, but tort will come back. We just need a spilled-McDonald's coffee lady for this generation. (Scroll to the second paragraph if you think hers was a nuisance suit - she was 79, suffered… Read full post »

I have not written a story in ten years.  I started a novel and I stopped. I got busy with five hundred thousand things. A job. A life. A kitten.  A mystery with eyebrows.

 I was scared. For a lot of reasons, to write a story, but. It's just a… Read full post »

Dear Everyone,

I am back.

 Graduated. Two bar exams under my belt.

I couldn't stay away.

 The reason for my triumphant return: I have a job. So, my fears of never being employed because people have learned that I say "motherfucker" quite often, have been assuaged. Now, all I… Read full post »

I was in the basement of my apartment tonight, going through some boxes.

It's a lovely place. I painted the front of the double parlor in warm coffee-with-milk and and the back of the double parlor in coffee-with-cream. He has an office downstairs, his stuff still in boxes from moving… Read full post »

In My Pants

If you brew dark roast coffee, triple strength, and soak a pair of new khaki pants in it, and wash those pants in hot, hot water, without any detergent, the pants will never stain when you spill coffee on them.

Saturation, is the principle. 

 If you imbue… Read full post »

Want to see a really obscene cake? Want to know how I really feel about stuff and things?

Want to gain an eensy bit of insight into the character of a person who decided to take the LSATs while watching legally blonde, drunk on three dollar wine?

Want to… Read full post »

As part of my goodbye to blogging without consequence, I'm going to do a three-part bit about the chip on my goddamned shoulder, and how spite, and nothing but spite, has driven me to become a lawyer.

In the winter of 2000/2001, my dad was leaving a lunch meeting in… Read full post »

The events in the following quasi-fictional account are based on experiences of several different attorneys, members of the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association, as recounted at a symposium hosted by the only Boston-area law school worth a squeeze. This is a mash-up, not intended to represent any single at… Read full post »

If you visit my parents' house, and you open their refrigerator door, and you look in their pantry, you'll see that someone in the house grew up hungry.

My parents' refrigerator overflows with cheese, candy bars, yogurt cups, bacon, deli meat, jam and jelly and marmalade, cold soda, milk and… Read full post »

Why are you so shy?

People ask me that, a lot. Usually, it's after they've known me long enough to realize that I'm not, actually, at all shy. It's usually in the same conversation that they tell me that I'm not at all like they thought I was, when they met me.

What…

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Although I write about legal issues quite a bit, and I tend to write about them in terms both hyperbolic and profane, this week, there’s been a decision that has actually upset me enough that it’s cast a pall over my everyday life. Kiyemba v. Obama. The D.C. Circuit held… Read full post »

I always get so many positive comments - I felt like giving something back. And the best thing I can give - is this recipe. Bacon and cheese shortbread.  It...will probably kill you. Try and share.It's so, so, so good.  If you don't have the smoked paprika, I think, I'll let… Read full post »

Isn't it great to know, really know, that the asterisks in the title are for space, and not modesty?

Today is the day that grades came out. Along with our grades, we sometimes have the opportunity to get some personal feedback from professors. Something that says, when you get right… Read full post »

Yeah, the headline needs work. What can I say? Some are winners, some are losers.

Getting to my point - Varnum v. Brien is  a more groundbreaking case, in a lot of ways, than Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (the Massachusetts case that legalized equal marriage in the Commonwealth).… Read full post »

Hard cases make bad law.

-Anonymous

 The Eleventh Circuit Court of appeals handed down a decision yesterday which ought to scare you. It won't, but it ought to. 

 In fact, you'll probably agree with the result.  It's hard not to.  That's why hard cases make bad law. 

&n… Read full post »

Today, an organization that I'm somewhat associated with held an event. Many attorneys, from all different practice settings, gathered to eat free salmon and discuss how we move forward from the fallout of the sub-prime lending crisis.

It was a great event; I'm proud to say that, despite my broad exp… Read full post »

I was lucky enough to sing happy birthday to Ruth Bader Ginsberg last night, along with hundreds of other law students, law things, law professors, law groupies, judge, justices, and hangers-on. New England Law Boston* had her as their keynote speaker at their law day celebration.

It was an amazing… Read full post »

The New York times ran a piece last week that's been on my mind ever since. Debt collection agencies are collecting debts from the dead, or, near as can be. They call people who are the executors or heirs or administrators of the recently deceased, and suggest that the deceaseds'… Read full post »

I didn't just have a brush with death; I died.

I was two and a half, or somewhere around there. It was just after my second easter, and I was born in the summer. I was two summers, two falls, two winters and three springs old.

My brother was born… Read full post »

My addiction.

 I am addicted to the beginnings of things. Audition, application, registration, flirtation, anticipation. I love blank pages, uncut fabric, canvas, yarn, empty rooms, flour, brown sugar, first days, interviews, new schools, new majors, new careers, new plans.

 I hate to mini… Read full post »

My final finals have ended; my editorial duties to our publication have, at last, concluded. We have published, in our fashion, and I'm desperately proud of what we've accomplished. As I'd better be, because the best way to end an academic career on a whimper, rather than a bang, is to… Read full post »

This is a post that I wrote back in June of 2007. I had just completed my first year of law school. The reason, by the way, for my two-week absence from O.S., is that I just (this afternoon) completed my last academic term of law school. No more teachers, no… Read full post »

Sit down, and let's have a chat.

It's a fantastic thing, this whole "law school" experience. And I'm very glad you'll be following in my footsteps. And I'm delighted that you've come to me, a stranger on the internet, for advice. And I'm so happy to share with you some advice.

1. You…

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