Each weekend, I will be rounding up the best law blog posts I find lying around the blawgosphere. You can help by sending me links using the link-submission form in the sidebar, starting discussions in the Lab, or tweeting the link to @lawyerist.
Quick Takes from the Lawyerist Sites Network
These posts come from the legal blogs hosted by Lawyerist Sites.
Did you know co-signers can be released from liability for student loans? Me neither. [Consumerlawyer.MN]
Plan ahead to keep your website from going down. [Online Marketing Tips]
The federal government is collecting debts from the 1960s — presumably along with 50+ years of accrued interest. [Caveat Emptor]
Viral Racists
Should LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling have been punished for being a terrible human being on his own time? What about short-lived Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, whose tenure was just 10 days due to his $1,000 donation towards the cause to outlaw same-sex marriage in California?
According to employment lawyer Robin Shea, nobody should be under the misconception that off-duty behavior is off-limits when it comes to employment decisions. Spreading unpopular views around is not a great career plan, but above all, she says, don’t go viral. [Employment & Labor Insider]
File Bankruptcy, Update Facebook, Land in Jail
Facebook is not private, contrary to the belief of many clients. At a minimum, your “friends” can see what you post. But not very many people know who can see what they post on Facebook, and sometimes that might be a problem. Like when you post a picture of the classic car you “neglected” to include in your bankruptcy petition.
North Carolina bankruptcy lawyer Damon Duncan observes that — Surprise! — trustees know how to use Facebook, too. [Duncan Law]
The Productization of Law
I don’t argue with Marty Smith’s characterization of some legal services as basically products. Plenty of legal services can be product-ish. But when he starts talking about how great this is, I’ve got a problem. Justice is not served by mediocre legal forms, whether or not they are products. “[B]roader distribution of general legal knowledge” is not a good thing if that legal knowledge is wrong. And many of the stock legal forms peddled in office-supply stores and by consumer websites are mediocre at best, if not outright wrong.
That’s the problem with law as a product. Marty is on the right track when he wishes for “standardization of common legal documents.” To the extent we can standardize, we should. But not if the result is a collection of legal documents that serve nobody’s needs. [Legal Refresh]
Revenge Porn and a Pervert Blogger
Let’s see if I can bring you up to speed on the whole revenge porn thing in a few words.
Terrible human beings like Hunter Moore created websites for posting naked pictures of exes. Porn as a vehicle for revenge, in other words.
Soon, the websites turned into places to post naked pictures of anyone — women, mostly — without their consent. Moore wound up in jail for the sort-of-related crime of paying a hacker to steal naked pictures, and actual revenge porn ceded the spotlight to the crusade to criminalize revenge porn, led by University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, who was profiled in the Daily Dot.
Now revenge porn goes to Washington, and at Simple Justice, “pervert blogger” (according to Franks, due to a provocatively-titled post) Scott Greenfield points out that the proposed law is surprisingly overbroad, and may reach well beyond its intended purpose.
Franks disagrees:
Blogger who tried to solicit #revengeporn very upset at being called a "pervert" @misogyny_online @EndRevengePorn pic.twitter.com/RN316ZzQTj
— Mary Anne Franks (@ma_franks) May 7, 2014
[Simple Justice]
The World Needs More Poor Lawyers
Elie Mystal succinctly sums up the state of legal education, the legal job market, and access to justice:
We don’t have too many lawyers, we have too many clients who can’t pay.
And the problem isn’t that all these lawyers out there are “greedy.” The problem is that all of these lawyers have massive educational debts that can’t be serviced through poor clients.
Accord. [Above the Law Redline]
Did I miss a great law blog post? Leave a comment or help me out next week by submitting a link using the form in the sidebar, starting a discussion in the Lab, or tweeting the link to @lawyerist.
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Law Blog Week in Review: Viral Racists, Poor Lawyers, and a Pervert Blogger is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.