It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

Would we have coffee with Professor Lawrence Lessig?

Cammy:  Would I have coffee with one of the greatest copyright thinkers of our time?  Um, hell yes.  That’s not to say I wouldn’t be all manner of shakin’ in my New Balance.  Lawrence Lessig is a giant in my world.  He’s one of the leading copyright thinkers of our time.  Through his work with Eldred vs. Ashcroft (the, sadly failed, Supreme Court case calling to roll the copyright duration back from Life of the Author + 70 to Life + 50), with Creative Commons, and his many books and blog posts he’s opened up a lot of discussion about the role of law in connection with creativity and development of technology and communication.  He helped promote the voice of all the people who were being impacted by the increasingly draconian applications of copyright law as major media interests bought off our government to act as a personal good squad in defending their outdated business model.  I’m willing to risk looking like an ignorant fool (because he’s scary smart and I’m a moron), for the opportunity to pick his brain on his move from straight copyright arguments to tackling the intricate web that allows the likes of Disney to make sure that copyright (and other regulations) is extended every time Mickey might fall into the public domain.  Since his blog has been on hiatus for more than a year, I’d love to hear his take on where he thinks the weakest points are now–what’s the biggest fight on the horizon?  From his point of view, are we making any progress or not?

Kristy:  Sure.  I think I’ll probably have the benefit of less intimidation thanks to greater ignorance about the man.  But even I’ve read some of his stuff.  I will also not be wearing New Balances.  I don’t really wear sneakers.  I’m much less knowledgeable and impassioned about the issue of copyright than Cammy, but I’d still be interested in meeting him.  Perhaps he’ll be impressed that the press I work for uses Creative Commons licenses?  He’s also written a bit on copyright as it relates to cultural heritage (read: folklore) which is a topic I am a little more interested in.  Mostly, I just want to listen to him and Cammy and try my darndest to follow along.

The State Bar of Texas generally goes with a sort of “theme” for its annual meetings.  Not an all-encompassing theme, but something usually something to highlight in a special series of talks/CLE courses.  Last year I was a bit disappointed.  It was all Lincoln, and, honestly, while there are things about Lincoln I really admire, as a total package, I’m just not wild about the guy.

But, just like this years meeting location was better than last years (Ft. Worth is always better than Dallas), so was the theme.

In a stroke of brilliant timing this year’s meeting coincided with the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird*.  The result?  A series of brilliant talks on Atticus Finch, one of the quintessential examples of the ethical attorney.

It was absolutely brilliant.  I never knew that there were than many grown men who could get that emotional over a fictional character.  We’re talking about powerful lawyers, well known in the non-negligible universe of Texas attorneys who were tearing up as they discussed scenes from both the book and the movie, and how Atticus is one of the best examples an attorney could have when it comes to the kind of behavior which the Bar preaches (but which lawyers do not always attain).

What Would Atticus Do?

Dedication to the client, service to the poor, respect for the law and the unwaivering belief in the justice system as something that should be equally accessible to all.   All the ethics lessons that the more boring CLE lectures try to shove down your throat are delivered in a single novel most people read in junior high school.  It was humbling.

Of course, Atticus’s ethics lessons extend beyond his example for lawyers.  We all got the same lessons he delivered to Scout (or should have) when we read it back in our formative years.  But perhaps a more subtle lesson he delivers to non-attorneys is the reminder about the positives of this profession.  After all, I love a good lawyer joke as much as the next person, but when you tell the joke about school bus half-full of lawyers going over the cliff (not enough lawyers), you’re probably not thinking of Atticus Finch in the group, are you?

*For any of you out there who are either A) not from the USA or B) have been dwelling under the great rock of ignorance, this is a great time to pick up a copy of the book and read it.  You need to.  Really.

While I’m not going to try and claim that law school was anything less than a circle of hell that Dante forgot to chronicle, there were, occasionally, moments that were highly entertaining.  Torts class in particular seemed to be a goldmine for the kind of gems that make for great stories at cocktail parties.

I once had to read a case about a woman who was in a car accident because she started seeing lights and drove into oncoming traffic. She saw the truck coming at her and hit the gas because she thought she could become airborn because Batman could fly. Batman was apparently a good guy, but her husband was inhabited by the devil. And the end of the World was coming, but the woman wasn’t worried because the Virgin Mary told her that God had selected her as the only one to be saved.

Yeah. Can’t. Make. This. Shit. Up.

Of course, the point of the thing was really nothing about Batman, but about whether or not the woman could be held to a standard of negligence because she had been having “visions” for a couple of months, and should that prior knowledge have been enough for her to know she shouldn’t drive a car.

But Batman is more interesting.

And, as my Torts professor pointed out in lecture the next day, there was an inherent flaw in her argument that she became air-born because Batman could fly.  Any good geek knows that Batman can’t fly.  The real lesson here is that if you’re going to have delusions of being a superhero and use this as a defense, at least get the characteristics of that super-hero straight.