Send Law Students, Idealists and Grant Proposals. Was: Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money

[r.duke at freedom.net]

At 15:32 23/08/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>At 09:48 PM 8/23/2001 +0100, r.duke at freedom.net wrote:
>
>>Mind you, most of the lawyers I've spoken to seem feel that the Internet 
>>is nothing new, legally. This leads me to think that lawyers on the 
>>whole, are not particularly imaginative or attentive people.
>
>An alternate explanation might be that our legal tradition goes back, in 
>some cases, to Roman times, and has already proven flexible and adaptable 
>enough to encompass whatever flavor-of-the-week technologists are excited 
>about now. It's not like technological change, in itself, is unheard of.

Often true, but new technologies can necessitate new interpretations of 
laws which were not written well enough to translate smoothly to the newest 
"flavour or the week" technology.

>What exactly is it that you think is new about the Internet, legally speaking?

I would have thought that new interpretations of things like federal and 
state jurisdictions would be needed. Given the arguments over the recent 
decision on Yahoo from France, I'd say there are questions to be answered. 
Is a company under your jurisdiction as soon as you can see its servers? 
Are ISPs carriers, or providers? What about their webservers, which store 
and provide, as opposed to simply carrying?

Tell me if I'm wildly off base - I don't mind, but it seems to me that at 
the moment, these issues are not obvious and written in stone.

>>>They also have a newsletter, "The Filter," which is sometimes interesting.
>>>This year they started running a 5-day "Internet Law Program of
>>>Instruction,"  if you happen to have a spare $2500.
>>
>>Oh hurrah. A bargain.
>
>That's not bad, as things go, for a week of classes, if they're giving 
>MCLE credits and have a nice continental breakfast. It's not like the 
>attendees are expected to pay for this out of their own pockets.

Actually, I stand corrected - it's no more than your average technical 
training course (Sun, etc). Given that it's something I'd have to pay for, 
instead of my employer, it seemed expensive. Things always look more 
affordable when you can get your manager to sign them off.

++rd


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