Statute of Frogs

There are so many excellent things about this story, it’s hard to know where to begin. First, there are the basic aspects of the ad itself: his reference to himself as “The Thug’s Lawyer” and the toll-free phone number 1-888-88NOTME. Next, there’s the advice at the bottom, which, although it purports not to be legal advice, is definitely sound. But best of all is his website. It would appear that vindicating the rights of accused criminals is just a fallback in case his reggae career doesn’t work out.

Having Google Ads on the blog doesn’t actually produce any revenue, but it sometimes takes one to interesting places. Particularly when Google’s algorithm choose to focus on the blog’s frogginess rather than its legalness. Just now, there was an ad for “Frogman Art,” which was an intriguing title, so I clicked it. It took me to the site of “Frogman Tim Cotterill” whose first paragraph reads:

Tim Cotterill, the FROGMAN known for his frog collectables, has an uncontrollable passion for frogs. And only frogs. He loves everything about those bulgy-eyed beauties — their faces, their webbed feet, their springy legs and their antic nature. He incorporates every possible expression, contour, and subtlety of these amphibians into his green-enameled bronzes.

Actually, his bronzes are pretty neat.

I kept waiting for Above the Law to make this guy the Judge of the Day, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, so I’ll have to step in.

Apparently, Judge Brooks E. Blitch III,* Chief Judge of the Alapaha Circuit of the Georgia Supreme Court, signed an order imposing an additional $10 fee on criminal defendants. The money was used to make off-the-books payments to various court employees. And the best part: he signed the order on September 13, 2001, presumably so no one would notice.

Judge Blitch hasn’t been indicted, but the Government’s filings include a description of a judicial order issued by “[co-conspirator] #1, a person whose identity is known to the U.S. Attorney.” Hmm…who could that be.

Judge Blitch also caused a bit of a ruckus when he ordered an $18/day “room and board fee” on pre-trial detainees. Not surprisingly, the county reached a settlement in which it agreed to repay the fees.

* No, really. That’s his name. I saw it in the newspaper, so it must be true.

This is depressing. According to a new survey, one in four Americans didn’t read a book last year and the average American read only four books. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. When I was a software consultant, most of my colleagues weren’t readers. But nearly all of them read at least occasionally.

One of the ways in which my new career is a better fit is that I’m more likely to be surrounded by people who read. But I find it hard to imagine how people who don’t read spend their time. And I shouldn’t be too dismissive. Maybe those people who don’t read books read several newspapers every day or something. But I’m dubious.

UPDATE: A less depressing (and pleasingly snarky) view of the survey is here.

This is the week that my old co-clerk is transitioning to my new co-clerk. That must mean we’re halfway through. And (perhaps a bit to my surprise) I’m glad this isn’t the end of my clerkship. There’s still too much I want to see the end of.

I was very excited when I heard that Saira Rao was publishing a novel based on her clerkship experience. Not only did this promise to be a dishy novel about clerking (a subject near and dear to my heart), but it takes place in my courthouse, so I was sure to recognize familiar people and surroundings. The results, however, were most disappointing.

Though I question her judgment (it’s hard to believe that any law firm would even think of hiring her at this point and I’m shocked by the number of firms that are hosting readings), I have no ethical or philosophical problem with Rao’s decision to write a tell-all novel about her clerkship experience. (Scott Burris does, however, make a good point about how difficult it is for Judge Sloviter, for whom Rao clerked, to avoid being tarred by her broad brush.) But if I’m going to devote my time to a book, it should (at a minimum) either make me think or entertain me. Chambermaid does neither.

First, Rao’s narrator and heroine (cleverly named Sheila Raj to avoid any possibility that she might be understood as having anything in common with the author) is an unlikeable companion in every way. (I will make no attempts to compete with James Grimmelmann’s characterization of her as a “raving narcissist,” which is particularly apt. He also supports this contention with some representative samples of her unpleasantness, which serve to give you a feel for the experience.) Before the end of the first chapter, I was already tired of spending time in her company. To make matters worse, because we see everything through her eyes (and she doesn’t like any of it), it is difficult to develop any empathy with anyone in the book (except maybe the poor saps who have to endure Sheila’s company).

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Chambermaid’s characters bear no resemblance to real people. They don’t remind you of people you know (thank God), they don’t respond believably to their surroundings, and they don’t grow or change in a realistic way. Because this is a first-person narrative, we’re hamstrung by Sheila’s inability to understand those around her. She doesn’t pick up on any of the nuances that would make them seem like real people, so she’s unable to share them with us.

Finally, the book is full of moments that just make you wrinkle your forehead and wonder how this can have been written by someone who’s been through this process. We’re expect to believe, for example, that Sheila has graduated law school and been hired as a federal clerk without ever having come across the term en banc. And that she only realizes on her first day that she needs a good suit. (What, I wondered as I read this, did she wear to her interview? Or, for that matter, her first day of work?) Individually these moments aren’t such a big deal, and they exist to serve the plot, but they start to wear on a reader, particularly given that only lawyers (and, in particular, clerks) are likely to be interested in this book at all. The most egregious is that Sheila seems to work on only a single case for her entire clerkship. Although we are treated to vague references to how much work there is, we never actually see her do anything except work on the death penalty case that forms the centerpiece of the plot.

All of this might be forgiveable (or might well go unnoticed) if the book were funny. But it’s not. I didn’t laugh. (I might have smiled once.) It was occasionally gross, and frequently over-the-top, but never actually funny. And so, in the end, it served no purpose at all. Oh well…at least it was a quick read. If you’re going to waste my time, at least do it quickly.