idealawg

Call for papers: Intersections of Law and Culture 2009

This cross-disciplinary conference will be held in October in Switzerland. From its Web page:

Intersections of Law and Culture aims to investigate law’s place in culture and culture’s place in law. This focus proceeds from the realization that law, once one of society’s most powerful discourses in both its secular and religious forms, has become increasingly influenced by intersecting and competing discourses in medicine, ethics, education and politics. Moreover, the operations of law—its processes and decisions—have entered the realm of popular culture, media and the arts as plot devices used in sit-coms, films and pulp fiction. These in turn have begun to change the way law operates.

Given this increasing porosity and interpermeability among prominent areas of knowledge, the focus of this conference is precisely on the interstices between law and other discursive practices.

• What are the mechanisms by which popular representations and cultural practices find their way into legal processes?
• How does law in turn bleed into and influence cultural processes?
• Does law act as a buffer against societal assumptions about, and constructions of, gender, age, ability, sexuality and ethnicity, or does it re-enforce and re-inscribe existing social norms?

Clearly there are no simple, monolithic answers to these complex questions; answers will be historically and culturally contingent, and will change shape depending on the case or the context at hand.

We are especially interested in work that reflects on the differences in law and culture in the European and the Anglo-American contexts. What are the differences between the legal cultures in these distinct

Articles on Buddhism and the law, lawyers and legal system

From the University at Buffalo Law School Law, Buddhism and Social Change come several articles, including

• The Dalai Lama Speaks on Law
• The Ideal and Non-Ideal in Behavior Guidance: Reflections on Law and Buddhism in Conversation with the Dalai Lama
• Religiosity and the Invocation of Law in the Conversation with the Dalai Lama
• “Necessary Evil”: The Growth of a System of Judicial Courts and the Responses it Evoked among the Buddhist Monastic Community in Ancient Sri Lanka
• Universal Compassion and the Lawyer’s Duty
• Internal Motivations, External Coercion, and Educating for Happiness
• Some Notes on the Buddha As a Law Giver.

Click to download the articles.

Blog Glob: "More Americans serving as their own lawyers"

Excerpt from "More Americans serving as their own lawyers" (Seattle Times):

The number of people serving as their own lawyers is on the rise across the country, and the cases are no longer limited to uncontested divorces and small claims. Even people embroiled in child custody cases, potentially devastating lawsuits and bankruptcies are representing themselves, legal experts say.

...

The trend has resulted in court systems clogged with filings from people unfamiliar with legal procedure. Moreover, some of these pro se litigants, as they are known, are making mistakes with expensive and long-lasting consequences - perhaps confirming the old saying that he who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Click to read the rest.

New edition of THE JURY EXPERT is now online

The November edition of The Jury Expert is now up for your reading pleasure and learning. Articles (all pdf) include:

Anticipate and Influence Juror Reactions to Successful Women by Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm

What happens when women jurors see successful women attorneys, plaintiffs or defendants and how you can mitigate the often negative judgment against successful women. Trial consultants respond.

What Does a Juror's Generation Mean to Trial Consultants? by Patricia McEvoy, Eliza Shepherd

New data that allows examination of damage awards, attitudes, and values as they differ (and are similar) across the most common generations seen in the jury box.

Cross-Examination of the Narcissistic Witness by Douglas Keene

A reader-requested follow-up to last months’ feature on preparation of narcissistic witnesses. Recommendations on how to cross-examine this sort of witness.

Just World Jurors by Alison Bennett

A research review. You’ve heard of the “just world” belief. What is it? How does it have impact on jurors? What can you do to use this belief in support of your particular case?

The American Jury: A Book Review by Kevin Boully

A review of the book all about the American Jury.

Blog Glob: "New legal services provider proposal creates controversy in Washington state"

Excerpt from "New legal services provider proposal creates controversy in Washington state" (Puget Sound Business Journal - subscription required):

Many local attorneys are concerned about a proposal before the state Supreme Court that would allow nonlawyers to practice law in certain limited circumstances.

The proposed rule would create a new kind of legal-services provider called a “legal technician,” who could provide some assistance with family law issues, presumably at a lower cost than legal services from a lawyer.

The proposal pits the legal profession’s long-standing goal of making legal services more affordable and accessible against concerns about maintaining high professional standards. A number of small firms, solo practitioners and other family lawyers say the proposed rule may not only undermine their business, but leave clients in more serious legal trouble than if they’d hired an attorney in the first place.
...
The proposal offered by the Practice of Law Board, a panel created by the state Supreme Court, would create a pilot program that would authorize legal technicians to practice in certain areas of family law. Legal technicians could help a client with the preparation of documents necessary for child support and

Would there be more crime if we all thought we lacked free will? Different results in negotiatons?

A research study of free will and morality (linked to below) has been in my "To Blog About" file for a while. Scientific American just published "Free Will versus the Programmed Brain" in which this same research is discussed. I took that as a message from the e-Gods to quit procrastinating.

In the study, participants were given a passage to read from a science book. Half of the participants were given a passage that said there is no such thing as free will. The other half read a passage about the importance of studying consciousness, with no mention of free will. Participants then were asked to complete a survey about their belief in free will.

Now for the intriguing part of the research: Participants were given a task at which they could cheat.

The results were clear: those who read the anti-free will text cheated more often! ... Moreover, the researchers found that the amount a participant cheated correlated with the extent to which they rejected free will in their survey responses.

The author of the Scientific American article goes on to discuss some questions.

• How far does the effect go? "Presumably the experiment didn’t also lead to a rash of criminal activity among those who read the anti-free will passage."
• Is the effect permanent? "[W]hat would happen if those people were brought back to the lab two weeks later?"
• Are philosophers and scientists who reject free will less moral?

That third question leads to three other questions.

People who explicitly deny free will often continue to hold themselves responsible for their actions and feel guilty for doing wrong. Have such people managed to accommodate the rest of their attitudes to their rejection of free will? Have they adjusted their notion of guilt and responsibility so that it really doesn’t depend on the existence of free will? Or is it that when they are in the thick of things, trying to decide what to do, trying to do the right thing, they just fall back into the belief that they do have free will after all?

I urge you to read and think about the questions this short article poses. As I may have mentioned in the past, the prevailing opinion in neuroscience is that we do not have free will. (I am a firm believer in free will so it is fortunate that the neuroscientist with whom I work is of the same belief.) The existence or nonexistence of free will obviously is not just the concern of scientists; it has profound societal and cultural implications. Just one example of where the question is germane: Criminal law. Personal responsibility without free will is very different from with free will.  (See previous post.) In another arena, I'd like to see how belief/non-belief in free will would affect negotiations.

Do we have free will? What do you think?

Notes: If you are interested in this question of free will and the split in what neuroscientists believe, I urge you to read The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force.

Click to read the study "The Value of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating." [pdf]

Image credit: Alvimann.

Articles on therapeutic jurisprudence

Several articles on therapeutic jurisprudence are available for download at a Web page of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Program at William and Mary School of Law. Click to read the TJ articles. What's therapeutic jurisprudence? From the Program's Overview:

Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) is the study of the role of the law as a therapeutic agent. It places much needed attention on the law's impact on emotional life and psychological well-being. As we better understand that the law is a social force that often produces therapeutic or anti-therapeutic consequences, the study of TJ provides an exciting opportunity for our students and legal professionals to gain valuable insights into how the law actually affects people. Recognition that significant human stressors are attached to legal processes is fundamental to our program. Our program explores ways consistent with the principles of justice that the knowledge associated with TJ can help minimize emotional harm and meet the needs of individuals, families and the community.

Click for the Web site of the International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence.

New edition of THE JURY EXPERT now online

This new edition of The Jury Expert, a publication of the American Society of Trial Consultants, includes these articles (all are pdf):

• Getting Beyond the Catchy Phrase and Creating a Trial Theme that Truly Works

By now, the advice to “use a trial theme” is or should be familiar to any practicing litigator. Crafting the right theme involves much more than thinking of a phrase that rolls off the tongue and sticks in the memory. As important as it is for a theme to do both, a theme needs to do more in order to serve the critical function of being that central representation and reference point for decision-makers. By Ken Broda-Bahm

• What We Know Now: An Overview of Recent Eye Witness Research

This article focuses on some of the most fundamental questions surrounding expert testimony about eyewitness identifications. By Kristin Finklea

• How Attorneys Can Use Religion to be More Effective at Trial

In this article, the research on religion is reviewed in the context of voir dire and evidence presentation. Recommendations are made for attorneys to use when considering the impact of religion in the courtroom. By Sam Lindsey, et al

More here.

Blog Glob: Justice calls for more than one size fits all

Excerpts from "Justice calls for more than one size fits all" (WA Today):

THE debate raging about the role of courts and barristers and the size of counsels' fees is but one aspect of the much broader problem of the role of our justice system and its reform. It is a debate that asks us as a community to think deeply about how we can best deal with conflicts and the problems underlying them.
. . .

Other approaches to justice have emerged recently that influence the way the justice system functions, including restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence,

Do you suffer from Brain Overclaim Syndrome? Here's a cure and some resources on neurolaw

A Google search on University of Pennsylvania law professor Stephen J. Morse pulled up several articles on neurolaw. Because I found quotes of Morse in a recent article to be provocative, I was motivated to do the search to see what else the professor has said.

I certainly do not agree with all of his beliefs. For example, Morse is quoted in "UPenn professor gives lecture on moral, civil responsibility":

I am a physicalist as well as a monist . . .  . There is and always only will be matter and nothing further, there is no soul, no top down intelligence, now human brains can produce nonmaterial things like culture, but it begins with matter. The mind cannot separate itself from the body.

As regular readers of my blogs know, I do think the mind is separate from the brain and from the rest of the body. And as my friends know, yep, I believe in soul!

I do agree with Morse's caution regarding what neuroscience can tell us about individual responsibility.

. . . Morse proceeded to dispel the two arguments that "new neuroscience" seemed to suggest might change the idea of moral responsibility.

Morse argued that "current neuroscientific discoveries do not undermine the traditional view of the person as a creature capable of acting for reasons that explain the person's behavior."

Morse simply concluded that "neuroscience does not yet undermine traditional concepts of responsibility."

At Morse's Web pages, you will find a number of other articles, and some interviews. Those of you with an interest in neurolaw will be happy to see the resources. From the media: