Scott Caplan’s blog

There is a legal services crisis in this country. The legal services needs of the rich are met, and approximately one-quarter of the civil needs of the poor are, as well. What about the poor man whose case isn’t so sympathetic? Or the struggling middle-class single mother who can’t qualify for assistance?

The legal market has stratified, and smaller shops are the last resort of the lower and middle classes, who often pay more than they can in fact afford, to have a lawyer. A small shop has a few basic costs, and a few others. Some of these are necessary: lawyers will always have to pay rent on their offices. But some of these costs are not necessary. Among these is the cost of law firm management software, including installation, hosting the database, and service.

Shouldn’t there be an open-source alternative for such unnecessary costs that come between struggling clients and struggling smaller shops? Maybe Time Matters, but doesn’t freedom too?

On Thursday I received a Juris Doctor degree. Of course, Juris can be translated as “of law” (singular), but it can also be translated as “of soup/sauce/broth.” If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been calling myself a Doctor of Soup, or a Doctor of the Sauce, that’s why.

I’ve learned a few things in law school. Here is a partial list:

• You give me the procedure, I’ll give you the substance, and I’ll whup you every time.
• Never underestimate the recreational value of litigation.
• The first case tried in a federal district court in what is now Maine was a piracy trial in the 1790s.
• It is possible to have three post-graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale, including a PhD in philosophy from the inferior of the two, and still manage not to understand propositional logic.
• The courts of the more democratic Muslim countries have had to grapple harder with questions of Islamic finance than have those of the more theocratic ones.
• President Nixon’s lawyers were either not terribly creative, or none of them was a gardener. (Little/nothing to do with Watergate).
• Buy, Borrow, Die.
• Conflict of Laws issues are ignored surprisingly often.
• “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.”
• I have a great landlord.
• Leading questions on direct are not only improper, they’re less effective.
• Federal courts issues are ignored surprisingly often.
• I have no idea why Holmes picked Henry IV for the quote, but I am reasonably certain that the Chancery started around 1461 to provide relief where the feoffees to use had died seised.

This is more of a delay in reporting something than an actual lie, but I’ve rejoined facebook, deciding that I should pick my battles, and having a convenient address book that updates itself is not worth the stubbornness. Shortly after I rejoined, though, facebook took a giant step forward.

If anybody knows how I can link my account, that’d be a big help. On a related note (OpenID-related, which you will find out is related if you follow the link), I’ve been using http://scottc229.myopenid.com, instead of this blog’s URL, since I updated Wordpress and forgot to change the headers to delegate the former. I won’t get to fixing this terribly soon, but I’d hope before I start work in September.