hockey only conference

[Greg Berge]

The Constitutional crisis was caused by the collision between the democratic value that all votes are equal and the Florida AG's amendment "... but some votes are more equal than others."

I wouldn't think that the ECHA teams would have to Leave Big-L the ECAC in order to leave little-L the ECAC.  The bolting members of Hockey East are still ostensibly members of the ECAC -- they're in the ECAC Hockey Guide and everything.  They just compete under a different administrative structure.

[CUlater]

I don't think I said that the article was merely unconvincing, but rather that it was not "well-argued" because sufficient evidence of problems and benefits was not presented in order to back up the conclusion reached.  That is a fundamental element of persuasive writing in any field.  I think BRA's example meets your standard, however, as it was well-written and well-argued, but some people (but not certain justices) believe it is unconvincing.

Had Adam written it as a news article, with no position stated or suggested, it might have been OK, but even then I would have said "well, it's interesting that some schools are thinking about this, but I'm not sure why".

In any case, I am very interested in the topic and I am glad Adam took the time and considerable effort to put the piece together.

[Greg Berge]

A large part of the problem is that opinion pieces are all too often excessively advocacy pieces, trivializing a strawman substitute for the opposition case while wallpapering over weaknesses in the advocate's position.  This is the tradition for instance of Plato's Socratic dialogues and 100% of political writing.  I've always found it insulting and ultimately suspect.

Few modern opinion writers bother to bolster their arguments by actually presenting both sides' arguments forcefully, in acknowledgement that while the writer has arrived at one conclusion intelligent people can and will sometimes disagree for valid reasons.  This IMHO is far, far more convincing.  Call it the John Stuart Mill tradition.  I really can't think of anybody high profile who does it well these days.  Safire does it when he writes about something safe and trivial that he knows about (words) but abandons it completely when writing about things he knows nothing about (foreign affairs).  Naturally, legal briefs are going to be the vanguard of the "ram it through" tradition -- there's nothing your client enjoys more than having his major weaknesses exposed in his own counsel's brief.  ;-)

[Beeeej]

That's one of the hardest things to get used to about legal writing.  It's always been advisable to make concessions to the opposing point of view when writing an opinion piece - but in a legal brief, it's unethical and illegal not to cite binding cases that hurt your position.

Beeeej

[ugarte]

That's adorable.  I remember when I learned that.  Wait until you write a brief for pay.

[captens1]

Well, I like Adam's idea.  Anything to boost the quality of hockey (short of scholarships).

What shall we name our new conference?  The Yankee conference?  The Adirondack Conference? How about Cornell and Safety Schools Conference?

Maybe others can submit names and Age should have a poll ...

[Al DeFlorio]

big red apple wrote:

That's adorable.  I remember when I learned that.  Wait until you write a brief for pay.

Can we conclude then that lawyers are paid to be unethical and illegal?
 ::nut::

[DeltaOne81]

Is that a new conclusion?  ::screwy::

(btw, love the new smiley - I think ::screwy:: may even surpass ::rolleyes:: in overusedness - how's that for a word?)

[crodger1]

 ::screwy::  Overusedness?  ::screwy::
 ::screwy::  You must be crazy!  ::screwy::
 ::screwy::  is far from overused yet!

[jeh25]

In science, we do that to *improve* the chance of getting a paper past peer review.   Giving an acknowledgement to the contradictory work of Jones, et al. 2000 deflects and defuses the ability of a reviewer to ding your submission. Of course, in science, we can always claim Jones and coworkers were wrong because they forgot about Smith and Smith 1998.

The more I learn about the world, the more I realize that science and law are really just different sides of the same coin that merely have different writting styles and citation formats.  Otherwise, all you really do is build a logical argument out of assorted vaguely relevent bits and pieces that you cull from the appropriate body of literature which you are expected to know down cold but nobody actually does.

[jeh25]

crodge2k wrote:

::screwy::  Overusedness?  ::screwy::
 ::screwy::  You must be crazy!  ::screwy::
 ::screwy::  is far from overused yet!

The new smileys rock! ::rock::

(i found 'em over at vwvortex.com)

[Greg Berge]

I think Beeeej's point was that creating convoluted and contrived explanations in support of your client is viewed in law circles as expressly legal (and, less importantly, ethical), whereas trying to sort things out from both sides is potentially injurious to your client (and, more importantly, HIGHLY injurious to your legal career).

Which is fine as far as it goes and par for the course given an adversial system of justice, and probably the best way to find the truth until human nature takes a dramatic turn for the so-so.

As far as the characterization of either law or science work as the establishment of logical reasoning as opposed to engaging in political boot-licking, well, I guess it amounts to the same thing in the long run.  We should rewrite Occam for the real world: all other things being equal accept the less obviously obfuscatorial hypothesis.   ;-)

[CUlater]

Just to be clear (because sometimes lawyers do want to be clear), Beeeej's description may be misleading for some.  The typical standard in filing a brief (among other acts) is that the lawyer is only required to disclose controlling legal authority known to him or her that is directly adverse to the position of the client and which is not disclosed by opposing counsel.  See, e.g. DR 7-106 (in NY, 22 NYCRR Sec. 1200.37).

Thus comes BRA's amusement, as the phrase "directly adverse to the position of the client" can be interpreted to give one some wiggle room, should the need arise. ;-)

[Ben Doyle 03]

Dance party???

[Greg Berge]

LOL.  This is going to get out of hand in a hurry.  :-D