Law and Legitimacy

Is there a future for individualism?

If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you're well-acquainted with my preoccupation with modern America's waning respect for pluralism. 

According to our guest, there is nothing but a future for individualism. And, yes, our guest on this episode is that Alex Jones. 

Alex is a friend, a client, a Texan, a Christian, and a patriot. He is perhaps the most widely recognized and salient voice the world over, renown for his unfettered commitment to challenging official orthodoxy. 

I am humbled to present this episode to you, and also by the notion that you may have the courage to present it to someone you know, who may then display the courage to do the same.

So what is in this episode? To borrow a phrase Alex offers herein, the perspective of a Pro Human-Future Populist. We wind the clock back and discuss Alex's start in radio nearly thirty years ago, the debut of Infowars, and the cost to Alex for his commitment to remaining an independent voice, especially over the last several years. 

As noted in the opening, no matter how intelligent I fancy myself, sharing a room with Alex is always an exercise in humility. I trust that through this episode you will recognize that feeling, as Alex deconstructs with lightning quickness the history of world civilizations, John Lott's perspective on the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson's conceptualization of tyranny, and the importance of an individual's discovery of dignity in the modern era. 

This episode embodies the peak nobleness of American jurisprudence. By that I simply mean that there is no greater honor than advocating for the person who personifies the very famous proposition that one need not agree with what is said in order to defend to death the right of the speaker to say it. 

You can find Alex at FreeWorldNews.TV. 

Not only does Jim Nugent genuinely love practicing law, he believes that every single person should at least matriculate through law school. 

Jim is a renowned personal injury attorney anchored in New Haven, Connecticut. And Jim is my best friend. As the title of this episode briefs, Jim is also a Reader in the Catholic Church—the man to whom I give full I credit for arching my path back to the faith—and an Ironman Triathlon competitor. 

Jim and I first met at the famed Trial Lawyers College many years ago. Since then, Jim has built a very successful practice upon the foundation of meeting an injured person and communicating their story to another group of human beings. 

As with most LAL interviews, we cover a lot of ground. This one, however, is a unique blend of topical first impressions—such as the concept of psychodrama and what Jim dubs as "the archaeological dig of oneself"—and more enduring questions, such as the definition of justice, the trustworthiness of juries, and the vanishing trial. 

I could listen to Jim talk about insurance companies' ability to buy themselves out of trials, volley the merits of the focus group as the most reliable trial preparation tool, or absorb the reason underpinning Jim's approach to witness examination for hours on end. 

But what I think the young and aspiring lawyers, and the mentors among the LAL audience should hear is the sincerity in Jim's voice as he recalls the most meaningful trial of his career, the importance of spending time with our young children while they're growing up, and why after 32 years of practice he considers himself a "work in progress."

I cherish these conversations, and I look forward to co-counseling a new case with Jim when the time is right. 

Meet Jim Nugent: father, husband, friend, and one of the most talented lawyers on the planet. 

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Social media is abuzz just now about the disappearance of Gabby Petito. Why isn’t her boyfriend talking to police? Why won’t he talk to Gabby’s family?  Doesn’t he have some explaining to do?

Yes, and no.

Ms. Petito and Brian Laundrie were childhood sweethearts. The couple, in their early 20s, set out on a months-long road trip earlier this summer, hoping to cross the country and visit some of the nation’s most beautiful national parks.

Their trip ended dramatically when Mr. Laundrie returned to Florida alone, with Gabby’s van, on September 1st. Where was Gabby?

Mr. Laundrie refused to talk to police and to Gabby’s family, sparking outrage. How dare he refuse to speak? What’s he hiding? Doesn’t this prove he is guilty of foul play?

Maybe.

But maybe he’s just got a good lawyer. The Fifth Amendment give him the right not to testify, and no one can compel his to speak if his words would tend to implicate him in a crime. Nothing makes you a suspect quite as quickly as being the last person to see a missing person before the person disappeared.

This podcast explores why pleading the Fifth makes sense in this case, even if Mr. Laundrie is guilty of foul play. It also raises the possibility that Mr. Laundrie might be innocent, but afraid that what he knows could hurt him were he to blurt it out.

As I write this, Mr. Laundrie has himself turned up missing.

Norm is joined by Michael for this topical assessment of the Biden Administration's mandatory vaccine announcement. 

Norm opens in classic fashion with an extended monologue in which he shares a few bits of heart-warming personal news, the emergent risk to larger businesses in the face of a burgeoning republic of virtue, the mythological interpretation of American history, the primary commitment of the American Bill of Rights, the current risk to substantive due process behind a communitarian bent, and the apparent death of classical individualism as seen through the pandemic regulations. 

The episode then opens as Norm asks Michael to describe the general thrust of the Biden Administration's most recent proclamation pursuant to its "six-pronged national strategy" known as The Path Out of the Pandemic. 

Happy Labor Day to you all. 

I am pleased to present to you, especially the young and hungry lawyers among you, this hour-long conversation with the public relations and management titan for the nation's leading attorneys, Jay Jessup. 

Some of you may recognize the name. Others of you may not. I am confident all of you will love this interview. 

Our guest this week is not only one of Connecticut's most effective and most proven criminal defense lawyers, but one of the finest men I have the privilege of calling a colleague and friend. 

"Willie" Dow was born on Pearl Harbor Day in 1941 in Stoney Creek, Connecticut. Willie's storied legal career started in an unlikely way, with his commitment to service joining the Peace Corps being a cornerstone of that story. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Willie leveraged his pre-law public service experience in Colombia by first joining Legal Services in D.C. and a bit later the Public Defenders Office before moving to Connecticut and accepting a position as Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

The Taliban erased the work and struggle of two decades of Western influence and state building in Afghanistan this week. It was a collage of what I call globalist monism — the assumption that there can be a universal agreement on global norms capable of governing the world.

The collapse carries a warning to the West:  Rekindle the traditions that brought you to the world power, or welcome your own version of the Taliban to your shores.

Momism is the vision of a world in which one set of values or beliefs are regarded as superior to those of others. Thus, the best version of society can be known, and imposed on others for their own good. In the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau, people can be forced to be free.

Pluralism, by contrast, holds that there are competing visions of the good — that individuals should be free to find their own way, guided by their own vision of the good.

We’re all closet monists, making the best choices we can for ourselves. But we recognize pluralism as the best means for creating a good life in common. Hence the power of liberal democratic societies, especially in the post-World War II world.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. The bottom fell out of pluralism. 

We used to take for granted unstated assumptions about the value such things as truth, beauty and objective reality — bedrock principles that form the core of the Juadeo-Christian tradition.

Now, everything is up for grabs. There is no center.

Hence the failure of globalism. The universal vision of a global citizen, of global norms, denies the truth that all politics are local. We crave efficacy and significance in our own lives. The Taliban understood that. It’s vision of the good rejects western monism.

The danger?

Globalism is right in theory but fatal in fact: Yes, there are answers to what is best for all. The trouble is now of us want what is best for all. We all chose our own imperatives before adopting those of others. When individual imperatives are shorn from their base in a grand tradition, nihilism becomes the norm. We’re on the road to nihilistic disintegration in the United States.

Identitarians and the Taliban may look different, but they are the same. We crave significance. We need ideals as large and grand as our aspirations, We’ve lost sight of these goals and visions. Afghanistan shows a civilization, a way of life, that has exhausted itself.

Behold, the New Barbarism.

My guest on this episode of Law and Legitimacy is premier First Amendment lawyer, Marc Randazza. 

Marc's resume speaks for itself. And as you will hear, Marc has been an advocate for individual sovereignty since grade school. 

We start this interview by tracing his path to prominence in First Amendment advocacy. You'll learn about Marc's genetic predisposition to fail at adapting to military discipline. You'll hear about the times he flunked out of undergrad. You might even be disgusted to know that Marc pursued journalism before pursuing a career in law. 

But what you'll hear the most is Marc's unwavering commitment to the principles of free expression and the unlikely beginnings of a glittering career that began with his defense of an adult book store.

Unpopular political speech is the totality of Marc's bustling practice. So I ask him: what is the Bill of Rights? Why does the Bill of Rights matter?

And then I ask him what the biggest threats are to free speech. 

My answer—that the bottom has fallen out of pluralism in American society—will not surprise you. But neither will Marc's insight.

Listen in for a volley of ideas surrounding notions of obscenity, the social and therapeutic value of the marketplace of ideas, the impact of political tribalism on the curtailment of speech, and the likelihood that SCOTUS applies obscenity to political speech in order to create a "Hate Speech" exception to the First Amendment. 

Marc is one of the good ones. I cherish working with him. And I cherish opportunities like this to capture the essence of the finest our sacred practice has to offer. Enjoy. 

I guess nothing is sacred any longer in the United States—certainly not elections, legal process, fairness, or the presumption of innocence. In a 165-page report by New York’s Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo was accused of a pattern of sexual harassment involving eleven women.

The governor denied it, but has now announced his intention to resign from office.

Seriously?

Were I a New Yorker, I would feel betrayed, especially if I had voted for the man. He owes more to the people of the Empire State that this ignominious retreat from confronting charges he denies. We’ve become a republic of pusillanimous wimps.

The claims against Cuomo are that he kissed, hugged, and groped women with whom he worked, and that he sometimes talked about sex with them. 

He was single. He hugs and kisses men, too. What next, a parade of men who he’s hugged or kissed under the banner #HimToo?

I was hopeful that the #MeToo movement had run its course during the pandemic, the hysteria spent and now flowing in other directions. My hopes are dashed. Flirtation is a crime and victimhood the new national pastime.

Cuomo’s decision to cut and run is a major disappointment. I thought he was a fighter. He’s not. He’s a pussy.

This week, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced a new “Key to NYC Pass" program. Listen to the mayor:

“This is a miraculous place literally full of wonders. If you’re vaccinated, all that’s going to open up to you. But if you’re unvaccinated, unfortunately you will not be able to participate in many things.”

He’s telling you, then, unless you are either registered online as vaccinated or carry proof of vaccination, you cannot dine at an indoor restaurant, use a gym or enter a movie theater. “Your papers, please,” will become the new greeting of hosts and hostesses everywhere.

It’s chilling, a prelude to a terrifying future.

And because it arrises in the context of a never-ending pandemic, and because it affects only access to seeming luxuries, we will tolerate as a necessary price to pay for safety.

As one New Yorker put it: “This is about public health, so if you are entitled to not have the vaccination, and I am entitled to have the vaccination, I am also entitled not to want to be around you because I am taking care of myself and taking care of the community.”

Such are the seedlings of something like totalitarianism planted.

Are we in a public health emergency requiring extreme measures? If so, what’s the next emergency requiring such measures: gun control, “systemic racism,” or, perhaps, climate change? Let’s just yield liberty to the experts, those folks who know best how we can, and should, live.

In China, folks carry identification cards. Some of those cards are equipped with microchips containing massive amounts of data about the bearer’s habits — what they read, where they visit, what they buy, and who they associate with. An algorithm can score people based on what technocrats believe is a desirable social profile. People with higher social utility scores get better and less expensive access to both amenities and necessities.

I fear we’re one step closer to that in the United States, although here we won’t call it social utility—we'll call it Wokeness.

Scary times ahead, and I am not talking about the pandemic.

Harvey Weinstein, Robert Durst, Anna "the Manhattan Madam" Gristina, Lil' Wayne, and Lawrence Taylor. The common thread is New York's most prominent bail bondsman, Ira Judelson. 

"You know Zeus metes out fortune to good and bad men as it pleases him. Hardship he sent you, you must bear it."

Odysseus awakens on foreign shores after being tossed for weeks on violent seas. Is he among friends or strangers? Athena arranges a friendly reception, the daughter of a prince, Nausikaa,  stumbles upon him. Her hand-maidens recoil in fear.

“Strangers and beggars come from Zeus,” she reminds them. “A small gift, then, is friendly.” Odysseus utters immortal words to her, words which are the hope of all those bound together in matrimony:

“And may the gods accomplish your desire: a home, a husband, and harmonious converse with him — the best thing in the world being a strong house held in serenity where man and wife agree.” Nausikaa sees the nobility in this stranger.

Book VI is brief and yet contains so much grace and dignity. Hospitality, fortitude, plain spoken gratitude — all the higher virtues are on display here. Listen. Enjoy. We are all Odysseus finding our way blindly, hopefully, in a world of traps and snares.
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Too busy to read? Fine—I will read for you. Listen as though your soul’s life depends on it, because, in fact it does.

Herewith, Book VI of Homer’s Odyssey.

In 1950, Allan Turing wrote about the imitation game. Place a computer behind a screen and have a human ask it questions by way of a keyboard. If the computer can answer the questions in a manner that makes it impossible for the human to tell whether the author was a human or a computer, the machine "passes" the test, and would be said to be possessed of general human intelligence. It was a narrow vision of intelligence and a purely instrumental view of what it meant to be human. 

In our lifetimes, computers have exceeded our capacity at doing many narrow tasks. IBM computers beat the human champions at such games as Jeopardy and chess. 

But were the machines any closer to general human intelligence?  IBM hoped that Watson, the Jeopardy winner, would signal a brave new era of computing. It announced that Watson would be set loose on medicine, with hopes of finding more efficacious treatments, and maybe even the cure, for cancer. 

IBM has since given up those dreams. Watson isn't human, after all; it's not even a thinking thing. It merely crunches vast amounts of data using algorithms that direct its attention at what to look for. 

Computers can do limited tasks faster and more reliably than humans, but they cannot replicate what is distinctively human. Computers don't long; they don't desire; they compute. Silicon Valley, it turns out, is having a spiritual crisis of sorts. 

I'm relieved frankly. I don't see computers as capable of wrestling with the ordinary questions that haunt the nights of any truly thinking thing: "Where did we come from? What is our purpose? Why is there suffering". Go ahead and ask Siri sometime for something more profound than a recipe. "Hey. Siri, why is there a world rather than not?" 

I am an Augustinian. I believe, as did Augustine, that we are in search of the divine, an ineffable sense of completeness in the belief that God is everywhere present but nowhere to be seen. We are creatures of faith, and that faith, I suspect is more than hard-wired neural complexity. Show me the computer that can write, with Augustine, and without prompting, that "our heart is restless until in rests in you," and I'll do a double-take; I'll recognize a kindred spirit. 

Show me a computer that confesses its own short-comings, it's sin, it's misplaced desires! So here's a new challenge to the AI community: Build a machine that can write like Augustine and long as Augustine longs, and Ithen  will believe that there is such a thing as artificial general intelligence. 

We're nowhere near that. 

Andrew Wyatt is the spokesman for Bill Cosby, standing by him in the run up to his trial and his conviction in Pennsylvania, and greeting him at the prison gates when he was released from prison after the State Supreme Court threw out the conviction. 

Who is Andrew Wyatt? And what does a spokesman do? Few Americans have enjoyed the celebrity status that Bill Cosby enjoyed. And none have fallen so far and so quickly from grace.  

Will Cosby engage in a comeback tour?  If he does, I’m betting Andrew Wyatt will be by his side. 

I just love this guy. In this wide-ranging interview, Wyatt talks about his childhood, his work, how he met Bill Cosby, and the challenges of representing 'America’s Dad' to a media that turned surly during the what appears as the prologue to the #MeToo hysteria. 

What’s next for Bill Cosby? Did prison change him? Just how did his lawyers permit the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to promise Cosby effective immunity and then turn around and prosecute him? 

Wyatt’s at once quick-witted, charming, and, from time-to-time, funny as hell. I suspect his endearing qualities are a product of the time his spent on Detroit’s east side, where I, too, emerged from adolescence into the bright lights of adulthood confusion and angst. And did you know that Wyatt and Cosby are fraternity brothers, both members of Omega Psi Phi?  

Listen in to find out how Law and Legitimacy’s host, Norm Pattis, also developed a connection to the fraternity.  

Donald Trump’s suits against Facebook and Twitter are, unfortunately, about as likely to succeed as were his challenges to the 2020 election. In the election cases, his claims appeared to be frivolous. 

The social media complaints, however, are far from frivolous, at least in intent. But the legal theories they assert are ridiculous.

Facebook and Twitter are private entities. They are not governed by the first amendment. The first amendment’s ban on content-based censorship does not apply to private actors. It really is that simple.

So Trump’s legal team decided that they needed to find away to cloak Facebook and Twitter in the garments of state action. The complaint fails to do that, miserably. It will be summarily dismissed, and the dismissal upheld by the federal appellate courts. The issues it raises will not be heard by the United States Supreme Court. Indeed, I doubt many constitutional law professors would give a student submitting such a complaint a grade for anything other that a stilted form of creativity: a C+ might be warranted by a lenient grader.

First, the complaint simply asserts that Facebook is a state actor because it buckled under to government pressure in censoring speech. That’s ridiculous.

Facebook and Twitter do enjoy the benefits of a legislative grant of immunity for the material they publish as a result of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Congress is considering eliminating the immunity. Facebook and Twitter did respond by censoring folks it deemed to violate its hate speech and violent speech policies. But that doesn’t make Facebook and Twitter state actors. There’s no case that upholds such a theory.

Second, the complaint contends that Facebook and Twitter enjoy an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power. This is plainly illogical. Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate speech; it never delegated that. It did threaten to withhold a benefit, but that is not the same as delegation.

Trump missed a better theory. 

His team should have argued that Facebook is a constructive public trust. That is, that Facebook enjoys a public benefit in the form of immunity from suit; in exchange it should be required to adopt first amendment norms. This would take a decision of the Supreme Court to uphold, but at least the theory has conceptual integrity.

If this is the opening salvo of Trump’s 2024 campaign. I say find another candidate, or, Mr. Trump, find new and more creative lawyers. This suit does not pass the straight-face test.

"Can we long exist as a society if we lose our tradition in the roots of faith?"

Share, Like, Post, Tweet, Repost, Retweet, and Talk Aloud About It.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Bill Cosby for the rape of Andrea Constand in a stinging rebuke of Commonwealth prosecutors. The Court ruled that prosecutors cannot retry Cosby, now 83. By the time you read this, he should be a free man.

Cosby was tried twice for the rape of Ms. Constand.  When the first trial ended in a hung jury, with no unanimous verdict, Pennsylvania tried again, adding more witnesses. The second trial resulted in a conviction.

But fatal to both trials, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled, was the use of evidence the Commonwealth promised Cosby it would never use.

In 2005, Ms. Constand claimed Cosby had raped her one year earlier. Prosecutors investigated the claim and found it wanting. Because they did not think they could get a conviction, they encouraged Ms. Constand to sue Cosby civilly. In order to eliminate any use of the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination, prosecutors agreed never to prosecute Cosby for a crime. Ms. Constand sued, Cosby testified at a deposition, and the case settled for north of $3 million.

At his criminal trials a decade later, prosecutors used his deposition testimony against him. In other words, they induced him to waive his right to remain silent and then used his own words to help convict him. When challenged at the trial level, prosecutors claimed that the agreement they reached was informal.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court wasn’t buying that sorry tune today. In a stinging rebuke, it reminded prosecutors of the obvious: they are ministers of justice. In this case, they behaved unjustly.

Question:  Does Pennsylvania now pay Cosby for the abuse of his constitutional rights?

Share, Like, Post, Tweet, Repost, Retweet, and start a conversation. 

The State of New York recently suspended Rudy Giuliani’s law license on an interim basis in one of the most shocking decisions I’ve read in quite some time.

The court concluded, agreeing with bar regulators, that Giuliani posed an immediate threat to the public justifying an abrupt pulling of his license absent more formal hearings. 

Why? He made false statements to the court, to the public and to the world about his client’s theory that the 2020 election was stolen. 

His client? Donald J. Trump, of course.

Lawyers do not have the right to speak as freely as do non-lawyers. There are rules of professional conduct that limit attorney speech.

But this ruling makes a mockery of those rules.

Did Giuliani knowingly make false statements to the court? Perhaps. But it was in the context of his advocacy; he was advancing his client’s theory of the case. 

He did not mislead the court as to case law, which indeed is the Cardinal Sin for lawyers. He was guilty of inconsistency and over-promising in argument about what he could offer as evidence. That’s a common failing. If the trial judge thinks he over-stepped a boundary, that judge can impose sanctions. 

But suspension months after the case ended on grounds of protecting the public? There are pig sties in upstate New York that smell better than this.

There are two (2) other claims from the State: (i) that Giuliani made false statements to third parties when he appeared on television, the radio and elsewhere; and (ii) that Giuliani behaved in a way that led regulators to doubt his fitness to practice law.

This is risible. Lawyers are free to speak to the public. The only professional limit is on speech carrying a substantial likelihood to prejudice a public proceeding. Giuliani did nothing of the sort.

This is cancel culture in judicial robes and it is terrifying. I doubt these same regulators are chomping at the bit to disbar the young lawyers accused of throwing lit Molotov cocktails during a BLM protest.

Appeal, Rudy. Take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Here is your servant; lord, have mercy on me.”

Zeus decrees that Odysseus shall be released from his captivity to Kalypso. He is sent to see along, on a raft built with his own hands. After many days, he spies land, but a vengeful Poseidon stirs the oceans. Odysseus is capsized and exhausted. He fears death, but is show the way to shore by by a helpful goddess and the gift of Athena, “the gift of self-possession.” He reaches land, spent, and prepares a bed of leaves beneath some olive branches where he hopes rest will restore him.

Too busy to read? Fine—I will read for you. Listen as though your soul’s life depends on it, because, in fact it does.

Herewith, Book V of Homer’s Odyssey.

This week, Connecticut's Chief State's Attorney, Richard Colangelo, Jr., graciously joined Law and Legitimacy for an hour-long interview and rare respite from the war stories that typify the prosecutor-defense attorney paradigm.  

Indeed, Norm and Richard have long been trial attorney adversaries. Legend has it that Norm even pursued Richard on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct all the way up to the 2nd Circuit a few moons ago. 

This episode, however, breathes life into the theme of Legitimacy by and through its discussion of criminal justice and the challenges facing prosecutors and defense attorneys alike in the modern world.  

Norm and Richard journey together in this interview and address the following ideas and questions: 

What is a trial? 

Are you ever troubled by outcomes? 

What is "Restorative Justice"? 

Pathological Expressions of Victimhood 

How does society take care of those who have been victimized by the misconduct of their loved ones? 

The difficulty inherent in plea deals 

The "Last Best Offer" text in the recent Connecticut transparency bill 

What makes murder "worth" the top of the statutory range? 

How has the practice of law and professionalism changed? 

Defund the Police and issues of transparency 

Staying true to one's word 

This was an odd week on the frontiers of the emerging racial divisions in the United States. 

From the federal appellate courts, good news — the 6th Circuit struct down a federal program giving preferential access to federal coronavirus relief funds on the basis of race and gender. 

Episode 32 is special in more ways than one. 

Last week, the world lost a titan of American jurisprudence and criminal advocacy, F. Lee Bailey. This episode is thus devoted entirely to the man and the legend F. Lee Bailey was and will forever be known to be. 

I took a road trip to Vermont the other day. I found myself myself, in the end, standing along the border to Canada deep in the woods, looking at a marker dividing one country from another. 

It was a source of delight, really, imagining myself as Humpty Dumpty on the wall, looking down on a continent filled with scrambling folks trying to reassemble just what, exactly?  Certainly not me.

When I returned home, Thoreau’s Walden Pond beckoned. The book transformed me when I was an adolescent in Detroit. There was life beyond the grime and hatred that made the city seem so terrifying to me. Somehow, Thoreau, and my chance encounter with him in a bookstore, transformed me.

Now, fifty years, and a lifetime of turmoil and complexity behind me, Thoreau’s call to simplify grows louder, reawakened, perhaps, by the narrowing horizons of my life. I’m no longer the young man filled with ambition; nor am I the confident middle-aged man making my steps with care so as to arrive at some calculated version of success.

I have become all that I will ever be, and that requires a reckoning of sorts. I sat on the border and wondered about the value of all that I call good.  “The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything it is very likely to be my good behavior,” Thoreau once said.

"Amen," I cry.

I’ll return to Vermont soon. I spent a lot of time in Michigan’s Northwoods as a troubled teen. I suspect that as the sun sets on my horizon, I’ll be a Vermonter with a secret longing to leave for Quebec. 

Maybe that’s Thoreau’s point: we’re all expatriates, whether we know it or not.

My second long-form interview guest for Law and Legitimacy is a law student. We'll call him 'Student X'. 

Some say lawyers are born and not made. I’m not so sure about that. Lawyering is hard work; it takes training to earn the right to stand in the law’s trenches.

In this interview, we’ll discuss what it’s like to be a law student. Student X is a rising 2L at an elite law school, by which I mean a school that requires impossibly good grades to even be considered for admission. This young man just completed his first year. He will describe what he learned.

Why Student X? These are tough times on law school campuses; indeed, they are tough times on campuses in general. A growing intolerance for all by the politically correct forms of speech makes it perilous to speak one's mind. Offend the wrong person or group and one just might get cancelled. I am aware of one recent law school graduate who had to appear before his school’s “honor” committee on multiple occasions for impolitic speech.

We’ve disguised Student X’s voice and done what we can to make sure the hounds of unctuousness can’t identify him in this interview.

You might be surprised by what’s going on in law schools these days. Did a majority of this young man’s classmates really refuse to ratify the Constitution in a mock ratification vote? If so, what are these would-be Solons doing in law school?

Enjoy.

Have an interview guest in mind? Email me at npattis@pattislaw.com with "Law and Legitimacy" in the subject line.

Calls for a commission to study the January 6 “insurrection” at the Capitol present an interesting opportunity to take a long and sustained look at what ails the American republic. But the Commission needs to ask the right questions.

And? It needs to be staffed by the right scholars.

In this podcast, I provide what I believe to be the proper framing and focus of the Commission, and propose a structure for how to answer the most important question and who should be tasked accordingly. Here's an outline of that structure: 

Chapter 1 — The Presidential Election of 2016

A son in search of his father; a mother’s fearful tears; and the fidelity of lifelong friends. You will find some part of your life in these pages.

Too busy to read? Fine—I will read for you. Listen as though your soul’s life depends on it, because, in fact it does.

Herewith, Book IV of Homer’s Odyssey.

I re-read Orwell’s 1984 the other day — one of the joys afforded by cross-country travel is the plenty of downtime in airports and on planes. How well does Orwell’s fears of a totalitarian society account for what we have become, and are becoming?

The work is bleak, as those of you who read it through to the end know.  But don’t assume that just because Communism has failed as an ideology that Orwell has less to say to us now than he he did in 1949, when the work was first published. 

Where once stood the party, there now stands big tech. If anything, Orwell failed to foresee just how powerful the means of mass manipulation and control could become. Social media occupies the place of Big Brother.

In the end, Winston Smith, is broken by Big Brother. Smith’s quest for significance, what I will call the fundamental human drive, leads him into a direct confrontation with the state. The state crushes him, and it demands that he renounce not just the woman he loves, but love itself, the better to be made into a compliant slave of the collective.

It’s tempting to regard the demands of political correctness and a “progressive” view of history as the functional equivalent of Big Brother. We are all, those of who aspire to advance and prosper at any rate, tethered to a world of common expectations, a vision of the good that demands we find our significance in the eyes of the collective good.  

That is the path to spiritual death.

The heroes in 1984? The proles. The ordinary people forgotten by history for whom loyalty is an end in itself and the simple pleasures of loving and being loved are enough. 

Were Orwell alive today, he’d write a more pessimistic book, but the message would be the same: in the tragic mess we call history, the quest of individual significance in the only enduring value worth pursuing.

My first long-form interview guest for Law and Legitimacy is one of America's great trial lawyers, R. Rex Parris. 

Rex is also a mayor, the founder of a biotech company, and an environmental activist.  

My main question to Rex: what do you see in a courtroom? His answers will surprise you. 

Rex has spent several decades mastering cognitive sciences, treating the courtroom and the city council chamber alike as a laboratory. He shares some basic insights into how our hearts, minds, and bodies interact.  I cannot claim to understand it all, but I know his vision on the subject is compelling and I want to know more.  Rex has been a good friend of mine for 25 years. 

After spending a week with him in my recent trip westward, I thought, "Wow! This is the interview for Law and Legitimacy."  Did I choose that, or was it a result of some master plan, the architect of which is unknown to me? 

Listen. Enjoy.  

Have an interview guest in mind? Email me at npattis@pattislaw.com with "Law and Legitimacy" in the subject line. 

What's going on?! However this episode is reaching you, I hope it finds you well. 

My name is Michael Boyer. I am the managing attorney for Carolina Craft Legal here in beautiful Greensboro, North Carolina. I have for the last six-or-so weeks been assisting Norm from afar on all things technical and quality for this podcast, Law and Legitimacy. 

I trust that you, like I, are hearing the march of progress in that respect. 

I want to first express my sincere and deep appreciation to each of you listening for taking this journey and engaging with the ideas and notions presented. As a young practitioner, it is an absolute honor to to play even a small role in bringing Norm's deep experience, wisdom, and timeless insight to the public through this new audio channel, and in such a prolific fashion. 

And as a practitioner, I also know that the client is the headliner—the main event—with no exceptions. That is how Norm operates. 

Indeed, a client matter arose this week requiring Norm's immediate presence and undivided attention. So, you're stuck with me for a brief spell!

"Though as for death, of course all men must suffer it:
 the gods may love a man, but they can’t help him
 when cold death comes to lay him on his bier."

Too busy to read? Fine—I will read for you. Listen as though your soul’s life depends on it, because, in fact it does.

Herewith, Book III of Homer’s Odyssey.

Too busy to read? Fine—I will read for you. Listen as though your soul’s life depends on it, because, in fact it does. 

Herewith, Book II of Homer’s Odyssey. 

Big news! 

Next week, Law and Legitimacy will conduct its first guest interview! We’ll aim to interview at least one person a week in a long-form format.