A review of the excellent news reporting from Allyson Bird at the Charleston Post and Courier, regarding the adoption case involving two year-old, Veronica, her prospective adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, and her Cherokee birth father, Dusten Brown, demonstrates a misunderstanding when a “best interests of the child” standard is applicable. For custody cases [...]
Archive for the ‘Law and Culture’ Category
The Citadel sexual abuse cover up(s)
I find myself in an awkward position in which my friend, Charleston Post & Courier reporter Glenn Smith, is investigating and writing about a colleague and former office mate, Citadel General Counsel, Mark C. Brandenburg. Glenn’s an outstanding reporter, investigating and breaking numerous important local stories that are too small to interest the national media. [...]
What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering
Interesting article in today’s New York Times, What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering, describing what’s wrong with law school methodology and how law students graduate lacking the ability to do even basic legal practice. Law firms are now taking upon themselves to teach their first year associates how to practice law. Some are even foregoing having [...]
Another reason to love South Carolina
Yesterday one of the emails from the South Carolina Judicial Department noted a CDR (Criminal Docket Report) code had been added for the offense of “Illegal night hunting of coyotes and armadillos,” otherwise known as S.C. Code §50-11-0710(A)(3). This subsection reads: [C]oyotes and armadillos may be hunted at night with an artificial light that is [...]
The “best” age(s) for South Carolina husbands to commit adultery
One of the many oddities of South Carolina family law is that a husband is typically best off committing adultery when he and his wife are either very young or very old. It’s the middle-aged dudes who suffer the most financially from their philandering. When a couple is young, especially if there are no children, [...]
How best interests of the child warps adult culture
A generation ago there was a term for adults who genuinely enjoyed watching small children’s athletic or artistic performances: pedophiles. However a legal culture that went from awarding custody of children to mothers (so long as they were fit) to one that awards custody to the “better parent” and conflates “better parent” with “parent who [...]
Glee 3-D: Propaganda for the Obama Generation
How could one not love Glee 3-D? It, and Glee, are Utopian fantasies in which a Red America of bigots, malevolent overlords, and religious scolds is finally and definitively vanquished by a Blue America of multicultural, limit-denying, losers. Oh, and the economy’s strong enough that everyone can afford a ticket. Savor the ironies of Glee’s presence [...]