Unused and Probably Unusable

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If you are a skydiver, however, we recommend you get it right on the first attempt, and every time thereafter.

The paucity in blog posts lately can be attributed to two main factors: a major trial out of town, and another upcoming major trial. Each case involves more than a week of testimony; more than 5 years of work (not necessarily mine, but that of associates and co-counsel) (not "man-hours" or "person hours," but actual calendar years of work); appeals preceding the actual trials over summary judgment motions, which had to be resolved first; and, therefore, substantial preparation as well as effort to actually try the case.

Neither trial (the one just completed or the other one pending) has or had much prospect of settlement before a verdict. Most cases don't make it to trial. Many trials don't make it to verdict. These particular cases involve such stupendous amounts of effort and such disparate views by defendants and plaintiffs about the value of the case and the likely outcome that it will take a trial in order to resolve.

In this way, a major trial is much like a war. No rational actor would get involved if they could achieve what they wanted some easier way. No rational parties would engage in it if they were going to lose. Obviously, either some parties are irrational or there are some informational assymetries, or systematic biases involved. While I'd love to believe that can be fixed, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that neither lawsuits nor wars are going to be permanently ended anytime soon. Which is good in a way, as I'd be out of a job.

In between trials, I produced another guest post at Evan's blog, this one on language discrimination. As George noted in the comments, he'd already been there and done that. I quite like his post, and if I'd had time, would have used Google Blog Search to ferret out other blog posts on linguistic discrimination, such as Students' Rights to their Own Language, cultural and linguistic minorities, and of course an obligatory link to a post about "Ebonics" and what it should actually be called - and what it is. Alas, I was timeless. Time-free? No, I had no time that was free. You get the drift.

Upcoming posts I have in mind: more on Scalia (natch), more on linguistics, and some more on the nature of blogdom and on the nature of law. That is, expect jurisprudence, if not other sorts of prudence.

With another multiweek complex civil trial looming, I am about to enter the twilight zone of blogging. That is, new posts may appear from time to time, but ask yourself: are they meaningful? Do they have any content? Or are they mere figments, phantoms of past ideas haphazardly tossed into the pan for a lukewarm reheating?

When your humble host is at trial, other things get shoved onto the back burner, as it were. That's because Eh N. takes seriously the interests of his clients, and his own obligation to zealously and loyally represent those interests. It takes time, and some mental concentration, and a great deal of frivolousness to blawg at length. Therefore, prudence (and conscience) demands that blogging becomes a secondary activity - a leisure sport. Since full-time trials eat into such leisure activities as sleeping, regular meals, exercise, and seeing the sky when the sun is out, blogging will perforce be minimized.

That said, here are some blawgs that I have recently taken a new or renewed interest in:

Space Law Probe, for all your space and satellite law-related needs. Discovering this blawg made unnecessary the following mini-post, which I was assembling about the Jiuquan Space Center:

After all, if others are covering, I don't have to.

And, secondly, Ken Lammers' Crim Law Blog, one of the first blawgs I read regularly. I rediscovered the blog - nice new look, Ken - recently and have been following the posts (by Ken and Frontier Law Student) with some interest, particularly the ones that are either autobiographical like A Day In the Life of a Criminal Defense Attorney, or deal with topics of particular interest to me, like For Service, Speak English. As you may recall, I guest-posted about language discrimination over at Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground, here. (This was my second guest post over there, following on one involving Bootstrapping and the Law, available here.)

For a full list of all the blogs I'm currently keeping abreast of, see my full Bloglines subscription list, also linked near the bottom of my left sidebar.