All legal posts: July 2008 Archives

Last week I was in New Jersey fulfilling a few more of its unconstitutional CLE requirements. I've objected before to how onerous these requirements are for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they require attorneys to physically be in the state to fulfill them. This requirement poses an undue burden on out-of-state residents, who must travel great and expensive distances to get to those classes, and thus runs afoul of the US Constitution, which prohibits such discrimination against them.

I had not realized until a few weeks ago though that it is apparently possible to schedule an appointment to watch video replays of the CLE lectures on dates other than when they are formally presented. They still cost twice as much to view than the live lectures (again discriminating against out-of-state residents who are necessarily unable to fly in and out for the more affordable yet randomly-scheduled in-person versions) and are still not given on all dates, but it's something, I suppose.

So on this occasion I watched two videos to satisfy the third year requirements. (Inconveniently I must still do the second year's sometime in the next six months lest I become ineligible to practice anyway, but I was unable to schedule their viewing during the date I could be in New Jersey.) The courses were "Municipal Courts" and "Landlord/Tenant Law."

A few weeks ago on our houseboat we had another "Family Night." I made pancakes in deference to the one's vegetarianism, inadvertently forgetting about another one's gluten intolerance. Oops. I remember another gluten-intolerant friend once telling me that he recognized his intolerance one night after he'd eaten a huge bowl of pasta and ended up in a homicidal mood for no good reason. Brilliant. Just the kind of mood you want to risk putting your roommates in...