For criticizing Mr. Campos last week, I received the following insolent e-mail:

You’re a “Law and ______” Professor, not a lawyer. How would you know how to ‘think like a lawyer’?

Thomas R. Grover, Esq.

Goodsell & Olsen, LLP

10155 W. Twain Ave., Ste. 100

Las Vegas, NV 89147

Tel: (702) 869-6261

Fax: (702 869-8243

Cell: (702) 900-3003

tom@goodsellolsen.com

www.goodsellolsen.com

Mr. Grover is a recent law graduate of the University of Nebraska, one of those law schools that students should still be considering, even in the current market, and notwithstanding Mr. Grover. But it is odd that he thinks that being a lawyer and a philosopher involves a contraction, rather than an expansion, of knowledge and competence. In any case, I replied to Mr. Grover as follows:

Dear Mr. Grover,

Are you actually an attorney at the firm in question? If so, why do you not appear on the website? Do your supervisors know that you are using the firm’s e-mail to send impertinent and juvenile messages to other professionals?

“Thinking like a lawyer” refers to a style of reasoning and analysis that is exemplified in the law section of appellate briefs and in judicial opinions; I assume you must be familiar with both genres. It encompasses, for example, the use of analogical reasoning to distinguish precedents or propose extensions or developments of existing doctrine, but also involves techniques of statutory and constitutional construction, the use of arguments from authority, facility with the law/fact distinctions, and so on. Again, merely looking at the chapter headings of Schauer’s book Thinking Like a Lawyer would illuminate this apparently opaque topic for you. Alternatively, you might read Edward Levi’s classic book An Introduction to Legal Reasoning; Mr. Levi was the former Dean of my Law School, as well as former Attorney General of the United States.

Of course, there are more skills involved in being a lawyer than thinking like a lawyer. There is industry-specific knowledge, know-how with respect to how local courts or regulatory agencies approach statutory language, rhetorical talent, as well as a range of psychological and interpersonal skills that are important. For example, most good lawyers I know, among my family and friends, exhibit maturity and professional judgment, that would prevent them from sending insolent e-mails from their’s firm account to other professionals. I will be sure to send a copy of this entire correspondence to the name partners of your firm.

I do think we law professors, and especially those with blogs, have been far too tolerant of malicious and unprofessional conduct by usually anonymous or pseudonymous lawyers and students. Mr. Grover deserves credit for signing his name to his stupidity, and, of course, his intervention is a relatively mild example of juvenile nonsense emanating from putative lawyers. I've generally let most of this garbage pass in silence, but in the coming weeks I'm going to be posting a bit more about some alleged legal professionals whose on-line conduct deserves to be aired in public. I especially welcome more information on a sick individual using the pseudonym "dybbuk," who is, among other pathetic characteristics, obsessed with the appearance of female law faculty, and who fantasizes on-line about spanking them with wet slippers, among other charming attributes. He is a Washington & Lee law graduate, and a public defender, and we will have more to say about him soon. But I welcome any further details from readers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22744293)

lol at these two sentences back to back.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745704)

lol

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#23414758)

in his mind, this is a darth vader force choke.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22751986)

I totally agree, tokyorose

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745651)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745660)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745676)

This kid e-mailed Brian "the Titties from Texas" Leiter. He wasn't being insolent.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#23406908)

lol

but what a fucking dick tho

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745659)

but yeah

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745667)

"Their's," tokyorose? Really? Now THAT may well be a "contraction" of knowledge. THAT'S NOT SCHOLARSHIP.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745666)

edit: his annotated cv is fucking obnoxious though

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745691)

Indeed. Feast on this philosophical gourmet.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22747337)

was that ur email?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745689)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745712)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22745732)

This guy is so small as a person it is amazing. I don't think he could find the higher road if you spotted his troll ass the phonebook.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22746483)

LOL wtf is wrong with this guy that he goes around wanting to out people, and much more thinks he is doing a service to the world for doing it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22746586)

Leiter: "I KNOW SCHOLARSHIP SIR AND YOU ARE UNPROFESSIONAL, I shall inform your firm of this slight."

What would happen if someone actually said something rude to this douche?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22747460)

I was expecting a Fresh Prince transition right about there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22747475)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22749635)

Might be prudent though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22750546)

2) When you descend into the mud to wrestle with your lowest critics, no matter who wins, you're still covered in mud. I predict this will not end well for Leiter.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22751595)

Next, I hope that shitlaw firm files a lawsuit against you. Would you settle just to stay out of big scary Las Vegas? Or would your scholarship be the new Thunder From Down Under

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22752012)

David Bernstein • March 4, 2013 4:36 pm

http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/04/a-new-civility-standard/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22755009)

Forgot about that one.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22755513)

ljl at Campos not having the respect of crooks and liars and thieves

ljl at Campos even caring

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22779400)

*waits 30 seconds*

*calls up closest ally in the legal scholarship world*

"Hey Bill- did you see the new post? Well then I won't ruin it for you, but it's safe to say I've done it again. Enjoy!"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22780384)

"I would have thought it was impossible for me to have a lower opinion of Brian Leiter’s moral character, and/or deeper suspicions about his mental health, but then I read his astonishingly mendacious response to the claims in these posts. Suffice it to say (for now) that Leiter manages to give the impression that he’s denying the truth of what I wrote without actually denying almost anything. He doesn’t deny that he’s “Peter Aduren,” he doesn’t deny that he sent emails to the formerly anonymous people with whom I spoke (and who considered these emails to be cyber-harrassment), and he doesn’t even deny that Dan Filler wrongfully and quite possibly illegally disclosed the email addresses of these people to him after they provided confidential information to TFL, in order to post at that site. The record, I think, pretty much now speaks for itself."

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/03/michael-schill-a-finalist-to-lead-uw-madison.html#comments

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22780993)

http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/07/blogospheric-rubbernecking/#disqus_thread

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22780999)

AND A FINAL WORD: Crazy Campos’s jihad against Dan Filler has come to an end, not with Campos apologizing, but with his continuing to cast aspersions on Filler and others at TFL, even though, as I noted last Friday, he’s been barking up the wrong tree all along (he apparently has little sense of the depth and breadth of enmity towards him and his crew, and it extends well beyond those who blog--I will, in any case, not name my sources, who did the morally correct thing in exposing scoundrels and creeps, but who do not deserve to be harassed and defamed by those who want to harass and defame with impunity). There also turns out to be quite a bit of backstory about what’s been going on at Colorado, that will perhaps come out in time, and which may explain Campos’s slightly insane and obsessive behavior in the last week. Anyway, I’ll give the final word about this freak show to a colleague elsewhere, who wrote to me last week regarding the pseudonymous and anonymous trolls: “I, for one, hope that you put the fear of god into them. I've been unable to avoid the consistent spamming our normal blogs have taken over the last year from the likes of these schmoes ('MacK' and the others main perpetrators), one can only hope that they're cowering in a corner thinking back on the foolishness of repeatedly attempting to defame and intimidate honest and well-meaning educators. It's one of the worst symptoms of the right-wing anti-intellectualism that seems to get frothier in this country each election cycle. As for our friend in the rocky mountain state, I really think he's either run into some well-deserved, serious career problem (other than lacking all talent as a scholar) or has gone wholly round the bend.” As some readers pointed out, even Campos's many false allegations may have the salutary effect of making the bottom-feeders in cyberspace (including Campos's dozen-or-so trolls) a bit more cautious going forward.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22893813)

damn, son.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22899142)

what a cock smoker.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22899200)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#22899573)

Now he runs guided tours at a museum in vegas and volunteers for the republican party.

While leiter is a douche, those two belong together.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#23415025)

I know you guys don't like him, but come on.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2196839&forum_id=2#23417961)