:: RECENT PUBLICATIONS ::

Boston Phoenix - "Sotomayor's mixed message on free speech"

• Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy, has decided a limited number of First Amendment cases. Despite, or perhaps because of, the widespread focus on "identity politics" in Sotomayor's nomination, the confirmation process needs to seriously address where she stands on the First Amendment. I examine a few cases in the June 3, 2009 Boston Phoenix.

Reason Magazine - "Replacing Justice Souter"

• Legal experts discuss Obama's forthcoming Supreme Court nomination" (May 21, 2009)

The Guardian (guardian.co.uk) - "Torture and the Washington Post"

• On the Guardian's (UK) website, I explain the skiddish approach certain publications have taken with the term "torture."

Boston Phoenix - "Sunshine on the ACLU: a mea culpa"

• In the May 6, 2009 Boston Phoenix, I discuss Wendy Kaminer's recently-published book, Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU, and her efforts to expose failures and missteps of the prominent civil liberties organization. Seeing eye-to-eye on these issues, but keeping my dissent mainly in-house, her book has provoked my second thoughts and a mea culpa. It is now clear, to me at least, that "Sunshine on the ACLU" would indeed have been a powerful disinfectant.

Minding The Campus - "Be Fair, Harvard..."

• My campaign, along with that of co-candidate Robert Freedman, for a seat on Harvard's Board of Overseers has touched a nerve here in Cambridge. In an April 26, 2009 piece for MindingTheCampus.com, I describe Harvard's email electioneering campaign to encourage alumni to support the "official" candidates for the 30-member governing board. Harvard's insistence on controlling communications between the candidates and voters is yet another reason why I'm hoping to bring positive change to the Board of Overseers. (Results will be announced on June 4, 2009.)

The Boston Globe - "On torture outrage, let's take a step back"

• An April 21, 2009 Boston Globe letter-to-the-editor calling for the prosecution of CIA interrogators caught my eye. Written by an ACLUM staff attorney, the letter, in my opinion, was off-the-mark, at least from a civil liberties perspective, as it emphasized criminal prosecution rather than fairness and due process. In an April 23 Globe op-ed, I discuss the importance of "good faith" in determining the guilt of an individual interrogator: "[I]n our legal system, based on an ancient Anglo-Saxon moral and legal tenet incorporated into our own criminal codes, a wrongdoer may be punished only if he knowingly and intentionally committed an act that he believed to be illegal."

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly - "Are lawyer layoffs start of major restructuring of profession?" (subscription required; PDF available here)

• I wrote a personal letter in early April to the editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, responding to his column in the previous issue about top-notch legal eagles getting laid off at law firms across the state. While I agreed with his factual observation, I felt that a larger trend – even an opportunity – was evident. In my letter, which the editor later asked to be published as an op-ed, I explained that, rather than a temporary downturn in legal business, the current conditions likely represent an "era-defining restructuring not only of the legal profession and the practice of law, but also of society at-large." (PDF)