U.S. Society

An Invitation To Be An Unethical Lawyer…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Just as I was preparing yesterday for today’s 3-hour legal ethics CLE seminar (which, coincidentally, contained a section about the unsettled status of lawyers using artificial intelligence for legal research, writing and other tasks in the practice of law), I received this unsolicited promotion in my email:

Let’s see: how many ways does this offer a lawyer the opportunity to violate the ethics rules? Unless a lawyer thoroughly understands how such AI creatures work—and a lawyer relying on them must—it is incompetent to “try” them on any actual cases. Without considerable testing and research, no lawyer could possibly know whether this thing is trustworthy. The lawyer needs to get informed consent from any client whose matters are being touched by “CoCounsel,” and no client is equipped to give such consent. If it were used on an actual case, there are questions of whether the lawyer would be aiding the unauthorized practice of law. How would the bot’s work be billed? How would a lawyer know that client confidences wouldn’t be promptly added to CoCounsel’s data base?

Entrusting an artificial intelligence-imbued assistant introduced this way with the matters of actual clients is like handing over case files to someone who just walked off the street claiming, “I’m a legal whiz!” without evidence of a legal education, a degree, or work experience.

On the plus side, the invitation was a great way to introduce my section today about the legal ethics perils of artificial intelligence technology.

Surprise Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I don’t know when I’ll have access to my blog tomorrow, so to allow the ethics wisdom to flow unabated, I’m declaring an Open Forum right now.

Cover for me…

Encore: “Regarding ‘Athlete A’….”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

[I watched “Athlete A,” the infuriating Netflix documentary for the second time, and completely forgot that I had written about it here when it first came out. (I’m sure glad I checked.) It is gratifying, I guess that most of what I was prepared to write today was what I wrote in 2020. I was not, however, emphatic enough about the implications of the multi-level failures of ethics decency, responsibility and accountability that allowed this disaster to occur. For in addition to Larry Nassar, the sick, manipulative doctor who used his position to sexually molest hundreds of young girls for more than 20 years, this mass crime was inflicted by stunning corruption and cruelty by key officials in the U.S. Olympic Committee, gymnastic coaches, Michigan State officials (where Nassar worked when he wasn’t sexual assaulting female gymnasts) and—is this even shocking any more?—the FBI. Then there are the parents of the gymnasts, who shipped their daughters off to be cared for by strangers who often abused them.

I suppose this story bothered me more this week than it did in 2020 because we have finally learned the truth about the Russian collusion hoax, the multi-level failure of integrity and trust that marred the 2020 election, and the horrific betrayal by so many institutions that inflicted the pandemic lockdown on us with the incursion on basic liberties that it involved, the discovery that schools are secretly pushing their students into life-altering gender confusion, while Big Tech and social media platforms conspire with the government to censor speech. I confess that I am less inclined to look at the Larry Nassar scandal as an anomaly today than three years ago. Now I am thinking: if we can’t trust our institutions to have sufficient ethics alarms that their leaders and key personnel choose the health and welfare of young girls over power, profit and selfish personal agendas, how can we trust them at all?]

Athlete A,” the Netflix documentary that tells the awful story of USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s decades of sexually abusing young female gymnasts—perhaps as many as 500 of them—, how he was allowed to continue his crimes after complaints from parents and others, and the young women who finally sent him to prison with their testimony, is both disturbing and depressing. I watched it last night with my wife, who was horrified that she didn’t know the Nassar story.

Ethics Alarms wasn’t as much help as it should have been. Its first full post about the scandal was this one, which, in grand Ethics Alarms tradition, slammed the ethics of the judge who sentenced Nassar to 60 years in prison, essentially a “Stop making me defend Dr. Nassar!” post. I’ll stand by that post forever, but it didn’t help readers who are link averse to know the full extent of Nassar’s hobby of plunging his fingers and hands into the vaginas and anuses of trusting young girls while telling them that it was “therapy.”

The second full post, in August of last year,  was more informative regarding Nassar, but again, it was about the aftermath of his crimes, not the crimes themselves. That post  focused on the the Senate hearings following the July 30 release of the report of an 18-month Senate investigation  that found that the U.S. Olympic Committee and others failed to protect young female athletes from Nassar’s probing hands, detailing “widespread failure by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (the “Committee”) and other institutions to keep athletes safe.”  Then there was this: Continue reading →

The Nation’s Moral, Legal And Ethical Incoherence On Abortion, In Two Articles

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

In the first, “In Post-Roe America, Nikki Haley Seeks a New Path on Abortion for G.O.P.,” we learn that

“We need to stop demonizing this issue,” Haley said at the first Republican debate. “It’s personal for every woman and man. Now, it’s been put in the hands of the people. That’s great.”

No, it’s not just “personal.” It is societal. Moral and ethical principles exist, and they aren’t principles if any individual can reject or ignore them as everyone shrugs and says, “OK! Different strokes for different folks!” That’s how we end up with mobs shoplifting at Walmart with no consequences. Is theft right, fair, acceptable and ethical, or is it wrong and damaging to society and humanity? Is that a hard question? No?

Great! Now lets do killing growing human beings.

The Times, naturally, quickly establishes itself as a flack for “choice,” writing about Haley’s search for “an anti-abortion message that doesn’t alienate moderate Republicans and swing voters,” because, presumably, anyone who isn’t a radical, extremist Republican will be alienated by advocating anti-abortion policies that treat abortions as they should be treated: legalized killings of human beings. Those who won’t recognize abortions as what abortions are—the word “kill” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Times news story, nor is there any reference to ending a life or lives—either haven’t thought very deeply about the matter, don’t want to, or won’t admit to themselves what the issue is. For example,

Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster, doubted whether Ms. Haley could square her “respectful and middle-ground, compromise approach” with a decade-long record of “actually not doing that when in office.” Republicans, she said, have far to go before voters will give them the benefit of the doubt on the issue. “Those candidates trying to walk back their previous positions on abortion look incredibly political and non-trustworthy,” Ms. Murphy said. “Their credibility is so low on this issue that voters just fundamentally believe Republicans want to ban abortion.”

Ethically and morally, how is legalizing abortions when the birth doesn’t genuinely imperil the life of the mother a “respectful and middle-ground” or “compromise” approach that can pass any ethical system without setting off sirens? Kant held that using another’s life as a means to an end was per se unethical. “Reciprocity” fails, obviously: would abortion advocates be supportive of their own mothers aborting them because their births would be inconvenient and a career handicap? Or are a half-million aborted babies every year in the U.S. just the price of equal opportunity? The ends justifies the means: brutal utilitarianism.

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Ethics Quote Of The Month: The 5th Circuit Court Of Appeals

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“We find that the White House, acting in concert with the Surgeon General’s office, likely (1) coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences, and (2) significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”

—A three-judge panel of the The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, substantially upholding a lower court’s preliminary injunction in The State of Missouri et al v Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al,

The Per Curiam opinion is here, and its legal and ethical clarity cannot be overstated. The Court wrote in part,

. . . On multiple occasions, the officials coerced the platforms into direct action via urgent, uncompromising demands to moderate content. Privately, the officials were not shy in their requests—they asked the platforms to remove posts “ASAP” and accounts “immediately,” and to “slow[] down” or “demote[]” content.

It is uncontested that, between the White House and the Surgeon General’s office, government officials asked the platforms to remove undesirable posts and users from their platforms, sent follow-up messages of condemnation when they did not, and publicly called on the platforms to act. When the officials’ demands were not met, the platforms received promises of legal regime changes, enforcement actions, and other unspoken threats.

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Friday Forum, Open For Business

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

It’s come to this.

I’m playing “The Learned Judge” in a lightly staged concert version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Jury” this weekend at the Georgetown Law Center. (That’s a different production of the show above.) The cast is made up of current students and alums from the past 50 years. Gilbert’s resolution of the musical law suit in which a jilted bride is suing a rogue for breach of promise of marriage is that the judge (me) decides to marry the plaintiff himself, a decision that she is delighted with. In announcing this “judgment,” I came down to the young woman, a first year law student, playing the plaintiff “Angelina” and placed my arm around gently around her waist, then transitioned to holding her hands in mine as we sang the final bars of the show.

The director asked that I only place my hand on Angelina’s shoulder rather than around the waist, because the production might be criticized for endorsing sexual harassment.

But you all chat about whatever ethics matters are making your lives interesting, exciting, or miserable.

Observations On An Incident At McDonald’s

/ Jack Marshall / 85 Comments

For various reasons the most convenient route to a late lunch was the nearest McDonald’s, so after my wife’s physical therapy session, I reluctantly hit the drive-thu. All went surprisingly well at first: for a welcome change, someone who could speak clear-English was at the mic, and the order was correct on the screen (though the prices for fast food now are absurd). Two sandwiches, one small fries, no drinks, easy-peezy.

The order was simple, Grace didn’t bother to check the bag when I handed it to her at the window, but it felt light, so she checked after we had pulled away. Sure enough, there was only one of the two sandwiches we had ordered.

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What Does It Say About The State Of Higher Education In The U.S. That Its Oldest And Most Prestigious Institution Is The Nation’s Most Hostile To Free Speech?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

It’s a rhetorical question. What this says is that the culture of the United States of America, which has been nurtured for centuries to embrace personal liberty and pluralism, is being threatened by its elite educational institutions and the indoctrinated citizens they graduate.

I suppose I should take some satisfaction that I began blowing the metaphorical whistle on my alma mater years ago, and felt sufficiently embarrassed by the ethics rot overwhelming the ivy there to turn my diploma face to the wall and to explain in my class notes that I would be boycotting the class reunion. Simply put, the American college long considered the exemplar for higher education cannot become fascistically woke without dire consequences to the nation. Harvard alumni, many, maybe even most, of whom recognize this, have been negligent in allowing matter to reach this point. But that point has been reached.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Education Secretary’s Play List

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Wow. What an idiot.

Here are some sample lyrics from the songs our Education Dept. Secretary loves:

“Out o’ town, put it down for the Father of Rap And if yo’ ass get cracked, bitches, shut your trap. Come back, get back, that’s the part of success.”

“Fuck all you hoes. Get a grip, motherfucker!”

“My my, I’m big huh, I rip my prick through your hooters I’m sick, you couldn’t measure my dick with six rulers”

Secretary Cardona can listen to, read and love whatever he chooses, but his tweet—he quickly deleted it, of course, after multiple social media commenters explained to him that the tweet called into question his priorities and judgment—is a red flag to parents who don’t want their children to be immersed in a sexually-obsessed culture when they need to learn academic skills. This is the official who is overseeing U.S. education policy, and he saw nothing inappropriate about endorsing songs with lyrics like “Fuck all you hoes.”

Comment Of The Day: “I Don’t Feel I Can Trust The Teachers,” Says A Colorado Parent. Gee, Lady, What Was Your First Clue?”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

In “Free Fall,” a novel by William Golding of “Lord of the Flies” fame, the narrator searches through his past to try to learn when he lost control of his life. I think about that relatively obscure novel, an odd addition to a college course reading list, frequently, but not in relation to my own life (which has either always been out of control or, depending on how you look at it, entirely within my control). I think about in relations to topics like what Here’s Johnny is writing about in his Comment of the Day.

When did teaching professionals lose control of their common sense, professional ethics and respect for parents? It isn’t just them, of course: politicians, lawyers, judges, academics, doctors, journalists, prosecutors, corporate executives and more have all jumped the metaphorical rails during the Great Stupid, and even before. What did it? What was the tipping point?

That’s a topic for another day, I suppose. Right now, this Comment of the Day is a concise, clear statement of what was once an uncontroversial truth. But what the hell happened???

With his Comment of the Day on the post, “I Don’t Feel I Can Trust The Teachers,” Says A Colorado Parent. Gee, Lady, What Was Your First Clue?,” Heeeeere’s Here’s Johnny!….

***

I taught high school students for 20 years, a second career for me, and up through the time I retired from that 14 years ago, I never encountered this kind of thinking, that parents must be kept in the dark when it comes to a dramatic life-changing situation for their child. As OB asks [I paraphrase], ‘What the hell is it with gender ID anyway?’

It was true when I was teaching and it is true now that teachers have a special role in helping kids through those many difficult years of growing up. Are there things a kid might tell a teacher that they wouldn’t tell their parents? Yes, of course. Are there parents who would react in a way not in the best interests of the child? Yes, or course. And, responsible teachers have to know the difference, when to tell the kid that, ‘This is something I cannot keep in confidence; I have to discuss it with your parent(s)’, or, alternatively, “This is something that you will have to think about very seriously, maybe do some reading, maybe talk to a guidance counselor, maybe meet with the school psychologist’, and so on.

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