Category Archives: Society

Snobbery and class

August 7, 2008 – 1:04 pm

The first time I became aware of class as a concept was when I moved to the UK. I had been a student at my independent girls’ school for precisely three days when I heard some girls in my class talking about “townies”. “What’s a townie?” I asked, all innocence.
A barrage of explanations came out, [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Education, England, Media, The Left | Comments (33)

Private law oils the wheels of society

August 4, 2008 – 6:02 pm

Since I’ve become an academic, I’ve become aware of an insidious belief. It is this: study of private law is just not sexy. I’m thinking here of contract, tort, restitution, property law and trusts. Such subjects are compulsory in undergraduate years, which never makes them look appealing. Equitable doctrines are probably the closest private law gets [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Law, Politics, Restitution | Comments (20)

Change to UK law on provocation

July 30, 2008 – 7:05 pm

Almost two years ago now, I wrote a post on the defence of provocation, and how it tends to favour males who “lose it” and kill rather than women. This is not a conscious gender bias, but just something which has happened because of the different way in which men and women (generally) behave, and [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in England, Feminism, Law, Public Policy | Comments (3)

I’m a poet, didn’t you know it?

July 12, 2008 – 6:05 pm

I can understand why judges sometimes get frustrated with overly complex claims. From my own experience as a litigator (solicitor, clerk in various courts, occasional court appearances), it is extremely annoying when a claim doesn’t sort the wheat from the chaff, and just puts every single little allegation (relevant or irrelevant). No one has bothered [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Law | Comments (11)

“The Elephant in the Room”: work practices of solicitors

July 6, 2008 – 9:01 pm

A friend has alerted me to the release of a report called ‘”The Elephant in the Room”: Working-Time Patterns of Solicitors in Private Practice in Melbourne’. Now that I’ve finished the drudgery of marking, I can give it the proper attention it deserves.
The title is a reference to a comment by Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Law, Motherhood | Comments (22)

Good people

June 24, 2008 – 10:23 am

I’ve had a lot on my plate lately: marking a stack of exams, a conference paper that was supposed to be due in yesterday (erm…they’ll have to wait), amending another paper for publication, doing a PhD, looking after a 2 year old, another child on the way, as well as a terrible cold and cough which [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Personal, Pregnancy | Comments (12)

A new way of policing “doof-doof”

June 17, 2008 – 8:20 pm

When my husband and I first moved in together, we lived in a set of terrace houses. We’d lived there about two years when new tenants moved in two doors down. The new tenants were Columbian exchange students, and I don’t think they took their studies seriously. What they did take seriously was partying hard [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in England, Fark!, Intellectual property, Law, Media, Music, Personal liberty | Comments (4)

Human rights and criticising Islam

June 7, 2008 – 12:20 am

I’ve been following the case brought by the Ontario-based Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Mark Steyn in the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. And as per Pete M’s request, I’m writing a post on it (in the middle of the night because I’m an insomniac). Perhaps, as per John Hasenkam’s comment in response to Pete, [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Free Speech, Human/Civil rights, Law, Media, Personal liberty, Politics, Racism, Religion | Comments (33)

Intellectualism and the Emperor’s New Clothes

June 5, 2008 – 8:51 pm

I’ve been reading the interesting string of posts on the question of intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. It all started off at PrawfsBlog, where Rick Hills explained why he was an anti-intellectual. At Slate, Eric Posner and Richard Ford mounted a defence of intellectualism, while still maintaining a dislike of deliberate obscurantism.
Hills’ example of intellectual obscurantism was Judith Butler’s [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Education, Law, Philosophy | Comments (31)

The scary side of karma

May 29, 2008 – 10:23 pm

Adrian the cabbie has an interesting post on karma. When someone does you wrong, you often wish that either that the consequences of their actions will come back to bite them on the bottom, or that something equivalent happens to them as a result of their bad actions. It’s a tantalising concept, and a tempting [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in General, Personal | Comments (16)