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The Rules of the CAS Anti-Doping Division and the CAS Ad Hoc Division at the Olympic Games
August 21, 2016
Despina Mavromati, Managing Counsel and Head of Research & Mediation at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, has written a timely paper entitled, “The Rules of the CAS Anti-Doping Division and the CAS Ad Hoc Division at the Olympic Games.” In her working paper, Ms. Mavromati discusses the CAS’s role in the Rio Games. Here is the abstract: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has been adjudicating on a variety of disputes arising on the occasion of the Olympic Games (OG) through...
August 21, 2016
Despina Mavromati, Managing Counsel and Head of Research & Mediation at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, has written a timely paper entitled, “The Rules of the CAS Anti-Doping Division and the CAS Ad Hoc Division at the Olympic Games.” In her working paper, Ms. Mavromati discusses the CAS’s role in the Rio Games. Here is the abstract: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has been adjudicating on a variety of disputes arising on the occasion of the Olympic Games (OG) through...
Even Sometime Dads Confer Big Time Benefits on Kids
August 21, 2016
Dads make a big difference to the healthy development of their children in myriad ways. A new study shows that even a father who bounces in and out of his daughter’s life is better than no father at all. Source: Shutterstock The presence of a “boomerang” father can mitigate the chance of depression in girls at adolescence, when their risk of the disorder suddenly doubles, says family researcher Daphne Hernandez of the University of Houston. While she and her colleagues did not examine...
August 21, 2016
Dads make a big difference to the healthy development of their children in myriad ways. A new study shows that even a father who bounces in and out of his daughter’s life is better than no father at all. Source: Shutterstock The presence of a “boomerang” father can mitigate the chance of depression in girls at adolescence, when their risk of the disorder suddenly doubles, says family researcher Daphne Hernandez of the University of Houston. While she and her colleagues did not examine...
Understanding Your Competition
August 20, 2016
In our last post, we focused on assessing a firm’s competitive position by reviewing planned work-life timelines, relative workload distributions, and capacity. Please see last week’s post to review that information. The next step is to compare your firm’s ability to perform to that of your competitors. Performing this analysis requires developing an understanding of the market and a willingness to accept the objective results. Practicing law is not war, but knowing that you are undermanned...
August 20, 2016
In our last post, we focused on assessing a firm’s competitive position by reviewing planned work-life timelines, relative workload distributions, and capacity. Please see last week’s post to review that information. The next step is to compare your firm’s ability to perform to that of your competitors. Performing this analysis requires developing an understanding of the market and a willingness to accept the objective results. Practicing law is not war, but knowing that you are undermanned...
ALM Shuts Down Smart Litigator, Its Web Resource for Litigators
August 20, 2016
Among my dubious claims to fame was having had my over-sized visage plastered on a full-page ad that ran in the New York Law Journal in 2011. The ad was for Smart Litigator, a product launched in 2010 by ALM as a multi-faceted resource for litigators. The reason I was in the ad was that I had just reviewed Smart Litigator and the ad quoted from my review. Now, ALM has shut down the Smart Litigator site, effective Aug. 10. When I asked ALM about the shut-down, I received this statement from...
August 20, 2016
Among my dubious claims to fame was having had my over-sized visage plastered on a full-page ad that ran in the New York Law Journal in 2011. The ad was for Smart Litigator, a product launched in 2010 by ALM as a multi-faceted resource for litigators. The reason I was in the ad was that I had just reviewed Smart Litigator and the ad quoted from my review. Now, ALM has shut down the Smart Litigator site, effective Aug. 10. When I asked ALM about the shut-down, I received this statement from...
3 Reasons We Make Terrible Decisions
August 20, 2016
We all consciously make bad decisions sometimes. They can be small, like funneling sleeves of Thin Mints when we’re ostensibly on a diet, or sending an angry email in the heat of the moment. And sometimes they're big, like having an affair, relapsing into drugs, or getting a tattoo of the KFC Double Down sandwich (this actually happened). There’s even an entire city built on the knowledge that we do stupid things: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Today we’ll talk about three reasons...
August 20, 2016
We all consciously make bad decisions sometimes. They can be small, like funneling sleeves of Thin Mints when we’re ostensibly on a diet, or sending an angry email in the heat of the moment. And sometimes they're big, like having an affair, relapsing into drugs, or getting a tattoo of the KFC Double Down sandwich (this actually happened). There’s even an entire city built on the knowledge that we do stupid things: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Today we’ll talk about three reasons...
How Magicians Make You Stupid
August 19, 2016
Magicians are intuitive psychologists, reverse-engineering the mind and preying on all its weak spots. They build illusions out of our frailties, hiding rabbits in our attentional blind spots and distracting the eyes with hand waves and wands. And while people in the audience might be aware of their perceptual shortcomings – those fingers move so fast! - they are often blind to a crucial cognitive limitation, which allows magicians to keep us from deciphering the trick. In short, magicians know...
August 19, 2016
Magicians are intuitive psychologists, reverse-engineering the mind and preying on all its weak spots. They build illusions out of our frailties, hiding rabbits in our attentional blind spots and distracting the eyes with hand waves and wands. And while people in the audience might be aware of their perceptual shortcomings – those fingers move so fast! - they are often blind to a crucial cognitive limitation, which allows magicians to keep us from deciphering the trick. In short, magicians know...
Texas Firms See Greatest Drop in Demand in First Half of 2016
August 19, 2016
While demand at law firms grew by 0.3 percent at U.S. firms during the first half of 2016, the story was much darker in Texas,...
August 19, 2016
While demand at law firms grew by 0.3 percent at U.S. firms during the first half of 2016, the story was much darker in Texas,...
Nudges That Fail
August 18, 2016
Why are some nudges ineffective, or at least less effective than choice architects hope and expect? Focusing primarily on default rules, this essay emphasizes two reasons. The first involves strong antecedent preferences on the part of choosers. The second involves successful “counternudges,” which persuade people to choose in a way that confounds the efforts of choice architects. Nudges might also be ineffective, and less effective than expected, for five other reasons. (1) Some nudges produce...
August 18, 2016
Why are some nudges ineffective, or at least less effective than choice architects hope and expect? Focusing primarily on default rules, this essay emphasizes two reasons. The first involves strong antecedent preferences on the part of choosers. The second involves successful “counternudges,” which persuade people to choose in a way that confounds the efforts of choice architects. Nudges might also be ineffective, and less effective than expected, for five other reasons. (1) Some nudges produce...
Lloyd on Cognitive Emotion & Law
August 18, 2016
Harold Anthony Lloyd (Wake Forest University School of Law) has posted Cognitive Emotion and the Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Many wrongly believe that emotion plays little or no role in legal reasoning. Unfortunately, Langdell and his “scientific” case method encourage this error. A careful review of analysis in the real world, however, belies this common belief. Emotion can be cognitive and cognition can be emotional. Additionally, modern neuroscience underscores the “co-dependence”...
August 18, 2016
Harold Anthony Lloyd (Wake Forest University School of Law) has posted Cognitive Emotion and the Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Many wrongly believe that emotion plays little or no role in legal reasoning. Unfortunately, Langdell and his “scientific” case method encourage this error. A careful review of analysis in the real world, however, belies this common belief. Emotion can be cognitive and cognition can be emotional. Additionally, modern neuroscience underscores the “co-dependence”...
The Overview Effect
August 18, 2016
The Skylab 4 crew was experiencing a phenomenon known as the overview effect, which refers to the intense emotional reaction that can be triggered by the sight of the earth from beyond its atmosphere. Sam Durrance, who flew on two shuttle missions, described the feeling like this: “You’ve seen pictures and you’ve heard people talk about it. But nothing can prepare you for what it actually looks like. The Earth is dramatically beautiful when you see it from orbit, more beautiful than...
August 18, 2016
The Skylab 4 crew was experiencing a phenomenon known as the overview effect, which refers to the intense emotional reaction that can be triggered by the sight of the earth from beyond its atmosphere. Sam Durrance, who flew on two shuttle missions, described the feeling like this: “You’ve seen pictures and you’ve heard people talk about it. But nothing can prepare you for what it actually looks like. The Earth is dramatically beautiful when you see it from orbit, more beautiful than...
