Every lawyer knows that the dream client is eccentric. "Eccentric" means crazy, but rich, and invested enough in the representation to pay on time. Clients who are crazy, but poor — or who are crazy and rich, but don't pay — are merely crazy, and to be avoided.

That's an old joke, but there is a bit of truth in it. First, lawyers like being paid for their services and don't like being stiffed on the bill. Second, lawyers have a morally hazardous incentive to welcome clients who want to pay them handsomely and reliably to engage in legal pursuits that might, charitably, be characterized as Quixotic.

Usually, those Quixotic quests are at least colorable — that is, they are premised on legal or factual theories that are arguable and can be advanced in good faith, even if most people might not choose to pursue them. Usually, there is at least a grain of reason behind the client's preferred strategy.

Occasionally, though, clients are simply nuts. Some of our obligations in such cases are clear: we can't sue the CIA and Abe Vigoda for beaming thoughts into the clients' head, because we have no legal or factual basis to support that claim, and it would be unethical to pursue the claim without such a basis. That ethical choice is clear: we have to turn the client down, and God willing, get them to pursue some sort of professional help.

But it's not always quite that easy. When I was a BIGLAW associate, fresh out of government service, a BIGLAW partner sent me to conduct an internal investigation for a wealthy client with a sprawling ranch in the Midwest. The client was convinced that her ex-husband had orchestrated a plot to embezzle money from her using her once-trusted employees. Over the course of the week I spent at the client's ranch, interviewing her and her employees and examining voluminous documents, it became increasingly clear to me that the client was mentally ill — perhaps a paranoid schizophrenic — and that my BIGLAW firm was charging her umpty-ump dollars per hour for me to pursue her demons for her. I had a deeply unsatisfying (and frankly humiliating) conversation with the BIGLAW partner upon my return about this, and about whether we should be taking her money. The result — he sent a different associate for Phase Two of the internal investigation, and as far as he was concerned, I would advance no further at BIGLAW.

I hold no degrees in psychology. I'm not qualified to diagnose mental illness. But I was personally morally convinced this poor woman was ill, and that her desire to spend big money on lawyers to chase down phantom embezzlement was a product of that illness. Did she have a right to spend her money that way? Absent a conservatorship, yes. Was the State Bar going to yank my card for diligently and zealously chasing down her every concern? No — probably not even though some of her concerns were based on an obsession with undetectable wiretapping by her ex-husbands' divorce lawyers, and on the way her kitchen staff communicated with co-conspirators through hand gestures. But I couldn't stomach it.

Now that I am a partner in my own small firm, accountable to a few partners who are friends, this still comes up more often than you'd think. The lines are not always crystal clear. So I'd like to hear your viewpoints.

Say a client comes to you and says that they believe they are being watched by various law enforcement agencies, and that they want you to do something about it — say, send letters to the agencies asking what's up, or file Freedom of Information Act requests with the agencies. Say that based on your interactions with the client, you're pretty sure that there is no surveillance and no investigation, and that the whole thing is part of a delusional structure. Say that what the client wants you to do — send a letter or a FOIA request — does not impinge upon anyone else's rights: it's not like suing somebody or sending a threatening cease-and-desist letter. Say that doing this for the client might even give the client some peace of mind. Say that the client is not a danger to himself or others, and would not be made subject to a conservatorship if somebody tried that.

Is it ethically wrong to do the service for the client? Must you, ethically, first try to convince the client that he is delusional? If so, how hard must you try? Does it matter at all that the cost is modest?

I know what I think, but I'd like your input.

Color me concerned, but not outraged, about the nomination of Elana Kagan for SCOTUS.

I'd love to see some SCOTUS nominees who didn't go to Harvard or Yale. My personal preference is that appellate judges have experience as trial court judges, or at least as trial court litigators, so that they have some reasonable grasp of how things actually work at the trial court level. More substantively, I'm concerned about her approach to the Constitution, and particularly toward the First Amendment, and particularly her views about hate speech and pornography restrictions expressed in this article. I am, however, somewhat mollified that the vastly-smarter-than-I-am First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh is not particularly concerned.

What a wonderful opportunity this could be to explore what kinds of experience we think people should have before sitting on SCOTUS, and to engage in examinations of First Amendment doctrine.

Or, we could just engage in fatuous bigoted homo-bashing.

That's your cue, American Family Association:

The stakes are too high. Social conservatives must rise up as one and say no lesbian is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Will they?

Run with that ball, Americans for Truth and commenters on Free Republic!

Kagan is a sex pervert…morally unfit for the SCOTUS.

…

Whether that she/he is a lesbian or not isn’t the issue. This isn’t about her sexual proclivities, other than what that might reveal as degeneracy in her rotten soul. Just realize that the wicked man soiling the people’s Oval Office wouldn’t nominate someone he believed would not be controversial. The current affirmative action sonofabitch-in-chief is all about deepening divides in America so his commie overloards can exploit our weakening society. The woman is to be used for a weapon of division and she probably knows it and relishes the experience … such is the mindset of degenerates in America as shown with their ‘in your face’ homosexuality.

That, I suspect, will be at least a substantial element of the narrative about Kagan, if not the loudest element. You can thank the media in part for that — they love sex, love simplistic controversy (the stupider the better), love to cover mud-slinging lavishly, and hate sober discussions of complicated issues.

I don't know if she's gay. I frankly don't give a shit. I think the notion that she's unsuitable if she's gay is revolting and un-American, and invite the holders of that view to go DIAF. The concept that a gay person can't be relied upon to be fair in cases involving gay rights exists on the same plane as the argument that you shouldn't let women adjudicate cases involving "women's issues", or let minorities decide civil rights cases, or let religious people decide cases about freedom of religion. If her approach to Constitutional interpretation is flawed, then let's discuss it vigorously and attack it mercilessly. But attacking her based on her personal attributes? We ought to be better than that.

Been awhile since we did a Friday timewaster, but I thought I would toss out some major nostalgia. I am a trove of useless knowledge, and one of my strengths is TV show theme songs. So, imagine how happy I was to find a site dedicated to recordings of 80s shows theme songs. That's right in my wheelhouse!

Sure, there are a few notable absences – She's the Sheriff, Riptide (one of my favorite shows when I was young. Should I admit that?),  or Bring Them Back Alive (still Bruce Boxleitner's finest work) but there is so much to love here. How about the theme to one of my all time favorites – Tales of the Gold Monkey! Or A.L.F.? Who knew the Facts of Life changed their theme song so much?

One of the neatest parts of the site is the old sports show music. Remember the old NBA on NBC theme? The even older CBS one was better. I also recommend the promos section, if just for the awesome clip of Letterman making fun of NBCs promos back in the day.

The site is sort of cluttered, and the audio is Realaudio (unfortunately) but it's still a nice way to waste some Friday time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go enjoy my favorite all time TV theme song – The Scarecrow & Mrs. King (seriously, it's a great theme. And, Boxleitner again…)

Chaos, panic, confusion.  Voters denied access to polls.  Voters denied access to ballots.  Gordon Brown squats in Downing Street.  The pound drops against the Greek currency.

Has Old Blighty become a banana republic?

After the whole April Fool's debacle wrapped up, I had no intention of going back to Ethics Alarms. Why would I torture myself like that? And then, after a quick trigger finger after his site popped up while my browser was in autocomplete mode, I saw that the top story was about that kid who got tasered at the Phillies game for running on the field. The first clue that this would be a tour-de-force of wrongheaded thinking was in the title: "The Fan, The Taser and Respect for the Law."

After setting the scene, Marshall notes that

A tsunami of criticism is now crashing over the security officer, condemning the tasering of 17-year-old Steve Consalvi, sometimes in terms more appropriate to discussing Abu Ghraib. If I were Consalvi’s father, I would counsel him to immediately issue a statement taking full responsibility for the incident and absolving the officer.

It would have been fine if Marshall thought that the kid could use a lesson in responsible behavior. It is even fine – though overwrought – that he is critical of Colaslvi's parents for raising the kind of kid that would engage in foolish behavior. Unfortunately, because Marshall lacks any sense of proportion or decency, he doesn't mind that the lesson is delivered via a disabling jolt of electricity. In fact, Marshall goes on to give carte blanche to any cop to taser any fleeing suspect, regardless of whether the suspect proposes any risk to anyone. And, in a passage that I had to reread multiple times, he essentially laments the days when a cop could just shoot anyone who didn't stop on command. (He claims that they changed the rules for "good reasons" but then catalogs the negative consequences of forbidding cops from wantonly shooting people.)

While Marshall is very keyed in on what he thinks the ethical obligations of citizens are when dealing with the police (obey or face severe consequences) and he catalogs all of the threats that a fan on the field might pose. Alas, it was clear that none of them applied here. Colasvi was running around like an idiot, waving a towel and dodging for the sake of dodging. He never ran at a player, never tried to destroy property, never indicated that he was anything more than a goof. He posed no threat to anyone; the players stood around laughing at the spectacle, aware that they weren't at risk. At no point does Marshall consider the ethics of police behavior and their need to use force proportionate to the task at hand.

Do I need to catalog all of the ways in which police overreact? No, of course not, because Radley Balko covers that beat pretty well. But it is well-documented and it is sad to see that Marshall is yet another apologist for the use of excessive force.

I shouldn't be surprised, though, because it appears that Marshall only sees things in black and white and his standard for which side of the line something falls on is his own sense of propriety. Ethics, to him, doesn't lend itself to nuance, to circumstance, to moderation. Jean Valjean would not be amused. I can understand his dilemma, though. It sure is hard to teach a subject if you have to think deeply about it.

Consider me alarmed.

I wrote a while ago about Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell entering the last phase of his life. Sadly, Ernie died yesterday. I loved his voice and how he called games, in real life and in APBA Broadcast Blast. To celebrate his life, and his love of baseball I can't think of a better tribute than Harwell's Hall of Fame induction speech.

Goodbye Ernie. I'll miss you. Time to play some APBA tonight.

Dr. George Alan Rekers would like us to remember this passage from the Gospel according to Mark:

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Like many wretched sinners who try to be decent Christians, I like this passage, because it gives me hope that I have a place in Christ's world.

Dr. Rekers — a prominent advocate of the proposition that homosexuality is something that can be "cured" — would like us to keep that passage in mind when considering why he might have paid a young man to accompany him on a ten-day European trip. The young man in question has a profile on a social networking site, of sorts:

The pictures on the Rentboy.com profile show a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his "smooth, sweet, tight ass" and "perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)" and explains he is "sensual," "wild," and "up for anything" — as long you ask first. And as long as you pay.

Dr. Rekers would like us to bear the Mark 2:17 theory in mind to the exclusion of his prior explanation, which is now non-operative:

Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. "I had surgery," Rekers said, "and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him." (Medical problems didn't stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)

No, Dr. Rekers explains, his real purpose was ministry.

My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them.

Dr. Rekers, if you're listening, I want to tell you two things: (1) I am, among other things, prideful, wrathful, slothful, and gluttonous, and (2) I've always wanted to take a three-week trip to Australia.

Anyone who's read this site for any length of time knows that, though we don't run a law blog, we talk about the topic an awful lot.  And we're big fans of the Blawg Review, or the weekly Carnival of Law Bloggers as it's known to people who hate the term "Blawg".

So it's proper to highlight this week's Blawg Review, at Public Intellectual.  I don't know whether the author is a public intellectual or not, but I do know that he isn't a lawyer.  That's interesting enough (we know of only two non-lawyers who've written for Blawg Review), but Public Intellectual brings a rather more interesting perspective to Blawg Review: he's a defendant.

What he's written is well worth your time.  Thanks to the Anonymous Editor for opening up the carnival to bloggers who aren't members of the Special People Club that is the bar.  We'd like to see more well written, thoughtful blogging about the law by special people in general, especially those who aren't lawyers.

All this story needs is Conan the Barbarian, Mister Spock, and the Highlander. And why not throw in Gollum while we're at it?

A comic book store owner dressed as Spider-Man became a real superhero for the day when he caught an alleged thief trying to steal an X-Men omnibus.

Michael Baulderstone, 45, was dressed as Spider-Man as part of a fancy dress open day at comic Centre in Adelaide, Australia, confronted the man when he claims he spotted him taking the £100 book.

Security tapes show Mr Baulderstone, addressing the man before stopping him and confiscating the book. On top of that, a group of Jedi knights blocked the door to prevent him from escaping, along with The Flash.

I want that video, not excuses.  The freeze-frame I've seen, of an angry Spiderman confronting the thief, is reason enough to click the link.

It's may too late for some, such as State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne:

Horne began fighting in 2007 against the Tucson Unified School District's program, which he said defied Martin Luther King's call to judge a person by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Horne claimed the ethnic studies program encourages "ethnic chauvanism," promotes Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States and tries to intimidate conservative teachers in the school system.

To combat this menace, Horne is supporting a bill passed by the legislature to remove funding for all "Ethnic Studies" [shouldn't that be "Fnick"? - ed.] programs in Arizona.

Specifically, the bill would:

make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

The bill stipulates that courses can continue to be taught for Native American pupils in compliance with federal law and does not prohibit English as a second language classes. It also does not prohibit the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide.

I will say this for traditional, 3 Rs education.  When I was in school, we were taught that correct spelling was important.

That quibble aside, I call bullshit on the need for this bill, which is designed either to combat non-existent threats, redmeat for rednecks (Arizona schools are promoting treason?  AT LONG LAST, ARIZONA, HAVE YOU NO SHAME?), or to make the objective teaching of history impossible.  As a white southerner, I will be the first to concede that fair teaching of, for instance, Jim Crow and the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s promotes resentment of white southerners.  As a white American, I will concede that that fair teaching of the history of white American dealings with American Indians promotes self-loathing. One of the goals of a good education is to force students to look into the mirror.  Sometimes the mirror shows us warts.

To take that analogy further, Arizona wants to legislate a wart-free mirror.  But they cann't make the warts go away.

There'll be plenty of time for the youth of Arizona to learn that everything they were taught was a lie, when they get out of high school.