Sui Generis-a New York Law Blog

Getting Things Done Productivity System-The Weekly Review

2009-07-17T14:56:07-04:00

Today, I bring you a guest post from my good friend, Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect for Rocket Matter, LLC (www.rocketmatter.com), a web-based law practice management system. You can follow him on Twitter here: (www.twitter.com/rocketmatter).

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GTD For Legal: The Weekly Review

As part of our weeklong legal efficiency-fest, we’re discussing the Getting Things Done productivity system in the context of a law firm. Each day this week, we’ll write guest posts at prominent legal blogs exploring the system in more detail.

A perfect way to wrap our Legal Getting Things Done Week is a discussion of the Weekly Review, one of the most important ideas in the GTD system. In fact, I would argue that if you were going to take away one thing from GTD, implementing the Weekly Review will keep you in touch with your priorities and prevent your organizational system from coming unhinged.

What is the Weekly Review?

It’s a simple concept, but harder than it sounds. You need to find an hour or two each week. Block off time on your calendar where the phone can’t ring and the door can’t open. For a busy attorney this can be very difficult, since deadlines, opposing counsel, and judges can pop in at any time. We have some ideas about scheduling later on in this post.

In these review sessions, you must clear your head and process everything that happened that week. Any notes jotted on legal pads, calendar appointments, or loose ideas need to be gathered up and captured. It’s also a good time for a mini Mind-Sweep (click here to read our post on Mind-Sweeps).

Once you capture all of your loose ends, take a look at upcoming calendar events and determine any actions they need. Then, organize your inbox into lists and review everything. According to the GTD book, you’re done with your Weekly Review if you can say “I absolutely know right now everything I’m not doing but could be doing if I decided to” (Getting Things Done, Chapter 8).

Review your projects and take note of their status. Examine your Next Action and Waiting For lists to check off anything completed and note supporting actions that might need to occur. Look at your “Someday/Maybe” lists and see if you’d like to promote a project or remove ones that no longer hold your interest. If you missed our discussion on some of these list categories, click here for an explanation.

Why is the Weekly Review of such paramount importance?

Busy lifestyles aren’t the problem. It’s when an individual has a constant whirlwind of activity and doesn’t take time to organize action based on priority. Attorneys, who live under the threat of looming deadlines, get called away to handle emergencies, and have family commitments, can quickly become overwhelmed by responsibilities. The result is that individuals constantly find themselves in “reaction” mode, leaving the individual unfocused, and when the dust clears, there’s not a system in place to handle activities in an organized way.

The Weekly Review allows you to operate as your own CEO. Your Next Actions will descend from your priorities, and you can see each project or matter from a clear perspective. You will also permit yourself to play catch-up with all of the incoming bits of information you collect throughout the week (that you can’t possibly deal with as they stream in).

I’m so busy. How and when could I possibly schedule a Weekly Review?

Since the Weekly Review is very important to your organizational life, you’re going to want to make a positive habit out of it. Even if your life seems too crazy to accommodate a couple of hours a week, it helps to recognize “the value of sacrificing the seemingly urgent for the truly important” (Getting Things Done, Chapter 8).

For attorneys, who often deal with mission-critical situations, you may need to find islands of time beyond normal work hours. If you can swing Friday afternoon from 4-6PM or early Saturday morning, the extra time investment will pay dividends in the rest of your weekly operations. At those periods at the end of the week, fresh from the week’s battle, you allow yourself to clear your mind, set up your next week, and focus on the weekend.

Thanks For Reading!

We hope our legal GTD week blog posts are beneficial to you. For a list of all five posts for the week, click here for your future reference. And thanks to our host bloggers, The Mac Lawyer, Grant Griffiths, Sam Glover, and Niki Black for allowing us to guest post on their sites this week!

Purchase “Getting Things Done” at Amazon.com.

Start a blog--get a job

2009-07-13T21:10:10-04:00

I'm proud to announce that I'm now a contributing blogger at one of my favorite law blogs, Lawyerist.

My first post, "Start a blog-get a job," explains how blogging can help attorneys who were recently recently laid off, are new graduates, or are returning to the law after a planned hiatus, get a job.

I was also recently interviewed at Law.com’s legal tech blog.

Check it out!

Practicing law: There's an iPhone app for that

2009-07-13T20:55:15-04:00

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "Practicing law: There's an iPhone app for that."

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Practicing law: There's an iPhone app for that

In June, the latest iPhone, the 3GS, was released. The new features, including video capability, voice control, and increased speed make the iPhone all the more competitive with other smart phones.

Third party applications have been available at Apple’s App Store for over a year now. There are currently over 55,000 apps, a number of which are specifically tailored toward lawyers.

Many of these apps consist of databases of federal and state laws, thus allowing lawyers to carry relevant laws and rules in their pockets in an easily accessible format.

From the developer “The Law Pod,” lawyers can pur- chase the following apps for just 99 cents: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence and the U.S. Constitution.

There are a number of legal database apps available to New York attorneys as well. For just $5 to $7 each, lawyers can purchase New York’s Penal Code, the CPLR, the Vehicle & Traffic Law, the Estates, Powers & Trusts Law and the Domestic Relations Law.

Similar apps are also available for the following states: California, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Arizona and Washington.

The entire U.S. Tax Code can be purchased for $14.99. The following useful apps are similarly available for federal criminal defense attorneys: The Federal Sentencing Guide and the FBI Handbook.

Other federal law apps of interest are the U.S. Code and fed- eral patent, securities and copyright statutes, both of which can be purchased for $4 or less.

There are a number of legal dictionaries available as well, including Black’s Law Dictionary for $49.99, the Essential Law Dictionary for $9.99 or Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary, which is free.

The Legal News Reader app, which costs 99 cents, conve- niently aggregates all recent legal news in one place, for those not interested in taking the time to do so themselves.

Finally, there are a number of iPhone apps that are not targeted specifically toward lawyers that I have found to be indispensable.

First, there is the free Conference Call app, which allows you to schedule outbound conference calls using your iPhone.

DocScanner, available for $9.99, is another great app for lawyers. With this app you can scan a document to your iPhone by taking a photo of it. It is then converted to a .pdf file that can either be e-mailed or saved to your phone.

Since lawyers are constantly calculating filing and due dates, DateCalcPro and DaysFrom are two very useful apps. DateCalcPro costs $1.99 and allows you to calculate the time between two dates. DaysFrom costs 99 cents and enables you to calculate a date for a number of days in the future or past. 9- Toolbox, discussed below, also includes two date calculators and is free.

If you travel frequently, Kayak, FlightTrack, and AroundMe are must haves. Kayak, a free app, simultaneously searches multiple travel sites for the cheapest hotel rates and airfare. FlightTrack, which costs $4.99, provides real-time status for flights.

Finally, AroundMe, a free app, provides you with stores, restaurants and other businesses in your immediate area.

Last, but not least —a number of assorted apps of interest. First, AT&T GPS Navigator. The app is free, but the service costs $9.99 per month. This is an amazingly accurate GPS system that provides you with spoken turn-by-turn directions and, like most GPS devices, re-routes if you miss a turn.

Amazon Kindle is a great, free app for long, unexpected delays in court. You can download books, some for free, directly to your iPhone and peruse them in an easy-to-read format at your leisure.

9-Toolbox, a free app, offers nine useful tools, including two-date calculators, a tip calculator, a currency converter and a unit converter.

Finally, Bump is a free app that enables iPhone users who have downloaded the app to exchange contact information by simply opening the app and “bumping” hands. Voilà, contact information is exchanged instantaneously.

Bottom line — if you don’t already own an iPhone — now is the time to buy one. The apps alone will make the purchase well worth your while. You’ll increase efficiency, thus saving time and money.

How can you argue with that?

The New York Legal News Round Up

2009-07-13T13:58:32-04:00

Switching things up this week and rounding up the latest New York law-related news headlines:

NY to use hate crime law in transgender case (AP)

New York Court Vacates Restraining Order for Lt. Governor (AP)

Madoff will not appeal 150-year sentence: lawyer (Reuters)

NY counties plan to appeal Indian cigarette ruling (AP)

2nd Circuit Upholds N.Y. Statute Barring Direct Sale of Wine (Law.com)

A Supremely Surprising Case From the Start

2009-07-07T14:13:41-04:00

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "Five Things Lawyers Should Know About Social Media."

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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If you ask the average citizen whether a junior high school student should be subjected to a strip search by school administrators based on the suspicion that she possessed ibuprofen, I’m fairly confident the vast majority of people would reply
with a resounding “No”.

It is, therefore, surprising that U.S. Supreme Court case, Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479, ever came to pass.

The underlying facts in Safford are simple: Savana Redding, an eighth grader who was only13-years-old at the time of the incident in question, was strip-searched by school officials based on another student’s allegation that Redding possessed ibuprofen in violation of school policy. As part of the strip search, Redding was
asked to pull her bra and underwear away from her body, exposing her breasts and pelvic areas.

Last week, the court issued its decision in the case, holding that the actions of the school administrators were unconstitutional, but concluding that qualified immunity likely shielded them from personal liability: “In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts … was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable. … We … mean … to make it clear that the T.L.O. concern to limit a school search to reasonable scope requires the support of reasonable suspicion of danger or of resort to underwear for hiding evidence of wrongdoing before a search can reasonably make the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate parts. The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions.”

The holding did not surprise me. But everything else about the case did.

What surprised me the most is that the school officials thought it was reasonable in the first instance to strip search a 13-year-old child who allegedly possessed a common over-the-counter medication, albeit in an amount typically not available
without a prescription.

Even more surprising is the fact that, when her parents complained and then hired an attorney, the school district and its attorneys apparently felt no need to settle the matter quietly, in light of the ridiculous actions taken by its employees.

All the more surprising is that the case actually was litigated all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The most surprising fact of all —even though the Supreme Court issued an 8-1 decision in Redding’s favor — is that the male justices on the court apparently failed to appreciate the level of distress experienced by a female student after she was strip searched by adult school administrators.

As explained by Justice Ginsberg in an unusual post-decision interview with USA Today: “They have never been a 13-year-old girl. … It’s a very sensitive
age for a girl. I don’t think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that fact to be, well —surprising.

It was an extremely invasive, humiliating search based largely on the allegations of another student whose motivations are unknown.

That many of the male members of our highest court —populated mainly by, not surprisingly, men —could not comprehend the level of distress experienced by a young adolescent after a baseless strip search is surprising at best, and perplexing at worst.

The New York Legal Blog Round Up

2009-07-06T21:15:27-04:00

It's time for the weekly round up of posts from my fellow New York law bloggers:

Coverage Counsel:

"For the Mutual Benefit" Language of Commercial Lease Found to Trigger Blanket Additional Insured Coverage in Favor of Landlord

Full Court Pass:

Appellate Division Adopts "Single Employer Doctrine" for Human Rights Law

Juz the Fax:

No Mandatory Overtime For Nurses In New York

New York Criminal Defense:

New York Law as a Source of Rights

Rochester Family Lawyer:

Pendente Lite Motions And Available Relief

Wait a Second!:

Mundane case interpreting the 21st Amendment with interesting concurrence

The New York Legal News Round Up

2009-07-02T15:53:58-04:00

It's time for the weekly round up of New York law-related news headlines:

State’s Top Court Will Hear Appeal Against Atlantic Yards (NY TImes)

Federal Court Tells Out-of-State Wine Stores to Stay Out of New York (Wine Spectator)

Former Latham Partner Gets 15 Months in Prison for Defrauding Clients and Firm (NY Law Journal)

Man searched 21 times on New York subways settles lawsuit (Boston Herald.com)

NY Judge blocks publication of Salinger spinoff book (Albany Times Union)

Medicaid 101: Transfer Doesn't Count Until You Make It

2009-07-01T20:44:22-04:00

Grandma owned savings bonds, and named Mom or one of the kids as the joint owner. In 2001, Grandma handed the bonds over to Mom for safekeeping. However, the bonds weren't cashed in until 2005. In addition, when the bonds were cashed in, the proceeds were deposited in a joint bank account in the names of Mom and Grandma.

When Grandma applied for Medicaid later in 2005, the gift of the bonds didn't "count" until they were actually liquidated (i.e., 2005, well within the look-back period), any money in the joint bank account was considered to belong to Grandma, and the Department of Health denied Grandma's application.

The motto of both Medicaid planning and estate tax planning should really be "you can't have it all." You can't have control of the money (i.e., have it be in your name) and also have the benefit of having given it away (i.e., have it not be in your name). Read further at Matter of Padulo v. Reed.

-Authored by Elizabeth Randisi, a Rochester, New York attorney associated with the law firm WeinsteinMurphy. Her practice focuses on Trusts and Estates and elder law.

Five Things Lawyers Should Know About Social Media

2009-06-30T12:19:00-04:00

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "Five Things Lawyers Should Know About Social Media."

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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“[S]ocial media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).”

— WIKIPEDIA ENTRY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

Online interaction is now commonplace. Networking sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are becoming mainstream. Opportunities for attorneys to connect and interact with potential clients are endless.

Before jumping on the “social media” bandwagon, however, there are a few important things about social media that lawyers must comprehend. The failure to do so will result in unsuccessful and disappointing forays into the online marketplace.

Social media is useless without goals

Come up with a plan, then interact online.

Is your goal to appear higher in search engine results, showcase a particular area of expertise, or interact with other attorneys in the same practice area? Would you like to target local or national clientele?

The answers to those questions necessarily affect your overall social media strategy.

Learn about social media. Figure out how it works and how it can work for you. Then, implement a social media strategy that promotes your goals. Be patient. Results don’t occur overnight.

Different social media sites serve different purposes

An entire firm does not need to actively participate in social media, but a few lawyers should be familiar with emerging Web 2.0 technologies and the ways in which those technologies can help and harm a firm’s bottom line.

At the very least, all members of a firm should have online profiles which include their areas of practice posted at LinkedIn, Justia and Avvo. It’s free to create profiles at those sites, and doing so allows you to piggyback on the SEO (search
engine optimization) of large, established sites.

Facebook is another site to consider. It allows lawyers to re-connect with people they’ve lost touch with, opening up an entire network of potential client and referrers.

If a lawyer enjoys writing and is passionate about a particular area of the law, blogging is the perfect way to showcase the lawyer’s expertise and writing skills,
while simultaneously increasing SEO (due to the unique characteristics of blogs) and humanizing the attorney.

Twitter is ideal for lawyers seeking to expand their national network, increase their exposure and connect with influential people in all major industries.

Lawyers don’t have to participate in every form of online interaction, but one way or another, participate and ensure the chosen forums promote the firm’s overall goals.

‘Social media’ is a misnomer

Some lawyers discount the potential of “social media” due to the incorrect assumption that it’s got nothing to do with business and is all about socializing. This is a serious mistake.

All online interactions, whether they are with other lawyers, old friends, or people you’ve just met and with whom you share a similar interest have the potential to benefit your career.

Social and professional networking necessarily overlap. A person’s interests are not limited to their profession unless, of course, the person is an unbelievably one dimensional and boring human being.

People are more than their careers. Lawyers are more than their law firms. Which brings me to my next point:

People want to hire other people, not businesses

While it is important to have a static website for your business, it is equally important for lawyers to cultivate a uniquely individual online presence as well.

The best way to do this it to take off your “lawyer hat”. Talk to people, not at them. Interact, don’t advertise. And, most importantly, share a little bit about yourself and your interests.

It is the overlap between the social and the professional that makes a lawyer more likeable, more approachable and more human.

People want to pick up the phone and call a specific person —not an intimidating, faceless entity —when they have a problem. Large businesses hire law firms; people hire other people.

Lawyers cannot afford to be left out of the loop

Attorneys who successfully leverage social media tools to communicate, collaborate and network have a distinct advantage over those who don’t.

Stand out from the crowd. Use online resources to your advantage. Take advantage of the opportunity to interact with potential clients and referral sources.

Be patient, persistent and positive. Use social media wisely and narrowly tailor your online activities toward the pursuit of specific goals.

Take my advice and you will see results. I guarantee it.

NYC Panel on Corporate Fraud

2009-06-29T11:30:07-04:00

For my NYC readers, there's an interesting (and free) panel that you might be interested in attending on July 16, 2009 from 8:30-9 at Eisner LLP, 750 Third Avenue
Between 46th and 47th Streets:

Tracking Fraud: Trends & Innovations 2009

This panel will discuss the latest trends and developments in fighting fraud on and incorporate and enterprise level. It's an essential topic for anyone with fiduciary responsibilities at any level. The panel is comprised of those dealing with fraud and financial security and compliance on a daily basis. Madoff was first. What's next?

Panelists Include

Joanna Chung US Finance Correspondent, The Financial Times

Art Middlemiss JP Morgan Chase

Walter Pagano Partner-in-Charge, Litigation Consulting & Forensic Accounting Group, Eisner LLP

Shawn Polonet Supervisory Special Agent, Department of Homeland Security, ICE

Robert Strang CEO, Investigative Management Group

Date
July 16, 2009

Time
8:00am-9:30am

Location

Registration is Complimentary
Gothammediaventures

Advance RSVP Required
Seating is Limited

The Court of Appeals "gets it" when it comes to technology

2009-06-24T16:26:27-04:00

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "The Court of Appeals "gets it" when it comes to technology."

A pdf of the article can be found and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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It is indisputable that technology is changing the world and the practice of law. Technological advances have increased our ability to rapidly disseminate information, and lawyers and non-lawyers alike have used this to their benefit.

Of course the Internet is the obvious medium that comes to mind, but the advent of the fax machine was the beginning of a revolution in the rapid exchange of information.

For years now, lawyers have used the fax machine to communicate and to conduct business.

One lawyer’s creative attempt to use this medium to share information with other lawyers resulted in a lawsuit against him that ended up before the New York Court of Appeals.

From 2003 to 2005, Andrew Lavoot Bluestone, a New York attorney and law blogger (New York Attorney Malpractice Blog, http://blog.bluestonelawfirm.com) who represents plaintiffs in attorney malpractice matters, used fax machines to distribute an “Attorney Malpractice Report” to other attorneys. The reports included short essays regarding attorney malpractice issues and included his firm’s contact information and Web site addresses.

An attorney who had received a number of these reports commenced a lawsuit against Bluestone alleging viola- tions of Telephone Consumer Protection Act of (TCPA) 1991.

Bluestone was represented on appeal by attorney Scott Greenfield, author of the well-read blog Simple Justice (http://blog.simplejustice.us).

Last fall, the Third Department concluded that Bluestone’s faxes violated theTCPA: “While Bluestone contends that his faxes were purely informational and do not explicitly offer services, his position defies common sense. The faxes at issue certainly have the purpose and effect of influencing recipients to procure Bluestone’s services, which are for the specialized field of legal malpractice claims.” Stern v. Bluestone, 47 AD3d 576 (Third Dept. 2008).

However, last week, the New York State Court of Appeals over- turned the Third Department’s ruling concluding that the primary purpose of the faxed reports was informational rather than promotional: “We conclude that Bluestone’s ‘Attorney Malpractice Report’ fits the FCC’s framework for an ‘informational message.’ … In
these reports, Bluestone furnished information about attorney malpractice lawsuits; the substantive content varied from issue to issue; and the reports did not promote commercial products. To the extent that Bluestone may have devised the reports as a way to impress other attorneys with his legal expertise and gain referrals, the faxes may be said to contain, at most, ‘[a]n incidental advertisement’ of his services, which ‘does not convert the entire communication into an advertisement’ (Id.).” Stern v. Bluestone, 2009 NY Slip Op 04740 (2009).

This is an important decision for New York law bloggers, whose numbers have increased exponentially since I began blogging in 2005. Although the court’s
decision was limited to its interpretation of certain provisions of the TCPA, its rationale applies equally to the vast majority of law blogs.

The primary purpose of most law blogs is the dissemination of information. Like Bluestone’s “Attorney Malpractice Report,” blogs educate the reader about a
subject matter that is unrelated to the self-promotion of the blogger.

Certainly increased visibility of the blogger is a byproduct of the publication of a successful blog; and as a result of that visibility, new clients may follow.

But, that doesn’t mean that the primary purpose of the blog is the retention of clients.

In comparison, I think that most people would agree that the primary purpose of television and radio ads, billboard ads, professional Web sites and yellow page ads is the retention of clients. Blogs are different because the primary purpose of blogs
—sharing information —is separate and distinct from the self-promotion that is the essential element of most advertisements.

Thankfully, the court’s decision in Stern v. Bluestone is a strong indication that the highest court in New York understands this distinction. The court understands that lawyers’ creative use of emerging Internet technologies is, in many instances, simply an extension of traditional networking activities, including speaking at a seminar, authoring an article in a legal publication, distributing a newsletter via e-mail or joining a committee at the local bar association.

It’s good to know that the highest court in New York “gets it.”

Do you?

The New York Legal Blog Round Up

2009-06-22T21:03:12-04:00

It's Monday and time for the weekly round up of posts from my fellow New York law bloggers:

Art Law:

Catcher in the Rye (Alleged) Sequel Temporarily Enjoined From Being Publishing In The United States

Juz The Fax:

A "Preposterous" Case Of Worker Misclassification

New York Public Personnel Law:

Under certain circumstances, a municipality may modify or discontinue providing health insurance benefits to retirees

Rochester Family Lawyer:

What Is Required to Obtain Divorce On Constructive Abandonment Grounds in New York

The Sienko Law Office Blog:

New York State Bar Association Approves Comprehensive Plan to Help Solo and Small Firm Practitioners

Wait a Second!:

No mixed-motive test in age discrimination cases

New York Legal News Round Up

2009-06-17T13:17:52-04:00

It's Wednesday and time for the weekly round up of New York law-related new headlines:

NY judge tosses Senate case back to lawmakers (AP)

New York court hears J.D. Salinger's suit over spinoff book (AP)

Lawyer’s Faxes Didn’t Violate Law, NY High Court Says (ABA Journal)

Lawyer cites 9/11 stress in cop's school gun case (Times Union)

Unemployed and Struggling NY Lawyers Seek Solace (New York Times)

Curfew Fails Abused Children

2009-06-16T15:33:00-04:00

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "Curfew Fails Abused Children."

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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The Rochester youth curfew was defeated once again last week when the New York State Court of Appeals issued its decision in Jiovon Anonymous v. City of Rochester.

At issue in the case was the legality of the youth curfew law, which became effective September 2006. The ordinance made it unlawful for those younger than 17 to be in a public place Sun- days through Thursdays between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.,
and between 12 and 5 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

A minor accused of violating curfew could taken into custody immediately, and a conviction of the ordinance constituted a “violation,” as defined in the Penal Law,
punishable by a sentence of up to 15 days in jail.

The court limited its review to the constitutional issues raised on appeal and concluded that intermediate scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny, was the appropriate level of analysis. Thus, in order to prevail, the City of Rochester was required to show that the curfew ordinance was “substantially related” to the achievement of “important” government interests.

The court applied the test to the constitutional claims of both the minors and parents affected by the law and determined that the Appellate Division, Fourth Department concluded correctly that Rochester’s curfew law was unconstitutional.

The court emphasized that the city failed to offer sufficient evidence to establish that the imposition of a curfew significantly reduced juvenile crime or victimization: “Without support from the City’s own empirical data, we conclude that the justifications made by the Mayor and the Chief of Police for the nighttime curfew, based primarily on opinions, are insufficient since they do not show a substantial relationship between the curfew and goals of reducing juvenile crime and victimization during nighttime hours.”

Similarly, the court concluded that the curfew law impermissibly interfered with parental due process rights, arguably interfering with stated goal of promoting parental supervision rather than supporting it: The “curfew ‘does not allow an adult to pre-approve even a specific activity after curfew hours unless a custodial adult actually accompanies the minor. Thus, parents cannot allow their children to function independently at night, which some parents may believe is part of the process of growing up’ (Nunez, 11 F3d at 952). Consequently, we conclude that the
challenged curfew is not substantially related to the stated goals of promoting parental supervision.”

The court then implied that the law would have had a better chance of passing constitutional muster if it had included a parental consent exception.

As I’ve noted in the past, my concern with youth curfews is that they effectively prevent children from escaping traumatic home environments. The inherent assumption behind curfews is that all guardians are caring, selfless and emotionally stable individuals.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. For children with drug-addicted or abusive guardians, their homes are anything but safe. In many cases, the safest recourse for these children is to go elsewhere; sometimes the street simply is the safest alternative.

Arguably, curfew laws that include a parental consent exception at least provide a neglected child with some flexibility, since it’s safe to assume that drug-addicted or otherwise neglectful parents are more than happy to have their children out of their sight.

The parental consent exception does little to protect the well being of abused children, however, since many abusers refuse to allow their child to leave the home. The home is the abuser’s playground and the child is their toy.

Any type of curfew law, then, is harmful to abused children. Such laws effectively imprison children in their abuser’s lair, actually encouraging —rather than preventing —victimization.

Any initiative that results in harm to a percentage of the population it is intended to protect is a failure.

Accordingly, rather than appealing the Court of Appeal’s decision or attempting to amend the curfew law, the city should simply abandon its failed initiative.

The New York Legal Blog Round Up

2009-06-15T21:15:31-04:00

It's time for the weekly round up of interesting posts from my fellow New York law bloggers:

New York Attorney Malpractice Blog:

Matrimonial Legal Malpractice, Fees and Summary Judgment

New York Criminal Defense Blog:

New York Legal Update:

Assumption of Risk Does Not Apply To Road Cyclist

New York Personal Injury Law Blog:

NY Ct. of Appeals: Attorney Newsletter Not an Advertisement (And What of Blogs?)

Second Opinions:

Sanctions

Wait a Second!:

No due process claim for federal inmate typist