![\"TurkeySil\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/11\/TurkeySil.gif\")
\u00a0 1)\u00a0 Turkeys Teaching Law<\/strong><\/a>: Does your self-help legal issue involve the Law of Contracts?\u00a0 Professor Meredith R. Miller of ContractsProfBlog<\/a><\/em> has opined once again<\/a> this year that “nearly all contract law concepts can be learned with turkey cases<\/em> (and one chicken case … and maybe one cow case).”\u00a0\u00a0Prof. Miller\u00a0stuck her neck out last year, and described two leading turkey cases:\u00a0in “Turkeys, Oral Contracts and Mr. Gouge<\/a>\u00a0(Nov. 18, 2005), she serves up the decision in H&H Poultry Co. v. Whaley<\/em>, 408 A.2d 289 (Del. 1979); and in “Turkeys, Damages and Alternative Obligations<\/a>” (Nov. 17, 2005), she thoroughly digests Jacobsen-Reimers Co. v. Tozai Co.<\/em>, 42 Cal. App. 178 (Cal. App. 3d Dist. 1919).” (via Robert Ambrogi at Legal Blog Watch,<\/em>\u00a0in “Turkeys Teaching Law<\/a>,” Nov. 22, 2006)<\/p>\n2)\u00a0Talking Turkey<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0A quotation from the trial court judge in Prof. Miller’s posting<\/a> on the H&H Poultry Case<\/em>, is a good reminder that the judge’s role quite often is to get “a feeling for a close case, where I believe people may sincerely feel they are telling the story as it is.”\u00a0 From my personal experience watching judges, lawyers, litigants and witnesses (and dealing with\u00a0adolescents at home and in my office), I firmly believe that the most believable evidence (and pleading) consists in “talking turkey<\/em>” — speaking plainly and to the point.\u00a0 The pro se<\/em> party should not, in my opinion, attempt to emulate lawyers who seem to be hiding the ball with arcane jargon, weasel words, rhetorical flourishes, or other verbal dodges meant to obscure the weaknesses in his or her client’s case and to distort the opponent’s arguments and evidence.\u00a0\u00a0 Speak plainly and honestly to the judge, if you want to increase your credibility.<\/p>\n 3)\u00a0Gobbledygook<\/a>\u00a0v. Critical Thinking<\/a><\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0 Let’s be frank: While gathered around their holiday tables yesterdary, many Americans engaged in and\/or were subjected to all sorts of\u00a0specious, misleading or\u00a0otherwise faulty\u00a0arguments and opinion, masquerading as truth or wisdom (or even God’s Will).\u00a0 You will, of course, also encounter such gobbledygook (those poor maligned male turkeys!) in the realm of legal advocacy.\u00a0 A few days ago, I discovered A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking<\/strong><\/a>, by Gregg R. Haskins (Aug. 2006) This 18-pp. pdf. file\u00a0“presents a concise introduction to critical thinking. It is intended as a handy tool to help anyone evaluate or develop sound reasoning and arguments.”\u00a0 Here’s Haskins’ definition of Critial Thinking:<\/p>\n To help the reader become a\u00a0critical thinker, Haskins\u00a0explains\u00a0a five-step process, offers an Argument Checklist for evaluating arguments, and presents four Hindrance Charts<\/em>, which describe the Hindrances to critical thinking due to\u00a0Human Limitations, The Use of Language, Faulty Logic or Perception, and Psychological or Sociological Pitfalls.\u00a0\u00a0Within each category of Hindrance, Haskins\u00a0defines numerous varieties, gives examples, and suggests critical thinking tips.\u00a0\u00a0 Haskins not only treats well-known ploys such as Ad Hominem<\/em> Attacks, Slippery Slopes, and Red Herrings, but he also gives names and examples for many more stumbling clocks to\u00a0taking “reasonable and justifiable” positions and recognizing arguments that fail to achieve those goals.\u00a0\u00a0 In his acknowledgement, Haskins credits two books, both by skepdic.com<\/strong><\/em><\/a>‘s Robert Todd Carroll, PhD, The Skeptic’s Dictionary<\/a><\/em> (2003) and Becoming a<\/em> <\/a>Critical Thinker<\/a>\u00a0— A Guide for the New Millennium<\/em> (2000).<\/p>\n 4) Thankful for<\/em>:\u00a0 There are lots of important things that we should all be thankful about in our lives.\u00a0\u00a0 On a more modest scale, two articles that appeared online this week brought small bits of good news that could make pro se<\/em> litigants grateful: a)\u00a0 In his law.com column for Nov. 27, 2006, Howard Bashman explains<\/a> the effects of two new Federal Rules of Appellate Practice that will go into effect on Dec. 1, 2006.\u00a0 One of them is of special interest to pro se<\/em> litigants:\u00a0\u00a0 The change to FRAP 25(a)(2)(D), a rule that addresses electronic filing<\/em> on appeal.\u00a0 Bashman explains a\u00a0new mandatory\u00a0hardship exception<\/em> to any electronic filing requirements:<\/p>\n The amendment authorizes federal appellate courts to require that pleadings, briefs, and other papers be filed electronically, but the amendment also states that “[a] local rule may require filing by electronic means only if reasonable exceptions are allowed.” This so-called “hardship exception” is undefined, allowing the federal appellate courts that will require electronic filing on appeal to experiment with different formulations. The most obvious form of a hardship exception will apply to pro se<\/em> litigants who do not have access to the technology necessary to prepare and file documents in electronic form.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [For help appearing\u00a0pro se<\/em> in an appellate court, see our prior post<\/a>]\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0b)\u00a0 The\u00a0hordes of pro se<\/em> litigants who appear in the Justice Courts of the State of New York, got good news this week.\u00a0 Surely spurred on by the New York Times<\/em>\u00a0three-part series\u00a0in September, describing the oft-malfunctioning system of\u00a0small town and village courts (see our prior post<\/a>),\u00a0the NYS Chief Judge, Judith S. Kaye, announced a set of reforms that include “plans to increase training for the justices, to improve their supervision and to better monitor whether they are protecting basic legal principles like the constitutional right to a lawyer” and the requirement “for the first time to keep a word-for-word record of their proceedings, like other courts in the state.” (New York Times,<\/em> “Justice Courts for Small New York Towns to be Overhauled<\/a>,” Nov. 22, 2006)\u00a0 Other major issues were not addressed in the proposals, because they would need legislative changes and face considerable political opposition from local politicians. “Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union<\/font>, said that while the reforms suggested by Judge Kaye were welcome, ‘these are Band-Aids on a system that needs serious systemic reform’.”<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0If your Thanksgiving was as tastey and relaxing as mine, you’ll understand why I never quite got around to posting here yesterday.\u00a0 If I had, I surely would have joined in the annual obsession with things turkey.\u00a0\u00a0 Here, a day late, is a little gravy for your leftovers: \u00a0 1)\u00a0 Turkeys Teaching Law: Does your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[896,900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-consumer","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"CriticalThinkerBook\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/files\/2006\/11\/CriticalThinkerCover.gif\")
\u00a0A process by which we use our knowledge and intelligence to effectively arrive at the most reasonable and justifiable positions on issues, and which endeavors to identify and overcome the numerous hindrances to rational thinking.<\/em>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n