CBAs and livable streets

StreetsBlog posted an article by Noah Kazis last week about how CBAs are increasingly being used to encourage livable street designs. The Longfellow CBA, which has a variety of pedestrian and transit benefits, is cited as an example, as is the residential parking permit program included in the Staples Center CBA. And even if the New York City CBAs have so far been mostly a wash, Kazis says (in part, quoting me), he points out that CBAs are here to stay, and "Where the public makes livable streets a priority, CBAs can be useful tools."

Second Amendment Litigant is Unlikely Handgun Advocate

Otis McDonald grew tired of the pattern of intimidation brought to bear upon him by some of the drug-dealing urban youth of his Chicagoland neighborhood.  At times, they would curse him and brandish their weapons just a few feet from his porch in Chicago's Morgan Park.  According to McDonald, some of these "punks" even threatened to "put him down."

Consequently, McDonald sought to even the odds by acquiring a gun, even if it meant he had to violate Chicago's anti-handgun ordinance to do it.

The 76-year old South-side Democrat, a retired grandfather and journeyman building engineer, who spent his career at the University of Chicago after serving in the military, is the petitioner in a case up for oral argument today at the United States Supreme Court.

An unlikely advocate for the right to "bear arms", at least in the organized sense, McDonald is not a card-carrying member of the NRA.  That group, however, will join him today in addressing the High Court and requesting that the handgun ban be struck down as unconstitutional.

This Blog has been tracking the case, as some of the high-crime issues underpinning Chicago's handgun ban are relevant to the communities of Southeast Michigan.  One of our earlier posts covered the lawyers arguing the case today.

There seems to be a consensus among legal professionals that Chicago's ordinance is likely to be declared unconstitutional.  Today, the City of Chicago, through it's retained Washington D.C. appellate lawyer, is expected to argue the safety interests such a ban serves in high-crime areas.

The consensus among High Court watchers that the handgun ordinance will be struck is based on the Court's recent decision striking-down a similar anti-gun law in the nation's capital.  The Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia vs Heller, however, does not apply to the states since it arose in the District.

There are many reasons Americans feel a deep-rooted sense of righteousness when it comes to our right to possess and carry firearms.  It's in our historic genes; our national tradition.  Otis McDonald, on the other hand, acquired his taste for the right to bear arms out of good old-fashioned necessity.  In order to feel safe in his own crime-ridden neighborhood and to protect his family from local thugs, he armed himself in transgression of Chicago's gun ordinance.

As a result, Law Professor Nicholas Johnson of Fordham University claims that Otis McDonald will be immortalized as a litigant in one of the rare cases that becomes common knowledge among our citizenry and stands for a single proposition; in this case, the right to bear arms.

Local Connection:  Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox joined the NRA in filing an amicus brief in Otis McDonald's case.

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Cooley Law School Stadium is a Minor League Ballpark

Thomas E. Brennan, former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the founder of Cooley Law School, was in Ann Arbor in October 1982 giving interviews to the Michigan Daily, and the now defunct Ann Arbor News as a Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  It was the early-Regan era and I escorted Mr. Brennan through town as Dick Headlee's campus chairperson.

The former justice was asked by a reporter what he would do if Democrat James Blanchard moved into the Governor's Mansion.  Mr. Brennan paused as though the thought had never occurred to him, then said, "I'll go back to running the law school; we're developing an innovative curriculum at Cooley."

He was true to his vision.  There can be no doubt that Brennan developed the "business model" that is the Cooley Law School.  Cooley has tapped deeply into the American Dream, lawyer style.  As a result, it has enjoyed a healthy balance sheet, boasting one of the largest collections of law books in the country, pioneering the use of satellite "campuses", and swelling the ranks of its students to staggering proportions.

The law school dropped just under $1.5 million this week on it's first baseball park sponsorship; the former Oldsmobile Park inside the Capital Loop in Lansing.  The decision was met with mixed reviews from the law pundits and among the extensive network of Cooley Law Alumni.

Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal's law blog interviewed Cooley's dean, Don LeDuc, earlier this week about the sponsorship.  Dean LeDuc explained that the idea for the stadium came from past alumni-student gatherings at Tigers games in Comerica Park.  According to LeDuc, Cooley's stadium now allows them to bring the ball game to Lansing, so their students don't have to go so far.

LeDuc listed the advertising benefits of the sponsorship, sounding more like a marketing director than a law school dean.  In the blog interview, LeDuc admitted his was a revenue-driven operation with a multi-million dollar marketing budget.

The blog, Above the Law, was far less polite, calling out the mamoth law school (3500+ students) as a "diploma mill", and speculating that its graduates will be paying-off student loans with jobs at McDonalds.  The ATL blog critiqued the stadium sponsorship in a post that has attracted more than 150 comments; mostly negative.

A recent Cooley Law alumna admitted to me in confidence when discussing the ballpark sponsorship, "Cooley can't figure out whether it's a law school or a community college..."

The nation's largest law school does seem to attract its share of criticism.  It claims to be "ranked" as high as 12 on its own website, using its own criteria.  Most professionals not affiliated with the school, however, relegate it to "fourth-tier" status all day long.

All this raises the question: "Do we really need some 1200 new lawyers pumped into Michigan's service economy each and every year?"  Oakland County already has nearly 11,000 lawyers to Wayne County's 7000.

Over the past three decades, Thomas Brennan's law school business model has been a fiscal success.  Over those same years, I've come to know many a lawyer from Cooley with outstanding lawyering skills.  Former Michigan Governor John Engler is a Cooley graduate.

These days, however, I just have to wonder how many more lawyers we can take; whether or not they graduated from Cooley.  Brennan's vision of the American Dream has been tapped, but good.

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