Author Archives: Katie

About Katie

Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at UNC; Attorney at Law

Migraines and “Mainstream Healthcare”

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Judith Warner’s recent op-ed in the New York Times pointed to a new way of thinking about the Bachmann-Migraine debate.*

(*I would first like to say that the way this debate became a debate in the first place–via ad hominem mud-slinging–is disgusting.)

Warner notes that the issue is not whether a person in a position of responsibility gets migraines, but rather how that person treats them (and more importantly, prevents them with treatment):

I’m not a doctor, but reports that Mrs. Bachmann’s condition had her admitted to an urgent care facility three times in six months suggest that she is perhaps suffering more than she has to. It’s fair to ask: Is she getting the best possible care from doctors who practice mainstream science? Does she fully acknowledge the reality of having a chronic disability by regulating her diet, sleep, exercise and stress levels, as frequent migraine sufferers must? Or does she refuse to acknowledge her limitations?

My favorite sentence in this paragraph is this one: “Is she getting the best possible care from doctors who practice mainstream science?“

Thus, the point of this paragraph (and perhaps the whole article) has nothing to do with migraines at all, but rather whether Bachmann believes in mainstream healthcare. Warner suggests that if Bachmann did indeed receive mainstream healthcare–including taking prophylactic migraine medicine–she wouldn’t need to hit the urgent care facilities so often to receive emergency treatment.

The mainstream science jab echoes the claims that Bachmann’s counseling clinic treats homosexuals to make them “ex-gay,” so to speak.

And suddenly we’re back to evolution, abortion, and the great science divide between the right and the left. This is one of my favorite places to be, actually. Great fun.

But.

I’m not sure of the ethics of Warner’s rhetorical moves as she gets from Bachmann’s migraines to Bachmann’s science beliefs. Here’s how I see Warner’s rhetorical moves:

Migraines = common (if horrible) health problem = easily prevented IF you believe in mainstream science

Then:

Bachmann visits urgent clinic a lot = Bachmann is not preventing her migraines = Bachmann doesn’t believe in mainstream science

What do you think?

Should the science war be waged in Bachmann’s brain? Do we have any proof that Bachmann DOESN’T take the prophylactic medication, besides her visits to urgent care? I would feel a lot more comfortable with Warner’s claims if she provided a little more evidence–say, actual proof that Bachmann doesn’t take prophylactic medication, instead of a very shaky deduction.

Warner does make some good points about the stigma of psychiatric medication.

But then she implies that this stigma has scared Bachmann away from the drugs, and I’m not sure if these implications are any more respectable than the smears that first appeared in The Daily Caller article, despite Warner’s (I think) more respectable intent.

NY Times on the Business of Law School

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A propos of my last post, here’s an article on how some law schools seem to be interested in making a lot of money in these hard economic times.

Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!

By David Segal, New York Times, July 16, 2011

I found this portion particularly telling:

From 1989 to 2009, when college tuition rose by 71 percent, law school tuition shot up 317 percent.

There are many reasons for this ever-climbing sticker price, but the most bizarre comes courtesy of the highly influential US News rankings. Part of the US News algorithm is a figure called expenditures per student, which is essentially the sum that a school spends on teacher salaries, libraries and other education expenses, divided by the number of students.

Though it accounts for just 9.75 percent of the algorithm, it gives law schools a strong incentive to keep prices high. Forget about looking for cost efficiencies. The more that law schools charge their students, and the more they spend to educate them, the better they fare in the US News rankings.

Much has been said over the years about the stranglehold that the US News rankings hold over legal education (including calls to repudiate them), but the fact is, the rankings don’t seem to be going away any time soon.

One more reason to seriously consider a state university education. Or at least to make your law school decision by taking finances into account as much as anything else.

Greater law school debt [yields] fewer post-graduation opportunities and choices. I’ll keep believing that until someone proves to me otherwise.

On Law Grads’ Standard of Living and Student Loan Debt

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In a recent story in the National Jurist, UNC Law is ranked #7 on the list of schools whose graduates have a high standard of living after graduation. Here’s how the study worked:

To determine standard of living, The National Jurist used median starting salaries, average debt payments, estimated federal and state taxes and cost of living adjustments for the regions where graduates were employed.

(emphasis added). I enjoy working at a school where our graduates can expect good things after they leave us.

Note the prominent location of debt (such as student loan debt) in the study’s matrix. Since finishing my (rather long) higher education, I’ve come to see more and more what an unethical hustle the student loan business is.

The Harper’s Index (my favorite resources for trivia) for this month states that by December 2011, the U.S. student loan debt will reach 1 TRILLION dollars. That’s $1 trillion that can never be discharged in bankruptcy, and usually can’t be discharged even in death, since often the parents of the student co-signed the loan–and they therefore assume the deceased students’ debt.

Financial counseling for law school education must start early. Too many prospective law students come to me about financing law school, and they haven’t given a single thought to what their total debt will be at graduation or what their monthly payments might be. Usually they resist my advice to educate themselves about student loans, lured by the notions of deferred payments and of being a lawyer.

In other words, these prospective law students assume that they will make a high starting salary as a lawyer, and therefore they needn’t worry too much about incurring student loan debt. Which brings into play the fact that the ABA is cracking down on inflated salary reporting by law schools.

My Parthian Shots:

(1) How much protection do we want to give to lenders of student loans?

(2) How can we implement better counseling for prospective law students, even when they don’t want to hear it?

See Also: On federal scrutiny of for-profit colleges’ student loan practices (Bloomberg); On the misunderstanding of lawyer median salaries (Above the Law)

“Carl,” Geico, and the Visual Rhetoric of Income Disparity

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A new Geico commercial got me thinking about gender and race in the workplace. (Probably not their intent.)

First, read this commentary by the pre-Fox-News version of Dennis Miller, part of his list of the Top Ten Things That Women Want from Men.

FOUR – Equal work for equal pay. Look around you at work, guys. Look at…say Carl, the brain-dead jack-off in the cubicle next to you. You could kill Carl, couldn’t you, because he’s a slacking, worthless, toady idiot. Now, imagine making 30 percent less than Carl. Hellooo….

Now, watch this new Geico commercial. Pay special attention to 0:26.

The commercial could have ended around 0:24 and left out the Black woman turning around and witnessing the white males’ behavior. Because she’s there, this is an entirely different commercial, provoking audiences (well, this audience) to question why the three people doing “dumb things with smart phones” are white males.

What is this woman thinking?

What is this woman thinking?

Let’s imagine all of the possible things that this woman could be thinking:

1. I make 50% less than these buffoons, because of my race and my gender.

2. If I ever acted like that, I would be fired, because of my race and my gender.

3. If I ever acted like that, people would say that I am unprofessional and that I don’t belong here, because of my race and my gender.

4. [too many to list]

So the next question is, did Geico mean for audiences to question why the three people doing “dumb things with smart phones” are white males, or did they simply reenact the mammy archetype?

Thus: Is Geico interrogating or reinforcing?

10 Days Til Core Grammar Launch

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In honor of the final 10 days of the production of Core Grammar for Lawyers (coregrammar.com), I’m reposting this column from Slate.com on “logical” punctuation.

Specifically, the author suggests that a punctuation trend in the U.S. is leading the way for U.S. writers to adopt the British style of punctuating quotations. In the U.S., we place the closing comma or period of a quotation inside the closing quotation mark, like this:

“Give me liberty, or give me death.”

The British, on the other hand, place the period outside of the final quotation mark, like this:

“Give me liberty, or give me death”.

Wait, let me pick a more appropriate quotation:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

The author suggests that the American fashion is based on aesthetics, not logic, and even quotes the head of the Modern Language Association, Rosemary Feal, which this English Ph.D. very much enjoyed:

If it seems hard or even impossible to defend the American way on the merits, that’s probably because it emerged from aesthetic, not logical, considerations. According to Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA, it was instituted in the early days of the Republic in order “to improve the appearance of the text. A comma or period that follows a closing quotation mark appears to hang off by itself and creates a gap in the line (since the space over the mark combines with the following word space).”

For those interested: Core Grammar for Lawyers has been my book project for the last year+ (even though it only exists online, it definitely took as much work as a book to write). My co-author is law professor Ruth McKinney. Our production team has pretty much carried the day these past months, keeping the authors in line.

Thanks, Carol T.

Some Psychology of First-Year Legal Writing

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I’m loving this blog post on legal writing courses.. It’s written from a student’s perspective and deals with the psychology of a difficult first-year legal research and writing course experience.

I see many of my students in the voice of this writer. I also see myself when I was a 1L so many years ago.

Here’s an excerpt from the original post:

A second attempt at drafting a legal memorandum during my fifth week of law school. And again, it was an inconceivable slap in the face when I received yet more criticism about my writing. What was so ‘wrong’ about my writing? After all, I did so well in college and no one ever said my writing needed work. I started to think that maybe this professor simply had it out for me. I internalized my problem, and despite numerous meetings to review my work, I still could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Like others in my class who were having similar problems, I began disregarding what I heard in her class and going to other professors for advice on how to improve. Needless to say, this did not make matters any better. My next grade was just as bad. Finally, I wised up and met with her again. This time I came prepared to stay as long as she would let me, and I set my mind to a new goal – understanding what I was doing wrong, not what I thought she was doing wrong.

And this is utter genius:

Over those two years, I gained valuable insight into effective writing, but really, I learned how easily we defeat ourselves through our own pride, stubbornness, or even arrogance.

Learning legal discourse AND learning how to write are two different things; both are EXTREMELY hard. And yet, first-year legal writing courses expect students to do both at the same time. It can be a very frustrating experience for students (oh, and for teachers too).

If I could send a message to my students it would be this:

I want all of you to excel. I spend hours and hours thinking of new ways to help you excel. My goal is to receive 20 perfect papers every time. I will spend all the time it takes with you to help you improve. Please, please have faith in me. And I’ll have faith in you.

Digital Pedagogy Tools

I’m a big fan of using technology to enhance teaching and learning. I read a blog called “Teach Paperless,” which often has great ideas for teachers who wish to incorporate more tech into their teaching.

Here’s a recent post with some excellent fundamental teaching resources (most, if not all, free):

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2011/03/tools-to-go-paperless.html.

The list includes GoogleDocs and Calendar of course, but also some others that you might not think of right away.

A good place to start.

Federal Plain Language Guidelines

The federal government has been wading in the river of politics and the English language for a couple of decades now. The latest Plain Language mandate is artfully outlined on the Writing Matters blog, here.

They write:

Many thanks to the folks at PlainLanguage.gov who have just updated their Federal Plain Language Guidelines and published them at their site. I’m so excited about this wonderful resource that I’m presenting the entire Table of Contents here so you can easily click through. You can also download the Guidelines (PDF). I hope you’ll use these Guidelines to nurture clear writing in your organization or to help you develop a style guide of your own.

Reflective Writing Decreases Test Anxiety

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Researchers and the University of Chicago discovered that taking time to write reflectively about one’s anxieties helps a test-taker’s performance.

Here’s the link.

I do this sort of writing all the time. When I’m working on an article or a book project, I often do some meta-writing when I get stuck. This is how I get past so-called writer’s block. I move away from the manuscript and write in a notebook; I list all of the things that are bugging me about my project–that my arguments are weak, that I’m afraid it won’t get published, that I’m not making good connections.

And then, ALWAYS, a solution presents itself. Every time I’ve done this anxiety-provoked meta-writing, and I mean every darn time, I’m able to solve the problem.

It’s like magic. Except it’s not. It’s just writing.