I understand that many people have a love/ hate relationship with their GPS. It can be a godsend for the directionally-challenged, but it can be an endless source of frustration when it loses its signal or only gets you in the general vicinity of your destination. (I’ll admit I’ve experienced mostly the latter, as recipients of my frantic emergency calls can attest.)

It looks like our legal system is going to have a similar relationship with the technology; the Supreme Court ruled Monday the use of a GPS device to track a suspect’s behavior and location qualifies as a search under the Fourth Amendment.

However, the justices left it an open question as to whether it’s an invasion of privacy to use GPS devices to track people through a device that comes installed with a GPS, such as a cell phone. The justices hinted that they might have to modify their ruling if GPS devices were used in this manner in order to protect privacy rights.

I know phone records can be subpoenaed in cases and these records can also show the location of the calls, or at least what tower the cell phone call is routed through. But it’s interesting to think that law enforcement could have the capability to monitor your every move through the GPS device on your phone.

Considering that it’s a virtual necessity, if only for safety reasons, for adults to carry a cell phone, this means just about anyone’s location could be tracked at anytime.

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A collateral benefit of being a judicial law clerk is the opportunity to rub elbows with “legal legends” on a daily basis. These legends are the elder statesmen of our profession: judges, retired judges and lawyers who have practiced law for longer than I’ve been alive.

I’m the kind of person who loves a great war story. Nothing excites me more than to hear about a lawyer’s great Atticus Finch moment, or a judge’s clever retort on the record. Legal legends have the best war stories around and as a law clerk, I’ve been blessed with the chance to hear many.

The stories I’ve heard about the way practicing law used to be — when lawyers were colorful characters and local celebrities, when lawyers had a strong sense of decorum and civility, when spending an evening discussing cases with your partners over a drink was the norm, when lawyers liked being lawyers — make me feel nostalgic for a time I never knew.

It can be so easy to burn out as a young lawyer. The daily grind can make you question why you ever decided to do this in the first place. Spending time with a legal legend can be a serious source of inspiration and remind you of the goals you had when you started this profession. It would be a non-billable hour or two well spent.

Know a great story from a legal legend? Pay homage in the comments section.

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The scene: Closing arguments in an auto negligence case, being tried on liability first. Plaintiff’s attorney (me) goes first:

“Your honor, the defendant’s story that my client was making a U-turn on a road with one lane in each direction just doesn’t make much sense,” I said. “My client testified that he was turning left, which is consistent with his testimony about where he was going. A U-turn under those circumstances would be just about impossible — he was driving a huge Ford F-150. I drive a small Saturn and I couldn’t have made that U-turn.”

“Most attorneys would be embarrassed to admit that they drive a Saturn,” the judge interjected.

“Judge, I’m just not the Beamer-type,”  I replied.

That started a conversation about car preferences that had absolutely nothing to do with the case. After it was over, the judge ruled that she found my client credible and ruled for him on liability.

The judge said she would postpone the damages portion of the trial for 30 minutes so the parties could see if it were possible to work it out. It wasn’t, so my client testified for a few minutes about his injuries and medical treatment and the judge determined that his damages were worth $15,000. We filed for a maximum of $15,000, and I was surprised at the verdict, expecting maybe $7,000 on a good day.

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An order from the Honorable Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas came across my inbox earlier today. This order does not involve any of the numerous cases that I am currently handling, but is surely worth the read.

Let me set it up for you: a third party was allegedly, improperly served with an overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoena and, instead of trying to work out the issues with the requesting party, filed a motion to quash with the court.

In response, the court issued an “invitation of its own” for all involved to come to a “kindergarten party” that “will feature many exciting and informative lessons,” including:

• How to telephone and communicate with a lawyer
• How to enter into reasonable agreements about deposition dates
• How to limit depositions to reasonable subject matter
• Why it is neither cute nor clever to attempt to quash a subpoena for technical failures of  service when notice is reasonably given
• An advanced seminar on not wasting the time of a busy federal judge and his staff because you are unable to practice law at the level of a first-year law student

Some may think that the judge overreached in this opinion and should not merely set a date for the hearing. I am not one of those people.

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Anyone who knows me is very aware of the close bonds (aka “obsession”) I have with my two dogs, Dexter and Luca. When I first meet someone, it is virtually impossible to avoid their introduction in our conversation. The dog whisperer, Cesar Millan, would shake his head at me and wag his finger in a disapproving manner.

Milan has often said Americans humanize dogs to a point that is detrimental to the dogs’ well-being. His logic: dogs are animals and require three things in a particular order — exercise, discipline and affection (but only after the first two are accomplished). While I understand his methodology, I find myself at odds with it often.

Back in March, NPR and the New York Times covered Yale Law School’s three-day trial period with Monty, a certified therapy dog offered to students for 30-minute sessions at the law library. Using a dog for stress relief does not surprise me in the least. I, for one, would definitely have felt less anxious answering a cold call in my property class if my feet were curled around Dexter’s or Luca’s warm and fuzzy bodies. When I had a bad day at work or school, the first “person” I would turn to was Dexter or Luca (not in any particular order).

Yale’s program is not the first to employ dogs in the practice of stress reduction or rehabilitation. Numerous programs across the country take advantage of dogs for therapy in nursing homes, mental institutions, and prisons. The International Association of Assistance Dog Partners provides extensive information as to what assistance dogs can provide for humans inflicted with debilitating mental or even physical disabilities. But a fairly new scenario involving a dog as emotional support has sparked a legal debate.

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As an English literature major, someone who wants to be reincarnated as Bryan Garner, and a kid who spent recess in with the teacher (not because I was in trouble, but because it was safer), I have a soft spot for the The Bluebook. For the non-lawyers among you, The Bluebook is the primary citation format for legal writing, beginning in law school. It contains formulae for the citation of everything from dictionaries to novels to the World Wide Web. It is now in its 19th edition, having started from humble beginnings in 1926.

The Bluebook is not the only citation scheme out there, though it is probably still the most popular. Its major competitor, ALWD (pronounced “Allwood”), has been gaining ground in law schools in recent years. Back in 2000 when I started at the University of Colorado School of Law, our legal writing department taught us exclusively from ALWD. I found this to be irritating in 2001 when I had to shell out cash (I was a poor law student, after all) to buy a Bluebook, as it was the citation format mandated for moot court. I found this to be even more irritating when I started practicing and realized that the Bluebook was the norm, and I learned a different form. In the past few years, though, I’ve come to love it.

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