I have a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. I’m licensed to practice law in the state of Missouri. I can appear before the Federal Court for the Western District of Missouri. This site is to be populated with my opinions and occasionally researched stances on legal topics of the most interest to me. Nothing here should be read as legal advice. Leaving comments here or shooting me an email does not make me your lawyer. An attorney-client relationship does not arise out of this website unless both you, the reader, and I are in agreement that such a relationship exists. It can not be assumed. Furthermore, this site has no weight in court.

Really I want to be able to stick my neck out here. I gave ‘This Week in Law’ more than a fair shake and I was frustrated by the format. The lawyers on that show were very noncommittal. I don’t know if they were concerned that people would rely on the things they said or if they just didn’t want to misstate anything and look like a fool later, but it made the show fairly diluted. On this site I’m fine being wrong. Court cases that I cite may be outdated, especially if this website lasts for very long as you could be reading a blog post that is old, citing a case that has been overruled. This site may point you down the correct line of cases to understand a topic, but I could screw up. I don’t plan on giving this site quite the time I would give a client. I want to be able to speak about the Intellectual Property Law matters (and those laws I feel abut the field) that I feel passionately about.

At the the time of this writing (days before I’ve even bought the domain) the topics that I intend to write about are:

the mp3 war
artists versus record labels
Google’s attempts to archive old books, film (orphan works)
Creative Commons
digital defamation
bloggers and free speech
writers getting copyrights on works that include trademarks owned by others
British Copyright versus American Copyright (the Beatles’ will soon enter public domain)
Cultural Property Law
the people page’s victims versus me
net neutrality

And to be straight with you, there are many resources that will be far better than mine for the foreseeable future.
Lessig and the EFF are both fine advocacy sites.
The People vs the RIAA is a phenomenal website dedicated to the mp3 war.
And the list goes on. Hopefully I’ll find a voice and bring something new to the table.
But in the very least running this site will keep me sharp on the field of law that I want to deal with.

I plan to have a new post up every Wednesday.
Posts will most frequently be a researched opinion but may occasionally be a snapshot of my fledgling legal career. Milestones that relate to legal accomplishment that don’t violate some legal duty to talk about will be posted here.