The Red Velvet Lawyer

Call for Papers Dear colleagues, Qatar University Press has asked me to move forward with a proposed book that addresses the legal consequences and solutions arising from the blockade imposed on Qatar by its neighboring countries.   The working title of the book is: “The Arab Gulf Conflict: Legal Consequences and Solutions.” It is my pleasure to invite you to contribute a chapter to the book.  Please email me at pyoung@qu.edu.qa for background information about the blockade. Topics I expect to discuss in the book include: A Dispute Resolution Analysis of the Causes of the Dispute. Arab Conflict Resolution Strategies. 2103 and 2014 Riyadh Agreements. Thirteen Demands and Six Principles. Do Gulf Countries have the Unilateral Legal Right to Impose Sanctions on Qatar? Legal Concepts of National Sovereignty Laws Governing Military Conflict. Laws Governing Efforts to Force a Change in a Country’s Leadership. Qatar’s Air T...

Analyzing the Decision  &  Mourning Something Lost in America's Identity and Ideals. One of my friends, Prof. Richard Reuben -- who serves on the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Law -- has offered these insights. Earlier in his career, Richard was an award-winning journalist who covered the U.S. Supreme Court. "A few thoughts after having read the travel ban decision, [ Trump v. Hawaii , Slip Op. No. 17-965 (June 26, 2018):] 1. It is not surprising to see the Supreme Court back executive power in the context of international affairs, and especially so in the context of national security. I tend to agree with this in principle. 2. Chief Justice Roberts' decision was an embarrassment -- deliberately shallow, both in accepting Trump's results-oriented "policy consideration" and in its paucity of reference to precedent. The reason seems pretty obvious. As been our history until this day, most of that precedent goes against his d...

How to be the Best  . . .   and Learn from the Worst Doha does not have a deep collection of print books for sale.  I was at Doha Festival City twice last week.  After touring the entire mall, I found a book I did not expect to see in Doha. It's Robert I Sutton 's Good Boss, Bad Boss .  The book builds on his research that supported an earlier book called The No Asshole Rule .  I read the earlier book, several years ago, when I served on a law school's hiring committee.  We tried to use the advice in the book.  Overall, we built a small faculty of dedicated teachers.  Sadly, we did hire a few jerks along the way, and frankly, the institution paid for it. Amazon  describes the new book in this way:   If you are a boss who wants to do great work, what can you do about it? Good Boss, Bad Boss is devoted to answering that question. Stanford Professor Robert Sutton weaves together the best psychological and...

One Way the Blockade Effects  People and not Just Governments I am writing several book chapters for an upcoming book on the blockade of Qatar. In one chapter I described attacks on the media by the countries starting the blockade – Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Bahrain, and Egypt. Among other things, the countries blocked Al Jazeera broadcasts and other media originating from Qatar. I stated that the media blockade serve at least two purposes. It keeps an opposing narrative about Qatar from reaching people in the blockading countries. It also limits access to programming popular with conservative Muslim audiences. In that chapter, I also described the Saudis relationship with sport broadcaster beIn Sports: Saudi Arabia also blocked access to the ubiquitous and highly popular, Qatar-financed, beIN Sports on June 13, 2018. The station has about 5,000 staffers working in 43 countries. The U.A.E blocked access for six weeks before restoring it on July 22, 2018. Police had eje...

A Big Thanks to the People Who Read this Blog! On March 17, 2013, I posted my first blog post.  I called it: "Make art.  Think like an artist."  I read it again this morning, and time has been kind to it.  It still resonates.  Since then, I have created nearly 400 posts.   If I were Seth Godin, I'd turn them into a book or two.  When I started this blog, I hoped to regain a voice I had had when I wrote a column every other month for the newspaper of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis ( BAMSL ).  The newspaper had about 7,000 readers.  My column was called from "Conflict to Collaboration" and discussed dispute resolution theory, techniques, ethics, and use.  When I began teaching, I quit writing the column. As an academic, I lost my first-person, more colloquial voice in my law review writing.  The academy prefers the conceit that the words, and any analysis they reflect, appear on the page without a p...

Still Working on that Glass Ceiling When I made partner in the mid-1990s, only sixteen percent of all partners in the U.S. were women. A NAWL 2014 report shows little progress since then: In its eighth year, the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL®) and The NAWL Foundation’s® annual Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms reveals not much has changed in its findings of compensation, leadership roles, rainmaking, and equity partnership at the nation’s largest 200 firms. The data this year revealed the same trend as in previous years: the greatest percentage of women (64 percent) occupy the lowest positions in firms (staff attorneys) and the highest positions in firms (equity partners) are occupied by the lowest percentage of women (17 percent). In comparison, the 2012 survey reported 15 percent equity partners were women and 70 percent staff attorneys were women. “This year’s results reinforce that women in private practice continue to face barrie...

It's Easy: Set Up a Monthly Donation This morning, my Facebook feed is blowing up over a Huffington Post article about the immigrant kids being separated from their parents at ages as young as 53 months.  For additional information about the situation see here  (agency that lost 1500 kids says it is not "legally responsible" for finding them),  here (history of policy), here  (Trump blames Democrats for the lost kids), and here  (SWOPE's fact check: True). Many people want to know how they can help support resistance to this and other Trump administration policies affecting civil, human, and environmental rights. I put together a list of charity groups that support gun law reform.  I post it after every mass or school shooting,  So, in the same vein and with the same purpose,  I am creating this list of organizations that work to protect civil, human, and environmental rights.  If I need to add an organization to the list, please l...