Jesus!

Ok I was just going to post this article but after reading it closer I couldn't help but say something about it. I would hate to go to this law school, basically they give you a biblical perspective on the law, and the result is frightening.

"The Erie decision, which is viewed as uncontroversial in much of the legal academy, represented a disastrous wrong turn, Professor Tuomala said. In ruling that federal courts may not apply general principles in some cases but must follow state laws, he said, the Supreme Court denied the possibility of "a law that's fixed, that's uniform, that applies to everybody, everyplace, for all time. He noted, though, that his perspective was "out on the limb in judicial orthodoxy."

Not much to say, pretty much said it himself that it was a fringe position. Erie has been the law for more than 70 years, is well established, and fairly clear. For those who don't know Erie basically says that in a case with parties from different states that is filed in a state court and then transferred to federal court the federal court would apply the state law on substantive issues. If they were to hold otherwise then it would be unfair to the plaintiff filing because the law they thought applied wouldn't necessarily apply in federal court.

"Prof. Roger C. Bern, who teaches contracts, said that he asked his students to look beyond law as it is ordinarily understood. For example, he said, Christian lawyers should counsel clients not to walk away from oral contracts even where the law allows it."

Um, I know I didn't pass my ethics test (well I suppose anything is possible) but I can tell you that this is a violation of a duty. A lawyer is supposed to counsel their clients in THE LAW not what God would say about it. A lawyer would be sued for malpractice if they didn't inform their clients that they could walk away from a contract, and they would deserve it too for doing something so stupid.

"We will not be committed, for instance, to being good divorce lawyers," he said. "We'll be reconciliation lawyers."

OK...right...so your client comes in and says I want a divorce, and you say well God is against divorce so you need to just work it out with your spouse. Or even better, a wife comes into your office with a black eye, broken nose, has been abused for years by her husband, he has also been beating and molesting their 10 year old daughter, and has finally decided to leave her husband. You then say God would want you to work it out with him and you shouldn't get a divorce. A lawyer is not a religious minister, they have a duty to provide services that their client wants.

"If our graduates wind up in the government," Dr. Falwell said, "they'll be social and political conservatives. If they wind up as judges, they'll be presiding under the Bible."

If you are frightened by this you should watch the 700 club sometime and that will terrify you. Basically the idea is that if you have a locked in community of say religious believers, and then you feed them a "biblical" perspective on the news, politics, or whatever. The problem is that people then mistake that world-perspective for their own religious belief without being offered an alternative viewpoint.

The only good thing about this school is that it is not accredited yet, which means that the students will not be eligible to take the Bar exam anywhere.