Monday, March 30, 2015

Pennsylvania woman posed as lawyer for decade

Impossible, you might say, that a person without a sheepskin from some legal diploma mill might be able to perform the duties of an attorney. That's the outrageous aspect of this story from Fox News. The lady was perfectly capable, or at least as capable as anyone else, of doing estate planning that's restricted to members of the bar, that membership being determined by the bar itself. It's a guild system rooted in medieval European society that has nothing to do with an ability to navigate the maze that is the always-growing legal structure. The point is that she wasn't "posing" as a lawyer, she was "being" a lawyer, doing lawyer work, probably in an effective manner. Requiring a license to practice law isn't any different than requiring one to perform manicures, cut hair or work on an air conditioner. It's an interference in the freedom of contract.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Retired LA cop thwarts petty theft from Starbucks tip jar.

Scott Fahey, a retired cop, foiled an attempted theft of a tip jar from a Huntington Beach, CA, Starbucks walk-up window in a confrontation with a bike-riding thief recently according to this OC Register story. Two notable things about the incident are: the retired Fahey is 55 years of age, he's walking about armed with a Glock 26. Maybe you could say that Fahey is still, in fact, a cop. On duty and armed at all times. The law enforcement establishment not only includes uniformed cops but also plain clothes operatives, SWAT teams, secret agents of various government entities like public schools. transportation authorities and parks and all those retired from those positions at an age that few private sector employees can emulate. There are a lot of well-armed cops around.