The inspiration for this blog was to have a chance to think about law, literature, and intersections between the two. I've often wondered why these two disciplines, both of which require a fussy, intense, obsessive-by-any-normal-standards devotion to language, have so little interaction with each other. Although there's theoretically a discipline of "law and literature," I have yet to figure out exactly what it is, and I've been somewhat disappointed by the work of even its most celebrated practitioner.
Literature's treatment of law isn't really much better. Aside from Grisham knockoffs, it's rare to see a serious literary novel about lawyers or a novel that makes a legal case one of its main subjects. This is surprising. Law should be a great subject for fiction; law firm life is not only an interesting setting in its own right, but one that (you'd think) would resonate with the well-off professional urbanites who are the main consumers of current literary fiction. Plus, legal culture more generally could be a productive source of suspense, metafictional games, detail and richness, and character development for just about any sort of fiction you can imagine.
That said, though, I expect that most posts here will be about law or literature, rather than law and literature. And I don't really intend to confine the subject matter: I intend to post about politics, poker, TV, and anything else I find interesting at the moment.
As for me: I just finished a judicial clerkship, and am now working at a sort of boutique-y, sort of IP-ish firm in the Bay Area. The blog is technically anonymous for now, but that may change.
The subject matter of this blog reflects my own background. These days, I spend most of my time thinking about law. But in my pre-JD life, I was a theater and book reviewer, and I got an MFA in fiction writing. I wrote a novel, got a fairly well-known agent for it, and then proceeded to see it rejected by, oh, let's just say a lot of publishers (I lost track somewhere around the 25th rejection). Looking back now, I am not surprised. My draft isn't totally without redeeming qualities, but it also has serious flaws, and it generally reads like fiction written (as it was) by a 23-year-old. I've been working on another novel on and off for a few years, and maybe one of these days I'll get it into shape. Hey, my agent still sends me Christmas cards.
As for the title of this blog - well, unlike some, I'm a Gaddis fan. I haven't reread A Frolic of His Own since I started law school, however. I did flip through it fairly recently and had mixed responses on the legal details. (He got basic aspects of the legal background, such as the standard for summary judgment, just right. But his view of the nature of legal pomposity, funny as it is, seems a little off the mark; most lawyers and judges write in a way that's studiously bland and pedestrian rather than flowery). All that aside, though, it's one of my favorite books - and a notable exception to recent literature's lack of interest in lawyers and legal culture.
