Status Updates From Harry Potter and the Cedarv...

...is all the more persuasive. The problem with True Belief is that it hampers lawyers' abilities to see the weaknesses in their cases. And that can be very dangerous. Not recognizing weaknesses can lead to disaster.

'Litigator's myopia' is a common affliction among trial lawyers and arises from the nature of our jobs. Our job is to be an advocate--and advocate for our client. Good advocates, like all good salesmen, actors, or other people in the persuasive arts, truly believe in their product and role. Thus, good trial lawyers truly believe in their client's position, and when that True Belief shines through, the trial lawyer...

Tom almost always represented 'the man.' Tom's clients were typically banks, medium-sized corporations, and other businesses. If you were trying to 'stick it to the man,' then 'the man' hired Tom Robertson. Thirty years of doing that made Tom unsympathetic to those challenging authority. He would deny this observation, but I'm right.

...to the Press Argus: 'I would rather see a child spend a lifetime in ignorance than an eternity separated from God.'

Every anti-Potter/pro-censorship letter cited particular notions of the Bible and Christianity as their underlying authority...Witchcraft is evil; children should not be taught spells and sorcery; if we can ban Playboy from schools, why not satanic books like Rowling's boos; what's wrong with letting parents control what their children read. All these arguments were best summarized by a woman's letter...