Dr. Ronald B. Standler attorney in Massachusetts and consultant
I do two different kinds of work in law:
I do consulting to attorneys, principally on scientific evidence in
torts involving technology, for example:
electrical surges or "power quality".
I have experience with both the design and application of surge-protective devices:
surge arresters and surge suppressors, which are also known in the USA as
"transient voltage surge suppressors" (TVSS).
I am an attorney in private practice,
licensed to practice in all state and federal courts in Massachusetts.
I concentrate in computer law, higher-education law,
and copyright law.
The description of my legal services
gives more detail.
My curriculum vitae gives my credentials in
physics and electrical engineering, a complete bibliography of my publications,
and a summary of my professional experience.
Essays on this website are provided only to provide general information
and to communicate my personal comments on interesting topics in
law, technology, and society. Essays on this website are neither
legal advice nor legal opinion. Accessing this website or reading
documents on this website does not create an attorney-client
relationship. See my disclaimer
for details.
All essays at this website are protected by copyright.
I have posted my Terms Of Service
for printing, copying, and distributing my essays
at this website.
I am an attorney only in Massachusetts, so I can not provide
legal advice to people in other states of the USA, unless they have been
injured or sued in Massachusetts.
However, I have posted the following hints for
how to find an attorney.
My long essay on examples of
malicious computer programs
(e.g., computer viruses and worms) emphasizes the
nonexistent or weak punishment for the authors of those malicious programs.
I have also written an essay on how to recognize e-mail that contains a
hoax about computer viruses.
My essay on copyright law in the USA
considers copyright infringement on the Internet, as well as
fair use, photocopy machines, and plagiarism.
My essay on trademark law discusses some
abuses on the Internet.
Computer equipment is vulnerable to damage by
electrical surges
on the power and data conductors.
While surges are mostly an engineering problem,
there may be legal liability for electric and telephone utilities,
and also liability for manufacturers of computer equipment.
Computers and other electronic technologies can be used
to invade people's privacy. For example,
privacy of e-mail is a serious concern
to many people. My other essays on privacy are
listed in a separate section below.
My discussion of issues in preparing a computer
Acceptable Use Policy
mentions more than twenty substantive issues to consider.
My discussion is cast in a university environment, but similar
issues occur in policies for businesses.
Law & Technology
My essay on the response of law in the USA to new technology.
I discuss the effect of invention of the printing press,
telephone wiretaps, contraception, videotaping at home,
protection of computer software, and regulation of the Internet.
My essay on infotorts cites cases nationwide
in the emerging family of torts in which information caused harm, usually
either as (1) errors in nonfiction books/magazines/newspapers,
or (2) violent crimes that were inspired by movies or videogames.
I have also posted an essay on proximate cause
in information torts.
My essay on the law of
weather modification discusses
and analyzes court cases in the USA concerning cloud seeding
and summarizes the basic principles of tort liability for cloud seeders.
While this essay was written to inform farmers, ranchers,
meteorology students, and attorneys working in environmental law
or water law about the obscure law of weather modification,
this essay is also a case study in how and why courts
in the USA avoided deciding disputes about this novel area of technology.
My separate essay on the
history & problems
with cloud seeding also explains the need to give adequate long-term
financial support to basic scientific research before
engaging in practical applications.
My essay, Tort Liability in the USA for Negligent Weather Forecasts,
discusses each of the reported court cases in the USA on this topic that
involved either people on the ground or sailors at sea.
This essay also compares and contrasts cases involving an airplane crash
caused by negligent weather information from employees of the
U.S. Government.
In 1997, when I was a student in law school,
I wrote two term papers that show the interaction between science, technology,
engineering standards, medicine, and law in the USA:
(1) Lightning injuries to users of telephones and
(2) Legal duties to warn and to protect people from direct
lightning strikes.
The legal duty to warn of lightning
at recreational facilities compared with the duty to warn of riptide at beaches,
an essay that I wrote in March 2007.
Education Law:
especially in universities
My essay on academic freedom for professors
argues that this "freedom" is not a fundamental right recognized by
law in the USA, but is a contract right granted by colleges and
universities. I have posted a separate essay on
freedom of speech for government employees in
the USA, which discusses the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court
in the landmark cases of Pickering and Connick v. Myers,
as well as other Supreme Court cases in this area, then briefly
discusses how lower courts have applied these principles to professors
who are employed at state universities.
My third essay in this series,
professional ethics & wrongful discharge
discusses legal protections under state law for
learned professionals
(e.g., attorneys, physicians, nurses, engineers, scientists)
whose employment was terminated because the employees
chose to uphold ethical principles of their profession.
My essay on academic abstention
explains a doctrine that is poorly articulated by judges, in which
judges refuse to review purely academic decisions by schools or colleges.
The consequence of this doctrine is that the school or college always
wins in disputes involving grading, expulsion of a student for failure
to maintain minimum academic standards, acceptability of a thesis or
dissertation, etc.
My essay on injuries in school science laboratories
discusses principles of negligence, and possible defenses and immunities,
for teachers in elementary school and high school, as well as
for professors in colleges.
My long essay on the law of plagiarism
has many quotations from court cases involving plagiarism
by students or professors, as well as statutes and court cases
involving the sale of term papers, and practical advice to
faculty about how to detect plagiarism.
Colleges can revoke degrees if plagiarism, or other misconduct, is
discovered after a student has graduated.
My essay on educational malpractice
discusses this new tort that is not allowed by judges in the USA,
but is consistent with traditional principles of tort law.
My essay on
moral rights of authors discusses legal
rights granted to authors in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries,
but which are absent from law in the USA.
My discussion of issues in preparing a
Computer Acceptable Use Policy
mentions more than twenty substantive issues to consider,
as well as has comments on style of regulations.
A complicated legal problem is discussed in my long essay,
Reimbursement of Educational Expenses at Divorce in the USA,
in which supporting spouses seek reimbursement of educational expenses,
possibly including living expenses too, for their ex-spouses' education
(e.g., medical school, law school, dental school,
business school, etc.)
that greatly increased the earning potential of the supported spouses.
My essay, U.S. Government Restrictions on Scientific Publications,
discusses restrictions on publishing information about weapons of mass
destruction, restrictions on encryption technology,
and trade restrictions on providing services or technology to rogue nations.
Some attorneys have claimed that a professor has a fiduciary duty to students. My essay
reviews the reported cases and explains why the professor-student relationship is not a
fiduciary relationship.
People often confuse criminal law with civil law (e.g., torts and contracts),
which leads to misunderstandings about legal rights. I have prepared a
brief essay that compares and contrasts
criminal and civil law.
My essay on heckler's veto,
a detail in the interpretation of the First Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution that prevents the government from silencing
speakers because of the threat of violent reaction. This essay
ends with a discussion of the metaphor "marketplace of ideas",
a justification for freedom of speech.
My essay on professional ethics & wrongful discharge
discusses cases in the USA in which a learned professional
(e.g., attorney, physician, nurse, engineer, or scientist)
upheld principles of professional ethics, despite
his/her manager's desires, and the professional's employment was terminated.
With the conventional doctrine of at-will employment in the USA,
the employer has the absolute right to dismiss an employee for
any reason, including a "morally repugnant" reason.
I have a separate essay on the
history of at-will employment
that includes criticism of the doctrine of at-will employment
and a brief sketch of the history of attempts to modify this doctrine.
My essay, Prenuptial and Postnuptial Contract Law in the USA,
reviews the legal history of such contracts, discusses limits on their validity,
and suggests reasons why people should have such a contract.
I have also written some suggestions for
drafting contracts that might avoid expensive litigated divorces.
Did you know that federal courts in the USA refuse to hear cases involving
divorce, alimony, or child custody?
My essay, Federal Court Jurisdiction in the USA in Family Law Cases,
explains the history and reasons for this exception to jurisdiction.
As an attorney interested in First Amendment law, I am concerned about
the possible poisoning of the jury pool by legal commentary programs
on television, which could interfere with a fair trial.
My essay, Pretrial Publicity Prevents a Fair Trial in the USA,
examines the conflict between a free press and the right of accused
to a fair trial by impartial jurors,
and how trial judges should avoid biased jurors.
This essay also explains why admonitions to the jury are ineffective,
and discusses gag orders, professional responsibility rules for attorneys,
and Bar-Press guidelines.
I have posted a separate document that contains
long quotations from opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court and
the U.S. Courts of Appeals about pretrial publicity.
My essay, Doctrine of Unconstitutional Conditions,
explains when a government in the USA can demand the waiver
of a constitutional right as a condition of receiving some benefit
(e.g., employment, contract, right, privilege, etc.) from the government.
My essay, Freedom from the Majority in the USA,
explains constitutional limits on the power of governments in the USA
to impose orthodoxy on everyone.
My main essay on privacy law in the USA
includes a review of federal statutes, constitutional law,
and the common law of torts, and also discusses searches of
people's garbage and invasions of privacy by journalists.
My annotated list of U.S. Supreme Court cases
on fundamental rights under privacy shows the thin scope of constitutional
privacy rights in the USA.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the confidentiality or privacy of information
is destroyed by disclosure to a third party. In practice, this rule of law means
that there is no privacy interest in bank account records (e.g., checks, deposit slips,
monthly statements), no privacy interest in a list of telephone numbers dialled from
a home telephone, and no privacy for letters or e-mail after they have been read by the recipient.
I explain the origin of this rule of law about
third-party disclosure and criticize this rule of law.
This topic has implications for anonymity of screen names and
privacy of search queries on the Internet, freedom from electronic surveillance, and
privacy of library or bookshop records.
My essay on
nonconsensual medical experiments on human beings.
I discuss some famous (notorious) cases and then propose a draft of
some rules that might protect research subjects better than the current
rules in the USA.
My essay, Legal Aspects of Searches of Airline Passengers in the USA,
cites and discusses federal cases on searches of passengers at airports,
legal justification for border searches,
importance of the Fourth Amendment, intrusion, legal right to travel,
and, finally, argues that choosing to travel by air does not
automatically give the traveler's consent to a search.
I have posted an essay on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA),
which allows the U.S. government to conduct electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens
inside the USA without a warrant from a regular court.
I discuss in detail the legal issues:
whether lawful FISA surveillance can be done if the sole purpose, "primary purpose",
or "a substantial purpose" is the collection of foreign intelligence information.
whether the secret FISA court issues "warrants" that comply with the Fourth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution.
whether the approval by the secret FISA court of nearly all applications for a surveillance order
during 1979-2002 constitutes meaningless, automatic, and unconstitutional
"rubber stamp" approvals.
My essay on FISA concludes with my personal criticisms of this statute. I have a related essay
on the history of National Security Letters,
a type of administrative subpoena, and why they may be unconstitutional.
Copyright 1997-2007 by Ronald B. Standler
this document is at http://www.rbs2.com/index.htm
created 4 Jan 1997, revised 9 Dec 2007.