Don’t Check Your Common Sense at the Door

The whole point of law school is to teach a person how to ‘think like a lawyer’ and impart a basic understanding of the law. Thinking like a lawyer doesn’t mean that you should forget how to think. As my lawyer once told me, “Law is a distillation of common sense. 99% of the time, the common sense answer is the right one.” ¹

Russ at Barely Legal illustrates this perfectly with this anecdote:

I had to file a petition to become a provisional federal attorney. I didn’t want to read the 4 pages of instructions so I just called the clerk’s office and introduced myself and asked them what I should do. The clerk was very nice and she gave me some convoluted instructions about the series of mailings we’d have to have back and forth. “Cindy,” (that was the clerk’s name), “I only live ten minutes away. Is it allright if I just come down there and you and I fill out everything all at once. That way it’s easier for everyone and, as a plus, I’ll get a chance to meet you.” She said that would be a great idea and I went down there and took care of everything.

Social engineering is the most effective hacking skill there is.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

…delaying the inevitable…

¹ – Except for criminal procedure, especially Fourth Amendment law; that’s all kinds of insane.