February 3, 1997
To: CLS Associates
From: Nicholas Johnson
Good morning.
Please review your (a) hard copy memos, (b) e-mail, and (c) our Web page [http://soli.inav.net/~njohnson/cls.html] to make sure you have researched, written, submitted, responded to all the requests to date. My sense is that some of you have not.
I would prefer not to have to prepare a spreadsheet to check off each item for each associate and then send personal reminder memos, but will start doing that if necessary.
This also raises a problem for our firm meeting this coming Wednesday evening.
Logically, the next phase we should enter into is, in following our prior procedure, (a) for you to prepare prior to class, (b) turn in, and then (c) we discuss in class
the range of potential legal and public policy issues that the range of industries/technologies/services, etc., we have been discussing might raise.
Again, we would start with broad categories, and then go as far as time permits in filling in those categories with specifics.
However, we can't really progress to that phase until you have finished the prior assignments -- including your selection of the legal/policy issue you wish to pursue with your proposal. That is to say, the personal review of potential issues, and selection of one for your own research and analysis, is a major component of the seminar. This is not to be something that I hand you, or that you get from the class discussion. It's something you come up with on your own. (Of course, I am willing, in fact desire, to discuss with you your possible choices and maybe suggest modifications. But the initial proposals are to come from you.)
This being the case, I propose that -- in lieu of our regular meeting Wednesday evening -- each of you arrange an individual, one-on-one conference with me sometime during the next 10 days (February 3-February 11) to review your progress to date. The earlier you schedule your time slot the better, because (a) the last days may fill up early, (b) failure to attend such CLS February 3 Memo - Page 2
a conference will be counted as a class absence, (c) individuals' delay, as you see above, put the entire class behind schedule, and, most important, (d) put you dangerously behind the curve this late into the semester.
Web page/s. Although there may be more about this later, based on the few responses I got to the "CLS: Poll - Please Respond" memo, some of you are interested in posting pictures, bios and work product; others are not. No one seems to object to others doing whatever they want. Personal choices are all over the lot. So, what seems to be the best solution on this one (at least my current proposal, subject to your responses) is the following.
(1) We will continue the class Web page. (It may be transferred to a Weeg address; but you will know before that happens, if it does.)
(2) I will install a link from my home page to "cls.html."
(3) Although everyone is required to do all the assignments, no one is required to post anything to the Web. As I have indicated, I think the more you use and experience the Web (including the creation of pages) the more fun you'll have with it, and this seminar, and the better prepared you'll be for the role of the Web in law practice during the next 50 years. However, the mere act of creating a page, or failing to do so (as distinguished from the additional substantive content of that page), will not affect any associate's grade in the seminar one way or the other.
(4) Anyone who wants to create his or her own Web page is free to do so. (a) I am happy to help you do this, if you wish (or to stay out of it if you want to do it on your own). (b) Anyone who does so is free to put, or link to, anything they want on their page. (c) Anyone who does is free to [1] contract with his or her own Internet service provider, or [2] ask me to arrange for the posting to the Web. (d) Anyone who does so is free to [1] arrange for the page to remain posted to the Web after the seminar, or [2] have the page removed after the seminar.
(5) Links will be provided from cls.html to individual firm associates' pages (unless there is a request that no link be provided).
(6) As with most of this seminar, the initiative here is with you. The default, if you say and do nothing, is that you will not have a personal Web page.