Here's wishing all of my friends on tv.com a very happy Thanksgiving Day.

Thankful for my tv.com friends...

Enjoy the day...

And don't forget to share!

Greetings, all. This week was kind of a mixed bag, but Progress Was Made overall, I think.

This week's blog has something of a military theme…

Early in the week I caught up with the Oregon State Bar's go-to guy for pro bono programs, George. He was pretty nice, very helpful and fairly laid-back. Of course, since he's not working for billable hours, he can afford to be. He sent me the link to where I could download the training CLE materials on the Military Assistance Panel program. They are a copy of the SCRA and a video of a 3-hour CLE I can stream. The SCRA (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act) is a federal statute designed to protect the rights of members of the military and their families:

This is probably more like what they had in mind.

It is also 32 (very dense) pages long. Here's a little taste:

''SEC. 303. MORTGAGES AND TRUST DEEDS.

''(a) MORTGAGE AS SECURITY.—This section applies only to an

obligation on real or personal property owned by a servicemember

that—

''(1) originated before the period of the servicemember's

military service and for which the servicemember is still obligated;

and

''(2) is secured by a mortgage, trust deed, or other security

in the nature of a mortgage.

So you can see I have a bit of light reading to do before I'm qualified to counsel anybody about this law! Plus, there are also often other legal issues outside the law going on, so my prospects for being helpful to anyone on this front are a little iffy for the time being. I'll be working on it, though.

HITTING THE BOOKS

Thursday afternoon I went to the monthly orientation for Legal Aid Services of Oregon (LASO). Legal Aid is a non-profit that provides free legal services to low-income clients and seniors. (There are Legal Aid organizations in every state. If you're a fan of The Good Wife you might recall a recent appeal that she took over from Legal Aid. ) Andreea, LASO's pro-bono coordinator, was a very friendly, upbeat young woman. There are a bunch of options for areas of the law one can volunteer for, but the bottom line was that they are booked through the end of the year for volunteer opportunities. However, like the MAP program, all involve some initial self-training, so I can do that over the next few weeks.

In any case, Andreea was adamant that we should pick one area to start with. The greatest need is for domestic violence cases, so maybe I'll start there… Which will mean a visit to the Multnomah County Courthouse to observe some hearings. (Coincidentally, we've had four separate instances of domestic murder/suicide in the area over the last few weeks in which twelve people died and two children were left orphaned.)

Friday I spent the day at a CLE called "Solo by Choice", which is the title of a book by the featured speaker, Carolyn Elefant. She herself "went solo" by default rather than choice after the partners at her firm informed her she was not on "the partner track". I can't think why; she's one of those people who can talk very fast without a break seemingly indefinitely. Maybe they were intimidated? Of course, by afternoon it started to be kind of overwhelming. I noticed laptops starting to appear and a man in front of me – in the FRONT ROW – ostentatiously pulled out his copy of The Oregonian newspaper and started reading it.

Nevertheless, the liveliest discussion of the day was in the afternoon, and it was about creating an internet presence for marketing purposes. A majority of the hundred people attending were younger, but there was a sizable number of older men, and by older I mean older than me. I'm guessing they were mostly recent retirees who want to keep working part time.

One participant opined that no one over 40 does social networking. Another man complained that his son had set up a facebook account for him, but then he had no clue what to do with it, futher lamenting, "and the next time I logged on I had 13 friends and I didn't know any of them! " That got a laugh. Another woman had friended some clients on facebook, and they'd started posting personal anecdotes and photos to her page. Advice given included: hire a high-school student to help you…

But the high point for me personally came during the lunch-time Solo Section business meeting. I was elected to the board! And all it took was a momentary loss of impulse-control. They had a vacancy and needed a volunteer … But seriously, they seemed like a pretty cool group, so it seemed like it would be fun, not to mention that I'm a policy wonk at heart, and they do lobby the bar on behalf of solo practitioners. I gather the big firms tend to suck all the oxygen out of policy discussions in the OSB. (The other new member had accidentally wandered into last month's board meeting thinking it was a CLE and was asked to join! Stay tuned for tales of free donuts.

Hey, nobody said I had to join the military!

There were no outstanding local news stories this week, but I did run across this tale from 2006 while looking for pictures for this blog:

The Cat who Crossed the Border
By Amir Kidon, August 2006

An unusual sight was seen a few days ago, with the exit of Paratrooper Brigade forces from Lebanon: one of the brigade reserve soldiers was carrying, along with all his heavy equipment and weapon, a white kitten. "On the way back to Israeli territory we passed through the village of Kauzer," said the soldier, "and all of a sudden I saw a kitten coming out of one of the houses. After a few seconds I realized it is wounded and that its hearing has been hurt. I picked it up and carried it for six kilometers, until we reached Israeli territory. I decided it deserves a better future. After all, it is not its fault that war broke out." The first thing the cat and its new owner did after having crossed the border into Israeli territory was to share IDF military canned meat. The cat was named Kauzer by its new owner.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=soldier+cat&FORM=I0IR8#focal=c1eccfaeaa653e0bf3f4313dc0d20a7d&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.flickr.com%2F67%2F221121177_4def7f1208.jpg

How cool is that? Hope you all enjoyed. Have a great week! Okay, one more pic...

I GOT YOUR BACKS, DUDES!

Greetings, all. First, to recap for anyone who missed last week's blog, I'm trying to get started in my new (third) career in the law. This will involved a few different approaches, but two biggies are taking CLE (Continuing Legal Education) seminars and signing up for pro bono work (i.e., volunteering).

CLE of the week

I did an interesting CLE on Friday morning. It was about creating age-appropriate child custody plans. The guy who taught it has a Ph.D. in forensic science, but his "day job" is doing evaluations of families with children in divorce proceedings. Don't ask me how he got from forensics into being a national expert on child custody, but he has published a bunch of books about it. He lives in Arizona and practices there and a lot in some of the wealthier parts of Southern California, like Marin County.

Don't get me wrong, he seems like a cool guy. Plus he talked about research a lot, which made this Ph.D.- scientist feel right at home, if not slightly smug. And it wasn't just lawyers attending. There were also social workers, some professional mediators, and a smattering of judges. For some reason the mediators were all sitting in the front in a cluster, and the judges were all huddled in the back. (Btw, Mediators are people who get paid to try to get people to agree on a solution without having to go to court. Lawyers can be mediators, but mediators don't have to be lawyers.)

MEDIATOR CAT:

A lot of it was common sense, but he did talk about some interesting research results. For example, if you look at conflict between parents during the marriage versus after the divorce, the worst outcomes (i.e., school performance, getting arrested, social life) are among kids where conflict levels are high in both. Second worst … can you guess? (I got this right when he asked. ) It's in the Low-High group. The Low-Low and High-Low groups did about the same. Another interesting factoid: the rate of "problem outcomes" in the general population of children is about 10-15%. Among children of divorced parents, it's only 20-25%, so not that much higher. His point in telling us this was that some of the people doing this research talk about divorce as if it was a terminal disease that the kids would never recover from. Also interesting was a study that concluded kids whose parents shared custody were no worse off than the general population.

Another nice thing about this CLE was that it was held in the Ecotrust Building, which is a cool quintessentially Portland, OR building downtown that you can read about here.

Pro Bono Report

I wish I had more substantial progress to report on this front, but I did contact some of the organizations I mentioned last week, and am waiting for the gears to crank. I won't bore you with the details, but some phone-tag and numerous bounced emails were involved. I am not spam! Meanwhile, here are a few more organizations/opportunities I'll be pursuing this week.

WaterWatch of Oregon Opportunity to advocate for restoration of streams and rivers in Administrative proceedings. (Administrative courts are kind of pseudo-courts within agencies, like Social Security or Disability. Some con-law purists think they're unconstitutional because the agencies are part of the Executive Branch! (Your legal factoid of the week. It's a separation-of-powers thing.)

Multnomah County Courthouse Mediation Program While we're talkin' about mediation … this one lets you mediate "small claims" and land-lord – tenant disputes. I can't tell from the listing if they require you to have your own insurance though, so stay tuned. "Small claims" in this State currently means it involves less than $7500 if I recall correctly. In practical terms, it means a simpler procedure anyone can do themselves that doesn't involve a lawyer. I myself once had to file a small claim against a deadbeat housemate … That was a long time ago, though.

Mercy Corp NW This is a very cool organization that does a lot of international relief work. They just opened a new downtown HQ building. The pro bono work involves giving legal assistance to low-income micro-entrepreneurs and small business owners. (Hey, I want to be one of those, maybe! )

Thanks for reading. Hope it was interesante.

And now, for some local color:

Cannabis Cafe opens in Portland

Oregon opened another chapter in U.S. marijuana history when at 4:20 p.m. Friday, about three dozen people christened the nation's first cafe for licensed residents to sit down, sip coffee and smoke marijuana. "Welcome to a place of our own," said Madeline Martinez, a leader in the state's medical marijuana movement and the leading force pushing to open the Cannabis Cafe in Portland. "Welcome to freedom."

Excited patrons spilled down the outside steps at 700 N.E. Dekum St. as the cafe prepared to open at the appointed hour -- "420" being slang for using marijuana. In line were military veterans, grandmothers, young workers, men and women, old and young, black, white and Latino.

Gordon Cederholm, 45, of Milwaukie has lived with HIV for 25 years and said he was skeptical about using marijuana as medicine when he got his Oregon card less than a year ago. "At first, I thought: What does being a pothead have to do with it?'" he said. "I didn't know the benefits in marijuana. Now, I find that I'm a better person when I smoke."

Kris Koa, 57, a retired nurse from Gresham, rode the bus from home to see the cafe for herself. She has been using medical marijuana for fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Jars of donated pot line the shelves behind the bar at the Cannabis Cafe, waiting to be smoked by licensed users. Oregon law says medical marijuana may not be sold. This cafe means I now have the freedom to take my own health into my own hands," she said. "This is just the most fabulous thing to happen."

The cafe, in the space that once featured Rumpspankers restaurant, looks like nearly every other coffeehouse in town, except that shiny silver Volcano vaporizers are plugged into outlets lining the tiled bar. Wi-Fi is available. Coffee, soft drinks, trays of Marsee Bakery pastries and sandwiches are also offered as ammunition against the inevitable attack of the munchies.

The only people permitted in the Cannabis Cafe are those licensed to smoke who also hold membership in the lobbying groupOregon NORML. Patrons will be charged $5 a day. They can bring their own or smoke donated marijuana. Oregon law says medical marijuana may not be sold.

Before the opening, Martinez unloaded a large box with a dozen jelly jars full of marijuana of various strains that had been donated to the cafe. She opened one jar and held it out for a sniff; the contents smelled sweet, even fruity. "It's called Blueberry," Martinez said, smiling. "It's really good for pain."

The cafe had long been a dream of Martinez, executive director of Oregon's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But long-standing fears of federal arrest "kept us ostracized and turned us into criminals just for using our medicine." Then last month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that authorities would no longer prosecute licensed users in the 13 states with medical-marijuana programs. Oregon's 10-year-old program is the second in the nation, after California's.

Giving heart to smokers this week was the American Medical Association's change of position on marijuana: Having proclaimed for years that it had no medicinal value, the AMA instead said marijuana does have benefits that warrant further study. In Oregon, more than 23,000 people hold medical-marijuana cards and another 14,000 are registered as caregivers or growers. The overwhelming majority of patients are treating chronic severe pain.

For about a year, Oregon NORML has hosted twice-monthly meetings of cardholders on the second floor of the Northeast Dekum Street building. Eric and Shelly Solomon, who ran the now-closed Rumpspankers, offered the downstairs restaurant space for the cafe.

After last week's announcement of the cafe's opening, the neighbors in the Woodlawn neighborhood weren't happy. At a crowded neighborhood association meeting, people complained, among other things, that they could smell smoke from the meetings. Martinez promised to install air filters.

Friday afternoon, patients made themselves comfortable on the soft furniture. "Budtenders" at the bar ground up small portions of marijuana for the vaporizers. A cafe volunteer went to the cafe's front door and opened it for a woman in a wheelchair.

Hey, looks like that mediation was successful!