Hugh Hansen's
One Thing After Another Blog

IP, Con Law and Other Things

Wednesday, August 14, 2013



          I have been thinking about writing a blog for a long time.  The idea fits well with one of my youthful career goals – becoming a newspaper columnist -- which arose chronologically somewhere in the midst of major League shortstop, novelist, and high school history teacher (combined if possible with high school baseball & soccer coach).     
I was actually “this close” to starting a blog about 15 -20 years ago.  A student who had been quiet up until then came up to me after class and said that it was important that I have an online presence – maybe a “zine” or diary.  He had even decided to help me along.  Amazingly, before even speaking with me he had bought the domain name, hughhansen.com, and had programmed and formatted the website himself.  He created various pages for it that had Latin-like filler text waiting for me to come along and replace it with my own.  But much to my regret, this extraordinary opportunity was never realized.  I hesitated too long and finally lost contact with him.  It was early days, preblogospheric, and I did not know anyone who had a zine or anything else like it, or who could technically create one.  Nevertheless, the idea remained in the back of my mind.
                So why did it take so long to start?   One reason is that I have trouble organizing my life, especially where there is a technical component.  Another reason is that I wondered whether I would have the time to do it properly.  Today, I still have problems organizing my life and I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the time to do it properly.   Nevertheless, I asked myself, “if not now, when?”  “Never” crossed my mind, but then in rapid succession so did “never say never,”  “nothing ventured nothing gained,” and finally, “perhaps I should try Twitter.”   Indeed, for a while tweets seemed to satisfy my need to set the world straight.  But soon I ended up having ideas, too long, complex and brilliant for 140 characters, which began spilling over into the custom-made tweet basin that I use. 
                Finally, I no longer could avoid what destiny clearly had in mind for me: “Hugh Hansen’s One Thing After Another Blog.”

Why this Name? 
“One Thing After Another” was the title of a Canadian newspaper column, and of a book that collected them in 1948. The author was Charles Bothwell Pyper, known to the world as C.B. Pyper but to me as Uncle Charley. He was my great uncle, my grandmother’s brother.  He was born in Belfast, moved to Canada at an early age, and drifted into journalism.  He served in the British Army during WWI and was seriously wounded.  Back in Canada he became an editorial writer and then a war correspondent covering the Spanish Civil War, the Russo-Finish War and then WWII “embedded” (to use a current term) with the Canadian army in Europe.  Sometime between the wars he was also a columnist.  He took on any and all topics, including the minutiae of day-to-day life in a self-deprecating, witty and insightful manner.  One review called the book a “volume of brilliant essays” and another stated that Pyper had been hiding his “literary light under an editorial bushel in a newspaper office.”  My uncle’s sense of humor, insight and wit remind me of Mark Twain.  I think if he had been writing in the U.S. he would have been recognized as a leading writer and columnist.   
One Thing After Another was the first adult book I read.  I was tremendously impressed with it and still am.  To this day my uncle remains an inspiration.   So naturally I would want to name my blog after his column.   The name also fits because my posts will be on relatively diverse topics like his columns. I added “Hugh Hansen’s  . . . blog” to the name to distinguish it from yet another “One Thing After Another . . .”, an online “diary about two lads and Eddie the dog” which seems to focus on recipes, pictures of the actual cooking and delicious-looking results.

What Will it Cover?
Most blogs seem to focus on one subject matter or area.  This is particularly true for those dealing with law.  This format makes sense.  For instance, lawyers and academics tend to specialize, and have little time for material outside of their areas.  Nonetheless, I intend to post things in a number of areas: IP law, some con law, other legal topics, and also a number of non-legal topics.  Readers of course can pick and choose what they want to read.
With regard to the law, I am a legal realist (lower case) and will be looking beyond, beneath and inside the doctrine in cases.  I will try to determine if something other than statutory language or case law might have driven a result.  To what extent will a holding in a case act as a binding precedent even for the same judge or judges in the future?  Similarly, how might other judges in the same or other circuits view the case, and to what extent might they follow it?  As you probably perceive, I am a stare decisis skeptic.
Also, I will be sharing my views on aspects of federal practice, particularly with regard to litigation.  I have been lucky to have observed many trials and appeals as a law clerk in the S.D.N.Y. and Second Circuit. I have been a litigation associate in a large law firm, tried a number of cases as an AUSA, consulted on cases here and abroad, and have analyzed countless cases as a teacher deconstructing what went wrong or right.  It would be unfortunate if I hadn't learned something from all of this.

Conclusion.
I am glad to finally start a blog.  I plan to have fun and hopefully produce something for readers to think about, whether they agree or disagree with it. I welcome comments but please remember, I am a sensitive lad.

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