The students' conference
Students can put on great conferences, with cool speakers, and seem especially sensitive to the idea that keeping a conference inexpensive matters. The Bay Area Law School Technology Conference this past weekend was one such; the general admission was only $25, yet the conference was well-organized, interesting, and even eligible for CLE credit. (I wonder how many CLE credits I've accumulated over the years. I was joking at the conference that one could do well financially if a CLE credit trading system were introduced along the lines of pollution credit trading.)
I enjoyed hearing Fred von Lohmann debate opposing counsel from Grokster first thing in the morning. (He had practice with this beforehand when C-SPAN put him up against former Solicitor General Ted Olson a couple of weeks ago.) I also enjoyed Aaron's performance when he was put on a panel between two conservatives (not, fortunately, between two thieves). The moderator of the panel was a ventriloquist, which suggests that, should Aaron ever have occasion to write a political autobiography, he would at least have the title Two Conservatives and a Ventriloquist available for his consideration. You can read the written version of his speech on his web site.
Maybe the most unusual thing at the conference was the opportunity to meet Bill Jolitz, co-author of 386BSD. He suggests that he's writing a book about the experience, which should be very interesting.
There was a fun discussion of EULAs in which Mark Lemley brought up the leather-winged demons of the night and the EULAs that not only prohibit criticism of a product but also claim the end-user's soul. He suggested that EULA practices are undermining important traditions of the law of contract formation and are likely to spoil contract law from within.
