Blackberryheads at Ethics CLEs

Is it ethical to claim CLE credit for a talk on legal ethics if you've spent nearly the entire time a captive of your Blackberry? Or laptop? Or editing a brief? Or reading a book on your iPad? But I want to address the Blackberry especially. 

For one thing, it's so OBVIOUS when a Blackberry has consumed a person's entire attention, as though the Blackberry were a powerful magnet and her head made of metal.

 In NYC, people stop in the middle of crowded pedestrian sidewalks to stare down at Blackberries as if the whole world had melted away. No matter the interference with others.

At ethics CLEs, the same. There you are (I am) speaking on topics you've (I've) carefully planned, making an effort to be interesting and helpful, advancing your (my) slides, telling weak jokes, and 4, 5, 6 lawyers in the audience are engrossed in their Blackberries. Some right in front of you. In front of you! It's as though an alien force has hypnotized them into an automaton stage. 

Then the Blackberryheads claim 2 hours of ethics CLE credit. Is that right?

You think: No one stares into his or her Blackberry the WHOLE time. Well, maybe not but many seem to feel compelled to  check, every 15 minutes. Who knows? The world might need them RIGHT NOW. 

Should we deduct from their CLE credit a good faith estimate of the time spent Spellbound By Blackberry? 

I've thought of saying Blackberries must be checked at the door. Some law firms do this for CLEs. More should. All should. No one is THAT important.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

This seems a fairly easy conclusion to reach, but of course the behavior is symptomatic of a wider and deeper socio-cultural and psychological (if not spiritual) problem having to do with the disturbing inability of many folks to pay ATTENTION, to focus, to concentrate, to overcome fragmented and episodic states of consciousness, and so forth and so on.

[Andrew Perlman]

A similar, and more difficult, problem arises in the context of CLE programs that are webcasted or streamed. In these cases, lawyers can watch the programs at their desks, making it nearly impossible to monitor whether they are paying attention. Of course, lawyers often have to affirm that they have paid attention, and it would be perverse to lie on such an affirmation after an ethics program. Nevertheless, I know that it happens. Is the solution to require live attendance at a CLE program and (as you say, Stephen), have people check their Blackberries at the door? Does any state require live attendance?

[Alice Woolley]

I think Blackberries simply make facially apparent that which would always have been true - some people are simply not going to be engaged with lectures. It may be for a variety of reasons, attention deficit issues, the topic is boring, they're worried about something else in their lives or what have you. The focus on the blackberry may not be egotism run amock (I'm *so* important) but may be anxiety or fear or depression or any number of things. I think it is a mistake to get into some kind of moral judgment on their inattention per se, and with respect to the credit for the CLE, unless you're going to get the people whose minds are wholly elsewhere while they sit with apparent attentiveness there's not much you can do (and, speaking for myself, my physical presence does not indicate my mental state - in high school one favourite strategy was to write a letter to a friend so it would look like I was assiduously taking notes while I wasn't listening to a word being said; I have different strategies now but would faculty meetings be tolerable if one had to pay rapt attention to all things?).

My issue with the blackberries, or wireless internet use in class, is far more the effect it has on me as a lecturer. I think it is rude, and distracting, and that's why I "ban" internet use, cellphones and blackberries in class. When I get called on paternalism I reply quite honestly that my motives are quite selfish - when I see them smiling or silently laughing when, say, I'm talking about the Alton Logan case, it makes me lose my focus, and I can't stand it.

One final point. I think the issue here is a more fundamental one. CLE controls content and delivery. It does not assess receipt or comprehension of the content delivered. To do that you need some incentive to encourage learning. And I think probably that means testing of some kind. I doubt there is much appetite for that.

[Joe]

I've gotten increasingly frustrated with how attached to their mobile devices people are these days. It's particularly frustrating trying to make it through a nice dinner without having the other person checking their phone every few minutes. Whatever happened to turning the phone off for a few hours?

[Wick R. Chambers]

No.

[Jack Marshall]

100% correct, Prof. Gillers. Certifying that one has completed a CLE ethics requirement when one has been doing other things---perhaps even billing for them--is unethical. I have confronted CLE participants reading newspapers during my ethicspresentations, and told them either to drop the paper or leave(with a refund, of course) the room. I will do the same if I see someone glued to a Blackberry. We shouldn't have to confiscate the devices--can't we insist on courtesy, diligence, and honor?

[Richard Painter]

Law students do the same thing with their computers during class - sports scores, news, email, and more . . . . I told my students in securities regulation class not to use their computers for other purposes, and then just last week they learned in the news about the porn sites visited by the Commission's staff during working hours. It all makes the profession look quite bad.