The Chronicles of a Capitalist Lawyer

Welcome to the second episode of Legal Analysis Tool Kit Series! Our today's discussion will focus on the concept of Baseline or to put it in a simple way: where should we start before we can impose a law or policy? The concept of Baseline is an interesting one because it deals with the fundamental issue of the original position of certain rights or obligations. Let me give you an example: In Indonesia, we have regulations on minimum wage for workers. Suppose that someone goes to the Constitutional Court and demand that such law should be annulled on the basis that it contravenes his constitutional rights of freedom to work (Article 28 D (2) of the Constitution). The basis of the claim? A company rejects him from a working position because it isn't able to pay him the minimum wage and therefore the company refuses to accept him. This is a hypothetical case since I haven't  done or read any research on the actual relationship of minimum wages and the companies' willing

Islamic Law is one of my most cherished fields as a lawyer and during my 10 years experience in the art of law, I have done a lot of research and read hundreds of books on Islamic law. Nevertheless, until today, I have not found a general theory of Islamic law that can answer these ultimate questions in a satisfactory way: Are Islamic laws (specifically those stated in the Koran and Hadith) opened to any changes in the society? Should Islamic laws be applied as they are, without any consideration of the situation and condition? Suppose they can be changed in accordance with the situation and condition, what part of the laws that are immutable and those that can be considered as changeable? Are there any consistent methods of interpretation to be used in applying Islamic laws in accordance with the situation and condition? In reality, there is no unity in the application of Islamic law in any part of this world except for certain undisputable items such as syahadat as the first req

Here is a rather gloomy article on the future of lawyering. I would say that while some US and UK law firms might face serious problems, the same thing is not happening in Indonesia, or rather, not happening yet. Will it someday happen? Might be, but I doubt that it will be soon. The main issues raised in this article are among others: globalization (i.e. legal outsourcing), super expensive bills, and technology innovation that might reduce lawyers' administrative work. Compared to Indonesia, all of these issues are not relevant. There is no incentive in Indonesia to do a legal outsourcing, especially to India, simply because the costs might be very similar. Expensive bills might be a case, but for most of foreign and local clients, Indonesian firm bills are still cheaper compared to international law firms (in terms of sophisticated projects) and surely Indonesian firms have a better understanding about Indonesian law in any case. Technological innovation? Yes it will help la

A very good source on various articles on Tort Law. I am still confused though, should we elaborate Tort Law based on the concept of justice or this is simply about pure economic matters? Hopefully you can find the answer in the articles listed there. Happy reading.

Here is an interesting article on coordination among government officials. Apparently, the United States faces the same problem with Indonesia, a lack of coordination between officials. I guess this is the problem when we have too many regulators. Some classical legal scholars argue that there are 3 pillars of a government: (i) the legislative (the house of representatives), (ii) the executive (the president), and (iii) the judicial authority (the court). However in this modern world, we need to add another pillar of government, the quasi-regulator a.k.a government agencies. Some examples in Indonesia: the Capital Market and Financial Institutions Supervisory Agency (Bapepam-LK) and the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM). Not to mention that specific ministries also have authorities to issue technical implementing regulations. The Ministry of Communication and Informatics could be a good example as this ministry governs many important sectors such as broadcasting and telecommunicati

A couple of days ago I found this interesting article in Cafe Salemba. Their basic idea is that competition among law enforcers in fighting corruption, i.e. the Commission of Corruption Eradication ("KPK") and the General Attorney Office ("Kejaksaan") is good as it will increase the cost of bribery and the efficiency of the law enforcers. I beg to differ with this approach, since this will only work under 2 basic assumptions: (i) both law enforcers work in a professional and clean manner or both take bribes seriously; and (ii) cases can be easily transferred between law enforcers (though it seems impossible under the double jeopardy rule). Why do we need the above assumptions in order to ensure that the competition system will work? Because if not, one of the law enforcers can act as a save haven for the bad guys simply by guaranteeing the villains that their bribe will work and that they will be protected from the other law enforcer who don't receive an

From all the existing theories in the world, I bet conspiracy theories are the most long lasting ones. But why? Why people love conspiracy theories so much? What's the effect of these conspiracy theories and how the government should deal with it? A short paper from Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule could give some hints to answer that. Download it here . According to them, one of the distinctive characteristics of conspiracy theories is their "self sealing" quality, meaning, c onspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. I begin to think that these conspiracy theorists are acting like religious fundamentalists, resistant to correction and living in denial :p. In any way, the case of conspiracy theories is pretty relevant for Indonesia. The paper argues that conspiracy theories are more powerful in societies with systematical malfunctioning o

I've just found this rather gloomy article accusing that some US law schools (mostly third and fourth tiers law schools) were tricking people to think that the super expensive tuition fee of those law schools is a good investment for their future, since in reality, many new law graduates later find out that they are succumbed to excessive amount of debt without any proper job to support the repayment. A pity indeed! Based on the data provided in this site and my own personal research, the general annual cost for studying at a US private university law school, whether it is a top tier or low tier one, is around US$65,000-US$70,000 (meaning that a law student needs to spend around US$200,000 to finish a 3 years JD course!). The cost can be cheaper though if it is a public university, but still, it's expensive from any point of view. If you are interested, you can see the data of various US law schools ranking here . With such huge amount of tuition fee and living expenses, n

I've just found an interesting case from the Supreme Court of the Unites States on whether corporations have the so called "personal privacy". You can review the opinion here and a brief commentary from the SCOTUS Blog here . Apparently, according to the Supreme Court, while in legal terms the word "person" may include corporations, the word "personal privacy" is not applicable for corporations since the word itself pertains to the privacy interest of individuals, it suggests a type of privacy evocative of human concerns, and this is not the sort usually associated with an entity like corporations. To put it simply, can you actually hurt the feeling of a corporation? The case itself is about the request from a US trade organization asking the US Federal Communications Commission to disclose information related to its investigation upon AT&T on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act (" FOIA "). The request was rejected due to so