Balkinization: Some Thoughts on Leaving Office

Some Thoughts on Leaving Office

Michael Stokes Paulsen

Today was my last day as a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. (Tomorrow is my first at University of St. Thomas School of Law, across town.) It's been a great run of sixteen years. Sixteen! Fully one-third of my life. The equivalent of four presidential terms. Eight times longer than I've held any other job.

It is hard to clean out an office after sixteen years. So much accumulated paper! I'd moved offices once, within the building, a few years ago, when the addition was built. I decided to move over to what I affectionately call the Mondale Extreme Left Wing. In making that move, I probably threw away one-third of what I'd accumulated. But that barely made a dent. This time I had to be ruthless.

In an on-line world, it should be easier to throw things away. You can always get a fresh copy pretty quickly. Give me a laptop and a place to stand, and I will move the world. I wrote a large note to myself and taped it to my bookshelf. "Do I Really Need It?" It helped me to pare down more vigorously.

Maybe too vigorously. I apologize to all those who've sent me reprints of their law review articles over the years. I finally parted with a lot of them this past week. (Don't worry, though; I'm sure I kept yours, because of its significance and deep personal value.) I looked at them all again, quickly, to remind myself of what they were about. I think that's the real purpose of reprints these days -- notification of a new publication. Glance, consider, familiarize. Sometimes save and read. File. Recall and search on-line when you really need to read it.

Still, when it comes to reading articles, I'd much rather sit and read a nice, pretty reprint than print something out onto 8 by 11 inch sheets of paper, killing several trees. And I 've never made it through an entire article on a computer screen. So, keep sending them. I'll accumulate them for the next sixteen years or so, in my new office at St. Thomas.

I sent out a couple of years worth of reprints of my own, today. I've become slovenly about sending them out in a timely fashion. But today they head out the door (along with me). In part, I just didn't want to schlep them. In part, they went nicely with a change-of-address letter. My reprint list is badly outdated, compiled seven secretaries ago. (I am not kidding.) Your copies were probably sent to your place of employment six years ago. (Didn't that guy move from Chicago to Harvard? Texas to Michigan? The Fourth Circuit to a GC job in Chicago?)

Maybe someone will keep and read one or two of the shorter articles. Or just notice and file. A Minnesota colleague mused that, when he sends out reprints, he wonders if it wouldn't be nice to include a handy disposal bag right along with them.

Throwing away books is considerably harder. It feels somewhat immoral. I bequeathed some. I donated some. But what about old editions of casebooks, no longer needed, and filled with my personal highlighting and margin scribbles? What about old editions of casebooks from when I was a law student, no longer of sentimental or intellectual value sufficient to lift into a box and transport across town? Who would want those, anyway? And aren't they sort of, well, personal? I designated those few for trash.

I saw them rolling away on a book cart the next day. I protested and explained. No, no, no, the library wants them. Don't worry, they won't go on the shelves or anything. They go into this storage room. The library just wants them for their book count. It's relevant to U.S. News rankings and all.

I smiled. There are some games I'm just not that interested in playing. But if others want to, that's fine.

Posted 11:12 PM by Michael Stokes Paulsen [link]

Comments:

Good luck on the new job (thanks for allowing comments too ; )

# posted by

Charles : 12:22 AM

That was just a quality piece of writing. You made something that I thought I couldn't possibly care about -- someone else clearing out their office -- interesting and amusing.

Anyhow, felt like saying something re: the comments/Prof Lederman "issue". I can't say that I totally disagree with him. I almost never post comments on *his* posts mostly because I don't feel I know enough about what he usually writes about to add anything interesting. I think that this segueways into the problems Prof Lederman alludes to. Intellectual diarrhea to draw an evocative parallel. That is, people who clearly are working with a deficit of knowledge but still feel the need to say *something.* There are also those who -- I can't tell -- are either law/grad students who just got done reading Wittgenstein (or something along those lines) and drone on and on using academic jargon without making any real point. These posters forgot that the (ostensible) density doesn't equal sophistication in communicating ideas. Finally, there are those who just make partisan comments; the morally self-righteous type who think that only a political moron could possibly disagree with them. There are both liberals and conservatives that make posts like this.

Caveat: I'm not trying to be high-handed or pompous. These are just tendencies I've noticed and I think Prof Lederman's (and Charles's comment) offer an opportunity to talk about this Balkinization *issue*. This comes from a good place. Other than my gmail and the NY Times (it's my homepage), i check this site more than any other. I'd love to hear other's thoughts on Prof Lederman's comments.

(it's too late to proof this, sorry for the inevitable typos)

# posted by

Calvin TerBeek : 1:19 AM

Yes, thanks for leaving comments on.

I look forward to reading a productive, even if sometimes polarized, comment thread about the virtues and sins of accumulating office detritus.

Still, the large note's message ("Do I really need it?") is one that is certainly pertinent to the current clime on the site. Can't we do without comments that simply clutter up the place, providing nothing approaching enlightenment? Can't we preserve the original post in its reprint-like beauty, austere and unencumbered with the words and off-topic ranting of so-called guests?

Surely we can, even if that means that ultimately our original post devolves from a potentially interactive discussion to the one-way utterance on a computer screen that no one manages to read in its entirety. Stripped of the ability to interact, the post may become a mere notification of a new thought, one that invites even less reaction to respond than the stack of reprints gathering dust on our shelves.

Sure, there's always email, but why attend a lecture and wait to talk after class when you can participate in a seminar?

However, I'm straying off topic. The large note was speaking to people like me: do I really need to post this? No, probably not. I should move out of the way for a proper discussion of libraries and special collections, or a heated argument about the proper storage techniques for a two decade old casebook filled with the ramblings of an excitable youth.

Thank you, large note! May your wisdom spread far and wide, may you make the trip across town without incident, and may you begin your all-too-important job once again.

That is, if the US News rankings have spared you from a fate worse than death: storage.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 1:51 AM

Surely what you refer to as "trash" was recyclable material, was it not? In our town and at our school, virtually everything is recyclable (even those things designated hazardous: old computers, TVs, electronic devices of some sort, etc. can be dropped off for recycling [not that this should suffice to cleanse the conscience of those who continue to conspicuously consume]).

That said, all the best with your new position.

# posted by

Patrick S. O'Donnell : 8:56 AM

Professor Paulsen: (Don't worry, though; I'm sure I kept yours, because of its significance and deep personal value.)

Whew, I'm relieved! B^)

Thanks for a great read, and best of luck at the new gig.

In an on-line world, it should be easier to throw things away.

Turns out this is not the case. Oh, sure, it's easier to wipe out the contents of your hard drive, but the nigh-exponential increase in individual documents to be assessed on that "Do I Really Need It" criterion becomes so large that many, if not most, folks end up not only _not_ tossing junk, but not having the time to unload the truly obvious trash. Where storage space and difficulties of carting formerly drove the evaluation process now time spent in evaluation drives the process. And the rational actor often has better things to do with that time. (Like writing farewell letters to their old office and sharing them with appreciative blog readers.)

I 've never made it through an entire article on a computer screen.

Respectfully, a few minutes learning to diddle the controls of your web browser or Acrobat reader and you will be hooked for life. Users control font size! So you can, say, read a 185 page pdf of a SCOTUS decision, with the fonts turned up to an extra-comfortable size, and use that page down button like a madman, scanning better than on an old-school tachistoscope. Save trees, save time, save your eyes, and read more of the things you've been meaning to catch up on.

Peace.

# posted by

Robert Link : 10:14 AM

@ PMS

and you wonder why Prof Lederman turns off the comments . . . detritus is right . . .

# posted by

Calvin TerBeek : 10:59 AM

It took me some time to think about this. When I have left positions, I had to leave behind the accumulated of my work because it was tied in to the projects and cases that I had pursued at my employer. I brought with a contact list and a few publications, but everything else was tied in to that position at that company.

I could advise them to archive the data (for pending investigations); or to destroy it (when it was past time frames to retain sensitive data), but that was their decision, now, on how to handle it, not mine.

Kind of the reverse of when your children leave...you hope that they will do the right thing after you leave, and that you brought them up correctly, but when they leave, it's up to them....and then you get left with the detrititus of what they leave behind.

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# posted by

Unknown : 3:51 PM