The Washington Post is reporting on a plagiarizing law prof who the White House recently nominated to be a federal judge. The George Mason prof, Michael O’Neill (BYU-Yale), claims that his use of materials without attribution was inadvertent and the result of carelessly copying and pasting from his notes. Regardless of whether the plagiarism was an accident, it was serious enough for him to withdraw his coveted tenure position with George Mason. And despite all of this, both he and Arlen Specter still think he should have a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. O’Neill says that he has to “own up to [his plagiarism]” but that it’s nothing “to kill somebody’s career for.” Right.
Students, what would happen to us if we had “inadvertently” plagiarized significant portions of our appellate briefs last year? What kind of grade do you think Michael O’Neill would give you if you “inadvertently” plagiarized a large portion of your final paper? I can guarantee that justice would be swift and harsh.
Was anyone else shaking in their chair at orientation when we got that ethics presentation? I think it went something like, “If you ever got a $20 parking ticket and you didn’t disclose it to us you will never be accepted to any bar and your career will be ruined and your wife will leave you and you might as well just kill yourself right now.” Or something.
Seriously, that ethics presentation was like Scared Straight! for doe-eyed law students. Aside from being terrified to ever use my copy/paste function again, I became convinced that I’d soon be an alcoholic and teeter on the brink of insanity and depression for the rest of my legal career.
On the one hand I agree with O’Neil. It seems silly that one mistake (of course, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that it was truly a mistake) should ruin your career. But that should go for law students as well as law professors. Like Sai, I left that orientation terrified that if I forgot to cite something I was never going to be a lawyer.
It seems interesting to me that there is such a strict standard in school that seems to dissipate once we get out into the legal community. One mistake shouldn’t end a career, but the legal profession seems to have let that slide to allow all sorts of almost unethical behavior proliferate. Maybe I believe too much of what I read or see on TV, but it seems like lawyers allow their clients to say known half truths, or perjure themselves and don’t always get disbarred.
I learned a lot from the Scared straight presentation. Like, lawyers are a lot of fun (read alcoholic). I also learned that you should cite everything… and my deans fellow paid dearly for it.
I’m not saying the dude should be disbarred, but come on. The blog world was up in arms that Justice Kennedy neglected to cite a military law that even the US Government’s brief missed. Wouldn’t “careless copying” by a judge cause trouble like this, or worse? Judges’ opinions become law–wouldn’t we want to avoid problems like that ahead of time if we can?
A federal judgeship is a highly coveted position, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that someone nominated for the job not have any “inadvertent” plagiarism on his record. This is especially true given how hard it is to get a judge off the bench for bad behavior; you basically have to murder someone to get impeached.
O’Neill says plagiarism shouldn’t be a career killer, but I doubt he’d hire a clerk with a boo-boo like that.
Also FYI, there’s a thread on this topic over at PrawfsBlawg.
Having looked at the material over at Prawfsblog and the NY Times (which you can link to through Prawfsblog) I think it’s important that this is not the first time O’Neill has done this. The NY Times mentions four previous occasions. Numerous professors and legal scholars also point out that the Journal didn’t correct the entry, but retracted it as a whole.
Since this wasn’t just one mistake, and the scope of the mistake seems to be pretty huge (i.e. not one or two missing cites), a judicial appointment is not really the right move.
Another question this leaves unanswered is why would a politically weak, lame duck president even attempt this crap?