Month: June 2017

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Opening Arguments - OA75: Opening Arguments Über Alles (Understanding Non-Compete Clauses)

In this freewheeling episode, Andrew walks through a recent decision in California regarding a key employee who worked on self-driving cars and was recruited by a competitor. First, however, the guys talk about Episode #73's discussion with Travis Wester and what lessons hopefully we all can take away from it, including answering a listener question from Lyman Smith on how to go about finding primary sources. Next, the guys discuss "Mr. Met" and the doctrines of factual and legal impossibility.  Can a four-fingered mascot really give anyone the "middle" finger?? In the main segment, Andrew breaks down the recent federal court opinion in California enjoining a former Waymo employee from working on Uber's self-driving car program, and along the way highlights the differences between non-compete clauses, non-solicitation clauses, and trade secrets. After that, Andrew tells a fun story in answering a listener question from Michael Grace regarding the craziest legal argument Andrew's ever heard. Finally, we end with the answer to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam question #26 about composite sketches inspired by dead witnesses.  We'll release a new #TTTBE question this Friday, and, as always, answer that question the following Tuesday.  Don't forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s), and don't forget that patrons who support us at any level get early access to the answers (and usually a fun post analyzing the question in more detail). Recent Appearances: None!  Have us on your show! Show Notes & Links
  1. Here's the Tweet from Darren Rovell that inspired our "A" segment.
  2. ..and here's the link to the Wikipedia entry on the Impossibility defense, as a good exercise in finding primary sources.
  3. This is the New York Times article about the Waymo lawsuit; and the actual lawsuit can be found here.
  4. Finally, you can revisit our lengthy discussion with Travis Wester in Episode #73 by clicking here.
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Pod Save America - “Some kind of decline.”

Trump responds to terrorism in London by attacking the city’s mayor and his own Justice Department, while Capitol Hill prepares for The Comey Show. Then, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) talks to Jon, Jon, and Tommy about a progressive foreign policy and how politicians can talk like normal human beings, and Pod Save the People’s DeRay Mckesson joins to preview this week’s episode.

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS More or Less: Samba, strings and the story of HIV

Trumpets are blasting in this week?s musical episode. But can medical statistics be transformed into a jazzy night out? That was the challenge which epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani set for composer Tony Haynes. This June, his Grand Union Orchestra will be performing Song of Contagion, an evening of steel pans, saxophones and singers telling the story of diseases including Zika and AIDs.

We met Elizabeth and Tony in an East London music studio, to hear Song of Contagion come together for the very first time.

Producer: Hannah Sander

(Photo: Detail close up of French Horn musical instrument, part of the Brass family of instruments. Credit: Shutterstock)

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World Book Club - Jeffrey Archer – Kane and Abel

This month World Book Club is in the BBC Radio Theatre and is talking to one of the most popular and widely read British novelists, Jeffrey Archer, about his stunningly successful novel Kane and Abel.

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless Polish immigrant are two ambitious men born on the same day on opposite sides of the world.

Their paths are destined to cross in the ruthless struggle to build a fortune and an empire. Fuelled by their all-consuming hatred for one another, over 60 years and three generations, through war, marriage, fortune, and disaster, Kane and Abel battle for the success and triumph that only one man can have.

(Photo: Jeffrey Archer and Mary Archer attend the press night of Photograph 51, 2015, London. Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

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Start the Week - Inventing the Self: Fact and Fiction

On Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores where truth ends and invention begins in the story of the self. The theatre director Robert Lepage has spent decades creating other worlds on stage; now his one-man show recreates his childhood home in 1960s Quebec, with truth at the mercy of memory. Rebecca Stott has written the story of her family that her father left unfinished, including the Christian cult that inspired their devotion, until doubt led them astray. Miranda Doyle casts doubt on the veracity of memoir itself, by writing a series of lies to get at the truth of her family story. Andrew O'Hagan has examined three lives existing more fully online than offline: the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; the fabled inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto and 'Ronald Pinn'- an experiment in identity theft that disrupts the very notion of the self. Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: Robert Lepage on stage in 887 by Ex Machina/ Robert Lepage Photographer: Eric Labbé.