About thirty years ago, when I was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I took an environmental law class. At the end of the class we had to write a brief and present it to a panel of volunteer judges in a real courtroom. The judges awarded students first, second, third place for the best briefs, and I had an honorable mention--for being clever.
The case we had to argue was a real one from our environmental law book--a developer had proposed a housing development in the Central Valley, and a raptor center had challenged it on various environmental and CEQA grounds. Our instructor was also clever--he assigned which side of the case we were to argue based on our opposite inclinations. Since I probably exhibited signs of populism, caring about good governance, and prioritizing environmental and people protection over developers making money at public expense, I was assigned the developer's side of the case to argue.
This put me in a difficult position. In a real job, I just would have rejected it--frankly, I felt the developer's case sucked. I saw no way to win, or even argue that side with a straight face. But as a student, I couldn't say no. I had to do it somehow.
Then I had an idea.
