I’m super excited about the 2023-24 academic year because the classes I’ll be teaching are, IMHO, The Ninja Lawyer’s Tookit.

Threshold question: What’s a Ninja Lawyer?

A Ninja Lawyer is an undercover disruptor.

By day, she appears conventional enough. Arrives dutifully by nine, returns phone calls promptly and courteously, timely complies with court deadlines.

Heck, she may even drive a Volvo.

But don’t be fooled. Beneath that beige wardrobe lies the heart of a warrior.

She knows the executive branch has long since grown beyond the Framers’ wildest imaginings (she has sources). Aware of that awesome and dangerous power, she has all circuits trained to monitor for novel incursions into her clients’ lives. And when that happens, she’ll be waiting - armed with tools developed by the most daring advocates, defending the values that she and her clients believe in.

She knows that Congress has long since grown intractably contentious and cantankerous. No longer content to wait for our elected officials to save the day, she is developing methods - using markets or the power of collective altruism or both - to right wrongs.

She knows the judicial system is a farce unless everyone, regardless of status or means, has a chance to be heard within it. She will be waiting on the courthouse steps, armed with a cup of Starbucks and a ferocious knowledge, to ensure that a search light is pointed in the direction of Justice.

Elements of the Ninja Lawyer’s Toolkit

I’m teaching three courses this year - all of them engineered to arm any lawyer with the fundamental Ninja Lawyer tools:

1. Administrative Law. “Sounds boring,” Gary said when I told him. Many a law student (including me) has formerly said the same. But Administrative Law is the Ninja Laywer’s secret weapon to face off against the dragon of the overreaching executive branch. Pick your poison: whether it’s the Democrats, the Republicans, or the whole lot of them that you or your clients would beat back, the highly skilled administrative lawyer is like James Bond, stealthily and coolly appearing just in the nick of time.

2. The Entrepreneurship Method for Lawyers. Is there anyone, of any political persuasion, who still has confidence in Congress to arrive at meaningful solutions to our social and economic ills? The entrepreneurial lawyer doesn’t wait: Rather than letting Mark Cuban have all the fun, she is armed with an understanding of the methods and mindset that have created, and then transformed, industries, and she is beginning to wield them to create private solutions to pressing public problems.

3. The Law Clinic. This is her laboratory, where she assembles her tools with her trusty adversaries and plans her campaign of Creative Disruption. In our case the point of entry will be the immigration system (which literally no one - even members of Congress - has any confidence in), but others will exploit breaches in other systems, such as child protection or low-income taxpayer services, and implement their strategies.

Creative Disruption

Of course, underlying all of these weapons, the Ninja Lawyer has an unshakable ethical code: Hers is always, first and foremost, a Creative Disruption. She seeks not to destroy but to create.

To be Creative, disruption must work with (if not always within) the system - exploiting its unguarded entrances but never simply demolishing the structure.

Thus, she carefully guards the line between Disruption and Anarchy - that’s what makes her not simply a renegade but THE NNJA LAWYER.