Conventions – LAWYERS & LIQUOR

FurPlanet’s Furry Friday: “And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” – The World of For Profit Convention Volunteering

Good Morning (or Afternoon, you know, whatever time it may happen to be when I get this post up. I’m a busy man.) and welcome back to the triumphant return of Furry Friday here on Lawyers & Liquor, brought to you by FurPlanet! Want a bit of furry reading to do? Need a comic that you haven’t seen on the shelves in years? Just want to convince them that investing in sponsored posts on my site wasn’t a horrible use of their time and money? Drop to all fours and dart over to Furplanet to peruse their collections of literature!

Cool, we got the contractually obligated shit out of the way? Great. Let’s start talking then! This is the one day of the month where I hand the reins to this site over to the badger that lives inside me so that we can go over some legal issue that directly arises from, touches on, or otherwise affects the furry fandom in some way. So let’s swing those kennel doors open wide, unplug your connection to FurryMUCK, and steal Kage’s wine as we talk about the legal trials and pitfalls that face for-profit convention operators in the furry world. Specifically, why they probably should use volunteers only with an abundance of caution and after running the idea by legal staff.

Because while some unfortunate furries may be getting “voluntold,” if a for-profit con does it too much or for too long there’s a very real chance it could get volun-sued.

I’m the Boozy Badger, and I’m about to get banned from a lot of events here on Furry Friday.

Inkedfur.com’s Furry Friday: Insurance Will Ruin Your Convention

Welcome back to the long-awaited second part of the first part of the delayed Furry Friday here on Lawyers & Liquor! Once a month I take off my lawyer hat to put on my badger head and starting talking about some random legal issue or concept that has an effect on the furry fandom. Thankfully, Inkedfur.com has, you know, agreed to sponsor these things so I can act like I’m not totally a furry and only doing it for the sweet, sweet small amount of cash…but, we all know that’s a lie at this point.

So, my crazy creatures of all colors, including several that are most certainly not found in nature, let’s get started. When last I opened the doors to the rescue shelter and let you all run and romp, and do other shit (goddammit Bill, get the hose and spray those two) all over my legal lawn, we were talking about how the structure of non-profit corporations in general. As many furry conventions are actually registered and structured as non-profit corporations, I advised, they prevent one person from having a lot of fucking power. In short, what I said was “Even if they wear a lab coat and project an image of equal parts Machiavelli and Dr. Blofeld, they are still beholden to the determinations made by the furry equivalent of the a Board of Directors, which votes on matters affecting the corporation.”

…I have not yet heard from Uncle Kage concerning this characterization, although I’ve heard the term has become fairly popular among members of the board itself.

But the Board of Directors isn’t the only shadowy organization shooting down the idea for the Public Pup Play Meet & Greet in the lobby of a hotel the convention is sharing with a World War II veterans’ reunion. There are other, more sinister, factors at play that keeps you from publicly being a pound puppy, and we all know how that was meant. So, today, for the second part, allow the lawyer in the badger mask to explain how one particular non entity player can severely restrict the ability of a convention to do all the shit you think it should be doing as an attendee.

Continue reading “Inkedfur.com’s Furry Friday: Insurance Will Ruin Your Convention”

InkedFur’s Furry Friday: Alcohol Safety At Conventions

Hey you filthy animals, how was the turkey? In the afterglow of Fat Thursday, it’s time for another round of InkedFur’s Furry Friday here on Lawyers & Liquor, which means that it’s time for me to cast off the “normal lawyer” routine and embrace the Badger as we cast open the kennel doors and start talking about an issue geared specifically towards the Furry Fandom. Before we get into that, though, you need to be aware that the folks over at InkedFur.com are offering 25% off dakimakuras this month for only the first 25 readers that go to their site and enter the super-secret code…which you’ll find at the end of this article!

Cool, so, this month’s article is definitely self-aware. Like, “totally woke” self-aware, because it’s coming a week before Midwest Fur Fest, a huge convention in Chicago, and it concerns a very specific type of convention safety. Namely, it concerns being safe with alcohol when you’re surrounded by thousands of unblinking fursuit eyes, and it’s geared towards the first-time attendee. Actually, I adapted this from a regular speech I give to high schoolers about safety right before they graduate, so, hey! You get to realize I’m like this all the time and not just with the furry horde that has assimilated me!

That said, without further ado, here’s the Furry Friday guide to Alcohol Safety at Cons.

Continue reading “InkedFur’s Furry Friday: Alcohol Safety At Conventions”

A Fully Functioning Furry Fiefdom: Anthrocon, Part 1.

I want to preface this whole thing by explaining something about attorneys in general: we like to think a little experience goes a long way. A lawyer with no experience in a particular area of law, but a willingness to learn it, will take a small case in that area. We’ll do all the research and learning to be barely competent, and going forward we’re confident that we now know that area of law. “Yes,” we’ll confidently tell people that ask us, “I’ve handled those cases before! I know what to expect!”

It was in this spirit that I went to FurtheMore back in April. Everyone had told me Anthrocon was essentially the fucking Super Bowl of furries, and it may be good for me to at least go to a couple exhibition games in advance. So, when FurtheMore made the offer to show a lawyer around their fandom, I accepted and had a great time! So I was confident. I had been to a furry convention. I knew what to expect. I was ready.

…I was not ready.

I was amazingly not-fucking-ready.

Oh my god was I not ready.

I was so not ready that, guys, no shit…I’m gonna have to talk about Anthrocon in two fucking posts this week, with Film Friday (an exploration of lawyers in the media) being my review of Brian Cuban’s new book on addiction and the legal profession.

Which essentially means I’ll be posting about two days of drinking with giant animal people, then spend a day talking about the crippling addiction issues faced by my colleagues.

Continue reading “A Fully Functioning Furry Fiefdom: Anthrocon, Part 1.”