Lando,+Michael


 * Michael Lando**
 * Background:** I did policy debate for four years at Highland Park Senior High in MN (I was generally okay--I cleared at circuit tournaments here and there but it's not like I have a TOC championship trophy sitting at home), then I spent a year as an assistant coach, two years as Highland's head policy coach, and finally a couple years doing hired judging. These days, I'm a Philosophy major at UC Berkeley.


 * Cal Invitational 2018 Update:** I haven't judged since last year's Cal Invitational (and going into that tournament, it had been about four years since I'd judged a round), so don't assume I'm familiar with whatever obscure agencies/legislation/acronyms/etc. that are specific to this year's resolution. Also, please, for the love of God, __**slow down when reading theory/other strings of analytics**__, and don't do that thing when transitioning from one card to the next where your tone and speed don't even momentarily change so the tagline of the new card sounds like it's just the next sentence in the previous one. I haven't had to flow at breakneck speeds in a little while, and you don't want to lose just because something crucial didn't make it onto my flow.


 * In a nutshell:** Run whatever you want to, but tell me how to evaluate it and make sure I can understand it. Be reasonably nice to your opponents. Generally, I'm psyched to see a team run just about anything that they're particularly good at running, including arguments that are generally reviled by the community (with the exception of overtly prejudiced arguments like Patriarchy Good--do **not** read those in front of me). I've voted both for and against everything under the sun and strive to intervene as little as possible.


 * More specifically:**


 * Speaker points:** 26 is probably my floor for people who are coherent, aren't mean/offensive, and demonstrate a basic grasp of core policy debate concepts. 27 is average, around 28.5 is where I think you probably deserve a speaker award, 29 means you did everything right in the round and I expect that you're among the top speakers, and anything north of 29.4 means I'm confident that you're the best speaker at the tournament. I've given one 30 in five-ish years of judging.


 * Topicality:** If no one tells me how a procedural should be evaluated, I'll default to competing interpretations. That aside, I'd like to say I'm unbiased on competing interpretations vs. reasonability (or what-have-you), but in practice I find that vague frameworks are reaaally difficult to defend against fairly clear-cut ones...so anyone defending reasonability against a theory-savvy neg is probably fighting an uphill battle. Whether I personally feel the aff is untopical or the violation is ridiculous has little bearing on which way I will vote. Obviously, a typical 2NR that goes for a procedural should spend 5 minutes on it for strategic reasons, but I won’t arbitrarily vote you down based on how little time it took to go for it effectively. I can be convinced that theory precedes T, but I find that the reverse is generally easier to defend.


 * Theory:** I actually do like good theory debates, rare as they are. I am predisposed to think that “reject the argument, not the team” is an okay way to remedy abuse in most instances, but that it doesn’t really make sense in the context of status theory. However, the neg can justify “reject the argument, not the team” in a status theory debate, and either side can win that stopping at rejection of the argument causes time skew, fails to set a precedent, etc. You can pretty easily convince me to view theory through a lens of competing interpretations--I'm fond of clear interpretations in the vein of "counter-interpretation: dispo" when properly deployed and defended. Otherwise, you probably need to win substantial in-round abuse or a specific reason I should vote on potential abuse.


 * Framework:** My default is to try to evaluate all arguments on the same level. If no one tells me to do otherwise in a K round, I’ll try to weigh the world of the plan vs. the world of the alternative, giving full weight to both pre- and post-fiat impacts, operating under the assumption that I'm voting to save as many lives as I can. I’m fine with no one debating these issues, but I am easily convinced to abandon my defaults the minute I’m told to weigh post-fiat implications first, that deontology is better than utilitarianism, that preserving value to life precedes saving lives, etc.


 * Kritiks/Performances/Narratives/Etc.:** Love a good K. As a coach, I cut two Ks and two critical affs, one of which had no plan text and nothing to do with the resolution; in high school, I ran a handful of kritiks—most frequently a Borders K (on the aff & neg), Kappeler, Nietzsche, and Nationalism/Cosmopolitanism. I have somewhere between a basic and thorough understanding of the aforementioned Ks and most others that are commonly run in high school.

The aff is probably best served by a frontline that consists mostly of specific answers to the critical argument being run, but that doesn’t mean logical, //applicable// generic K answers aren’t good in front of me. I like specific links, well-explained alternatives that shy away from being ridiculously utopian, and embedded case turns...but none of these things are vital. While I'm very open to affs that don't have plan texts and/or don't attempt to defend the resolution, I'm equally open to neg theory against these.


 * Counterplans:** I don't think I have any tremendously unique preferences here. Run whatever you want and be ready to defend it as competitive, net beneficial, and theoretically legitimate (even if it's logically none of those things).


 * DAs:** I like 'em. Comparative impact calc will ideally start in the 2AC. Neg, try to use your DA to access case; aff, don't let them do this successfully. Both sides, don't forget how the rest of the flow interacts with "DA turns case" arguments (especially the timeframe debate). Also, aff, remember that virtually all DAs are ridiculous in several ways--I'm always happy to see negs get called out on cards not fully supporting their taglines, missing internal links, the fact that the legislation in question still has a million steps to go through before passage, etc. (Pretty much everything here also applies to aff advantages.)


 * Case:** Very important. It should probably be in the 1NC and the block.


 * Potpourri:**
 * I will not make teams use prep to share their speeches, but I will get annoyed if you are particularly inefficient at that process.
 * Tag-team in cross-x is fine, but don't kill your partner's speaks by making them look like they can't ask/answer any questions unless they really can't.
 * I really appreciate smart analytical arguments.
 * I’m willing to vote for any argument with a clear warrant, and if such an argument is dropped, I will give it full weight—though the caveat that it must have a clear warrant means that I probably won’t sign my ballot as soon as your blippy independent voter is dropped.