Lee,+Adam

Adam "ARLee" Lee

Rounds on the topic: donut I debated in high school for 3 years Debated at the University of Texas for 4 years Coached at the University of Rochester for 2 years Currently a Judicial law clerk to three Justices of the Maine Superior Court I'm judging for Richmond

I hate writing judging philosophies, because invariably debaters scan them, focus on one or two seeming idiosyncrasies, and unfortunately deviate from what they would normally do in an attempt to satisfy the judge. The result is usually that you debate worse and I am more unhappy than I would have been if you had just been yourself and not tried to please me (which oddly tends to be the same thing that happens in romantic relationships but I digress). The essence of my judging philosophy is that my personal preferences be reduced to nothing and I adjudicate the round as you would like me to, justifying why that it is a preferable method to any other method proposed by the other team. The pimento in that proverbial loaf of bologna (I have no idea, it just came to me) is that YOU MUST WIN, which is best done through impact analysis. Absent impact analysis, I will unfortunately be forced to see things the way I do rather than how you would prefer me to see them. I’ve judged about 15 rounds in the last three years while i was in law school. I can still flow. I know virtually nothing about the topic, so don’t expect me to be aware of obscure acronyms or terms of art. Because you haven’t explained something well, doesn’t mean I’m stupid…that’s not to say I’m not stupid, but I used to do this a whole bunch and if you do your job well, so can I. Topicality: It is about competing interpretations unless you convince me why I should see otherwise. Your interpretation should have net benefits; I feel that the limits debate (either way) usually makes a pretty good one. My senior year I went for T in about 50% of my 2NR's, of course that was Indian Country and no affs were topical.

Theory: Sure, similar to everything else win an impact beat back the offense and it is viable.

"Framework": I still do not get why people suddenly put this on a separate sheet of paper. In essence, these turn into Extra-Topicality rguments and/or a reason why your impacts outweigh the other team's. I can understand that there is no such thing as fiat, neither I nor anyone else is mistaking you for Harry Reid (which is probably a good thing for you because it probably means you have a larger effect on US foreign policy, oh snap!); however, that does not mean that there is no reason to evaluate the consequences of what happens if the Federal Government does something. Conversely, this does not mean that the ethical ramifications or problematic presuppositions of ideas should not also be discussed. I do not understand why in a debate round you cannot debate both of them. When my friends and I are sitting around actualizing our agency and whatnot, we talk about what congress is doing and what effects their actions will have, while at the same time being aware that we’re not capable of immediately affecting it and that in the process we may be deluding ourselves to some negative end. Nevertheless, whatever you wanna do, do (hehe I just said doodoo) it, I'm more than willing to vote for you if you win the argument.

Disads: Love em, Uniqueness to the disad is very important to me.

Counterplans: Love em as well, good way to provide uniqueness for the Disad.

Kritiks: Great, this was the other 50% of my senior year 2nrs. I love it when you make your links specific to the aff (sometimes well done by making arguments on the case debate) and articulate more than just some ethereal concept as the alternative (however i will vote negative for a well articulated reason that the kritik argument turns case). When you do not do this, the Permutation often looks very attractive to me. In addition, it pays to read “disads” to the permutation and for the aff to read “disads” to the alt that do not link to the permutation. These are things I remember that used to end up deciding most kritik debates for me.

Performance: Sure, but as with anything tell me why your ideas are better than the other team's. I'm not really cool with, I read a poem…it was about potato bugs of the East Antilles…poems are good…I win. I think that diversity of both people and argument are good things, but I do not think that because you read something before the other team does, you win. Debate is about debating ideas; I do not care HOW you debate those ideas so long as you do so and do so better than the other team.

Other stuff

Do not be a jerk to the other team or your partner, I love a little well placed trash talking or humor, but do not be a jerk. You WILL lose speaker points.

Do not steal prep time. You WILL lose speaker points.

DO NOT under ANY circumstances, hand me evidence for which I have not asked! You WILL lose speaker points and I reserve the right to eat, pee on or crumple your evidence.

Most of the time i'm pretty nice, so ask me any questions you may have.