Legal Commentary

What next in the Sean Bell case?

Posted on April 28, 2008
I did not follow the bench trial of the three New York City detectives prosecuted for the early-morning shooting death of Sean Bell, an unarmed African-African American man. But like everyone else, I took notice of the judgment of acquittal handed down by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman last week...

SEIU and Union Democracy

Posted on April 27, 2008
There's a very thoughtful set of discussions going on at the Daily Kos, started by this post on "Union Strategy, Union Democracy." The post begins as a discussion of the blog ads by SEIU and its critics that have been popping up on progressive political web sites...

Weekend Trivia Challenge - The Nation's Oldest Law Review

Posted on April 27, 2008
Which law review is the oldest? Answer below the fold ...

Shakira is Smart

Posted on April 27, 2008
Whoa. Dude. Shakira is smart. The Columbian-born triple-platinum recording artist tends to be famous for energetic pop music that is arguably too danceable. It is so drivingly rhythmic that even the nearly shameless will grip their chair in fear unless they are already a regular on a celebrity dance show...

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Hail to Alma Mater

Posted on April 26, 2008
Controversy is brewing at my alma mater, Northwestern, which has invited Jerry Springer, himself an alumnus, as its commencement speaker. Story and semi-rational exchange at Above the Law. (H/T: VC).

Con law in unexpected places

Posted on April 25, 2008
For example, in George Clooney cinematic homages to His Girl Friday, every Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn comedy, and movies depicting the minor-league backwaters of professional sports. One of my colleagues was approached by a student in his Con Law I class, who had just seen the movie...

Job Market Timetable

Posted on April 24, 2008
As conversations this week with a number of the great fellows we have here at Harvard who will soon be going on the market have reminded me, the biggest question about getting ready for the job market is not only the "what" I should be doing, but the "when...

Bibles on the Bayou

Posted on April 24, 2008
Earlier this week, a federal district court judge in Louisiana ordered the rural Tangipahoa Parish School Board to stop allowing the Gideons to pass out pocket bibles to fifth graders during school hours. The ruling came in response to a suit filed by the local chapter of the ACLU, one of seven suits filed in recent years challenging such violations of the Establishment Clause...

Adolescent sexuality and the law

Posted on April 24, 2008
Here are two recent criminal prosecutions that suggest a bizarre separation of official legal norms from ordinary social norms: Item #1: Two teenagers -- a sixteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old boy -- took racy pictures of themselves with their cell 'phones...

Virginia v. Moore and § 1983

Posted on April 24, 2008
In a near-unanimous decision yesterday in Virginia v. Moore, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment was not violated where police arrested (and conducted a search incident to that arrest that found cocaine) an individual for an offense (driving with a suspended license) that is not an arrestable offense as a matter state law...

Law School Deans vs. Business School Deans

Posted on April 23, 2008
Surely being a law school dean is a tough job. But according to this WSJ online piece posted yesterday (updating a 2004 story) serving as a business school dean may be just as tough or even tougher. The article cites the usual pressures to fundraise (facing all deans) as part of the explanation, but also notes b-schools are currently experiencing curriculum upheaval ?as ethics and global business become more important? and schools are falling over each other for executive education revenue...

How much is the job of a foreigner worth?

Posted on April 23, 2008
In my last post, I asked a basic policy question and mostly got denial in response. So I?ll try again, but in a kinder and gentler way. Here is the question: How much is the job ? or, more generally, the economic well-being ? of a non-citizen worth? The issue is plausibly raised by the debate over free trade...

Stumble, Predict, Nudge: Amir & Lobel on Rationality and Policy

Posted on April 23, 2008
To stumble is human. Finding patterns of such stumbling and designing systems that can prevent common behavioral failures is increasingly an area of study of the legal community ? asking how can policy implement insights from new social science research...

Penis Theft

Posted on April 23, 2008
I've written here occasionally about the placebo effect, but here's a Reuters news article that indirectly addresses the opposite phenomenon: the nocebo effect. Much as one can have a positive result from a sham treatment or intervention if one expects it to have a positive result, one can have a negative result from a sham treatment or intervention when one expects it to have a negative result...

Are Prawfs colonizing the Harvard Law Review?

Posted on April 23, 2008
No need to fear such a melodramatic interpretation. But the facts do warrant a shout-out to the good taste of the Harvard Law Review's editors for the current April 2008 issue. First is an article by guest prawf extraordinaire, Rick Hills, called Land Assembly Districts (written with Michael Heller)...

Green Living: Let go of your stuff & find a reuse group

Posted on April 22, 2008
Through my yoga practice, I have learned to let go of many things, tangible and intangible. I teach consumer law and I am always struck by how little we question why is consumption in our society so high in the first place. In other words, why do we think we need so much STUFF...

Amputees by choice, enhancement, and the trans community (Oh My!)

Posted on April 22, 2008
The comments to an earlier post of mine that took on something of a life of its own, which suggested to me that this issue might be of more general interest to the blogosphere. At the highest level of generality the question might be posed as such: what are the limits of the domain of the health care system, or the permissible ends of medicine? To put the matter more concretely, consider the following three cases: (1) Adam suffers from Apotemnophilia, a condition in which people are obsessed with the idea of cutting off their limbs (for more on this...

Don't know much about history, don't know much about geography

Posted on April 21, 2008
To the extent I still am feeling sheepish about thinking that Munich was in East Germany, I take slight comfort in the company of this L.A. Times reporter who thought George Washington only served one term as President.

The Complicated Relationship between Unions and Private Equity

Posted on April 21, 2008
To those who imagine unions as backwards, naive advocates of workers' rights, the SEIU is here to readjust your perception. Larry Ribstein discusses SEIU's latest efforts to put pressure on private equity funds: a California bill that would have restricted state pension fund allocations to private equity firms who have certain sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as investors...

Chabon on Price's Lush Life

Posted on April 21, 2008
Anyone can write a reasonably interesting review of a book that?s bad. It?s much harder to write an entertaining review that says why a book is good. The current issue of the New York Review of Books has a review by Michael Chabon of Lush Life, the new novel by Richard Price, that manages to do just that...

Those who don't learn from history . . .

Posted on April 21, 2008
(H/T: Andrew Sullivan) Twice actually--history has forgotten that the 1936 Winter Games also were in Nazi Germany, in Garmisch-Partinkirchen. We also let two a brutally repressive totalitarian Communist regime host: East Germany (Munich) in 1972 and (oops) the Soviet Union (Moscow) in 1980, plus a "less repressive" Communist regime in Yugoslavia in 1984...

How much is the life of a foreigner worth?

Posted on April 20, 2008
The question is particularly poignant today, because the politics surrounding withdrawal of troops from Iraq require one to identify the ideal ratio of U.S. citizens? deaths averted to foreigners? deaths averted. Sadly, no one wants to ask this question candidly...

Weekend Trivia Challenge - Top Cited Law Review Article of All Time

Posted on April 20, 2008
According to a 1996 study by Fred R. Shapiro published in the Chicago-Kent Law Review, which law review article is the most cited of all time in other law review articles? Answer below the fold ...

Damages for Loss of Stormtrooping

Posted on April 20, 2008
It must be the season for imperial stormtrooper-related litigation. On the boot-heels of the copyright dispute over the Stormtrooper uniform, an Illinois jury has apparently awarded hedonic damages to a plaintiff who claimed an auto accident cost him his ability to march with his fellow Stormtroopers...

The Oral Torah

Posted on April 18, 2008
In Passover, one of the greatest mitzvas is to tell the young children, through reading, singing and games, a story about rights and liberty. Hope all who are celebrating have a great seder - this card is may be a matter of personal taste, but everyone loves matzo balls!

Student Course Evaluations: What do you do?

Posted on April 18, 2008
So, I just finished teaching my final class of the semester! (Of course that means I have exam writing and exam/paper grading on the horizon, before the focus on research and writing.) But, today I wanted to ask the PrawfsBlawg community about course evaluations...

Restoration Inspiration

Posted on April 18, 2008
I would like to say many thanks to Dan and the Prawfsblawg community for having me as a guest again, and for allowing me to linger for a while. After reading this NY Times piece (with pictures) on an amazing do-it-yourself home renovation, I?m feeling inspired to return to some work on my farmhouse...

Ideal Recreation for Academics: Learn to Fly

Posted on April 18, 2008
Yesterday, six of us in San Diego (four profs and two other friends) rented a VERY small plane and flew up for the day to Mammoth. The mountain had marvelous snow and was pretty much empty of other skiiers. In the evening, we were safely back at home...

CLC: Two Milestones!!

Posted on April 18, 2008
First, the CLC site is now dynamic! You can now create an account and register comments and nominations through the website. This allows you to directly control your interaction with the CLC project. Second, we are near the beginning of phase two. (For a description of the project's four phases, go here)...

Domesticating Torture and the John Yoo Affair

Posted on April 18, 2008
Talk has been circulating about John Yoo and tenure. Based on allegations that he has committed war crimes, that he has provided shoddy legal advice to the detriment of the country, and that he has advocated morally reprehensible views, some advocate that he be fired from Berkeley?s Boalt Hall School of Law...

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