Legal Commentary

How to be Bad

Posted on April 10, 2008
As one who has written in the past about how various forms of moral wrongfulness -- lying, cheating, stealing, promise-breaking, disloyalty, disobedience, coercion, and exploitation -- inform the criminal law, I'm always on the lookout for new insights into how people can be bad...

Law Swag

Posted on April 10, 2008
The law-blog ranks have seen lots of discussion of so-called "law porn" -- the glossy, oversold brochures that flood faculty mailboxes as law schools from far and wide try to convince us of their US Newsworthiness, if I may coin a phrase. (See, e.g., here, and see also this post from Ann Bartow both complaining about the choice of the phrase "law porn" and passing along a first-hand account of its genesis)...

Tacky or Fun? We Report, You Decide

Posted on April 10, 2008
Via, ESPN, play Torch Run. No explanation necessary. Also could be called Free Speech: The Video Game

On Law and Loyalty

Posted on April 10, 2008
My article, Citizenship, Organizational Citizenship, and the Laws of Overlapping Obligations, forthcoming California Law Review 2008, is now posted on ssrn. The article explores a deep ambivalence in the law about the role of individual dissent within public and private settings and offers a way to reconcile the conflicting demands of organizational loyalty and legal compliance...

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The Most Challenging Audience: The Public

Posted on April 09, 2008
Tomorrow evening I will deliver a lecture in The University Lecture Series on Global Climate Change at the University of Kansas. My talk - "Climate Change and the Changing Legal Climate" - will focus on the awkward, and sometimes openly hostile, interaction between law and science in guiding climate change policy...

Lunch with Students

Posted on April 09, 2008
It may be a little late in the semester for this post, but I've just come back from a very pleasant lunch with some of my students, the second such lunch in a week which also featured dinner with a number of students who "won" an auction with me. (I was a much hotter commodity last year at Notre Dame just after my Jeopardy win, I must say; perhaps next year I'll go on Temptation Island...

Antidepressants and Doctor Deception

Posted on April 09, 2008
A recent analysis of modern antidepressants has found that they are little better than placebos in treating most cases of depression. This is disappointing news for the multibillion dollar industry that markets these drugs. On the brighter side, though antidepressants are little better than placebos, placebos can be surprisingly effective...

Dan Kahan's non-delegation lawsuit against Chertoff's mega waiver

Posted on April 09, 2008
Yesterday, the Sierra Club and the Defenders of Wildlife filed a cert petition with the SCOTUS, seeking review of Defenders of Wildlife v Chertoff, 527 F.Supp.2d 119 (DDC 2007). DFW v Chertoff had upheld section 102 of the Real ID Act, which confers on the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the "authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section...

Update on Tri 4 Gey

Posted on April 09, 2008
This past weekend, scores of students, staff and faculty at FSU participated in the Tri-4-Gey (aka Redhills Triathlon). I'm very proud to say that my wife, Wendi Adelson, completed her first tri in very respectable time. I've attached a pic of a bear hug at the finish line...

Konomark - A New Way to Be Friendly with Your Intellectual Property

Posted on April 08, 2008
Would you be willing to share your PowerPoint presentations, class handouts, review problems, and other teaching materials with your fellow professors? Most of us probably would. Yet, how comfortable would you be with e-mailing a colleague you?ve never met and asking if you could use some of their materials? Slightly uncomfortable? I?m guessing that many of us might ask more often if our fellow professors actually invited us to make the request...

Ann Bartow's idea for law reviews

Posted on April 08, 2008
Over at the Madisonian Moblog about law schools as institutions, Ann Bartow suggests that we can improve law reviews and law schools simultaneously by having a school's journal only publish the works of its own faculty. There are some good comments there and Al Brophy adds to her thoughts...

Celebrities and Charities Collide on Wednesday Night

Posted on April 08, 2008
Thanks to television juggernaut American Idol and its second annual ?Idol Gives Back? campaign much of America will be focused on nonprofit organizations on Wednesday (April 9) evening. According to news reports we should expect A-list Hollywood celebrities (e...

"The Gang Tax" at Freakonomics Blog

Posted on April 08, 2008
I recommend to you this post by Sudhir Venkatesh, guest blogging at the Freakonomics Blog. As he describes it, he "called a few gang leaders in Chicago and asked them what the greatest obstacles to recruiting and retaining members are." His interviewees offer suggestions about how to better prevent gang activity, using shaming punishments, corporal punishments, and taxes/fines...

Jeremy Knowles: Let the Dean RIP

Posted on April 08, 2008
The other day I learned that Professsor Jeremy Knowles, the accomplished chemist and later the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, died last week at an age (72) that seems far too young. There's a charming obituary from the Harvard Crimson here...

Recommenders and the entry-level job market

Posted on April 08, 2008
In this, my second post on the entry-level job market, I thought I'd discuss recommenders. As I always, I would love others who have recently been on the job market, hiring chairs, etc, to add to or quibble with anything I've said. Beyond the actual content of your job talk and how well you answer questions, recommenders are probably the single most important determinant of how well you will do...

Rock chalk, Law Talk: Finality, Accuracy, and Appellate Review

Posted on April 08, 2008
I am against the recent over-emphasis on video evidence in court, for reasons that I and others have discussed. For me, that objection has carried over (for reasons both similar and different) into a general dislike for instant replay in sports. Well, the difference in last night's NCAA Basketball Championship, besides Memphis' horrid free-throw shooting down the stretch, was the use of instant replay and, in essence, appellate review of a single decision...

Reforming Law Reviews: "Regional" Law Reviews and Specialty Issues (not Journals)?

Posted on April 08, 2008
Ann Bartow's neat thought experiment -- the suggestion that law reviews revert to publishing only work by professors at their host schools -- prompts me to suggest another set of potential changes to address the reported problems with student-edited law reviews (which, I think, are a bit overblown)...

Nominate your mentor (or yourself) as one of America's best law professors

Posted on April 07, 2008
Michael Schwartz (Washburn), one of the most insightful thinkers on law teaching, is working on an interesting book project, What the Best Law Professors Do, which will be published by the Harvard University Press. His idea is to identify the nation's best law professors and synthesize the key elements and principles behind their effectiveness...

Mobblog at the Madisonian: ?What Kind of Institution Do We Want A Law School To Be??

Posted on April 07, 2008
This week, the Madisonian is hosting a large number of guest bloggers, each of whom will post a couple essays on law schools as institutions worth thinking about -- including questions of teaching, skills, research, costs, and access. Deven Desai is the initiator and the list of mobbloggers includes: Erwin Chemerinsky (Duke, named founding Dean at U...

April is Trademark Use Month

Posted on April 07, 2008
Thanks to Dan and Rick and the crew for inviting me to guest blog here. I write about intellectual property, so I'm particularly excited that this month seems to have more than its share of IP types doing guest stints. Rick asked me to share some thoughts about a new paper I've recently posted that deals with a hot topic in trademark law these days - the so-called "trademark use" doctrine...

She did WHAT with his sperm?!?!, Splitting Articles, and Reprints

Posted on April 07, 2008
The title is a response I get when I tell friends (and perhaps a response I got silently during job talks) about one of the cases I discuss near the beginning of my new law review article, The Constitution and the Rights not to Procreate , which has just been published in the Stanford Law Review, and a companion piece, The Right Not To Be a Genetic Parent?, forthcoming in the Southern California Law Review in September...

?My Mother Was Like, What Are You Going to Do With That??

Posted on April 07, 2008
According to an article in yesterday?s New York Times, the number of philosophy majors at various college campuses around the country, as well as the number of colleges offering a major in philosophy, has been ?ballooning.? Apparently, students are discovering that the analytical skills one develops studying philosophy prove useful in any number of different fields, including law...

The weird asymmetry between federal and state spending powers

Posted on April 07, 2008
For the purposes of federalism, the most important case on the Court?s docket this term is Chamber of Commerce v Brown, argued on March 19th. California has banned recipients of state grants from using grant money ?to assist, promote, or deter union organizing...

Re-Introduction and Late-Sunday Music

Posted on April 07, 2008
Greetings to all, and many thanks to the Prawfs for inviting me back for a second stint. During my last visit, I blogged about topics of professional as well as personal interest--largely IP and religion/politics, respectively. I look forward to covering similar issues this time around, and to broaching a few other subjects as the mood (or opportunity) strikes...

What is the Etiquette of Linking to the Legal Scholarship Blog?

Posted on April 06, 2008
I've been wondering about the above question for a while now. Don't get me wrong -- I find that the Legal Scholarship Blog has become essential daily reading, and I fully recommend you add it to your daily rounds if you're a legal scholar of whatever level who wants to stay au courant (not that there aren't good reasons not to stay au courant)...

Procedural formalism and ending up in the same place

Posted on April 06, 2008
Last month, I wrote about the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court striking down, on justiciability grounds, the state's statutory ban on picketing at and near funerals, a law targeting the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church. The first law, although enacted, provided that it would not become enforceable until the state supreme court or a federal district court ruled as to its constitutionality...

Bartow Alert

Posted on April 06, 2008
From today's story in the New York Times about the "emotional stress" of round-the-clock blogging, here's the cut-line under a photo of a blogger at work: "Matt Buchanan shows blogs may be a young man's game." P.S. I don't mean this sarcastically. Writers are not responsible for photo cut-lines, and headlines and cut-lines are made to fit in small spaces...

I can be a Senator: Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me

Posted on April 06, 2008
The May issue of The Atlantic (not yet online) has a feature on Al Franken and his run for the Senate in Minnesota. A very positive portrayal that captures the excitement of a newcomer to national politics who seems to offer something new and who appeals to young and first-time voters and new activists...

Happy Birthday to ... us!

Posted on April 06, 2008
This week, we celebrate the 3d birthday of Prawfsblawg -- now, hopefully easier to remember as simply Prawfs.com. If you're wondering about the origins of the blog's name, you can find it here. In fact, three years ago today, we had posts about the expressive politics of urinal disinfectants, a man's right to choose an abortion, and shaming punishments...

Weekend Trivia Challenge

Posted on April 06, 2008
Can you name this law professor? Her scholarly focus has been on juvenile rights, and she has been called one of the most important scholar-activists of recent decades. In a leading article, she argued that discrimination against juveniles requires justification...

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