Legal Commentary

Sunday Book Blog

Posted on February 17, 2008
It's hard somtimes to believe that I have any time to read for pleasure, but I basically force the time because I love to do it. Reading for me is what music may be to others (not that they are at all mutually exclusive, of course), so I thought it might be fun to complement Zak's Sunday Music Blog with a Sunday Book Blog today...

Sunday Music Blog

Posted on February 17, 2008
I have a weak spot for sad songwriters. There's something about their sadness that makes me feel almost happy. I'm not sure what that says about me. Bon Iver's new album, For Emma, Forever Ago, makes me really happy. Bon Iver is Justin Vernon. And Justin Vernon is very sad...

Is Teen Sex Like Teen Driving? The Uneasy Case for the Sex-Ed License

Posted on February 15, 2008
Should twins be able to have sex with each other? Get married? What if they?re gay? Or seventeen years old? Last week, I raised some questions like these about the proper scope of criminal law as it relates to questions of sex and marriage between and with minors -- in contexts involving homosexuality, polyamory and incest too...

A Plea for Fairness in the Private Law

Posted on February 15, 2008
Doctrines that allow or invite courts to police private bargains for fairness are not, in my view, alien intrusions into the modern law of contracts. They are instead part and parcel of a larger systems of norms that conduce fairly to mutual advantage...

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Noted Without Comment

Posted on February 15, 2008
The following is a list of the names of children mentioned in yesterday's remarkable New York Times story about parents who value their high-end furniture and their "fantasy of a pristine, high-style home for grown-ups" just slightly more than their children: Harrison Cole, Brooke, and Raine Beckett Vin and Fia

"It wasn't an accident..."

Posted on February 15, 2008
Howard wrote earlier about the striking partisan divide in the House hearing on Roger Clemens' steroid use, with the Democrats mostly attacking Clemens and the Republicans by and large going after Brian McNamee. Further to that, note this story in today's Times: ...

This Parody was Inevitable

Posted on February 15, 2008
(H/T: Free Republic) Clemens: You want answers? Congressman: I think I'm entitled to them. Clemens: You want answers? Congressman: I want the truth! Clemens: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has baseballs. And those balls have to be hit by men with bats...

Obama/Clinton '08? (Not what you think.)

Posted on February 15, 2008
Okay, Barack Obama does not have the nomination wrapped up. But that still hasn't stopped the speculation of who he should/will pick for VP. Over at DailyKos, Senators John Edwards and Jim Webb are leading the poll (I'll omit the "Beauty and the Beast" jokes that are floating around out there)...

Smash Your PowerPoint - Use FreeMind

Posted on February 15, 2008
If you?ve grown weary of PowerPoint, but you?re not ready to go back to writing on the whiteboard, take a look at FreeMind. A ?mindmapping? program, FreeMind allows you to organize information in a hierarchy of interactive bubbles. Click on a bubble, and it generates a series of ?child? bubbles...

Steroids and the Rules of Evidence

Posted on February 14, 2008
So if yesterday was about party politics and adversarial v. inquisitorial procedure, today is about evidentiary questions coming out of the steroids madness. McNamee has accused four people of using HGH or steroids: Clemens, Andy Pettite, Chuck Knoblack, and Debbie Clemens (Roger's wife)...

Now This is what Congressional Testimony Should Sound Like

Posted on February 14, 2008
Back in the day, it was not necessary for committee members to attack sport-related witnesses to derive humor and entertainment from the hearing. It was enough to invite Casey Stengel to testify, as the Senate Antirust and Monopoly Subcommittee did in a 1958 hearing on Major League Baseball's Antitrust Exemption...

Congress, Steroids, and the Adversary System

Posted on February 14, 2008
As I mentioned, one striking feature of yesterday's House hearing on Roger Clemens' steroid use was the extent to which the attacks, challenges, and pointed questions directed at each witness divided on partisan lines. A related feature was the very fact that they were being attacked and challenged by the committee members, the very people also charged with hearing the evidence, judging witness credibility, and deciding how to proceed going forward--in other words, those charged with finding facts...

Waterboarding and... Roger Clemens?

Posted on February 14, 2008
Not long after the traveling soap opera that was the Roger Clemens/steroids hearing ended this afternoon, the Senate voted 51-45 to approve the Intelligence Authorization bill, complete with its ban on CIA waterboarding (et al.). [See Marty's analysis here...

Originalism and the Second Amendment

Posted on February 13, 2008
Yesterday I moderated a debate on the Second Amendment at UCLA Law between Alan Gura, the attorney representing Heller before the Supreme Court, and Jack Rakove, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who filed an amicus brief on behalf of the District of Columbia in DC v...

The (Party) Politics of Steroids

Posted on February 13, 2008
A question for anyone who watched, listened, or read about Wednesday's hearings before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform featuring Roger Clemens and his former trainer and current accuser, Brian McNamee: What explains the apparent party-line split as to who seems to believe and support Clemens and who seems to believe McNamee? McNamee was attacked (quite personally, actually) by Republicans Dan Burton (who called him a liar), Christopher Shays (who called him a drug dealer), and ranking member Tom Davis (who acted as Clemens' counsel at a couple of points, jumping in to counter challenging questions directed at...

Faculty Workshop / Job Talk Anecdotes

Posted on February 13, 2008
Over at Discourse.net, Michael notes a recent talk given at my alma mater by one of their current visitors. That's really just an excuse for this post, which is my shameless attempt to use the anonymity of blog comments for folks to share horror stories about faculty workshops and/or job talks...

Law Review Editors, Give Us Your 411

Posted on February 13, 2008
Submission season is soon (now?) upon us. If you're a law review editor, please share in the comments your policy regarding whether and when you're accepting submissions for the new volume, any guidelines or rules regarding length of articles and essays, and how you'd most prefer to receive submissions -- i...

Annan On Faculty Hiring

Posted on February 13, 2008
I've had occasion before to praise the late Noel Annan's wonderful book The Dons: Mentors, Eccentrics and Geniuses, a warm yet unsparing collection of portraits of some leading characters at Oxford and Cambridge. Here's a timelessly relevant snippet from Annan's portrait of Maurice Bowra...

Tom Lantos, R.I.P, Zicharon L'Vracha

Posted on February 12, 2008
The world is a poorer place. Representative Tom Lantos died yesterday. Here is the NYT obituary . And an excerpt from some remarks made upon his recent announcement to retire from Congress: It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress...

Athlete Expression at the Olympics

Posted on February 12, 2008
Devan Desai at CoOp writes about an attempt by British and Australian officials to require athletes to sign a provision in their contracts agreeing not to engage in expression at events and venues in criticism of China's human-rights record or other problems with China and its government...

From Prawf To President...and back to Prawf?

Posted on February 12, 2008
No, I'm not talking about Barack Obama (again). Over at AbovetheLaw.com, Dave's got the scoop on the feisty resignation letter of William and Mary's President, former law prof Gene Nichol. Nichol, who used to teach at UNC Law, will now return to W/M's law faculty instead of serving out through June the rest of his contract as President...

An Update From Professor Steve Gey

Posted on February 12, 2008
The other day Paul wrote about the West Virginia Law Review's moving tribute and issue in honor of my colleague, the con law scholar Steve Gey, who has sadly been living with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) for the last year. Some of you remember my blogging about a a group of FSU law students, alumni, faculty and staff who have been busy this spring securing sponsorships and training for a triathlon (the "Tri-for-Gey") to raise funds for ALS research...

Lateral List

Posted on February 11, 2008
Dan Filler -- of the Faculty Lounge -- is collecting and listing lateral information. Help him out here.

Guantanamo: The Guernica of our Time?

Posted on February 11, 2008
Last night I went to go see the Bread & Puppet Theatre's latest production, The Divine Reality Comedy. For those unfamiliar, B&P is a mischievous band of political theater-pranksters that's been around since days of yore. Sometimes, they're whimsical and circus-like; other times, like last night, tinged with a sharp political bite...

The Archbishop and Shari'a

Posted on February 11, 2008
In a recent interview, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, explained his view that, in the interest of "social cohesion", certain aspects of Shari'a, or Islamic law, should be incorporated into British law. (The suggestion prompted Ruth Gledhill, in The Times, to ask, "Has the Archbishop Gone Bonkers?")...

Another Reason Congressional Investigations Cannot be Taken Seriously

Posted on February 11, 2008
I will listen to this Wednesday's hearing before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, that will include Roger Clemens and his former trainer and alleged steroids source, Brian McNamee. I already thought the whole thing would be a substantively meaningless exercise involving little more than political grandstanding by committee members and posturing by witnesses, especially Clemens; that view is based on having watched prior hearings involving professional athletes...

Too Many Law Reviews?

Posted on February 11, 2008
This article reports (based on this article in the National Jurist) that most law reviews are desperate for articles and end up publishing poorly written and shoddy sholarship. The article posts two questions to "Law Blog loyals": "First, does law review experience actually make better law students and lawyers ...

Law Firm Salaries v. Law Professor Salaries

Posted on February 11, 2008
According to this recent article, Latham & Watkins is reporting over $2.2 million per partner, an increase of about 20% over last year, despite the market downturn. I know comparing law professor salaries to big firm partner profits is like comparing apples to, well, Porsches, but my sense is that most law professor salaries do not experience the kinds of increases we have seen in big firm private practice...

Interpreting Referendums now on-line

Posted on February 11, 2008
I'm thrilled that the Election Law Journal is leaving the final print version of my Interpreting Statutes Passed Through Referendums available on-line here. The whole March 2008 issue is here. I'm less thrilled that they misspelled my name at the end...

Sunday Music Blog

Posted on February 10, 2008
Last spring I taught a week-long seminar at my alma mater, the University of Illinois College of Law. At the end of the week, on my drive back to Chicago, I listened to a great episode of Sound Opinions. The entire show was dedicated to the Elephant 6 music collective--the collective of musicians responsible for such wonderful bands as Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, and Apples in Stereo...

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