Legal Commentary

Having gotten a whopping 0% on the NYU Law Professors quiz questions posted by Matt Bodie, I can?t resist the temptation to make myself feel better by posting another quiz to which I already know the answers (or at least I?m pretty sure I do).

Each of the following entries describes a law degree recipient (or recipients) who decided to take a career path atypical for those with a J.D. degree (or its equivalent). 10 points to Gryffindor (or whatever house you?re in) for each one you get right:

1. The writer-producer responsible for the TV shows Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, The Practice, and Boston Legal (law degree from Boston University)

2. The former lead singer of Midnight Oil ? and current Australian Labor Party MP and Minister for Environment, Heritage, and the Arts (law degree from University of New South Wales)

3. Astronomer who demonstrated the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way, created a system for classifying them, and discovered a law to calculate how eager they are to get away from us (law degree from Oxford)

4. The seven Major League Baseball managers (four of them already in the Hall of Fame, and another who probably will be) who have had legal training and/or J.D. degrees (respectively from Columbia, Cornell, University of Cincinnati, Michigan, Washington University, Northwestern, and Florida State University).

5. The author of ?Holes? and ?Sideways Stories from Wayside School? (J.D. from Univ. of Texas?).

6. The acclaimed wizard who went on to become the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry. After a brief career as a litigator, he decided to try a different tack at defending us all from the Dark Arts (J.D. from The University of Chicago) (Note: J.K. Rowling hasn?t revealed this yet but I?ve figured it out from a close reading and re-reading of the seven Harry Potter books. There?s simply no other explanation for some of the things that are said and done there).

Please remember this information when providing your reputational scores to the US News & World Report ranking machine.

Answers after the jump:

1. David E. Kelley

2. Peter Garrett

3. Edwin Hubble

4. John Montgomery Ward, Huey Jennings, Miller Huggins, Branch Rickey, Muddy Ruel, Jack Hendricks, and Tony LaRussa

5. Louis Sachar

6. Albus Dumbledore