Academic

New Entry Level Law Faculty Hiring Updates

Posted on April 23, 2009
Larry Solum has updated his 2009 Entry Level Hiring Report, and it's got a new address: find it here.

Coerced Confessions, Wrongful Convictions, Juror Reflections

Posted on April 23, 2009
Richard Danziger received a life sentence in 1990 for the aggravated sexual assault of a Pizza Hut employee who was raped and murdered in 1988. Several years later, new DNA evidence established Danziger?s innocence, and he was released after serving....

Yale Law Announces Dean Search Committee; Paul Kahn To Chair

Posted on April 23, 2009
We now know who will be involved in the search for a replacement for Dean Harold Koh. This from the Yale Daily News: Law professor Paul Kahn GRD ?77 LAW ?80 will chair the eight-member committee,[Yale President Richard] Levin said....

Colorado's Philip Weiser Joins The March To The Obama Administration

Posted on April 23, 2009
Add this to the flow of faculty to (and periodically ebb from) the Obama Administration. Phil Weiser, of the University of Colorado School of Law, will be joining the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division as deputy assistant attorney general....

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Bad Analysis vs. Bad-Faith Analysis

Posted on April 22, 2009
The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama might be open to prosecuting the lawyers who wrote the memos authorizing torture. Brian Tamanaha has also posted a very interesting take on the memos, entitled "How We Know that the OLC...

Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law

Posted on April 22, 2009
I'm pleased to see that the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law is now out. I'll have some more thoughts when my copy arrives.

What happens when your bickering children annoy you and you are a partner at a White Shoe NYC firm?

Posted on April 22, 2009
From the NY Daily News: A prominent Park Avenue lawyer was arrested after cops said she got so angry at her young daughters that she kicked them out of her car - and drove off. Madlyn Primoff apparently couldn't bear...

Corporate Bankruptcies

Posted on April 22, 2009
In this tough economic climate, it seems that one can?t pick up the daily newspaper without reading a story on another corporate bankruptcy. Might automaker General Motors be next? Last week the WSJ quoted GM chief executive Fritz Henderson as...

Drexel Law Review Debuts - There's Some Good Sh*t Here!

Posted on April 22, 2009
Danny Sokol asks the trenchant question of whether, given it's impressive student numbers and faculty productivity, you'd publish an article in the UC Irvine Law Review. It's an interesting topic, but still a couple years off. Meanwhile, the moment has...

Legal Workshop ... Or Should We Say Legal Theory Clearinghouse?

Posted on April 22, 2009
Larry Solum's talking about an exciting new program from seven leading law reviews--Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, New York University Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and University of Chicago Law Review ...

Effects of US News Rankings

Posted on April 21, 2009
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Some of the questions I have about the effects of US News Rankings go to some of the immediate effects of the rankings: 1. Does the yield rate (those admitted who decide to matriculate) improve...

Leaving Las Vegas

Posted on April 21, 2009
This story from the Las Vegas Sun discusses lateral moves by three UNLV law professors, with one or more of the departures prompted (at least in part) by recent state budget cuts to higher education. The article also hints that...

Eliminating federal habeas review of state cases

Posted on April 21, 2009
A fascinating new paper by Nancy King and Joseph Hoffman has been recently been posted to SSRN. Entitled "Rethinking the Federal Role in State Criminal Justice," and forthcoming in NYU Law Review, the essay discusses the use of federal habeas...

Harvard Law School Grading

Posted on April 21, 2009
The Crimson has the latest on the Harvard Law School's grading curve and how it awards honors.

Illegality and Policy

Posted on April 20, 2009
Comments today by Gen. Michael Hayden make clear a further reason why the Obama Administration should name a special prosecutor to investigate potential war crimes in light of everything we know, and have recently learned, about CIA interrogations of "high...

Extensive 2010 US News Law Rankings

Posted on April 20, 2009
Make of them what you will, but these 2010 US News law rankings seem like they may well be real. They include the Top 100, Evening Programs, and Diversity rankings. Our earlier report on this was here. This blog evaluates...

Universities of Alabama, Illinois, and Michigan Dropping LSAT for (at least) a Few Applicants

Posted on April 20, 2009
I appreciate all the leads dedicated readers are sending, but it's the end of the semester here in Chapel Hill and I'm absurdly busy. In fact, I'm drowning in work. So you won't be hearing much from me for a...

Waterboarding As A Form Of Punishment, Not Investigation

Posted on April 20, 2009
We learn now that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the apparent mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 35 times. And I can 't help but wonder why we continue to think these acts were interrogation techniques. Perhaps...

Forgotten Pulitzer Prize Winners

Posted on April 20, 2009
Today, the Pulitzer committee will announce the winners of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes. This year, Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson, and Shakespeare's Kitchen, by Lore Segal, were nominated for the fiction award. (I wonder when they'll add a Pulitzer...

Ninth Circuit Incorporates Second Amendment

Posted on April 20, 2009
The Ninth Amendment just decided Nordyke v. King. In so doing the court ruled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the individual Second Amendment right that was found to exist in DC v. Heller. The Ninth...

More: US News Specialty Rankings And Assorted Blog Commentary

Posted on April 20, 2009
The US News rankings of law school specialties appears to be here. It might fairly be entitled "Trading Places" because the number 1 and 2 ranked schools have switched places in the environmental, IP, international, and legal writing categories. FWIW...

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

Posted on April 20, 2009
The Pulitzer Prize committee has just announced the new prize-winners. This will be huge news for each of these authors, and their respective publishers. (Random House picked up two of these sales boosting awards.) They are: Fiction - Olive Kitteredge,...

Commencement Speakers

Posted on April 20, 2009
The semester is drawing to a close, final exams are about to begin, and graduation ceremonies will be here soon. Readers are invited to share the names of law school commencement speakers. Houston's mayor, Bill White, is scheduled to deliver...

Who Am I?

Posted on April 20, 2009
A current issue of a popular news magazine describes me as "a tweedy, brainy legal scholar who writes brilliant law-review articles that are carefully reasoned, if more or less impenetrable to non-lawyers." The article describes my views on transnational jurisprudence...

US News Law Rankings 2010 Start to Leak: Fordham Ranked Third in Evening Programs

Posted on April 19, 2009
We've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the US News rankings in the faculty lounge. Whether this purported scan of the 2010 rankings is real or a hoax, (it's also available at the Critical Badger), we're beginning to see some...

Elizabeth Warren Explains TARP, PPIP And The Bailout

Posted on April 19, 2009
It started a few years ago. We discovered that more young people were getting their news from satirical news shows - oh, and late night comedy shows - than from traditional news sources. Stewart, Colbert, Leno, and Letterman became the...

Who REALLY Wrote Shakespeare's Plays?

Posted on April 18, 2009
No, the gentleman pictured does not claim credit. But he offers his thoughts on the question here. Yeah, but can you tell us what happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Huh? Can you? Didn't think so.

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

Posted on April 18, 2009
ANC News is reporting that Hugo Chavez gave Barack Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Though the book has been translated into English, the copy was in...

Publishing in an Early Issue of the UC Irvine Law Review

Posted on April 17, 2009
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol For those faculty obsessed with journal rankings and placements, here is a question for you. The numbers just came out in a UC Irvine press release about the entering class. As the UC Irvine press...

Sham Supp? Law Profs Battle West Over Treatise Updates

Posted on April 17, 2009
Here's an author's dilemma. Imagine you'd written a treatise for West. After a few years, you decided to pen an update - but West declined. And when West sliced your meager compensation for the annual supplement, you chose to abandon...

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