Legal Commentary

Not infrequently, law review articles contain a "*" footnote that acknowledges a list of people who gave useful feedback and then adds a disclaimer like, "Any remaining errors are my own."  Well, of course any errors are your own!  Does anyone see any value to such disclaimers (which appear frequently in academic books in other disciplines as well)?

I think I understand the motivation behind the admonition.  Prof. X reads your article and gives some useful feedback.  But Prof. X may not have read it carefully, the piece may have changed after Prof. X read it, you may have ignored Prof. X's advice, and so forth.  The disclaimer is meant to say, "Don't think badly of Prof. X because he didn't catch the glaring logical or factual errors in this paper.  Don't think Prof. X necessarily agrees with my position."  I think it is also meant to be a signal to Prof. X: "Thanks for giving me whatever feedback you did.  Don't feel like the flaws in this paper reflect badly on you." 

And, of course, aside from the extra line or so of text, there's little harm in the practice.  On the other hand, perhaps the admonition itself suggests that those who give feedback might possibly be just a wee bit to blame.  Doesn't the admonition at least reflect the sense that such an inference is plausible? If not, then why include it?  Perhaps we better reinforce the norm that those who give feedback should not be thought responsible for the ensuing errors by not mentioning the norm itself!

P.S. Dan Markel is not responsible for any flaws in this blog post.  They are solely my own.  Why would you even think that Dan Markel, who has not asked me to take down this blog post, might be just a little bit responsible?