Rising star legal blogger Josh Blackman also doubles as president of the Harlan Institute (for which I am an unpaid adviser), in addition to writing more law journal articles than a good many tenured professors. Few other recent law school graduates have accomplished so much in so little time. Josh and his Institute have an interesting and creative initiative that might interest some of the lawyers and legal scholars in the VC readership:
On Thursday November 11, 2010, the Harlan Institute will be virtually visiting classrooms across the country in the inaugural SCOTUS-Skype-Teach-A-Thon. As a complement to FantasySCOTUS.org, the Harlan Institute has trained a group of Mentors to to deliver virtual lectures to classrooms using Skype video chats.
If you are an attorney or law student interested in volunteering with us, please fill out this form. The time commitment would probably be about 1 hour on November 11. Our mentors consist of attorneys, law professors, and law students who are all committed to raising awareness of the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
As a specialist on public political ignorance, I would note that public ignorance of the Constitution and the Supreme Court is nothing to write home about either. The Harlan Institute isn’t going to fully solve this problem. But it could help.