How Appealing — the leading news source on newly decided cases — is one of my (few) daily reads, and if you’re interested in legal news, it should be yours, too.
Archive | May, 2012
NLJ on Misreporting Law School Costs
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 6, 2012 10:38 am in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
The National Law Journal reports on the under-reporting of estimated cost-of-living expenses at many law schools. The story begins: The news just keeps getting worse — at least as far as financing a legal education goes. Law School Transparency has recalculated its estimates of the debt that law students stand to incur after discovering that […]
Are States Required to Help the Federal Government’s “War on Terror”?
Last month, Virginia enacted a law forbidding state officers, including police, from helping the federal government investigate, surveil, or detain terrorist suspects who are U.S. citizens. This may or may not be good policy. David Rivkin and Charles Stimson argue it’s also unconstitutional. They write: It trenches on the federal government’s war powers and violates […]
“Obama Has Become More Hostile to Medical Marijuana Patients than Any President in U.S. History”
The Marijuana Policy Project’s Rob Kampia writes: During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama raised hopes among those who support medical marijuana by pledging to respect state laws on the issue. But his administration has reversed course and massively escalated the federal government’s attacks on medical marijuana businesses, most of which are legal under their states’ […]
Is Contract Lawyering Doomed by Algorithm?
(Added: There are some excellent comments in the thread, well worth reading.) Walter Russell Mead and Tyler Cowen each point to this article in New York Magazine, describing a decision by US Magistrate Andrew J. Peck (SDNY) to allow the “use of predictive coding, a computer-assisted document review that turns much of the legal grunt […]
George Will on the People’s Rights Amendment
By Ilya Somin on May 5, 2012 5:46 pm in Constitutional Amendments, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Freedom of Speech
George Will recently published a good Washington Post column on the ill-conceived People’s Rights Amendment, which Eugene Volokh and I blogged about here and here. Will points out several serious flaws in the proposal, and builds on some of the points we made: Controversies can be wonderfully clarified when people follow the logic of illogical […]
Cooley Law School Subpoenas Colorado Law Professor for Records of Communications “With Any Person” About How Cooley Reports Employment Figures
Strange but true. Paul Campos has the scoop, which begins: The Thomas M. Cooley Law School served me with a subpoena yesterday afternoon, commanding me to produce certain documents purportedly relevant to [a defamation lawsuit Cooley has filed against certain critics of the law school]. The documents in question include all my communications with the […]
Dewey & LeBoeuf
Among the many articles tracking the decline and, presumably shortly, fall of the law firm Dewey & Leboeuf, I found New York Times business columnist James B. Stewart’s “Dewey’s Collapse Underscores Law Firms’ New Reality” to be one of the most insightful as to the general shift in the business model of large, prestigious law […]
Fifth Circuit Lifts Stay of Injunction Barring Texas from Excluding Planned Parenthood from Women’s Health Program
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted the emergency stay of the court injunction barring Texas from excluding Planned Parenthood from participation in the state’s Women’s Health Program. In its per curiam order, the Fifth Circuit explained that Texas was unable to substantiate its claim that it needed the extraordinary relief […]
Cryptarithms
Cool math puzzles, which I remember from my childhood (though the ones I did were in Russian). The principle is that you must solve a puzzle such as OLD+OLD+OLD = GOOD or COUPLE+COUPLE = QUARTET, where each letter stands for a digit and no two letters standing for the same digit. A fun project for […]
The Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch (MCA), RIP.
The sad news is here; some stories are reporting his age as 47 and others as 48. I would have never guessed that the Beastie Boys would put out so much good stuff over the years back in 1986 when Licensed to Ill came out. But they did. In my view, the group’s high point […]
What Has the Supreme Court Said About When Government Libraries May Remove Books?
My one disagreement with the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Turkish Coalition of America, Inc. v. Bruininks (8th Cir. May 3, 2012) has to do with the Circuit’s description of Board of Ed. v. Pico: TCA relies on [Pico], in which secondary school students challenged a school board’s removal of certain books from school libraries. In […]
“Call Me Irresponsible, Call Me Unreliable, Throw in Undependable Too”
I blogged about Turkish Coalition of America, Inc. v. Bruininks (8th Cir. May 3, 2012) when the district court decision came down, and yesterday the Eighth Circuit agreed with the district court’s bottom line (though disagreed with the district court’s decision about standing). I think the District Court and the Eighth Circuit both got it […]
Indonesia Prosecution for Posting “God Doesn’t Exist” on Facebook
The Guardian (UK) reports: When Alex Aan picked up a copy of Karen Armstrong’s Holy War from his local library in west Sumatra in 2005, he had little inkling of his own religious battle to come. But after posting “God doesn’t exist” on Facebook, the soft-spoken civil servant, 30, faces up to 11 years in […]
Forthcoming Kuwait Blasphemy Law with Death Penalty Provision
The Kuwait News Agency reports: Minister of Justice and Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Jamal Ahmad Al-Shihab confirmed Thursday that the government would not reject the anti-blasphemy bill… “Freedom of expression does not mean defaming or offending sanctities of nations,” Al-Shihab said…. The first [provision, passed Thursday by the National Assembly,] makes insulting or […]