I blogged below about why I’m skeptical of claims that law school should be shortened to two years; I think there’s a lot for business lawyers to learn, and it’s hard to fit all that into two years, even entirely excluding any of the classes that people sometimes mock (whether rightly or wrongly) as irrelevant. […]
Archive | August, 2013
Reducing Law School to Two Years?
Some people have argued that law school should be reduced from three years to two; President Obama has really endorsed this view. Such a reduction, the theory goes, will substantially reduce costs (whether those costs are paid by students, parents, or taxpayers) — the student won’t have to pay for a year’s education, and will […]
Why the Government Doesn’t Know What Documents Snowden Copied
A lot of folks have wondered how the U.S. government couldn’t know what documents Edward Snowden illegally copied, and this AP story suggests an answer: The U.S. government’s efforts to determine which highly classified materials leaker Edward Snowden took from the National Security Agency have been frustrated by Snowden’s sophisticated efforts to cover his digital […]
Suzanna Sherry on “Universally Condemned” Supreme Court Decisions
By Ilya Somin on August 25, 2013 8:55 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory
In her latest rejoinder in our debate about “judicial activism,” Prof. Suzanna Sherry helpfully clarifies her view on what qualifies as a “universally condemned” Supreme Court decision. This is important, because Sherry claims that we have more reason to fear excessive judicial passivity than excessive “activism” (which she defines as striking down laws or official […]
Rationalist Activist Murdered in India
From today’s
Sherry (again) on Somin and Kerr
By Prof. Suzanna Sherry (Vanderbilt), guest-blogging on August 25, 2013 4:15 pm in Constitutional Law, Judicial Power, Supreme Court
I don’t know how Ilya and Orin and other bloggers do it. Like me, they have day jobs, but they seem to find time to write multiple careful and thoughtful posts! The press of other work means that this will probably be my last post, so I’ll try to be concise and complete. I thank […]
“Woman Sues [Massachusetts] Over Required Contact With Rapist”
A reader e-mailed me about this incident and asked how it could be possible; for some sample coverage, see this WBUR story: A 19-year-old Massachusetts woman is suing the state for requiring her to attend family court with the man who raped and impregnated her. In court filings, the victim, whom WBUR is not naming, […]
United States v. One Crystal Covered Bad Tour Glove
One of the best case names ever; the full citation would be United States v. One Crystal Covered Bad Tour Glove and Other Michael Jackson Memorabilia (C.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2013), and it has the added benefit of involving the government of Equatorial Guinea.
Geography Puzzle
There is a place name word — not just a common non-place-name word that can be part of a place name, such as “of” or “United” — that appears in the names of four different countries that had been colonized by European powers. Yet each of the countries was predominantly colonized by a different power. […]
Sacramento and Washington, DC Threaten to Use Eminent Domain to Take Property to Build Sports Stadiums
Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice describes Sacramento and Washington, DC’s ill-advised plans to use the threat of eminent domain to acquire property to build sports stadiums on: In less than a week, two capital cities are preparing to use eminent domain to build professional sports stadiums. Talk about foul play. The Sacramento city […]
My Forthcoming Article on “Jury Ignorance and Political Ignorance”
Having written extensively on the problem of voter ignorance, I was pleased to have the opportunity to write an article on the related problem of juror ignorance for the William and Mary Law Review Symposium on the Jury as a Political Institution. Although jury ignorance is a significant problem in some cases, overall I am […]
The Supreme Court As Predictor of Future Preferences: A Reply to Sherry
This is a reply to Professor Sherry about her argument that courts should strike down more legislation. In her reply to my critique of that argument, she explains that that her mini empirical study was merely intended as confirmation that striking down more laws is good because public preference favors more rights over time. As […]
Ctrl-Shift-T Reopens the Just-Closed Tab
Cool keyboard shortcut in Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer; repeating it reopens the one closed before that, and so on, apparently up to 10. On Macs, it’s said to be Command-Shift-T. I didn’t know that, and I suspect many of our readers didn’t, either, so I thought I’d mention it. Thanks to Ryan Vogt (Slate) […]
From A Crawl to A Sprint: Obama and the D.C. Circuit
On June 4, 2013, President Obama made three nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It remains to be seen how many of these nominees will be confirmed to this essential court. Republicans are in no rush to fill more seats on this Circuit, having already defeated one nominee to this […]
Alice Walker Kerfuffle at University of Michigan
Novelist Alice Walker was invited, then disinvited, from speaking at the Univeristy of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women’s fifiteth anniversary celebration. Walker claims that the disinvitation came because of pressure from pro-Israel donors. The Center claims that they just decided that they erred in inviting such a divisive figure to the celebration–Walker is […]