Lawprof Adrian Vermuele has a very interesting 13-page symposium essay up on SSRN entitled “Libertarian Panics.” You can download it here. From the abstract: In a standard analysis, the history of civil liberties is characterized by a series of security panics. A range of mechanisms – cognitive heuristics and biases, various forms of cascading and […]
Author Archive | Orin Kerr
Law Professor Takes on Law School Exams:
Northwestern Law Prof Steve Lubet, who I believe runs the clinical programs at Northwestern, has an article in the American Lawyer arguing that traditional law school essay exams are in need of major reform: There is almost nothing about the typical law school examination that is really designed to test the skills involved in law […]
Business School Hack:
If you were on the admissions committee at Harvard Business School, would you consider it a plus or a minus if a candidate hacked in to a computer that stored admissions decisions to find out whether they had been admitted? How about if 100 students did it? A misdemeanor violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(c) isn’t […]
Should the FEC Regulate Political Blogging?:
Rick Hasen offers some thoughts. I am no expert in this stuff, but the recent comments of FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith that the FEC might start to regulate blogging sound to me more like parts of a media strategy than a prediction. Smith is strongly opposed to campaign finance regulation, and suggesting that the FEC […]
New Decisions on Prisoner Lawsuits and Criminal Law:
Fresh from its decision invalidating the juvenile death penalty, the Supreme Court today expanded the scope of prisoner civil rights claims in one decision and made it harder for prosecutors to prove a defendant’s prior criminal record to trigger higher punishments in another decision. Finally, in a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas strongly suggested that the […]
The Long Road to Being a Law Professor:
An interesting discussion has been bouncing around the blogosphere recently about what law schools students should attend if they want to become law professors. To get up to speed on the discussion, check out these posts by Chris Geidner, Brian Leiter, Christine Hurt, and Larry Solum (and Larry again here). This is a very good […]
Are Young Associates Slackers, or Just Rational Actors?:
Last week, Law.com posted this National Law Journal article on the work ethic of law firm associates who are part of the the so-called “Generation Y” — those born in 1978 or later. The verdict? From the perspective of today’s law firm partners, associates from Generation Y are “slackers” with “a flabby work ethic” who […]
Being Super-Rich May Be Easy, but Being Merely Rich is Hard:
That seems to be a favorite lesson taught by the folks at the New York Times. See this article today, and this article from last week.
Martha Stewart:
Who ever is doing public relations for Martha Stewart deserves every penny she is paying them. Law schools teach that the purposes of sending lawbreakers to jail are to deter wrongdoing and punish the wrongdoers. The press coverage of Martha Stewart’s release from prison suggests a third purpose: humanizing celebrities, giving them some adversity to […]
PatriotDebates.com:
Congress will be considering the sunsetting provisions of the USA Patriot Act later this year. In anticipation of the coming debate, the Standing Committee on Law and National Security of the American Bar Association has assembled a group of experts in this area to debate the merits of key sections of the Patriot Act (as […]
Solomon Amendment and Moussaoui Petitions:
How Appealing has posted the petition for certiorari and brief in opposition in the Moussaoui case from the Fourth Circuit, as well as the petition for certiorari in the Solomon Amendment case from the Third Circuit. These things can be hard to guess, but I think the Court will grant the petition in the Solomon […]
When I First Read
this profile in the New York Observer, I wondered if it was just a parody poking fun at the pretentiousness of Harvard graduates. But a link from The Corner suggests it’s the real deal.
Baude on Roper on Foreign Law:
Will Baude offers thoughts on the use and misuse of foreign law in Roper v. Simmons at The New Republic Online.
Lots of Interesting Stuff
posted recently over at The Right Coast. Check it out.
Justice Scalia Isn’t Exactly A Model
of jurisprudential consistency, but those trying to play “gotcha” with him have to do much better than this piece by William Saletan in Slate. Here is Saletan’s first paragraph: Dissenting from Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the execution of juveniles, Justice Antonin Scalia ridicules his colleagues for switching sides on the basis of “evolving […]