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The Third Circuit today split with the en banc Tenth Circuit (and less directly, some other courts) in rejecting a Free Exercise and RFRA challenge to the contraceptive coverage mandate. The majority decided that a closely-held, secular, for-profit corporation cannot assert Free Exercise or RFRA rights at all, and also that its members cannot assert […]

Over at CNET, Declan McCullagh has an article claiming that “the U.S. government” is requesting passwords from service providers in online investigations, at least “according to two industry sources familiar with these orders.” I have a hard time understanding what is going on, or if there’s actually a “there” there from a legal perspective. Here’s […]

Earlier this month, The New Republic posted an article by Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford on the Zimmerman trial. As noted by my co-blogger David Bernstein and Michelle Meyer at The Faculty Lounge, this article included some factual inaccuracies. Most notably, the article (as originally published) contained the following sentence: . . . Zimmerman […]

I will be on the John Batchelor Show on WABC in New York City (770AM) tonight at 10:15EST, discussing Israeli settlements, European policy, and related diplomatic developments. Streaming and podcast available online.

Following the Senate’s confirmation of Richard Cordray as Director of the CFPB, the New York Times Room for Debate did a segment on the CFPB. I was asked by the editor to contribute on what the CFPB should avoid doing. My contribution is here. The full forum is here.

Alex Chaufen has a review today at Forbes.com of The American Illness (mentioned yesterday as well).

Commenter Katja pointed to this fascinating Der Spiegel story; apparently there’s been a good deal written about him recently, but I’d never heard of it, so I thought I’d pass the story along.

Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania has an op-ed in Thursday’s WSJ discussing some of the legal issues raised by Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing and the potential conflict with the Michigan constitution.  Skeel writes: Article IX, Section 24, of the Michigan state constitution says: “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and […]

I blogged this three years ago, but I was reminded of it and thought it was time to pass it along again. From squid314 (Scott Alexander, now at Slate Star Codex): As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve been watching Babylon 5 lately. It’s not a perfect show, but it has one big advantage: […]

A decade ago last week, I left the Volokh Conspiracy and took a leave of absence from teaching to be a law clerk for Justice Kennedy. Over at Excess of Democracy, lawprof Derek Muller looks at what that year of law clerks is up to 10 years later. (Yeah, I’m not sure why anyone other […]

Congratulations to Louis George Alexander (1932-2002), author of New Concept English and the Direct English Syllabus and Course Structure! UPDATE: It’s been suggested to me that maybe this is actually all about George Louis Costanza, played by Jason Alexander.

The Canadian Competition Tribunal yesterday rejected a claim by the Canadian Competition Bureau seeking to require credit card networks to create a right to allow merchants to surcharge consumers who use credit cards for payment. Canadian consumer groups recognized this as a big win for consumers: Consumer groups were hailing the decision as a major […]

I previously mentioned the new volume edited by my colleague Frank Buckley, entitled The American Illness: Essays in the Rule of Law (to which I contributed a co-authered essay). Richard Reinsch has a review of the book today at the Liberty Law blog. Frank also recently wrote an op-ed for the National Post comparing the condition […]

The Huffington Post has an important story on the impact of sequestration on funding for federal public defenders. An excerpt: The public defender system hasn’t just been stripped bare by sequestration, its bones have been chiseled away as well. There has been a 9 percent reduction in the roughly $1 billion budget for federal public […]

Over at Prawfs, my co-author Eve Brensike Primus answered a Q&A on the influence of legal scholarship among judges: [Question by Jack Chin]: What advice do you have for scholars who want their work to be influential in the courts? If you want to be influential, you have to address important legal subjects that courts […]