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Law.com’s new list of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America includes our own Eugene Volokh, together with the following blurb: If Eugene Volokh had done nothing but create The Volokh Conspiracy, a conservative-libertarian weblog that averages about 25,000 unique hits per weekday, his fame and influence would be secure. Volokh’s blog is a forum […]

I’m delighted to report that Prof. John McGinnis of Northwestern University School of Law will be guest-blogging this coming week about his new book, Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology (Princeton University Press). John is a leading constitutional scholar, author of over 75 articles, and coauthor of the forthcoming Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard […]

Politico has the story, via How Appealing.

As Jonathan wrote earlier, the Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center might portend big things for Auer deference. Jonathan’s already hit the high points, but I wanted to note what Scalia said about how deferential Auer deference really is. It turns out there’s disagreement in the literature over the strength […]

Jhesus-Maria, King of England, and you, Duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the Kingdom of France, you, Guillaume de la Poule, count of Suffort, Jean, sire of Talbot, and you, Thomas, sire of Scales, who call yourselves lieutenants of the Duke of Bedford, acknowledge the summons of the King of Heaven.  Render to […]

On Monday, Andrew Auernheimer was sentenced to serve 41 months in prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Auernheimer’s case has received a lot of press attention, and I think that attention is merited: I think the case against Auernheimer is deeply flawed, and that the principles the case raises are critically important […]

The Associated Press has this story on what it means for lawyers to join the U.S. Supreme Court bar. As the article suggests, being a member of the Supreme Court bar doesn’t mean much. Pretty much any lawyer who pays the $200 is admitted, at least if they have been in good standing in a […]

The New Hampshire Constitution, I just learned, provides: It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as impartial as the lot of humanity will admit. It is therefore not only the best policy, but for the security of the rights of the people, that the judges of the supreme judicial court […]

The Court’s opinion in the Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley case, which came out on Tuesday, has some interesting fodder for those looking for glimpses of how copyright law is evolving these days.  The case centered on a hyper-technical question involving three interlocking statutory sections in the Copyright Act (I blogged about it in some detail […]

My new post is up on the Reason Foundation web site. (Earlier, I had posted there on the Supreme Court’s antitrust decision in FTC v. Phoebe Putney.) Here’s the beginning: In June 2010, the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers & Staff filed a petition to be certified as the exclusive bargaining representative of teachers at […]

Can cyberwar be limited by international law and diplomacy?  Those who believe in international “norms” for cyberwar usually argue that cyberattacks on financial institutions are beyond the pale. For example, Harold Koh has declared the State Department’s view that cyberwarriors “must distinguish military objectives … from civilian objects, which under international law are generally protected from […]

My friend Marvin Ammori has a piece in Slate about Uber, Lyft, and SideCar, three new companies trying to provide competition to the taxicab market. Here’s what he has to say about the antitrust solution to taxicab monopolies: It might seem odd to call for a federal agency like the FTC to take action in […]

From today’s Kirstaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; pay particular attention to the last sentence: We cannot, however, give the Quality King statement the legal weight for which Wiley argues. The language “lawfully made under this title” was not at issue in Qual­ity King; the point before us now was not then fully argued; […]

Today’s hearing on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is available here via C-SPAN. The hearing was pretty fascinating for electronic privacy nerds: Everyone seemed to agree that the laws needed revising, and even DOJ was on board with the basic idea of expanding privacy protections to have a general warrant requirement for access to stored […]

Yesterday and today, I attended two excellent talks in the Atlanta area — the free-market/libertarian scene in Atlanta is actually kind of booming these days, with FEE, AFF, GPPF and ATLOS having an active presence, as well as some interesting student organizations. Last night, Tom Palmer of Cato/Atlas came down to Kennesaw State University to […]