I look forward to Ilya's next post on the rise of conservative public interest law. Meanwhile, I though I'd chime in with my own comment on Steve Teles's take on the Institute for Justice and the Center of Individual Rights.

First, let me acknowledge that I'm a huge fan of both organizations, and have friends who work at each of them. Nevertheless, having followed their progress from the beginning, I perceive of some weaknesses and missteps that Teles ignores.

To take one major example, when I was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, I had Dean Evan Caminker guest lecture to my Constitutional Law class on the Grutter/Gratz affirmative action litigation. Among other things, Caminker provided a very persuasive analysis of why suing the University of Michigan, as opposed to other possible targets, was a strategic blunder by CIR. Not least, the University was able to spend virtually unlimited funds defending itself without asking the state legislature, which would not have been true for most state universities. A far more congenial target would have been a university that needed special funding from the leglisature to fight CIR, along with an unsympathetic legislature.

Teles, however, seems to have relied primarily on interviews with the principals in these organizations, along with the access he received to their internal documents. This certainly provided him with many interesting insights, but I think also meant that a certain objective outsider perspective is lacking.