One of the cool things about my part-part-part-time gig with Mayer Brown LLP is that I get to help my colleagues on some of the most fascinating constitutional law cases around. One very recent example is the certiorari petition in Empress Casino v. Giannoulias, a case involving a pretty deep split on the important question of when a monetary exaction becomes a taking for Takings Clause purposes. The split has been aggravated by the Court's fractured opinion in Eastern Associates v. Apfel (1998) — 4-1-4 decisions tend to do that — though it existed even independently of that case.

Our very own Ilya Somin, together with Eric Claeys, Richard Epstein, Nicole Garnett, and Eric Kades, has also signed on to a law professors' amicus brief in support of the petition, written by Stephen B. Kinnaird and his Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker colleagues; and this amicus brief from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, one of the oldest pro-property-rights (among other things) public interest law firms, is also very good. If you're a Takings Clause buff, check them out — this is important and very interesting stuff.