Legal Commentary

Thanks to Dan for another stint at Prawfs. I am one of those odd people who came to full time law teaching after many years (26!) in practice. My own special mid-life crisis was to find a job where I ahd to work twice as hard for a fraction of the pay. I have been disappointed on neither count (although, really, law professors can't complain about salary in comparison to the real world out there). Nor have I been disappointed in my expectation that it would be a ton of fun and better suited to me than the practice ever was.

Although my scholarship tends to be in the area of law and religion and election law (I see them as connected but that's for another post), I also have spent a fair amount of time at Marquette following the Wisconsin Supreme Court and state constitutional law. I think that the latter tends to be neglected in law schools because, for any particular state, there are very limited outlets for scholarship and a perception that this type of local work won't build cred.

I include myself in this. I have never written a law review article on state constitutional law (although I have written more "popular" things).

But isn't this a problem? State courts of last resort can have a huge impact on community life. While some of what they do gets picked up in general doctrinal study, there are bodies of law flowing from, say, particular state constitutional provisions that do not.

Am I right? Is this a neglected area? If so, what's the solution?