Legal Commentary

Eightmaps

Posted on February 15, 2009
Howard Wasserman and Richard Esenberg have blogged about the matter before, but now the New York Times is picking up the story (Prawfs gets results!): FOR the backers of Proposition 8, the state ballot measure to stop single-sex couples from marrying in California, victory has been soured by the ugly specter of intimidation...

No moralizing in the pharmacy! Please moralize in the fertility clinic!

Posted on February 15, 2009
In recent years, there has been widespread resistance to the suggestion that a health care provider's own moral convictions should limit or otherwise shape the services she provides. Whenever a pharmacist refuses to dispense the "morning after" pill, to cite a well-known example, most academic and media commentators have been quick to condemn the refusal...

Crazy Week

Posted on February 14, 2009
I would have posted more this week. But it was a little hectic at my law school.

I'm leaving (Texas) today . . . New York, New York

Posted on February 13, 2009
A year and a day after the suit was removed to federal court, Judge Ellison of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas has dismissed the main chunk of Roger Clemens' defamation action against former trainer Brian McNamee. The suit contained three claims, arising from statements made: 1) to the Mitchell Commission; 2) to SI reporter Jon Heyman; and 3) to Andy Pettitte...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Books All Law Professors Should Read - the PrawfsBlawg Research Canons Project

Posted on February 13, 2009
I had a short-lived post here asking readers to list books that all law professors should (have) read. Dave Hoffman (Temple Law) pointed out that Prawfs Blawg has already done this in its "Research Canons Project" that Matt Bodie started back in September, 2006...

"Hands Off" Religious Doctrine

Posted on February 13, 2009
In January 2008, the AALS Law and Religion Section's program examined the rule, or claim, that the Constitution requires government to adopt a "hands off" approach to religious doctrine. The papers -- by Kent Greenawalt, Sam Levine, Andy Koppelman, Chris Eisgruber & Larry Sager, Bernie Meyler, and me -- have been published in the Notre Dame Law Review, and are available here...

"Best practices" in health care

Posted on February 13, 2009
Last month the UK's Department of Health issued a guide on religion for British health care providers. Much of it is unobjectionable and unsurprising (proselytizing=boo! raising awareness=yay!), but one section stopped me in my tracks. In the section headed "trans people," the Department notes that because some religions "do not embrace" "trans people," providers "may be faced with a situation where a member of staff objects to working with or treating a trans person on the grounds of their religious beliefs...

Trans Fat

Posted on February 13, 2009
The Spring law review submission cycle is (almost?) upon us. My contribution to the mass of submissions is Trans Fat, a book review co-authored with Liz Glazer. In the paper, we review Professor Anna Kirkland's wonderful book Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood (NYU Press 2008)...

Fostering Inclusion

Posted on February 13, 2009
Cynthia Tucker wrote a very thought-provoking editorial last Sunday about how officially setting aside one month of the year as Black History Month simply reinforces that the history and achievements of those of African descent in this country somehow isn't a part of American History...

Should criminal omissions liability attach in the face of victim's apparent consent?

Posted on February 12, 2009
My co-authors and I are just putting the finishing touches on Privilege or Punish, our book about how the criminal justice system uses a defendant's family status to both create and exempt defendants from liability or enhanced punishment. Thus, it's too bad that we are too late in the process to draw upon this fascinating story brought to my attention by one of my students in crim law this semester...

What would it mean to be the #1 law school for ethics?

Posted on February 12, 2009
I'm at the ABA's mid-year meeting in Boston, and today I learned that some legal ethics types have been talking with Bob Morse of U.S. News about the possibility of adding an "ethics" component to the law school rankings. It sounds like the conversation is at a very early stage, so specifics are lacking...

Bring back the filibuster

Posted on February 12, 2009
My procedural take-away from the stimulus story is that the Senate needs to bring back the filibuster--the Jimmy Stewart/Strom Thurmond-25-hour-talk-a-thons. The point was driven home by this morning's story on NPR about last night's compromise, which stated that the support of the three Republican Senators was necessary because "60 votes are needed for passage in the Senate...

Books All Law Professors Should Read?

Posted on February 12, 2009
In high school, an excellent teacher showed us a list of books that top college professors believed incoming freshman should (have) read. What books do law professors expect other law professors to have read? When you present at a faculty workshop, for example, what knowledge can you assume on the part of colleagues? I am talking about scholarly law books, not general books...

Comments on FIU's Dean Search

Posted on February 11, 2009
As much of the country seems to now by know, both South Florida newspapers yesterday ran stories yesterday reporting the ten candidates for FIU's deanship (what I have been calling the "medium list"). The stories focus (in headline, lede, and content) on one name--Alex Acosta, the outgoing United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who is described in both stories as a "leading" candidate...

Equal Access with a Twist...

Posted on February 11, 2009
A district court in Minnesota recently decided an equal access case that has some important implications. Child Evangelism Fellowship had sued the Elk River School District, having wanted to distribute its literature on school bulletin boards and at school open houses...

FIU Dean Search II: Oops

Posted on February 11, 2009
In my earlier post on the news accounts of the FIU dean search, I likened a mainstream media accounts of a law dean search to accounts of judicial proceedings--ripe for context to be lost in translation. I was more right than I thought. It turns out that the ten people mentioned in the newspaper stories are not finalists for the job in any sense; those were ten candidates that were discussed during that meeting (which was attended by a Herald reporter)...

"The Catholic Church and Intellectual Freedom"

Posted on February 11, 2009
This is the title of Sandy Levinson's post, over at Balkinization, reacting to (the New York Times' account and characterization of) Pope Benedict XVI's recent dealings with several formerly-schismatic Catholic bishops, including one who is clearly a loathesome Holocaust denier...

Koppelman on Taylor's "A Secular Age"

Posted on February 11, 2009
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" has been mentioned here at Prawfs before. Andy Koppelman has this review, over at "Dissent", and it is well worth a read. (The book is too but . . . it is really long.) Much of Andy's review deals with the increasingly discussion about the possibility of non-theistic foundations for the morality of human rights...

Baseball, Steroids, and Jurisprudence

Posted on February 11, 2009
Here is a question for the jurisprudes and the crim law types: In 1991, baseball established by rule that it was against the rules of the game to use a range of drugs, including steroids. There was no testing, no enforcement mechanism, and no determinate punishments for using steroids...

Garnett wins Bator Award

Posted on February 10, 2009
No, not me. The thoughtful and talented one. Congrats!

Should we be teaching more?

Posted on February 10, 2009
There has been a lot of conversation about the existence of a legal education bubble, and I have zero expertise on those dynamics. I do know quite a bit about me, though, so my thoughts at these times naturally turn to the question, what would the post-bubble legal education world have to look like for me to jump back into private practice? Now perhaps the post-bubble world means non-existence for some law schools, particularly the new ones, which could hasten my return to practice...

Birth of a Reactionary

Posted on February 10, 2009
Last night's prime-time presidential press conference gave me new insight into the substantial minority of citizens who passionately, vituperatively opposed FDR at the outset of the New Deal. I used to think they were just a bunch of top-hatted plutocrats, alarmed at losing their class prerogatives and outraged to be betrayed by one of their own...

What is the Second Amendment for? (Part Three)

Posted on February 10, 2009
The previous two installments to this post are here and here. At this point, some of you might be asking: How many parts can there be to this post? Aren?t two enough? Well, in a recent article I identified nine distinct arguments (of varying degrees of persuasiveness) that have been offered in favor of the Second Amendment...

Should Obama Veto His Own Bi-Curious Stimulus Package?

Posted on February 10, 2009
Monday?s Senate vote was anything but bipartisan - it was merely ?bi-curious" at best. (The House stimulus plan got zero Republican votes last month; the Senate version got just three Republican votes.) Remember, Obama really, really wanted a bipartisan plan, which made good political sense: What if the Democrat stimulus fails to stimulate the economy? The Wall Street Journal says we?ll be out of ammunition and deeper in the hole - and Democrats will shoulder all the blame...

Eight More Arrests in the Phelps Matter

Posted on February 10, 2009
Details here. The County Sheriff has now made eight arrests in connection with the Phelps incident, seven for drug possession and one for distribution. Phelps himself wasn't arrested. Apparently, the police now also possess the infamous bong, which the owner was trying to sell on eBay for $100,000...

A-Rod and Michael Phelps

Posted on February 09, 2009
It's surprising in combination. Michael Phelps is caught using marijuana, a non-performance-enhancing drug, a single time. And he gets a three-month suspension from USA swimming, dropped by Kellogg's, and criminally investigated by the local sheriff's department...

Teaching Self-Awareness

Posted on February 06, 2009
We have all seen the reports about how unhappy many lawyers are, how many people drop out of the profession, describe themselves as "recovering lawyers," and so on. And we know that lots of law students are unhappy, stressed, and confused about what law school is supposed to be doing...

Five years of Mirror of Justice

Posted on February 06, 2009
For the "things that make you go . . . I'm old" file: This week marks the fifth anniversary of my other blog-home, Mirror of Justice. (Here is the first post.) Tempus freakin' fugit.

What is the Second Amendment for? (Part Two)

Posted on February 05, 2009
As I?m sure you all know, in District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects individual interests in private arms possession, interests unrelated to state militia service. In this series of blogposts, I?m asking the following question: What are these interests? (This is a topic I have pursued in greater detail in a recent article...

Is public reason a two-way street?

Posted on February 05, 2009
We pay a lot of attention, at least in the academy, to how religious believers engage the political arena. We would prefer that believers put their views into language that is accessible -- not necessarily agreeable -- to non-believers. (E.g., we frown on "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," but are willing to discuss "Children are more likely to flourish under the care of a father and mother...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.