The Faculty Lounge

Courthouse Trivia

Continuing with the absurdly difficult trivia -- this is a courthouse in a pretty obscure place.  Identify the courthouse at right.  In the  background, just to the left of the courthouse you can see a Confederate monument.

Petersburg Courthouse

I was thinking this afternoon that this blog needs some more pictures of courthouses, particuarly from before the Civil War.   Here's one of the Petersburg, Virginia, courthouse that I took recently.

Faculty Hiring: Suffolk

From an email that I received today:

SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL in Boston invites applications for a position as an Assistant Professor of Academic Support beginning in the spring semester of the 2012-2013 academic year or the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic year.  Assistant Professors in the Academic Support Program (ASP) are responsible for assisting incoming students as they acclimate to the rigors of law school by teaching skills such as case briefing, course outlining, and legal synthesis.  In addition, ASP Professors work with upper-division students in order to enhance their study skills and analytical abilities.  Candidates must be available to teach both day and evening-division students, and are required to work with students both in the classroom and on a one-on-one basis.  We welcome applications from all persons of high academic achievement with a strong commitment to academic support, and particularly encourage applications from women, people of color, and others whose backgrounds will contribute to the diversity of the faculty.  Academic support or law school teaching experience is strongly preferred.  Interested candidates must have a J.D. degree and be admitted to a bar.  Interested applicants should address a cover letter, résumé, and a list of three references to:  Chair, LPS and ASP Committee, at pmiceli@suffolk.edu. Alternatively, applicants may address their materials to the Chair and send them to our administrative assistant at the following address: Suffolk University Law School, ATTN: Patti Miceli, LPS Department, 120 Tremont St., Boston, Massachusetts 02108.  The Committee will begin reviewing resumes in September of 2012 and will continue until the position is filled.  Suffolk University is an equal opportunity employer.

Mid-Atlantic Law And Society Conference Next Week

It's time to remind readers that we're hosting the inaugural MALSA conference here  at Drexel on October 19-20.  With over 100 presenters, this promises to be a phenomenal organizational kickoff - a great chance to meet and greet, and hear about some interesting new interdisciplinary work.  And since Drexel is a short walk from 30th Street Station, it's an easy day trip for folks who live anywhere from DC to NYC.

Conference details are here.  

U.Mass. Law Seeks Dean of Students

Assistant Dean for Student Engagement and Professional Development

The Assistant Dean for Student Engagement & Professional Development will be responsible for designing and implementing programs for the development of professional identity and supporting the personal and social development of the students. The successful candidate will work closely with faculty and staff and will be responsible for the integration of curricular and co-curricular programs and resources related to professional responsibility, career planning, networking, community outreach, and pro bono student activities. In addition, the Assistant Dean for Student Development will plan and execute programming and events, including Law School graduation formalities, and will facilitate the formation and operation of all student groups. Furthermore, this individual will provide individual counseling and referrals for students with difficult personal circumstances, disabilities, and life challenges and workshops for students on common issues including stress management and management of financial resources. The Assistant Dean will work with the University Office of Student Conduct and Dispute Resolution to resolve all disciplinary matters within the Law School. Lastly, the Assistant Dean will be responsible for pro-active programming creating an inclusive learning environment in the Law School and education relating to the development of culturally competent lawyers.

UMass School of Law - Dartmouth is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty, administration and student body and encourages applications from members of underrepresented groups who will add diversity to the Law School Community.

 For the complete job description please go to www.umassd.edu/hr.

 MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

EDUCATION:  Juris Doctorate and admission to practice in any jurisdiction.

EXPERIENCE:  Significant experience with legal education and/or the legal profession.  A minimum of 3-5 years of progressively responsible experience in higher education or the legal profession.

OTHER:   Must have a broad understanding of multi-constituency, diversity and inclusiveness.  Experience with budget development and oversight.

 To apply please send a letter of interest, current resume and the contact information for up to three professional references to: Search for Assistant Dean for Student Engagement and Professional Development, Office of Human Resources, 285 Old Westport Rd, North Dartmouth, MA 02747.

The University of Massachusetts is an EEO/AA employer.

The University of Massachusetts reserves the right to conduct background checks on all potential employees.

U.Mass. Law Seeks Faculty

THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL OF LAW-DARTMOUTH

Assistant/Associate/Professor

Director of Academic Success Position

The law school seeks a tenured or tenure track faculty member who will be the Director of Academic Success and teach one required non-academic support course each year.  Doctrinal needs include Contracts, Property, and Civil Procedure.  In addition, the Director of Academic Success will supervise academic support professionals, teach in the academic support program, and direct the provision of a full range of academic support services, from a pre-law preparation program, through a robust law school support program, culminating in a bar prep support program for graduates.  It will be expected that this faculty member will regularly work during the summer months.

 UMass School of Law - Dartmouth’s mission centers on public service and the school is committed to the principles of Best Practices. The School seeks to prepare students to practice law in a competent and ethical manner while serving the community.  The School offers a robust legal education program which includes traditional courses as well as clinical programs, both in-house and off campus, and a field placement program utilizing experienced practitioners.   Students are required to take 6 practice-oriented courses and to provide 30 hours of pro bono legal assistance to graduate.

 The successful candidate must have teaching experience and have practiced law in either the private or public arena, will have taught in a student success program, will be experienced in developing or teaching bar exam support programs, will have experience working with non-traditional students and students from communities underrepresented in the profession, and should demonstrate abilities in institutional research, assessment and outcomes reporting.  Candidates must possess a J.D., must be a member in good standing of a state’s bar, must demonstrate a record of outstanding achievement in a law practice and/or law teaching , and must demonstrate a potential for excellence as a teacher and scholar.  Applicants with a background in education, public interest/government practice experience or community-based small firm practice are encouraged to apply.

 UMass School of Law - Dartmouth is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty, administration and student body and encourages applications from members of underrepresented groups who will add diversity to the Law School Community.

 The Faculty Appointments Committee will be attending the AALS Recruitment Conference in Washington, DC, October 11-13, 2012.  Interested candidates should submit a letter of application and a current resume to Professor Frances Howell Rudko, Faculty Appointments Committee, (frudko@umassd.edu), University of Massachusetts School of Law - Dartmouth, 333 Faunce Corner Road, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts  02747.  Local candidates who cannot attend the AALS Conference can be scheduled for on campus screening interviews following the Conference.  Please indicate your preference in your letter of application.

 The University of Massachusetts School of Law - Dartmouth is an EEO-AA Employer.

The University of Massachusetts reserves the right to conduct background checks on all potential employees.

CWRU Law Review's Below the Line Project

From the editors of the Case Western Reserve University Law Review comes the announcement of a new initiative involving podcasts of articles published in the review.

For each issue of the Case Western Reserve Law Review, the editors select one article to feature in the new Below the Line series. In each podcast the author offers a summary of the article and answers a few questions. In addition, the editors invite leading authorities in the relevant field of law to offer their commentary on the article. The first podcast is available here. 

The first two programs are:

Below the Line 62:4 Featuring Professor Daniel P. Tokaji (Ohio State) and his article Baker, Bush, and Ballot Boards: The Federalization of Election Administration

With commentary by Professor Rick Hasen (UC Irvine, Election Law Blog) and Professor Bradley Smith (Capital University)

Below the Line 63:1 Featuring Professor Clay Calvert (Florida) and his article To Defer or Not to Defer? Deference and Its Deferential Impact in the Roberts Court

With commentary by Professor Mark Tushnet (Harvard) and Professor Steve Shiffrin (Cornell)

Available November 2012

Haunted or Not?

It's October, which ought to really be my favorite month because this is the one month when it's socially acceptable to talk about cemeteries.  But instead of posting some more pictures of cemeteries, I'm going to post a picture of a house and ask a key question: haunted or not?

Before answering this, I might note that it sure looks like it goes back to the era before the Civil War.  And -- and this is key -- it's in Southampton County, near the route the Nat Turner's rebellion took in August 1831.

I will also add -- and I guess this will surprise no long-time readers of the faculty lounge -- that I absolutely love this house.

Tomlins on Nat Turner

As I'm working on edits on the first chapter of University, Court, and Slave, I'm revisiting the trials that took place in Southampton County in the wake of the Nat Turner rebellion.  I see that Chris Tomlins of UC-Irvine's Law School (and winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American history for Freedom Bound) has a new paper up on ssrn, "Demonic Ambiguities: Enchantment and Disenchantment in Nathaniel Turner’s Virginia," about The Confessions of Nat Turner.  Here is his abstract:

This paper conjoins three texts – the “Confessions of Nat Turner,” Walter Benjamin’s “Capitalism as Religion,” and Max Weber’s “Science as a Vocation.” Benjamin and Weber provide interpretive prisms through which to examine Turner’s confession. Though quite unlike each other, each glances at the demonic – a matter of some significance when one considers the meaning of the “full faith and credit” held due the decision of the Southampton (Virginia) County Court to hangTurner for his attempted 1831 slave rebellion. Like guilt/debt, the dual meanings of Schuld that, for Benjamin, confirmed the existence of a religious – specifically a Christian – structure in capitalism, the conjunction of faith and credit has its own demonic ambiguity, simultaneously sacralizing (faith) and secularizing (credit) the authority of the law. In capitalism as religion and as law, these demonic ambiguities fuse together in an overwhelming simultaneity that is at once economic and juridical, moral and psychological, profane and sacral. This simultaneity – and Turner’s attempt to disrupt it – is the paper’s chief concern.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thomas Dew makes an appearance in Chris' article -- I have some thoughts on Dew here.  The illustration is of the Meherrin Road in Southampton, near the intersection with Blackhead Signpost Road.  It is looking in the direction of the battle at Parker's field, which figures prominently in Nat Turner's confession.

Don't Like ABA Law School Standards? New New York Regs Hint At The Future

For years, certain critics of the American Bar Association's regulation of U.S. law schools have argued that schools should have the freedom to design their own programs, on their own terms, and let the market decide which models survive.  These folks tend to object to things like tenure rules, detailed curricular requirements, and the like.  

We could debate whether some of these critiques are fair, but any assessment can't be done in a vaccum.  We can't assume that if the ABA deregulates law schools, states won't step in.   One of the greatest virtues of having the ABA involved in law school accreditation is that it deters state by state regulation.  Local regulation carries additional costs to law schools and create a big hassle for students.  

The New York bar is doing us all a favor by foreshadowing this reality.  In an updated section 520.3 of  Court of Appeals' Rules of the Court for the Admission of Attorneys, New York sets out its own mini-version of law school accreditation rules: any law grad seeking admission to the New York Bar must meet certain requirements that are somewhat different from the ABA considers sufficient for accreditation.  

For example, while the ABA is silent about the classroom component of a clinic that counts toward the "in-class" course requirement, the New York Bar requires that: " the course includes adequate classroom meetings or seminars during the same semester in which the clinical work is completed in order to ensure contemporaneous discussion, review and evaluation of the clinical experience "  Most law schools have this already - but what if they don't?  And is New York planning on sending out accreditation teams to evaluate compliance with the subjective component of the requirement?"  (Think: a New York Bar summarian.)  Then there is the rule that says you have to complete law school in 60 months - fully two years sooner than required by the ABA.

Then there's the matter of online courses.  The ABA  is not a big fan and limits them to 12 credits out of the required 83 units.  New York limits them to...ZERO.  (Strictly speaking, online courses are OK with New York as along as they are sychronous.  But that's not a normal online course.)

What's next?  Some states might start requiring two professional skill courses or two semesters of ethics.  (Wait!  Indiana already does the latter.)   It's easy to imagine one state after another demanding   3 credit's of [fill in the state] Practice and Procedure.  

 These would not be impossible hurdles, but they would increase the cost of legal education - by having to advise students on individual state curricular rules and having to provide low-enrollment specialty courses for diverse jurisdictions.  content for particular jurisdictions.   In some cases, it could even mean changing the substance or method of delivery of particular courses.

The New York story suggests that critics of the current system ought to beware of what they wish for.  It will be no great achievement to banish ABA regulations only to have them reappear, in varied and mutated form, in a variety of states.  

Drexel Law Review Symposium Eyes Innovations In International Legal Education

I'm pleased to report that the Drexel Law Review will be hosting a conference, Building Global Professionalism: Emerging Trends in International and Transnational Legal Education, this weekend.  The journal has worked with my colleagues Anil Kalhan and Pam Saunders to put together a particularly interesting set of panels and a keynote talk by Martin Flaherty.  From the program:

As the practice of many areas of law — including those conventionally regarded as wholly domestic — has come to have international and transnational dimensions, it has become increasingly important for graduating law students to have greater knowledge and understanding of international, comparative, and transnational legal perspectives as part of their basic legal education. While most U.S. law schools have not traditionally placed these aspects of legal education, legal practice, and the legal profession at the core of their pedagogical missions, a growing number of law schools have sought to more proactively develop the place of these global perspectives in their educational programs. This symposium examines and assesses a series of conceptual and practical themes at the leading edge of these developments, including innovative approaches to integrating international, transnational, and comparative perspectives into the law school curriculum; pioneering methods of bringing these perspectives into experiential and legal methods programs; and critical perspectives on all of these emerging ideas and trends.

Empty Chairs of a Different Sort

Here in Pittsburgh, we generally take a pretty easy-going approach to empty chairs, at least when they occupy parking spaces.  So much so, in fact, that the customary practice of "reserving" an empty parking space with a lawn chair (or equivalent piece of worn furniture, etc.) has now been formalized in the code of one nearby municipality.  Social norms are become law.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the council of the town of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (known, among other things, as the birthplace of Perry Como) voted recently to permit residents to place chairs in the street to claim sidewalk viewing spots along its Fourth of July parade route. 

In a 6-3 vote, the council agreed to let residents place chairs along the route beginning at 6 a.m., 48 hours prior to the parade date. Third Ward Councilmen Tim Bilsky, Joseph Graff Sr. and Paul Sharkady opposed the plan.

The compromise replaces the rule passed in July that no chairs would be allowed along Pike Street before 6 a.m. on July 4.

For years, Canonsburg residents have decorated lawn chairs and placed them in their favorite spots along the 1.5-mile route, some a few weeks before the Independence Day celebration. The curbside reservations help save a spot for residents when the community is flooded with thousands of visitors for the parade, which is second in size only to Philadelphia's.

But this year, several council members said residents went too far, by not only putting out chairs two weeks early but also by tying and even locking them to trees, telephone poles, signs and each other. The masses of chairs presented a safety hazard and ultimately a liability issue, some council members said.

Much has been written about the welfare effects of parking chair customs.  Parking chairs are often associated with snow removal, in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, and on account of that, even more has been written about parking chairs as Lockean property theory in action.  (See, for example, this paper by Susan Silbey.)

It is always interesting to observe the emergence and refinement of governance mechanisms for shared resources, and that's what I think the parking chair phenomenon represents.  In Canonsburg, are municipal authorities capitulating to and channelling citizen resistance to public law?  Is this simply a formal expression of community- and citizen-driven justice?  Something else?

Or is it just a bunch of empty chairs, many of them likely manufactured outside the U.S., anchoring a celebration of American independence?

Teaching the Rule Against Perpetuities

    One of the courses I teach is Introduction to Property. Until recently, I did not have to cover the RAP because my school required all students to take Trusts & Estates later in their studies. For the last two years, the T&E course was made an elective and the introductory course was expected to at least introduce the students to the Rule. It is on the syllabus for this week, so I’ve been thinking about the Rule and on how I should teach it.

    As I start the class, this is the picture I use on my powerpoint slide as it seems to summarize what law students (and lawyers, too) feel about the rule:

Edvard Munch, The Scream

There are obviously several ways of presenting the rule to my first-year students.

    I could present it on a “this will separate the lawyers from the non-lawyers” basis. This is how my Property professor did it. Of course, my Property professor is absolutely not on my list of teachers to be emulated as the “you’re too dumb to learn this” approach is, in a word, reprehensible. Also, to really concentrate on the RAP would require significant time which would imply that other important property concepts would have to be discarded. Again, from my experience as a student, we spent a lot of time on RAP, but I never learned about easements, real covenants, and a handful of other central concepts until I studied for the bar. I didn’t learn about the concept of equitable conversion that explains so much of the operation of modern property law until I started teaching.

    The opposite approach — mention it but don’t bother teaching any of the details — has great appeal, particularly as it would lessen my preparation burden. As a matter of reality, a full understanding of RAP is beyond most of us (and I’m not excluding myself). It is common, after all, for the folks who teach bar prep courses to advise exam takers not to fully address RAP if it shows up on the bar, limiting their answer to setting forth the Rule and saying that it may apply. Why shouldn’t this be the teaching approach in an introductory course as so few of the students will ever need to know anything about the Rule?

    Ultimately, I have decided to try and find a middle ground based primarily on the way RAP gets treated in practice. When I was in practice in the 1980s (before the Uniform RAP was adopted in Conn.), my firm did a fair amount of estate planning and probate work. We established a rule for all of the attorneys in the firm. If RAP was implicated in anything we were drafting or interpreting, all of the partners were required to get together and collectively decide if RAP was being properly applied. This often involved talking with other attorneys outside of the firm. I am planning on informing my students about this rule, why my firm had it, and cover the Rule with enough detail that my students will recognize where it is potentially problematic.

    Clearly, to do this, the students need to know more that just the rule. I have added many problems to work through, particularly ones that present RAP in the context that it arises in the real world (gifts to grandchildren of a living person, for example). At the same time, I leave out any serious consideration of how to choose a valid measuring life as the details would take far longer than I am willing to give.

    For those of you who have or are also teaching property, does a practitioner’s view of RAP leave out something that is too vital to leave behind? Or, despite how much I hope this isn’t true, have I just found another way to torture my students for a return that is insignificant?

Amtrak Lost & Found Phone Numbers: New York, Boston, Philadelphia

Need an Amtrak Northeast Corridor lost and found phone number?  As a community service, and notwithstanding the fact that this is not the normal coverage of this blog, I'm going to share the rarest of all commodities: telephone numbers for Amtrak lost and found offices in three key Northeast Corridor train stations - Penn Station, 30th Street, and South Station.  You can't find them on the web normally.  These are top-secret commodities.   They are:

New York            212-630-6596 
Philadelphia       215-349-2143
Boston                  617-345-7444

 

Constitutional Thought at VMI

In honor of Governor Romney's address at VMI today I thought that I'd post a little on constitutional ideas at VMI before the Civil War.  (That is, recycle a July 4 post from a while back, about the July Fourth orations that were given at VMI before the war.)  There's an important and exciting literature on July Fourth orations as a way of understanding the American character -- and legal and constitutional thought in particular.  I think that Michael Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself is probably the best-known, but there are also some important articles that look at July Fourth in the pre-war South.  Paul Quigley is the person who's done the best and most recent work on this, I think.

Turning now to Lexington ....  In the 1850s a number of lawyers gave addresses on July 4  (or in some cases July 3) -- which was also the date of VMI's graduation --  including RMT Hunter, who was then a US Senator, Governor Henry Wise, B.J. Barbour, and Lexington Law Professor John White Brockenbrough.  There's some good stuff in there.   Let me start with Henry Wise's talk -- it was in essence a dedication speech for VMI's statue of Washington -- which gained notoriety during the war when the United States took it from the campus -- and then afterwards when it was returned.  (A post-war picture of the statue is on VMI's website.)  There are a lot of Washington statues in the pre-war south that generated comment -- the one at the North Carolina and South Carolina capitols, the Washington Equine Statue (lately a subject of monument trivia here), and the VMI statue, for instance.  There's a pretty cool article to be written here, I think, that examines how Washington statues in the 1840s and 1850s were used to promote nationalism.  

The VMI statue was cast from Jean Antoine Houdon's statue of Washington in the Virginia capital, which Houdon had created using casts and notes that Houdon had taken of Washington.  So it is supposed to be the most realistic statue ever made of Washington.  (The statue of Washington at the South Carolina monument is also cast from Houdon's -- so there are some cool connections between VMI, Richmond, and Columbia.)

What's on your mind?

Well, this weekend I've been reading scholarship in preparation for the hiring conference at the end of the week.  I'm always astonished at how thoughtful emerging scholars are.  And I'm inspired to attempt to write deeper work after reading their terrific scholarship.

It's been a while since we had an open thread here -- I think the last one was back in July.  So perhaps it's past time that we ask you to tell us what's on your mind.