The Faculty Lounge

Monument Law Round-Up

Courtesy of my friend and former colleague Alan Durham, I see that there's talk of preservation of (and access to) a couple of antebellum cemeteries in Tuscaloosa.  Great article, by the way--lots of property law issues in there.

In the Raleigh News and Observer there's also talk of Confederate monuments.  For reasons that I explain here, I'm against taking down such monuments.

And over at the Wall Street Journal, there's talk of stadiums named after corporate sponsors.  Times are tough; we've got to cut back on advertisements.

Memphis Law Names Kevin Smith Dean

The Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis has named Kevin Smith its new dean.  Smith, who was the acting dean last year, and the interim dean this year, has been at Memphis since 1993.  He took his JD and his PhD (in political science) from the University of Iowa (where, I might add, my dad got his doctorate - albeit during the Truman administration.)  Dean Smith's  cv is here.  Congrats to Memphis for successfully completing its search.

Groundbreaking Research Reveals Direct Link Between UCC and Prognostication Prowess!

I use random recitation in my commercial law courses (as if the topics themselves didn’t remove me from serious consideration for any teaching prizes).  I give students two “free passes” each semester, which must be tendered before class starts.

Last Friday, I invited the 90+ students in my two Payment Systems courses to forecast Oscar winners in the “best picture” and acting categories.  A student who correctly forecast all five winners would earn an extra “free pass.”

I received 45 timely responses and added my own.  The results?

Best Supporting Actor:  Heath Ledger – 46/46 (100%).  Phenomenal!

Best Picture:  Slumdog Millionaire – 44/46 (96%).  Incredible!

Best Actress:  Kate Winslet – 37/46 (80%).  Amazing! 

Best Supporting Actress:  Penelope Cruz – 27/46 (59%).  Impressive! 

Best Actor:   Sean Penn – 11/46 (24%).  Clearly an aberration.  (Mickey Rourke, shall we say, was my "red herring" (28/46 – 61%)).

These numbers don’t lie.  Even without the benefit of any formal training in statistical analysis or empirical research, I can draw the obvious conclusion.  Just six weeks with the UCC may significantly improve your psychotic psychic powers!  (Bring it on, you profs who teach con law, crim pro, and other less important sexy subjects.)  Memo to self:  persuade registrar to use this data as a marketing tool during open enrollment.

Mindful that actions speak louder than raw data, I fired all of my portfolio managers on Monday and have turned to my students for investment advice.  In a future posting I’ll let you know whether they tell me to buy, sell, or hold Citigroup stock.

P.S.  Four students scored a perfect 100% (actually five, if I count the ballot of the student who confused Salma Hayek with Penelope Cruz).

The 2009 Solum Entry Level Law Faculty Hiring List Is Here!

One of the most interesting lists we see each year is Larry Solum's collection of law school entry level hires.  But the Entry Level Hiring Report would be nothing without contributors.  So click yourself right on over to Legal Theory Blog here, and let everyone know who's going where.  He's using Survey Monkey this year - I'll be curious to see how that works out.

And while you're there, learn something about law, wouldya?  Solum's Legal Theory Lexicon is one primer no entry level candidate should miss!  (And frankly, most of the rest of us should probably spend some time thre as well...)

Lateral Move And Dean Search Updates

We keep 'em as fresh as we can.  The lateral move list is here; the dean search list is here.   Please send along any information you've got!  Email Al Brophy with dean information and me with lateral movement updates.

Second Circuit Upholds NYC Calorie Posting Regulation

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has upheld a New York City Health Code regulation requiring the posting of calorie information on menu boards and menus of chain restaurants with fifteen or more locations. The regulation would apply to such national chains as McDonald’s, Burger King, and Chipotle, which all operate locations in the New York City area.

It will be interesting to see whether other municipalities and states are moved to pass similar legislation by the decision. Although such regulations may seem palatable when the economy is good, many local governments may be reluctant to impose regulations that may hinder the operation of the food industry during the current economic downturn. Put another way, this recession may be cause for loosening belts, rather than tightening them.

I Feel A Connection!

Many thanks to my six co-hosts for inviting me to the Lounge.  I have a connection to each of them. 

I am Kathy’s colleague at South Texas (and was on the appointments committee when she was hired).  I also was on the appointments committee when Al was at Oklahoma City and considering a lateral move (Al, you’re one that “got away”).  Dan first came to my attention when I was a member of a chair search committee and he was at Alabama.  I invited him to apply, but he offered some excuse about moving to Philly to start a law school (which by any measure has been a smashing success). 

Calvin and Kevin?  Let me offer a less direct link:  Florida State.  When I visited at Florida State in Fall 2003, I met Mary Crossley and Aviva Abramovsky.  Mary is Calvin’s former colleague at Hastings, and Aviva currently teaches with Kevin at Syracuse.

Laura, you’re the challenge, but I’m up to it.  Former Washington law dean Frank Smith was on the faculty at BYU during my student days, and he was my commercial law professor.  Frank, along with two of his friends, are co-authors of a leading commercial law treatise.  One of his co-authors is Richard Hagedorn, your colleague at Willamette.

Six degrees of separation?  Don’t need that many, thanks anyway.  And I hope that I have just as easy a time “connecting” with everyone else who visits the Lounge over the next few weeks.

Judge And UB Law Trial Advocacy Director Out In DUI Coverup

The Buffalo News was perhaps a bit hyperbolic in its headline, UB Law School Fires Disgraced Attorney,  but the news out of Buffalo isn't particularly pretty.  Anne Adams, Buffalo Law School's Director of Trial Techniques was fired, and a New York State Supreme Court Justice - Joseph Makowski - resigned, all because of a DUI and its subsequent coverup.  On Friday, Adams plead guilty to three misdemeanors:  drunken driving, offering a false instrument for filing and attempted tampering with physical evidence.  Apparently last September, Adams and Makowski were at local Chinese eatery, Shanghai Reds, discussing the UB trial advocacy program.   Adams had too much to drink and was pulled over by the Hamburg Police for driving drunk.  A breath test showed Adams at twice the legal limit for booze.  What happened next isn't clear from the story, but it seems that Adams did two things that are no-nos. 

Selling A Law School ... And Buying One

Matt's comments (and here) about how Princeton, Brown, and Dartmouth might acquire a law school in response to Dan's post raises some pretty interesting questions.  Take over an existing school or build one from scratch.  Given UC-Irvine's, Drexel's, and Elon's recent successes, I'd say the "build it from the ground up" model has a lot to commend it.   Then again, from the ground up's a ton of work. ...  There's some history here, as Matt wisely points out, like Penn State's 1997 merger with Dickinson and Michigan State's merger with (or acquisition of) Detroit College.

There's a story behind Quinnipiac's acquisition of  its law school that I'd like to know more about.  Wikipedia (not the source I want to rely on, but it's what I have right now) says that the University of Bridgeport's law school severed its ties with the university after the Reverend Sun Myung Moon acquired an interest in the University of Bridgeport.  That's a story I want to know a little more about.  (A New York Times story from January 1992 speaks of a unanimous faculty vote to have the University of Bridgeport's law school taken over by Quinnipiac, as opposed to Sacred Heart University, as the administration wanted.)  This line suggests more independence on the part of the law school than I'm used to hearing about.  (I can understand that the faculty and students might decide to pick up stakes and go elsewhere, but even all of them collectively don't  "own" the law school, I wouldn't think.)  Maybe People's College of Law in LA is controlled in such a way by its community members, the way some churches are owned by their members.  But that's not how I understand most law schools' relationship to their parent universities.

I would think that most law schools are wholly owned subsidiaries of  their parent institutions and if the parent institution wants to sell the law school (meaning the library, the facilities, the name and perhaps the accreditation) to another school they can do so.  The central administration may decide to require the acquiring institution to take all the faculty, but I'm not familiar with anything that would require the selling institution to do so--nor with anything that would require the buying institution to do so.  Perhaps the ABA would not recognize the transfer unless the faculty were brought over--this I'd want to look into a little.  But I'm not sure why an acquisition agreement would require that the new school take on all the faculty. 

I can see how a new school might assume all the liabilites of the old school, but I would think that in the case of tenured faculty that would be a voluntary obligation.  The United Daughters of the Confederacy v. Vanderbilt University case raises a similar kind of issue, but there Vanderbilt agreed to assume all the liabilities of the Peabody College, which it acquired.  And presumably there were some obligations that it could not avoid (the name on the dormitory at stake in the UDC case is one of them.  Why (and indeed whether) Vanderbilt had to abide that agreement is a very interesting story--and one that must be told at another time.  I think the UDC case is different from a school going into an acquisition saying that it would not take some of the faculty. 

The reason I think it's different is becasue I think a tenure contract is between the teacher and the parent institution, not the subsidiary school.  Most tenure contracts, as I understand it, do not protect against a department shutting down.  So the school's argument here would be: another school's purchased the name and various assets of our law school and then gone on and hired some faculty members; the faculty who aren't hired away are still employees of us, the original institution.  The original institution would then shut its department.   Even as I say this, it sounds terrifyingly  Gordon Gekko-ish (or perhaps I should say J.H. Blair-ish, given that Natalie Merchant has resurrected that good old folk ballad, "Which Side Are You On?").  But I may be wrong?

Embarrasing Musical Influences: Crucial Albums We'd Like To Deny

Now that the 25 things about me list seems to be passing out of Facebook ubiquity, we've moved onto the list of 15 most important albums.  I'd like to pose a slightly different question: what albums were both essential to the development of your musical collection and an embarrassment today?  What well worn favorites do you hide from the prying eyes of all but your most intimate friends?  What clunker was constantly atop your own personal playlist?  

The following are three admissions against interest.

1. Emerson Lake & Palmer, Works Volume 2.  The first order question is this: can someone be strongly influenced by an ELP album and feel good about it?  I will assume, without deciding, that the answer is yes.  But pulease!  Did I have to choose this collection as an all-important introduction to grown up (read: high school) music?  And did I really have to give my jazz-loving, much-older brother a copy for Hanukah in 1978 - because I thought he'd appreciate Keith Emerson's rendition of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag? (He gave me a copy of the Blues Brothers Briefcase Full of Blues, a highly respectful niche pick, all things considered.)  In a very Oscar-like turn, this album goes number one in recognition of the fact that it led me to buy other embarrassing albums like Works Volume I.

Digital Typefaces

I couldn't resist following the post on Wordle with my own slightly self-serving post on digital typefaces.  I am currently working on a draft article on IP protection for digital typefaces and have posted a draft on SSRN.  (It's actually not the most current draft and I'm happy to send the most current version to anyone who desperately wants a copy.)  But interestingly, this draft has received the best and most diverse response online to anything I've ever posted before - and even more interestingly, the response has been largely from members of the digital typeface design industry themselves.  When I was doing the original version of the paper, it was difficult to find any literature about the industry, particularly in terms of how market participants perceive the legal rules applying to their work.  But in recent weeks, my attention has been drawn to a number of online blogs (such as Typophile) and online marketplaces such as Font Bureau, MyFonts, FontSpace, FontMarketplace etc where designers license their wares and discuss their approaches to design, and to the law.  I figured that anyone playing around with Wordle might be interested in visiting some of these cites and experimenting with some of the digital fonts that are out there in cyberspace.  And I want to thank all the digital designers who are helping (and have helped) me with my draft article in recent weeks.

Free Credit Report Videos: Spoofs, Genuines, And Just Plain Eric Violette

From Dan Solove, I can't help but pass along this link to readers.  As Dan notes, freecreditreport.com is kinda a skank operation: they sell a product that is the exact opposite of what they really provide. This YouTube spoof beautifully captures this fakery.  But here's the rub: I still kinda like their commercials.   (Course, the singer isn't who you see in the ads - that guy is a French-Canadian actor named Eric Violette and Mr. Violette has an accent quite unlike the one you hear on the ads.)

Fun with Wordle!

Here's something fun and light for a Sunday morning.  Thanks to a tip from HUP's publicity blog, I've been playing around this morning with Wordle--here's what it did with the introduction to an essay I'm writing on Michael O'Brien's Conjectures of Order.

To End Student Protests, Cut off their Wifi

Well, sometimes when students are denied wifi, they protest.  But who would have thought that the way to stop them from protesting was to cut off their wifi?!  

Some students at NYU began a protest on Wednesday night.  The Times story tells us what the protest was about:

After about 70 students took over the dining room on Wednesday night, they created a Web site (takebacknyu.com), where they listed demands, including a thorough annual reporting of the university’s operating budget, expenditures and endowment. They also asked that the university provide 13 scholarships a year to students from the Gaza Strip and allow graduate teaching assistants to unionize.

Then, the University got serious:  "about two dozen students inside the dining room awoke on Friday morning to find that electricity and their wireless Internet had been cut off."  Apparently the protest ended shortly thereafter.  Another sign that we can't live without the internet.

Tim Zinnecker Guest Blogging With Us

It is my great pleasure to welcome Tim Zinnecker into the Faculty Lounge.  to sit with us for spell.

Tim teaches with Kathy Bergin at South Texas College of  Law in Houston.   He joined them in 1994 (the same year I entered teaching) and teaches in the areas of Secured Transactions, Payment Systems, Consumer Bankruptcy, and Banking Law.  He was educated atCentral Missouri and Brigham Young Law School and clerked for Justice Frank Gordon of the Arizona Supreme Court and Judge Edith Holmes of the United States Court of Appels (Fifth Circuit).  He's also taught at Samford University, Florida State University, the University of Houston, and the University of Richmond.  He is the co-author of a Payment Systems casebook and two books in the Lexis Q&A series, as well as numerous articles in such reviews as the Arizona State Law Journal, The Business Lawyer, the Kansas Law Review, the Missouri Law Review, and the Tennessee Law Review, among many others.

 

I'm really looking forward to Tim's wit and wisdom.

No Wire Hangars!: Celebrating the Worst in Film of 2008: The Razzie Awards

While many people will tune in tomorrow night to celebrate the year's best in film at the Academy Awards, a polar opposite celebration will be happening tomorrow to recognize the WORST in film of 2008.  The 29th annual Razzie Awards take place tonight, and I must say that I am very excited to see the winners.  Or perhaps losers. 

This awards show gives recognition to that brilliant genre of film known as "sobaditsgood."  This is very different than grindhouse films of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes variety.  These movies were made to produce a profit.  And they are stultifyingly cringeworthy.  Scoliosisting, in fact. Perhaps the worst film of all time is Showgirls, with personal favorites/schadenfreude  of Mariah Carey's "Glitter", "Basic Instinct 2," and the all time, untouchable, hands-over-your-mouth, stomp-the yard, on-a-pedestal, B-A-D:  "Mommie Dearest." 

Don't &@$# with me fellas! This ain't my first time at the rodeo.  -Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford

As a voting member of the Razzie Academy, I am particularly supportive of M. Night Shyamalan's  "The Happening," which was spectaculary, penetratingly terrible.  One blogger describes it as "a dream -- not a good dream or a nightmare, but the really loopy, tammy faye bakker-on-a-unicorn kind."  Marky Mark Wahlberg did not feel the good vibration in this movie whatsoever. I ohmygodded myself at least 700 times throughout every minute of this cinematic delight of AWFUL.  Highlight: Marky Mark approaching an abandoned house in rural Pennsylvania with a rendition of "Old Black Water" as musical incentive to the hermits to share their food.

And the nominees.....

WORST PICTURE

_____   DISASTER MOVIE and MEET THE SPARTANS

_____   THE HAPPENING                         

_____    THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE                       

_____   Uwe Boll's IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE

_____   THE LOVE GURU

WORST ACTRESS

                _____  Jessica Alba / THE EYE and THE LOVE GURU

                _____  The Cast of THE WOMEN

                (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan)

                _____  Cameron Diaz / WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

                _____  Paris Hilton / THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE         

                _____ Kate Hudson / FOOLS' GOLD and MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL

 

WORST ACTOR

_____   Larry the Cable Guy / WITLESS PROTECTION  

_____   Eddie Murphy / MEET DAVE                                                

_____   Mike Myers / THE LOVE GURU 

_____   Al Pacino / 88 MINUTES and RIGHTEOUS KILL

_____   Mark Wahlberg / THE HAPPENING and MAX PAYNE  

The Passion Of The Christ: Not For The Curious

I just came across this very stern course description from NYU Law.  Professor J.H.H. Weiler is not interested in teaching the Passion of the Christ to gawkers or those merely interested in dabbling.

The Passion of the Christ: The Trial of Jesus.  Course Code: L06.3704.001 Tu 4:00 - 5:50 Furman 310

The Seminar will examine the historical context, the factual matrix and the legal issues concerning the trial(s) of Jesus by the Jewish and Roman authorities. Readings will include some of the principal primary sources and a selection from the vast seondary literature. For serious learners. Tons to read and plenty of hard work. Do not enroll just for curiosity.

Maybe I'm a little nuts, but I'd be happy to welcome the merely curious to my courses.  Send them my way, Professor Weiler!

Image: Two Scenes from the Passion of Christ: The Flagellation and The Crowning ofThorns, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.

Elite Law Schools Adjust Grading Systems

Today, the National Law Journal discusses how a few top law schools are tweaking their grading policies.  It notes that Harvard and Stanford are moving to gradeless systems - with Harvard adopting a suspiciously Yale-like "honors/pass/low pass/fail" approach.  Stanford Dean Larry Kramer notes that these systems have a number of benefits including reducing perceived differences between students with relatively minor GPA distinctions, reducing student anxiety, and increasing the likelihood that faculty will be more experimental in the way they evaluate students.  Other schools like Penn, Northwestern, and Chicago - let's call them the "traditionals" - aren't messing with schemes that more effectively differentiate students. 

I certainly applaud any strategy that promotes more experimentation in assessment techniques.  One of the things I like about Drexel is that we encourage faculty to use more datapoints in assessing students.  A significant number of faculty incorporate more than just a final exam when they determine grades.  Midterms, papers, presentations, group projects - all of these provide different but meaningful insights into student understanding and performance.

But let's be real about the limits of this trend away from standard letter grades.  For students attending the 185 law schools that aren't in the top 15, grades matter a tremendous amount.  In recent years, many big firms have become more open minded about hiring from non-elite schools.  But a Latham, Dechert, or Proskauer wants differentiation.  Rightly or wrongly, they think a student in the top 5% of an Iowa or Wake Forest is different than someone in the top 20% of the same school.  As a result, few schools are in a position to play the pass/fail game.

I  hope that big firms continue to reach outside the top 15 law schools, notwithstanding the economy.  Most of us who teach at non-elite schools - after practicing at top firms - believe that our best students can stand toe to toe with associates from the strongest law schools.  Not only are our high performers smart, but they're genuinely hungry.  What firm shouldn't like that?

Dartmouth Law School May Be Closer to Reality Than You'd Think

Dan's post on the possibilities of Princeton Law School, Brown Law School, and Dartmouth Law School has led me to a link from 2005: talk of "Dartmouth Law School" at University of Massachusetts' Dartmouth campus. The post (at a site devoted to news of Dartmouth College), is concerned about potential confusion, which apparently is already taking place--witness South Coast Today's article entitled, "Dartmouth Law Has a New Dean". The post comments:

The name UMass-Dartmouth has never been particularly similar to the trademarked "Dartmouth College," but no such restraint will prevent the new law school from going by "Dartmouth Law School." Newspapers already refer to SNESL in this form ("Dartmouth Law School Has New Dean"). No one at either Dartmouth school seems to have filed to register the trademark "Dartmouth Law" or claimed the Internet domain dartmouthlaw.edu.

I'm not sure on the latest with U. Mass-Dartmouth's plans to open a law school, or merge with Southern New England School of Law (doesn't look like much has happened on this for a couple of years and with current budget realities, I'm not expecting anything soon), but Dartmouth Law may be closer than you'd think.

Update: And I now realize that there is already a Dartmouth Law Journal (published by undergraduates at Dartmouth College). 

Even The Elites Are...Suffering? Cravath Profits Slide

It looks like partners at Cravath will have to cut back a bit this year.  The paint job on the Amagansett house is going to have to wait.  This from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

According to AmLaw, Cravath — arguably the most gilded law-firm name in the country — saw its 2008 gross revenue fall 13 percent, while profits per partner tumbled 24 percent.

Last year’s revenue was $532.5 million, compared to $610 million in 2007. Last year’s profits-per-partner were $2.5 million, compared to $3.3 million in 2007, a figure that was second only to that posted by New York’s Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.