The Faculty Lounge

Then and Now

Law School Deans Summer Of Love?

For the Woodstock crowd, it meant topless women and bad acid.  For law school deans, apparently, it's this.

Photo from the SF Chronicle.

Introducing Guest Blogger Greg McNeal

I'm pleased to welcome an alum of CWRU Law School, Greg McNeal, who will be blogging with us throughout the month of September.  Greg is on the faculty at Pepperdine and his detailed bio is available here.

Greg teaches and researches in the areas of national security law and counter-terrorism, as well as international organizations and ethics.  He has co-authored/co-edited a number of books in these fields over the years.  He has also been a visiting faculty member at a number of law schools, including my own, before becoming a permanent faculty member at Pepperdine this year.  While he will be blogging about many topics, he is particularly interested to share his thoughts on going through the law school hiring process and sharing the benefit of his experiences with others facing the process this year.

Welcome, Greg!

Get Into Law School Through The Kitchen

Is this real?  At a time when law schools are getting heat for being out of touch, this innocent but damning ad appears on Craigslist:

Exectutive Chef needed for NYC Law School

Gotham Personnel seeking knowledgeable, hardworking individual to fill Head Chef position on a temp to Permanent basis for the special events department at well know upscale Law School.

This time, at least, all errors are not mine. 

H/T:The Jobless Juris Doctor

Dining Dollars Lawsuit?

The news today from my old hometown of Tuscaloosa is a lawsuit brought by a couple of former students against the University for requiring students to buy $300 per semester in food.  Their complaint is that the university, which allows students to use their "dining dollars" at couple of local restaurants as well as at the university dining halls, violates the state constitution's prohibition of state agencies from  “being interested in any private or corporate enterprise.”  Good luck to them  -- the complaint sounds like a real stretch to me, a real stretch.  One thing's for sure, something to talk about in class at the University of Alabama law school.

Major Losses In The Legal Academy

It seems like we have these bad weeks, once in a while.  Like last week.  The legal academy lost University of Miami Professor Bruce Winick, the co-founder of the therapeutic jurisprudence movement,  and Georgetown Professor Steven Goldberg, a wide-ranging scholar with interests in law and science, religion, and constitutional law.  Our thoughts are with their family, friends, and fellow faculty.

More on Expresso and Law Reviews

I know a lot of us have been posting lately about Expresso and its impact on the law review submission process in the last few years.  Here's another question that I've been asked recently, related to the post I made a week or so ago.  I'd actually be interested in any current law review editors' thoughts on this one too.  Does the fact that more people are now submitting more articles to more journals affect the reading/reviewing strategies of editorial boards in the sense that it's now much harder to stay on top of new submissions, so the inclination is greater to simply respond to expedite requests rather than reviewing pieces submitted where there has been no expedite request (yet)?  If editors are deluged with more submissions than was previously the case, is it possible to keep an orderly review system going or does one end up merely responding to expedites?  Or is this no different to the good old days of paper submissions?

The Visiting Assistant Professor, Circa 1853

 We had orientation last week and I've already met my students and spoken with them some, so I feel like school's begun.  But today is the official start of school here; the beginning of my -- yup, that's grey hair I see in the mirror, along with less hair in general --  of my seventeenth year in this business.  In celebration of this, I thought I'd start the year off with something about legal education....

I've written about University of Virginia Law Professor James P. Holcombe before -- in the context of a scary mid-term examination.  Now it's time to talk about his 1853 address to the University of Virginia alumni.  I'm mostly interested in it for Holcombe's ideas about slavery, which I'll spare you at this moment (he looms large in University, Court, and Slave) -- but one of the things that I also find interesting is his talk of the need to hire recent graduates to teach at UVA (he called them lecturers, but I'm modernized his term for purposes of the title of this post).  It would offer them the chance to get some writing done!

The crowning recommendation of this scheme arises from its tendency to form a class of authors, and thus to prove the nursery of a native literature.  It has been shown by ancient as well as modern experience that nothing qualifies a man to write upon a subject like teaching it.  Adam Smith tells us that except a few poets, orators and historians, the greater part of the men of letters of Greece and Rome were public or private teachers, and that this was true from teh days of Lysias and Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch and Epicteus, Suetonius and Quinctillian.

And so good luck to everyone with the start of school--students, faculty, faculty candidates (you, especially, have been on mind of late).  This'll be a very exciting semester, I'm sure.  In property I'm looking forward to Johnson v. McIntosh today and The Antelope tomorrow.

The image of the University of Virginia's rotunda is from the Library of Congress' Historic Buildings Survey.

Baseball Trivia

Today's question comes from Jeff Yates, a professor of political science at Binghamton University (and a recent visitor at Florida State's law school).

Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961, setting a new season record.  No one came within five of that number until 1997, when Ken Griffey, Jr., jacked 56 taters for Seattle and Mark McGwire went "yard" 58 times for the A's.  During that 36-year span, the most home runs hit by any other player in a season was only 52.  Name the three players to do so.

Pictured:  Roger Maris card, from the 2010 Topps "Tales of the Game" set.  Maris was a two-time league MVP.  Does he belong in the Hall?

Northwestern Losing Its Law Dean

David Van Zandt (pictured) will be leaving the deanship at Northwestern's law school by the end of the year.  He has been named the next president of The New School (New York City), replacing former U.S. senator Bob Kerrey.

Additional reading here, here, and here.

Tennessee: Criminal Law, Tax, and Commercial Law

From an email I received earlier today:

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW invites applications from both entry-level and lateral candidates for three full-time, tenure-track faculty positions to commence in the Fall Semester 2011.  The College's primary curricular needs are in the areas of criminal law, including adjudicatory criminal procedure, federal income taxation, and commercial law.  Secondary curricular needs include business associations and torts.  

In furtherance of the University's and the College's fundamental commitment to diversity, minority group members and women are strongly encouraged to apply.

The Faculty Appointments Committee will interview applicants who are registered in the 2010 Faculty Appointments Register of the Association of American Law Schools at the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference in Washington, D.C.  Applicants who are not registered in the AALS Faculty Appointments Register must send a letter of intent, resume, and the names and contact information of three references by October 15, 2010 to:

Becky L. Jacobs
Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee
The University of Tennessee
College of Law
1505 W. Cumberland Avenue
Knoxville, TN  37996-1810

All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment and admissions without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, or covered veteran status.

Eligibility and other terms and conditions of employment benefits at The University of Tennessee are governed by laws and regulations of the State of Tennessee, and this non-discrimination statement is intended to be consistent with those laws and regulations.

In accordance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The University of Tennessee affirmatively states that it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or disability in its education programs and activities, and this policy extends to employment by the University.  

Inquiries and charges of violation of Title VI (race, color, national origin), Title IX (sex), Section 504 (disability), ADA (disability), Age Discrimination in Employment Act (age), sexual orientation, or veteran status should be directed to the Office of Equity and Diversity (OED), 1840 Melrose Avenue, Knoxville, TN  37996-3560, telephone (865) 974-2498 (V/TTY available) or 974-2440.  Requests for accommodation of a disability should be directed to the ADA Coordinator at the Office of Equity and Diversity.

Southern Illinois: Visiting Professor of Law and Medicine

From an email I received earlier today:

The Southern Illinois University School of Law is seeking nominations and applications for the Garwin Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and Medicine for the 2011-12 academic year.  Established in 1996, the Garwin Professorship is funded in part by a grant from the Garwin Family Foundation which was established in 1993 for the purposes of fostering education and academic research.  Support for the position includes a competitive salary, benefits, travel allowance, housing for one year, and a research assistant. The School of Law intends to consider the visitor to fill the Garwin Professorship on a permanent basis during the time of the visit.

Applicants must possess the Juris Doctor degree or its equivalent from a nationally accredited law school, be currently on the faculty of an accredited school of law or other graduate professional school, and have an outstanding national reputation as a health law/policy scholar and teacher.  Factors to be considered in assessing candidates for the Garwin Visiting Professorship include the following: scholarly and teaching record, honors received (e.g. awards, fellowships, etc.), participation and leadership in national and international organizations, letters of recommendation and other factors relevant to assessing qualifications for this position.

To apply or nominate a candidate:  Send a résumé that details your interest, qualifications and relevant experience or a letter of nomination to:

Professor W. Eugene Basanta, Chair

Garwin Professor Search Committee

Southern Illinois University School of Law

Carbondale, Illinois  62901-6804

Applications and nominations may be submitted on line at http://www.law.siu.edu/employment/.

Deadline for application: October 15, 2010 or until position is filled.

SIUC is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer that strives to enhance its ability to develop a diverse faculty and staff and to increase its potential to serve a diverse student population.  All applications are welcomed and encouraged and will receive consideration.

Georgia State: Tax and Environmental

From an email I received this week:

Georgia State University College of Law is seeking highly qualified applicants for tenure-track faculty positions in tax law and environmental law, to start in the 2011-2012 academic year:

1.Tax: We seek candidates who specialize in tax law and who intend to have a teaching focus on transactional aspects of federal taxation, but whose tax research interest could extend to other aspects of taxation.

2.  Environmental Law:  We seek candidates who specialize in environmental law. The ideal candidate will have a demonstrated commitment to scholarly research and an interest in working with our faculty in the Center for Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth (http://law.gsu.edu/metrogrowth/) .

To apply for or inquire about the tax and environmental law positions, please contact:
Professor Ronald W. Blasi
Chair of the Faculty Recruitment Committee for Tax and Environmental Law
Georgia State University College of Law
PO Box 4037, Atlanta, GA 30302-4037
LawRecruitment@gsu.edu
404-413-9172

Cohen and Chen on Trading-Off Reproductive Technology and Adoption

Glenn Cohen (Harvard) and my new colleague Daniel Chen (Duke – Welcome Daniel!)  have posted Trading-Off Reproductive Technology and Adoption: Does Subsidizing in Vitro Fertilization Decrease Adoption Rates and Should it Matter? to SSRN.  I read this paper in draft form over the summer and quite enjoyed it, so I’ll be back next week with some more detailed thoughts on Cohen and Chen’s paper and its implications.  At the moment, though, the first week of classes and obligations next week over at the Conglomerate Junior Scholars Forum are keeping me busy.  Here’s the abstract:

For those facing infertility, using assisted reproductive technology to have genetically related children is a very expensive proposition. In particular, to produce a live birth through in vitro fertilization (IVF) will cost an individual (on average) between $66,667 and $114,286 in the U.S. If forced to pay these prices out of pocket, many would be unable to afford this technology. Given this reality, a number of states have attempted to improve access to reproductive technology through state-level insurance mandates that cover IVF. Several scholars, however, have worried that increasing access in this way will cause a diminution in adoptions and have argued against enactment of state mandates for that reason.

 

In this paper, which was selected for presentation at the 2010 Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, we push against that conclusion on two fronts.

 

First, we interrogate the normative premises of the argument and expose its contestable implicit assumptions about how the state should balance the interests of existing children waiting for adoption and those seeking access to reproductive technology in order to have genetically related children.

 

Second, we investigate the unexamined empirical question behind the conclusion: does state subsidization of reproductive technologies through insurance mandates actually reduce adoption; that is, is there a trade-off between helping individuals conceive and helping children waiting to be adopted? We call the claim that there is such an effect the “substitution theory.” Using the differential timing of introduction of state-level insurance mandates relating to IVF in some states and differences in the forms these mandates take, we employ several different econometric techniques (differences-in-differences, ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares) to examine the effect of these mandates on IVF utilization and adoption. Contrary to the assumption of the substitution theory, we find no strong evidence that state support of IVF through these mandates crowds out either domestic or international adoption.

Georgia State: Health Law, Biotechnology, and Social Justice

From an email I received this week:

The College of Law at Georgia State University is seeking highly qualified applicants for three tenure-track law faculty positions under a new University interdisciplinary research initiative, in the following research areas:

 

1.         Health justice, with a background in legal disciplines consistent with a research focus on health equity and legal remedies to rectify systemic health disparities;

2.         Health care law, with a research focus on health care business regulation, corporate law and compliance, and ethics of health care organizations; and

3.         Intellectual property law, with a research focus on biotechnology, the life and health sciences, and entrepreneurship. 

Applications (cover letter and resume) should be submitted electronically at  http://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/GSU/law.  Review of applications for these positions will begin in August 2010 and continue until the positions are filled; however, applicants are strongly encouraged to apply before October 1, 2010.  For more information, please visit our faculty recruitment Web site at http://law.gsu.edu/recruitment.  For inquiries, please contact Professor Charity Scott, Director, Center for Law, Health & Society, at recruitment2ci@gsu.edu. 

Some Old, Old Royko

Among our various readers, there are a surely a few of you who enjoyed the columnist Mike Royko back in the day.  Royko died in 1997, but for decades he was a sharp-tongued Pulitzer-winning columnist for the Chicago Daily News, Sun Times, and finally Tribune.   He also penned Boss, a harsh biography of the old Mayor Richard Daley.  His son David now has a couple of Royko's old columns up on the web (to accompany the new book, Royko in Love, from the University of Chicago Press).  One is a humorous piece authored by a 22 year old Royko in 1955 for the O'Hare News - the airforce base newspaper from the installation at O'Hare Field.  In it he wrote:

The many letters we have received requesting information on survival during an atomic blast indicate an immediate need for a set of rules. I have looked into the field of survival and have compiled some important things to remember.

If enemy aircraft are sighted, a warning will be provided by use of a loud siren. The Russians are sly, so they may attack at noon when the lunch whistles are being blown. To distinguish between the two, all lunch whistles are being arranged in the key of C and all air raid whistles in G flat. The war department has announced that a pamphlet on reading music is being printed and all families can be provided with one by sending in ten cents and the tops off two airmen....

If you are home at the time of the attack, go to your basement immediately. Then pile all your furniture against the doors and walls. This offers absolutely no protection but it is good exercise and provides more room on the floor if you should have unexpected company and want to dance.

Were those the days?  It kinda makes me nostalgic.

H/T: The Reader

The Death Instinct

Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld enjoyed great acclaim in 2006 with the publication of his first work of fiction, The Interpretation of Murder.  His second novel, The Death Instinct, is scheduled for U.S. publication in January 2011 (but perhaps you can locate an ARC between now and then).  Here's the synopsis, from the Barnes & Noble website:

September 16, 1920.  Under a clear blue September sky, a quarter ton of explosives is detonated in a deadly attack on Wall Street. Fear comes to the streets of New York.  Witnessing the blast are war veteran Stratham Younger, his friend James Littlemore of the New York Police Department, and beautiful French radiochemist Colette Rousseau.  A series of inexplicable attacks on Colette, a secret buried in her past, and a mysterious trail of evidence lead Younger, Littlemore, and Rousseau on a thrilling international and psychological journey – from Paris to Prague, from the Vienna home of Dr Sigmund Freud to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and ultimately to the hidden depths of our most savage instincts.  As the seemingly disjointed pieces of Younger and Littlemore’s investigations come together, the two uncover the shocking truth about the bombing – a truth that threatens to shake their world to its foundations.

Professor Rubenfeld talks about his upcoming book in this video.

Free To Hate Muslims

I hate the arc of the current discussion about the President's religion.  First, polls show that a big chunk of Americans believe that Obama is Muslim.  Next, the the White House issues this statement:

"President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life. He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual advice and counseling, he even receives a daily devotional that he uses each morning."

Then Mitch McConnell goes on Sunday morning TV and makes a comment that suggests that this Republican is keen to seem mainstream without forfeiting the Obama-is-a-Muslim vote:

"The President says that he's Christian.  I take him at his word."

Ever since 9/11, formal and public support for Islam has been mixed with a bubbling undercurrent of discomfort, resentment, and even hatred toward Muslims as a group.  George W. Bush was being strategic, and perhaps even sincere, when he called Islam a "peaceful religion."  But that didn't mean people took him seriously - many clearly did not.    And President Obama came out in defense of the New York Islamic Center, sort of...even as his handlers made clear that calling him a Muslim was a calumny. 

To be clear,  many opponents of the New York Islamic center aren't motivated by deeply held anti-Muslim feelings.   Perhaps many of those who think Obama is Muslim are cheered by his strong connection to the Koran.  And it's hard to imagine that the "Obama could never be Muslim" contingent is hating on Islam.  But something is going on in the broader culture.  Like a rising river, anti-Muslim sentiments are beginning to jump the levees, spreading out across Village Americana. 

Some folks have been waiting a long time for the moment when such hostility could finally come into the open.   For certain people, this is a faith-based project.  Southern Baptist leader Reverend Jerry Vines did, after all, call Mohammed a "demon-possessed pedophile."  For others, it's a matter of collective retribution:  Muslims caused 9/11 and the faith must now be called to judgment.  And for others still, it's just a nice opportunity to indulge in group hatred during a period when public racism has become unacceptable and even homophobia - the last safe haven for those who love to hate - is slowly becoming taboo.

In Terrorism, Panic and Pedophilia, I offered a dystopian vision of an America where Muslims might be rounded up to protect the public.  We're nowhere near realizing this nightmare.  But as we learned in the aftermath of 9/11, it's not entirely unimaginable.  And listening to the conversations about Obama and the Islamic community center in New York, I can't help feeling that - as Harry Blackmun once put it - a chill wind blows.  

Finally, A Turn To South Asia

I thought I'd highlight a particularly significant symposium we've just published in the Drexel Law Review: Perspectives on Fundamental Rights in South Asia.  The event was organized by my colleague Anil Kalhan and presented as a panel at last winter's AALS meeting,  in anticipation of the formation of a new Law and South Asian Studies section.  Marc Galanter penned the introduction and noted the importance of the event:

It is a pleasure to introduce this symposium, apparently the first of any mainstream American law review to focus on South Asian law. Its appearance is one of several markers that the neglect of South Asia by American law schools is being left behind. Four of the five articles included here were presented at a session of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) 2010 meeting; the first appearance of South Asia on the program since a 1986 plenary session on the American participation in the litigation arising from the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster. Unlike that earlier, one-off appearance, the 2010 session marks the institutionalization of interest in the area.

Placing a First Law Review Article

I've been collecting different opinions from colleagues lately about strategies for new professors attempting to place their first article.  It appears that a number of people feel that Expresso has changed the game significantly in the sense that more people are sending more articles to more law reviews because of the speed and ease of doing it via Expresso.  Thus, the collective wisdom seems to be that a new professor may have to send an article to more reviews than would have been the case, say, 10 years ago when this was predominantly done through hard copy submissions.  I am interested in how others feel about this.  I guess back in the days of hard copy submissions, many of us were advised not to send an article out to more than maybe 70 or 80 general law reviews tops.  But a lot of junior folks today seem to be advised to send to at least 150.  The sense is that many of the top 100 law reviews now won't even look at a piece unless someone is trying to expedite up from a "lower ranked" journal.  (And I share the skepticism of many people about this whole rankings and trading up game anyway.)  I also acknowledge that how many journals a person sends a submission to may depend in large part on where they are sending from eg private practice, a lower ranked school, a higher ranked school etc.  And I also share concerns raised over on Prawfs a while back about whether it's unethical to send submissions to reviews if you wouldn't actually accept an offer from those reviews.

Does anyone else think there has been a sea change in the last few years re strategies for early career profs attempting to place articles?