As I noted a couple of days ago, Duncan School of Law, the star of NYT reporter David Segal's most recent law school screed, was just denied provisional accreditation by the American Bar Association. Now we learn that Duncan is fighting back, suing the ABA in federal court on antitrust and due process grounds. The complaint is here.
Happily, for the Times and Mr. Segal (as well as the WSJ, which you will visit if you want to read the complaint), this suit also provides additional marketable media content. Indeed, I'm sure I'm not alone in suspecting that Segal and the Times have targeted law schools in part because there is a ripe market of Times-like readers who will be drawn to reading, linking to, and blogging about attacks on law schools. The Times thus negotiates an intriguing space as creator, instigator, and seller of content. This is hardly a new phenomenon in news, but perhaps the Times or Mr. Segal should enter the Duncan case as an amicus. This would at least make the complex relationship a tad more transparent.
Reminds me of the essay From Law to Content in the New Media Marketplace, 90 Cal. L. Rev. 1739 (2002). (Guess the author!)
Update: My colleague Lisa McElroy offers up some other possible explanations for Segal's obsession with law schools over at Dorf on Law.
I agree that these considerations probably play a role.
Posted by: Tamara Piety | December 28, 2011 at 12:08 PM
Very insightful; it recalls the line from Citizen Kane: "You supply the prose poems, I'll supply the war."
Posted by: Margaret Brent | December 28, 2011 at 11:02 PM