The Faculty Lounge

Brothers of the Heart

The Brothers of the Heart are Bradley Walker, Jimmy Fortune, Ben Isaacs, and Mike Rogers. Fortune is probably best known, having been one of the Statler Brothers for many years, but the other members are also highly accomplished. The Isaacs Family -- Ben, along with his mother and sisters -- plays regularly at the Grand Ole Opry. Mike Rogers also plays with Ricky Skaggs's band, Kentucky Thunder. Brothers of the Heart is no doubt the only group featuring both someone who sings from a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy (Walker) and the grandson of Holocaust survivors (Isaacs).

Where are the Women? George Mason Law School & ACTEC Foundation Edition

The Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University has announced (here) that it has received a grant from the ACTEC Foundation, the charitable arm of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, to sponsor the George Mason Law Review's Fall 2025 Symposium. According to the website, "The symposium, organized by Professor Thomas P. Gallanis, will bring leading scholars to Scalia Law in September 2025 to present papers on 'The Law and Economics of Wealth Management and Transmission.' "

Guess who those "leading scholars" are? There are 14 total speakers, including a keynote address by Professor James R. Hines Jr. of the University of Michigan. Here's the lineup:

• Yun-chien Chang (Cornell University)
• Thomas Gallanis (George Mason University)
• Mark Gergen (University of California, Berkeley)
• Richard Kaplan (University of Illinois)
• Saul Levmore (University of Chicago)
• Julia Mahoney (University of Virginia) & Paul Mahoney (University of Virginia)
• CJ Ryan (Indiana University, Bloomington), David Horton (University of California, Davis) & Reid Weisbord (Rutgers University, Newark)
• David Schizer (Columbia University)
• Robert Sitkoff (Harvard University) & Max Schanzenbach (Northwestern University)

Fourteen total speakers, of which one (7.1%) is a woman (who shares a speaking slot).

The ACTEC Foundation previously sponsored a Trust and Succession Law Workshop on November 1–2, 2024, also at George Mason. That line-up is here:

• Alexander Boni-Saenz (University of Minnesota), Second-Best Donative Intent
• Felix Chang (Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University), Shadow Probate
• Thomas Gallanis (Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University), American Revolutions in the Law of Trusts
• Sheldon Lyke (Loyola University Chicago), Non-Fungible Testaments
• Nancy McLaughlin (University of Utah), Donor Standing
• Ronald Scalise (Tulane University), The State as Heir
• Jeffrey Stake (Indiana University Bloomington), Personalizing the Law of Wills
• Stewart Sterk (Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University) & Reid Weisbord (Rutgers University), Joint Bank Accounts
• Emily Stolzenberg (Villanova University), Things of Value
• James Toomey (University of Iowa), Executor Discretion
• Danaya Wright (University of Florida), Was Norman Dacey Right?

Of the twelve speakers on that program, three (25%) were women.

I have been a member of ACTEC since 2008, I've served as the editor of the ACTEC Law Journal, and I am a donor to the ACTEC Foundation.

We can do better.

Scalping Driver's License Appointments in Miami (via Al Roth)

“"The county tax collector’s office announced on Monday that it had “uncovered a network of appointment scalpers” benefiting from access to motor vehicles offices by “hoarding free appointments and reselling them for a profit.””

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— Kim Krawiec (@kimkrawiec.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 4:57 AM

ATPI Seeks Faculty Interested in Coordinating Tax/Financial Literacy Program Taught by Law Students

The American Tax Policy Institute (ATPI) invites expressions of interest from law school faculty members interested in implementing a tax literacy program taught by law students in partnership with a local secondary school during the 2025-2026 academic year. The aim of this program is to teach young people basic financial and tax concepts in a non-partisan, non-technical, interactive manner, and to increase law student engagement with their local communities. The law school faculty advisor will be responsible for recruiting, identifying and coordinating with a local secondary school partner as well as supervising the program in the law school. ATPI will provide training materials, a modifiable curriculum, and teaching materials for use by law students. ATPI is also available to provide Zoom-based training for law student volunteers, if the faculty member does not wish to personally conduct the training. ATPI Trustees, including Professor Marjorie Kornhauser, who successfully ran a similar program at Tulane Law School, are available to provide additional guidance and support to law faculty members and law students.

 

This tax literacy program is ideal for law schools interested in expanding their pro bono offerings to include activities that may be of particular interest to students interested in taxation and financial matters, as well as those interested in education and teaching. The program also provides tax professors with the opportunity to engage law students who may not think they have any interest in tax. Such students join the program because they care about pro bono work or teaching and then may discover that they are indeed interested in taxation and go on to take tax courses. It is also appropriate for tax and business-related clinics that might like to include a community outreach and teaching component.

 

ATPI is a section 501(c)(3) organization whose Trustees and members are some of the leading experts on taxation from the fields of law, accounting and economics. ATPI is a nonpartisan organization that promotes and facilitates scholarly research, analysis, examination, discussion of tax policy proposals and issues, in order to improve the tax system, and to provide assistance to governmental authorities involved in tax administration. 

 

Expressions of interest are kindly requested by April 30, 2025 to Professor Marjorie Kornhauser, [email protected]

Macis and Plummer on Kidney Donation

Here's a great interview with Mario Macis and Elizabeth Plummer expanding on their recent JAMA piece. From the interview: 

"As an economist, I have always been very interested in understanding markets where persistent shortages exist. This is the case for blood donations in many countries and organ donations around the world."

and 

"One key reason for these shortages is that in these contexts, the price mechanism is not allowed to operate due to ethical considerations. While prohibiting financial transactions in these markets is meant to uphold moral values and prevent exploitation, it also comes with significant costs"

 

 

"As an economist, I have always been very interested in understanding markets where persistent shortages exist. This is the case for blood donations in many countries and organ donations around the world." gizmodo.com/the-case-for...

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— Kim Krawiec (@kimkrawiec.bsky.social) March 25, 2025 at 9:44 AM

The University of Idaho Law Seeks Visiting Faculty at Moscow Location

This just in:

The University of Idaho College of Law is looking to hire two full-time temporary faculty members at our Moscow location, one for Fall 2025 and one for the full 2025-26 academic year. We are hoping to cover courses on Evidence and Criminal Procedure, Professional Responsibility, and/or Business Law (including Contracts and Sales). Moscow is a wonderful place to visit – it’s a vibrant college town in the Palouse region of the Inland Northwest, surrounded by natural beauty and outdoor recreation. If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass this along – and feel free to reach out to me with questions.

The year-long posting can be found here: https://uidaho.peopleadmin.com/postings/47792.

The semester-long posting can be found here: https://uidaho.peopleadmin.com/postings/47387.

Trump's Attack on Law Firms

[Cross posted from PrawfsBlawg]

My new column for The Hill addresses Pres. Trump’s recent attacks on law firms, using Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part Two as a backdrop. Everyone knows that Dick the Butcher wanted to “kill all the lawyers,” and most people know that it was part of a plot to bring tyranny to England. But it was actually worse, and more Trumpian, than that. The Butcher’s boss, Jack Cade, declared, in creepily familiar terms, “When I am king . . . my mouth shall be the parliament of England,” and my subjects will “worship me their lord.”

But first, they had to get lawyers out of the way.

That’s the introduction. Here is the gist:

Dick the Butcher never got a chance to knock off England’s lawyers, but Trump’s retribution campaign is well underway, with the potential to destroy the firms that displease him. 

Business clients have solid economic reasons to avoid attorneys on the president’s hit list, especially when their own government contracts may be jeopardized by hiring the wrong firm.

The danger extends beyond the embattled law firms. Attorneys play a crucial role in protecting individual rights and democracy itself. If lawyers are too intimidated to challenge authority, personal liberty will inevitably suffer. Nobody can rely on the rule of law if lawyers are punished for defending it.

Even if every law firm wins every case, few lawyers can afford to risk provoking Trump’s wrath. The “in terrorem” effect will be unavoidable, as the fear of losing clients threatens to compromise every decision lawyers make.

Trump’s own butcherish henchman left no doubt about the consequences of resistance. “He’s going to put those law firms out of business,” said Steve Bannon. “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.”

As the late Justice John Paul Stevens once observed, “disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.” 

You can read the full essay, including my discussion of the Paul Weiss agreement, at The Hill.

Neel Sukhatme Named Dean of Michigan Law

University of Michigan Law School has announced that Neel Sukhatme will be its next dean.  He is currently Associate Dean for Research and Academic Programs at Georgetown.  Sukhatme, who holds a JD from Harvard, will take over on July 1.

Ediberto Roman on Birthright Citizenship

Ediberto Roman has posted a short essay for the Yale Journal of Regulation blog titled "Trump Is Wrong on Birthright Citizenship: A Son of Immigrants' Lesson on the Constitution. Ediberto, a sometimes blogger here, is always astute and insightful. He asked if I might respond to his essay, "even if you disagree with it," it "would be fun to read your take on the matter." Well, I do not at all disagree with it, so I thought I would just post the gist:

Thus, the Supreme Court’s repeated and consistent support for birthright citizenship should have put the question to rest. But politics are what they are, and consequently, Trump and his acolytes attempt to distort the terms of the Constitution to argue undocumented immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States because the undocumented entered in violation of U.S. law. And according to them, U.S.-born children of the undocumented are somehow not citizens. Trump and his supporters resort to reinterpreting the meaning of the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language of the Fourteenth Amendment by attempting to ascertain the “original meaning of the term.” 

Ediberto makes two points about Supreme Court cases that are not generally referenced in opeds about Trump's order:

The latest citizenship decision, Plyler v. Doe, similarly prophetically addressed attempts like those being made by the Trump administration, stating:

Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a “person” in any ordinary sense of that term … Use of the phrase “within its jurisdiction” thus does not detract from, but rather confirms, the understanding that the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory.

And,

In fact, the Supreme Court in Afroyim prophetically rejected the very action Trump is trying to achieve with his executive order:

The very nature of our free government makes it completely incongruous to have a rule of law under which a group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.