The Faculty Lounge

To All the Statutes I've Ever Loved

This excerpt from Learned Hand's Eulogy for Thomas Swan caught my attention today:

[T]he words of such an act as the Income Tax, for example, merely dance before my eyes in a meaningless procession: cross-reference to cross-reference, exception upon exception—couched in abstract terms that offer no handle to seize hold of—leave in my mind only a confused sense of some vitally important, but successfully concealed, purport, which it is my duty to extract, but which is within my power, if at all, only after the most inordinate expenditure of time. I know that these monsters are the result of fabulous industry and ingenuity, plugging up this hole and casting out that net, against all possible evasion; yet at times I cannot help recalling a saying of William James about certain passages of Hegel: that they were no doubt written with a passion of rationality; but that one cannot help wondering whether to the reader they have any significance save that the words are strung together with syntactical correctness.

Learned Hand, Thomas Walter Swan, 57 Yale L. J. 167, 169 (1947).

I suspect that my Federal Income Tax students feel Judge Hand's pain!

"Dear Tax People": The Despacito Parody, Federal Income Tax Style

If you are a fan of reggaeton/Latin pop or Federal Income Taxation or both, you will love "Dear Tax People," a hilarious parody video of Despacito, the song originally recorded by Luís Fonsi (featuring Daddy Yankee) and later remixed by Justin Bieber. The video was made by a student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, currently taking Income Taxation (posted with the student's permission). It is very, very clever!

 

 

When "Zoom" Meant Something Completely Different

 

Fellow Gen Xers may appreciate this blast from the past. Zoom was a children's educational TV program on PBS from 1972 to 1978.

Th-ubi-at w-ubi-as ubi-a l-ubi-ong t-ubi-ime ubi-ag-ubi-o.

"No Scrubs" - Federal Income Tax Edition

Two creative students in my Federal Income Tax class made this video, a parody of the TLC song "No Scrubs."  Major kudos to Pace Law School students Alexis Bueno and Monica Lindsay. Lyrics -- fully appreciated by the tax nerds among us -- appear after the fold.

Monkeys and Copyright

For anyone who has been following the copyright litigation involving the infamous "monkey selfie", the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this week seems to have brought the matter to a close for now, ruling (after relevant parties reached a settlement) that animals cannot hold copyrights under U.S. copyright law, a proposition that no copyright lawyer probably ever doubted.

PETA had been pursuing the action on behalf of the macaque monkey who had used freelance photographer David Slater's camera to take selfies which became an Internet sensation among other things.

Earlier chapters in the litigation had focused on whether Slater himself could claim copyright given that he was not the person who actually took the photographs, but the case took a turn into the more abstract question as to whether the monkey could claim copyright. That question seems for now to have been put to rest. It's certainly been an interesting case to follow, and it likely has ramifications for questions about digital technology in terms of claiming copyright in works made by machines and other technological devices. It's typically been accepted that U.S. copyright law requires the efforts of a human creator in order to claim copyright, but questions have arisen about whether machines programmed by humans meet that definition. Creations by animals have been regarded as a related issue.

A summary of this week's decision is available here.

Vis Moot Opening Ceremony 2018

I've never had the privilege of attending a Vis Moot competition, although many of my colleagues have coached teams. So for everyone who has never been, and even those who have, you might enjoy this video with a musical tribute to the Vis Moot 25th anniversary by Pitt law Prof Harry Flechtner: available here.

And for those who've ever taught international sales law, just watch the first three minutes for the CISG song!

Sometimes, you need to talk to an Artist to understand the law...

This week, a project that Colin Marks and I have been working on for about a year and a half was realized in its published form: a coloring book to help students understand Secured Transactions.  (By the way, Color Me Secured is available now at Amazon for $19.99 -- Prime eligible).  There are lots of reasons this makes sense, things I will share in future posts, such as how we talk about realism with students who don't have the first clue what the terms we are using mean?  At core, Color Me Secured is a translation tool, that helps bridge the gap between the language of security in personal property, and their experiences.   

But what I want to talk about today is the process of how this came about.  Around March of last year, I called up Colin and said "I've got a crazy idea.   What do you think about a coloring book for Secured Transactions."   I was a bit tepid on whether this was just a goofy idea I had in the middle of class one day or whether there was merit to the idea.   Colin without a moments hesitation exclaimed "Oh My god, that is great."  Over the next eight months or so, we sketched out on a word document various ideas about what it would look like, had research assistants read over it to see what their take on it was, and then started talking about how to make the art work.     

At the end of the day we hired an outstanding artist (as you'll see) Dave Spear  to take our rough sketch ramblings about what we thought should be on a page and create the beautiful work that is in Color Me Secured.  (Dave got it on the first take, almost without exception).    He expanded our story line to include more human elements of the interactions between the characters.   And this is where I would like to focus this post today.   Sometimes, we need to talk to an artist to understand the law. 

One of the things that makes Color Me Secured special, is it takes a dry, difficult subject like Secured Transactions, and humanizes it.   Our two characters Billie and Chadwick are friends in law school trying to sort out what Secured Transactions mean.   One gets it and the other doesn't and they explain the substance and nuance of secured transactions by tapping into experience, mnemonics, analogies, and other ways of translating the material.  
The humanness of seeing characters engaging in the activities of secured transactions was what we sought to explain.  How an account is more like a steak, rather than a pitcher, or how holding a place in line at a concert is similar to filing a financing statement.  The every day activities of students provide a wealth of information about how we communicate information.   Color Me Secured gives professors and students a handy way to tap into those things to explain some challenging content.  Color Me Secured also works by asking students to do something while they are working through secured transactions.  I tell my students each year that Secured Transactions is like algebra - its not hard but it does require you to do a bit each day.   Color Me Secured delivers small dose content with big ideas by drawing on images that students already understand.   And then slowly the images, language, and experiences begin to meld together to create an immersive experience.  What Color me Secured does is give students a different outlet to hear the same words and apply them to a different context.   

Lastly, Dave pointed out something to us that we had not realized.  The story needs an ending.   Too often, when we teach Secured Transactions, we assume the students know the ending.   In my class I repeat to students something Wilson Freyermuth told me many moons ago -- that Secured Transactions is like a circle and it doesn't matter where you start as long as you make it all the way around.   I think that is true, but what we often forget is that making it around the circle doesn't necessarily mean there has been an ending.  Dave, when he read the work and thought about it asked quite pointedly "So what grade did they get? How does it end?"  That's a pretty simple ask -- that stories need endings.   I think we are often so tied up in the complexities of how law plays out, we forget this basic human need for closure.  So Color Me Secured has that as well.   

I hope you consider purchasing a copy of Color Me Secured.  I think this is the type of project that is a nice supplement to traditional course work.   I'll be back later this week to discuss other things, like self publishing, realism, and future projects.  

For Lawyers Who Think They are Creative with the Tax Laws

Tax professors and other Internal Revenue Code enthusiasts may find amusing the results of the Studio 360 "De-File Your Taxes" challenge to take artistic actions with tax returns. The winning entry, by Erin Farley of Washington, D.C., was a dress made out of tax forms: 

Image credit Erin Farley, here.

Entries from the runners up and other finalists are here.

 

And as my last sad attempt at this for the year ....

... can you name this college town?

And if it's obvious because I have made yet another technical glitch, can you identify my mistake?

(At least this has been a learning experience for me about using images online with poor eyesight...)

Happy New Year everyone!

Can You Name This College Town?

Hopefully, I've managed to overcome my own techical lack-of-expertise with this one. Can you identify this college town?

Name That College Town

Can you name this college town? No Google image searching allowed!

Hint: Unlike the last one, this town has a law school.

Find That College Town

A lot of my friends have been helping their high school kids find the best college for them and it involves college trips to various cities and towns around the country. This is something most Aussies don't have to go through as most of us simply attend university in the city we grew up in (at least we did in my day). I thought it might be fun over the holiday season to have some Faculty Lounge college town trivia and see if folks can identify college towns from their pictures. So today's college town picture is below. Can you name the town?

 

The 2014 Rehnquist Bobblehead Has Arrived

RIP: Al Feldstein

I don't know how many other readers grew up on Mad, but I can still recall hitting the magazine stand at the Hyde Park Co-op each month, looking for the new issue.  Al Feldstein was the editor in those days and some of the key features - light Dave Berg's Lighter Side - were created on his watch.  

He died Tuesday at 88 - but for some of us, Feldstein's Mad creations live on pemanently in our funny bones.

Happy Valentine's Day, Twitter Style

Just in time for the "holiday," Twitter brings us #AcademicValentines. Not surprisingly, many of these tidings of love and joy center on tenure:

But for you academic commitophobes out there, you can always hedge your bets:

Ouch. Of course, many entries address scholarship strategy...

...and methodology (again, offered in the more and less committed varieties)...

...and the beloved peer review process:

There are even nods to scholarly citation styles:

Sure, but is she committed enough to convert to Bluebook? That's dedication. And speaking of Bluebook, and the legal academy's penchant for insisting that every factual claim, no matter how obviously true or otherwise universally accepted, be cited:

I'll end with another one of my favorites:

Anyway, check out the live updates under the hashtag, or this great storify of some of the best ones from the past few days.

Also worth checking out: #ScienceValentines and #PhilosophyValentines. Sadly, I cannot recommend the #LawValentines hashtag, as it's pretty pathetic, with only two entries to date. Get on it, people.

UPDATE: Al is on the case:

Law School Holiday Wish List

I don't mean to be trivial, but it is the holiday season so I thought I'd ask this question.

We often talk about the big issues affecting law schools at The Lounge, but a friend and colleague reminded me that sometimes small things make a big difference. Like benches to put your books on in the restrooms or longer opening hours at the coffee shop. These things are often easy to accomplish and often overlooked because they're not major issues.

I thought it might be worth putting up a "holiday wish list" for law schools to draw some of the smaller things to the attention of administrators, and see if the wishes might come true in 2014.

Capuchin Monkeys Say: Unequal Pay for Equal Work Isn't Cool

Like many of you, I imagine, I'm always looking for brief clips that I can show my students to illustrate a point with a bit of humor. When I teach advance directives (and the difficulties in and drawbacks of drafting them), for instance, I show this clip from "The Comeback" episode of Seinfeld season 8. (The only downside is that each time I show it, fewer students have ever heard of Kramer and the gang.)

Well, those of you who teach the Lilly Ledbetter Act or related matters may wish to check out this short snippet from a 2012 TED talk (but going semi-viral now, thanks to Upworthy) by primatologist and Emory professor Frans de Waal. I myself plan to use it the next time I teach or talk about bounded self-interest (and in particular, preferences for fairness/inequality aversion). Even if your work has nothing to do with employment discimination or behavioral economics, these two minutes are worth watching. Because cute Capuchin monkeys.

Behavioral Economics for Tots

Between The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments, which I previously touted, and now Behavioural Economics for Kids, my kid is in for a real treat this holiday season—and probably several (additional) therapy sessions twenty years hence.

The latter book features some of law profs' favorite predictable irrationalities, including the endowment effect, framing, and hyperbolic discounting. Pictured here is anchoring bias (or, in the book's preferred nomenclature, reference dependence). As someone who thinks the law doesn't always leave sufficient space for altruism, and that in general legal academia has tended to overemphasize bounded rationality (and, to a lesser extent, bounded will-power) while overlooking the interesting implications for law and policy of bounded self-interest, I was particularly pleased to see that the book includes a discussion of preferences for fairness and competitor orientation. H/T Cass Sunstein on the Twitters.

Death of an Adjunct, the Hotness-IQ Tradeoff in Academia, & Several Other Random Items

As I’ve done before, I thought I’d offer up some recent highlights from my Twitter feed that may be of interest to TFL readers but escaped notice. Alors, in no particular order:

— First up is an interesting draft by USC economists Isabelle Brocas and Juan D. Carrillo, The neurobiology of opinions: can judges and juries be impartial? The authors draw on neuroscience to model belief formation and decision-making by judges and juries, concluding that “early cases in a judge's career may affect his decisions later on, and that early evidence produced in a trial may matter more than late evidence,” and that “the distribution of preferences in a jury affects the way information is interpreted by individual jurors.”

— Anyone who has been paying attention knows that adjuncts get a raw deal. But this adjunct really got a raw deal. (To be fair, her former institution may have been distracted by more pressing matters.)

— In (much) lighter news (which you will need after you read about the adjunct), I give you The Hotness-IQ Tradeoff in Academia. The philosophers, apparently, are to be congratulated. Alas, legal academia is not represented, although perhaps that’s for the best; I fear that the law types may have ended up below the line with their med school counterparts (a placement that suggests that such faculty are even dumber than their physical appearance would have predicted).

— I’ve always thought that the 1L curriculum could do with some informal logic. And with An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments, it really couldn’t be easier. Come to think of it, I’ve found myself on the business end of the Guilt By Association fallacy (illustrated right) more than once while workshopping a paper. So maybe we could all use a refresher course.

— UNC and Harvard have apparently both seen the light and (consistent with a pending proposal by federal regulators) largely taken away from IRBs responsibility for assessing information privacy risks and given that responsibility to actual IT experts. What’s that adage about a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

— Maybe this is only an issue for those of us who work in or near the sciences, but you know those emails you get inviting you, on behalf of your Extraordinary Contribution to a field (often, one in which you have contributed precisely nothing) to be the Most Honored Speaker at some random conference? You guys know that those conferences are fake, right? Well, this guy didn’t get the memo, and boy is he (rightly) pissed. 

— Think bickering among legal academics sometimes gets heated? Hey, in the sciences, it’s not a party until one academic calls another a “bitch” (and “crook” and “con artist”) while critiquing her work. (The author has since edited his blog post to replace “bitch” with “ma’am.” Apparently “Dr.” and “Prof.” were already taken.)

The Future of Education?

Reading Alex London's new YA dystopian novel, Proxy, this weekend, I couldn't stop thinking about this description of what the future of classroom teaching might look like. The book has lot to say about the impact of commerce and technology on society in general, but I thought I'd share this passage (from page 3) on one imagined classroom of the future:

"Mr. Kumar never had any idea his image had been hacked. He just talked away from his wood-paneled office at EduCorp. He couldn't figure out why the kids always laughed so hard at his lectures. Not that he could do anything about it. They were all paying customers and could laugh all they wanted. That was a perk of going to a top-tier patron school. The customer was always right."

Yes, it's fiction, but ...