Legal academia is in mourning for one of its most distinguished and multitalented figures, Larry Ribstein, a key scholar in corporate law and a provocative and rigorous exponent of law and economics thinking. Larry was an early blogger (at Ideoblog and more recently Truth on the Market), an influential critic of prosecutorial and regulatory excess, and a key voice in the debate on what law schools should do. He was also, I am grateful to say, an important friend of this site over many years. Like so many others, I had reason to appreciate his generous gifts of time and engagement, most recently in February when he helped arrange my U. of Illinois speech on Schools for Misrule, for which he served as the friendly counter-speaker, and led me around Champaign-Urbana, to which he was the perfect guide.
Some samplings of the outpouring around the blogosphere: Geoffrey Manne and Paul Caron (with tribute roundups), Steve Bainbridge, Tom Kirkendall (”a teacher who understood precisely what his life’s purpose was and pursued it with an endearing combination of intellectual curiosity, vitality, humanity and good humor,” Dave Hoffman (”a galvanic force… a great and unique voice”), Ted Frank, Henry Manne, Andy Morriss (”I suspect he’s already been named Associate Archangel for Research in heaven and doubled scholarly output there.”). A memorial service is planned at George Mason.
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I’m getting an early start on the weekend and won’t be posting for a few days. See you soon.
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The methodology for estimating traffic is unclear, but it’s still nice to see Overlawyered in the top 10. [Cision]
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I might post a little next week, but for now I’m going to take a break to enjoy the holiday, and I expect heavier fare will probably wait until the New Year. Enjoy the Christmas season!
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…on the item about the 13 year old in Florida whose parents have filed an age bias complaint against a community college that won’t admit her. I am regularly surprised by which posts here turn out to stir the most reader interest.
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I’m delighted to announce that I’ve joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow, effective this week. As most readers of this site know well, Cato is the premier voice for individual liberty in our nation’s capital, and a think tank of tremendous accomplishments across the board. Its program on law, led by Roger Pilon, includes such outstanding thinkers as Tim Lynch, Ilya Shapiro and Robert Levy. Cato is particularly known as a place where free speech, civil liberties, and the Bill of Rights are given the centrality they deserve in legal thinking, and it’s also a powerhouse in studying the ill effects of government regulation. In fact, the publication where I got my real start in the policy world, the magazine Regulation (originally published by the American Enterprise Institute), has made its home at Cato for many years now. In short, it’s hard to imagine a better fit with my writing and research interests.
I’ll be saying goodbye to my colleagues and kind friends at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, which has long supported my work in the most patient, good-humored and uninterfering way I could have hoped for. I’m immensely fortunate to have been part of MI for more than 25 years and I know I’ll learn much more from its formidable thinkers in years to come. While I’ll continue to contribute occasionally to MI’s blog/web magazine Point of Law, I’ve left its editorship, and I’m happy to say the Institute had the good idea of hiring as my replacement none other than Ted Frank, of Overlawyered and CCAF fame.
Jim Copland of the Manhattan Institute has some extremely kind things to say at Point of Law about our long association. The blog Think Tanked reprints the MI’s generous announcement.
I’ll still be posting as usual here at Overlawyered, and I’ll also be joining as a contributor at the excellent group blog Cato at Liberty, which you should promptly place in your RSS feed if you haven’t already. In months ahead I’ll have more to say about some new projects I’ll be pursuing at Cato, as well as existing projects many readers already know about, like my forthcoming book on bad ideas from legal academia, Schools for Misrule.
P.S. Cato’s press release and bio page for me are up, as is a welcoming post from Roger Pilon at Cato at Liberty. And thanks for the very generous words to Dan Pero at American Courthouse, Carter Wood at NAM ShopFloor, and Alan Lange at Y’AllPolitics.
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On Sunday Overlawyered was knocked offline by what was apparently a big software malfunction. The team at Hosting Matters has worked diligently at fixing things and we’re finally back up and running now. I’ll let you know if there are further developments.
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Many will know the name of Phil Grossman, from Boston, as a frequent commenter here, but his assistance to the site went much beyond that. No reader had a sharper eye for good stories, and I think more posts over the years were based on his links than on anyone else’s. Often his news tips would arrive accompanied by his consistently thoughtful analysis of what the stories meant on a deeper level and how the system might be reformed to do better next time. Time after time, his emails would brighten my writing day with their wit, intelligence, and sympathetic wisdom.
Now Eric Grossman writes to report his father’s death. I can well imagine the gap that must be left in his family with his passing, and extend my heartfelt personal sympathies to those he leaves behind.
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Due to a plugin upgrade, many users found our front page stuck on its July 30 version over the past couple of days. I think I’ve resolved it now; if you’ve still got a July 30 version of the front page and forced-refresh won’t help (Windows: ctrl+F5, Mac/Apple: Apple+R or command + R), let me know.
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Ten years ago — July 1, 1999 — I put up the first post in this space. You can read the first fifteen days’ worth of posts here.
Thanks for the congratulations and kind words that have been coming in:
- Patrick, Popehat: “Here’s to ten more years for Overlawyered. And may your name never be featured there.”
- Scott Greenfield, Simple Justice: “That’s 10 years of holding lawyers’ feet to the fire. Thank you!” [Twitter]
- Social-media champion Kevin O’Keefe, of the LexBlog empire: “Don’t always agree, but inspired me to blog.” [Twitter]
- Eric Turkewitz of New York Personal Injury Law Blog has an exceedingly generous post that notes my interest in linking to views from across the conventional divide. I hope I succeed in living up to his high praise.
- Carter Wood, NAM “ShopFloor”: “the Web’s single most effective puncher-of-holes in the excesses of the litigation industry”.
- Ron Miller, Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog: “You always feel like you are getting his thoughtful views as opposed to a knee jerk ‘party platform’ opinion.”
- David Bernstein, Volokh Conspiracy: “I think it was the first legal blog, and I know it’s still one of the best.”
- Cathy Gellis (Statements of Interest): “Blog so old he used to post with typewriter and carbon paper
”
- Robert Ambrogi, Law.com “Legal Blog Watch”: “That is a full decade of chronicling the abuses and excesses of the litigation system, of commentary that is consistently cutting and wry. I may not always agree with Walter Olson, but I sure as heck always read him.”
- Mickey Kaus, Slate “Kausfiles”: “The high process costs of litigation are what lawyers — for obvious reasons — habitually leave out of their let’s-have-notice-and-a-hearing-for-everything reasoning. One thing Olson does is to put them back in.”
- And more: Doctor Wes of the eponymous blog [Twitter], Steven Cohen’s LibraryStuff, Spada (U.K.) Swordplay, Wise Law Blog (Toronto), Milwaukee Federalists, Ron Coleman/Likelihood of Confusion, and Christopher Robinette at TortsProf.
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Gone fishin’
by Walter Olson on August 12, 2011
I will be taking a week or so away from the blog to enjoy the summer and will be holding comments until my return. See you soon.
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