Study on law professors as plaintiffs finds that they “generally do a poor job assessing their chances, for they lose much more often than they win.” Also, “many law professors are guilty of a shocking level of thin-skinnedness.” [Robert M. Jarvis, Albany Law Review via Caron/TaxProf]
Posts Tagged ‘law schools’
Penn Law reparations conference
Something about the graphic for this symposium leads me to believe that it's not going to be a forum for the exchange of different points of view about the issue. I can't quite put my finger on it. pic.twitter.com/mQlgUgZkox
— Robert Anderson (@ProfRobAnderson) January 10, 2018
More on Penn’s fair-and-balanced reparations conference, and earlier conferences in its Edward V. Sparer Symposium series, here. My two cents on the reparations campaign here, or in greater detail in Schools for Misrule.
CCAF contests $8.5 million Google privacy settlement
It’s a cy pres special: members of the injured class will get no part of an $8.5 million settlement Google negotiated with plaintiff’s lawyers over a data privacy lapse. “Instead, the money is to be split among the plaintiffs’ attorneys, who billed their time at $1,000 an hour, and others. The others are cy pres recipients, or organizations that are not parties in the suit: Carnegie Mellon University; World Privacy Forum; the Center for Information, Society and Policy at the Chicago-Kent College of Law; Stanford Center for Internet and Society; Harvard University’s Berkman Center; and AARP Inc.” Ted Frank’s Center for Class Action Fairness is asking the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari after its objections were turned down by lower courts. [Dee Thompson, Legal NewsLine, earlier here and here (Beck: “cy pres abuse poster child”)]
Plus: Bank of America settlement will now yield cy pres windfall for five University of California law schools of $150,000 rather than $20 million. Easy come, easy go? [ABA Journal]
January 3 roundup
- California attorney known for suing bars over “ladies’ nights” sues comedian Iliza Shlesinger over “Girls Night In” show [Gene Maddaus, Variety]
- “Jury Rejects Damages for Victims of SWAT Raid Based on Wet Tea Leaves Cops Said Was Pot” [Jacob Sullum, Radley Balko, earlier here, here, and here]
- Before calling Star-Spangled Banner “ode to slavery,” newly inaugurated St. Paul mayor should have read my NR piece [Tad Vezner, Pioneer Press]
- From Prof. Stephen Presser, ideas on reforming legal education [Law and Liberty]
- Why administration’s appellate nominations tend to be all-of-a-piece while district court nominations are more a mixed bag [Jonathan Adler]
- Some policy questions about last month’s Amtrak 501 wreck outside Seattle [Randal O’Toole, Cato and more]
AALS, adjuncts and accreditation
The American Association of Law Schools’ reaction to an American Bar Association proposal to relax accreditation rules on the use of adjunct professors suggests that AALS is all for wider access to justice until that means competition for its own full-time professor constituency [John McGinnis, Liberty and Law, earlier]
October 11 roundup
- Newspaper execs who faked circulation numbers ended up copping pleas. Law deans who fudged employment stats don’t need to worry, do they? [Morgan Cloud and George Shepherd via Paul Caron]
- Back in The Excuse Factory I wrote about the unplanned consequences of age discrimination law and the prohibition of automatic retirement ages and it’s nice to see a wider consensus forming even if nothing, absolutely nothing, ever gets done to fix it [Saul Levmore and Martha Nussbaum, WSJ]
- Fair use: “Man who sued over Facebook childbirth livestream slapped with $120k in fees” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica]
- “Stop Faking Service Dogs: Loving your pet too much is putting people with real disabilities at risk” [Wes Siler, Outside, our tag on service animals] More: Michael Ollove, Stateline;
- Fifth Circuit reverses $663 million Eastern District of Texas False Claims Act award over sale of guardrails to highway authorities [U.S. ex rel. Harman v. Trinity Industries, Mark Curriden/Texas Lawbook, our earlier critical commentary]
- “Why Conservatives Should not Sic Antitrust on Silicon Valley” [John McGinnis, Liberty and Law]
Campus climate roundup
- Prof. Laura Kipnis, previously investigated by Northwestern over an essay she wrote saying there are too many Title IX investigations, wrote a book about the experience and that touched off yet another Title IX investigation of her [Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker]
- Groups demand that outspoken social conservative Prof. Amy Wax not be allowed to teach first-year civil procedure at University of Pennsylvania Law School [Caron/TaxProf] How to evaluate claims that professors who say controversial things must step away from the classroom because they can’t be trusted to treat/grade students fairly? [Eugene Volokh]
- Meanwhile, co-author of “bourgeois culture” op-ed, Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego, finds his dean distinctly unsupportive [Tom Smith, Caron/TaxProf roundup and more]
- “Stay Woke” and allyship: insider view of American University’s new required first-year diversity courses [Minding the Campus] So revealing that an AAUW chapter would celebrate cancellation of this American U event [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
- Anonymous denunciation makes things better: president of Wright State University in Ohio “is encouraging students to anonymously report any violence and hate speech that might occur on campus.” [AP/WOUB] Student protesters called on Evergreen State “to target STEM faculty in particular for ‘antibias’ training” [Heather Heying, WSJ]
- From this excerpt, upcoming Shep Melnick book on Title IX, OCR and federal control of colleges sounds top-notch [Law and Liberty] What to expect as Education Department reconsiders its former Dear Colleague policies [KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor, Jr., Weekly Standard]
October 4 roundup
- D.C. debates requiring employers that offer free employee parking to offer all other employees equivalent cash value [David Boaz, Cato]
- ADA frequent fliers in Gotham: “These handicapped New Yorkers are behind hundreds of lawsuits” [Melkorka Licea, New York Post]
- When should judges keep celebrity divorce records private? [Naomi Schaefer Riley, Acculturated, quotes me]
- “The Libertarian Lawyer Who Battled Jim Crow” [Damon Root on Moorfield Storey and Buchanan v. Warley]
- Antonin Scalia and legal education [Adam White, National Affairs]
- “Note to Texas, Florida: Insurance Fights Over Sandy Rage On” [David B. Caruso and Jennifer Peltz, Insurance Journal]
September 27 roundup
- Welcome news: U.S. Department of Education withdraws notorious Dear Colleague letter on Title IX and misconduct accusations [Hans Bader, CEI; ABA Journal]
- Kaspersky Lab turns tables, forces E.D. Tex. patent claimant to pay to end case [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica] Following unanimous SCOTUS ruling easing fee awards for ill-grounded patent litigation, firm told to “pay $1.6 million in attorney’s fees for filing an unwarranted patent lawsuit against a competitor.” [same, Octane Fitness vs. Icon]
- Activist litigation with taxpayer imprimatur: “University Of North Carolina Law School’s Civil Rights Center Closes Following Board Of Governors Vote” [Paul Caron/ TaxProf, Bainbridge, earlier]
- Another positive review for Ben Barton and Stephanos Bibas’s Rebooting Justice [Jeremy Richter, earlier]
- Appeals court rejects constitutional challenge to North Carolina homewrecker tort (“alienation of affection”) [ABA Journal, Eugene Volokh, earlier]
- Social engineering often seen as intrinsically anti-liberty. Rightly so? [Cato Unbound: Jason Kuznicki, Alex Tabarrok and others]
August 30 roundup
- Elected-official governance of how state university law centers sue local governments = “interference”? [J. Clara Chan, Chronicle of Higher Education; Jane Stancill, News and Observer; Ana Irizarry, UNC Daily Tarheel; James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Jesse Saffron, Alex Contarino, Frank Pray]
- Zen Magnets update: “How One Man’s Quest To Save His Magnets Became A Massive Regulatory Battle” [Jeremy Kutner, Huffington Post, earlier]
- “The solar eclipse is no longer mysterious, supernatural, foreboding, or ominous.” Or cause to delay a trial [court order in U.S. v. Bishop, M.D. Fla.]
- Trump vs. business: “His recurring message is that any executive who doesn’t do as Trump wishes can expect retribution from the most powerful man on earth.” [Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune/syndicated]
- Wales: “Mute and autistic girl was seized from family and locked up after false abuse claims” [Lucy Johnston, Express] On “facilitated communication” and the like, see earlier posts here and here;
- California bill would extend pre-litigation subpoena power, a powerful tool in inflicting cost and loss of privacy on targets, from current holders (state AG, county DAs) to city attorneys in San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, and San Jose [Civil Justice Association of California Bulletin; Amanda Robert, Legal NewsLine]