Discourse.net

Those Billionaires Can Sing

2009-11-06T16:07:02-05:00

Billionaires for Wealthcare Serande the Masses on Capitol Hill - 11/5/09 (HQ)

Jotwell Reactions

2009-11-06T12:50:59-05:00

I've been thrilled by the initial response to Jotwell. Traffic well exceeded my expectations, which is only fair as the initial articles are great, and a large number of friends and strangers have sent me incredibly kind email.

Of all the notes I got, this one from Prof. Bernard Hibbitts of U. Pittsburgh, the creator of JURIST, is my favorite because it not only nicely summarizes a large part of what I am hoping Jotwell will do, but also goes beyond my wilder dreams. Prof. Hibbitts (quoted with permission) wrote,

[T]his is a really great initiative which has tremendous potential to reshape the scholarly publishing process in law, since your focus is much more on what is said than where it is said. You have, in a sense, (re)invented the “law review”, recasting it in the literal/movie sense of the term, and the consequences of this for the traditional players and hierarchy could be enormous, as JOTWELL could end up leapfrogging and superseding them entirely in multiple ways (authoritativeness, timeliness, etc.). Going further, it may not be too much to suggest that you may finally have split the scholarly atom, dividing assessment from placement and unleashing untold intellectual energies and possibilities in the process.

I can only wish.

Meanwhile, we have a new article by Donna Coker up at Jotwell, and two more new pieces in other sections scheduled for next week. Have a look.

Encouraging Students to Take Foreign Language Courses

2009-11-05T19:21:19-05:00

I don't know why I had to read this on Above the Law (no, not that), but it seems that UM Law school is implementing a very good change in the tuition structure which will ensure our students can take language (and other) courses in the University without extra charge. See University of Miami School of Law Slows Growth of Tuition.

I often tell students that they enhance their employability for any international work, and also much domestic work, if they speak another language well. And I tell students who have a basic grasp of a foreign language — often it's locals who speak Spanish but don't write it as well as they speak it — that they can get law school credit for advanced language courses in the college. (Last I checked they can't get credit for very basic language courses.)

But students sometimes reported that registration wasn't simple — and one of the issues was that sometimes the law school passed on the extra tuition charges the college charged it for those courses.

I don't know if the Dean's announcement means we have worked out a way to avoid those charges or if we will be eating them — Above the Law seems to get more news about Miami than I do these days — but either way this is good for students who want to brush up their language skills and signal competence to future employers.

(We also teach some introductory civil law classes in Spanish, which I recommend to students with at least near fluency so that they can acquire a basic legal vocabulary.)

Dean White's memo to students — which either wasn't sent to faculty or I missed it in the crush of work — is included below (as reported on ATL).

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SCHOOL OF LAW — MEMO — TUITION

Dear Students,

There are two tuition policy changes which I would like to announce and bring to your attention as you go about registering for next semester. Both of them are designed to help you cap your tuition cost in any given semester to the amount of the law school’s then full-time tuition semester rate (currently $18,709). Both of these changes will go into effect this Spring semester.

1) Under our current rules, all UM Law students may take up to 6 credits of graduate level coursework in another UM department or school and count these credits toward their law degree. The rules describing what is allowed are set out in Chapter 16 of the Student Handbook. Unfortunately many of you have felt discouraged from taking advantage of this opportunity by our tuition structure. Rather than try to describe that structure in detail, let me just say that it often worked to impose an extra charge on students who took allowed courses outside of the Law School. This will no longer be the case. Your Law School tuition will now cover those nonlaw courses which you take and apply to your law degree. There will be no surcharge. I very much hope that this will encourage you to take greater advantage of what the University has to offer. Some of you are currently pursuing joint degree programs. I hope that the number of such programs will expand very soon. The tuition structure has made these programs more expensive than they need to be. The change described above will have the effect of capping the tuition cost of any given semester at the full-time Law School rate. One warning…we may not succeed in getting the University billing system adjusted quickly enough to keep you from getting tuition bills charging you more than $18,709. Please be patient and simply send the notice of any such charges to deanofstudents@law.miami.edu We will make sure that your bill is corrected. Please do not complain to the University billing folks!!

2) Under certain unusual circumstances students are allowed to request permission to take 17 credits in a semester. Permission to do this must be given by the Dean of Students. In the past. we have charged additional tuition for that extra credit (currently $1633). The full time rate has been limited to 16 credits. Henceforth, for tuition purposes, we will not charge additional tuition for 17 credits. This change will not affect the conditions under which permission to take a 17th credit will be granted.

I hope that these changes are helpful to you. TW

Patricia D. White

Dean & Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law

Source: Above the Law

Prisoner Remake On the Way

2009-11-03T20:37:55-05:00

I confess, I am a fan of the (original) Prisoner. I am not the fanatical sort of fan, just one who has seen them all at least twice. I recognize they are dated. I admit the ending of the series is mostly stupid, and what is not stupid is mostly nuts, and what is not stupid or nuts is fun.

I don't say there should not be a remake. I just say I would really hate a bad remake.

The Original

The Prisoner TV Show Opening Theme 1967 - 1968

The Remake

New Trailer For The Prisoner (2009)

Is this going to be a bad remake? American prisoner - not ideal. Ian McKellen as Number Two - very good. Rover is missing? - not sure how I feel about that.

Jotwell Launches Today

2009-11-02T00:16:00-05:00

Today is the official launch of Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots), a new online law journal that I am editing. At Jotwell you will find leading academics and practitioners providing short reviews of recent scholarship related to the law that the reviewer likes and thinks deserves a wide audience. We launch with a great set of original contributions spanning a wide range of legal topics.

Jotwell is a special type of law review housed on a set of inter-linked blogs. As a law review, Jotwell has only one mission: to bring to readers' attention great recent scholarship related to the law. As a blog, Jotwell invites your comments.

We have an amazing team of superb contributors, whose names are listed in the sections:

On the Jotwell main page you should expect new content once or twice a week, although as we add more sections contributions may become more frequent. Each of the subject-specific sections will have something new at least once a month. In any case, every time a new review appears in any of the subject-specific sections, an excerpt with a link to the full text will also appear there.

There are three ways to read Jotwell.

You can visit the main Jotwell page, which aggregates all the sections; or you can sample just the sections you like, choosing from the list in the right column.
If you use a newsreader, you can sign up for the RSS feed for the main Jotwell section, or select among the feeds for the subject sections by choosing the link to the RSS feed found in each section.
Or, if you prefer to get your updates by e-mail, you can click here to request a message every time we have new article, or click on the email link found in every subject section for a more tailored, and less frequent, reminder.

Economist.com Does '7 Questions for Dan Froomkin'

2009-11-01T17:12:50-05:00

Economist.com, Democracy in America, Seven questions for Dan Froomkin

My favorite of the seven:

DIA: Much of Huffington Post’s traffic is driven by gossipy stories about sex and entertainment. Are you concerned about the effect this has on the site's respectability?

Mr Froomkin: It’s not my favourite thing about the site. But mostly, I recognise it as evidence of how the Huffington Post is truly a creature of its medium. A fair amount of people come to a website in part to be entertained, and to deny that would be to turn away a large audience of potential news consumers. And please keep in mind that our staid, holier-than-though newspapers carry horoscopes and Sudoku, not just news. I know some people who subscribe to newspapers primarily because they couldn’t live without the comics.

The kids' demand for the comics does seem to be why we still get the Miami Herald. Even though they now print some so small I can hardly read them.

The Scene In Torts Class on Friday

2009-10-31T20:41:09-05:00

Almost forgot to post this Halloween pix — we had a guest lecturer in Torts class. A number of students also dressed as someone (or maybe his) familiar.

Jotwell Call for Papers

2009-10-31T20:32:48-05:00

Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) seeks short reviews of (very) recent scholarship related to the law that the reviewer likes and thinks deserves a wide audience. The ideal Jotwell review will not merely celebrate scholarly achievement, but situate it in the context of other scholarship in a manner that explains to both specialists and non-specialists why the work is important.

Although critique is welcome, reviewers should choose the subjects they write about with an eye toward identifying and celebrating work that makes an original contribution, and that will be of interest to others. First-time contributors may wish to consult the Jotwell Mission Statement for more information about what Jotwell seeks, and what it seeks to achieve.

Reviews need not be written in a particularly formal manner. Contributors should feel free to write in a manner that will be understandable to scholars, practitioners, and even non-lawyers.

Ordinarily, a Jotwell contribution will

be between 500-1000 words;
focus on one work, ideally a recent article, but a discussion of a recent book is also welcome;
begin with a hyperlink to the original work — in order to make the conversation as inclusive as possible, there is a strong preference for reviews to focus on scholarly works that can be found online without using a subscription service such as Westlaw or Lexis. That said, reviews of articles that are not freely available online, and also of very recent books, are also welcome.

Initially, Jotwell particularly seeks contributions relating to:

We intend to add more sections in the coming months.

References

Authors are responsible for the content and cite-checking of their own articles. Jotwell editors and staff may make editorial suggestions, and may alter the formatting to conform to the house style, but the author remains the final authority on content appearing under his or her name.

Please keep citations to a minimum.
Please include a hyperlink, if possible, to any works referenced.
Textual citations are preferred. Endnotes, with hyperlinks, are allowed if your HTML skills extend that far.
Authors are welcome to follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (18th ed. 2005), or the The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (2d Ed.) or indeed to adopt any other citation form which makes it easy to find the work cited.

Technical

Jotwell publishes in HTML, which is a very simple text format and which does not lend itself to footnotes; textual citations are much preferred.

Contributors should email their article, in plain text, in HTML, or in a common wordprocessor format (Open Office, WordPerfect, or Word) to ed.jotwell@gmail.com and we will forward the article to the appropriate Section Editors. Or you may, if you prefer, contact the appropriate Section Editors directly.

Corollary to Zawinski's Law

2009-10-30T13:12:15-05:00

RC3 has proposed a new Corollary to Zawinski's law.

Zawinski’s law states:
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

I wonder if there’s a corollary that applies to imperialism.

Every empire attempts to expand until it can occupy Afghanistan. Those empires which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

It even provides a testable hypothesis.

Two Words MIA

2009-10-30T08:41:54-05:00

Exit Strategy: The two words that you don't hear anymore in the Afghanistan policy debate.

Where did they go?

What My Students Think of When They Think of Halloween

2009-10-29T17:12:59-05:00

One of my students, Eric Neff, tells me he has “carved a pumpkin in my image” and sends along this photo of the “frumpkin”:

I think it looks more like one of the Marx Brothers….

President Shalala Writes

2009-10-29T17:00:30-05:00

In an email to the entire UM Community, UM Pres. Donna Shalala writes,

To the University Community:

On Tuesday someone drew a swastika on a wall in the men's restroom near the Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies in the Merrick Building. This incident and a similar one that occurred last November in the same location have been reported to University Police and are under investigation. Defacement of University property is a crime—and to do so with this symbol of hatred, which is offensive to all of us, is a despicable and cowardly act. The University of Miami is a place where all are welcome in a spirit of learning and acceptance. There is no place in our community for bigotry and intolerance. I condemn these acts in the strongest of terms on behalf of the University.

Anyone with information concerning this crime should immediately contact the University of Miami Police Department at 284-6666.

I presume this was much more than the usual bathroom graffiti. Even so, if this is our worst problem, we're not doing too terribly.

Former Asst Police Chief Gives TSA a Failing Grade

2009-10-29T08:17:52-05:00

Homeland Security Watch turns the mike over to the former Assistant Chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Police in 'Do I have the right to refuse this search?' and she suggests that there are some pretty large gaps in TSA training and procedures at airports.

I look forward to Stewart Baker's reply.

It Takes $1 Million to Free an Innocent Man

2009-10-29T08:07:54-05:00

Congrats to the public-spirited lawyers at my old law firm, now called WilmerHale, for spending almost $1 million worth of pro-bono time to free an innocent man — without DNA evidence. Read all the details at TalkLeft, Court Frees NY Man After 26 Years “Compelling Innocence” Case. It is hard not to agree with the conclusion:

How many other innocent persons are languishing in our prisons because of withheld evidence, lying snitches, faulty eyewitness testimony, false confessions, junk science, lab fraud, ineffective counsel and other reasons not able to be discerned by DNA evidence, which either never existed or was not preserved — or because they don't have the means to retain dedicated counsel like those the Innocence Project found for Mr Bozella?

More Great Publicity for the Miami Law Foreclosure Fellowships

2009-10-26T16:40:50-05:00

You know you are having a good day when 'Above the Law' (ATL) writes something positive about you — and that was my experience this afternoon with University of Miami Law School Puts Some Money into Public Service.

In addition to not making me look bad — indeed, making me look nice — I especially liked the conclusion of the piece,

The recession has created a huge need for legal services. And it has created a glut of laid off or unemployed lawyers. But matching the attorneys to the work is difficult because it is tough to pay off law school debts by helping low income families fight off foreclosure proceedings. Miami’s programs aren’t going to fix that fundamental disconnect between the cost of law school and the need for legal services.

But the school has taken a nice step in the right direction. The fellowship stipend might not be much, but it is infinitely more valuable than lip service.

ATL is best known for ribbing or even bashing lawyers and law schools…and the commentators in its threads are ferocious on a good day, and worse otherwise. (Indeed, the first comment on the article reads, in full, “Suck it.”)

The law school also got a good write-up in the ABA Journal's Miami Law Grads Get $10K Foreclosure Fellowships to Fill Legal Services Gap.

Update: Even nicer write up at South Florida Lawyers. Thanks guys.