Author: Jeremy Paul
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Books of the Week
The ,more things change, the more they stay the same. Sian Zelbo, Professor of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Columbia’s Teachers College in her forthcoming monograph Manufactured Outrage:The Dismantling of School Integration in Reconstruction-Era New Orleans tells the story of how the violent reaction of local residents to school integration in the 1870’s was hardly…
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Law Firms Double Down on AI
Best Lawyers is out this week with its annual ranking of best law firms. What’s most interesting is the extent to which firms are implementing AI across a wide range of services. You can read the press release here.https://www.bestlawyers.com/press/u-s-best-law-firms-2027
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Is MAGA Seeking Truce in Campus Culture War?
The Chronicle of Higher Ed is already out with a new piece by Francie Diep charting what’s been happening as Administrations in D.C. and some state capitols have backed off the campus culture war even before Tuesday’s Democratic landslide . Will they be inclined to retreat still further given the recent election returns?
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Law Prof Goes to Washington
Kevin Johnson promptly congratulated in this space former deans Phil Weiser, newly elected Governor of Colorado, and Jocelyn Benson, newly elected governor of Michigan. But let’s also shout out Christina Bohannan, former law professor at the University of Iowa, who was elected Tuesday to the House of Representatives from Iowa’s first congressional district. Go Hawkeyes.
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Hottest Law Job: Times do Change
Sarah Kessler for the NYTimes writes in Dealbook about the rising demand from organizations across many domains for what they are calling “legal engineers.” These are trained professionals (not necessarily lawyers) who have both legal skills and knowledge of contemporary technology. Goal is to permit organizations to maximize use of all sorts of computer services,…
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Book of the Week
Rachel Shelden, Associate Professor of History at Penn State, is out this week with an important new account of the Supreme Court’s early history in which, she demonstrates, members of the Court felt free to participate in political affairs that strike many modern sensibilities as entirely inappropriate. Equally important, in The Political Supreme Court: A…
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Help Grandma Vote
Nina Kohn, Distinguished Professor of Law at Syracuse writes in Forbes of new obstacle confronting nursing home residents seeking to vote. No mater what one’s political party, I hope we can all agree that the government owes our seniors a chance to cast a ballot without intimidation from the government aimed at caregivers seeking to…
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Not too Big to Fail
Bloomberg News reports the impending wind-down of the long-time, highly venerated law firm, Weil Gotschal & Manges. Felled by the same forces bedeviling all but the most giant firms, Weil faced partner exits, cutthroat competition for talent, failed merger talks, and uncertainty over direction following the transition to new leadership. Of course the heaviest toll…
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Four Honchos of the Academy
David Ray Papke, Professor of Law at Marquetts, has written this fun article, Profess, Apply, Pickle, and Trash, Four Legal Educators’ Approach to the Law in the Saint Louis Law Journal comparing and contrasting the approaches to legal education expounded by James Kent, Christopher Columbus Langdell, Karl Llwellyn and Duncan Kennedy. He offers neither idolatry…
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Book of the Week
The tenth edition of Brian Bix’s ‘canonical text, Jurisprudence: Theory and Context, introducing students to the basics of jurisprudence, is out now in the UK and due in the U.S . from Carolina Academic Press in March 27. If you teach in this area, consider it as a great vehicle to acquaint your students with…
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Symposium on Higher Education
Volume 41 of the Touro Law Review is devoted to a wide-ranging set of articles dealing with legal issues in higher ed ranging from the effects of Loper Bright to exploration of the new world of college athletics. The thoughtful introduction by Patricia Salkin can be found here: Salkin, Patricia E., Evolving Legal Issues in…
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Abolish Business Schools?
In his song Radio Radio, a tune so controversial that SNL didn’t want him to play in on air, Elvis Costello sang “I want to bite the hand that feeds me. I want to bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they’d never seen me.” But Elvis has nothing on Christopher…
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Grisham Strikes Again
When a best-selling author (and this is literal, not hyperbole) titles a book, The Law Student, readers of TaxProf Blog can’t help but be curious. This is a mini-book, just 24 pages of prequel to Grisham’s new thriller, The French Illusion. I’m daring you not to get hooked.
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Tang Prize Goes to Bruce Ackerman
The Tang Prize Foundation has awarded this year’s Rule of Law prize to Yale Law School’s Sterling Professor of Law Bruce Ackerman for his “intellectual leadership in developing new conceptions of constitution-making …to defend the rule of law amid the crises facing modern republics.”. You can review the many reasons why this award is so…
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Urging Supreme Court Reform
University of Professor Law Professor, Kate Shaw, who co-hosts the lively, trenchant podcast, Strict Scrutiny, this week penned an op-ed in the NYTimes offering a critique of the Supreme Court’s recent actions and providing mainstream ideas for Supreme Court reform. Proposals coming from such a thoughtful observer of the Court’s trajectory deserve careful consideration. Take…
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Book of the Week
K. Sabeel Rahman, Professor of Law at Cornell and former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs during the Biden Administration, offers his latest monograph Remaking the State: A New Blueprint for American Democracy. As the book’s title suggests, Professor Rahman seeks to transform how administrative agencies function, breaking the mold of opaque,…
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Time off to learn AI
Law Firms now giving lawyers time off to become familiar with AI and its uses for their practice. Law Schools need to catch up. Reuters has the story but the point is clear even if the link isn’t functioning.
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Law School or Political Power Base?
This powerful story by Benjamin Wofford in the New Yorker tells a harrowing tale of imposed student student discipline and the alleged false resignation of a faculty member following comments made after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. The New Yorker has a pay wall, but I encourage everyone to find a way to read the…
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Meeting the Moment
Gary Simson, holder of the Macon Chair in Law at Mercer University Law School, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, and former Dean at Mercer and Case Western has penned a heartfelt letter in Jurist to students across the nation imploring them to stand up against threats to the Constitution and the rule of law coming…
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Book of the Week
Long acclaimed as one of the foundational texts introducing students to a variety of reasoning techniques and helping them understand how judges decide cases, Reason in Law has been updated for a tenth edition due out this month from the University of Chicago Press. A new foreword by Princeton icon, Kim Lane Scheppele introduces us…
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A Love Letter to Clinics
Our London-based colleagues, Karen Watton and Frances Ridout, at Queen Mary University Law School have written a love letter to clinics exploring their salutary effect on four distinct constituencies: (1) universities; (2) students and alumni; (3) clients and community groups; and (4) employers and external partners. Always nice to get a comparative perspective. Find it…
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Law and Politcal Economy: Call for Papers
The second Annual Meeting of the Association of Law and Political Economy (“ALPE”) will be held in Boston on June 9-10, 2027. The ALPE has issued a call for papers with a deadline of December 9, 2026. You can find all the details here.
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Book of the Week
We all know that our nation confronts dramatic levels of wealth inequality that threaten to leave the Gilded Age in the dust. So who are these people who now possess fortunes that would leave kings of old aching with envy and what do they plan for our future? That’s the topic seized by longtime journalist…
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Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So – I’ve got this
Those looking for a bit of Friday fun might enjoy this piece in the National Jurist highlighting how music listening can enhance one’s experiences as a lawyer or law student. My ringtone is set to “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.” from Elvis Costello’s “The Angels Want to Wear my…
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ABA Accreditation Power Teetering
As reported by Bloomberg news, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity decided Thursday not to make a recommendation on whether the U.S. Department of Education should continue to leave accreditation of law schools in the hands of the ABA Council within the Section on Legal Education. The decision to defer came as…