Monthly Archives: July 2006

I just returned to DC after a 9-hour flight back from Munich, where for the last two weeks I was teaching a 1-credit version of my computer crime law class as part of GW’s Munich Intellectual Property Law Summer Program.  … Continue reading →

Orly Lobel has more thoughts over at PrawfsBlawg on the question of banning laptops in law school classrooms. We discussed this issue here a few months ago, so I’ll just add one relatively recent data point to the empirical picture. … Continue reading →

The Center for Democracy and Technology, one of the leading public interest organizations  that covers electronic privacy and civil liberties issues, has started a new blog: PolicyBeta.  The contributors are a top-notch group, and this blog looks like it will … Continue reading →

The text of the Specter bill to amend FISA to allow the NSA surveillance programs has been morphing over the last few days. I have posted the latest version here.

I always find it a bit puzzling when district court judges — who decide cases themselves, without a panel of colleagues– refer to themselves as “we” in an opinion. I can understand the universal “we” in the context of an … Continue reading →

A series of very interesting posts at PrawfsBlawg, carried over to Concurring Opinions, is considering whether first-year law school courses in criminal law should focus on the Model Penal Code. I think the answer depends on what kind of class the … Continue reading →

A number of readers of this blog just graduated from law school  this spring, and are sitting for the bar exam this week.  Different states host the bar exam on different days; as best I can tell from googling around, … Continue reading →

Senator Specter has an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he responds to critics of his proposed legislation concerning the NSA domestic surveillance program. Here is an excerpt: The president has insisted that he was acting lawfully within his … Continue reading →

Matt Bodie has answered a question I have wondered about — are articles at top journals really getting shorter?  His answer, based on a survey of seven top law reviews: Yes.  Here’s the key finding: For those articles published in … Continue reading →

Today’s New York Times has a story, For Top Law Students, A Sidebar With the Arts.  An excerpt: It was the kickoff cocktail party for the Summer Art Circle, one of a handful of new initiatives meant to match law … Continue reading →

NPR has posted the audio of a segment of Edward R. Murrow’s radio program “This I Believe,” from 1951, featuring an address by Justice William O. Douglas called The Faith of Our Fathers. If you’ve read Bruce Allen Murphy’s biography … Continue reading →

Over at the U of C Faculty Blog, Randy Picker has an excellent post on fair use and the DMCA. It begins: Try this hypothetical. Writing a novel seems to be the thing for law professors to do these days, … Continue reading →

If you’ve read over the Constitution a few times — maybe it’s kind of old-fashioned to actually read the Constitution, but I trust many readers have done this — you’ve probably noticed the remarkable number of times the document mentions … Continue reading →

Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California handed down an important ruling today rejecting motions to dismiss EFF’s lawsuit against AT&T for its participation in the NSA domestic surveillance and call records program. It’s a very long opinion, … Continue reading →

In a post over at Concurring Opinions, Nate Oman writes: I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance about the predicament of con law scholars. He made the point that the decline in the Supreme Court’s docket has had a … Continue reading →

Over at The Legal Times, Tony Mauro has this interesting story on the growth of Supreme Court Litigation Clinics at a number of law schools.  It will be interesting to see how many of these clinics can exist at the … Continue reading →

Over at the VC, Jonathan Adler reports: The Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) may change its name to the “American Association for Justice.” Why? Well, according to ATLA president Ken Suggs, “”Our research shows that if our message is … Continue reading →

The Volokh Conspiracy is down right now, due to a problem that we’re working on but haven’t quite fixed.  In the meantime, you can visit the VC at this alternative site.

Lisa Fairfax has a very interesting post at the Conglomerate on whether untenured lawprofs aiming for tenure should do empirical research. Specifically, she articulates four arguments raised at a conference against such work. In very condensed form, the arguments are … Continue reading →

From the Associated Press: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans’ international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected. The … Continue reading →