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Posted in Andy, Conferences, Law
Latest data on capital punishment
• In 2008, 37 inmates were executed: 18 in Texas; 4 in Virginia; 3 each in Georgia and South Carolina; 2 each in Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma; and 1 in Kentucky.
• 36 executions were by lethal injection; 1 by electrocution.
• Of persons executed in 2008, 20 were white and 17 were black. All 37 inmates executed were men.
• Thirty-seven states and the federal government had capital statutes at yearend 2008.
• As of November 30, 2009, 48 executions had been carried out, 12 more than the number executed as of the same date in 2008.
• Between 1977 and 2008, 7,658 people have been under sentence of death. Of these, 15% were executed, 5% died from causes other than execution, and 38% received other dispositions.
• A total of 111 inmates were received under sentence of death during 2008, representing the smallest number of admissions since 1973.
• A total of 119 inmates were removed from under sentence of death—37 were executed and 82 were removed by other methods, including sentences or convictions overturned, commutations of sentence, and deaths by means other than execution.
And lest we forget how important capital punishment studies have been in advancing political science, an oldie-but-goodie from Bob Erickson
Crime Against People with Disabilities
Findings in this report are the first estimates of crime against people with disabilities measured by the NCVS, administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The NCVS adopted questions from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) to identify respondents who had a disability. Disability is defined as a long-lasting (six months or more) sensory, physical, mental, or emo- tional condition that makes it difficult for a person to per- form daily living activities. The NCVS questions identified six types of disabilities: sensory, physical, cognitive func- tioning, self-care, go-outside-the-home, and employment.
And they find:
Persons age 12 or older with disabilities experienced approximately 716,000 nonfatal violent crimes and 2.3 mil- lion property crimes in 2007 as measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Nonfatal violent crimes include rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Property crimes include household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and property theft.*
About one third (34%) of the crimes against persons with or without a disability in 2007 were serious violent crimes (rape/sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault). Per- sons with disabilities were victims of about 47,000 rapes, 79,000 robberies, 114,000 aggravated assaults, and 476,000 simple assaults.
Here’s a lit review on crime against people with disabilities, albeit with a Canadian angle.
Law students as entrepreneurs?
See my post on this idea and legal education on prawfs.
What are corporations anyway?
In light of the US Supreme Court’s recent pronouncement on the entity known as the corporation in Citizens United (see our prior post here), we might pause to think more about what a corporation really is – where did it come from, how does it fit into our present society, what are its characteristics, and how is it different from a natural person? A 2003 documentary, “The Corporation” may provide some insight. I recently watched it and found it very intriguing, although it certainly has a very specific view on the topic. Here’s the trailer:
Bar Prep on the iPhone
TUAW complains is excited about the new $999.99 BarMax CA app for the iPhone, which is
designed to help would-be lawyers pass their bar exams. Comparable services cost up to three or four times the price of this one, so if you have an iPhone and are planning to take the bar, this could actually be a “bar”gain (sorry, please don’t sue us). The app is over a gig in size and brags about squeezing 50 lbs of books into the palm of your hand — there are test questions, reference guides, audio lectures, and practice cards all included in the app’s purchase.
Next up? The American politics comps app.
Cultural cognition and judicial decision making
Paul Secunda (Marquette Law School) has recently posted his paper “Cultural Cognition at Work” on the Social Science Research Network. It looks to be an interesting read – here’s the abstract:
Cultural cognition theory provides an anthropological and psychological-based theory about how values actually influence judges. It suggests that values act as a subconscious influence on cognition rather than as a self-conscious motive of decision-making.
Applying these insights to two controversial U.S Supreme Court labor and employment decisions, this article contends that Justices in many instances are not fighting over ideology, but rather over legally-consequential facts. This type of disagreement is particularly prevalent in labor and employment law cases where the factual issues that divide judges involve significant uncertainty and turn on inconclusive evidence.
The distinction that this article draws between ideology and cultural cognition is critical for two independent reasons. First, the identification of cultural worldviews as a major influence on judicial decisionmaking assists in bringing legitimacy back to the judging function. Second, social science research indicates that existing techniques might be available for judges to counteract their susceptibility to this form of biased decisionmaking.
Some exam advice for law students …
… can be found in this post on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. Here are some choice excerpts:
Rogan Nunn, 3L at UVA and an editor on the Virginia Law Review: By far the most useful thing I did when preparing for 1L exams was to round up a few people from the class and take old exams. Don’t just go through them, take them — pretend it’s the real thing, time limits and all. Then discuss answers. You’d be amazed how much you miss the first time. It can be time-consuming, but all the outlining in the world won’t save you if you can’t spot the issues on the fly.
Anonymous 3L at Berkeley, editor on the California Law Review: Perhaps the most important (and most difficult) advice is that you need to move on when the exam is over, either to prepping for your next exam, having a beer, or just generally getting on with your life. You might feel tempted to talk to your classmates about the exam, perhaps because you have nothing else to talk about (as your life of late was probably consumed with studying). Avoid this at all costs; at best you get affirmation in your answers (which could still be wrong), but at worst your start worrying that you missed something, which at this point is totally out of your control. . . . From my own experience and my friends, taking a law school exam can be defeating and leave students with the feeling that their days of studying were not properly translated to the answer they cranked out in three hours. Try your best not to dwell on those feelings.
The first piece of advice above is crucial – especially the part about making this a group endeavor and going over the exam answers as a team. I would add that you might want to do some multiple choice or short answer exam taking after every major section of a class. (Of course, please keep in mind that I’m stressing a ‘do as I say, not as I did’ approach). The second piece of advice is also important since failing to follow this advice can kill a whole day of productivity during a crucial time. I might add that it’s also important to have this attitude after all exams are done. There’s no point in beating yourself up about things or crying over spilt milk.
Of moneyball, rankings, and productivity
Tax Prof Blogger Paul Caron posts on an offshoot of moneyball with an analogy to volleyball – asking what measures we might consider in the way of non-traditional sabermetric statistics for academic productivity. While this is interesting, I’m not sure if we’ve even gotten people on board with the value of traditional sabermetric stats for academic productivity yet. His post does provide a nice summary and listing of prior blogging on moneyball relative to academia. In a related note of shameless promotion, I provide Binghamton Political Science Department’s rankings for moneyball productivity in political science published in the Hix 2004 study of international political science productivity in Political Studies Review (study focuses on 1998 to 2002):
Number of articles relative to faculty size: #8 (between Columbia and Geneva)
Scholarly impact (citations) relative to faculty size: #10 (between Ohio State University and Cardiff)
A good criminal law exam question?
The Quest Team
The Neuroethics & Law Blog posts on a recently published article by Guglielmo Tamburrini titled “Brain to Computer Communication: Ethical Perspectives on Interaction Models”. The abstract is pasted below the fold, but it brings to mind and interesting question – at least to me – in criminal law. Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) allow one to control robotic devices via brain activity alone – there is no physical action, at least as far as it is traditionally considered. If a crime (say, battery) is committed via BCIs, then the mens rea (guilty mind or intent) is pretty clear, but is there actus reus (guilty act)? At first blush it strikes me that actus reus is fulfilled in this situation, but I don’t have a formal definition of the term in front of me at the moment. Would the brain activity which “trips” the BCI to take action be enough? This all reminds me of a “Jonny Quest” show bad guy named Jeremiah Surd – he had no physical motor functions but wreaked a lot of havoc with his mind and robots. (Sorry, I couldn’t find a good Surd pic).
Update: I’m liking this format – I provide a silly picture and a vague legal question and blog commenters provide thoughtful and detailed answers. Am I unreasonable in hoping that this is a sustainable model of blogging? ;-)
Posted in Academia, Jeff, Law, Pop Culture
New wave in Empirical Research on Law and Courts:
First, I would like to thank Jeff for the nice intro and for inviting me to blog this week. Second, you should all know I have not done this before so I am hoping you will bear with me … I guess we’ll see if any interesting thoughts develop.
My work is on legal decision making – or legal cognition – how decision makers think about cases and make decisions in the context of accepted norms of legal reasoning. Basically, I think judges and practitioners who have been socialized in the legal tradition take rules regarding their own authority and appropriate sources of legal reasoning quite seriously. But I also acknowledge attitudes matter and they matter a lot. The interesting puzzle from my perspective is how decision makers who believe they are using objective decision criteria reach legal conclusions that support their policy preferences again and again. I’ve used the paradigm of “motivated reasoning ” from psychology to get at some of these issues. The goal is to find out (1) whether legal decision makers are subject to biased decision processes in the context of using accepted norms and (2) what the objective limits on biased reasoning processes might be. The book Jeff refers to in his intro Law, Politics and Perception: How Policy Preference Influence Legal Reasoning represents my take on these questions based on experimental research.
More broadly, there has been an increased interest in the law and courts subfield in using theory and methods from psychology to explain legal decision making phenomena. I think this is a very good thing. There is for instance a forthcoming volume edited by David Klein and Greg Mitchell describing the “Psychology of Judicial Decision Making.” Over and above the work on legal cognition done by researchers like Brandon Bartels at GWU and Paul Collins at North Texas U, researchers are starting to think about and study how other psychological constructs like motivation (ex. Larry Baum at OSU, Justin Wedeking at UK) and even emotion (ex. Terry Marony at Vanderbilt Law) plays a role in decision making outcomes. Scholars are also trying to think more about the individual and group cognition process which each play a role in appellate decision making. How does one influence the other? Are judges ALWAYS single minded seekers of policy when they go into conference discussions or might they be open to alternative arguments and persuasion by their colleagues? Does it depend on the type of case? (Note: “salience” is another psychological term by the way.) Do terms like “strategy” or “reasoned compromise” better describe the group dynamic that occurs resulting in majority opinions? How could we tell the difference between the two? Are there non-traditional methods that may better “get at” these sorts of questions?
I for one am looking forward to contributing to, and learning from, this next generation of interdisciplinary empirical research at the intersection of law, political science and psychology. I think we have much to learn and that findings will have important implications across multiple disciplines speaking to issues from basic psychology to the legitimacy of judicial institutions in our constitutional system.
Introducing guest blogger Eileen Braman
Eileen Braman
Please welcome to the Voir Dire blog, our guest, Professor Eileen Braman. Eileen is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She earned her J.D. at Fordham University School of Law in 1996 and her Ph.D. at the Ohio State University in 2004. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, and Politics & Religion, among other outlets. She has recently published Law, Politics, and Perception: How Policy Preferences Influence Legal Reasoning with the University of Virginia Press. We look forward to reading her posts 
Benching the judge-umpire analogy?
Professor Aaron Zelinsky has recently posted “The Justice as Commissioner: Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy” (forthcoming, Yale Law Journal). Given that this analogy gets tossed around a good bit in Law & Courts and ELS circles, this should be a good conversation starter. At the very least, Voir Dire guest blogger Chris Bonneau should have something to say about this
The abstract is available below the fold [ hat tip Sports Law Blog]
A nice opportunity for law & courts junior candidates…
… if they also have a JD. But, I imagine that at least some of them do. Check out the position at University of Indiana below the fold.
Upcoming conference at Seton Hall law school
Seton Hall school of law is hosting “Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field” November 12th – more details here.
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Posted in Academia, Conferences, Jeff, Law
Introducing the new US Supreme Court Database Website!
Washington University professor Andrew Martin and his collaborators have recently released their US Supreme Court Database website. It updates, enhances, and streamlines Spaeth’s original data set. This project looks to be a significant development in the field and a very useful and reliable resource for law and courts scholars interested in studying SCOTUS. The website can be found here, and Andrew’s formal announcement is available below the fold.
Cool opportunity for junior judicial candidates
In Paris, France … I imagine that having a JD would help too , but apparently is not required …
Introducing guest blogger, Melinda Gann Hall
Dear Voir Dire readers, please join me in welcoming professor Melinda Gann Hall to our blog. While she needs no introduction, I’ll provide a little bio information for anyone who is doesn’t follow law and courts or state politics work and is therefore unfamiliar with her scholarship. Melinda earned her Ph.D. at the University of New Orleans in 1983 and is now Professor and Distinguished Faculty at Michigan State University, department of political science.
Her publications, awards, and professional leadership positions are too numerous to list here, but you can find her vitae here. She (along with Chris Bonneau) has recently penned a book, In Defense of Judicial Elections and she is also a co-creator (with Paul Brace) of the well-known State Supreme Court Data Project, funded by NSF. We look forward to her posts and I am sure that you will enjoy her insights.
Hawaii and healthcare
The New York Times reports on the Hawaii healthcare system and how it compares against the rest of the nation. Since 1974 the state has required all employers to provide healthcare benefits to any employee working twenty hours a week or more. As the chart at the left indicates this situation has not led to an explosion in health care costs.
“But perhaps the most intriguing lesson from Hawaii has to do with costs. This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest.
Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state’s health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation’s highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease.”
But the system is certainly not perfect:
“There are clear problems with Hawaii’s system. Hospitals on the outer islands are small and losing money. With unemployment rising, so, too, are the ranks of the uninsured — which is now 10.7 percent of nonelderly adults. Only Massachusetts has a lower share of uninsured adults, and the national share is 20.4 percent. And there is growing evidence that as the economy has slowed and premiums have risen, employers have hired more part-time workers who are ineligible for benefits.”
It might be interesting to hear what Hawaiian policy makers think of the proposals currently circulating in DC. Given the state’s success, it is rather surprising that other states haven’t done more experimenting with such a system.
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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Presidency
A nationalized bar exam?
The Law School Innovation Blog details a movement to establish a “nationalized” or “uniform” bar exam. Apparently, at least 10 states are on board with this idea and the switch should come next year. I am surprised that this hasn’t been bigger news in the media or the blogosphere, if in fact it is not a hoax. I’m not too surprised to read that the larger market states (e.g. California, New York, Florida, etc.) are not participating. If this does come to pass, then it should be a great benefit for law students in those states adopting the change as they will enjoy a greatly enhanced set of potential job opportunities. It’s nearly impossible to sell yourself as a new graduate to a firm in which you don’t have the bar exam under your belt – although perhaps not so much with mega firms. The usual concerns over the bar exam aside, this should do good things for at least certain segments of the legal economy.
Protecting insurance companies ‘PSA’
A good ‘public service announcement’ from the folks at “Funny or Die” with a lot of TV faces you might recognize. Somehow it’s kind of funny to see ad executive Don Draper taking a poke at insurance executives – still works though – but doesn’t everything John Hamm seem just a little better? [hat tip Rorie Spill Solberg on FB]
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Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Presidency
Holding narratives accountable
Professor Linda Edwards (UNLV Law) has recently posted “Once Upon a Time in Law: Myth, Metaphor, and Authority” on SSRN. In the paper, she evaluates the use of narratives in legal authority and suggests that narratives are pervasive in the law and that we should learn to recognize their presence and hold them accountable by probing and questioning their factual accuracy, appropriateness, and utility. It is likely that her basic approach would provide useful leverage in analyzing domestic policy making, international politics, and even interpersonal relationships — all environments in which the use of narratives are plentiful — and perhaps sometimes questionable. [hat tip to Legal Theory Blog] The abstract is provided below the fold.
Study for the bar – on your IPhone
WSJ Law Blog details perhaps the ultimate “there’s an app for that”.
Of course, not to be outdone, “Law in a Flash” already helps you through law school with their apps.
Decriminalization in Mexico
Apparently Mexico is experimenting with drug decriminalization and a number of popular drugs are legal to possess – as depicted in the above photo (showing roughly the amount you can legally possess). More here.
Law and Zaring on citing legislative history
David Law (Washington University Law School) and David Zaring (University of Pennsylvania Legal Studies Department) have recently posted “Why Supreme Court Justices Cite Legislative History: An Empirical Investigation” on SSRN. Law presented this paper on our panel at the Western Political Science Association Conference in Vancouver and it sounds like a very interesting project. The abstract if available below the fold.
A “grass” roots movement for marijuana legalization?
David Simon comments on the growing movement on Prawfs Blawg. Perhaps most interesting is his observation that since the medical marijuana laws require ailments for which almost everyone over 45 qualifies, marijuana could soon become an old person’s drug. Maybe this movement needs to start holding town hall meetings on legalization. They could be held at the same time as the healthcare policy town hall meetings – side by side. At the end of the day, we’d have no healthcare policy, but no one would care and they’d all be a little hungry and giggly.
Posted in Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture
iPhone Apps for Lawyers
It’s official. The iPhone has come into its own in the legal world. It took a little time, and lawyers are notorious Luddites (you can pry the WordPerfect out of their cold, dead hands) but they do like Bright Shiny Objects, and nothing fills the lapel pocket like an iPhone.
I bet Yates still uses Wordperfect when nobody’s looking.
Posted in Andy, Law, Pop Culture
On the Fallacy of Judges as Umpires
Much has been made of the whole “judges as umpires” business, popularized by John Roberts. Indeed, Dahlia Lithwick has a column in Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/208123) arguing that Sotomayor’s testimony over the past weeks will make it harder for Obama (or any other president) to appoint a justice who does not subscribe to this mechanical jurisprudence.
Much less has been written about why Roberts’ justice-as-umpire analogy simply does not work (or does not work in the way he thinks it does). Most basically, umpires work within the rules of baseball; Supreme Court justices help set the rules. Certainly the analogy works better for lower court judges, who handle more “routine” cases than Supreme Court justices (though there have been several studies showing that lower court judges also make policy).
But even if one were to concede that judges ought not make new rules, then if judging is like umpiring…this is an argument for judges having a lot of discretion (not minimal discretion). Indeed, umpiring can even be empathetic. For example, at every level (with the exception of MLB), umpires are not bound by the formal definition of the strike zone. Indeed, umpires often call strikes that are a ball width off the plate. Why? Because it is a hittable pitch. Moreover, strikes keep the game moving. Without strikes, there are no hits and no outs. The game grinds to a halt. The game cannot even end without strikes (since there is no clock). As long as the zone is “fair” to the hitters, there is a lot of discretion. (Even at the MLB level, there is a 2 inch margin of error given when evaluating umpires.) Thus, sometimes one has to stretch the zone a bit to keep the game moving. Another example: a batter cannot intentionally be hit by a pitched ball. If he does, he is not entitled to first base. But, a batter is allowed to be frozen by the pitch (at least under NCAA rules). So, how do you determine whether or not the batter was intentionall hit or whether he froze? Context and judgment. Even if judging is like umpiring, this analogy does NOT require a judge to be deferential to Congress. Or engage in minimalism. In some cases, it commands precisely the opposite.
On second thought, maybe Roberts has it right: good judges should be like good umpires. They should be fair, even if it means bending the rules a little bit. They should keep things moving. They should take into account context when making their rulings. For Roberts to become the Tim McClelland of the Supreme Court, he’ll need to be less mechanical and more “fair” in the upcoming terms.
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Posted in Chris Bonneau, Courts, Law, Other
What to do when your undergraduate degree has been revoked
Cast of "The Community"
Everyone’s favorite host on The Soup, Joel McHale, has a new pilot on NBC, “The Community.” In the show, he plays Jeff, a smooth talking lawyer who is forced to go back to college (actually community college) when his undergraduate degree is revoked. One reason I find the premise of this show especially intriguing is that I often used to have dreams in which I had to go back to either high school or college because my degree had been revoked for one reason or another. This phenomenon has largely subsided since I earned tenure, but occasionally I have relapses. Here’s the promo video:
Assaying the “top 8 reasons not to go to law school”
The H. Luiz blog presents it’s “Top 8 Reasons to Not Go To Law School.” Elaborations are provided, but I’ll set them forth in abbreviated fashion below. While this post has been forwarded by a lot of legal blogs, my hat tip goes to Adjunct Law Prof Blog, since that’s where I saw it first.
I spend a good deal of time talking with undergraduates about going to law school. I like to think that I provide a neutral and balanced view on the pros and cons – I am neither of the mind that it’s the best thing in the world to do or a big mistake. It often depends on the student and what they want to do with their life – therein often lies the problem – at 22 you often don’t know what you really want to do and don’t have the experience to make an informed decision. That said, I set forth the 8 reasons below and weigh in with my own thoughts.
1. It is financial suicide.
Not necessarily. Obviously, if you get financial aid, then this makes a big difference and a lot of students I talk with actually do get such aid. Sometime students are willing to go to a lower ranked school with aid over a higher ranked school without. This decision often turns on how debt averse the student might be and what the student wants to do after graduation. If they want to be a federal judicial clerk and/or work at a large firm, then going to the top 10 school might be better. If they want a job that doesn’t require the cache of a top 10 school, then it’s probably a waste of money. Again, the problem with 22 year olds is that they often change their minds about what they want. I know plenty of people who went to law school and emerged with very manageable debt. This means living modestly, working while in school, and, most importantly, going “in-state” to a state school.
2. If you’re a creative person, forget it.
Well, yes and no. I think that you can bring creativity to your work as an attorney and you can certainly bring it to your work if you are a law professor. However, it’s a matter of degree most of the time and this is no exception. Doing well in law school and as a lawyer turn less on creativity than on other skills, virtues and conditions. It may not make you happy as a career if you really require a creative outlet that can’t be handled during your off hours.
3. The break-up rate is nearly 80%
I don’t know if it’s 80%, but it has to be pretty high. Law school takes a real toll on relationships of all sorts – more so, it seems than graduate school or some other professional schools. You’ve probably heard the phrase “the law is jealous mistress” – it is. At least in your first year of law school most of your free time will be killed. If you want to end up on the top of the grade heap at the end of law school, then this extends (to a slightly lesser degree) to your 2nd and 3rd years. For some people, who are without attachments and obligations, this provides needed focus and discipline. However, recognize that you’re going to spend some good years (nay, great years if you go in at 22 like I did) sitting on your rear in a chair in the library. That said, I actually enjoyed law school and met a lot of nice people there.
4. The bar exam is brutal.
It is. Back in the day certain states were known to be “easy roads” on the bar exam requiring only that test takers give a “good faith effort” on the state portion. It is my understanding that no states do this anymore. Occasionally, I hear graduate students complaining about comprehensive exams (you take them to qualify to write a dissertation) and comparing them to the bar exam – there’s no comparison really. Not only is the bar exam a pain, but the bar admission application is a pain – that thing you did when you were 18 – it goes in; know every apartment address and phone number you’ve ever had? better; that credit card problem – a problem. I believe that some states allow you to submit to the character investigation portion of the admissions process before going to law school – if you have any questions on this aspect, then I suggest that you do take this option.
5. Top jobs are hard to come by.
If we’re talking the over 100k jobs, it’s more accurate to say “very hard to come by”. But, it depends on your situation. If you’re in a top 10 law school, then it’s not nearly as hard. If you’re in the top 10% of your top 50 law school, then it’s not as hard. But, in the words of Dirty Harry, “Do you feel lucky? Do ya, Punk?” Going 100k in debt for a shot at making the top 10% of the class is not really a good strategy. This being said, we have to consider the counterfactual – what is a history/pol sci/english major going to do otherwise? Graduate school may not require the tuition outlay that law school does, but the chances of getting to the end (getting the Ph.D. and getting a tenure track job, then getting tenure) are much, much lower than getting a high paying lawyer job. Also, the lost income years are bigger – 8.2 years is the average time to earn a Ph.D. - in order to maybe get a tenure track job (if you’re fortunate) to make 45k-70k per year. Of course, graduate school isn’t the only option for liberal arts graduates, but I just think it’s important to compare the investment/risk of law school against the investment/risk of other paths for such graduates.
6. Insane hours.
Here, they are talking about working as a lawyer; we’ve already touched on law school hours. On this, again, yes and no. While most law firms will have you working very long hours, there is a continuum of opportunities and it’s up to lawyers to find them. Some law firms pay a lot and require extremely long hours; some pay not a lot and still require long hours; some pay not a lot and require reasonable hours. I feel confident telling you that very few, if any, require reasonable hours and pay a lot. There are also a good number of in-house and government options that require fewer hours – and pay less. The buffet is there, but the steak and lobster buffet for $2.99 is a fantasy.
7. Law professors are A-holes.
Simple enough – some are and some are not – and every shade of grey in between. If you can’t handle this aspect, then yeah, you shouldn’t go to law school and actually there are a lot of things you probably shouldn’t do. I had good law profs, bad ones, and really bad ones. Such is life. Should law school and some law profs change their tune pedagogically? Perhaps so, but my understanding is that this has already happened (to a large degree) since the middle ages, when I went to school.
8. Harassment (for free legal advice)
For one, asking a law student for legal advice is not a good idea and this should probably be stated to those seeking it, in a nice way. This happens occasionally, but really isn’t that big of a deal. I imagine that MDs, car mechanics and carpenters get hit up more than attorneys. My annoyance was always that people asked me about things that weren’t really within my field of experience. Another annoying aspect is when people act very penny wise pound foolish – as if a complicated legal situation (or any similar situation: medical, business, construction, etc.) could be handled in a 15 minute conversation or handled without an expert in order to save a couple bucks. But that type of behavior annoys me generally, not just as an attorney.
So, there you have it. They missed some valid reasons, but I’ll leave those to your imagination
Law school innovations
The WSJ blog posts on recent innovations at the new UC Irvine School of Law. It cites an ABA Journal Article as noting the following proposed innovations:
‘For the times they are a changin’ – explaining justice drift
I recently posted on SSRN a paper by myself and two Georgia graduate students, Brian Levey and Justin Moeller. The title is: “For The Times They Are A Changin: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Justices’ Voting Through Identification of Micro-Publics.” The abstract is available below the fold:
Bruno-mania
Last Friday, I received a phone call from a reporter with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She was in the process of writing a story regarding Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie, Bruno. The story centered on an effort by Movieguide, which is published by the pro-family values interest group Christian Film & Television Commission, to convince local government officials to injunct screening the movie on the grounds that it offends contemporary community standards. The Movieguide press release contains a laundry list of reasons as to why the group feels the movie is obscene.
A few things struck me as particularly interesting about this effort. First, the Motion Picture of Association of America, a rather conservative organization in its own right, gave the film an R rating. It seems to me that convincing local officials to screen an R rated movie and determine that it is obscene is a largely fruitless endeavor. Second, I wonder whether this effort might have a boomerang effect by convincing those who otherwise might not see the movie to view it, something that apparently occurred when explicit lyrics warning labels were placed on albums in the 1980s. Lastly, I wonder if this was largely an opportunity for Movieguide to generate some nice press for itself. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram story alone was picked up by more than 20 other newspapers, ranging from the Modesto Bee to the Charlotte Observer. So, perhaps the effort was more about generating publicity for organizational maintenance purposes than genuinely trying to convince local communities to prohibit the screening of Bruno.
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Posted in Law, Other, Paul Collins, Pop Culture
The Place of Women on the Court
In today’s New York Times Magazine, Emily Bazelon has a very interesting interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – a small sample below the fold:
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Posted in Courts, Jeff, Law, Policy, politics, Pop Culture, Presidency
Sotomayor Rated “Well Qualified” by the ABA
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Judiciary has unanimously rated Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor “well qualified”—the highest rating a nominee can receive. As a District Court nominee, a “substantial majority” of the panel gave her a “qualified” rating, while a minority rated her “well qualified.” As a Court of Appeals nominee, she received a “well qualified” rating from a “substantial majority” of the panel, while a minority of the panel rated her “qualified.”
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Posted in Courts, Law, Paul Collins, politics
Which states have the best (and worst) high courts?
Want to know? You’ll have to check it out in a paper by the same name authored by Stephen Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, and Eric Posner. It’s available on SSRN here. I tell you what, I’ll give you the top five contenders for (best overall) state high courts and the abstract below the fold.
On the new legal economy
Two interesting things to examine on the new legal economy:
First, Bill Henderson has a very interesting post on ELS. Check out the differences in salary distribution in 1991 and 2007 that he documents and discusses:
Second, a very intriguing take on the latest developments of the legal economy downturn for big firms and the downturn’s ramifications can be found on Law Shucks (hat tip Nancy Rapoport). The site describes itself as “a self-deprecating look at life in and after BigLaw.”
Introducing new contributor – Chris Bonneau
Please welcome a new summer contributor to our blog, Chris Bonneau. Chris is an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.
He has authored multiple articles on law and courts topics and is the author of two books, Strategic Behavior and Policy Choice on the U.S. Supreme Court (with Thomas H. Hammond and Reginald S. Sheehan), and more recently, In Defense of Judicial Elections (with Melinda Gann Hall).
Chris earned his Ph.D. at Michigan State University in 2002. We look forward to his posts!
Intradisciplinary Communication
A decade ago, it was fairly common for students of law and courts to lament the lack of interdisciplinary communication between political scientists, law professors, and scholars from other disciplines (e.g., Cross 1997; Rosenberg 2000). Fortunately, much has changed in the past decade. Indeed, it is clear that there is a growing trend toward interdisciplinary in the study of law and courts. In my mind, this is a most welcome development. I am particularly excited by the incorporation of social psychological perspectives to explain judicial decision making, an approach that makes up the core basis for much of Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making.
While I recognize the importance of interdisciplinary communication, one of things that has always struck me as odd is the lack of intradisciplinary communication among interest group scholars in political science. More specifically, it seems as if there are two communities of interest group scholars within political science: 1) those who study organizations in the courts and 2) those who study interest groups in the elected branches of government and/or among the more general populace. Even a cursory glance at the latter body of research reveals that students of interest groups in the elected branches rarely incorporate intuitions from interest group litigation research into their studies. This is unfortunate, for I am certain that these two groups of scholars have much to tell one another (see also Wasby 1997).
Recognizing this, Lisa Solowiej and I recently published an article that uses counteractive lobbying theory—originally developed to explain interest group interactions with member of Congress—to explain amicus curiae participation in the Supreme Court. In large part, our motivation for writing this article was to attempt to illustrate how interest groups lobbying the Court are often influenced by the same factors that shape interest group interactions with other political decision makers. In other words, we wanted to breakdown some of the barriers to intradisciplinary communication among political scientists studying interest groups.
Solowiej, Lisa A., and Paul M. Collins, Jr. 2009. “Counteractive Lobbying in the U.S. Supreme Court.” American Politics Research 37(4): 670-99. (gated; for a copy of the article, feel free to send me an email at pmcollins “at” unt “dot” edu.)
Theories of counteractive lobbying assert that interest groups lobby for the purpose of neutralizing the advocacy efforts of their opponents. We examine the applicability of counteractive lobbying to explain interest group amicus curiae participation in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions on the merits. Testing the counteractive lobbying hypotheses from 1953 to 2001, we provide strong support for the contention that interest groups engage in counteractive lobbying in the nation’s highest court. Our findings indicate that, like the elected branches of government, the Supreme Court is properly viewed as a battleground for public policy in which organized interests clash in their attempts to etch their policy preferences into law.
References
Cross, Frank B. 1997. “Political Science and the New Legal Realism: A Case of Unfortunate Interdisciplinary Ignorance.” Northwestern University Law Review 92(1): 251-326.
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 2000. “Across the Great Divide (Between Law and Political Science).” Green Bag 3(Spring): 267-72.
Wasby, Stephen L. 1997. “Crosscutting the Subfields: Learning from our Colleagues.” PS: Political Science and Politics 30(4): 747-51.
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Posted in Academia, Courts, Law, Paul Collins
Law, Political Science and citation rates
I want to thank Jeff and Andy for the introduction and opportunity to guest blog periodically on their website. Although I publish on all areas of law and courts, my particular area of expertise is on law and policy and I hope to blog about that in the near future.
However, one thing that is striking to me as I write for a blog that straddles the lines of political science and law are the differences in citation rates between law and political science and even between fields and subfields in political science.
I am very happy that my work appears to be cited highly and I am particularly pleased that many law professors cite my work. In fact, at least half of my citations are in law related journals and law reviews. However, one reason for that is law reviews cite many more sources than political science. The emphasis on footnotes and careful citation is the norm for law reviews. The entire citation process is very different for political science.
Indeed even within political science there are significant differences. In a 2007 article in PS: Political Science and Politics, Mike Giles and Jim Garand note the significantly lower citation rates of articles and books in American Politics (Giles and Garand, 2007 pp. 746-747) as compared to international and comparative studies. In our department we put some emphasis on citations for those seeking promotion and tenure to Associate Professor and it is very important for promotion to full, yet it appears to hurt those who write and research in American Politics as compared to those who specialize in IR and Comparative Politics.
Maybe I should not complain too much because public law encroaches on legal scholarship so we get the benefit of citations in law reviews and law journals.
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Posted in Academia, Bob Howard, Courts, Law, Uncategorized
What Drew You to the Study of Law and Courts?
I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to Jeff and Andy for the opportunity to guest blog on Voir Dire. Hopefully, the readers will find what I have to say at least marginally interesting. I plan to cover a number of topics, some academic, some not so much. Jeff and Andy were kind enough to give me fairly substantial leeway in terms of my posts and I plan to take them up on that offer.
I’ll begin with one of my favorite questions to ask prospective graduate students and faculty members: What drew you to the study of law and courts? Over the years, I’ve heard a wide range of answers to this question and they never cease to fascinate me.
I’ll share an abridged version of own narrative.
My father is an attorney who spent 20 plus years as a county legislator. My mother is a schoolteacher. Growing up, my parents instilled in me a strong sense of the importance of these career paths, although I was drawn most heavily to the law. I entered the University of Scranton fully set on going to law school. I could see the “Collins and Son, P.C.” sign in my head.
However, during the course of my studies at Scranton, two things occurred. First, I spent a summer working as a law librarian. This gave me a keen sense of the day-to-day activities of lawyers. I came to realize that the romantic view of lawyers often portrayed on television and in the movies rarely meshed with the real business of attorneys, even litigators. Second, I became fascinated with the life of academics. It occurred to me that a career spent educating, researching, and never leaving a college campus was exceptionally appealing. Indeed, I recall speaking with a faculty member at Scranton about my career path. When asked what I was interested in doing post-undergraduate, I replied “I kind of like your job.” With those words, I finally managed to get the courage up to explore something other than law school.
So there you have it. The offspring of an attorney/politician and a schoolteacher grows up to teach political science and law. It seems kind of silly that it took me into my early twenties to figure that one out.
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Posted in Courts, Law, Other, Paul Collins, politics
Introduction of guest contributors
I am very happy to introduce two guest contributors to our blog. As the summer progresses more guest contributors are scheduled to make appearances. The two bloggers who are beginning this week are actually both State University of New York graduates.
Bob Howard teaches at Georgia State University in political science and is the author of numerous articles on law and courts topics. Bob is also an experienced attorney and the current editor-in-chief of Justice System Journal. He earned his Ph.D. at SUNY – Stony Brook in 1998.
Paul Collins teaches at the University of North Texas in political science and is the author of multiple articles on law and courts and a recent book, Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making. He earned his Ph.D. at SUNY – Binghamton in 2005.
Please welcome both of them to the Voir Dire Blog.
Lack of Judges Caused Immigration Backlog
We don’t often talk about case processing issues in the courts, but TRAC cares about it. Their new report finds:
that the failure to increase immigration judges — promised by the Bush Administration in the summer of 2006 — contributed to a substantial jump in the number of backlogged cases in the Immigration Courts.
and
that the waiting time required to dispose of the cases — many of them involving detained aliens — has grown much longer.
Judging the Bias of Judges’ Judging
Judging bias is an inherent risk in subjectively judged sporting competitions, and recent controversies have spurred researchers to explore these biases wherever possible. Unfortunately, detailed judging results are usually unavailable to the public. For example, the international figure skating scoring system does not allow the study of nationalistic bias, because the scores are reported anonymously. Similarly, the National Basketball Association (NBA) blocked requests for underlying data after a recent academic study of racial bias of NBA referees. This article makes use of a rare case of fully available judging data, examining the diving competitions from the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. We discover strong evidence of nationalistic favoritism in the judging, including one case where the medal standings reasonably could have changed with unbiased judging. We offer a simple framework on which to base future studies of judging bias.
Issue agenda setting on SCOTUS
Our paper, “Agenda Setting, Issue Priorities and Organizational Maintenance: The U.S. Supreme Court, 1955 to 1994″ (c0-authored with William Gillespie) is now available for download on Social Science Research Network here. The abstract is available after the jump:
Potential criminal procedure lessons with perhaps the most awesome geek ever
I’m still working on figuring out what constitutional lessons I can glean from the interaction documented in the video below, but I’ll find something for a future criminal procedure class somehow.
I’m not exactly sure what this geek did to get an arrest warrant – maybe he cheated at Dungeons & Dragons or stole something from a hobbit in the Shire – but he is one defiant nerd. Stick around until the end of the video where he gets tazed, yet somehow manages to escape – perhaps to fight another epic battle in a kingdom, far, far away. (hat tip to buzzfeed)
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Posted in Jeff, Law, Pop Culture
Recommended Reading: Measuring Judicial Activism
Frank Cross and Stefanie Lindquist’s “Meauring Judicial Activism” is now available on Oxford University Press. Which U.S. Supreme Court Justices are the most activist in their jurisprudential decisions? Check out this book and you’ll see that answering this question is perhaps a more complex endeavor than you might have originally thought. Here’s some ad copy for the book:
On elite education, Supreme Court appointments, and meritocracy
Following up on our last post on elite education and academic careers, we now look into the role of elite education and Supreme Court appointments – specifically, President Obama’s upcoming appointment to the Court. On the pol sci Law and Courts discussion listserve participants have debated the role of elite education in considering candidates for the Court.
Some argue that nominees must either have an elite JD degree or a darn good reason for why they do not have one. Others argue that an elite education isn’t so crucial and that the president should be more concerned with the potential nominee’s present abilities and their achievements over the entire life span rather than an admission decision that was made when the nominee was 22 years of age and in most situations was based primarily on their parents’ socio-economic status. Perhaps providing some insight on the relative utility of an elite degree is Walter Kern, whose new book “Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever” details his experience at Princeton. Here’s some ad copy from the book’s website:
“Percentile is destiny in America.”
So says Walter Kirn, a peerless observer and interpreter of American life, in this whip-smart memoir of his own long strange trip through American education. Working his way up the ladder of standardized tests, extracurricular activities, and class rankings, Kirn launched himself eastward from his rural Minnesota hometown to the ivy-covered campus of Princeton University. There he found himself not in a temple of higher learning so much as an arena for gamesmanship, snobbery, social climbing, ass-kissing, and recreational drug use, where the point of literature classes was to mirror the instructor’s critical theories and actual reading of the books under consideration was optional. Just on the other side of the “bell curve’s leading edge” loomed a complete psychic collapse.
LOST IN THE MERITOCRACY reckons up the costs of a system where the point is simply to keep accumulating points and never to look back—or within. It’s a remarkable book that suggests the first step toward intellectual fulfillment is getting off the treadmill that is the American meritocracy. Every American who has spent years of his or her life there will experience many shocks of recognition while reading Walter Kirn’s sharp, rueful, and often funny book—and likely a sense of liberation at its end.
You might also check out his recent interview on the Colbert Report. Uh oh, I hope that this doesn’t upset the elites. And what if Obama picks a non-elite nominee? What will we do? How will we live? Quick, play me off, Keyboard Cat!
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Posted in Academia, Courts, Jeff, Law, politics, Pop Culture, Presidency
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