Feb

28

Marquette Law School in the 1960s

Posted by: Michael J. Zimmer | February 28, 2009 | 3 Comments

I was happy to be asked by Michael O’Hear to be the Alum Blogger for March. I hope to avoid “Beware the Ides of March,” but will be happy with “March Madness,” especially if Marquette does well in the Big East tournament and beyond.
I graduated from the Law School in 1967, a tumultuous time for [...]

Feb

28

Defining the Steroids Era

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | February 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

On Tuesday, February 24, MLBPA Executive Director Donald Fehr was quoted in the New York Daily News and the Sports Business Daily as saying that “baseball’s steroid problem has been fixed.”  I’m not sure how much credibility Mr. Fehr actually has on this issue, but we can at least hope that he is generally correct.  [...]

Feb

28

Do You Play Offense or Defense?

Posted by: Alison E. Julien | February 28, 2009 | 5 Comments

I’m just finishing two weeks of conferences with my students; we have been working through the drafts of their first trial briefs.  One of the topics we have been talking about is how to effectively incorporate counter-analysis in a principal brief. 
Before we broke for conferences, we talked about counter-analysis in class.  I tried to impress [...]

Feb

27

The Obama “Hope” Poster Case — How Was the Poster Created?

Posted by: Bruce E. Boyden | February 27, 2009 | 7 Comments

(This is the fourth in a series of posts on Fairey v. Associated Press. See below for other posts in the series.)
There are two intriguing mysteries in the Shepard Fairey case related to how the Obama Hope poster (above right) was created. First, while Fairey’s poster looks pretty similar to Mannie Garcia’s photograph at [...]

Feb

26

Favorite Wisconsin Cases to Teach: State v. Stewart

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | February 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Kodanko waits alone for the bus in a three-sided plexiglass bus shelter in downtown Milwaukee.  Three men approach.  Stewart and Moore enter the bus shelter, while their companion, Levy, remains outside.  They block Kodanko’s exit from the shelter.  Stewart says to Kodanko, “Give us some change, man.”  When Kodanko refuses, Stewart repeats his request three [...]

Feb

26

Is Congress About to Require Home Users to Keep Wi-Fi Logs?

Posted by: Bruce E. Boyden | February 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

According to this breathless story on CNET, sinister congressional forces are afoot attempting to impose a record-keeping requirement on home networks. But as I warn my Internet Law students every year, you just can’t rely on CNET posts on legislative developments, particularly the more sensational the headline. And that turns out to be true here [...]

Feb

26

McCormick on the Persistence of Ex Parte Young

Posted by: Paul M. Secunda | February 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The faculty at Marquette Law School welcomed Professor Marcia McCormick of the Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law to a faculty workshop this past Tuesday.  Professor McCormick, who focuses on the law of federal courts and employment discrimination, among other areas, discussed her new paper on the persistence of the case of Ex Parte Young [...]

Feb

25

Is Governance Reform in the Future for Milwaukee Public Schools?

Posted by: Mike Gousha | February 25, 2009 | 4 Comments

There is growing consensus that the Milwaukee Public Schools are at a critical moment in their history.  Faced with daunting fiscal challenges last year, some school board members talked openly about dissolving the district, only to later amend their comments.  It was a symbolic protest, they said, an attempt to draw attention to the district’s [...]

Feb

25

It Was a Tulip Craze

Posted by: Bruce E. Boyden | February 25, 2009 | 7 Comments

This article from Wired Magazine (somewhat similar to this article from the N.Y. Times a month ago) seems to me to confirm that the present financial meltdown was caused by a sort of modern tulip mania, this time for collateralized debt obligations. A taste:
What is the chance that any given home will decline in value? [...]

Feb

24

Litman on the Prospect of Copyright Reform

Posted by: Bruce E. Boyden | February 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Jessica Litman, the John F. Nickoll Professor of Law and Professor of Information at the
University of Michigan, delivered the Twelfth Annual Honorable Helen Wilson Nies Memorial Lecture yesterday at the Law School. (Audio available here; a print version will be forthcoming in the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review.) The subject of Litman’s fascinating lecture was [...]

Feb

23

Confessions of a 3L, Installment Three: What do Brussel Sprouts and Moot Court Have in Common?

Posted by: Jessica Franklin | February 23, 2009 | 7 Comments

They both build character.
Now, can I think of other ways I would like to spend my Sunday than having three consecutive hour-long practices of my moot court argument?  Yes.  Yes, I can.
Can I think of anything that has been more valuable to my legal education besides moot court?  Barring internships and jobs where I have [...]

Feb

22

Seventh Circuit Week in Review: Terrible Tragedy=Maximum Sentence?

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | February 22, 2009 | 2 Comments

The Seventh Circuit had four new opinions in criminal cases last week.  The court did not break new ground in any of them, but one raises some interesting sentencing issues.  I’ll first discuss that case, United States v. Wise (No. 08-2794), and then briefly summarize the other three, which dealt with the definition of “crack cocaine,” [...]

keep looking »