Mar

22

William Stuntz, R.I.P.

Posted by: | March 22, 2011 | 1 Comment

It’s being reported that Harvard Law Professor William Stuntz died last week at the tragically young age of 52 (see the Times obit here).  I never met Stuntz, but I’ve read and been deeply influenced by much of his writing.  Indeed, I doubt there is any scholar who has had a more profound influence on my generation of criminal procedure [...]

Mar

22

Science, Religion, Politics, and Stem Cell Research

Posted by: | March 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In a new paper on SSRN, Ed Fallone explores one of the most contentious policy questions in the field of public bioethics: whether and under what constraints the federal government ought to fund stem cell research.  Ed provides a thorough overview of the history and competing viewpoints in the debate.  He also draws interesting parallels between [...]

Mar

21

What? Pay to Get the News?

Posted by: | March 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

So what’s the New York Times worth to me? And how high are the stakes attached to the answers that I and millions others will give in coming weeks? Are people ready and willing to pay to get stories from the Times? How about from other news organizations – the Washington Post, the Los Angeles [...]

Mar

20

Ponderings of a Law Professor: Where Are Women’s Voices?

Posted by: | March 20, 2011 | 3 Comments

I hated the silence.  In law school classes where the professor relied solely on volunteers, I hated the silence and ended up raising my hand more often than not.  I found I was most interested and engaged in class not when there was lecture but when there was some sort of dialogue, and there needs [...]

Mar

20

The Unitary Governor

Posted by: | March 20, 2011 | 5 Comments

“The executive power shall be vested in a governor” proclaims Article V, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Over the course of the past two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of legal scholarship about the “unitary executive theory,” based on the executive vesting clause of Article 3, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “The executive Power shall be vested [...]

Mar

18

Doubts About Deference to Police Hunches

Posted by: | March 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Over the course of the past decade or so, legal scholars have been paying increasing attention to psychological research on cognition and decisionmaking.  In general, this has meant that scholars have become more sensitive to the common sorts of cognitive bias that have the potential to warp legal decisionmaking.  But, inspired in many cases by Malcolm [...]

Mar

12

Restorative Justice Conference to Focus on Clergy Sex Abuse

Posted by: | March 12, 2011 | 2 Comments

It is not just an American problem – it is an international issue for the Catholic Church. This year’s Marquette Law School Restorative Justice Conference on April 4 & 5, 2011, will focus on Harm, Hope, and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal. Those attending will be able to hear the stories [...]

Mar

11

The Morning After: Lessons From the Wisconsin Budget Battle

Posted by: | March 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment

At last the end game has arrived for the budget bill, after more than three weeks of deadlock in Madison.  Indeed, it was obvious to everyone that the impasse could not persist, and that the only two options available were either a compromise (unlikely) or the eventual adoption of Governor Walker’s bill intact. Wisconsin’s largest newspaper, [...]

Mar

11

Doing the Basics Right: Wendy Kopp on the Road to Education Transformation

Posted by: | March 11, 2011 | 1 Comment

I remember watching a television interview in which a famous tennis player described his first appearance in a big-time tournament. He said he always wondered what was said during breaks in such matches when the player and his coach conferred. He figured there must be some kind of sophisticated strategy talk fit for the top [...]

Mar

9

Two Models of Sociolegal Change

Posted by: | March 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment

My article, Constitutional Safety Valve: The Privileges or Immunities Clause and Status Regimes in a Federalist System (previously mentioned here and commented on here), is finally out in the current issue of the Alabama Law Review. (Pre-publication version here.) This article represents the end point of a fairly long process that began with a seminar [...]

Mar

7

Looking Ahead on the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Path

Posted by: | March 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment

The passage last year of a new federal law covering lending and credit transactions for consumers will provide stronger protection, but questions about how it will be enforced and what it will actually mean are just beginning to be answered. That was the overall theme of the 2011 Public Service Conference held at Eckstein Hall. [...]

Mar

4

Best of the Blogs: The Mess in Madison

Posted by: | March 4, 2011 | 4 Comments

This month’s Best of the Blogs feature takes a look at the budget debate in Madison.  In my opinion, it is myopic to focus solely on the budgetary aspects of the ongoing debate.  This is a raw political struggle, in which Governor Walker has attacked the primary source of campaign funding for Democrats.  The debate [...]

« previous entries — keep looking »