Appreciating Our Professors: Larry Lessig

I’m never any good at these questions. I’m always stumped whenever I’m asked, “Who is your hero?” Similarly, although I enjoyed many of my classes, I don’t recall too many “ah-ha” moments in law school that didn’t come from reading a book or an article. For whatever reason, I’m more inspired by ideas than people.

And the idea that I picked up in law school that inspired me more than any other was the idea that law is part of a broader web of human culture, that it both influences other aspects of that culture and is influenced by it. I encountered (at least) two professors at Yale who were grappling with this concept, Bob Ellickson and Larry Lessig. Well, Lessig was only a visitor during the spring semester of my first year. On the other hand, I never took a class with Ellickson, and I’m not sure I’ve even ever met him. I know Ellickson primarily through his classic, Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes.

So Lessig it is.

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“When The Gods Wish To Punish Us, They Answer Our Prayers”

I am, without question, a spiritual man. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call myself “religious”; it’s not easy to keep one’s faith while surrounded on most sides by a grab for the most money, as law school tends to be. However, I’ve always balanced my strong personal belief in the value of (and my regular practice of) prayer with what I consider to be the immeasurable importance of the separation of church and state. Usually, this means I just let public showings of religion roll off my back; I’m not offended by choruses of “Merry Christmas,” and I didn’t gripe when benedictions have been said at Marquette gatherings I’ve attended. By and large, I’m a big fan of keeping a healthy dose of perspective; if one puts oneself in situations where prayer is likely to be found (for example, by attending a Jesuit law school), one needs to expect that prayers are going to happen and not take it as an affront to the First Amendment. Put another way, who does it really hurt if I observe 30 seconds of silence so that someone else can pray uninterrupted?

All that being said, this PrawfsBlawg post — written by Mississippi Law Professor Chris Lund — got me thinking about whether it’s reasonable to accept prayer in all circumstances. Lund discusses the “legislative prayer controversy,” which he illustrates by linking to an article about a 70-year-old man’s arrest for praying loudly over a City Council’s moment of silence, as well as a video clip of protesters interrupting the opening prayer of last year’s Senate session, which was given by guest Congressional chaplain (and Hindu) Rajan Zed.

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A Tale of Two Blawgs

It may be a new story that is already old, but here’s my own example of the role blogs can play in legal scholarship. A post on my personal blog is turning into a paper. But before I can complete the paper (I was well into another project), a case comment in the Harvard Law Review has responded to my idea.

I am working on a paper discussing the potential implications of the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Davis v. FEC, striking down the “Millionaire’s Amendment” to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (more commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act).  This provision increased the campaign contribution limits for candidates facing an opponent who has self-funded in excess of a trigger amount. So, if a wealthy self-financing candidate (like our own Sen. Herb Kohl or Rep. Steve Kagen) spends a sufficient amount of his or her own funds, the amount that individuals and party committees are allowed to contribute to his or her opponent increases. The Court, in a 5-4 decison, found that this provision is an unconstitutional burden on the self-financing candidate’s free speech rights.

The essential point of the paper, made on the very day that the decision came down on my personal blog (note to the Dean: see your summer research dollars at work), is that, when considered with the Court’s decision in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC during the previous term, Davis may well render public financing schemes unworkable.

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