Law and Theology – Who Says It’s Not Practical ???

I was glad to see that Bruce linked to the fascinating debate on the nature of legal education prompted by Brent Newton’s article claiming that law professors “preach” what they don’t “practice.”  I’ll comment later, although my general view, as someone who has much more practice experience than the typical full time legal academic, I think its an issue that is often drawn too starkly and that requires a nuanced response.

But today I want to talk about Law & Theology (10 am on Friday mornings in 204 for anyone who wants to add a seminar) and Glen Beck. Newton argues that law schools overemphasize “theoretical, increasingly interdisciplinary scholarship” and courses. But Glen Beck has put law (0r at least politics) and theology smack into the middle of the public debate. In this fallen world, we may have to take that where we can find it.

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Best of the Blogs

This week: Those who don’t do, can’t teach? Also, an unconstitutional village ordinance on real estate for-sale signs may serve as a symbol of racial integration; the surprising stem cell research injunction; and is there a “private action” requirement in the Constitution?

First, it’s recruiting season for new law professors, which means that this week it was time for the perennial debate over the composition of law faculties. This time it was kicked off by Georgetown adjunct professor Brent Newton with his article, posted on SSRN, entitled “Preaching What They Don’t Practice: Why Law Faculties’ Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical Competencies Obstruct Reform in the Legal Academy.” That was followed by comments from Stephen Bainbridge, Joe Hodnicki, Jonathan Adler, Rick Garnett, Kristen Holmquist, and Paul Horwitz. (I myself have weighed in on previous iterations of this debate.) One thing that struck me as missing from all of this commentary, much of it thoughtful, was any mention of the notion of law school degrees as positional goods.

Sarah Waldeck posted the fourth and final installment in her fascinating series on a Chicago suburb that has persisted in retaining, and apparently enforcing, a clearly unconstitutional village ordinance banning real estate for-sale signs. A taste:

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New Comments Address Fraud Sentencing and Deferred Prosecution Agreements

The latest issue of the Marquette Law Review features a student comment by Ryan Parsons on the treatment of “temporary victims” under the federal sentencing guidelines.  In crimes such as bank fraud, individual accountholders that have been defrauded are often reimbursed by the bank and, therefore, made economically whole.  Such reimbursed accountholders are often ignored for purposes of sentencing enhancement, even though reimbursement may not occur without time and effort expended by these temporary victims.  Parsons describes how various courts have dealt with this phenomenon, as well as the Federal Sentencing Commission’s recent decision to include all such temporary victims in the enhancement calculation regardless of whether the defrauded accountholders even knew about the fraud.  Parsons argues that in order for a sentence to accurately reflect the severity of the crime, temporary victims should be taken into account to the extent that they suffered actual, monetizable losses (e.g., time spent pursuing mitigation).

This issue also includes Rachel Delaney’s comment analyzing the use of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) in the corporate crime context, ultimately calling for congressional regulation of prosecutorial discretion.  

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