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Some More Facts About Miami Law's Over-Enrollment

I’ve been keeping an eye on the online coverage (and blog postings) regarding UM’s recent offer of a public interest scholarship to students who defer a year. Little of it has been in any way enlightening (even the comments here were very uneven). But the National Law Journal has actual facts,

Law school pays students to stay away: [Incoming UM Law Dean Patricia White] would not disclose how many students the law school accepted for next fall, but said that the yield rate increased from 28% last year to 36% this year.

…

Law school applications were up overall this year, but they didn’t surge the way many had predicted. Conventional wisdom holds that more people seek out graduate programs during bad economic times to avoid a tough job market. According to the admissions council, law school applications increased nationally by 4.3%.

“We certainly haven’t seen the double-digit increases we saw in past recessions,” said Yellen, who theorized that the high cost of law school and the news of law firm layoffs might have dissuaded some people from applying.

Assuming the change in UM’s applications were somewhere near the national average (4.3%), a 28.5% increase in yield (from 28% to 36%) is indeed a monumental and unpredictable event.

Miami Law to Offer Students $5K Public Interest Scholarship to Defer

U. Miami Law will offer incoming students a $5,000 public interest scholarship towards tuition to defer a year".

Our incoming Dean Patricia White just sent the following offer to all currently enrolled future 1Ls:

Every year our Admissions Office uses our past experience with acceptance rates to decide how many students to admit. In these economically troubled times past experience has turned out to be a poor guide. An unprecedented percentage of applicants admitted to the University of Miami Law School have accepted our offer. This will give us a larger than optimal first-year class. Accordingly we are offering an incentive to defer admission until Fall 2010. If you wish to take advantage of this offer you must notify us by e-mail (admissions@law.miami.edu) or facsimile (305 284 3084) by July 10, 2009.

While I would like to believe that this year's elevated acceptance rate reflects the great sense of excitement about the Law School and its future that led me to become its new Dean, I fear that some of it may be related to the shortage of jobs in the current economy. Perhaps many of you are looking to law school as a safe harbor in which you can wait out the current economic storm.

If this describes your motivation for going to law school I urge you to think hard about your plans and to consider deferring enrollment. Law school requires an enormous investment of work, energy, time, and money. It is very demanding intellectually and emotionally. Beyond this, in these uncertain and challenging times the nature of the legal profession is in great flux. It is very difficult to predict what the employment landscape for young lawyers will be in May 2012 and thereafter.

If you are choosing to join us this Fall because you are strongly committed to the study of law we welcome you with open arms and promise to do our best to provide you with an exceptional and challenging educational experience. But if you are approaching law school with ambivalence or the thought that it will be a safe haven, perhaps you should take a year to decide whether it is the best choice for you.

To encourage this we are offering incentives to admitted students to defer admission until Fall 2010. The basic idea is that we will give you a $5000 Public Interest Deferral Scholarship for the 2010-11 academic year if you defer starting law school until August 2010. There is one additional condition: performing and documenting 120 hours of public service by June 1, 2010. This requirement reflects the commitment to public service we try to instill in all our students.

The following are the benefits of taking advantage of this unique offer and deferring your enrollment to Fall 2010:

• Guaranteed $5,000 Public Interest Deferral Scholarship when completing 120 hours of public service. This scholarship would be in addition to any other scholarship award you may receive (not to exceed the cost of tuition).
• Increase your likelihood of selection for a $75,000 Miami Scholars Scholarship award ($25,000 each year for 3 years). This is a scholarship designed to encourage and reward public service.
• If qualified, be among the first group considered for all 2010 scholarships (see offer details).
• Apply your entire $300 seat deposit to Fall 2010, rather than receiving only a partial refund and forfeiting the balance.

For further important details about this offer, click here. (http://www.law.miami.edu/ps/deferral_offer_details.php)

If you would like to defer your admission to Fall 2010, please contact us by e-mail (admissions@law.miami.edu) or facsimile (305-284-3084) by July 10th. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Admissions (305-284-2527).

I am delighted that the University of Miami is your law school of choice. I am very excited about its future and hope to welcome you either this August or next.

Warm regards,

Trish White
Dean Designate

I had heard that our yield rate was way up this year. I guess it was waaay up.

I wonder what the takeup rate on this offer will be?

(7/2) Comments closed here -- see the update at Some More Facts About Miami Law's Over-Enrollment

We Have Interesting Alumni (CIA ed.)

CIA unmasks officer killed in 2003: The CIA revealed the identity of a clandestine officer killed six years ago and dedicated the 90th star on its memorial wall.

CIA Director Leon Panetta on Monday identified the officer killed in Ethiopia in 2003 as Gregg Wenzel, 33.

According to public accounts, Wenzel was a foreign service officer at the State Department. He was killed by a drunk driver in Addis Ababa who was convicted but as of 2008, had not been caught.

Wenzel was a member of the first clandestine service training class to graduate after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was a former public defender in Florida and an Ironman triathlete.

Wenzel grew up in Monroe, N.Y., and earned a law degree from the University of Miami law school.

There used to be a very large CIA presence on campus, but it was, we thought, aimed at Latin America. Then the funding stopped, and (AFAIK) they mostly went away.

Westboro Baptist Church Plans Picket at UM Law Graduation on Sunday

The Miami Herald reports that ferociously bigoted Westboro Baptist church plans a media event at our graduation. They call it a ‘protest’ but it’s really just one of a whole series of made-for-TV events they’ll be staging in the area that day.

That we’ve been included for our support of gay rights is, in some weird way, a badge of honor, although I feel bad for graduates and their families who may have a few moments of their day spoiled by the famously vicious demonstrators.

As it happens, I will be on an airplane at the time, so I will miss my chance to share with them what I think of them, or even to ignore them (which might be the better thing to do).

George C. Onoprienko

UM Law School Professor Emeritus George C. Onoprienko passed away on Monday, May 11, 2009.

Professor Onoprienko taught at the Law School for 40 years before retiring in 1997. He spent his retirement years in Jensen Beach, Florida.

Professor Onoprienko’s contributions to the School and to the local community were numerous. As a member of the Miami Dade County task forces on battered women and abused children, he researched and drafted legislation that was passed by the Florida Legislature. He was a past chairman of the American Bar Association Committee on Ethics in Family Law, and served as a member of the Florida Bar Appellate Rules Committee. His publications included Cases and Materials on Florida Appellate Practice and Procedure: Civil, Criminal, and Administrative and Cases and Materials on Florida Domestic Relations.

Professor Onoprienko is survived by his wife Doris and his brother John. Condolences may be sent to: Mrs. George Onoprienko (Doris), 188 N.E. Balsam Way, Jensen Beach, FL 34957. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 16th at 11:00 a.m. at the Aycock Funeral Home, 950 N.E. Jensen Beach Boulevard, Jensen Beach, Florida.

I Shouldn't Have Laughed

Just received a long email that started as follows:

Please be advised that Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Department (WASD) will be performing water valve maintenance on the Coral Gables campus beginning May 18th through June 30th 2009.

During this maintenance period, the facilities could experience short-term interruptions of water.

It is signed by

James E. Sprinkle, Jr.
Sr. Manager,
Facilities & Operations
University of Miami

Honest.

HOPE Auction

The law school’s Helping Others through Pro Bono (H.O.P.E.) public interest resource center is having its annual auction. Bidding ends in a few hours.

It’s a good cause, so I encourage you to go bargain hunting.

Interestingly, the number two most bid-up item (perhaps because there was a low reserve) is a 5 Day/4 Night Escape to Cancun, Mexico. This despite the fact that Mexico has been much in the news lately….

In Which I Gripe About My Employer

I don’t usually gripe here about my employer. That isn’t because I lead a life with absolutely nothing to gripe about, nor is it due to a saintly disposition. Rather, it’s a self-imposed time, place, and manner restriction.

But someone at the University of Miami School of Law has done something which annoys me.

And it annoys me pretty much every day I come to work.

So I am going to vent about it here.

Some bright spark in the law school — or maybe in the University, this could be a campus-wide phenomenon for all I know — has had the really wonderful idea of putting hideous signs in all the men’s rooms. (And, again for all I know, putting them in the ladies’ rooms too. I haven’t investigated.)

They over-use capitalization; I know, that war was lost long ago.

These signs are green. UM green. It’s not my favorite color, so that’s a bad start. But lots of things are green in life, including plants and trees. And I like plants and trees. (So long as they’re outside. And I don’t have to hike around them. But I digress.)

These signs are ugly. But that’s not what really bugs me. I could live with ugly. Lots of signs are ugly. (Especially green signs.)

But these signs are smarmy. And they are strategically located where you cannot avoid looking at them.

They are, in fact, creepy in their smarmyness.

The message may seem inoffensive:

“Please Show
Courtesy to
Others By Helping
Us Keep Our
Bathroom Clean”

and indeed I don’t have anything against the message. Except the capitalization. And the odd linebreaks. And did I mention they are green? And — worse — did they have to throw in quote marks for no good reason? Who is being quoted here?

But (try to) forget all that, the real problem here is the illustration. It’s so horrible I’ve placed it in the continuation section of this blog post so that I won’t have to look at it on my homepage.

There is no need for you to click on this thing. If you do, don’t blame me. I warned you.

A smiling roll of toilet paper? That’s just…awful.

Late Night Campus Jogging Initiative

This seems sensible:

Student Government’s Police Advisory Board invites members of the UM community to participate in a survey regarding the possibility of a designated late-night (12 to 3 a.m.) jogging route. The route could include extra lighting, security patrols, camera coverage, and other safety features. The board seeks to learn if the University community would be interested in having this available on campus. The survey is completely anonymous, and additional free-response comments or ideas are welcome.  Click here to complete the survey.

(via e-veritas)

We Have Great Alumni (Pulitzer Prize Edition)

I hadn’t realized that one of the members of the Pulitzer-prize winning team from the Detroit Free Press is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Law.

David Zeman, 50, is the paper’s assistant managing editor for investigations, having previously worked as an investigative and legal reporter at the paper. He is a 1981 graduate of the University of North Carolina and a 1984 graduate of the University of Miami Law School. He received a master’s degree in 1987 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Zeman previously worked at the Miami Herald and the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

The team, which included two reporters, won for uncovering the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal.

Research Assistant Wanted

The following applies to UM Law Students Only. Sorry about that.

I would like to hire a current 1L or 2L to be a part-time summer research assistant. If things work out, the job could be extended into next year by mutual consent.

The hours are negotiable, but likely would be in the 10-20 hours per week range. I would strongly prefer if you could start very soon after exams finish. If you wanted to, however, you could take a break at some time in the summer, ideally in mid or late July.

I’m looking for someone who can write clearly, is well-organized, and who is really good at finding things in libraries and on the Internet.

If you happen to have some web or programming skills (some or all of HTML, Wordpress, MySQL, Perl, Debian), that would be a very big plus but it is not in any way a requirement.

The hourly pay is set by the university, and is not as high as you deserve, but the work is sometimes interesting.

If this sounds like it might be attractive, please e-mail me the following with the words RESEARCH ASSISTANT (in all caps) in the subject line (or, if you must, bring a dead tree copy to me in Rm. 382):

• a copy of your resume (c.v.),
• a short writing sample (non-legal is greatly preferred — in any case, please don’t send your LRW memo),
• a transcript (need not be an official copy),
• a cover note telling me
  • how many hours you’d ideally like to work per week,
  • when you are free to start.
  • your phone number and email address.

UM Tops In "Scientific" Ranking

News has it that a new magazine ranking puts the University of Miami at #1 at something.

We can now claim (once again — remember “Suntan U”) to be the top-ranked Playboy Party School. What joy. I expect this will be prominently featured in future law school recruiting materials, along with our long-time recruiting video. It sure gets a lot of media.

The categories are scored on a “scientific” 20-point scale, and whatever combination of entrails and calculators were used UM ended up with very high scores:

Bikini* index	20
Sex	17
Campus	20
Sports	12
Brains	20
Total	89

*-Apparently this includes, among other things, the number of days of sunshine in a year, and the number of tanning salons and cosmetic surgeons near campus. Talk about stacking the deck for South Florida.

But only 12 for “Sports”? That seems very low…

Admittedly, if one’s going to do well in absurd ratings systems, this wouldn’t exactly have been one of my top 100 choices. And it’s hard to put much faith in a publication that still calls female college students “coeds,” but then again it does say it is “scientific,” so this has to be on a par with US News.

In any event, we here in the law school will be celebrating this achievement in an appropriate manner: next week we will begin administering exams.

But seriously, whatever is going on next door in the college, students just attend U.Miami Law for the articles…

Party Tomorrow in Honor of 'Soia and Her Seven Dwarfs'

Soia Mentschikoff wasn’t our first Dean, but she’s the one who is credited with turning the University of Miami onto its current intellectual path.

Stories about her are still legion, and the people who knew her remain either amused by her, or terrified of her, or both. Her ghost still stalks the law school — and (some say) not just metaphorically (see Is the UM Law Library Haunted?).

Among the many things for which Soia is remembered is the “Seven Dwarfs” she hired as legal writing instructors — all of whom, despite the name applied to them when they first appeared on campus, went on to important legal careers. Tomorrow we’re having a remembrance of Soia, and a party in celebration of the Gang of Seven.

You can read more about the event and the ‘Seven Dwarfs’ in this scanned invitation (sorry about the quality, the background warred with my scanner). Panel discussion at 2pm, reception starts at 3:30. I’m looking forward to more Soia stories at the discussion.

We’re also going to unveil the de la Cruz-Mentschikoff Endowed Chair in Law and Economics which will focus on business associations, planning, commercial and international transactions, securities, and antitrust.

Miami Law Health and Elder Law Clinic Featured in Herald

Nice article in today’s Herald about UM Law’s Health and Elder Law Clinic: Law students get real-world experience.

Best bit:

“I have faith in these two,” Alayo, 59, says, pointing across a conference table at students Melissa Kiedrowicz and Larisa Hernandez. “They say they’re students, but they’re professionals, more than professionals.”

Of course, their youth is sometimes met with skepticism and an arched eyebrow. Ayala tells how his law students accompanied him to a meeting with a Department of Children supervisor who demanded of counsel: “How old are you?”

Yes, students get younger every year…

We Have Interesting Students

OK, this is a bit unusual. According to The Pain of Campaigning I: Story and Pre-Game Decisions | Critical Hits, the author-blogger of an extended series on Dungeons & Dragons is a 3L at Miami Law:

The Main Event is a third year law student at the University of Miami. He writes dungeon mastering advice in his Pain of Campaigning series. He also writes comic reviews for 411 Mania. In between full time school, various internet tasks, part-time work, and socializing The Main Event is an aspiring author.

I invite Mr./Ms. (probably Mr….) Event to drop by and say hi.

The Plaudits Begin to Flow

Brain Leiter approves of our new Dean:

Patricia White, the former and quite successful Dean of the law school at Arizona State University, has been appointed Dean at the University of Miami. That’s a very good catch for Miami!

Patricia D. White to Be Dean of University of Miami School of Law

President Donna E. Shalala appoints Patricia D. White as Dean of The School of Law

CORAL GABLES, FL (March 26, 2009) – The University of Miami announced today that  Patricia D. White, a nationally known leader in legal education, has been named Dean of the UM School of Law.  White is currently the Jack Brown Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University where she served as law dean from January 1999 to July 2008.  During the 2008-09 academic year White is Visiting Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and is serving as Special Counsel to Steptoe & Johnson, LLP in Washington, D.C.  White will begin work at UM in July.   She replaces Paul R. Verkuil, who has served as Acting Dean for the last year, and Dennis O. Lynch, who served as law dean for a decade before stepping down in 2008.

“The University of Miami has gained a visionary leader in the legal education arena,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “Her vast experience, energy, and innovative spirit will greatly enhance the law school’s national profile.” Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said “The University of Miami has made a wonderful choice for the dean of its law school. Trish White was a superb dean at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and she will come to Miami with experience, wisdom, and enthusiasm.”

“Having served as a law school dean in the past, Trish is poised to strengthen a variety of aspects of the school, including the faculty and its academic programs,” stated UM Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. Tom LeBlanc.

Professor White joined the Arizona State University College of Law faculty as dean and was the longest serving dean in the history of the College. Her leadership marked a transformative and innovative period for the law school. Its faculty doubled in size, the student-teacher ratio became the third best in the country; interdisciplinary and joint programs in medicine, philosophy, psychology, international law, and real estate development were created; a nationally acclaimed legal writing program was developed; five new clinics were added; an exceptionally active pro bono program for students was established; the faculty’s publications gained national recognition; and two centers of excellence – the Indian Legal Program and the Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology—became preeminent.

Professor White earned her BA, MA, and JD degrees at the University of Michigan. She has published widely in the areas of tax law, bioethics, philosophy of law, legal education and torts. She has taught at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Michigan and the University of Utah and has had extensive practice experience in tax law and in estate planning. She is a member of the District of Columbia, Michigan, and Utah bars and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel. Professor White has won many awards. Just last week she was awarded the Judge Learned Hand Award for distinguished public service by the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

“The University was in search of a first rate legal scholar to lead the law school and we have found it in Patricia White,” said Dr. William Green, School of Law Dean Search Committee Chair and Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education at UM. “Her commitment to academic excellence will help create one of the great academic legal centers in the country.”

This is very good.

Stay Tuned

The law school faculty has been told to expect a major announcement this morning.

The faculty will be informed at 10am. I’ll miss it, as I’ll be in class until 11. But once I find out what it is, I’ll blog it unless it’s some dark secret.

I’m guessing: announcement of appointment of new Dean.

UM Students Win Bankruptcy Moot Competition

The Bench Brief: Miami bankrupts competition at Duberstein

The University of Miami School of Law topped 45 other teams at the 17th Annual Conrad B. Duberstein National Bankruptcy Memorial Moot Court Competition this past weekend.

Congrats!

Kunal Parker Accepts Offer to Join UM Faculty

I am particularly pleased to announce that Prof. Kunal Madhukar Parker, the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, has accepted an offer to join the UM Faculty next year.

Prof. Parker’s official web biography says,

Professor Parker was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Prior to joining the Cleveland-Marshall faculty in 1996, he was an associate at the New York law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he practiced in the area of bankruptcy law with respect to complex financial transactions. Professor Parker has written extensively in the area of colonial Indian legal history and U.S. citizenship and immigration history and theory. He is currently at work on a book-length project on the emergence of historical context in late nineteenth century American jurisprudential thought. Teaching Areas and Interests: Bankruptcy, Conflict of Laws, Immigration and Nationality Law, Legal History, Property, Race and American Law, Trusts and Estates.

(There’s also an online c.v. which reveals, among other things, that he speaks six languages. I can testify that his French is impeccable.)

Prof. Parker has a terrific book (based on his dissertation) coming out soon from Cambridge University Press called “Custom And History: Common Law Thought And The Historical Imagination In Nineteenth Century America.” All indications are that it will be a major book in the field.

When Kunal visited here in the Fall, students loved his classes, and he was a very thoughtful participant in faculty seminars. Given his erudition he is also amazingly modest and generous in conversation.

UM has not historically done a vast amount of lateral hiring, but now that we have a large number of new lines I think we’ll be doing more in the future. This is the second major lateral appointment of the year. (Cf. Jan Paulsson to Join UM Law Faculty.) There might even yet be more.

I’m guessing Prof. Parker will teach some combination of T&E, Immigration and Legal History.

UM Law Student Newspaper Goes Blog

The UM Law student newspaper, the Res Ipsa Loquitor, has launched a blog version of itself.

So say hello to The Res Ipsa Loquitur Online: A University of Miami School of Law blog.

Among the first stories, First group of Dean candidates announced; Visits begin this week.

Hunger Artistry

Email received:

With Miami still one of the poorest cities in the nation, the University of Miami is set to host a free one-day conference on its Coral Gables campus that will inform students from UM and other colleges and universities in South Florida about the economic despair in their own backyard. The Miami Poverty Conference, a student-led initiative that will be held Saturday, February 21 from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Whitten University Center, will create awareness about poverty-related issues in Miami through interactive workshops that address poverty’s relationship to immigration, race, health, politics, and other areas. Several UM faculty members will lead the workshops and breakout sessions, and local community agencies will take part in discussions on how to create plans of action to better the community.

Registered attendees will not only receive breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the daylong event but will also take part in a “hunger banquet,” a symbolic activity aimed at demonstrating the realities of food distribution throughout the world’s regions and economic groups. Live band performances and a spoken-word presentation will close out the event with a benefit concert at The Rock from 8 to 10 p.m. Conference check-in starts at 8 a.m. at the UC lower lounge area. To preregister online, visit www.miami.edu/leadandserve.

“Hunger banquet”?

Update: My colleague Marnie Mahoney was kind enough to point me to Oxfam America’s web site where they explain the ‘Hunger Banquet’ concept:

An Oxfam America Hunger Banquet event provides opportunities to educate your school, group, or the public on hunger issues; raise funds to support Oxfam’s poverty-fighting work; and recruit new volunteers for your Oxfam group.

How it works

Guests draw tickets at random that assign them each to either a high-, middle-, or low-income tier and receive a corresponding meal. The 15 percent in the high-income tier are served a sumptuous meal. The 35 percent in the middle-income section eat a simple meal of rice and beans. The 50 percent in the low-income tier help themselves to small portions of rice and water. (High-, middle-, and low-income statistics used in the Oxfam America Hunger Banquet event are based on the World Bank Development Indicators 2007.) Guests can also assume characterizations that describe the situation of a specific person at the income level to which they’ve been assigned. Finally, all guests are invited to share their thoughts after the meal.

So now we know.

Growing Smart

Forgive me for one more post about the Miami School of Law’s hiring plans, but a comment on one of my earlier posts revealed that I had failed to be clear about one of the more remarkable aspects of the proposed faculty-growth strategy: If we stick to the plan, we’re going to add a lot of faculty, but we’re not going to grow the JD student body at all.

This is not a plan to suck in more tuition dollars and graduate more folks who will add to the competition for a fairly fixed pool of jobs. Rather it is a plan to do more for the students we get. Some of the jobs will be funded by doing more with less — and might mean that while my job satisfaction might increase from happier students and an ever more vibrant intellectual atmosphere, my salary future isn’t inevitably as rosy as it might otherwise have been (especially if we buy expensive laterals). Some of the jobs are being paid for with new money that the central administration is going to make available to us.

The bottom line — again, assuming that we’re not all selling apples on street corners — is that students should benefit enormously from smaller classes, from an even more diverse and exciting curriculum, and from a significantly improved student/faculty ratio.

By any analysis, this is a student-centered proposal.

Statistics Are Tricky

Brian Leiter was was kind enough to link to my previous post (Yes, We’re Hiring) with the headline University of Miami President Committed to 40% Expansion of Size of Law Faculty.

Brian got that idea from the following artful line of our Dean Search committee’s artfully written sales pitch:

The current faculty contains 45 tenure or tenure track faculty members. In the near future, and in the tenure of the next Dean, the Law School will hire 17 new faculty, roughly 40% of the existing faculty.

This is a true statement. But it doesn’t mean we’re growing 40% over our current full size of 45 — the plan is “only” for twelve new lines, as the other five represent currently empty lines that need filling. So in fact our growth over current size were we at full staffing will be a mere 26.7%; our growth over current actual staffing (since we’re short-handed) will be about 42%.

Yes, We're Hiring

In my earlier item on our Dean search, “Admit It, After Reading This You Want to be Our Dean,” I quoted the description of the University of Miami School of Law’s very ambitious hiring plans,

In 2007, in response to a presidential and provostial challenge, the Law School faculty undertook a comprehensive strategic planning effort. The School’s Strategic Plan report focuses on ways to address major issues affecting faculty productivity on the one hand, and, on the other, student recruitment, the culture of student service and the need for improved career placement. The report concludes that virtually everything in the Law School would be improved with the addition of a significant number of new faculty and the construction of a larger and much more appropriate facility.

The President and the Provost have responded decisively. The President personally selected a prime piece of University land on the main campus that can be readily developed and designated it for the construction of a new law school facility. The planning has begun but will be greatly influenced by a new Dean. The new facilities will require significant fund raising, an effort the President and the entire University will support.

The University agrees that the Law School must increase the size of its faculty. After careful evaluation, the School and the University have concluded that reducing the size of the Law School class will not substantially improve the quality of the class and would fundamentally reduce resources. The President and the Provost have agreed to add significantly to the size of the faculty. The Law School is recruiting distinguished faculty to fill five current vacancies. Jan Paulsson, the world-renowned arbitration practitioner with a major scholarly reputation in his field, has just agreed to join this emerging cohort.

In addition, the University leadership has agreed that the Law School has adequate resources not only to fill currently open lines but also to hire six additional faculty members. Because improving the Law School’s posture is perceived as essential to the University, the Provost has agreed, as well, to match the Law School’s effort with six more faculty lines to be paid for out of central resources.

The current faculty contains 45 tenure or tenure track faculty members. In the near future, and in the tenure of the next Dean, the Law School will hire 17 new faculty, roughly 40% of the existing faculty. In addition, the School anticipates retirements over the next few years. In any reasonable tenure, the next Dean will have the rare opportunity - in a major, national law school, in an emerging and powerful, private research university - to build an iconic new facility and recruit great new faculty members to transform the School into an AAU quality institution.

In a comment, Penn’s Matthew Lister asks,

How confident are you that, in the present situation, you’ll be able to do all the hiring described?

I think that’s a good question — indeed, it goes right to the heart of the matter.

Nevertheless, cynic that I am, I’m actually pretty confident we’ll get to do this astonishing round of hiring, or at least a very large fraction of it (assuming there’s not an actual Depression).

My confidence has three sources.

First, I was on the strategic planning committee that hatched this scheme. We put together a very strong business case for why we have to do this, and why it makes far more sense than downsizing, or keeping things as they are.

Second, after a short period of sticker shock and hesitation, central administration has bought into this idea. Indeed, we could not have issued this ad without their sign-off. This public commitment means something — in fact it means a great deal. I think we can take them at their word. In any case, the scenario is, we find some heavy-weight (or young dynamo!) candidate, that person then has a negotiation with the President. Typically commitments get made at that point; one of them would obviously be that we stay the course. I am certain that if President Shalala looks a Dean in the eye and makes a promise, that promise can be relied on.

Third, it’s genuinely in the University’s interest. Where once the law school was much higher ranked than the U., now due to the ranking system used by US News — which penalizes large schools severely — we appear to be lower ranked than the U (although in fact our faculty scholarly rankings hold up just fine, thank you). In order for the University to make good on its strategic plan, and in general for the President/Board to feel they are doing a good job, they need to see the law school as ‘restored to its former luster’ — or better yet, surpassing it.

The hiring will not all happen in one year — that would be foolish economically and culturally (very hard to absorb so many new people at once). But I think it will happen with reasonable speed. In addition to active, but selective, participation in the entry-level market, we have some more big lateral offers out (in addition to our recent major hire), and I think it’s quite possible we’ll make some more this year.

The biggest constraint in the short term, oddly enough, looks like it could be office space.

And, yes, counter-cyclical hiring is great!

(Did I mention I am on our Visitors & Laterals committee? Expressions of interest are always welcome.)

Two More Zipcars!

Apparently, we have increased the UM Zipcar population by 66.666%

Yes, we now have five, count ‘em five zipcars. But the next closest set is still in Gainsville.

Previously: In Which I Register With Zipcar

Admit It, After Reading This You Want to be Our Dean

The University of Miami School of Law's official Dean search announcement is not your run-of-the-mill boilerplate document:

An invitation to apply
for the position of

DEAN

University of Miami School of Law

THE SEARCH

Miami mirrors the modern world.  It reaches to Latin America, to Europe, and to Asia.  Its people are migrants and immigrants and speak multiple languages.  It grows rapidly.  It is the seventh largest metropolitan area in the United States. The University, like its city, is young, ambitious, appealing, and diverse.    

The University of Miami (UM) is the largest private research university in Florida.  It has had excellent leadership.  Donna E. Shalala, its fifth President, has harnessed the future of the University to the strength of the community.  With impressive support from her Board, she launched a billion dollar capital campaign in 2001, immediately after September 11.  By 2007, she raised $1.4 billion, an unprecedented number for the University.  She has recruited an academically distinguished, exceptionally ambitious team of senior administrators and deans who have driven the University's status steadily upward over the last seven years.  The University of Miami has become one of the most interesting and dramatic stories in the American academy.

The University seeks a new Dean for its School of Law who will bring the same academic ambition and personal enthusiasm to the School that the team has brought to the University. 

In 2007, the Law School Dean and faculty completed their own strategic plan.  As a direct response, the University has committed unprecedented resources to the Law School's future.  For a faculty of 45 tenured and tenure track professors, the School will have the opportunity to replace all of its facilities with a completely new home, to recruit 5 faculty for current vacancies and to fill 12 new faculty lines.  Without a single retirement or resignation, the School will add nearly 40% of its faculty.

A Dean with a deep commitment to academic excellence, skill at recruitment, and talent for leadership can transform the University of Miami School of Law, creating one of the great academic legal centers in the country.   

The University has retained the national search firm Isaacson, Miller to assist in this important search.  All inquiries, nominations, and applications should be to Isaacson, Miller to the address indicated at the end of this document.  All inquiries will be held in strict confidence.

THE CONTEXT

The University of Miami 

The University of Miami, located in Coral Gables, is one of the great success stories of American private higher education.  It was founded in 1925 at the peak of the Florida land boom by a group of citizens who felt that South Florida needed an institution of higher learning to support and develop their young and growing community.  A year later the area was devastated by a hurricane, and before it could recover the nation was plunged into the Great Depression and then World War II.  The University survived primarily due to the vision and persistence of its first president, Dr. Bowman F. Ashe (1926-52) who, after leading the institution through the war, oversaw the School's first period of explosive growth and expansion immediately following World War II.

Today, the University enrolls 15,600 students, including 10,500 undergraduates and 5,100 graduate students.  The student body is highly diverse:  Hispanics comprise approximately 23% of the student population, African Americans represent 8%, and Asians are about 7%.  The University has nearly 1,400 international students from 114 countries around the world.  UM has more than 2,200 full-time faculty.

The University has expanded from its main location in the beautiful City of Coral Gables to include the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in downtown Miami, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on Virginia Key, and the South and Richmond campuses in southwest Miami-Dade County. The University comprises 11 degree-granting Schools: Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, Communication, Education, Engineering, Law, the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music, Nursing and Health Studies, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. The University currently receives more than $260 million annually in external research funding. 

In its earliest incarnation, the University had an unofficial, quasi-public identity.  The state university was in North Florida, nearly a three hundred and fifty mile drive away. UM was the only large university in the Miami area serving the community broadly and readily available to local students.  It had a modest residential program and the campus had a distinctly utilitarian feel.  As Florida boomed and as South Florida became the essential North American link to Latin America, the University of Miami carefully adapted, altering its own ambitions.  Over the last half century, Florida has become one of the fastest growing states in the nation both in population and GDP, and now ranks 4th in population.  Miami is the 7th largest metropolitan area in the United States and one of the world's most vibrant, multicultural centers.  The University grew with its city, adapting and changing.  Today, the University has multiple international programs and affiliations with strong linkages to Europe and Latin America. It has become one of the largest and most ambitious private research universities in the Southeast and the only major private university in the state of Florida.

In 2001 Donna E. Shalala became only the fifth President of the University of Miami, in a succession of long tenured and highly successful presidents. The longest serving Secretary of Health and Human Services in U.S. history, she served in the Clinton Administration from 1993-2001 and oversaw a $600 billion budget. Prior to that she was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison for six years, the first woman ever to head a Big Ten University. President Shalala also served as president of Hunter College of The City University of New York, for seven years.

The Board of Trustees recruited President Shalala to undertake an ambitious plan to expand and improve the University's research programs, the scholarship of its faculty, and the academic experience of its students. One of her first initiatives was to launch the Momentum Campaign – a campaign to raise $1 billion by 2007.  Begun in the aftermath of 9/11, the Campaignwent public in 2003 and reached its goal 18 months early. When it closed in 2007, the University had raised $1.4 billion. This Campaign is the first successful billion-dollar Campaign by a private research university founded in the 20th century. It has fueled a sweeping transformation of the University by attracting superb new scholar-teachers, creating new centers and institutes, enhancing research initiatives, and providing new student scholarships. In its National Universities Ranking for 2009 US News & World Report, which had ranked the University 67 only five years earlier, increased its ranking to 51, one of the fastest trajectories of improvement in the country.

On May 2, 2008, the Board of Trustees formally approved a new strategic plan, entitled "Accelerating Ambition." The plan, which the University is committed to implementing despite the current economic uncertainty, calls for an investment of $2.75 billion over the next ten years in faculty, research infrastructure, graduate programs, undergraduate education, and facilities. These investments will enable UM to attract and sustain world-class faculty, build a broad range of nationally prominent graduate programs, and develop a distinctive and more residential undergraduate experience for its diverse and increasingly talented and accomplished student body.

To realize the vision, the President has recruited a new and exceptional generation of academic leadership.  Over the last three years, Miami has brought in a new Provost and recruited 8 of its 11 Deans.   They are a distinguished group of scholars from excellent institutions.  With a new generation of academic leadership in place and with the vision and guidance of an extraordinary president, the University of Miami is poised to achieve its goal of becoming one of the country's top research universities. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW SCHOOL

Background

The University of Miami School of Law was founded in 1928. Like the rest of the University, it had a tenuous start and then acquired its identity and size in the immediate post-war years. The Law School has been led by a notably diverse succession of strong, formative deans (among seven deans over the last forty-six years, three have been women and one, African-American). All have been committed to building a school with a national reputation based on the highest quality scholarship and professional training. The deanship of Soia Mentschikoff, one of the nation's leading legal scholars, marked an important turning point for the School. Serving from 1974 to 1982, she was responsible for much of the growth of the school and personally recruited most of the school's current senior faculty members.

Neither the University nor the Law School had much of an endowment.  Both were tuition driven.  Miami was, however, in a good location for student recruitment.  In the immediate post war, the city grew and students were attracted to the University.  The Law School chose to recruit a good and large student body and used the tuition revenues to provide the resources for an unusually strong and prominent faculty. 

South Florida is the gateway to Latin America. The region's economy and social life are firmly tied to international trade, immigration, and tourism, blurring the line between the local and the international in a manner emblematic of the globalized world.  Its international population has created a cosmopolitan environment with unique racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity.

The School has capitalized on these circumstances to develop a depth in international and comparative law that is truly distinctive among law schools.  Over half the faculty members teach or write in the area, with a particular focus on Latin America and Europe.  The School's strengths in this area draw students from around the country and from Latin America, Europe, and Asia.  The School has also developed highly-regarded programs in tax (consistently ranked in the top 10 in the nation), in real property development, and estate planning.

The School has also emerged as a leader in interdisciplinary work focusing on law and public policy. The law and society orientation of much of the faculty's work cuts across a wide range of areas.  Faculty members have built research expertise, both legal and interdisciplinary, on the ways law and legal doctrine relate to contemporary social issues including immigration, poverty, domestic violence, crime, labor, democracy and constitutionalism, and the Internet. Because regional and international regimes governing trade, the environment, labor, and human rights increasingly exert a major influence on such domestic legal issues, this strength has made an ideal environment to study globalization and its local, national, and international effects. 

The Miami location is a major attraction to prospective students. Nearly two-thirds of the students come from outside the state and approximately half speak one or more languages. The median LSAT score of this year's incoming class was 157. The School has a remarkably diverse student body.  Twenty-five percent of the law students are minorities. The School is one of the main producers of bilingual law graduates in the country and Hispanic Business Magazine has consistently ranked the University of Miami School of Law as one of the top ten U.S. law schools for Hispanics, often in the top 3.

The Miami location is also major enhancement to current student's experiences.  The diversity of the community in terms of ethnicity, language, economic class, and citizenship status helps prepare students for practice in the 21st century.  The Miami metropolitan area provides students -- and faculty -- with a rich variety of opportunities for meaningful involvement in the life of the community.  Miami's bar has a sophisticated legal practice that offers students significant opportunities for practice experience through clinics, externships, and clerkships with law firms and judges.  It also provides the School with a large pool of federal and state judges and highly experienced attorneys, many of whom serve as adjunct faculty.

Miami remains one of the largest law schools in the country; it currently enrolls 1,250 students (including about 100 LLM students). Its size is a blessing and a curse.  It allowed the School to recruit a 45 member faculty, about the size of most private law schools at universities that belong to the Association of American Universities (AAU). Only 9 or 10 schools in the US News top 50 have a larger faculty.  Over the past half century, it built an intellectually ambitious and challenging scholarly culture. The peer evaluation component of the US News rankings places the School in the mid 50's, roughly the ranking of the University and consistent for many years.  At the same time, the overall ranking of the School has ranged in the last five years from 84 in 2004 to 65 in 2007 and to 82 in 2009.  The high degree of variability from year to year is almost entirely a function of large class sizes, a high student-faculty ratio, and a placement record that, while increasingly successful in recent years at national placement of students at major law firms, remains too local and too focused on jobs with relatively low pay.

The tenure of the last Dean saw a fundamental improvement in the School's finances. The Law School endowment grew from $21 million to $51 million. In the four-year capital campaign that ended in 2007, the School raised over $22 million, significantly exceeding its $16 million target, strengthening both endowment and operations.  Revenue from operations produced a net surplus each year which was added to a quasi endowment.  The School's Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning -- the most successful law school CLE program in the country -- also brings considerable revenue to the School. Despite the improvement, more remains to be done. The University of Miami Law School remains under endowed and for the foreseeable future, constantly improved fund raising will rank high on the School's agenda. 

In 2007, in response to a presidential and provostial challenge, the Law School faculty undertook a comprehensive strategic planning effort. The School's Strategic Plan report focuses on ways to address major issues affecting faculty productivity on the one hand, and, on the other, student recruitment, the culture of student service and the need for improved career placement.  The report concludes that virtually everything in the Law School would be improved with the addition of a significant number of new faculty and the construction of a larger and much more appropriate facility. 

The President and the Provost have responded decisively.  The President personally selected a prime piece of University land on the main campus that can be readily developed and designated it for the construction of a new law school facility.  The planning has begun but will be greatly influenced by a new Dean.  The new facilities will require significant fund raising, an effort the President and the entire University will support.

The University agrees that the Law School must increase the size of its faculty.  After careful evaluation, the School and the University have concluded that reducing the size of the Law School class will not substantially improve the quality of the class and would fundamentally reduce resources.  The President and the Provost have agreed to add significantly to the size of the faculty.  The Law School is recruiting distinguished faculty to fill five current vacancies.  Jan Paulsson, the  world-renowned arbitration practitioner with a major scholarly reputation in his field, has just agreed to join this emerging cohort.

In addition, the University leadership has agreed that the Law School has adequate resources not only to fill currently open lines but also to hire six additional faculty members. Because improving the Law School's posture is perceived as essential to the University, the Provost has agreed, as well, to match the Law School's effort with six more faculty lines to be paid for out of central resources.   

The current faculty contains 45 tenure or tenure track faculty members.  In the near future, and in the tenure of the next Dean, the Law School will hire 17 new faculty, roughly 40% of the existing faculty.  In addition, the School anticipates retirements over the next few years.  In any reasonable tenure, the next Dean will have the rare opportunity - in a major, national law school, in an emerging and powerful, private research university - to build an iconic new facility and recruit great new faculty members to transform the School into an AAU quality institution.

THE LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR A NEW DEAN

The University seeks a new Dean who will be a distinguished peer in an exceptional group of new and ambitious leaders.  The School seeks a colleague who will embody and enhance the values of a strong and intellectually committed faculty.  The Dean will have the opportunity to build a great law school in what has always been an ambitious institution. The Dean must have demonstrated the ability to be a successful fundraiser and to recruit exceptional faculty members to succeed. The Dean has a clear and simple set of challenges, each of which is an impressive opportunity.

Lead the Law School's effort to recruit and retain world class faculty.

The School understands that each faculty recruitment represents a strategic choice.  The President and the Law School faculty will expect the Dean to provide a strategic framework to recruit and retain an exemplary faculty by carefully allocating recruitments of senior and junior faculty and by competing aggressively -- nationally and internationally -- for the most distinguished faculty scholars.

Work with the president and senior leadership to raise funds for the new law school building.

The School eagerly anticipates an entirely new facility.  It will greatly aid the mission of the faculty and student recruitment.  Next to the size and quality of the faculty itself, the building will have a greater impact than any other activity.  Fund raising in the next couple of years will be difficult, but it is critical to begin now.  Miami launched its last historic capital campaign immediately following September 11, 2001, despite the difficult time to raise money.  It was a declaration of intent that signaled the University's serious purpose.  The Dean will work closely with the President and the University community, starting immediately, to raise funds for the new facility.

Work with the faculty and administration to increase scholarly productivity and the academic influence of the faculty.

The School has a strong history.  In recent times, the twin burdens of large classes and governance responsibility have taken a toll on faculty research productivity.  The strategic plan highlights the importance of the issue and the School has turned carefully to the problem of faculty time.  The Dean will take a leadership role to work with faculty and other parts of the University to provide research support, to help convene useful symposia and small conferences that can spur productive writing, to build centers and programs within the law school, and to work with faculty to increase collaboration with other schools in the University, in particular the medical and business schools, and also to build relationships across the University with the Law School's Center for Ethics and Public Service and the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. The School is eager for both cultural leadership and practical support for the broad task of faculty research success. 

Work with the administration to attract increasingly strong and diverse students and create a more effective and responsive culture for student support and engagement with the faculty and an enriched curriculum.

Because of large classes and a young student body, often straight out of undergraduate school, it has been difficult to build a culture of student service and satisfaction.  These are consequential issues.  The faculty is eager to attract an academically strong and diverse student body and to increase alumni support. To improve student recruitment and long-term alumni support for the Law School, the School will work to enhance the quality of student services and the degree of student satisfaction on an ongoing basis. The new Dean will work closely with the administration to offer more scholarships and financial aid to support the student body.  The Dean will also work with the faculty to expand the curriculum, to offer a more comprehensive array of upper level courses, and to enrich the student body's intellectual and academic experience.

Strengthen the School's relationship with the alumni and the local bar and bench.

Professional schools rely deeply on their relationships with their alumni and the leaders of their professional fields.  UM is the dominant law school in the metropolitan area.  The law firms employ its graduates.  The alumni are essential to all future support.  The Dean will take a leadership role in finding new ways to reach out to local, national, and international UM alumni, as well as leaders of the local bar and bench, to engage their interest and strengthen the relationship. The University of Miami School of Law should become the partner of choice for the most significant legal collaboration between the bar, the bench, and the academy in the region.  Building ever stronger ties will require decanal leadership. 

Work with the administration to build stronger national ties with the bench, the bar and the academy. 

Miami has a diverse community and offers a gateway to the world.  It is a wonderful locale and easy to visit.  The Dean will lead the effort to reach out to the legal community nationally to enhance the School's visibility as a leading source of students of diverse backgrounds and bilingual capabilities, as a venue for collaboration and continuing legal education, and as an intellectual partner in academically and legally significant contemporary issues.  The School needs a Dean who is its national legal ambassador.  

QUALIFICATIONS

This is a rare opportunity for a law school dean.  The University of Miami is on an impressive upward trajectory and it has put its resources behind this law school.  An academically ambitious leader and accomplished legal scholar can build a great law school at UM.  The new Dean should bring a record of distinguished scholarship, a collegial approach to management that builds a community of scholars, a record of hard work as a citizen of law schools and/or legal institutions, and the ability to manage a large, complex, and intellectually stimulating academic institution. Ideally, a new Dean will bring experience and talent in each of the following areas:

• A strong commitment to academic excellence and a history of effective collaboration that inspires the scholarship of others. 
• Excellent fund-raising skills and the capacity to succeed in working with the philanthropic community. 
• Capacity to identify, attract, and retain distinguished faculty.
• A broad commitment to diversity, including racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity, a capacity to prosper in Miami, and the ability to lead the School's increasingly international efforts.
• A commitment to building a culture of student service and satisfaction.  An understanding of the professional aspirations of students and the critical importance of both admissions and career services.
• A commitment to a collegial model of governance allied to an innate sense of the value of community. 
• A profound institutional commitment to fostering a rigorous and exciting legal education that prepares students for the highest levels of professional competence in the practice of law in a global environment.
• A capacity to listen, to engage faculty in their intellectual and academic pursuits, to support research, and to develop their careers.  
• A capability to reach out to and work effectively and collaboratively with alumni and the national and local legal community.

TO APPLY:

Send resume and cover letter by email or fax to:
John Isaacson, Managing Partner, Sue Gambaccini, Managing Associate
or
Gail Gregory, Senior Associate
Isaacson, Miller
1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 710
Washington, DC 20009
202-682-1504

3745@imsearch.com
202-682-1272 (fax)

Electronic submission of material in Word format is preferred.

For more information see:  www.law.miami.edu.
All inquiries will be held in the strictest confidence.

The University of Miami is an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages a diverse pool of candidates for this search.

UM Law Election Law Symposium

This Saturday, Jan. 31, the University of Miami Law Review will host an election law symposium: How Far Have We Come Since 2000?

David Boies, attorney who argued Bush v. Gore on behalf of Vice President Al Gore; Bob Bauer, General Counsel to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign; and Trevor Potter, General Counsel to John McCain’s presidential campaign, are among some of the speakers for this year’s University of Miami Law Review Symposium to be held Saturday January 31, 2009.

The event will be held at the School of Business Administration in the Storer Auditorium with breakfast beginning at 8:30 a.m. The morning panels will run from 9:15 a.m. to 10:45 am and 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., respectively. Lunch and the keynote address by Mr. Boies will follow at 12:30 p.m. There will be two additional panels in the afternoon, concluding with a cocktail reception in the Law School’s courtyard at 5:30 p.m.

The Symposium will be devoted to current topics in Voting Rights and Election Law including the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Democratic Party’s handling of the Florida and Michigan delegate dispute, as well as a review of election reforms since 2000 with an eye on what still needs to be done to ensure every vote is counted.

All are invited to attend.

Register here or view the program (pdf).

Miami-Dade Libraries to Honor Georgie & Frank Angones Tonight

Frank and Georgie Angones are important members of the University of Miami Law School community, and I’m a big fan of our surprisingly good local public library system, so it’s nice to see the two coming together. She’s our stellar Assistant Dean for Alumni Relations and Development; he was the first Cuban-American to head the Florida Bar, and has long been a good friend of the law school.

Cuban couple honored by Miami-Dade Library Foundation As children, Frank and Georgie Angones fled Cuba with their families penniless and not knowing English.

But they quickly discovered libraries could help them adapt to their new home.

”The one place that welcomed us with open arms was the public library,” Georgie Angones said.

They never forgot, dedicating decades of volunteering to promote literacy and the Miami-Dade Library system.

Now the Miami-Dade Public Library Foundation is bestowing on the couple its third annual Library Champions award.

On Friday evening, the foundation will honor them at its Stories in the Garden event in the courtyard of the Pinecrest Branch Library, 5835 SW 111th St.

The event is tonight; I hate benefit dinners, but this is one I’d actually like to go to if only I didn’t have a conflicting obligation.

President Shalala on the Recession/Depression: "Overreacting is an important strategy in a crisis"

UM’s President Donna Shalala has written a remarkable letter to the UM community,

Some random thoughts before a long weekend:

Overreacting is an important strategy in a crisis. My mind-set is that we always have to do more than necessary during any kind of financial crisis.

In this one, cash is king, so we have asked everyone to eliminate all unnecessary spending—from snacks, to paper, to travel. It is the little things that add up to big dollars. We will sit on the dollars so we don’t have to borrow to pay for necessities and can preserve our reserves.

It’s really not confusing. I’m sure most of you are doing the same thing in your personal budgets.

We can do this. Our goal is to protect your job, our core programs, and continue to get better. We can do this—yes we can!

Concerning yesterday’s jet crash in New York’s Hudson River—one of our students was on that plane. He will graduate in May because he had an angel on his wing and a courageous pilot in the cockpit, and the New York/New Jersey community had an emergency plan that worked.

On the occasion of Monday’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, I would like to share my favorite speech. It is one few have ever read—the address Dr. King delivered in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Please click here to access this brilliant speech, which rings every bit as true 45 years later.

As usual, send me your ideas and have a safe and happy weekend.

Overreacting is an important strategy in a crisis. It may even be true; there’s a real chance that Pres. Shalala’s attitude, and the cost-cutting she’s imposing on all of us, is the best policy for the University’s long-term flourishing. But the collective action consequence of multiple overreactions to a recession or other financial shock is a depression. The University has basically frozen its considerable construction plans for the next 6-12 months. That will have substantial knock-on effects on the local community. We’re all being asked in various ways to economize. It could be much worse of course, and may yet be; I am deeply grateful for tenure, and worry for my friends and neighbors without it.

Clearly, one of the biggest challenges for the Obama financial team will be to turn this psychology around; “fear itself” is emergent and palpable when it prompts even the usually indomitable Shalala to urge us to overreact — something only a step or two from panic.

Jan Paulsson to Join UM Law Faculty

I’m very pleased to announce a major appointment by the our law school: starting next year, international arbitration scholar and arbitrator extraordinaire (and repeat University of Miami Visiting Professor) Jan Paulsson, will join our faculty as the first holder of the new Michael Klein Chair in Law.

This is a big deal for us in several ways.

First, Jan is globalization personified: born a Swedish national, he grew up in Africa but attended high school in California, eventually wound up at Yale Law School. He has worked primarily in Paris, most recently as the head of the Paris-based arbitration practice of one of London’s (and Europe’s) leading law firms, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. He has extensive contacts and experience in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean (and for all I know the rest of the world too).

Second, Jan is arguably the leading arbitration advocate, and arbitrator, of his generation although Jan himself would be far too modest to claim any such thing. Multi-lingual, he is also an incredible multi-tasker, holding or having held many of the key jobs in the international arbitration world, including the Presidency of the London Court of International Arbitration and the World Bank Administrative Tribunal while moonlighting every few years as an on-the-spot arbitrator for the Olympic Games (someone has to be on tap to decide doping challenges). He has also written very extensively in the field, authoring two scholarly books and a slew of articles, as well as editing or contributing to the major practitioner works in his field. Indeed, I’m told that when he joins us Jan will be the most-cited member of the faculty.

Third, he’s coming to Miami to head up a new institute that will focus on international arbitration, with a particular focus on Latin America. I will have more to say about this in the future, but I think there’s every reason to believe that under his leadership we should be able to build something world-class.

International arbitration is something of a poor stepchild in the US academy – we in the US are neither the primary users of it nor do we supply a particularly large share of the leading advocates (at least in private law), arbitrators, or scholars – although we do have a few domestic stars. But my sense is that US legal academics in particular do not have a visceral sense of the extent to which arbitration has come to play an essential role in the settlement of international commercial and financial disputes. (This may be because we have a reasonably functional domestic legal system or because historically so much of our trade was domestic.)

At UM we already have a healthy international arbitration curriculum, but bringing Jan Paulsson to Miami as the head of a new center will put us in the first rank of the US institutions focused on this increasingly important area of transnational law. Starting next year we will be offering an LL.M. concentration in arbitration as part of our comparative and international LL.M programs.

But to top it all, it turns out that Jan Paulsson is a very nice person – so when I say it’s going to be a pleasure to have him on our faculty, that’s no formality.

Formality can, however, be found below, where I quote the official announcement being issued by the law school today.

University of Miami School of Law Appoints Jan Paulsson to Distinguished Chair: Expert in International Law to Launch School’s New Arbitration Institute

CORAL GABLES, FL (January 9, 2009) - The University of Miami School of Law today announced the appointment of Jan Paulsson to the Michael Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair beginning in the academic year 2009-10. Paulsson is head of the public international law and international arbitration groups at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and has had his professional base in Paris for 30 years. He is currently also the president of both the London Court of International Arbitration and the World Bank Administrative Tribunal.

In his post, Paulsson will head a newly established institute for international arbitration at the University of Miami School of Law, that will include an enhanced international curriculum, LL.M. specializations, training, and CLE programs.

“We are very excited that Jan Paulsson, one of the world’s leading experts on international arbitration, is joining our faculty,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “With his leadership, the University of Miami School of Law will be prominently positioned as an important center for the study of international law.”

“Jan is a fascinating combination of academic intellectual and powerful practitioner, who in many ways mirrors the strengths of the person whose chair he will hold - Michael Klein, distinguished UM Law alumnus and former partner of Wilmer Cutler Pickering LLP,” said Acting Dean Paul Verkuil. “We are lucky to have him.”

The school will benefit from Paulsson’s expertise as counsel or arbitrator in over 500 arbitrations in Europe, Asia, the United States and Africa. He has also acted before a great variety of international tribunals, including the International Court of Justice and the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.

“Knowing Jan for over 20 years as an opponent, a scholar, a teacher, an author and a leader in the field of international arbitration, he is a brilliant advocate, an extraordinary and principled arbitrator and truly one of the leading stars in the international community in terms of substance and ability,” said American Bar Association President-Elect and UM Law alumna Carolyn B. Lamm. “I am certain his scholarship and stature will enable the Law School to establish a pre-eminent Latin American arbitration program.”

Mr. Paulsson holds an A.B. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Diplome d’études superieures spécialisées from the University of Paris. His many scholarly publications include the books Denial of Justice in International Arbitration published by Cambridge University Press and (forthcoming) The Idea of Arbitration to be published by Oxford University Press.

Media Contact:
Elizabeth Amore
305-284-6266
eamore@miami.edu

Local Madoff News

In case you were wondering, I have hearsay from a fairly reliable source that the University of Miami had no money invested in the Madoff funds.

Of course, what one hears — always third hand — is that lots and lots of people in the Miami Jewish community seem to have lost a packet.

McCain is Coming ... Here?

According to this communication from U.M., John McCain is coming to campus tomorrow night. And I mean night.

Presidential Candidate John McCain at BankUnited Center Tomorrow Night

Republican candidate for president Senator John McCain will be speaking at an RNC Road to Victory Rally Sunday evening at the BankUnited Center on the Coral Gables campus. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. and the program will begin with performances by several Spanish-language musical groups. Senator McCain will speak at around 11:30 p.m.

This rally is open to the general public and the University community. Students, faculty, and staff must bring their ‘Cane cards to gain admission to the event. Members of the general public should visit this Web site to obtain tickets.

For security purposes, do not bring bags and please limit personal items. The following items are not permitted in the BankUnited Center: signs, banners, video and audio recorders, and cameras. For the complete list of items not permitted in the BankUnited Center, visit www.bankunitedcenter.com.

Sound like the real fun might be outside?

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More About Starting Salaries

The comments to University of Miami Law Tops Florida Bar Pass devolved into a discussion of the employment prospects of our graduates.

In the course of that discussion, questions were raised about the data the law school publishes in its Viewbook. In particular, commentators questioned the claim made there that the average starting salary for UM grads who work in firms is over $100,000. I wondered about that myself, as the breakout data later on the same page seemed to suggest something lower.

Could the law school have made a (convenient) error in the viewbook?

I took my concerns to the law school administration, who responded by giving me a full data dump and a full explanation. I don’t have the energy to try to type in all the data, so I’ll just try a simplified version of the explanation. [If you really have to have more, or have further questions, the Dean of Career Development, Marcy Cox, mcox@law.miami.edu (305-284-2668), says she’s happy to address them.]

According to Career Development Office, the reason why the both $104,500 number and the more detailed but somewhat different pie charts accompanying it are accurate has to do with response rates, differing data sets, and national reporting standards.

Not everyone who responded to the law school’s survey about what they were doing immediately after graduation chose to disclose their salary. Thus, the charts about firm size, for example, are based on a bigger data pool than the salary number. In 2007 we had 378 JDs. Of that group, 346 had replied to our survey at the time the Viewbook was produced. Of that 346, however, not all worked for firms — and of the group that worked for firms only about 46% gave us salary data. So the average salary number of $104,500 is based on the data provided by that 46%.

Since firm size and starting salary are related, you might reasonably object — as I did — that it would be more reasonable to pro-rate the responses of the people who gave salary data on the assumption that the people who didn’t fill in that part of the survey earned similar amounts by comparable firm size. And I still think there’s something to that. But I’m told by the Career Office — and I believe them — that the average salary data is presented the way it is because that’s how all law schools do it and the goal is to provide prospective students with numbers that can fairly be compared to what is provided by other law schools.

The Career Development Office avers that it collects the data and reports it in accordance with ABA and NALP guidelines, using the same methods that every other accredited law school in the country uses. Were the law school to do something else, the administration notes, it would no longer be reporting to students in the way it reports to the ABA and NALP. That would mean our data would have an asterisk. And even if we were doing it in order to provide better data the inevitable conclusion that most people would draw is that we were trying to hide something. So the Catch-22 is that we have to do it this way, possibly sacrificing some statistical excellence and even accuracy, or else we’ll look like we’re engaged in some sort of cover-up. And, of course, in addition to having an asterisk, we’d be harming our competitive position since we’d have gone to some trouble to calculate and report a lower number which would harm marketing and recruiting.

It seems to me that UM is between a rock and a hard place here. I would prefer that we use the best statistical techniques, pro-rate the data we have, and let the chips fall where they may. Following the national standards will, I believe, tend to cause this (and apparently almost every other) law school to report a number as “average” that is in fact likely to be higher than the reality. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, what UM — following a methodology its competitors use — reports as an “average” salary for graduates in firms, is most likely closer to what someone in the 75th percentile of the salary distribution gets. And given the law firm salary structure is now a notoriously double-humped curve (see Starting Salaries For Law Students are BiModal — If Not Bipolar for more details), this is a fairly severe truth-in-advertising problem.

Students nationally have some right to be upset. On the other hand, it seems pretty hard to ask UM to engage in unilateral disarmament in the recruitment wars: this is a job for the ABA or the AALS to resolve on a national level. (It also means that students thinking about a law career and hoping for the giant salaries offered by the biggest firms should really understand what that double-humped curve means to their prospects.)

Meanwhile, however, I’ve asked the Career Development Office to include something in the next edition of the Viewbook that makes clearer the relationship between the various data sets it uses. They’ve agreed in principle, and we’ll thrash out some language when time comes to do the next edition.

Croc Killer on the Loose!

Crocodile at University of Miami lured to shore and beheaded | MiamiHerald.com

A bag of fishing chum was found near the mutilated corpse of an endangered crocodile on the UM campus.

BY CURTIS MORGAN

The butchered carcass of an endangered American crocodile was discovered Wednesday in a canal on the University of Miami campus.

A mesh bag with fishing chum found on the canal bank suggests the protected animal was lured to its death, then its head and tail were chopped off, said Officer Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

While large alligator heads are sometimes mounted as trophies, Pino said it would be pure speculation to guess at the reasons for the croc beheading.

Nobody’s safe around here?

Links to full (I think) discourse.net crocodile coverage:

* What’s Doing (Reptiles Dept.)
* Crocodile Reminder
* Fair Warning (Alligator Dept.)
* Crocodile Coincidence
* Croc II !
* Cold Front Flushes Out UM Croc
* What? A Croc?
* Crocodile Medallions French Style

Update: Forgot to say that “Croc Killer on the Loose” is better than “Killer Croc on the Loose”!

Obama to Visit UM

Barack Obama will be visiting the campus on Friday.

I’m going to miss it, because I will be in New York. On Friday I’ll be at Fordham Law for a seminar; on Monday I’ll be at Brooklyn Law giving a paper. Over the weekend, TKTS willing, I hope to catch a play. Suggestions for other cultural highlights welcomed.

A Great Job for the Right Litigation Skills Teacher

In addition to looking for traditional entry-level and lateral faculty, the U. Miami School of Law is also looking for someone to take over its highly popular and award-winning litigation skills program. I’m not on the search committee, although I’d be happy to field questions to the best of my ability. I suspect that the committee would consider both people with a clinical/academic background and an experienced practitioner who showed signs of being able to adapt to the academic environment.

This job is a pretty big deal to the school; the program is large and unusual, and the right person could forge a national reputation from it. The previous incumbent is now the President & CEO of NITA—the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

The University of Miami School of Law invites applications for the Director of the School’s Litigation Skills Program beginning fall of 2009. This is a tenure-track position. Appointment will be made at the associate or full professor level, depending on experience.

The School is interested in recruiting an individual with a proven record of achievement who will enhance the national reputation of this outstanding program. The Director should have extensive expertise and experience in trial practice and in teaching trial skills and a substantial record or a demonstrable interest in scholarship related to trial skills or related substantive areas.

The University of Miami School of Law Litigation Skills program is an award winning program that provides top quality simulation training in pre-trial and trial practice. Approximately 80 percent of the School’s students take the voluntary six-credit Litigation Skills I class. The Director designs skills problems, teaches litigation skills classes, and recruits, trains, and supervises the work of approximately 60 adjunct faculty. The adjunct faculty are leading practitioners and judges who work with students in small groups to develop their skills.

The Director also oversees the development of Litigation Skills II, a course for students who complete Litigation Skills I. Skills II includes advanced litigation matters such as jury selection, expert witnesses and multiparty or multi-claim lawsuits. Students who complete Skills I may also enhance their skills through a one-semester clinical placement (externship).

The Director supervises the Litigation Skills Program Manager and an Assistant to the Director. The Director works with clinical faculty to identify and coordinate externship placements with public agencies and public interest law offices. The Director develops and fosters relationships with the various agencies, courts, and firms from which Litigation Skills faculty are recruited and clinical externs are placed.

The Director should be prepared to teach one or more core courses on an annual or rotating basis, depending on the needs of the School and the scope of other responsibilities. In addition, the Director should be prepared to work with students to enhance the School’s efforts in inter-school skills competitions.

Interested persons should contact Professor Terence J. Anderson c/o Detra Davis, University of Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124-8087 or ddavis@law.miami.edu.

Tres Florida

Why I am not the least bit surprised that all three major Florida universities — UM, UF, FSU — are represented on this select list of institutions of higher education who have signed deals with Victoria’s Secret for “pink” themed clothes and underwear?

All so very tasteful and revenue-enhancing, I’m sure. And so Florida. Although to be fair, there are lots of schools from both sunny and raininy states on that list…

(Spotted via Kieran Healy, A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.)

Donna Shalala to Receive Presdiental Medal of Freedom

White House Names 6 for Medal of Freedom — and UM President Donna Shalala is one of them.

She’ll share the stage with Gen. Peter Pace, who’s getting a consolation prize for not being renominated as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (the administration was afraid to let Congress ask him hard questions). Also present will be Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the D.C. Circuit, long a linchpin of the very right-wing group on that court.

There will be a posthumous award to Representative Tom Lantos of California, a human rights champion who was also an early supporter (and, later, doubter) of the Iraq war.

Shocking News: Alan Swan Killed in a Car Accident

Dear Students: This Helps Pay for Your Education

Via the Miami Herald, UM-raised sea slug a swift seller.

Seems that UM has found a money-maker. These:

Yes,

The University of Miami exports about 30,000 sea slugs yearly to researchers around the world, bringing in hundreds of thousands in revenue.

Hold the jokes, eh?

Text of Christopher Lomax's Commencement Address

The University of Miami has two speakers at its commencement ceremony.

One is the “Advice to Graduates” given by someone with great experience of the legal system — usually but not always a senior lawyer or judge, sometimes a politician, once a reporter with extensive experience covering the Supreme Court.

The other is a student speaker, chosen from among self-selected applicants by a committee comprised of students, administrators, and the odd faculty member.

This year, the role of wise elder was played by Carolyn Lamm, one of our more distinguished alumni, who in addition to being a Partner at White & Case is also about to become the President-Elect of the ABA.

The student speaker this year was Christopher Lomax. He gave what is undoubtedly the best student speech I’ve heard in the 15 years I’ve been going to UM Law commencement exercises.

I’ve taken the liberty of reprinting it below. (As you might expect from a Moot Court champ, the delivery was excellent too.) You can also see the video — Mr. Lomax’s speech is towards the end at 1:48 in the web cast.

Christopher Lomax, Student Speaker,
Commencement Exercises
University of Miami School of Law, J.D. ‘08

Good Afternoon. President Shalala, Dean Lynch, Distinguished Faculty and Administration, friends, family, and members of the class of 2008. I am honored at a level beyond belief to share these moments with you. These are the times in life that we relish. These are the moments fashioned with great anticipation. Yet, the final scene of a movie is only as good as the captivating moments that lead up to it.

August 22, 2005 was the first day that I met many of you. I recall that day because it was our first full day of class. Those of you in Sections B and C will recall that our day began at 8:00 a.m. in room 309, under the tutelage of the revered and feared Professor Anthony Alfieri. We had all been made aware of his execution styled questioning under the Socratic Method, and many of us cringed at the thought of being called on early in the semester. Well, I and my now dear friend Mindy Reinstein had the honor of being the first two people called on. Professor Alfieri told the class that Mindy and I were “On Trial”, which meant that we had to go stand at a podium in the back of the room and field questions. Mindy and I had never met, never spoken with each other, but we immediately formed a united front. Professor Alfieri looked up from his lectern and said; “Mr. Lomax, where does the law come from?”

I thought to myself, and a million possible answers crossed my mind; but none of them seemed to be something that I could acceptably utter to this man, clad in his immaculately tailored suit, with matching shoes and suspenders. So, I looked at Mindy, and she looked back at me with her eyebrows raised, as a silent indication of uncertainty. Eventually, I gave him what I believed what was an appropriate and intelligent response. But alas, he wasn’t satisfied; so if anyone out there knows where the law comes from please find me after this ceremony because I still owe that man an answer.

As you can see, we made it through that first day of class, and here we are some three years later.

Well, what have we learned? We have learned how to read cases and write law school exams. We’ve learned to use the bluebook, sub check law review articles, and draft legal briefs and memoranda. We’ve learned how to network and to forge lasting relationships with members of the legal community. We’ve learned how to conduct ourselves in job interviews. We’ve learned the trends of the United States Supreme Court, and the political ideologies of current and former Justices. We’ve learned terms like binding precedent, obitur dictum, res ipsa loquitor and stare decisis. We can eloquently discuss the implications of analyzing a statute under strict scrutiny as opposed to rational basis; and if we try hard enough, we may even figure out what Chevron deference actually means. All of these things are great, but what have WE learned, specifically as students at the University of Miami.

We learned to cope with the rigors of the first semester of law school while trying to survive through hurricanes Wilma, Rita, and Katrina. We learned to be civil, cordial, and benevolent to students from Tulane University School of Law, and Loyola Law School in New Orleans, when they were displaced during such a challenging time in their lives. We gave them our notes, we shared our outlines, we invited them into our homes, and we encouraged them when they had nothing to hold onto besides the enduring hope of attaining their law degrees. We admired them for their persistence and unwillingness to allow a Hurricane to thwart their dreams of becoming attorneys. The irony of life is that often times, the things that illicit the greatest challenges, are the catalysts for our greatest triumphs. A hurricane in New Orleans destroyed our colleagues’ homes and schools, but a group of Hurricanes, you guys, Miami Hurricanes gave them hope and an opportunity to overcome. And moments ago, several of them crossed this stage and received their law degree.

What else have we learned? We learned that one person’s success does not necessarily come at the expense of another’s failure. We have all had a measure of success, not because we’ve trampled one another in an effort to reach the front of the line. Rather because we have pushed one another towards that line in hopes that we would reach it together. I submit to you that each of us has reached that line, in some way, shape or form.

Be that in the spirit of winning a competition, booking a class, writing the best brief, securing a highly coveted clerkship, or landing a job with a large law firm. For some of you, like myself, the fact that you are here today defies all mathematical probability. Statistics say that many of you were not supposed to make it here today. And there has been a recent buzz on campus about rankings, another statistic; But I’ve come to tell you today that statistics aren’t everything. Allow me to share some statistics with you. For African American males born around 1983 like me, the statistics would tell you that there was a greater probability that I would be in jail or dead at the age of 25. But I stand before you alive and well, blood flowing warm through my veins, moments away from receiving a degree that means more to me than any statistic I’ve ever read. Statistics also say that a person like me, who LSAT score was average at best, would either not graduate, or graduate towards the bottom of the class. Today I’m graduating with honors. So, I’m glad that the University of Miami saw more than a statistic when they read my application. They gave me all I needed, and that was just a shot. And many of you were given the same.

The admissions committee saw at least some level of potential in this music major, raised in the inner city, with a dream of becoming a trial attorney. Well, admissions committee, I’m proud to say that I didn’t let you down. I have done my best to stay the course and be the best law student that I could be. I believe we all have. We worked hard and became members of the Moot Court Board. We tried our hands at writing a case note and were selected as candidates for law journals. We’ve represented our University at numerous competitions and have brought home trophy after trophy. As a class, we participated in Helping Others through Pro Bono Efforts; we sponsored toy drives, book drives, and we’ve tutored inner city youth. Many of you have served as a guardians at litem; others have worked on issues in immigration and child advocacy; some have even defended the health rights of individuals with HIV and AIDS. A group of you formed an organization called Lawful Productions and raised 37 thousands dollars to be donated to charity. You should all be commended.

Nevertheless, all of our victories and accomplishments won’t mean much if we don’t continue our pursuit of excellence with the same passion and fervor that you’ve all exemplified during these three wonderful years. Not every moment was easy. You stayed up late and woke up early. You sacrificed your weekends and you forced yourself to keep pushing even when fatigue objected. Your bodied wanted to sustain that objection at times, but your heart and your mind said “Objection Overruled.” What I’m talking to you about now is your uncommon relentlessness. They say that we are living in uncommon times. Uncommon times call for uncommon people to do uncommon things to achieve uncommon results. But, I believe in the notion that all times are uncommon. 1808 was uncommon to those who lived in the 1700. 1908 was uncommon to those who lived in the 1800 and the year 2008 is uncommon in its own right. If you don’t believe that, just go to the gas station. But, the tie that binds all times are the people that make the most of the time they spend here on Earth.

Like the Albanian Roman Catholic woman who experienced “The Call within the Call.” She responded to the call by birthing an organization called the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. At the time of her death, her organization was operating 610 missions in 123 countries. You know her as Mother Theresa.

Or that little boy from Atlanta, Georgia who went off to college at the age of 15, earned his Ph.D from Boston University, organized and led marches for blacks’ right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We all know him as Martin Luther King, Jr.

And So: My charge to you is to find the greatness within yourself. Classmates, for three years, I have been amazed by your intelligence, your diverse backgrounds, and your willingness to learn from one another. It has been an honor and a privilege to sit next to you in class, to cheer with you at Hurricane football games, socializing with you every other Thursday at beer at the rat or at Tommy Wang’s Chinese New Year parties. I’m astounded by your potential and I look forward to witnessing thefruition of your greatness. So for those things, I thank you. And I ask you to remember me when one of you goes on to become the next President of the Florida Bar or follows in the footsteps of Mrs. Lamm in leading the American Bar Association. Or, when another one of you is appointed to the State or Federal Bench. Or when another one of you creates an organization for underprivileged youth. And in return, I pledge to never forget you. If I were to say the names of each person in this class that touched my life we would be here all day.

So, I encourage you to use these days to reflect upon all of the individuals who have touched you throughout your lives.

Thank you to all of the mothers out there who made us believe that we could do and be anything. Thank you to all of the fathers who have been there throughout the years, encouraging us to do our very best.

Thank you to all of the grandparents, for spoiling us during the summers.

To all of the sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles for your support and encouragement, we say thank you. We say thank you to all of the Friends, Partners, Spouses and Children who have always been a shoulder to lean on and a listening ear.

As I go to my seat, I congratulate you all and leave you with a spirit of encouragement. The World is depending on you. Go forward and walk with your heads held high. Play to win, but play the right way. Use your gifts and talents in an uncommon way, so that an uncommon reality will arise. We are an uncommon class, graduating from an uncommon University in an uncommon part of America; Where no language is common, but all languages are understood because the universal languages of acceptance, hope and understanding resound loudly above the words, and will reverberate from generation to generation.

Thank you, God Bless, and congratulations to the class of 2008.

The Edge-of-Campus Mugging that Wasn't

A week ago I asked, Why Are There TV Crews On the Edge of Campus? and several commentators suggested it was related to a mugging of a student on the other side of campus.

By way of follow-up, I should mention that the Miami Herald reported the other day that police figured out the ‘victim’ made the whole thing up.

A University of Miami student scratched cuts into herself, ripped her clothing and then lied to police about being attacked by a man while jogging on campus, investigators said Thursday.

Coral Gables detectives noticed holes in the 21-year-old’s story about a robbery and attempted sexual assault at knife-point last Friday.

“They determined the tearing on her shirt was from a rip by hand, not by knife like she claimed,” Officer Frank Jackson said.

…

“We believe this was some sort of mental-health breakdown,” he said.

More on U. Miami Data Breach

The University of Miami is mostly getting praise for the way it has handled notification of the theft of patient medical information last week. (For more on that, see Shalala’s Message on U.Miami Employee Medical Data Privacy Breach.) Here’s an example of the positive publicity from a Wall Street Journal blogger, calling the U’s response exemplary.

Meanwhile, however, I seem to be one of the 47,000 people whose credit card info was on one of those tapes and have got the boilerplate note suggesting I check my credit history and put fraud warnings on my cards. Recall, though, that both the University and the Secure Information Services group at Terremark say that the data is very hard to read.

Hard to read, perhaps, but maybe not impossible to read. And it seems that the data could have been encrypted, but wasn’t.

So should I worry or not? So far, I’m leaning, “not”.

The End, The Beginning

I taught my last class of the semester this afternoon. For several of the students it was their last class of law school, and they were more than a bit giddy with relief — demob happy. But we had a good class anyway, or because of it.

The end today for graduating students is really just a beginning of something bigger and longer and likely more important, which is why we call that ceremony coming up “Commencement”. The end today for me is just a turning of a wheel: I expect to do it all again next year.

But for one of my colleagues today, it was the final turn of this particular wheel. After 56 years on our faculty, here since September, 1951, Minnette Massey taught her last class today. It is very hard for me to imagine our University of Miami School of Law without this indomitable, outspoken, adorable, sometimes irascible, deeply decent, icon and pioneer of the Florida bar—one of the first women to do innumerable things in the Florida legal world. Minnette was Acting Dean for three years in the ’60s; I have to suspect sexism kept her from ever being appointed as ‘Dean’. She was a mentor to two generations of state legal luminaries, and the go-to person for local federal judges who needed special masters in complex cases, particularly before they had Magistrate Judges to do some of those jobs. Among Minnette’s many achievements is decades of work to fully integrate the bar, not least by mentoring students and young professionals. She’s not young, but no one who knows her thinks she had to retire. Minnette made it clear, however, that she didn’t want to be one of those people who waited until she had to be forced out: her leave-taking, like so much else in her life, would be her own decision on her own time on her own rules.

Everyone has a Minnette story or three. Here’s one of my earliest: back when I was in my first year of law teaching, with a full three months under my belt, I attended the AALS winter conference for the first time. I was teaching Civ Pro I in those days, so of course I went the to the meeting of the Civil Procedure Section, which happened to be a joint section meeting with the Admiralty section that year — the big case was Carnival Cruise Line, which was about the enforcement of forum selection clauses on cruise tickets. On the way into the room, I bumped into Minnette. I had planned to lurk in the back. Minnette steered me to the front row, greeting everyone in the room on the way, which left us craning our necks up at a panel on a raised dias. The talk began. The admiralty speaker was, from a civil procedure standpoint, somewhat obvious. And he was not brief. I was thinking how much better off I would have been in the back, but here I was in the front, with a senior colleague I didn’t know very well, she had said hello to everyone, we were very visible, there was no escape, we’d just have to look interested. “ISN’T THIS BORING?” Minnette said to me in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard next door. (I later learned that was her regular voice.) I wanted to crawl under my seat. But no one else seemed to mind. I suspect that everyone in the room just knew she was being herself: you always know where you stand with Minnette — she doesn’t play games, and no, she won’t suffer fools in silence, but you cannot be around her long without seeing how much she cares about people and about justice. Minnette doesn’t brag (much), so it takes somewhat longer to learn just how much she has given to others and to our law school. I will miss Minnette enormously — unless we are lucky and she again blazes a new trail, this time in retirement, and makes Emeritus status something that involves greater involvement in the law school community than has commonly been the case in the past.

Several of us snuck in at the end of her class this afternoon to join the standing ovation in Room 109, and formed an impromptu receiving line in the aisle as she left the room. When she came to Charlton Copeland, currently our most junior faculty member, she said, “It’s up to you now.”

Now, For a Limited Time Only, UM Offers 'The Tunnel of Oppression'

The weekly University of Miami electronic newsletter brings me this offer, which sounds quite resistible:

Today, Monday, April 21 through Wednesday, April 23 The Tunnel of Oppression. The William R. Butler Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development, UM Citizen’s Board, the Ford Foundation, the Office of Student Affairs, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression urge individuals to participate in a powerful, one-time, campus wide program, the Tunnel of Oppression, hosted in the University Center Ballrooms. The Tunnel of Oppression is a nationally renowned sensory-based experiential learning opportunity designed to expose participants to the various types of oppressive acts that exist in society today. Through interactive tours, it is designed to challenge peoples’ thoughts, perceptions, and inner feelings on issues dealing with oppression and hatred. Tours occur every 15 minutes from 4 to 9 p.m. and last approximately 20 minutes. For more information, e-mail b.tedeschi@umiami.edu, slemmons@miami.edu, or vjones@miami.edu or call 401-290-7437.

Look, I already go to faculty meetings — isn’t that enough?

Why Are There TV Crews On the Edge of Campus?

As I was driving on the north and north-west sides of the UM campus this afternoon, there seemed to be at least two different TV crews set up, from two different local stations, one on the north, one on the NW sides of the campus. No idea if there are others elsewhere. We’re used to them when there’s an event, and of course down near the south-west side where the baseball stadium is. They were still there when I came back 30 minutes later.

So what’s up with this on a SundaySaturday afternoon? Nothing (yet?) on the local news I could find. For a minute I thought this might be it — Police: College Students Attempt To Capture Gator - Miami News Story - WPLG Miami, but no, the dateline is Daytona Beach Shores, Fla.

So I still have no idea.

Shalala's Message on U.Miami Employee Medical Data Privacy Breach

This popped into the inbox:

A Message from President Shalala

April 17, 2008

To the University Community:

I wanted to let all of you know that we recently learned that a case containing computer back-up tapes with patient information and employee health benefit information was stolen from an outside storage company vehicle. The truck was on its way to an off-site storage facility. Local law enforcement is investigating the theft. Unfortunately, our employees’ basic health information was on those tapes.

Shortly after learning of the incident, the University determined it would be unlikely that a thief would be able to access the back-up tapes because of the highly secured format in which they were written. Even so, we engaged the leading computer security experts in the U.S. to attempt to hack into the data from a similar back-up tape. All of their attempts over a lengthy process were unsuccessful. Based on this information, we believe misuse of the information on the tapes is unlikely.

The tapes were in a transport case that was stolen from a storage company vehicle on March 17 in downtown Coral Gables. The Coral Gables police have told us this is one of a series of vehicle thefts in the same area.

Because accessing the tapes is highly unlikely, we are not required by Florida law to disclose information about the theft, and we are confident that everyone’s data is safe, we felt that it was in the best interest of our patients to be completely transparent in this matter. Also, it is the ethical thing to do.

Anyone who has been a patient of a University of Miami physician or visited a UM facility since January 1, 1999, is likely to have their basic information included on the tapes. The data on the tapes included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, or health information. The University will be notifying by mail the 47,000 patients whose data may have included credit card or other financial information regarding bill payment.

Off-site storage is standard practice and is particularly critical in areas susceptible to severe weather. I want you to know the University’s permanent records are not affected; all your information remains current, safe, and appropriately available on UM systems.

We have created a Web site to serve as the principal source of information about this incident: www.dataincident.miami.edu. As a back-up for this Web site, we have established a call center at 1-866-628-4492. If you receive any calls asking about the incident, please encourage callers to visit the Web site.

I deeply regret any concern this event may cause, and you have my assurance that everything possible is being done to make UM the safest place for our patients’ health information.

There’s an online FAQ with a tiny bit more info, including this teaser:

Q: Is my personal information at risk?
A: After consulting with computer security professionals, the University has determined that it is unlikely that the data on the tapes could be accessed by an unauthorized user. Attempts by a leading Miami-based computer security firm to access the information on identical tapes were unsuccessful. Therefore, we believe misuse of the information on these tapes is unlikely.

There’s a phone number to call if you want more info. I called it to find out the name of the “leading Miami-based computer security firm” as I’m always interested to know about local folks who do computer security. The call center person referred me to the web site from which I got her phone number.

Update: A kindly correspondent points me to this UM press release which says a lot more about the security issue than the official web site:

the University engaged leading computer security experts at Terremark Worldwide to independently ascertain the feasibility of accessing and extracting data from a similar set of backup tapes.

“For more than a week my team devised a number of methods to extract readable data from the tapes,” said Christopher Day, senior vice president of the Secure Information Services group at Terremark. “Because of the highly proprietary compression and encoding used in writing the tapes, we were unable to extract any usable data.”

Day said that his team also determined that even in the unlikely event that a thief had a copy of the same software used to write the tapes, “It would require certain key data which is not stored on the tapes before the software would make the data readable.”

Alan Brill, senior managing director at Kroll Ontrack, who was asked by the University to review the testing that had been done, said: “While the report shows it is not impossible to access the data, in this case there are many barriers that stand between a thief and being able to actually get usable data from the tapes. If the thief cannot cross all of those barriers simultaneously, they can’t access the data.”

My Speech for the 'Celebration of Faculty Scholarship'

On of the things I have to do as a result of serving as Director of Faculty Development for the law school is act as head cheerleader for the faculty’s scholarly activities (another is to nag folks to put their writing on SSRN – an uphill struggle). We had our annual ‘Celebration of Faculty Scholarship’ reception yesterday, and I was told I would have to give a speech. Here’s more or less what I said:

I’d like to thank Raquel Matas, Amy Leitman, and especially Robin Schard for all their work in making this event, and this brochure, possible.

The Dean Search Committee members can’t be here as they have yet another meeting – just another example of the many demands on people’s time that might draw them away from writing, conflicts that each of you listed here have overcome.

It’s worth looking at this list of publications: it includes many things you might otherwise not know about – indeed a very substantial number of things that are not on SSRN…you know who you are, and you’ll be hearing from me.

I mourn the death of our former custom of putting every offprint in every faculty mailbox – I understand why, for environmental reasons, this practice went out of fashion, but I wish people would more frequently at least put the abstract, or the intro, in a memo so we wouldn’t have to wait until this list comes out to see what so many people have been up to.

More generally, as long as I’m wishing for stuff, I think that we as a community could probably stand to do more celebrating of achievements. But if we are still celebrating too few things, too infrequently, I am glad that this is one of the things we do celebrate: today we are celebrating our community’s scholarship, which has a very special, very central place in our collective enterprise.

This afternoon, I was talking to Ben Depoorter, who’s at that Dean Search meeting right now. I was urging him to drop by later if the meeting breaks up in time. Economist that he is, Ben went straight to the point: “At what time do they give out the prizes?”

I had to confess that, as far as I know, we will not be giving out prizes today.

But that’s because those of you who are writing have in some sense already had the prizes: I mean of course the 50 free offprints.

No, more seriously, you have already had the prizes:

• the time to think,
• the time to write,
• the chance to speak truth to power (or, as the case may be, to shout “power” to truth),
• the chance to take part in a national or a global conversation,
• the chance make a difference in the world

You do this by your contributions to doctrine, to discourse, to law reform, to clarity of understanding and, yes, to truth, and in so doing you justify our claim to be in a university rather than a trade school, and to take our place in the great invisible college of thoughtful citizens and intellectuals.

I leave you with the immortal words of Oliver Twist, “More, please”.

I much prefer giving academic papers – it’s so much easier.

Crocodile TV

Looks like I missed all the excitement. This all happened about three blocks from my house, but seeing this posted at Habla Mierda was the first I heard of it:

Even though it happened a month ago.

UM Health Ethics Program Recognized by WHO

UM health ethics programs get global nod - 03/18/2008 - MiamiHerald.com The University of Miami has been name a World Health Organization Collaborating Center on ethics and global health policy, a prestigious designation that raises the school’s profile on ethics research.

The decision by the Geneva-based WHO is a recognition of the school’s Ethics Programs research on public policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, among other places.

“The WHO collaborating centers are institutions such as research institutes, parts of universities or academies, which are designated by the director-general to carry out activities in support of the organization’s programs,” according to the WHO website.

There are more than 900 WHO collaborating centers in 99 member countries, working in areas ranging from chronic diseases to nursing. But only two other collaborating centers in the world specialize in ethics. UM’s ethics programs are directed by [UM Business School] law professor Anita Cava and ethics professor Kenneth Goodman.

I’m currently involved in a project on ethical and legal issues relating to medical devices that communicate health data to and about patients with these folks. I would claim credit for having good taste in my choice of collaborators, except that they found me…

UM Law Hires Three Exciting Young Scholars

We hired three people out of the entry level pool this year, and I for one am very pleased with our haul:

• Caroline Corbin, JD 2001 Columbia University; Teaching Fellow, Columbia University
• Osamudia James, JD 2004 Georgetown University, Research Fellow, University of Wisconsin
• Markus Wagner, erstes juristisches Staatsexamen 2002 University of Giessen, JSM 2006 Law Stanford

It Wasn't Me!

Geniusofdespair confesses in Blogger hits University of Miami President Donna Shalala with a chair.

Note that I had nothing to do with this incident: We here on campus are still marveling at the $1.4bn President Shalala has raised for the “U”, so we’re more likely to hit her with outstretched palms than anything else…

How Others See Us

At Giving Papers at Miami, Visiting Professor John Flood has a description of what we’re like in seminar.

We had fun. I’m glad he did too.

Note to Self

Some interesting on-campus events (outside the law school) for this semester.

• Wednesday January 23, Stephen Neale. Neale is the John H. Kornblith Family Chair in the Philosophy of Science and Values at CUNY and an expert on the language of law and the interpretation of statutes and regulations. The event occurs at the School of Business Administration’s Storer Auditorium at 3:30 p.m.
• Monday, February 25 and Thursday, February 28: Natalie Zemon Davis, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University and an adjunct professor and senior fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada
• Tuesday, February 26: Edward Sullivan, dean for humanities and professor of art history at New York University
• Thursday, March 6: Ruth Behar, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, and recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” award.

Mario Barnes Wins Derrick A. Bell Jr. Award

I’ve just learned that UM Law prof and all-around great guy Mario Barnes has won the 2008 AALS Minority Groups Section Derrick A. Bell Jr. Award.

The Derrick A. Bell Jr. Award is named in honor of Derrick A. Bell, Jr. of New York University Law School. The award honors a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching and scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice.

I don’t know exactly what “colleagueship” is, but whatever it is I can’t think of a better person to give this prize to.

There will be a ceremony at lunch on Jan 5 at the AALS to present Mario with the award.

This, wouldn’t you know it, conflicts with a different lunch ceremony in which another member of the Miami Law faculty will be receiving a richly-deserved award: William Twining, who visits here for part of the Spring semester every year, is due to receive the AALS Evidence section’s John Henry Wigmore Award for Lifetime Achievement in Elucidating the Law of Evidence and the Process of Proof.

We Need a 'Research and Instructional Technologist'

The law school is looking for a Research and Instructional Technologist to discover new cool tools for us, customize them, and teach law faculty how to make the most of them.

The Research and Instructional Technologist will design and implement a program to assist faculty in incorporating technology into their teaching and scholarship by providing consultation, advice, training and support for instructional and research technologies. In so doing, the Research and Instructional Technologist will among other initiatives demonstrate the use of specific software in group and individual sessions and will be the faculty resource for specific instructional and research technology software and hardware questions. The person in this position will also focus on researching and recommending the most appropriate combinations of instructional and research technologies for facilitating the Law School’s scholarly and educational missions. Other responsibilities include authoring written instructions and documentation for technology resources available to the faculty. The Information Technology Department’s Assistant Manager of Audio Visual Services will work collaboratively with the person in this position in training the faculty in the use of classroom technology.

This position will coordinate the delivery and support of instructional and research technologies and services with the Director Information Technology and the Director of the Law Library. This person must possess a high level of skill in working inter-departmentally and must be comfortable in both, Law Library and IT settings. Position #002076.

QUALIFICATIONS: B.A. in Instructional Technology, Educational Technology or related field and five years work related experience; Master’s degree in Instructional Technology, Educational Technology preferred. To include: Experience assisting educators in using technology to enhance teaching and/or research; Training or teaching experience; Knowledge of web-authoring, design and development; Broad range of technical proficiency including: multimedia design, developing and administering courses in various course management products, understanding presentation software, HTML, ‘smart’ classroom presentation equipment, graphics packages, streaming video technologies, and Office Packages (Microsoft/Corel). Salary: Competitive.

The University of Miami offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package including medical and dental benefits, tuition remission, vacation, paid holidays and much more. The University of Miami is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

This could be a great job for the right person. And if you are that person, we’ll really appreciate you.

We're Hiring!

Today is the start of the AALS meat meet market, the annual hiring conference for would-be law professors. My wife is the chair of our entry-level appointments committee, so she’s in DC along with the rest of our committee, while I’m minding the home front.

The law school has a lot of openings this year — six by some counts, although I’d guess that one or two of those jobs may be earmarked for lateral offers. But whatever the number, we’re hiring, and it’s a recession year. If this turns out to be anything like the year I was on the market, many state schools will find their budgets being cut between now and summer, and some of the jobs they thought they had may evaporate. There are some disadvantages to being in the private sector — high tuition burdening students with debt chief among them — but this may be one of the times when being private works to our advantage.

A few weeks ago I published an extended essay on this blog in which I tried to describe some of the salient features of life at UM from the point of view of entering faculty. I titled it “Ten Reasons Why You Should Teach Here — And Three Why You Shouldn’t”. In case anyone is reading this from the AALS, I repost a slightly amended version of the same essay below.

But before I do that, I can’t resist quoting from our student newspaper, the Res Ipsa Loquitur, which recently interviewed our most recent hire, Charlton Copeland, about his initial impressions of UM Law. This is part of what he said:

The faculty stood out for me a the AALS recruiting conference as one of the most intellectually engaged faculties with which I met over the weekend. They actually were interested in my writing projects, and gave me the sense that they took them and me seriously. My time with the committee ran out too quickly for me. My feeling of intellectual comfort with the faculty was only enhanced during my visit to the campus later in November, but that was augmented by my delight that this would be a group with which I’d be comfortable beyond simply discussing scholarly work. They were a bit quirky, and in a way about which I am excited. I am excited about the diversity of the city of Miami as well, and the opportunities that I think it will provide me to think about my areas of research in new ways — ranging from race and the the law (where the Law School has long been at the forefront in American legal education) to comparative separation of powers issues in Latin America.

And that maybe sums it up better than I can. It’s certainly shorter.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Teach Here — And Three Why You Shouldn’t

1. Faculty

The best reason to come to U.M. is the faculty. At its best (which is to say, “outside of faculty meetings”), this is a faculty that believes ideas are serious things, but also is willing to play with them. You will see this most vividly at faculty seminars, especially those with external speakers. The faculty reads the paper in advance of the talk. It thinks about it. We don’t let the presenter speak a long time — we want to have a discussion. There may be an element of performance in the questions and comments, but that usually just adds to the fun. Unlike some faculties I’ve heard about, we are not worshipers at the temple of sub-disciplinarity: faculty members feel comfortable commenting on papers far outside their own specialties, and they are usually right to do so as the distant perspective sometimes proves at least as valuable as the insider’s.

While faculty vary in the extent to which they will seek you out – some are shy; others are busy – they will almost all be happy to see you if you seek them out. Very few will treat you like a junior colleague; for most, you will be part of the family from the start. And it’s an interesting family, including some big names in international law, tax, law and society, law and identity, and several other subjects.

2. Institutional style & institutional support

UM wants productive faculty, and it believes in research. But it isn’t about telling you what to do. My own story may be instructive: I was hired thinking that I would be writing mostly about administrative and constitutional law. In fact, however, within a couple of years I had turned into an Internet lawyer, and was writing primarily about computers, networks and the law. At no time did anyone here ever suggest that this was a problem. What mattered to people was that I was publishing.

Another way in which UM may differ from some law schools is that our faculty is routinely interdisciplinary and international. Many publish in non-legal journals — a fact which does not necessarily help either our publication or citation counts since the legal tabulators tend to focus only on law journals. Although we recognize that there may be some reputational costs, we are not prepared to tell people where they should publish. We just want it to be good.

There is no international ghetto at UM (the same is true of tax, a traditional faculty strength). As a matter of unwritten policy, everyone is expected to teach a basic course outside their specialty; the result is both that we can have more internationalists (and tax scholars), and that there’s a much greater community of overlapping interests.

3. Library

The University of Miami enjoys a superb law library, the result of a decision more than two decades ago to make library acquisitions a financial priority. And if we don’t have it, the library will borrow it for you, no questions asked. (As one former librarian put it, “we aim to provide law-firm-quality service”. And in fact, it is almost as good as a top law firm, and the librarians are much nicer.)

The law library has extensive holdings in related disciplines, notably political science, and of course the university library is literally next door, and it also has ever-growing electronic access to journals — which can even be accessed from your home office. We have a particularly strong collection in Latin American and Caribbean law, but also strong holdings in European law. We are weak in India, China, and Russia, and no doubt several other countries with non-Romance alphabets, so if your research involves heavy use of materials from one of those countries, you should check to see if we have you covered. I also have a sense that our holdings for pre-1940 materials are not as strong generally as for things published in the last 70 years. But I am continually having pleasant surprises when I consult Baron, the online card catalog. They’ve done some impressive buying over the years — which is a good thing as the next major law library is a long way away.

4. Students

We have smart students with upwardly mobile ambitions. Some come from wealthy families, but for many a law degree will be the highest level of education ever achieved in their families — a matter of pride for an extended clan you may have the good fortune to meet at graduation. Despite the lures of nearby South Beach, UM students are by and large a studious lot: their awareness that few silver platters await at graduation usually translates into a commendable work ethic. At least until the end-of-term fog settles in, I find that my students have done the reading, and often have something to say about it. There is a little shyness — some students don’t want to ask questions for fear of looking silly; other students worry about being labeled a “gunner” — but ordinarily class discussion can be pretty lively. Although we have more men than women as students, it is often the case that the women lead the discussions and make the most substantive contributions. Classes tend to be fun (at least for the instructor). Visiting professors from other law schools consistently remark on the high quality of classroom performance here.

The UM student body has improved greatly in the past decade. Our best students would be at home in any law school. Our worst students would have been near the middle of the class 15 years ago. The only fly in the ointment is that despite their good college grades and creditable LSATs, a substantial fraction of the class comes to law school unable to write as well as they think or speak. Overcoming this obstacle remains one of our biggest challenges. That said, every year we have students who write publishable papers in classes and seminars. It’s been a particular pleasure to see those pieces go into print along side those of full-time academics.

Some of our students will go on to be national leaders; a much larger number will play key roles in the State of Florida, as judges, politicians, and leading members of the bar. Some people have described alumni reunions as state judges’ conventions, but this is slightly unfair. On the other hand, there’s no question that both Florida as a place, and UM graduates as important players in that place, have been at the center of major wrangles with national impact ranging from the 2000 election to the Terri Schiavo affair.

Aspiring faculty sometimes worry that they will not find good research assistants outside a top ten law school. It’s true that I don’t hear stories about students writing papers that professors then publish under their own name as I did when I was a law student at Yale. But if you are looking for a research assistant rather than a ghost writer then my experience suggests this is not a serious problem if you teach a first-year class. As a teacher in the larger first year classes you can identify the students who are good and who fit your style before they get too caught up in other things. Some of them will get on law review, and will be too busy to work for you; some of those that don’t will work downtown for higher pay than the law school can offer, but usually there’s someone you will be happy to have who will be happy to have the job in their second or third year. I can’t claim that every research assistant I’ve had has been stellar, but I can say that some of them were amazing — and that they are harder to find when I don’t teach first years.

5. Research support

Research support exists to make it easier for you to write. The most important part of UM’s research support is its excellent law library. But it doesn’t stop there: In addition to the collection itself, we have a staff of helpful law librarians who seem happiest when given difficult research requests. There’s a document delivery service which will get you any book or article you ask for and deliver it to your office within a day if it’s on campus or a few days if it must be sent from far away. (One down side: you can gain weight from the loss of movement caused by having everything come to you.)

At conferences I sometimes hear stories about places where senior colleagues try to tell tenure-track faculty what to write about (or, worse, forbid certain topics or styles). We don’t do that. If anything, we have erred in the other direction — tip-toeing around junior faculty sensibilities so much that we may have provided insufficient mentoring, In an effort to do better in that department, the faculty now enjoys the services of a “director of faculty development” — yours truly as of a few weeks ago — whose job will be to help colleagues (and especially pre-tenure colleagues) with their research and writing by identifying resources, serving as a sounding board, or just staying out of the way.

In addition, every faculty member has an office budget which allows you to hire a research assistant, books and supplies, and to travel to conferences. Each of these budgets is fairly generous, and the Associate Dean has discretionary funds to add to them up for good cause. In my experience, any cause I can bring myself to ask about has been treated as a good one.

6. The University

A generation ago it was “Suntan U”. Today, under the (very) energetic leadership of Donna Shalala and an impressive suite of Deans, the University of Miami is joining the ranks of the leading research universities in the USA. For openers, President Shalala raised $1 billion for the University. YES, $1 BILLION. Now that it’s in the bank, she’s warming up for a new round of fund-raising. The lion’s share of the first round went to the medical school, but the rumor is that the law school might be able to claim a bigger share of the next round.

More importantly, the past couple of decades have seen a transformation in the quality of both the students and the faculty in the arts and sciences. It’s become hard for students to get in; and departments such as History, Psychology, Business, and Sociology have attracted faculties that include a wealth of potential collaborators, adding to existing strengths in Medicine and Communications. Both the law school and the University encourage inter-disciplinary collaboration. The law school has begun to take advantage of these resources (I, for example, am working with a team on health privacy issues that includes participants from both the Business School and the Med School), but there’s much waiting for you that remains untapped.

7. Perks

The law school wants to support your research, and we try to put our money where our mouth is. Entry-level faculty can apply for a summer research grant before starting work in order to prepare their courses. We light-load you (usually only one course per semester) during your first year to give you time to find your feet. You’ll get a summer grant as of right every summer until tenure to encourage you to write — after that you’ll have to submit proposals and make good on them too. And you’re entitled to a semester’s leave before tenure, more or less in the term of your choice, in order to help you write.

The law school is located on a very beautiful campus in the center of suburban Coral Gables, itself a very pleasant city with excellent restaurants. Rumor has it that in the old days the university administration spent more on landscaping than books; whatever the truth, there’s no question that the campus is very nice to look at. It also sports a state-of-the-art gym that’s about three minutes walk from the law school around our picturesque lake (crocodile optional). The campus sports other useful amenities, including a faculty club, a food court, and an on-campus daycare.

8. Miami

Miami is a cosmopolitan city. Part of its identity is as the defacto capitol of Latin America; part is as an artistic and musical center; and then there’s the celebrity-and-tourist thing. It’s an attractive place for young and old, and — if you take care to live in the right school districts, or have kids who qualify for the right magnet schools, or are ok with private schools — a pretty easy place for the middle-aged pater and mater familias. Like many sunbelt cities, Miami is more sprawling mosaic than urban core and periphery. Both urban and suburban living are within easy reach of the campus. Our politics are fascinating and complex, with much political power held by first and second generation immigrants from Cuba, and to a lesser degree Haiti, and Central America. The region now enjoys a lively cultural life, with a rich music and dance scene and some creditable small theater companies. If you prefer nature to culture, there’s always the nearby Everglades as well as world-class coral reefs for diving just south of Miami.

If your work involves domestic issues, you will find them in Miami, which is the city of the future in ways both good and bad. Along with our glitz you will find us on the cutting edge of today’s and tomorrow’s political and social issues: immigration, environmental (think “Everglades restoration”), medical (think “retirees”), and all the social questions that big cities produce.

Housing costs tend to be high, but many other living costs are low and there is no state income tax. The University has, however, taken bold steps to address the housing issue by offering new hires a deal in which the university will subsidize part of your home purchase in exchange for a proportionate share in the equity when you sell, an offer that puts many nice homes within reach.

9. Weather

Miami’s weather is glorious for almost half the year; variable for another chunk, and miserable in the dog days of summer and early Fall. The good news is that much (but not all) of the miserable part comes when the law school is not in session, so you can escape if you choose. When the weather is nice, our central courtyard, the “bricks,” becomes the social center of the community, a place where students and faculty mingle between classes. Even office rats like me end up looking healthier than the wan, pale, parka-clad figures I see huddling on the Boston subway. For those with outdoor ambitions, you can live on Miami Beach, or just enjoy the sea view from a balcony in a tower apartment in downtown Brickel.

10. The revolution is coming

The next five years will see a radical transformation in the faculty, and perhaps the style, of University of Miami School of Law. We have at least six open jobs at present, with the likelihood of much more turnover as faculty retire (couples welcome!). The next three to five years’ appointments, including that of our next Dean, stand a good chance of determining the future course of the school for a generation to come.

At present we have only ten full-time faculty under 50, and only fourteen between 50 and 60; the remaining 17 are over sixty, including some very much over sixty. Our hiring is resolutely in compliance with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (of our last six entry-level hires, two were very experienced lawyers well over 40), but given the overall composition of the entry-level market, it is likely that this age profile will change dramatically in the next few years.

What this means for our new hires is that they will find themselves at the heart of their new community — and have a chance to lead it — much earlier in their careers than they might otherwise. The coming turnover in the faculty, coupled with this year’s Dean search introduces an element of uncertainty about what we’ll be like in the future that may not be to everyone’s taste. Fortunately, the faculty is engaged in a strategic planning exercise this year which means that any new hires will be spared that chore at least. At present, the law school enjoys a nearly unique chance to reinvent itself, and people with ideas and energy should find all the breathing room and opportunity they want. I hope that people reading this will come join us in building something wonderful.

***

All that is very well, but honesty compels me to say that there are also some reasons why not everyone may be happy here. Indeed, there are three main reasons why you should not teach here:

1. Weather

If skiing is your passion, and neither waterskiing nor snorkeling are substitutes, then Miami may make you sad. It’s hot and very humid here from July until the heat breaks sometime in October or September. That means you can have up to three and half months when it’s not much fun to go outside. Plus, occasionally we get weather with a name. But we don’t get snowstorms, avalanches, wildfires, earthquakes, random tornadoes, floods, or mudslides. If you want immunity to natural disasters, move to Rhode Island.

2. Language

Many people in South Florida speak Spanish as their first (and often only) language. The campus is Anglo — although some of the bilingual staff and students will speak Spanish to each other — so this is not a work issue. But it is a life issue: you will hear lots of Spanish in the stores and on AM radio. If you are the sort of person who can’t cope with foreign languages around you, there’s a strong chance you will not be happy here. I don’t speak Spanish, and I only found it a noticeable handicap for my first few weeks here, when I would get lost driving around and stop at a store for directions, then wait impatiently while they went to find the English-speaker. It’s a non-issue today unless I happen to go bargain shopping for some exotic household good, and indeed contributes to Miami’s cosmopolitan vibe.

3. Geography

It’s flat here — no mountains (and houses have no basements). More seriously, it’s also far from many of the legal nerve centers. If you’re doing national work and you are having meetings related to it, odds are the meeting will neither be in Miami nor even within driving distance. That means air travel. And while we have great direct air connections to most of the world and the law school is generous with travel support, we do not have a working time machine. Given the post-9/11 security regime at airports, and the increasing vagaries of air travel generally, it is rarely possible to have a meeting in New York or Washington without spending the night out of town. That can mean having to reschedule a class (something we allow for good causes), which is a pain for you and even more of one for your students. It certainly means that doing national committee work is always a substantial time commitment. It is almost 500 miles to the state line, and then where are you? Somewhere between Tallahassee and Moultrie, Ga.

***

This year I am not on either our entry-level or lateral hiring committees. But if you find the positives outweigh the negatives and have an interest in coming here, I’d still be happy to try to answer any further questions you might have, either in comments to this entry or by private email.

A Long Meeting

We’re about to embark on a day and a half of strategic planning meetings, so I doubt I will be posting much until I’ve recovered.

Why Don't You Come For a Visit?

My colleague David Abraham has taken over the lateral hiring committee (we have two, one for entry-level people and one for more experienced scholars). In addition to permanent hires, they find us interesting visitors (in some cases a prelude to something more permanent perhaps).

David writes with this year’s call for visitors,

The University of Miami School of Law is looking for several visitors for the 2008-09 school year. We are particularly interested in commercial law, civil procedure, family law, and T&E.

If coming to Miami for a year of work and intellectual stimulation and is something that might appeal to you, please let me know of your tentative interest.

Prof. David Abraham
University of Miami School of Law
PO Box 248087
Coral Gables FL 33124

dabraham@law.miami.edu

(We do one-semester visits too if a year is too much tropical paradise for you.)

Why I Doubt I'll Be Able to Attend the Debate In Person

The Dean of Students office is a ticket distribution center for the Univision Democratic Forum to take place on Sunday evening, September 9. As many of you are aware, this will be an exciting opportunity to see the Democratic Candidates here at the BankUnited Center located on the Coral Gables Campus.

In accordance with the University of Miami set forth below, our office will distribute tickets to UM Students only on Wednesday, August 29 and Thursday, August 30 from 9:00am through 4:00pm. Each student is entitled to one ticket and must present a Cane Card.

On Friday morning, August 31, remaining tickets will begin to be distributed to UM faculty and staff at 9:00am.

I doubt there will be tickets left on Friday, but in any case I teach 8-9:30 am, so I won’t get one.

I wonder if I should ask for a press pass?

Attention UM Law Students: Research Assistants Needed

I need a research assistant. And so, no doubt, do several other faculty members. Some faculty members will hire their own; others, especially new and visiting faculty, may prefer a clearinghouse approach. As I am now the “Director of Faculty Development” I have appointed myself the coordinator of this process for those faculty who prefer to work through an intermediary. If you are a 2L, 3L or LLM student and would like to work for a professor this year, please send me your application.

Different professors will want different skill sets, so don’t be shy. Some may have special application requirements but I think most would be happy with a copy of your resume, an unofficial transcript (for 2Ls and 3Ls), and a short writing sample. Personally, I prefer a NON-legal writing sample if you have one, but most of the colleagues will want something legal if you have it, so include both if you can.

Your cover letter should include the number of hours you would most like to work (the range is usually 10-20 hours per week, with most clustering in the low part of that range, but there’s a lot of variation), and the legal subjects that most interest you (to help match you with professors in those areas).

I’m particularly interested in students with Linux and HTML experience, although that’s not a requirement for me and won’t be of interest to many colleagues, so don’t let the absence of those stop you.

You can email me the application bundle, or you can drop it off to Ms. Rosalia Lliraldi, who sits outside Rm. 382 in the library.

UM Hurricanes to Leave Orange Bowl!

‘Canes to leave the Orange Bowl. No tradition is safe!

August 21, 2007

To the University Community:

We have an extraordinary history and tradition at the Orange Bowl: The players running through the smoke tunnel. “Touchdown Tommy” and his cannon. The Ring of Honor. An incredible winning streak of 58 consecutive home wins. And three of our five national championships were won on that field. I love the Orange Bowl-we all do!

As many of you are aware, the University has been working closely with the City of Miami to assess the feasibility of making much-needed renovations to the Orange Bowl. It has long been our goal to have a first-class football stadium.

The City of Miami has been a wonderful partner with us at the Orange Bowl for many years, and they understand how hard we have wrestled with a very difficult decision. Mayor Manny Diaz has been heroic in his efforts to meet our future needs. After much thought, analysis, and discussions with many, many of our trustees, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and fans, we have concluded that we must move our football games to a better facility. The more than $200 million in renovations that the city has proposed would only provide basic and mostly infrastructural upgrades. A part of those funds are not in hand and may or may not be determined until after the proposed construction would be well underway. Overall, the renovations clearly would not address the long-term needs of our athletes and our fans.

The Orange Bowl chapter of our history-in which we can all take great pride-will never close, and we are confident that the legacy of Miami Hurricanes football will live on and thrive as we move to a new location. After an assessment of all options available to us, we have decided reluctantly and painfully to move to Dolphin Stadium for the 2008 season.

Dolphin Stadium is one of the premier football stadiums in the country. At our new home, our student-athletes will have the opportunity to compete in a first-class facility that plays host to the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, the FedEx Orange Bowl, BCS National Championship Game, and that has been the site of recent and upcoming Super Bowls.

Our fans will experience outstanding amenities including one of the world’s largest plasma TV displays, high-definition video boards, club seating and suites, chairbacks on every stadium seat, approximately 14,000 parking spaces, and a large variety of concessions and restaurants.

The end zones will be redone so that our shared home will reflect both Miami teams’ pride. The Dolphins are actively pursuing a corporate sponsor so that by 2010 the stadium will have a neutral name.

I want to assure all members of our University community-students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, donors, friends-and the tens of thousands of fans who regularly cheer us on, that we looked exhaustively into every aspect of the choices in front of us, and that your needs figured prominently in our final decision. The quality of your experience at our games is of the utmost importance to us.

As always, we would like to hear from you. Please contact us at an e-mail address we have established for your comments: umfootball@miami.edu. If you have any further questions, please go to the Official Athletic Department Web site at hurricanesports.com or call 1-800-GO-CANES.

Thank you, and Go ‘Canes!

Sincerely,

Donna E. Shalala

Office of the President
P.O. Box 248006 Coral Gables, Florida 33124-4600
305-284-5155 Fax 305-284-3768

As someone who has yet to attend a Hurricanes football game, I don’t feel this very strongly.

But I know a lot of people who will.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Teach Here -- And Three Why You Shouldn't

Hiring season is approaching — indeed, today is the day that hiring committees get to see the first round of AALS faculty appointments register forms — and the law blogs are full of unusually good advice for lawyers wanting to enter the teaching profession. In recent years I’ve felt constrained about what I could say publicly about the hiring process because I was a part of a hiring committee. But this year, as far as hiring is concerned, I am just a regular faculty member, so I can speak more freely.

Rather than repeat the general advice you can find elsewhere, I thought I would instead say a few things about a subject I know particularly well: teaching here at the University of Miami School of Law. Although our overall US News rank is very middle-of-the-pack, due mainly to our large size, our faculty has a relatively high reputation rate both in US News and other comparable surveys. But none of these (flawed) indexes really reflect much about what a faculty member’s life is like, and thus they are even less useful to an aspiring faculty member than they are to would-be law students.

So, aspiring law professors and future colleagues, I’ve compiled ten reasons why you should teach here — and three why you shouldn’t.

1. Faculty

The best reason to come to U.M. is the faculty. At its best (which is to say, “outside of faculty meetings”), this is a faculty that believes ideas are serious things, but also is willing to play with them. You will see this most vividly at faculty seminars, especially those with external speakers. The faculty reads the paper in advance of the talk. It thinks about it. We don’t let the presenter speak a long time — we want to have a discussion. There may be an element of performance in the questions and comments, but that usually just adds to the fun. Unlike some faculties I’ve heard about, we are not worshipers at the temple of sub-disciplinarity: faculty members feel comfortable commenting on papers far outside their own specialities, and they are usually right to do so as the distant perspective sometimes proves at least as valuable as the insider’s.

While faculty vary in the extent to which they will seek you out – some are shy; others are busy – they will almost all be happy to see you if you seek them out. Very few will treat you like a junior colleague; for most, you will be part of the family from the start. And it’s an interesting family, including some big names in international law, tax, law and society, law and identity, and several other subjects.

2. Institutional style & institutional support

UM wants productive faculty, and it believes in research. But it isn’t about telling you what to do. My own story may be instructive: I was hired thinking that I would be writing mostly about administrative and constitutional law. In fact, however, within a couple of years I had turned into an Internet lawyer, and was writing primarily about computers, networks and the law. At no time did anyone here ever suggest that this was a problem. What mattered to people was that I was publishing.

Another way in which UM may differ from some law schools is that our faculty is routinely interdisciplinary and international. Many publish in non-legal journals — a fact which does not necessarily help either our publication or citation counts since the legal tabulators tend to focus only on law journals. Although we recognize that there may be some reputational costs, we are not prepared to tell people where they should publish. We just want it to be good.

There is no international ghetto at UM (the same is true of tax, a traditional faculty strength). As a matter of unwritten policy, everyone is expected to teach a basic course outside their specialty; the result is both that we can have more internationalists (and tax scholars), and that there’s a much greater community of overlapping interests.

3. Library

The University of Miami enjoys a superb law library, the result of a decision more than two decades ago to make library acquisitions a financial priority. And if we don’t have it, the library will borrow it for you, no questions asked. (As one former librarian put it, “we aim to provide law-firm-quality service”. And in fact, it is almost as good as a top law firm, and the librarians are much nicer.)

The law library has extensive holdings in related disciplines, notably political science, and of course the university library is literally next door, and it also has ever-growing electronic access to journals — which can even be accessed from your home office. We have a particularly strong collection in Latin American and Caribbean law, but also strong holdings in European law. We are weak in India, China, and Russia, and no doubt several other countries with non-Romance alphabets, so if your research involves heavy use of materials from one of those countries, you should check to see if we have you covered. I also have a sense that our holdings for pre-1940 materials are not as strong generally as for things published in the last 70 years. But I am continually having pleasant surprises when I consult Baron, the online card catalog. They’ve done some impressive buying over the years — which is a good thing as the next major law library is a long way away.

4. Students

We have smart students with upwardly mobile ambitions. Some come from wealthy families, but for many a law degree will be the highest level of education ever achieved in their families — a matter of pride for an extended clan you may have the good fortune to meet at graduation. Despite the lures of nearby South Beach, UM students are by and large a studious lot: their awareness that few silver platters await at graduation usually translates into a commendable work ethic. At least until the end-of-term fog settles in, I find that my students have done the reading, and often have something to say about it. There is a little shyness — some students don’t want to ask questions for fear of looking silly; other students worry about being labeled a “gunner” — but ordinarily class discussion can be pretty lively. Although we have more men than women as students, it is often the case that the women lead the discussions and make the most substantive contributions. Classes tend to be fun (at least for the instructor). Visiting professors from other law schools consistently remark on the high quality of classroom performance here.

The UM student body has improved greatly in the past decade. Our best students would be at home in any law school. Our worst students would have been near the middle of the class 15 years ago. The only fly in the ointment is that despite their good college grades and creditable LSATs, a substantial fraction of the class comes to law school unable to write as well as they think or speak. Overcoming this obstacle remains one of our biggest challenges. That said, every year we have students who write publishable papers in classes and seminars. It’s been a particular pleasure to see those pieces go into print along side those of full-time academics.

Some of our students will go on to be national leaders; a much larger number will play key roles in the State of Florida, as judges, politicians, and leading members of the bar. Some people have described alumni reunions as state judges’ conventions, but this is slightly unfair. On the other hand, there’s no question that both Florida as a place, and UM graduates as important players in that place, have been at the center of major wrangles with national impact ranging from the 2000 election to the Terri Schiavo affair.

Aspiring faculty sometimes worry that they will not find good research assistants outside a top ten law school. It’s true that I don’t hear stories about students writing papers that professors then publish under their own name as I did when I was a law student at Yale. But if you are looking for a research assistant rather than a ghost writer then my experience suggests this is not a serious problem if you teach a first-year class. As a teacher in the larger first year classes you can identify the students who are good and who fit your style before they get too caught up in other things. Some of them will get on law review, and will be too busy to work for you; some of those that don’t will work downtown for higher pay than the law school can offer, but usually there’s someone you will be happy to have who will be happy to have the job in their second or third year. I can’t claim that every research assistant I’ve had has been stellar, but I can say that some of them were amazing — and that they are harder to find when I don’t teach first years.

5. Research support

Research support exists to make it easier for you to write. The most important part of UM’s research support is its excellent law library. But it doesn’t stop there: In addition to the collection itself, we have a staff of helpful law librarians who seem happiest when given difficult research requests. There’s a document delivery service which will get you any book or article you ask for and deliver it to your office within a day if it’s on campus or a few days if it must be sent from far away. (One down side: you can gain weight from the loss of movement caused by having everything come to you.)

At conferences I sometimes hear stories about places where senior colleagues try to tell tenure-track faculty what to write about (or, worse, forbid certain topics or styles). We don’t do that. If anything, we have erred in the other direction — tip-toeing around junior faculty sensibilities so much that we may have provided insufficient mentoring, In an effort to do better in that department, the faculty now enjoys the services of a “director of faculty development” — yours truly as of a few weeks ago — whose job will be to help colleagues (and especially pre-tenure colleagues) with their research and writing by identifying resources, serving as a sounding board, or just staying out of the way.

In addition, every faculty member has an office budget which allows you to hire a research assistant, books and supplies, and to travel to conferences. Each of these budgets is fairly generous, and the Associate Dean has discretionary funds to add to them up for good cause. In my experience, any cause I can bring myself to ask about has been treated as a good one.

6. The University

A generation ago it was “Suntan U”. Today, under the (very) energetic leadership of Donna Shalala and an impressive suite of Deans, the University of Miami is joining the ranks of the leading research universities in the USA. For openers, President Shalala raised $1 billion for the University. YES, $1 BILLION. Now that it’s in the bank, she’s warming up for a new round of fund-raising. The lion’s share of the first round went to the medical school, but the rumor is that the law school might be able to claim a bigger share of the next round.

More importantly, the past couple of decades have seen a transformation in the quality of both the students and the faculty in the arts and sciences. It’s become hard for students to get in; and departments such as History, Psychology, Business, and Sociology have attracted faculties that include a wealth of potential collaborators, adding to existing strengths in Medicine and Communications. Both the law school and the University encourage inter-disciplinary collaboration. The law school has begun to take advantage of these resources (I, for example, am working with a team on health privacy issues that includes participants from both the Business School and the Med School), but there’s much waiting for you that remains untapped.

7. Perks

The law school wants to support your research, and we try to put our money where our mouth is. Entry-level faculty can apply for a summer research grant before starting work in order to prepare their courses. We light-load you (usually only one course per semester) during your first year to give you time to find your feet. You’ll get a summer grant as of right every summer until tenure to encourage you to write — after that you’ll have to submit proposals and make good on them too. And you’re entitled to a semester’s leave before tenure, more or less in the term of your choice, in order to help you write.

The law school is located on a very beautiful campus in the center of suburban Coral Gables, itself a very pleasant city with excellent restaurants. Rumor has it that in the old days the university administration spent more on landscaping than books; whatever the truth, there’s no question that the campus is very nice to look at. It also sports a state-of-the-art gym that’s about three minutes walk from the law school around our picturesque lake (crocodile optional). The campus sports other useful amenities, including a faculty club, a food court, and an on-campus daycare.

8. Miami

Miami is a cosmopolitan city. Part of its identity is as the defacto capitol of Latin America; part is as an artistic and musical center; and then there’s the celebrity-and-tourist thing. It’s an attractive place for young and old, and — if you take care to live in the right school districts, or have kids who qualify for the right magnet schools, or are ok with private schools — a pretty easy place for the middle-aged pater and mater familias. Like many sunbelt cities, Miami is more sprawling mosaic than urban core and periphery. Both urban and suburban living are within easy reach of the campus. Our politics are fascinating and complex, with much political power held by first and second generation immigrants from Cuba, and to a lesser degree Haiti, and Central America. The region now enjoys a lively cultural life, with a rich music and dance scene and some creditable small theater companies. If you prefer nature to culture, there’s always the nearby Everglades as well as world-class coral reefs for diving just south of Miami.

If your work involves domestic issues, you will find them in Miami, which is the city of the future in ways both good and bad. Along with our glitz you will find us on the cutting edge of today’s and tomorrow’s political and social issues: immigration, environmental (think “Everglades restoration”), medical (think “retirees”), and all the social questions that big cities produce.

Housing costs tend to be high, but many other living costs are low and there is no state income tax. The University has, however, taken bold steps to address the housing issue by offering new hires a deal in which the university will subsidize part of your home purchase in exchange for a proportionate share in the equity when you sell, an offer that puts many nice homes within reach.

9. Weather

Miami’s weather is glorious for almost half the year; variable for another chunk, and miserable in the dog days of summer and early Fall. The good news is that much (but not all) of the miserable part comes when the law school is not in session, so you can escape if you choose. When the weather is nice, our central courtyard, the “bricks,” becomes the social center of the community, a place where students and faculty mingle between classes. Even office rats like me end up looking healthier than the wan, pale, parka-clad figures I see huddling on the Boston subway. For those with outdoor ambitions, you can live on Miami Beach, or just enjoy the sea view from a balcony in a tower apartment in downtown Brickel.

10. The revolution is coming

The next five years will see a radical transformation in the faculty, and perhaps the style, of University of Miami School of Law. We have at least six open jobs at present, with the likelihood of much more turnover as faculty retire (couples welcome!). The next three to five years’ appointments, including that of our next Dean, stand a good chance of determining the future course of the school for a generation to come.

At present we have only ten full-time faculty under 50, and only fourteen between 50 and 60; the remaining 17 are over sixty, including some very much over sixty. Our hiring is resolutely in compliance with the age discrimination in employment act (of our last six entry-level hires, two were very experienced lawyers well over 40), but given the overall composition of the entry-level market, it is likely that this age profile will change dramatically in the next few years.

What this means for our new hires is that they will find themselves at the heart of their new community — and have a chance to lead it — much earlier in their careers than they might otherwise. The coming turnover in the faculty, coupled with this year’s Dean search introduces an element of uncertainty about what we’ll be like in the future that may not be to everyone’s taste. Fortunately, the faculty is engaged in a strategic planning exercise this year which means that any new hires will be spared that chore at least. At present, the law school enjoys a nearly unique chance to reinvent itself, and people with ideas and energy should find all the breathing room and opportunity they want. I hope that people reading this will come join us in building something wonderful.

***

All that is very well, but honesty compels me to say that there are also some reasons why not everyone may be happy here. Indeed, there are three main reasons why you should not teach here:

1. Weather

If skiing is your passion, and neither waterskiing nor snorkeling are substitutes, then Miami may make you sad. It’s hot and very humid here from July until the heat breaks sometime in October or September. That means you can have up to three and half months when it’s not much fun to go outside. Plus, occasionally we get weather with a name. But we don’t get snowstorms, avalanches, earthquakes, random tornadoes, floods, or mudslides. If you want immunity to natural disasters, move to Rhode Island.

2. Language

Many people in South Florida speak Spanish as their first (and often only) language. The campus is Anglo — although some of the bilingual staff and students will speak Spanish to each other — so this is not a work issue. But it is a life issue: you will hear lots of Spanish in the stores and on AM radio. If you are the sort of person who can’t cope with foreign languages around you, there’s a strong chance you will not be happy here. I don’t speak Spanish, and I only found it a noticeable handicap for my first few weeks here, when I would get lost driving around and stop at a store for directions, then wait impatiently while they went to find the English-speaker. It’s a non-issue today unless I happen to go bargain shopping for some exotic household good, and indeed contributes to Miami’s cosmopolitan vibe.

3. Geography

It’s flat here — no mountains (and houses have no basements). More seriously, it’s also far from many of the legal nerve centers. If you’re doing national work and you are having meetings related to it, odds are the meeting will neither be in Miami nor even within driving distance. That means air travel. And while we have great direct air connections to most of the world and the law school is generous with travel support, we do not have a working time machine. Given the post-9/11 security regime at airports, and the increasing vagaries of air travel generally, it is rarely possible to have a meeting in New York or Washington without spending the night out of town. That can mean having to reschedule a class (something we allow for good causes), which is a pain for you and even more of one for your students. It certainly means that doing national committee work is always a substantial time commitment. It is almost 500 miles to the state line, and then where are you? Somewhere between Tallahassee and Moultrie, Ga.

***

As I said at the outset of this essay, this year I am not on either our entry-level or lateral hiring committees. But if you find the positives outweigh the negatives and have an interest in coming here, I’d still be happy to try to answer any further questions you might have, either in comments to this entry or by private email.

SWAT Team Takes Over Part of the Campus Today

Oh what fun.

University of Miami Police, in conjunction with the City of Coral Gables Police Department, will hold an all-day training exercise on the northeast section of UM’s Coral Gables campus from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 28. The exercise will involve mock explosions, helicopters, SWAT teams, and multiple response teams from most local municipalities, which are expected to send teams to participate. In addition, Doctors Hospital will participate in the exercise by offering simulated on-site medical assistance to actors posing as victims.

Access to Mahoney/Pearson Residential College will be limited to authorized personnel only on the day of the mock exercise. If you must be on campus in the vicinity of this mock exercise-which will take place between Stanford Drive and Granada Boulevard and from Ponce de Leon Boulevard to Campo Sano Avenue-please display your ‘Cane Card. If you must enter this area, you will be asked to furnish UM-issued identification.

New Endowed Scholarship Fund

I don’t blog most donations to the law school — this isn’t a PR blog — but these guys are longtime supporters of the local NPR station and it feels like I’ve heard their sponsorship announcement a million times on morning radio. It’s nice to learn they are our alumni and that they remember us fondly and that they are supporting our students.

University of Miami School of Law Alumni Support Scholarships for Students: University of Miami alumni Jay Shapiro and Robert Weissler presented the School of Law with a generous gift for an endowed scholarship recently. Shapiro and Weissler are shareholders at the Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson Endowed Scholarship Fund.” Each scholarship will be provided to a rising second year and third year student based on merit and financial need on an annual basis.

The scholarships will be named the “Jay B. Shapiro/Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson Endowed Scholarship Fund” and the “Robert I. Weissler/Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson Endowed Scholarship Fund.” Each scholarship will be provided to a rising second year and third year student based on merit and financial need on an annual basis.

“I’m very pleased to be able to give something back to the UM Law School, to which I owe a large part of my professional success,” stated Shapiro. “It is important for all UM law alumni to support the law school in its efforts to attract and retain the highest caliber students.”

“Our firm’s many graduates of UM Law School exemplify the exceptional quality and creativity in the legal work that is afforded to our clients,” said Weissler. “I am committed to support and financially provide for the success of future graduates of the Law School.”

Messrs Shapiro and Weissler, we thank you.

UM Offers Course on 'Ethical Hacking'

So much of what we hear from the UM administration about computers is scare stories, so it’s nice to see something different:

Ethical hacking and countermeasures course

The goal of the ethical hacker is to help an organization take preemptive measures against malicious attacks by attacking a computer system within the legal limits. This class will immerse the student in an interactive environment where they will be shown how to scan, test, hack, and secure their own systems. Students will learn how intruders escalate privileges and what security steps can be taken. Students will also learn about intrusion detection, policy creation, social engineering, DDoS attacks, buffer overflows, and virus creation. This five-day course, running from Monday, July 30 to Friday, August 3, prepares individuals for the EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker Exam 312-50 and will be held at the Blue Lagoon campus. For information, call 305-284-2100 or e-mail f.freire@miami.edu.

But since when do we have a “Blue Lagoon Campus”?

What's Doing (Reptiles Dept.)

I just want to thank all the people who have kept the comments lively at The Buck Doesn’t Even Stop By For Visits while I’ve been somewhat distracted by work.

If I know what’s good for me, blogging will be light for the next few days — I have to write an exam and do major surgery to a paper.

The world certainly is doing its best, however, to be very distracting.

For one thing, there’s a good-sized scaly toothed reptile back in the campus lake. I saw about seven eights of it, but not the snout which it had lodged under something at the bank of the lake, so I don’t know if it’s a gator or a croc, but I’d guess gator. The whatever-it-was had beached the front of its face, nose first, only 100 feet or so from the Rathskeller where students were happily boozing it up on a Friday afternoon, but there was a campus cop keeping the passing students from getting too close. He didn’t seem to be enjoying the job, and gave a rather grim smile when I observed that the gator had a police escort.

Previous posts on our toothy friends include Crocodile Reminder, Crocodile Coincidence, What? A Croc?, Croc II !, Cold Front Flushes Out UM Croc, Fair Warning (Alligator Dept.), Who Gets Custody of the Alligator ? and of course Exam Question: Is an Alligator a Deadly Weapon?. It’s not an obsession, really, just a fact of life.

Speaking of reptiles, the DoJ has done another Friday evening document dump.

Speaking of sinking your teeth into things, or maybe it’s man-bites-dog, don’t miss Army Officer Accuses Generals of ‘Intellectual and Moral Failures’ an amazing article about a Lt. Col. attacking his superiors (generically, not by name) in a prestigious army journal for incompetence and dishonesty in their prosecution of the Iraq war and for misleading Congress about it.

“After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America’s general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public,” he writes. “For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq.”

Yingling said he decided to write the article after attending Purple Heart and deployment ceremonies for Army soldiers. “I find it hard to look them in the eye,” he said in an interview. “Our generals are not worthy of their soldiers.”

Next to last, but not least, the Bush administration war on the rule of law continues apace with its latest attempt to make it impossible for lawyers to provide meaningful or effective representation for Guantanamo detainees. I would write about this but words fail me to describe the petty viciousness of this idea and the manifest hostility to the very due process that I would have thought was one of the great achievements of our civilization. The NYT has an editorial which says part of what needs saying; some more of it is found in this Conversation with Gitmo Lawyer on Proposed DOJ Rules. Don’t look to the Supreme Court to do anything fast — in tangentially related cases, it’s not rushing the process, which is Shakespearian in its delay:

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,”

Meanwhile, only the willful blindness of one or two men (Bush, Chaney, take your pick), ensures that the US Army will continue to bleed itself dry in Iraq, to no visible benefit to anyone outside the White House. I understand that our departure could lead to horrors — and think we have a duty to mitigate them, especially be admitting a very large number of refugees here in order to protect all the people who have helped us. If there were a plausible scenario by which staying on would allow us to enact the ‘Pottery Barn rule’ (you broke it, you pay for it), I could support that. But the occupation is as big a failure as the initial military campaign was a success. No one arguing for staying on has a winning strategy that they can articulate other than “retreat is not an option”.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.

— Thomas Jefferson

Dean Dennis Lynch To Step Down In a Year

This letter just went out the whole law school community (I added the photo):

To: Law School Community

From: Dean Dennis O. Lynch

---

Today I announced to the faculty that the 2007-2008 academic year will be my final one as dean. These past eight years have been the most challenging and rewarding of my professional life. We have hired very talented young faculty, expanded clinical programs for our students, significantly increased student scholarships, and almost doubled the Law School’s endowment. I am grateful to my faculty colleagues for their shared dedication to the quality of the education we provide our students. I want to thank the staff for all that you do to assure the success of our students. I firmly believe that the University of Miami has one of the most talented and socially committed student bodies in the country. We have a wonderfully supportive alumni community who have demonstrated their faith in the School’s educational mission by their generous support of the Capital Campaign. It has been a privilege to serve as your dean. I am looking forward to my final year as dean, to rejoining the faculty as a professor, and to being back in the classroom with our students.

Going Places?

This little item tucked at the end of a column in Sunday’s Herald certainly has people talking,

LEGAL MOVE?

The University of Miami is considering moving its School of Law — from the Coral Gables campus to downtown Miami.

Law school Dean Dennis O. Lynch says developers approached UM. “It’s at the earliest stage of conversation,” Lynch says. But, he acknowledges, “we are crammed.” The law school, founded in 1928, has 1,333 students and 173 faculty and employees — 69 full time, 104 part time. UM has plans for a five-story building adjacent to the law school, with the law school taking four floors, but no groundbreaking is set.

It’s possible to imagine how a big modern building downtown near the courthouse might be fancy enough to justify moving off our beautiful campus in Coral Gables, but I think it would be prohibitively expensive.

The problem is not just that it would have be enough bigger than what we have to justify the move, plus have enormous parking, but that since this sort of a location would be cut off from both the Coral Gables campus and the med school, we’d need even more space to replicate many of the campus amenities we’d be losing (like the courtyard which is our social and faculty/student center, access to the gym, the campus dining area, on-campus child care). And I wonder what it would do to student and even faculty recruiting. This student has a pretty negative reaction, and as things stand I can’t blame him.

The faculty only heard about this on Thursday, and it was presented much as reported in the Herald — an idea to study. It’s good that people are thinking outside of the box about how to improve the law school. And it’s good to think big. My first impression, though, is that unless there’s a ton more money out there to pay for this than I suspect, then this isn’t the right side of the box. And even then, I bet you could do a lot more for the school, for half the price, in other ways.

I especially admire whatever developer first floated the idea — it’s always smart to try to create a client. I wonder if instead of moving the school, maybe a downtown annex would make some sense — although, again, big issues would be parking and night time security. I certainly expect, though, that before we even decide if we want to move anywhere we will do some zero-based planning about what we would want to gain from a new facility.

It would be tragic to do this wrong, and very hard and, I expect, real expensive to do it right, which is why I have to suspect UM President Donna Shalala will be too smart to try to make it happen once the numbers are toted up.

Green Called on Account of Fear

E-mail from the UM Office of Public Safety, quoted in its entirety:

The UM Police Department had planned to support this weeks environmental initiatives with a “green day” on Wednesday, April 18th; UM patrol officers were logistically set to use only “green,” non-fossil fuel burning modes of transportation such as Segways, bicycles and GEMs (electric golf carts). However, due to increased security measures stemming from the recent events at Virginia Tech, the UM Police Department will be postponing this event.

(Despite this setback, the Green initiative seems real. I’ve noticed cops on Segways running around in the past week. Segways seem just the right size for campus walkways, although it seems I missed my chance to try one.)

As for fear, it could be worse: we’re not locking down the campus in fear of an umbrella.

Still a Rock Star

Bill Clinton came to town Thursday and gave the Spring Convocation address. It was a great performance. And given that Al Gore came by a day earlier and presented the “Inconvenient Truth”, it’s been a busy week.

Clinton’s facility with language and his ability to persuade an audience of his passionate belief never fails to impress, and today was no exception. (The audience interrupted with applause more than twenty times.) He spoke for about 45 minutes, then sat on stage in a nice upholstered armchair next to UM President Donna Shalala and answered some student questions that she had pre-selected.

Clinton’s main talk, which he said was an abbreviated from of a lecture he’s been giving around the world, centered around five questions that he said everyone should try to answer for themselves (everything that follows is summary or close paraphrase; but it’s not necessarily actual quotation unless I use quote marks):

1. What is the fundamental character of the 21st Century?

Many might say globalization, but “I prefer ‘interdependence.’”

2. It it a good or a bad thing?

Both. Many benefits - diversity, variety, exchange of ideas, economic development for the third world. But also some “not-so-good” aspects including (1) It’s unequal: great inequality (e.g. one billion people living on under $1 per day)
(2) It’s unstable: we may actually be less vulnerable today than in the 20th Century, but with modern communication/life more people feel the effects of hijackings and bombings
(3) It’s unsustainable: climate change is ongoing and we are depleting critical resources including water, soil, biodiversity, oil & natural gas, fisheries.

3. How should we change it?

Work from interdependence to integrated communities - work locally, nationally and eventually internationally. “The humanity we share … is more important than our differences”

4. How can we do that?

First, we need a security policy in a dangerous age.
Must deal with climate change. Climate change and avian flu are security issues.
Also need to understand that it is “never possible to kill, jail or occupy all of your adversaries.” (Applause)
Third, need a world with “more partners and fewer enemies” (Applause)

Here Clinton cited North Korea, [where the current administration has just conducted a return to a Clintonian policy] as an example of the advantages of talking.

Diplomacy, he said, is “always cheaper then going to war” (Applause)

Clinton then told several stories about making friends and doing good abroad: bringing aid to Indonesia after the tsunami, causing US popularity which had been much lower than bin Laden’s rise to eclipse him. (Applause) And about fixing broken markets in pharmaceuticals that allowed Indonesia to cut its spending on essential medicines.

But, Clinton warned, it’s not just foreign countries that need aid or need to het their houses in order. We also need “home improvement” or many will “wonder why we are taking care of others and not of our own” (Applause).

5. Who’s supposed to do all this?

Everyone. Everyone should give time or money as they are able (Applause)

President Clinton then detoured into a personal discussion of his role reversal with Senator Clinton (there was only very scattered applause at this point). She got elected just as he left office. I’ve become part of the NGO sector.

One project he’s pursued is lowering drug prices for the third world: in the Bahamas he was able by presenting suppliers with data about prices elsewhere to get them to lower costs for a year’s worth of generic anti HIV drugs from $3500 to $500. And in time, to $140 then $100 per year. Markets, he said, were not functioning properly. By arranging for purchases in bulk, by guaranteeing payment [and, he implied, by being Clinton], his foundation was able to get large price cuts. Similar successes in Rwanda and Malawi. The foundation will help buy drugs in many countries, but if they want more help, they must agree to strict structural conditions so aid will not be wasted by corruption or inefficiency.

[If I have the time, I’ll try to write up the second half of the presentation, the Q&A, some time tomorrow.]

We Have Great Students (and Alumni)

One of our recent LL.M. graduates, and a former student of mine, Dr. Daniel Schnabl, LL.M., has published a book with the imposing title of Die Anhörungsrüge nach § 321a ZPO. Gewährleistung von Verfahrensgrundrechten durch die Fachgerichte which apparently translates as “The Appeal for the Right to Be Heard According to § 321a of the German Code of Civil Procedure. The Guarantee of Basic Procedural Rights in the Courts.”

Here’s the blurb:

The right to be heard is one of the essential guarantees in court proceedings granted by Article 103 I of the German Basic Law. Daniel Schnabl examines the new Section 321a, which was changed as of January 1, 2005 and provides an additional safeguard for the right to be heard in the German Code of Civil Procedure and in other procedural codes. Thus the significance of this topic transcends the code of civil procedure. The author gives detailed answers to legal and constitutional issues which are related to this new regulation. In conclusion, he examines whether or not the current version of Section 321a of the German Code of Civil Procedure is compatible with the rule of real legal protection which ensues from the general right to have recourse to a court. The author received an award from the “Dr. Feldbausch-Stiftung” for this thesis.

I’m sure it’s just the start of a glittering academic career.

Crocodile Reminder

The University of Miami sent me the following helpful reminder (I added the photo for local color):

The natural Florida habitat and crocodiles at UM

Eight hundred to 1,000 wild American crocodiles live in the southern tip of the Florida peninsula; occasionally, one of these reptiles visits Lake Osceola on the Coral Gables campus. The University of Miami Police Department, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and other University administrators have been closely monitoring the on-campus crocodile situation over the past few years. Attempts have been made on several occasions-some successful-to capture and relocate individual crocodiles to more suitable off-campus habitats. In addition, crocodile barriers have been erected in several locations to impede the reptiles from coming on campus.


The real issue is that South Florida is a natural habitat for crocodiles. The more the crocodile population recovers from the brink of extinction and the more humans encroach on their natural habitat, the more instances there will be of human-crocodile interactions. Crocodiles are very mobile in South Florida waterways, so the number in Lake Osceola is constantly changing and sometimes at zero. The good news is that if you show them respect and keep your distance, there is no need to worry. American crocodiles are a rather shy species of reptiles. So long as the University community respects the crocodiles’ space and doesn’t attempt to feed or harass them, there should be no problems. There is no record of the American crocodile attacking a human in Florida. Crocodiles are a federally protected, endangered species, and feeding, harassing, or otherwise harming them is a felony. If you see a crocodile on shore on campus, keep your distance and call UM Police at 305-284-1105. Further information on the American crocodile is available at www.myfwc.com, www.miami.edu/police, or through the UM Police Crime Prevention Office at 305-284-1105.

Shorter UM Reminder: Do not pet the crocodiles.

Bar Camp Miami Tonight

The UM School of Communications will be hosting Bar Camp Miami tonight.

I’m looking forward to it.

UM International Arbitration Symposium Tomorrow

I’ll be going to the UM Law School International & Comparative Law Review’s International Commercial Arbitration Symposium tomorrow. Here’s the official announcement,

On January 20, 2006, the University of Miami School of Law International & Comparative Law Review presents a symposium entitled “Dealing With Challenges in International Commercial Arbitration: A Comparative Approach.” Professor Jan Paulsson will give a keynote speech to explain the use of public policy and the notion that a “transnational” public policy could begin to affect enforcement of arbitral awards. Additionally, the other presenters will focus on specific decisions that explicate the judicial climate of their jurisdictions.

International Commercial Arbitration (ICA) is one of the fastest growing fields in crossborder dispute resolution. With the growth of ICA, a transnational public policy (TPP) has emerged that has great potential to change the way businesses and practitioners evaluate the desirability of international arbitration. In this symposium, the International and Comparative Law Review at the University of Miami (ICLR) brings together experts from Europe, Latin America and the United States to consider the classic text on the role of public policy (the New York Convention), the emergence and viability of TPP, and the important trends of which practitioners need to be aware. Other important topics in ICA will be discussed, including anti-suit injunctions, attachment of property, drafting and practical considerations.

Fuller details, including the program, are in this .pdf file. Sounds like a great event if you have any interest at all in this admittedly somewhat specialist subject.

Back in the day, when I was working in a US law firm office in London, most of what I did was international arbitration. It was interesting and highly varied work, with a very diverse set of clients from all over. And now Miami is emerging as a regional center for international arbitration in the Americas.

The Anarchist in the Library: The Revival

Sue-Ann writes, the anarchist is back:

For a while I thought that the person who perpetually moved the Anarchy and Order (or is it Order and Anarchy) from the proper place on the shelf at the UM Law Library, had graduated. The book had been in place during the whole of the first semester this year. The only movement was when the entire shelf of books was “shifted” to make room for more books and use empty space.

Well, I was wrong to jump to that conclusion.

The book was removed, once again, from its proper slot in the call number order of books on the shelf, and gently placed on it side a shelf below. Once again, I replaced it.

Previous related post: Library Performance Art.

We Have Great Students

I finished my grading the other day. I’m pleased to say that by and large the students in both Internet Law and Jurisprudence did really well. I turned in the highest grades I’ve given in years, maybe ever. Lots of A’s.

Average score on the final for Internet Law was an astounding 3.14 (out of 4.0); by the time I factored in class participation the class average rose to a 3.29. I round down, so that 3.29 became a B, but even so about a quarter — a quarter! — of the class got an A.

The scores were even higher in Jurisprudence (a very small, and thus somewhat self-selected class): The exam average was 3.25 and the final average was 3.38. A third of the class got an A (including one A+ — not that it has any official meaning).

It’s possible I just gave easy exams this year, but while I suppose they were a little predictable if you were paying attention, I don’t think they were all that easy. We have great students — and they keep getting better.

We Make An Offer

You can't keep anything from Brian Leiter.

It Could Be Worse

I guess there is a real silver lining to the dismal performance of the UM football team this season: things could be much worse.

We're Hiring

The nice thing about being chair of the newly created Laterals & Chairs committee is that I can dream about all the wonderful people I will be persuading to come join our faculty.

The not-so-nice thing about being chair of the newly created Laterals & Chairs committee is that it's quite a lot of work.

Here's the official approved text inviting experienced law professors to contact me if they fancy joining an exciting law faculty located in a tropical paradise,

The University of Miami School of Law invites applications from faculty at all levels of seniority with an interest in joining our lively faculty beginning in the 2007-2008 academic year. While open to the right candidate in any field, the Laterals & Chairs committee intends to focus its search in the fields of commercial law, health and health policy, international arbitration/ADR, international business transactions, international trade, and trusts & estates.

Candidates should possess strong academic or practice backgrounds, a record of scholarship or public service, the clear potential for scholarly productivity, and an enthusiasm for teaching. We also seek to add to the diversity of our faculty. Women and minorities are particularly encouraged to apply.

Contact: Professor Michael Froomkin, Chair, Laterals & Chairs Committee, University of Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124-8087, fax 305-284-6506.

UM Law Praised

Hispanic Business Magazine has published its annual list of "Top Law Schools for Hispanics" and UM Law ranked second, behind the University of New Mexico Law School. The citation noted that,

Located near Miami, the University of Miami School of Law has a long tradition of educating Hispanic lawyers. Alumni include prominent state and federal judges, leaders in national and state bar organizations, partners in both large and mid-size law firms, and leading public interest lawyers.

(What it failed to say is that we also have a strong international business curriculum with particular emphasis on Latin America, and students have the opportunity to learn comparative law in Spanish and to study abroad in Spain.)

I'm not sure I have the greatest faith in the ranking methodology, but it's always nicer to be praised than ignored.

UM Law Seeks Dean of Students

Here's a chance to do a pretty tough, interesting, and important job that matters enormously to a lot of people:

Dean of Students- Position Announcement

The University of Miami School of Law invites applications for the position of Dean of Students. The Dean of Students is responsible for ensuring the efficient and effective performance of the duties entrusted to the Office of the Dean of Students, which provides services to approximately 1,150 J.D.'s and 130 LL.M. students in multiple areas. Minimum qualifications: J.D. strongly preferred (Master's degree in education or counseling discipline at a minimum) and five years of significant counseling experience required. Strong leadership abilities, demonstrated managerial and organization skills, computer literacy, good judgment, and excellent verbal/written communication skills required. Ability to interact comfortably in multiple and diverse settings.

Major responsibilities include overall administration of the Office of the Dean of Students, including work distribution and flow within the office; providing academic and personal counseling to students; and management of student life affairs, including development of student-friendly initiatives, assisting student organizations with planning and implementing projects, and serving as administrative liaison and advocate for students. A more complete job description is located here.

The University of Miami offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package including medical and dental benefits, tuition remission, vacation, paid holidays and much more.

Interested candidates, please apply on line at www.miami.edu/careers and submit your resume and cover letter. (Keyword: 003133)

The Dean of Students is the face of the law school to most students; Dean Lynch presides over major events in the law school, but mostly he's Mr. Outside, so I suspect that most students don't see that much of him. The short job description quoted above starts with the counseling function -- and that's very real -- but the parts I see most often are that the Dean of Students runs a big office with several assistants, and that s/he sets and administers a lot of policies that have major reverberations in the classroom and in people's lives.

Miami Herald Profiles President Shalala

Today's Miami Herald carries a generally friendly profile of UM President Donna Shalala on her fifth anniversary in office.

Despite grave disagreements with some of what the University is doing in the aftermath of the strike, I'd agree that there's no question that on balance Shalala has been good for UM and has the ambition needed to be even better. I did, however, get the feeling that the reporter hadn't tried very hard to get the other side, and indeed soft-peddled even the gripes encountered. Even so, it's not quite a puff piece, and it's a nice read.

Among other virtues, Shalala is an impressive fountain of energy. Many academic administrators start to run out of steam by their fifth year. There's no danger of that here. Interesting times remain in store.

Why the Law School Needs an Official Blog

I think the law school needs an official blog, run by the Dean's Office, so that we could have quick and official answers to frequently asked student questions. But that's probably years away. So I'm going to do my best to give unofficial answers to the questions posted by an anonymous student. I've put his/her questions in indent and interspersed my responses at the regular margin. Note that the italics are part of the original from which I'm quoting.

They fixed up the student lounge. Fantastic! I didn't go in but it looks like they got rid of the couches and desks and ripped up the carpet. So it's a sterile room with more space for setting up chairs but nowhere to actually do the lounging.

We're having a reception in there tonight. If I recall, I heard that the furniture should turn up in a few days.

Now we can only print a set number of pages, then after 1,200 pages, you have to pay. That'll work great. I'm sure no one will have any complaints about things like oh, I don't know...how on any given day at least two printers are broken, which means you send something to a printer and it just disappears into cyberspace, meaning under the new system you'll still get "charged" with having printed it.

We studied this carefully. 1,200 pages is much, much more than all but a handful of student (ab)users print out. For over 95% of the class, there's plenty of margin for error. Fewer abusers also means the machines and paper supplies should last longer.

Some of the classes, including Trusts and Estates with professor Elements, were suddenly cancelled. I know several people who are angry about that because it threw off their schedule. I assume the reason is that Professor Elements is not doing well. I knew he was sick but have no idea how he's doing. Here's hoping he gets better -- if in fact the reason for cancelling the class is that he's sick.

At present, he's not reliably well enough to teach, alas.

[Long screed about parking]

Parking is controlled by the university, not the law school, alas. E-mail President Shalala's office about the flooding, something might actually happen...

Speaking Of 1Ls

Every new entering class brings with it new student bloggers. Pointers to U. Miami Law 1L bloggers (or 2Ls & 3 Ls missing from the left column) most welcome.

Welcome Section 'H'

I participated in the Law School's orientation program today by moderating a discussion on the law relating to Guantanamo with the incoming students in section 'H'. I don't teach in the first year -- haven't in far too long -- but the idea was that students having a teacher who won't be grading them this year would make students more willing to talk.

I don't know if that was the reason, but it was certainly a lively session, and gave me a great feeling for the strength of the incoming class. I saw my role in this session primarily as devil's advocate, so I didn't make any effort to give my opinions, although one or two may have bled through. I told the class that if they wanted to know what I think, they'd find it here. So, students wanting to know what I think about the issues will find a hint in my 105 postings on Guantanamo and in the 67 posts on Torture. Since the posts are in reverse chronological order, you should start at the bottom, where you'll find Guantanamo: Our Collective Shame. Posted October 10, 2003 and still true.

Of Special Interest to UM Students

This news story about a recent legal decision will have a special resonance for many UM law students who, in their first-year "Elements" course, spend a good deal of time pondering the law relating to the ownership of engagement rings post pre-marital breakups.

Judge Rules Fiance Can Keep $40,000 Engagement Ring: A New York judge ruled that a woman who dumped her allegedly cheating fiance can keep her $40,000 engagement ring, reports the New York Post (link unavailable).

Jilted men are normally legally entitled to get their rings back because they're considered conditional gifts. But Judge Rolando Acosta ruled that because Brian Callahan was still technically married to another woman when he proposed to the Dana Clyburn Parker, he couldn't get back the 3.41-carat round ideal-cut diamond ring.

"When one of the parties is married, an agreement to marry is void as against public policy," said the judge.

His Five Minutes Are Over

You may recall that story I noted about a UM accounting prof being related to Genghis Kahn? Well, he got a second opinion.

And it's all a mistake. Gotta hand it to Prof. Thomas R. Robinson for getting another DNA analysis before cashing in. That's class.

Baron Missing

Ok, it's not quite like Lord Lucan doing a runner, but the bust of law school donor Baron De Hirshmeyer which used to be in the main lobby of the law library has vanished.

Please be on the lookout for:

In beautiful Florida style, Baron De Hirshmeyer (d. 1974) was not a baron in the sense of having a foreign title of nobility, but rather a Jewish guy from Wisconsin named "Baron." After moving to Miami Beach in the mid-20s, Baron built a fortune in the South Beach hotel business, in real estate and later co-founded the City National Bank. He also became the first President of the Miami Beach Bar Association and a prominent local philanthropist. His gifts paid for a big chunk of the Law School's early buildings in the mid-50s and onwards.

By all accounts, the absence of a genuine title did not stop his wife, Polly, also a UM benefactor, from signing into European hotels as the "Baronness" de Hirsch Meyer. Apparently, some time after Baron's death, Polly took up with a producer of TV commercials but upon her death her paramour was disappointed to discover he had been left out of the will. His reverse-palimony-style suit against the estate did not, however, prevail.

Still Down

Sue Ann has figured out why the computers at UM are still down:

At work all of the computers were down. Some thing about the servers and heat and power outages.

And the person responsible for getting things fixed?

Damian.

So, remind me, what's today's date? 06-06-06?

OK. Works for me if it means it will be fixed by midnight...

UM Library Performance Art

Super-librarian Sue Ann Campbell reports on a bit of library performance art:

The library where I work owns a book titled Order and Anarchy.

It is shelved on the 3rd floor on shelving right in front of the elevator.

Every day someone takes the book out of its assigned slot and gently lays it along side the books, lying it on its side.

Every day that I see it, I take the book and replace it in it's proper slot.

Order and Anarchy. Seems about right.

[Update: I believe the book must be Anarchy & order : the interplay of politics and law in international relations, by James C. Hsiung, call no. JX1391 .H78 1997, if you should wish to take in the performance yourself. But I suppose it could be Ordering anarchy : international law in international society, by Rein Müllerson, KZ3405.M85 A36 2000. According to Baron, both are shelved on the third floor, and as of this writing both are on the shelf.]

Law School Commencement Follow-Up

In several ways, this may have been the best commencement since I got to UM.

First, Caroline looked suitably imposing carrying the Law School's modernistic mace around the Convocation center. Our kids, who followed along on the web cast, said she looked like a 'level 500 warrior princess wielding an Elven mythril heavy mace' which sounds about right.

The law school has a tradition of asking a graduating student to sing the national anthem (in English, at least so far). This years' performer could have been the best ever.

The same might be said about the commencement speech by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which you can find (regrettably in ALL CAPS) on her blog under the title, Commencing on the Right Foot. If it wasn't the best in a decade or more, it was certainly up there.

But perhaps the best part was that I managed to distribute almost my entire supply of "Support the Students" buttons, which means that considerably more than half of the faculty attending wore them, a number well exceeding my expectations. It was nice to see the faculty (relatively) united. President Shalala did not seem that pleased, but she had the good sense not to say anything ... although one faculty member told me that the President wouldn't speak to her when she had one on.

As for the invocation? Well, it was less dull than usual...but it didn't mention the union or the students.

A Commencement With Some Extra Excitement Today

It's graduation day for the law school this afternoon, and [starting around 2pm US East Coast time] you can watch the law school commencement live webcast from the comfort of your own home.

Prof. Caroline Bradley will be the Grand Marshall (the person leading the procession) and holding the mace; as far as we know she'll be the first woman in the history of the law school to serve in this role.

Both the rally and the graduation demonstrations have been canceled, at the request of students groups. However, some faculty may be wearing buttons protesting the university administration's disciplinary actions against students for their actions in support of the unionization campaign. Picketline blog has run a series of excellent essays on this subject, and I particularly recommend the Letter from Professor Hugh Thomas to UM Faculty Concerning Disciplinary Action Against the Students and the Excerpt from a Letter from Professor Roger Kanet to President Shalala Concerning Disciplinary Action Against Students.

I heard a rumor that Pres. Shalala banned the invocations from the college graduation, for fear of what the person of the cloth might say in favor of students or workers; whatever the truth of that story, I'm certain that the law school will stick to its traditions and have some sort of clerical although not highly sectarian benediction. Perhaps there might be some fireworks? (Although, to be honest, if we stick to tradition 100%, we'll have a pretty boring invocation).

Most of the attention belongs to our graduates, who having survived three years of pretty hard work now face a grueling ordeal known as bar preparation ... followed by years of hard work as junior lawyers. If you can, though, spare a tiny thought for me towards the back row of the stage, sweltering in my regalia.

We Have Cool Alumni

A fellow lawprof who watches more TV than I do writes,

since you enjoy following the exploits of your alums, I wanted to make sure that you knew that Ray Whitty, a '00 Miami alum (currently an associate at Brinks Hofer), is (with his girlfriend, Yolanda) among the final four teams on The Amazing Race and finished first this past Wednesday.

I admit that this wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said our students should "take charge of their own futures, think big, take risks, do unconventional things, and take large efforts to apply for many things and risk tons of rejection, to get what they want"... but maybe I just wasn't thinking big enough.

We Have Great Alumni

One of the unexpected pleasures of teaching -- unexpected only because I never thought about it before becoming a lawprof -- is watching my students go on to have wonderful careers. In a school the size of ours I cannot of course get equally friendly with every student, but there are some one gets to know better than others. It could be because they talk in class, after class, or write a paper. And in particular there tends to be a special relationship with the law students whom I am fortunate enough to persuade to work for me as a research assistant.

So let me report, with great pleasure, that Adam T. Smith, U.Miami Law '97 (!), and former research assistant, has just been promoted from Deputy General Counsel to General Counsel of Terremark , the people who own the NAP of the Americas. (And no, he wasn't on 'the' law review, although he was on the staff of the Yearbook of International Law.)

We Have Great Students

Mahvish Khan, the author of the Washington Post op-ed My Guantanamo Diary, and the participant in this online chat, Realities of Guantanamo, was my student in International Law last year.

We really do have great students!

Research Assistant Needed

My regular research assistant has had the temerity to graduate, so I need a summer substitute. If things work out, the job might well continue into next year. You’ll be doing general research online and on paper, and helping with my current projects.

The ideal candidate will, in addition to reading this blog, have some experience with computers. Bonus points for some experience with unix and html, as I plan to do some computer stuff this summer and could use some hand-holding and script-writing. And of course an interest in Internet law and privacy, which are likely to be my main writing topics.

Interested UM law students (sorry, I can’t pay others) should give me a photocopy of your c.v., transcript and a short writing sample, either by email or by dropping it off with my secretary. I welcome 1L applicants every bit as much as 2Ls.

Ideally I’d like 10-20 hours of your time per week, but the exact amount and the number of weeks is negotiable. The pay, however, is inflexibly set by the law school at $ 8/ hour.

UM Law to Lend Laptops for Exam-Taking

Seems like the new plan to lend laptops to students who don't have one of their own so they can type their exams is going to be popular:

Legal Twilite Zone: Free computers for Exams: UM Law will allow you to borrow a computer to take your exams. Wow! Didn't expect that one. Nice.

I just hope they have enough of them.

JoNel Newman on "Voting Rights in Florida, 1982-2006"

JoNel Newman, Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Education here at UM (and also special counsel to the ACLU), has written a major report on the implementation of the Voting Rights Act in Florida. The report, Voting Rights in Florida, 1982-2006, which is being issued today, was commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund through RenewtheVRA.org, a coalition of national and grassroots civil rights organizations working to renew and strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

Prof. Newman's report is one of 14 state reports requested by Congress to examine the impact of the Voting Rights Act over the past 25 years, since the last time the Act was fully reauthorized. (The other reports cover Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia.) It includes recent examples of voting rights violations, and ties these to a need to renew the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The report also calls for the extension of assistance to language minorities, including assistance for citizens speaking Haitian Creole, which it says are needed "now more than ever."

In a press release accompanying the release of the report, Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida calls it "the most comprehensive analysis produced in the last 25 years documenting the impact of the Voting Rights Act on Florida elections." Prof. Newman says, "We have made a lot of progress in 40 years but we are far from finished. ... All Floridians need to do is look at the elections of 2000 and 2004 to see that VRA violations are still a persistent feature of our State's political landscape."

The 1965 Voting Rights Act bans discrimination voting practices such as literacy tests and unfair redistricting schemes. Congress is currently considering whether to renew key parts of the statute, notably those providing for language assistance, Election Day monitors and Justice Department pre-approval of voting changes. Without renewal, these provisions will expire in August, 2007.

Below I reproduce the executive summary of the report:

The essential role of the Voting Rights Act in protecting the voting rights of Florida's racial and language minorities cannot be overemphasized. Since 1982 the protections of the Act have been exceedingly important in guaranteeing Florida's minority voters access to the ballot box. Review of Florida's history under the Voting Rights Act since 1982 reveals that the special protections afforded race and language minorities under Sections 5, 4(f)(4) and 203 of the Act are needed now more than ever.

Portions of Florida were brought under the Section 5 preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act as a result of the Act's expansion in 1975. In that enactment, Congress was particularly concerned about addressing discrimination against members of language minority groups and literacy requirements. As a result of the 1975 expansion, five Florida counties were designated as Section 5 covered jurisdictions - Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe Counties.

Although the Department of Justice's review under Section 5 is limited to voting changes affecting only five counties, as a practical matter this includes all statewide changes such as voter registration requirements and list maintenance, state reapportionment, and other significant state legislation affecting voting. The Section 5 review process in Florida has proven invaluable in protecting minority voting rights on a statewide basis, as demonstrated by the objections filed by DOJ and the resolutions thereto, as well as the dialogue occasioned by the Section 5 review process even where no objection was interposed.

As a result of the Section 5 objection to Florida's 1992 state reapportionment plan, the state created a majority-minority state senate district in the Tampa Bay/Hillsborough County area where previously none had existed even though black and Hispanic persons constituted more than 40.1 percent of the voting-age population in the area and the legislative record showed that the redistricting had been undertaken with the purpose of protecting white incumbents. Similarly, the Department of Justice's objection to Florida's 2002 state reapportionment plan resulted in the preservation of a Hispanic majority state house of representatives district in Collier County which the state had planned to eliminate.

The Department of Justice has also interposed objections to two statewide changes to the administration of elections, in both instances protecting the rights of race and language minority voters throughout the state. The first objection was interposed in 1985 to legislation that would have prevented absentee voters from receiving assistance in marking their ballots from persons of their choice in violation of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. In this regard, the objection both protected minority voting rights and eliminated the need for litigation under Section 208. The second objection, in 1998, also preserved minority voting rights, this time in the face of documented experience in the preclearance counties that absentee ballot changes adversely impacted the ability of minority voters to cast a ballot.

Perhaps even more significant in the discussion of Section 5's salutary impact in Florida is the history of the dialogue among interested constituencies, Department of Justice officials and state officials that is the result of the Section 5 review process. On several occasions, this dialogue has been shown to shape results that protect the rights of minority voters without the need for an objection or litigation.

The language minority protections of Sections 4(f)(4) and 203 are exceptionally important in Florida, where the defining feature of the latter part of the twentieth century was the enormous increase in the state's limited English proficient population. According to the 2000 Census, almost 400,000 Floridians live in linguistically isolated households with no English proficient member. Florida is home to an increasing number of citizens arriving from Puerto Rico, and it also has a protected Native American population with limited English proficiency.

A recent and ongoing history of discrimination against language minority groups with respect to the exercise of the right to vote is well-documented in Florida. The discrimination has been particularly prevalent in areas that have experienced substantial growth in the language minority population, including Miami-Dade County and much of central Florida. Section 203 remains necessary to protect this population.

In addition to the state's history and experiences with the special coverage provisions of the Voting Rights Act, a review of the history of Florida's voting rights problems in other areas is instructive in evaluating the need for continuing the special coverage provisions in Florida. This history reveals a predilection by many Florida counties to use at-large election schemes to dilute minority voting strength, the widespread use of many franchise restrictions to purposely restrict the access of minority voters to the ballot, and well-documented racially polarized voting. The state has also repeatedly sought to remove valid voters from the voter rolls in a manner that disproportionately impacts black voters.

Maintaining a framework of federal scrutiny for Florida's voting changes through Section 5 is important in regaining and retaining public confidence in the system - particularly among minority voters. Sections 203 and 4(f)(4) continue to be essential to guarantee an opportunity for meaningful participation in the electoral process by Florida's language minorities.

Great Internship Available

If you are a 3rd year (or LLM) student at UM who is bilingual (English/Spanish) and has an interest in technology law or IP please contact Janet Stearns for information about a really really good 12-month internship opportunity.

Things I Learned About the School of Communications Yesterday

• The male:female ratio in the School of Communications is either 1:9 or 2:7 depending who you ask (the audience was 3:17)
• That didn't stop the panel from being four white guys.
• The faculty in the School of Communications apologize to students for having a 10am Monday event which they assure me is "very early" and in fact "too early for most students."
• It is very hard to speak in a courtyard when planes fly overhead.
• Many journalism majors go on to law school

I already knew they have an interesting faculty, so I can't list that.

In Which I Speak on 'Blogger Ethics'

If you are in the Coral Gables area today at 10:10 am, you can catch me speaking on the odd topic of "blogger ethics" (and how these compare to journalists' ethics) at the UM School of Communications School Courtyard, as part of Communications Week.

As the interloper from across the street, my job is to raises blood pressures. So I'm going to suggest that there are three types of bloggers: Professionals, Pro-Ams, and real Amateurs.

For the professional blogger, whose blog is part of the job, the ethical rules that apply are (1) Don't hide your affiliation with your employer and (2) follow the rules that apply to your job/profession.

For the Pro/Am blogger (e.g. a part-time freelance journalist, some academic bloggers), I think that the rules are basically the same, although it's probably important to be especially clear as to how you see yourself, so that readers know what to expect you to act more like a pro, or more like an amateur. That's for example why I say my blog is "personal", and I pay for my own hosting rather than using UM equipment -- I see myself as an amateur, a hobbyist, and want to be seen that way, whatever the traffic implications.

But for the real amateurs, the large majority of bloggers, the ethical rules are the same ones that you bring to daily life: Don't lie (do correct errors), cheat, or steal (link instead!).

I suspect there may be special issues for the under-18 blogger, but that's mostly about not hurting yourself, rather than about not hurting others.

There are of course far more bloggers than journalists, so we'd expect a few bad apples here and there, and they certainly exist. But overall, I wouldn't be surprised if bloggers had at least as good ethical behavior as journalists, since they aren't in the grip of a role morality and can just act as people. (OK, done the blood pressure thing.)

If time permits I'll also say a few words about some hard calls that come up in blogging, notably comment management issues. For example,

• When is it ok to censor comments spontaneously (this one is easy -- always so long you are clear in advance about your policy, apply it fairly, and make it clear what you are doing when you apply it)
• What do you do about blogger swag -- people actually send me stuff sometimes in the hope that I'll blog about it!
• Someone emails you and asks you to delete a comment about them that they find hurtful, what should you do? (very contextual, and thus very difficult)
• Someone emails you, claiming to be the person who posted a particular comment two years ago and asks you to modify or delete it, what should you do? (this one is hard - you don't know if they're really who they say they are, and it may depend a lot on what it said)

And I will make a heroic effort not to talk about the Subject I Am Not Supposed To Talk About.

---

If you want to read more on this topic, good places to start (i.e. folks I pretty much agree with) are cyberjournalist.net's proposed code of ethics and Rebecca Blood on Weblog Ethics.

Life Is Tough ... For Some

I wonder if stuff like this helps explain why applications to UM Law remain strong?

Pseudonymous 1-L UM blogger Klio writes about her spring break:

Spring Break for the University of Miami Law Student is a bit non-traditional. Because we spend our law school days sparsely clothed in a tropical paradise, most of us head back home to a Abercrombie & Fitch wool sweater hell. Some of us seek refuge from the 1L stress with an inquisitive exploration abroad to places like London, Paris, and Latin America. Others just stay put, tumbling out of bed at noon to crash face down on the sandy, white beaches.

Personally, I spent the week binge writing.

Senior Navy Lawyer Who Opposed Torture is UM Alum

One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows.

I'd just like to note that Alberto J. Mora, the subject of Monday's NYT article, Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees is an alumnus of the University of Miami School of Law.

"Even if one wanted to authorize the U.S. military to conduct coercive interrogations, as was the case in Guantánamo, how could one do so without profoundly altering its core values and character?" Mr. Mora asked the Pentagon's chief lawyer, William J. Haynes II, according to the memorandum.

Indeed.

Lech Walesa at UM on Monday

Former Polish President Lech Walesa will be speaking on campus on Monday.

And I'm going to have to miss it. Yes, he has turned out to be something of a reactionary as a post-liberation public citizen. But still a great figure of courage and an inspiring reminder that regular people can move mountains (with enough help from their friends). So I would have liked to go.

When Am I Supposed to Get Work Done?

In addition to everything else, there’s a ton of good seminars coming up in the law school and nearby on campus. For example:

• An ethics seminar series on "Confidentiality and the Professions" being presented by visiting scholar Ronald Goldfarb, starting Thursday, and being held both at the Coral Gables campus and the medical school.
• "Dreaming of Democracy," a symposium in honor of my colleague D. Marvin Jones’s recent book: Race, Sex, and Suspicion: the Myth of the Black Male (Praeger 2005), Friday, Feb. 17, from 2-5pm in the law school, room E352.
• A Symposium on "Wrongful Convictions: Psychological and Legal Issues" on Friday, Feb. 24, starting at 1pm in the law school, room E352.

More information about these seminars:

Confidentiality and the Professions

The University of Miami Ethics Programs' "Confidentiality and the Professions" is a university-wide seminar series featuring Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ronald Goldfarb, a Washington, D.C. attorney and author who served in the 1960s as a member of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Department of Justice. The series, which is open to the University community and the public, will address issues in law, medicine, pastoral care, journalism, information technology, and other professions.

A series of eight seminars will be held on Thursdays at 3 p.m. on February 9 and 23, and March 9 and 23 on the Coral Gables campus, Department of Philosophy conference room on the seventh floor of the Ashe Building; and February 16 and March 2, 16 and 30 on the medical campus, Mailman Center, Room 5003.

Dreaming of Democracy

In the 2000 election thousands of qualified voters, in overwhelming disproportion blacks, were disenfranchised because the Secretary of State mislabeled them as “ex-felons.”

In January 2005, Ward Connerly obtained all the signatures necessary to place on the ballot a referendum ending affirmative action in the State of Michigan. It is expected to pass. An underlying theme in this debate is the argument, articulated by THE BELL CURVE, by Sander and others, that blacks are inferior academically and are lowering standards. Thus, they argue in effect the stereotypes are true.

In a similar vein in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, black survivors of the storm, perhaps searching for food and clothing, were portrayed as looters by at least one Southern governor.

These events thematize a stubborn tension: blacks still continue to suffer from invisibility and marginalization in the midst of progress. The Supreme Court and many state legislatures nonetheless pursue policies of color-blindness, arguing that the playing field has been leveled, that race no longer is relevant. In his recent book, Professor Jones deals powerfully with this duality or conflict between the notion of formal equality and the lived experience of African-Americans.

To address these timely issues, The University of Miami School of Law has convened a panel of nationally renowned legal scholars to discuss the topic of Race and Democracy, using the text of Professor Jones’ work as a backdrop for analysis, dialogue and debate.

Anyone interested in the emerging field of Critical Race Theory, the Constitutional and social issues raised by the 2000 election, the renewed attacks on affirmative action, the disparate treatment of the hurricane victims, or the future of civil and political rights for minorities and people of color in the 21st century should attend this symposium.

Panelists

Linda Greene, a California native, is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School where she teaches Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Legislation, and Civil and Constitutional Rights seminars. Professor Greene, a graduate of Berkeley Law School, is one of the founders of the Critical Race Theory Movement. She is the President-Emeritus of the Society of American Law Teachers and President of the Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference.

Bryan Fair, Professor of Law at The University of Alabama Law School, received his B.A. from Duke University in 1982 and his J.D. from UCLA in 1985. He teaches Constitutional Law; Race, Racism, and the Law; Gender and the Law; and First Amendment. He writes primarily about race. He also served as an assistant vice president for academic affairs at the University from 1994 to 1997. He is the author of Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action (NYU Press 1997).

Kenneth Nunn, Professor of Law at Levin College of Law, University of Florida, received his B.A. from Stanford University and his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. A former Associate Dean at the University of Florida School of Law, Professor Nunn has taught also at Makerere University in Kampala Uganda and at Washington and Lee School of Law. Professor Nunn has written numerous articles concerning the intersection of race and the criminal justice system.

Kathryn Russell-Brown is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Race at the University of Florida in Gainesville where she teaches the Sociology of Crime and Criminal Law. Ms. Brown holds a J.D. degree from the University of California at Hastings and a PhD from the University of California at Hastings.

Jeremy I. Levitt is Associate Professor of Law at Florida International University. Professor Levitt holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, St. John’s College and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Professor Levitt has written extensively including an acclaimed book entitled the Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia: from Paternalism to State Collapse.

Professor Pat Gudridge
Presenter, Introductory Remarks

Professor Marnie Mahoney
Moderator

Professor Mario Barnes
Discussant

Professor Zanita E. Fenton
Discussant

Wrongful Convictions: Psychological and Legal Issues

Despite the protections built into the American criminal justice system, innocent people continue to be convicted for crimes that they did not commit. This result runs counter to our commitment to the principle that it is far better that ten guilty people go free than that one innocent person be convicted. What insights from science and psychology can help us to minimize the potential of wrongful convictions? What legal and professional ethics reforms are needed? This symposium addresses these issues.

Order of Program

Introduction
Bruce J. Winick, Professor of Law, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of the Institute on Law, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Miami.

Reforming the Legal System to Minimize Wrongful Convictions
Janet Reno, Former U.S. Attorney General

The Psychology of Eyewitness Identifications: Implications for Criminal Law
Dr. Gary Wells, Iowa State University

Innocent on Death Row: an Odyssey of Injustice
Juan Melendez, Exonerated from Florida's Death 'Row on January 3, 2002

Professor Winick is the co-founder of a field of social inquiry known as Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and is the author of numerous books and articles, the latest of which is Civil Commitment: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model (2005). Additionally, he is the legal advisor of Psychology, Public Policy, & Law.

Symposium Panelists

Janet Reno is the former Attorney General of the United States, a position she held from 19932001. Appointed State Attorney for the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida for Miami Dade County in 1978, she was elected and re-elected to that position five times. She is the former Staff Director for the Florida House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, and is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project.

Juan Melendez was sentenced to death in a Polk County, Florida ourtroom on Sept. 21, 1984, after being convicted of robbery and murder. Without any physical evidence implicating Juan, the prosecution's case rested solely on the testimony of two questionable witnesses. Despite strong evidence of his innocence, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Juan's conviction, on three occasions. Sixteen years after his conviction,, newly discovered evidence demonstrated that Juan was an innocent man. After 17 years on death row, he became the 24th person released from death row in Florida, and the 99th nationwide.

Dr. Gary Wells, Ph.D., holds the title of Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University. Dr. Wells is an internationally recognized scholar in scientific psychology and his studies on eyewitness memory are widely known and cited. He has authored over 150 articles and books. His research on eyewitness identification has been incorporated into standard textbooks in psychology and law. He has also served as an expert for the defense, prosecution and plaintiffs in criminal and civil cases across the United States and Canada. In 2004, Professor Wells was elected President of the American Psychology & Law Society.

Lonny Rose is Going Full Time at NITA

Our very energetic and effective director of our Litigation Skills Program has landed a plum job: The National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) has named Laurence Rose as its first-ever CEO & President. He's been NITA's part-time Executive Director for several years, while based at UM, and now he will be moving out to their new HQ in Colorado.

I gather he'll keep on helping out at UM on a part-time basis for at least a year, and then we're going to see how exhausted he is from commuting.

Congrats Lonny!

Modern Times

Tar me with the brush of political correctness if you must, but I think that this event, announced in the latest UM undergrad student newsletter, is a weird thing for a student group at a university to be doing:

Miss UM Tickets ON SALE NOW!
The Miss University of Miami Scholarship Pageant is next Wednesday, February 1 at 7:30 pm in the Gusman Hall. Tickets are on sale now in UC 228! They are only $5 for UM students. Come out to support UM's most beautiful and talented women at this preliminary to Miss America. Group rates and discounts are available - please contact [--------] at [-------]@miami.edu for more information!

Seems it's been running for a while: here's an article about the 2002 coronation.

OK. OK. They get scholarships if they win, &tc &tc. Still think it's passé at best.

Size Matters. So Does Energy

One of the nice things about being at the University of Miami law school these days is that the faculty is actually somewhat cheerful. Last semester wasn't much fun, with Wilma and everything, but that's the past. And the weather is great now too.

Another cheerful thing about the place is that the University itself seems to be poised for good things. We have a new Provost who came and spoke to us a few weeks ago and said a large number of sensible and welcome things. (And one at best arguably sensible and certainly not welcome thing: he intends to be guided heavily by quantitative metrics in evaluating the various schools. So he wants us to identify stuff he can count to see how we stack up against peer institutions. But I digress.)

And certainly a good chunk of the credit for University advancement and general optimism must go to our local dynamo, University President Donna Shalala. While projecting seriousness, she's also doing a huge capital campaign. She's hired a pretty strong team (see above). She's mostly left the law school alone (another smart move). She has a relentless publicity streak, but it's harnessed in the service of the University: She's in the paper all the time. Has her name on a regular column in the local section. And she's a good advertisement for the place.

And did I mention President Shalala's a sports nut? That counts a lot around here too. And now it seems she's also got a nice sense of humor, as you can see from this picture which ran as an ad in today's paper (click for a much bigger image).

Excuses, Excuses

If Inside Higher Ed :: Coping With 'Oy Vey' Students is to be trusted as an accurate picture of what college teaching is like, our admissions office does quite a fine job of weeding out most of the really painful people.

Union Drive Update

It's nice to see UM students working to support the campus workers.

Union boostersUniversity of Miami students, better known for cheering sports teams than riling administrators, are putting unprecedented pressure on President Donna Shalala to improve conditions for about 400 janitors who struggle with low wages and no health insurance.

It's an awkward position for Shalala, a public advocate of universal healthcare coverage when she was secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration. She is about to make UM, where tuition is $29,000 a year, the first university in Florida to raise $1 billion in a single campaign.

Despite that backdrop of wealth, many men and women who keep the private school's grounds impeccable work for less than $7 an hour.

I should add, though, that from what I hear, this article in the Herald seriously understates the extent to which the UM administration has sought to prevent students from supporting the union drive. For example, when students were handing out water bottles to picketing workers, the administration accused them of holding an unregistered rally -- which was true enough, as they were neither a registered student group, nor had gotten permission to rally -- and then subjected the ringleaders to a pretty severe dressing down by senior administrators.

Plus, the Herald's suggestion that President Shalala, one of nature's controlling personalities, has a hands-off or even genially supportive attitude to the students strikes me as ... unlikely. And the quote from our associate dean (who does speak a bit Californian sometimes), makes her sound unfairly dopey.

Floored

We may have somewhat unhappy looking carpet in parts of our law library, but here’s a problem we don’t have:

Leiter Reports: Time to clean the floors…: A colleague, perhaps prone to hyperbole, writes: “In view of the condition of the floor in the faculty lounge, I suggest that we only go into the kitchen area in pairs. A solitary visitor may become stuck, perhaps in a position making it impossible to reach the phone or the door to call for help. Those of you who have seen the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles can appreciate the problems that conditions like this pose even for creatures as powerful as early reptiles.”

Besides…this week they’re replacing the underperforming carpet on my floor with nice new clean and modular carpet. Now when someone spills industrial strength coffee on the rugs, and the inffectual cleaners spread it around, they can just take up a section a yard square or so and replace it.

Ralph Reed At UM Tomorrow (Updated)

I probably won't be able to make this one, and if I did I'm not sure I could keep down my lunch while listening to a lecture on "Values and Politics" from Ralph Reed -- the guy who orchestrated the campaign painting Max Cleland -- of all people! -- as anti-American...but if I did, what should I ask him?

Ralph Reed, who chaired the Georgia Republican Party in 2002, has worked on seven presidential campaigns, and served as chairman of the Southeast Region for Bush-Cheney ’04, will lecture on “Values and Politics in America” as part of the University’s President’s Lecture Series on Thursday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the School of Business Administration’s Storer Auditorium.Thursday, November 10 6:30 p.m. Storer Auditorium. Open to the UM Community.

Actually, if I had the chance, the event I'd like to crash is this one:

Media Advisory for Thursday, November 10, 2005

The University of Miami invites members of the media to a lecture and interview opportunity with Ralph reed at 5:30 P.M.

Update: Oooh, Reed is apparently deeply involved in the Abramoff Indian Gambling Scandal. What a good choice of a person to have to lecture students on "Values and Politics".

2nd Update: You don't suppose we are paying him, do you?

Hurricane Wilma – Reimbursement of Flight Rescheduling Fees

This just popped into my mailbox:

Students who changed their airline flights due to changes in the exam schedule for the fall semester will be reimbursed for any fees assessed by the airlines for the ticket change. The reimbursement will be in the form of a credit towards the spring semester. Read the detailed procedures to receive a reimbursement.

Back to Work

The law school school roared back into session today, and my Administrative Law class was, at 8am, the first class most of my students had since Hurricane Wilma. Those of us without power were feeling the strain.

It being Halloween, I thought I should wear a costume to class in order to cheer things up. I wanted to go as something scary, so I went as a law professor. Here's a photo:

It was slightly disturbing that some people didn't seem able to tell the difference from how I usually look....

Monday Will Be a Challenge For Everyone

This should try the kids' patience: UM will be up and running on Monday...but the local schools will not be. [UPDATE (10/29): the publc schools may be closed, but we've been informed that the kids' schools will be open. Could be an interesting driving day.]

STORM ALERT - HURRICANE WILMA

ADVISORY 7

6:10 p.m., Friday, October 28

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI TO OPEN ON NORMAL SCHEDULES ON MONDAY

All classes, clinical activities, and events on all campuses will resume normal schedules on Monday, October 31.

All members of the faculty and staff are expected to report to work as scheduled on Monday. If you are unable to be at your work site as scheduled, please contact your supervisor as soon as possible and explain your situation.

The University understands that Miami-Dade public schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday. Therefore, employees are encouraged to arrange for school-age children to be supervised by family or friends. A second and acceptable choice is to bring your child to work, if that would be a practical solution.

Due to University closures for hurricanes this semester, a revised academic calendar has been developed for fall 2005.

I suppose if we still don't have power, watching a DVD in my office will seem fun....

Fischl: "UM policy contributes to creation of 'working poor'"

My colleague Michael Fischl had a good op-ed column in the Miami Herald on Friday, UM policy contributes to creation of 'working poor':

Like many universities, UM trims operating costs by hiring outside firms to provide various services, including food and security services as well as custodial and landscaping work. But cost-cutting is never the only concern. The university would not, for example, try to save money by hiring a meal vendor that cut costs by neglecting food safety or a security firm that cut costs by dispensing with background checks for its employees.

...

UM's current policy -- which affects not only the 400 workers employed by UNICCO but also hundreds of others who provide services on campus -- contributes to the creation and maintenance of a class of ''working poor'' whose incomes must frequently be subsidized by local government and charitable resources in order to meet their healthcare, housing, nutrition and energy needs.

What's worse, the workforce in question comprises almost only Hispanics, African Americans, Caribbeans and other people of color. The determination of university officials to balance the budget on their backs is particularly poor corporate citizenship in the context of a larger community that prides itself in its diversity of populations and its history of providing opportunities for economic advancement. It is also at odds with the commitment to diversity that is otherwise a central feature of UM life.

What can be done to remedy this sorry situation? In terms of the current campaign, the workers have a legal right to decide for themselves whether to unionize; Shalala should state for the record that the university will not tolerate any interference with that right, either by its own administrators or by outside firms, and dispel the shameful rumor currently circulating on campus that UM will terminate the UNNICO contract if the union campaign succeeds.

The UNICO people usually look pretty unhappy around campus. This may partly explain why.

'Legal Debate' Blog for HS Debaters

Modestly downplaying her own considerable legal acumen, UM Law Lecturer Lindsay Harrison has started a blog called Legal Debate with this mission statement:

This blog intends to provide a forum for high school debaters debating this year's Civil Liberties topic to engage in discussions with law professors about the topic. Many of the arguments that reoccur year after year in the debate community are areas where law professors have special expertise: federalism, presidential powers, separation of powers, the hollow hope, critical legal studies, etc.

My hope is that this forum functions as a site for clarification of debaters' questions about the law, as well as a site for argument innovation.

Initially, I plan to solicit topic-related questions from high school debaters (and coaches). I will locate a law professor with some expertise on the question and will post his or her response on this site. From time to time, I may post my own thoughts on the topic as well.

I was never a high school debater, but the people who I know who were would have loved something like this.

UM's Marni Lennon Wins National 'Equal Justice' Award

So I read this interesting blog post by Denise Howell, Google as KM, about how she uses Google's RSS feed of news items about her firm to find out what her fellow lawyers are doing. And I figure, why not set up an RSS feed of Google news items about UM Law? And right away I score a hit about something big I didn't know about: University of Miami School of Law Assistant Dean Marni Lennon -- one of the most public-spirited members of the UM community -- has been selected as the recipient of the 2005 Outstanding Law School Faculty or Staff Award from Equal Justice Works.

Lennon serves as Assistant Dean of Students, Director of Disability Services and Director of H.O.P.E., Helping Others Through Pro Bono Efforts. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and graduated from UM's School of Law in 1995.

Lennon established H.O.P.E. in 1998, offering a program to assess the desire for a public interest service within the law school community. The response was overwhelming, and the program has since grown to include multiple legal advocacy and community outreach projects.

Equal Justice Works will present the award to Lennon Oct. 27 during its national conference in Washington, D.C. The award honors a law school faculty or staff member who plays a pivotal role in developing a public interest ethic among law students.

Marni was a student in the first law class I ever taught, Civil Procedure I, fourteen years ago. She did well, and I think she's forgiven me.

Here's how Equal Justice Works describes itself:

The mission of Equal Justice Works is to create a just society by mobilizing the next generation of lawyers committed to equal justice. Thousands of idealistic law students pursue legal careers in order to combat injustice and solve social problems such as domestic violence, unfairly rationed health care, lack of affordable housing, employment discrimination, consumer fraud, or environmental degradation. Lawyers can make a significant difference in the lives of vulnerable people and communities that desperately need legal intervention to obtain justice. But scarce entry-level job opportunities and overwhelming student debt combine to thwart many law graduates from pursuing public interest careers.

Equal Justice Works (formerly the National Association for Public Interest Law) was founded in 1986 by law students dedicated to working for equal justice on behalf of underserved communities and causes. Today, Equal Justice Works is the national leader in creating summer and postgraduate public interest opportunities for law students and lawyers as well as in urging more public interest programming at law schools.

Next Week Is Going to Be Good at UM

The Padilla Event Monday night will be followed on Tuesday by a debate on "The Future of the Supreme Court" sponsored by People For the American Way and the Miami Chapter of the Federalist Society, in coordination with the University of Miami School of Law and the President's Office of the University of Miami. Here are the details:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005
12:30-2:00 P.M.
LIMITED LUNCH WILL BE SERVED FREE OF CHARGE

University of Miami Law School,
1311 Miller Drive, Room 352

Welcome Speaker: Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami
Panelists Include:

• Ralph Neas, President, People For the American Way


• Edward Whelan III, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center


• Karen Pearl, Interim President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America


• Wendy Long, Legal Counsel, Judicial Confirmation Network


• Moderator: Maria Elena Salinas, Univision

For questions and RSVPs please contact Raquel Simon at rsimon@pfaw.org, 850-877-0307, or Clayton Hackney at CH8640@students.law.miami.edu, 305-491-1062.

I suspect the name "Miers" may get mentioned.

And no, I'm not going to turn this blog into a local calendar, it's just coincidence.

Padilla Event at UM Monday Night

There's going to be a particularly interesting event Monday night at our law school. LAFAC and the American Constitution Society have invited Andy Patel, who is Jose Padilla's lawyer, to speak on "Lawyering Terrorism After September 11th: Litigation Strategy in the Jose Padilla Case". He'll be joined by Prof. Stephen Vladeck who is also a member of the Padilla defense team. Prof. Mario Barnes will act as Moderator.

The event will be held Monday, October 10, 5:00 p.m., Room F209 here at UM Law, and there will be a reception afterwards, at 6:30 p.m., in the Faculty Meeting Room.

U.M. Law Faculty Email is Down...

Just in case you are trying to e-mail a member of the UM Law faculty, all UM faculty (and most staff but not student) email accounts have been down all day, and intermittently down yesterday. If someone knows when it will be fixed, they are not telling. We are told it is a hardware issue, but no more than that.

You can still reach me via my law.tm address, but mail to me at law.miami.edu is in cyber-purgatory somewhere.

Maybe we should outsource?

Update (8:30pm) It is showing signs of life now. Grrrr.

Richter Library Has (Had?) a Blog

Googling for a phone number to call to ask for help with a balking online journal collection (the last page of EVERY article was missing!), I stumbled on Richter Library Web Services Dream Design, a blog with this great mission statement:

This weblog focuses on the University of Miami Richter Library's website and strategies for thinking about 'visionary' possibilities for web services. It encourages 'dreaming' about 'academic library' information architectures so that dreams become reality and Richter sets the model for a next generation of academic library web services.

It's a real pity it hasn't been updated since last April, because I think this is the sort of thinking-out-loud that user-centered service-oriented institutions like libraries (and law schools!) should be doing.

Law School Closed Monday

I've just received an e-mail announcing that,

UM's Coral Gables Campus Closed Monday
Medical Campus and Rosenstiel Campus Open for Business

The University of Miami's Coral Gables campus will remain closed on Monday, August 29, to continue campus clean-up, and all classes, activities, and events are canceled for Monday.

May as well go ahead and finish writing the lecture....

Incidentally, the law library will be open tomorrow, as will Subway. So there will be air conditioning and food of a sort.

Independent Writing Opportunity

[Readers, forgive me, but this item is primarily directed at UM law students, although of course I welcome comments from all and sundry.]

Students sometimes ask me whether I would supervise them for an independent writing project. If it's something I know about, I'm willing. And, in the rare case it's something no one the faculty knows about or the more common case where people who know about it are already maxed out, I'm probably willing. You see, students don't often want me as their supervisor: I'm pretty demanding. I see our goal as to write something publishable, not just another term paper.

If you are interested in writing a paper please turn in a two page memo (on paper or in the body -- not an attachment -- of an email) on your proposed paper topic, listing the issues you intend to address and (perhaps) your first guess as to what you will say about them. I need this memo no later than the end of the second week of classes. Based on this memo I will either approve the topic or propose modifications. We will meet from time to time, on a schedule we'll set up and you are also welcome to contact me at any time with questions. I will expect you to turn in a rough draft at a date to be agreed (some time around midterm), and I will return the rough draft with comments as soon as I can, on a first-come, first-served basis. You will not be graded on your rough draft -- the comments are entirely for your benefit with no strings attached. The final draft is due the last day of classes unless we agree otherwise. In addition to giving me a hard copy of your paper, please turn in a floppy disk containing the full project to my secretary, Rosalia Lliraldi, who sits near room 382 in the library.

In picking a topic -- by far the hardest part of the project -- I advise you to consult Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review (2d ed.) [on reserve in the library] for a wealth of useful tips on picking a topic and writing the paper. I've also got a few idiosyncratic writing tips that I hold very dear.

President Shalala Podcasts

How many university presidents podcast? Well, ours does: President Shalala's Top-Ten List for New Students.

First-Year Dinner Report

One of the self-imposed duties that comes with the job is attending the dinner we give to welcome first-year students. If that sentence sounds as if the dinner isn't something I look forward to, well consider these facts:

1. The dinner consumes scarce and expensive baby-sitting resources (my wife and I both teach at UM; we both feel we have to go)
2. The preprandial cocktail party is held outdoors at one of the most oppressive and sweltering times of the year
3. I am always the designated driver and thus the open bar is just adding insult to injury
4. I have to smile a lot
5. I don't teach any first year classes, so many students seem disappointed to meet me, focused as they are on what they fear is an upcoming first-year ordeal .

This year was no exception as to points 1-4, but very different on point 5: a surprising number of incoming students had found this blog, so they seemed happy to put a face to the rants.

And I happened to sit with some extraordinary students at dinner.

• A Romanian (from Transylvania, no less), with a philosophy Ph.D from Stanford, supervised by Richard Rorty
• An American fresh back from working in Niger
• A Polish-born American who recently resigned a commission in US Army intelligence (in part, he said, because the failure to prosecute commanders for recent atrocities -- an absence of command responsibility -- suggested a failure among our leaders to hew to the ideals he had been taught he was serving).
• A Khazakstani Kazakhstani national here on a Fullbright whose English is flawless

And these were not our international LL.M. students, who are always wonderfully experienced and diverse. These are a random sample of our J.D. students.

One could have quite a bit of fun teaching in a place full of students like that...

Koren Elected Chair of Miami Community Relations Board

Congratulations to UM Law's Joanne Harvest Koren, who has just been elected Chair of Miami-Dade County's Community Relations Board.

Update:Joanne also co-wrote an op-ed in today's Miami Herald, Tragedy Can Spur Civil Discourse.

New and Visiting Faculty Next Year

It’s been something of an open secret, but the Dean has now officially announced the list of New and Visiting Faculty for 2005-2006. It’s a long list, and a good one.

Teaching Loads

Gordon Smith posts a round-up of Law Professor Teaching Loads. It seems that UM’s load - 10 credits / year - is no longer as outstanding as it seemed when I was on the market more than a decade ago. Other schools have caught up. So, we still look OK compared to our competitors, but more from the viewpoint of being part of the pack rather than leading it.

As Prof. Smith himself notes, his survey doesn’t take into account the complicated question of sabbaticals. If your school were to give you one term off in seven, then the ten credit load would really only be about 8.6 credits/term — a huge difference.

I suspect that policies on sabbaticals vary even more than teaching loads. I’ve heard of schools where you get one in seven as of right, I’ve heard of schools where you never get them unless you find outside money to buy your time (which is very hard to find in the law teaching biz, unlike the social sciences and the humanities … not to mention the sciences where it seems commonplace). And then there’s the schools where Deans dole out time off as rewards to friends, to productive scholars, to people trying to finish books, or as political chits to buy faculty cooperation on divisive issues.

Then, there’s our policy: all junior faculty get one term off of ‘writing leave’ some time before tenure. But senior faculty have to buy their time off by teaching extra. “Bank” five credits and you are eligible to ask for a term’s leave, bank ten and you can ask for a year, but you don’t necessarily get it right away depending on teaching needs.

Having duly ‘banked,’ I will be on leave this coming Spring.

Summer Research Assistant Needed

My regular research assistant has another gig this summer, so I need a summer substitute. If things work out, I could probably employ both of you next year.

The ideal candidate will, in addition to reading this blog, have some experience with unix and PERL, as I plan to do some computer stuff this summer and could use some hand-holding and script-writing. And of course an interest in Internet law and privacy, which are likely to be my main writing topics.

Interested UM law students (sorry, I can’t pay others) should give me a copy of your c.v., transcript and a short writing sample, either by email or by dropping it off with my secretary. I welcome 1L applicants every bit as much as 2Ls.

Ideally I’d like 10-20 hours of your time per week, but the exact amount and the number of weeks is negotiable. The pay, however, is inflexibly set by the law school at $ 8/ hour.

My Colleagues Have Been Busy

The colleagues have been writing books recently, and this evening the Dean is throwing them a (very) small party to celebrate. Here are the descriptions sent out with the invite.

• Kenneth Casebeer, Work Law in American Society (Carolina Academic Press 2005). Written in the traditions of legal realism, law and society, and materials analysis, this casebook focuses on both individual and collective law and legal power in our society. Organized around the legal contests facing people who work within a democratically established market economy, it deals with contemporary conflicts within finance-driven and internationalized divisions of social labor in increasingly multi-cultural workforces. It is meant to facilitate student speculation on the many relationships of legal practices within, and to, democracy.



• D. Marvin Jones, Race, Sex Suspicion: The Myth of the Black Male (Praeger 2005). This book explores the basic conflict between the legal equality that black men possess as U.S. citizens and their social isolation stemming from white America’s perceptions of them as “culturally alien.” It challenges the negative images and stereotypes that indicate a fundamental defect in the mainframe of American culture.



• Martha Mahoney (with John O. Calmore and Stephanie Wildman), Social Justice: Professionals, Communities and Law, Cases and Materials (West 2003). This casebook provides materials enabling the study of law and lawyering for social justice. It will help students gain a richer view of the profession than they gain in most law school courses, and stimulate them to think broadly about the role of lawyers in working with contemporary movements for social change. Also reviews the strategies and activities of social justice lawyers in collaboration with community activists. These issues are explored systematically, allowing emphasis on different themes and substantive areas depending on the interests and focus of a particular course.



• William Twining (with Iain Hamphsher-Monk (Editors)), Evidence and Inference in History and Law: Interdisciplinary Dialogues (Northwestern 2003). The contributors to this book advance our understanding of how truth-seeking, proof-finding methods work, and of what it means to prove something in a range of contexts. The book reveals how particular concepts, lines of questioning, and techniques of reasoning and analysis developed in one context can be fruitfully applied in others. Among the questions that bring the contributors together: Was Edith Thompson, famously convicted in 1923 of murdering her husband, a victim of a serious miscarriage of justice? Did cuneiform languages really die out in the second or third century B.C.? Was Franz Schubert responsible for any of the guitar arrangements for some of his lieder?



• Bruce Winick:
  • Bruce Winick, Civil Commitment: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model (Carolina Academic Press 2005). Through an understanding of the civil commitment of people with mental illness, this book offers a new model of commitment which strikes an appropriate balance between the protection of legal rights and the achievement of clinical needs. The model uses therapeutic jurisprudence to examine a variety of issues relating to civil commitment and proposes how legal practices may be restructured to increase the efficacy of hospitalization. It analyzes the key issues in civil commitment and makes concrete proposals concerning how commitment laws and their application can be restructured to bring about better therapeutic outcomes.
  • Bruce J. Winick (with John Q. Lafond and John Q. LA Fond (Editors)), Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders: Law, Justice, and Therapy (American Psychological Association 2003). This book analyzes controversial new legal strategies adopted over the past decades. It examines innovative measures, including sexual predator laws used to commit dangerous sex offenders to mental hospitals after they serve their sentences, registration laws, and programs.
  • Bruce J. Winick (with David B. Wexler), Judging in a Therapeutic Key: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Courts (Carolina Academic Press 2003). This book describes the newly emerging problem-solving courts (such as drug treatment courts, domestic violence courts, mental health courts, etc.) and other related approaches to problem-solving judging and judging with an explicit ethic of care. It also covers emerging “principles” of therapeutic jurisprudence that seem to be at work in successful judicial approaches: how courts can encourage offender reform, how they can help offenders develop problem-solving and coping skills, how they can encourage offender compliance with release conditions, how they can serve as effective risk managers, and much more.

Zanita E. Fenton to Join UM Law Faculty

I’m very pleased to announce that Zanita E. Fenton, currently an Associate Professor at Wayne State Law School, will be joining our faculty next year as a full Professor. Zanita visited here last year, and I’m looking forward to having her back permanently.

---

[Update: I have no idea why Zanita’s picture won’t show up in some versions of IE.]

[Update 2: I have no idea why adding

img{position:relative;}

to my stylesheet fixed the problem. But it seems that it did. Here’s hoping it doesn’t also introduce new ones….]

Miami Herald On Wireless Use at UM Law.

Today’s Miami Herald runs an article, Wireless web treads fine line on campus (reg. req.), discussing the increased use of wireless computers at UM Law. The reporter who interviewed and quoted me seemed primarily interested in whether students are using the new tools to goof off in class, although that isn’t the most interesting thing about wireless. But that’s what the bulk of the article is about.

I actually think my students are taking notes on those things, but maybe I’m naive…

[UPDATE: Below I’ve added the stuff the Herald quoted me as saying for the benefit of those put off by the Herald’s registration requirement.]

“That stuff is really self-correcting. If they want to dig themselves a hole and jump into it … our students are adults,” said Michael Froomkin, who teaches an Internet Law class at UM. “They can make their choices and live with the consequences.”

Froomkin said he has heard a lot of talk about Web surfing in class, but believes the problem is exaggerated. He is far more annoyed when cell phones ring and disturb the entire class.

“Daydreaming in class is as old as classes. People, when they’re writing, you don’t know if they’re writing notes or writing the great American novel or writing a letter home. And it’s the same thing with the laptop,” he said. “You don’t know if they’re taking notes or sending instant messages about your bow tie across the room.”

Welcome Pura Vida

Welcome to new UM law student blogger Pura Vida! Here’s hoping Constitutional Law reveals more of its beautiful mysteries during the coming semester.

Inspired by one of Pura Vida’s first posts, here’s my favorite unexpected ConLaw hint: Read the entire constitution to yourself out loud. I’m serious. We read too fast, usually. There’s a tendency for the eye to skip over stuff. Reading out loud makes us slow down. Besides, the language is so elegant….

(PS If any readers know of any UM law student bloggers not listed in the left column, please let me know in the comments or via email. Thanks!)

UM Law Seeks Technology Evangelist

Around the faculty, some of us call this new position the “technology evangalist”.

Assistant Director for Faculty Computing

Requisition Number: 002076 Location: CORAL GABLES, FL

The University of Miami is committed to educating and nurturing students, creating knowledge, and providing service to our community and beyond. We are leaders in the area of education, scholarship, intercollegiate athletics and service. Come join our team!

Master’s JD or LLM Degree; five years professional experience in information technology user-support in a higher education environment, including two years experience in web site design and three years experience in the use of Lexis and Westlaw; and advanced knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, required. Ability to design websites and the ability to design and develop software and database resources, required. Duties include: collaborating with faculty in developing, testing and implementing strategies for integrating innovative uses of technology into the faculty’s classroom and scholarly activities. Providing training to law reviews on student computing and web issues; participating in strategic planning for technology facilities and services for the Law School community; and managing selected projects that emerge from that planning. Designing or coordinating training materials and programs for faculty and staff. Coordinating communication by the Law School Information Technology department with the law school community. Excellent English skills, verbal and written, required.

How to Deal With This Classroom Situation

I have an odd teaching etiquette question. But first, some background.

I am teaching Administrative Law at 8:00 am three days a week. It’s the first time I’ve ever taught at 8:00 since I’m not naturally a morning kind of a guy. More nocturnal, if anything. I didn’t even take 9am classes in college or law school if I could possibly avoid it. But in order to get the kids off to school we have to be up by 6:15 anyway, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And it turns out I like it. The 50-person class is surprisingly lively at that hour, and the class doesn’t break up my day as much.

But an early morning meeting time also seems to have created an increased potential for a new classroom situation that I am not entirely sure how to deal with. Yesterday, a student actually fell asleep in my class. In the front row.

Dull as I may be (and it would have to be me — Administrative Law is a delightful and interesting subject), I’m pretty sure that this has never happened before in 13 years of teaching. Never? Well, hardly ever—there was that one time when they had a big free beer bash in the quad just before my 6:30pm class, and one of the night students whose day job was construction had about four too many, and, well, never mind. (He was very apologetic the next day.)

So, what is the etiquette when a student just slides quietly into Nod? If he had been snoring, I’d have had to do something, but he was quite a tidy slumper, so this time I did nothing..

The whole incident reminds me, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, of a story that was popular when I was a law student at Yale. Myres McDougal, the great international lawyer, was emeritus by the time I got there, but his v e r y slow southern drawl was as distinctive as ever. The story was that when, as a young man, he had taught at Columbia, they had given him a lecture room with a ground floor and a balcony. Supposedly, one of the Columbia students fell asleep in the front row of the balcony. McDougal looked as his seating chart, called on the student next to the sleeper and asked him to please waken his colleague.

The student supposedly responded, “You put him to sleep, you wake him up.”

Well, should I?

Soia Mentschikoff Page

By popular demand, the U.M. law library has put up a (too short) web page about Soia Mentschikoff. Soia was UM’s Dean 1974-1982, and died in 1984. She’s credited for having set the law school on its modern course as a serious academic institution.

I never met her, but her ghost still stalks the halls, at least metaphorically as our now-senior faculty were her young hires and mostly awed by her, and I’ve heard so many stories about her from the colleagues that I almost feel like I knew her.

Among my favorite stories are that, ur-legal realist that she was, Soia never bothered to get a drivers’ license—although she drove like a maniac.

And then there’s the one about filing a building plan that showed our courtyard as a parking lot, without which the city would not have allowed construction to begin on the law buildings. But the quad was then enclosed and nary a spot left for cars. When the building inspector from the city refused to give a certificate of occupancy, Soia supposedly told him that the mayor was cutting the ribbon next week at a ceremony, and did the inspector want to be responsible for calling it off? He caved. The same source swears that Soia then stiffed the contractor…

Stephen Vladeck Will Join Our Faculty

I am pleased to report that Stephen I. Vladeck will be joining our faculty next year. Steve has already made a name for himself, at a horribly young age, as a fierce advocate for the rights of those detained without trial. His scholarly writing promises a great academic future.

We interviewed several other impressive faculty candidates before the vacation, and have plans to interview a small number of candidates in the next few weeks. Given the quality of the field, I think it is highly likely that we’ll make more offers. (Exactly when is harder to say.)

Note: As I am a member of our Appointments Committee this year, I wouldn’t ordinarily post anything about our hiring until the appointments season was over, for fear that it might annoy the extraordinarily fine candidates we interviewed later than Mr. Vladeck and haven’t yet gotten around to voting on. I’m posting this because I found the announcement on the law school’s public web page, which suggests that it’s not exactly a secret.

Don’t panic, dear candidates, we interviewed him very early.

Crocodile Coincidence

It is true that the UM Crocodile (ver. 2.0) is taking a vacation just at the same time as I am.

But that is the only similarity. Any rumors that we are the same person, or related in any other way, should be disregarded.

Croc II !

Seems like the capture of “Donna” (who turns out to have been a guy, hmm…) a few days ago isn’t the end of UM’s crocodile saga. Now there’s a second croc in the lake at the center of campus: Crocodile hunt at lake proceeds. And, yes, rather than leave our top tourist attraction, those trappers are at it again:

Some students, passing by the scene, said they were sad to see yet another unofficial mascot on the lam from trappers. On Sunday, Hardwick bagged a nearly eight-foot male croc named “Donna” from the lake.

“I think they’re probably safer here than they would be wherever they’re taking them,” said Nadya Verier-Taylor, a freshman at the university.

“Nobody cared he was there until 15,000 news vans showed up. It isn’t like anybody’s dog’s been eaten.”

Hardwick agreed UM really is a crocodile’s paradise, with its calm, boat-free waters and ample food supply of Moscovy duck, turtles and fish but said relocating the scaly beast was in its own best interest.

“We wouldn’t want him becoming someone’s fraternity prank,” Hardwick said

Actually I think the croc may be smarter than me. UM is a great place to spend late December: warm, sunny, quiet (the students are mostly gone). Idillic, really.

But I’m leaving Saturday for Didsbury, which is at the south edge of Manchester in the UK. In December it’s cold and wet and dark there. (AFAIK, no crocodiles, just family.)

Cold Front Flushes Out UM Croc

We’re having our annual taste of ‘winter’ — tempertures got down below 60 last night. This seems to bother natives, not least UM’s crocodile, who surfaced for some sun … leading to his undoing: Elusive UM croc seeks sun, gets caught.

Amusingly, UM students had nicknamed the croc “Donna” — after Donna Shalala, presumably.

The campus has been crawling with reporters and TV cameras every time they thought Donna was about to be caught. The media presence wasn’t as bad as during the debates, but it was still pretty large. And the cameras seemed to like to linger on cute students…

Even the staid Miami Herald has had fun with this one:

The unwelcome croc eventually had his snout taped shut and was carted away from campus, past students sunbathing by UM’s pool.

Although there had been sporadic sightings of a croc on campus since February, in recent weeks the croc seemed to have taken up permanent residence. University officials felt that for safety, it needed to be caught and relocated.

“We’re part of the Gables waterway, and that’s how he’s been coming in and out of the lakes,” said Margot Winick, a UM spokeswoman.

Hardwick had tried in vain several times to capture the croc, who dove deep into the the lake for long stretches to avoid trappers.

The American crocodile, while generally more docile than its more prevalent cousin, the American alligator, is much more difficult to catch — partly because it has endangered status, which makes it illegal to injure or kill one, Hardwick said.

There are 600 to 1,000 American adult crocs in Florida, and nearly 1.4 million alligators. “When the croc perceives a threat, he’ll go to the bottom of a lake and stay there for two hours,” he said. “An alligator spends more time on the surface.”

The croc will be relocated to the Southern Glades Wildlife Management Area near the Miami-Dade and Monroe county line. But Hardwick predicted the croc would return within six months.

“It’s a beautiful campus. Who wouldn’t want to stay here?” Hardwick said. “He felt OK here when he found out only Gators were banned.”

It's Miller Time at UM

UM Medical School announced a $100 million gift today, from the family of the late Leonard Miller, a longtime South Florida businessman and philanthropist.. The Medical School will be renamed the “Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine”.

Officially, anyway. That same announcement also refers to it as “The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine”.

The Med School Miller School is the biggest academic unit at UM. I bet for half that, or even less, you could name the law school almost (but not quite) anything you wanted.

Meanwhile, this enormous gift means that the university is 80% of the way towards its billion-dollar fund-raising goal, with $500+ million going to the Med School.

What? A Croc?

It seems that the scenic lake in the center of campus has attracted an unwanted visitor:

The Department of Public Safety, by permission of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, has arranged for the capture and relocation of a 9-foot, 250-pound American crocodile that has taken up residence in Lake Osceola. Pesky Critters, a well-known local wildlife control company, will be at the lake over the next few days until the animal is captured. Public Safety reminds everyone that this large, carnivorous animal is a protected species and, by law, should not be fed, harassed, or approached for any reason except by the Pesky Critters staff. There are no known attacks on humans by crocodiles in the United States, but that does not mean that if provoked or threatened it could not happen. Everyone is encouraged to follow the law and common sense by leaving the crocodile alone. Public Safety will monitor and report any changes in the status as they become available. Any sightings of the animal on land should be reported to Public Safety

Fortunately, I’m in DC visiting the folks for the next few days.

Update: Our crocodile seems to be bucking a trend in crocodile migration — most of them are going south.

UM President Donna Shalala Scores a Touchdown

It’s fun having a University President who does good stuff:

Men-only Policy Brings Scrutiny to Booster Club—When Natalie Lemos applied for membership to the Miami Touchdown Club, a bastion of football worship, the mother of four, family lawyer and Hurricanes football fan was told no.

You’re a woman, the club said. No women allowed.

Lemos fired off a furious letter to University of Miami President Donna Shalala, noting that the club sponsors UM’s annual awards banquet.

Shalala’s response? The former Clinton Cabinet member said she, too, would apply to join the club.

Turns out the Touchdown Club may be changing its game plan.

She scores!

Vote Suppression, GOP Style

Of course the GOP didn’t want UM students to vote. And they made it as hard as possible. But the students out-waited them.

e-Veritas, 11-04-04—Students turned out by the hundreds on Tuesday to vote at the new campus precinct at the UM Convocation Center. The turnout apparently caught the Miami-Dade Elections Department unprepared, despite the fact that their rolls reflected that students had registered in record numbers for this election. Nevertheless, the intrepid students and area neighbors maintained their good humor and endured wait times of up to five hours — sustained by dozens of pizzas and crates of bottled water provided by the University. The total number of voters exceeded 1,000, and there were as many as 300 people in line at any given time. University staff and student leaders provided support and helped maintain order, and the last voters finally cast their ballots just after midnight.

On Wednesday, President Donna E. Shalala praised students for their “passionate commitment to our democracy.” She subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Elections Department citing “woefully inadequate provision of voting equipment and knowledgeable staffing,” as well as the department’s “lack of flexibility and inability to adjust to what were extraordinary lines during the course of the day.” The president also requested that the elections supervisor come to campus to meet with student leaders and assure them of adequate preparation for the next election.

Once again Shalala seizes the moment — feeding and watering the students was a wonderful move.

Material Witness Statute Abuse is Founded on a Misreading of the Law

My exuberant colleague Ricardo J. Bascuas has put online an early draft of an important article, The Unconstitutionality of “Hold Until Cleared”: Reexamining Material Witness Detentions in the Wake of the September 11th Dragnet ( forthcoming Vanderbilt Law Review, April 2005).

The article argues very persuasively that the material witness statute is being seriously misused to hold innocent people in jail, and to sweat possibly guilty ones when the government lacks the information to charge them. But we knew that.

What makes this article special is that it also demonstrates through careful textual analysis that the courts which approved the government’s use of the material witness statute to jail people fundamentally misunderstood the original meaning of the orignial material witness statute, which was in fact carefully designed to do no such thing, but only to allow the jailing of witnesses who failed to promise to appear, or who failed to appear when bound to do so.

Not only is this a great article, but it’s Ricardo’s first one — a sign of a glittering academic career in the making.

Yet Another UM Blogger

All the UM bloggers this year have attitude. “Tortious Interference” concludes his (I bet the author is male) first post at the Legal Twilight Zone with, “I hate spel checker. Not using it.” Meanwhile, I wish I would remember to use it…

William Jenning Bryan, the Wizard of Oz, and Coral Gables

Polymath Robert Waldman, who lives in Italy, educates me about Coral Gables, the town I live and work in. In Presidential Candidates in Coral Gables, he outlines Coral Gables’s connection with William Jenning Bryan, and simultaneously transforms my understanding of The Wizard of Oz:

William Jenning Bryan was the model for the cowardly lion, who was not a caricature of draft dodging hawks. This is demonstrated by Hugh Rockoff in an article belaboring the obvious point that the Wizard of Oz is an allegory on monetary policy (Journal of Political Economy Vol 98 pp 739-760.

It will never be the same…

Talkleft Has a UM Student Blogging the Debate Experience

TalkLeft: Blogging the Miami Debate, written by a UM student living in the dorms.

A little taste:

Secret Service will be searching my apartment and the apartments surrounding the Convocation Center on Thursday morning, so I have to wake up early so they can do their jobs; but with my paranoia I’m taking my lap top and all personal documents out of my room just because well, that’s just me.

Presidential Debate?

Since basically none of us can get tickets to attend the debate being held here on campus Thursday night — all the tickets go to the press, except for a handful that go to students — it might as well be happening on Mars…except for the fact that we get three emails a day warning about Draconian security measures and a ban on parking on this side of the State line.

The Miami Herald pretty much captures the exicted atmosphere on campus in the first paragraphs of today’s front-page story, Security is tight on a laid-back campus (obnoxious reg. req):

Security at the University of Miami tightened Monday as the presidential debate loomed: Barricades and fences appeared. Police cars prowled back roads. Students were warned to wear IDs around their necks — or face being booted off campus.

And, yet, there was undergrad Amy Pearlman, at the lip of a campus lake, sitting on a blue towel in her bathing suit, brow furrowed, studying a psychology textbook.

Her student ID? It was in her purse.

“I didn’t want to get a tan line,” she said, shrugging.

In addition to this pix of a typical student, hard at work studying, please note, the Herald provides a link to the UM student debate blog … which seems slashdotted at the moment.

Two Articles on UM Hosting the Presidential Debate

The Herald has two puffy but not inaccurate articles about how UM snagged the first presidential debate, and what it hopes to get out of it.

• Bush-Kerry debate’s real winner is UM

• Q & A WITH DONNA SHALALA: `I’m looking for steady progress’

Live Webcast of Dalai Lama's speech

The University of Miami Libraries and the School of Communications are sponsoring a live Webcast from the UM Convocation Center of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s speech A Human Approach to World Peace beginning at 3 p.m. today. Visit www.miami.edu/dalailama.

UM Plans for Pre-Debate Lockdown

Snippet from Official Email in my inbox:

As a security measure, the University has decided that from Monday, September 27 through Thursday, September 30, all faculty, administration, staff, and students must wear their University ID while on campus.

This is the announcement the University has made, on [URL]:

“All University of Miami faculty members, staff, and students will be required to wear their UM identification (‘Cane Card) at all times while on the Coral Gables campus from Monday, September 27, through Thursday, September 30. Faculty, staff, and students without proper identification may be stopped by security personnel and asked to leave campus. Faculty, staff, and students who do not have a ‘Cane Card are strongly urged to obtain one now in Allen Hall, Room 111.

“There is no charge for an initial ‘Cane Card. If you have lost your ‘Cane Card, a replacement costs $15. Lanyards will be distributed at various locations on campus, including University of Miami parking garages, parking lots, the food court, and events attended by UM faculty, staff, and students. In addition, individual University departments and divisions also will distribute lanyards with plastic holders to employees. “

You should also check [another URL] for additional information.

From which I conclude two things. First, the media/blog hoo-ha about how GW hasn’t agreed to any debates yet is a waste of time. He’s coming. Second, this will be a good week to work at home.

Is the UM Law Library Haunted?

Jason Wolf asks whether the fourth floor of the UM law library is haunted:

i think the fourth floor of the library is haunted. my proof is that i hear eerie music at strange times (like when no one else is up there except me) and it seems to be coming from the walls or the air. i’m not the only one who hears it, either. at first i thought it was someone’s computer, but it’s not.

Bricks on the Brain is dubious, but asks why the law library is so utilitarian, lacking the “hardwood floors or lush carpets, hardwood shelves, brass door handles, ornate light fixtures, portraits of prominent alumni, etc..” that he thinks raise the tone and are conducive to long hours of studying.

These are both good questions.

The law library looks Spartan because it was built with a firm eye on the bottom line. Doing it plush would have cost three or more times as much. That money would have had to come from somewhere. It couldn’t come from the endowment, because there just isn’t that much endowment. It couldn’t come from tuition, because that’s already too high. It couldn’t come from crowding in more students, because we want smaller classes not larger ones. And it didn’t come from donations, because no one gave us the many extra millions that would have been needed. So to “Bricks” I say — you’re right, that would have been nice. If you strike it big in your law career, we’ll still be here.

On the haunting question, I’d be perfectly prepared to believe that Soia Mentschikoff stalks the halls, especially the fourth floor which is where her most stalwart fans have their offices. But I can’t figure out why she’d play music. Dropping something on you to get your attention might be more her style. Could it be the UM marching band rehearsing outside? Also, keep in mind that sound travels well through the floors. When the faculty member with an office under mine plays his CDs lound, I hear them.

Welcome to 'Bricks on the Brain'

Welcome to Bricks on the Brain, a new blog by a UM law student. S/he doesn’t provide any biographical information, but I’m guessing that s/he is not a first year student, and has

• Keen powers of observation. (“Without a doubt the majority of UM Law professors are left-leaning. But usually politics are kept out of the classrooms, and policy issues within the law receive balanced coverage. … Students at UM are very respectful of each other’s political and religious views. With one exception, I have never seen any flyers I felt were objectionable, inflammatory, or in bad taste. For political discussions on the Bricks, civility is the norm.”)

• A taste for interesting questions (“Do private outline banks violate the UM Law Honor Code?”)

• And last, but not least, a good grasp of the obvious (“Professor Froomkin[’s] … blog focuses on politics. He clearly does not like president Bush.”)

One to watch.

Incidentally, on the question about outline banks, I’d be surprised, unless there is a rule against unintentionally passing on mistaken information….

#2 Again

Hispanic Business Magazine’s annual ranking of the Top Ten Law Schools for Hispanics rates UM #2—again.

Here are their rankings:

1. University of Texas (Austin)
2. University of Miami
3. University of Florida
4. St. Mary’s University
5. Stanford University
6. Loyola Marymount University
7. University of Arizona
8. Southwestern University
9. University of Nevada, Las Vegas
10. Florida State University.

Please Help Me Name My (Alleged) New Computer

Months and months after I gave up asking for it, it now appears that the Law School is going to give me, in addition to my MS-bound desktop, a Unix box inside our firewall to use as a ‘sandbox’ to test out various things I think we should be doing in the law school — blogging tools, collaborative drafting and the like. (This development is obviously unrelated to the impending arrival of an outside consultant who is going to evaluate the IT department’s faculty and student support.)

So I get to pick a fourth-level name for it, to sit on top of law.miami.edu. The ordinary naming conventions for law school computers used to be fast cars (e.g. ‘spitfire’) without thought for any trademark issues, and then cities (e.g. ‘Casablanca’, ‘Chicago’) despite the possibilities for confusion with eponymous law schools. I never liked either of those conventions, and I’m told I don’t have to adhere to them.

The ideal name might have at least several of the following not entirely consistent properties:

• Not too long (I type badly)
• Some connection to the law
• Not too serious, or maybe even funny
• Uses a naming convention that could be used for other machines if it catches on
• Not named after a living person

or, it might be so clever it doesn’t have any of them.

My first thought was to pick a legal philosopher, like Fuller (but that’s a bit serious). Or a legal concept, like “tort”, but that’s potentially confusing since the machine won’t be dedicated to that subject, and who’d want to get “bankruptcy” or “domesticviolence”?

Then, I was thinking I might call it “Soia” for Soia Mentschikoff, UM’s late great Dean whose ghost is still invoked at faculty meetings, but I’d worry that some here might find that sacrilegious since I didn’t know her. Then again, by all accounts Soia never worried about what anyone thought, and as a practicing Legal Realist never followed any rule she didn’t like. Accounts differ as to whether she got building permits for the law buildings she built, and the extent to which she complied with them. It’s generally agreed, though, that she never had a driver’s license, although she drove a car.

A Very Exclusive Club

My distinguished, articulate, and wry colleague Susan Haack, who holds a joint appointment in Philosophy and Law has been honored with inclusion in a book profiling One Hundred Philosophers : The Life and Work of the World’s Greatest Thinkers.

Update: For those who do not follow the link, I should perhaps make clear that this does not appear to be a peer-reviewed production, but rather a well-illustrated list of the 100 greatest philosophers of all time — and not just Western ones. There’s a page or so on each philosopher, nice graphics, and some potted outlines of major schools of philosophy. So according to Dr. Peter J., King, Ph.D. Susan is up there with Plato, Aristotle and K’ung-fu-tzu (Confucius). And Peter Singer.

Also, I’ve changed the link so that if you buy the book, a small commission goes to ICANNWatch.org.

A Real College Football Scandal (Elsewhere!)

I hope exposure of this practice causes its elimination.

I am happy to report that I queried a UM sports administrator if UM ever gave academic college credit for sports and received a pithy emailed reply: “No way, no how!”

LawFool Joins the UM Student Blogging Cohort

As noted by Jason Wolf in comments to an earlier item UM has another student blogger (that makes a net of three who I know of), LawFool. Judging only from what’s visible this evening, he’s at least as irascible as Wolf’s own Random Acts of Meanness .

Nevertheless, if I were the Dean — perish the thought! — I’d be reading these guys ever day. And even though there’s little I personally can do about the things that annoy them, it’s very interesting to see the classroom from the other side of the podium.

(Even though I don’t actually use a podium, and even though I haven’t taught first years for some time now.)

Hey guys, look me up some time - Room 382.

Dali Lama to Visit U. Miami

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be speaking here, Wednesday, September 22 on “A Human Approach to World Peace.” He’ll be speaking at several events around town, but tickets for the UM speech on will be restricted to students, faculty and staff. No word yet on how to get a ticket…

What Belongs on the Faculty Desktop?

My colleagues at UM Law endure a hyper-centralized information technology regime. Unless they raise a great ruckus, faculty members here get issued a Windows XP computer in “lockdown” mode, which prevents the installation of new programs on the desktop. (I raised a ruckus.) What’s worse, the suite of programs offered to faculty has actually shrunk in the last few years, as the IT dept discovered that if you hand out fewer programs, they are easier to support.

The faculty has finally rebelled, although the actual flashpoint was lousy network performance and downtime. As part of an effort designed to head off what might otherwise become a pitchfork-wielding mob, the administration has asked for suggestions as to what programs should be part of the default faculty suite. Of course, since most of us haven’t much experience with other office environments recently, we’re not that well placed to know what’s out there or what we might find enhances our productivity or makes new things possible or even easy..

I’ve made my own little list, but I’m sure it’s deficient in imagination if not necessarily length. Suggestions needed and welcome. Please assume that the desktop will be a PC with XP as the OS—I think the odds of getting anything else on the faculty desktop in this iteration are about zero. And the network itself will probably stay Novell. You’ll see from my list, though, that I have assumed the existence of a *nix internet server as we currently have one, even if it’s not that well maintained.

So, what should be on my list?

Here’s my first draft. Needless to say, it’s somewhat different from the current default.

Basic Tools

• Choice of Office Suites: (1) Open Office free, open-source clone of Word; (2) MS Word, (3) CorelWordperfect
• Powerpoint
• Firefox (browser)
• Common browser plugins e.g. Flash, Quicktime, Realplayer
• Thunderbird (email)
• a SIMPLE standards-compliant (ie. NOT front page) HTML creation tool. There are many free ones. (Nvu is one possibility — works well with firefox/thunderbird)
• Acrobat Reader
• a PDF creation tool [built into WordPerfect but needed for OpenOffice and Word users]. Either “Acrobat” itself, or a less expensive alternative [I have not tested these] e.g. Pdf995 (free), or ExpertPDF ($35/license)
• FTP (I suggest WinSPC2 - free)
• An ad-blocker (either AdSubtract, or get free Adblocker plugin for Firefox, combined with flashblocker plugin)
• Clipmate (a superb, essential, clipboard extender — makes moving data between programs and especially from WL & Lexis to wordprocessor very easy; also remembers last N hundred things you moved to clipboard for re-use). This one is really essential!
• Irfanview [viewer for many file formats] Free [N.B. also should install 100% of plugins, which is a separate file]
• An RSS news reader.
• Telnet program (Powerterm, provided by university, or a free tool such as putty.exe)
• A way to send faxes directly from wordprocessors FaxWare
• Anit-Virus tool
• Calendar program (Sidekick 98? Something more modern w/ group functions?)
• Winzip
• PGP (Freeware version available, current version is 6.5.8)

Advanced Tools I’d Like But Most People Won’t Want Yet

• A CSS editor (preferably WYSIWYG, ie something like StyleMaster)

Server-side tools

• Updated version of standard tools, e.g. Apache, Perl, Pine, mySQL, PHP
• Common cgi programs e.g. web counters, forms, for inclusion in faculty created web pages
• Mailing lists that are easy for faculty to configure, that allow students to sign up via a web form, and that automatically archive content
• A tool, ideally web-based, that allows faculty to password protect online documents and directories [law profs are not going to code .htaccess files], and to manage password access
• Blogging tools, e.g. movable type

We've Hired and We Plan to Do it Again

Larry Solum’s list of new hires reminds me that I failed to blog the fact that we’ve hired one new tenure-track faculty member for next year. He wowed us with his faculty presentation, and with the paper he has ready for publication, and I think he’s going to be great.

Mario L. Barnes, Associate Professor of Law. A graduate of the University of California Law School at Berkeley, where he was the Co-editor-in-Chief for the law review, African-American Law & Policy Report, Professor Barnes is a twelve year veteran of the U.S. Navy. Prior to receiving his honorable discharge in 2002, he served as Admiralty Counsel in the Office of the Judge Advocate General where he was involved in the investigations of the 2001 sinking of the Japanese vessel Ehime Maru by a U.S. submarine and the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole. Currently a Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School, he is in the process of completing his thesis, The Stories They Did Not Tell: Race, Family Silence and the Legal Recreation of Inequality. He will join the faculty this fall. He will teach Substantive Criminal Law and Constitutional Law I. In future years he will teach an additional course, most likely in the areas of military operations law, race and the law, or national security law.

Despite this great hire we still have a large number of openings. Next year’s appointment committee will be busy, although we also have some specific subject area needs which may narrow our search. I don’t know which ones the Dean will choose to make a priority next year, but if I had to guess I would say Health Law, Commercial Law, maybe Family Law, and general business subjects, especially international business transactions. And of course even though we have some strength in the subject already, we have a perennial interest in persons who are interested in Latin American private law, ideally people familiar both with the US legal system and at least one South (or maybe Central) American legal system.

It’s always possible that some of these openings might be filled by lateral as well as entry level appointments. But that’s next year’s problem…

I Need A Research Assistant

If any law students from UM are reading this, I need a research assistant for the summer. Contact me by e-mail, or drop off a copy of your transcript (unofficial copy is fine), a c.v. and a short writing sample (non-legal is fine). Ideally I’d want 10-20 hours of your time per week (the exact amount is negotiable). If you need more hours, I might be able to put a package together with another professor.

The miserly wage rate is set by the University, but some of the tasks, primarily research, may be interesting; there’s also some blue booking, but not too much. If you have computer skills, that’s a plus but not a requirement. You could probably do a fair amount of the work from home, but you should expect to be on campus at least once a week.

If it works out, we might continue the arrangement into next year. First year students are especially encouraged to apply.

(If students from elsewhere are reading this, I’m sorry but our RA money is earmarked for our own students.)

The Kerry Rally

We went to the Kerry rally on Sunday. We arrived about the time the seating was supposed to open, that is about an hour and quarter before Kerry was to speak. The line was already enormous, and it doubled at least while we were waiting. Everyone had to pass through metal detectors before being admitted to the outdoor seating/standing area, which took a very very long time and which made me sad and nostalgic for the days when politics was less paranoid.

We were among the last admitted to the roped-off area, and had a very obstructed view. Standing on a small stone wall, I could just see Kerry from the neck up.

Kerry spoke surprisingly well — especially given what I had heard about him as a lackluster stump speaker. He was by no means the best I ever heard, but he was good.

Kerry began by noting that after 9/11 Bush had an opportunity to unify the nation; instead he divided it. The speech had a little more pandering than I would ideally like — especially the trade stuff about his plan to stop subsidizing the export of jobs, and the lengthy list of promises to make college more affordable (which, if I heard it right, actually doesn’t amount to that much per person unless the student spends two years in a domestic peace corps-like job either before or after college). It did have more detail and Senatorial reference to programs and such than you would find in the most classic stemwinder, but it never had so much detail that it got boring

The top applause lines were

• a number of lines about how Bush misled the nation and sent US soldiers off to die without revealing his real motives; [Update: I left out maybe the biggest applause line of this sort: “In America, we fight wars because we have to, not because we choose to.”]
• the pledge to increase energy independence via a push for alternative fuel sources so that foreign policy is no longer driven by Middle East oil [although even raising this to the 20% of consumption promised would only lessen not eliminate the US’s imports];
• the promise to stop the lies and level with the public;
• a promise to provide some form of healthcare for the uninsured (here Kerry was almost disingenuous, making it sound like everyone would get the kind of care Senators get; but while saying that is what should happen, I think it’s not what he actually promised);
• the promise to get an Attorney General who is nothing like John Ashcroft;
• “Within weeks of being inaugurated I will return to the U.N. and I will rejoin the community of nations.”

All these got a lot more applause than the trade stuff or even the college-costs stuff.

The crowd loved him. I left feeling more cheerful about the Democratic nominee then when I arrived, and the whole family clanked a little due to the several nice Kerry buttons we acquired.

100% Increase in UM Law Bloggers

It seems we now have two, count them two, student bloggers at UM, both first year students. Welcome Barsk to the aether! (His first substantive post, on Mel Gibson’s movie and the UM shuttle bus is certainly true to life. (Except maybe for the part where the grocery store is not out of matzah.)

We Have Great Students

One of my absolute favorite things about being a law professor is helping students who are writing articles for publication. I don’t mean student notes — working with students writing notes can be fun, but isn’t always, both because the form is very Procrustean and because some of the people who write notes here are just doing it to make Law Review, and don’t intend to make the extra effort needed to have their work published. I mean the students who write a full-scale article. Doing a publishable article is scads more work than doing a regular paper, and usually involves several additional drafts. Most students just don’t have the time or interest. But I get a few who do, maybe one or two a year, and working with them is a particular joy.

Thus, I’m especially pleased to announce that Christine M. Humphrey, a December 2003 graduate of UM Law, has just published her article The Food and Drug Administration’s Import Alerts Appear to be “Misbranded”, 58 Food & Drug L.J. 595 (2003). The FDLI does not put full-text online, but you can expect an online abstracts for 58:4 Real Soon Now, and Ms. Humphrey informs me that her firm will be hosting the text soon (I’ll update this item when it does). Meanwhile, if you have access to Westlaw, you can view the full Westlaw version. Ms. Humphrey did the work on the article while a student here — and a lot of work it was, too as I think she did more than half a dozen drafts for me, at least two after she’d already received her final grade. (The Buckley Amendment does not Allow me to Announce her grAde.)

Although the subject is a little specialized, the article is important. It argues, I think very persuasively, that the FDA is illegally circumventing the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) to issue “Import Alerts” — decisions that effectively bar the importation of whole classes of products but that the agency says are merely “guidance” documents. The article juggles the intricacies of the FDA regulations and the complex underlying APA rules and shows how they are in tension. The issue is sure to be litigated soon unless the FDA cleans up its act.

Daniel Murray

We're Hosting the First Presidential Debate!

“The first debate will take place Sept. 30, 2004 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.” says this article.

Now, how do I get a ticket?

Actually, this isn’t as great news as it could be, since rumor has it that U.M. will have to fork out serious cash as host institution….

More about the debate organizers.

John Hart Ely

John Hart Ely, Constitutional law giant, and for nine years an important part of the law school’s intellectual community, died this weekend. The New York Times has a full obituary, which recites his honors and achievements, but it fails to capture the human side of the man I knew.

When he settled here permanently after a one-year visit that was a sort of mutual love-fest, he took up the corner office four doors away from me—so I saw him often. From the start, John made it clear that he had not come to Florida to scuba dive and retire, but to carry on his distinguished career in a congenial setting. And he did. In addition to his writing and teaching, he played an active part in faculty seminars, and often chaired our speaker series.

It took me a while to learn that interpersonally he was somewhat shy; what seemed at first to be gruffness was a form of uncertainty about people, although not about ideas. He often seemed least uncomfortable with people younger than him, and dispensed advice when pushed, but always self-deprecatingly.

His death was not sudden, but the end of months of fighting a tenacious and visibly losing fight against cancer. Until nearly the end, he came into the office as often as he could manage, and remained unfailingly, painfully, brave in the face of disaster.

He was an evangelical vegetarian, and a big fan of music, especially jazz, and of all things underwater. But mostly, he was a beacon of decency and clear thinking. I’ll miss him. We all will.

Church services will be at the Coral Gables Congregational Church, 12:30 tomorrow (Tuesday).

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donation be sent to the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, P.O. Box 016960, Miami, FL 33101-9844; or Farm Sanctuary, P.O. Box 150 Watkins Glen, NY 14891-9978.

The Greatest UCC Cartoons in the History of the World

My colleague William H. Widen is not your typical law professor. For one thing he practiced commercial and corporate law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore from 1984 to 2001, spending more than a decade of that time as a partner. Most law professors have some practice experience, but few have as much as that. For another thing, he has a wicked taste in movies, and wild taste in aphorisms (is it true that “business law is about as complicated as Donkey Kong”?). And did I mention he’s pretty slick at programming interesting web sites on the Uniform Commercial Code? Including one that invites students to play a game he designed called Ultimate Commercial Code! [Admittedly there he has the advantage of being married to serious techie.] And, to top it off, he’s fascinated by the Uniform Commercial Code, a subject most law professors do not necessarily find scintillating. In fact, he’s so fascinated that it’s almost contagious.

Then there are his cartoons, “Tales From The Code.” I think it’s safe to call these the Greatest UCC Cartoons in the History of the World, if only because they are probably the only Uniform Commercial Code cartoons in the history of the world. But if there was another UCC cartoon or two, these are funnier. Start with Episode One. Beware, though. You might learn something.

U.Miami Plans to Raise $1 Billion

It’s official. U.M. President Donna Shalala has unveiled the great fundraising campaign for the University of Miami, code-named Momentum. And the goal is not small—a cool $1 billion by mid-2007, although I think this sum includes donations to things like scholarships as well as gifts to capital.

Actually, like most university capital campaigns, it began before it began, and we now have more than half donated or pledged.

Unfortunately for me, it looks as if the medical school will not just get the lion’s share, but a couple dozen other shares too. The law school’s share in all this is, well, quite small in the grand scheme of things, and less than double what is to be earmarked for ROTC.

Janet Reno Is Working Downstairs

The media have noticed that Janet Reno is spending a year as a visiting senior fellow in our Center for Ethics and Public Service, headed by Tony Alfieri.

I’m glad that Tony made this appointment, as I think that the volunteer presence of any former Attorney General, especially one with local ties, enriches the law school community—whatever you may think of her tenure in office. The students certainly seem very happy to have her here, and she’s proving to be an interesting person to have around, especially for the folks in the Wrongful Convictions Project.

That said, I’m sure that Tony had to be ready for some heat: there were people around who muttered it would be a bad idea, mostly because there are many people in the Miami community who are still angry about the Elian affair.

Retreat In Order To Better Advance

We are about to undergo a “Retreat” next weekend to discuss fundamental issues about the law school’s future direction and advancement. This worries me.

I’ve only ever been on a workplace “Retreat” once before, and that one was badly organized—or rather it was not organized at all, and it ended in disaster. This one at least has a written agenda and professional, trained facilitators, who understand the academic legal environment. So there’s some reason to hope that this one might not be a disaster. Nevertheless, I’d be very interested in any advice any Retreat survivors could point me to about what to do or not do, to hope for, or to fear.

I take it, for example, that I should not wear my demotivator t-shirt to the meeting, nor propose to decorate the meeting room with a suitable poster or two.

Kidding aside, I do have a remarkable number of highly productive and interesting colleagues. They tend to be fun to be around—when taken one or two at a time. But perhaps because academia tends to attract the lone wolf personality type, most of us are not necessarily at our best when working collaboratively in large groups. (There will be breakout groups, which can only be good.) It seems there is an more truth in this picture than I’d like:
Plus, even though there is an agenda, it’s only a few pages long. I much prefer an academic conference, where someone brings along something substantial that they’ve been thinking about for a while, and we use that as the basis for a discussion.

Update: Eric Muller says that retreats are great! In his account, the big losers from a well-run retreat are those “who are accustomed to just ignoring everyone else and getting their way that way, or the ‘backroom politics’ people who are accustomed to getting their way on matters of general faculty concern by quietly working the corridors in one-on-one, closed-door conversations.” From his lips…

We Have Great Students

It was only a matter of time. Although U.Miami law school does not, as of yet, provide hosting for student bloggers, we have our first student blogger. (At least, the first I know of.) What a joy to find, via the referrer function, schteino.com.

I suppose some professors might find the idea of students commenting about them online to be a little threatening. I’m of the other view: I’m always curious to know what it looks like from the other side of the desk, and while I much prefer bouquets to brickbats, if the only choice is being criticized behind my back or to my face, I’ll take it straight on please (as long as it doesn’t seem likely to become physical anyway).

None of this is to suggest that Mr. Schteino is complaining or even being particularly personal about anyone. It’s early days, as Mr. Schteino is a 1L, but so far—and despite his claim to be a “Cynical 1L Hoping and Dreaming”—he seems like a fairly happy camper.