Yearly Archives: 2009

Party Tomorrow in Honor of ‘Soia and Her Seven Dwarfs’

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

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.

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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.

Posted in Law School, U.Miami | Comments Off on Party Tomorrow in Honor of ‘Soia and Her Seven Dwarfs’

US News Is in Season

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

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The US News Law School rankings are leaking out. Some years we get a lower score than the year before, and then I think I shouldn't carp about the whole thing for fear of it looking like sour grapes. Some years we get a higher score than the year before, and then I carp.

The idea of ranking law schools is not ridiculous. The way US News does it is very ridiculous. The survey data relies on the opinions of people who in most cases may be very informed about a few law schools but as a class are not likely to be particularly well informed about many law schools — even though they may be judges, hiring partners, law Deans and professors. And increasingly the survey data is self-referential: people have heard school X has a high/low ranking, so it must be good/bad, right?

At its grossest level, there is no doubt US News captures something real: the top N schools (10? 14? 15? 20? 20+?) really are better than the middle N or lowest N. But are the middle N significantly better than the bottom N? Sometimes, yes, but only sometimes. Here the picture gets very cloudy — not least because “better” ought to be “better for whom”; once you get away from the most elite, best resourced (i.e. high endowment), most prestigious law schools, what is best depends on factors that are personal: urban/rural, North/South, East/Middle/West, large/small, best in town/best town and so on.

The US News systems are designed to churn. Changed numbers sells magazines. Having the numbers stay the same doesn't. Yet it's hard to believe many schools change very much from year to year. Yes, once a while a school suffers a crisis or an epiphany, but those are pretty rare events.

There are inbuilt biases in the US News scoring system that favor small schools, and schools in cities with high starting salaries. Not to mention that in South Florida the market has more medium-sized firms than in other cities our size, and those firms rarely make offers until a candidate has passed the bar, notably depressing the 'employment at graduation' rate.

I sympathize with aspiring students who need a guide to the perplexed when sorting through their options. It's such a shame that the information market's first-mover advantage has allowed such a crummy measure to dominate.

Posted in Law School | 2 Comments

Ave Maria Jumps Last Legal Hurdle Prior to Move

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

The Fort Myers Florida Weekly reports that Ave Maria School of Law's juris doctor program licensed by state:

Ave Maria School of Law's juris doctor program has been licensed by the Florida Department of Education's Commission for Independent Education. Receipt of this license was the last of the licensing and accreditation standards the law school had to satisfy prior to holding classes in Naples this August.

That said, there appear to be some money issues. Avewatch.com has some info at (Second) Mortgaging the Future of Ave Maria Employees and Memo Challenges Ave Maria Finances/Ethics. And a member of the Board of Trustees seems to have lasted less than three weeks. (See Ave Maria University Trustee Departure is “Mystery” and Resigned Trustee Critical of University Leadership.)

Meanwhile, however, the Fort Myers Florida Weekly reports,

Classes at Ave Maria School of Law are scheduled to begin at the 12.5-acre Vineyards campus in Naples in August of 2009.

Posted in Florida | 4 Comments

Koyaanisqatsi (and Other Media)

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Via Orin Kerr, I learn that Koyaanisqatsi, the movie version of one of my better-liked and more-played CD's is now available on YouTube – all 1:26:04 of it!

I like Philip Glass's music. But I've rarely gone for visual pairings with either Glass or Eno or other music of that modernist, and sometimes minimalist, sort. I know that Koyaanisqatsi came into being as a film score, but to me it's always been a musical composition deracinated from film. I liked Einstein on the Beach when I saw it at its first revival at BAM (even though it was far from new, a decent fraction, maybe 10%, of the audience walked out after the first part, which amazed me); that alone has been a somewhat harder to listen to without the visual, perhaps because it is so long and has so much repetition and near-repetition.

But anyway, something to watch as soon as I have a spare hour and half. Whenever that is: We got a TV for the first time about a year ago, and I though, that's it, we'll be TV zombies, our intellectual lives are over. Hasn't worked out that way: I hardly ever watch it except when folding laundry, and the very occasional taped episodes of Stewart or Colbert.

Although, to be fair, the hard drive on the DVR is filling up with old movies and new episodes of things I plan to watch Real Soon Now ™.

Posted in Kultcha | 2 Comments

Today’s Sickening Calculation

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Emptywheel » Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month.

I cannot get my mind around how anyone can seriously argue that this isn't certain to happen again unless some people are tried and convicted for these acts of torture.

And, may I add, I'm pretty sick of the NYT's pussyfooting around the word “torture” when it rights writes about this. [Spell check issue, or subconscious editorializing about NYT's politics?]

Posted in Torture | 10 Comments

A Recipe for Increasing Human Happiness

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Reading Michael Madison's Useful Models, he quotes from the Lone Gunman, quoting The Truth About Markets/Culture and Prosperity (UK/US title respectively) [evil tracking javascript code removed]:

I once debated the relationship between the social sciences with some anthropologists. We adjourned to the pub, and someone bought a round of drinks: the discussion naturally turned to the reasons why. For the economists, the explanation was obvious: the practice of buying rounds minimized transaction costs, reducing the number of exchanges between the patrons and the bar staff. The anthropologists saw it as an example of ritual gift exchange and described the many tribes that had developed similar customs. I proposed a test between the competing hypotheses: did you feel cheated or victorious if you bought more rounds than had been bought for you? Unfortunately, the economists and the anthropologists gave different answers to that question.

It seems to me that the lesson from this passage is that human happiness is maximized when economists and anthropologists drink together. Is the result generalizable? Should they marry?

Posted in Econ & Money | 4 Comments