Monthly Archives: April 2010

UM Foreclosure Fellows in the News

We got some great publicity for the Foreclosure Fellowship program I started early this academic year. But what we really need is money.

Unfortunately, even though everyone loves the program and the participants are doing wonderful things, we haven't found the $150,000+ it would take to run the program next year, even though there will be even more foreclosures. (See, for example, March Foreclosure Activity Highest on Record.)

The good news is that (last I heard) the law school is planning to have a traditional clinic aimed at housing issues, staffed by law students, that will work with lawyers at Legal Services of Greater Miami.

Posted in Econ & Money: Mortgage Mess, U.Miami | 3 Comments

Follow the Bouncing Ball?

According to this unofficial source U.Miami Law's US News Score jumped 11 points this year, raising us to a tie for 60th place. If that's true, it's good news for the school, especially following last year's jump of 11 points. Whatever the actual merits, a 22 point rise in two years will help both student and faculty recruiting, and will be good for student morale.

As I have written before, the idea of ranking, or at least clumping, law schools is a good one; the US News system is a very bad one.

Yet, oddly, the jump in Miami's rankings may represent something real: because we have such a small endowment, we are in a particularly good position in this recession. We have a new marquee Dean, and we have been doing some great hiring, and expect to do more.

Update: Leiter says it's a hoax. He could well be right. The trouble is that the real rankings are so arbitrary and random, it's hard to tell real from fake.

Update2: As noted in the comments, they're real.

Posted in U.Miami | 7 Comments

No News Is Good News

My recovery continues its slow but steady trajectory. I can walk around the block, but it takes 20 minutes what with all the shuffling and stopping. The details are otherwise too boring to relate. Assuming things continue to progress at this rate, it will be some time before I'm near normal.

I don't think I'll resume my old blogging ways until I feel more renewed. What energy I have will first go to Jotwell, currently in the able hands of my colleague Donna Coker, who heroically stepped in as temporary editor until I (literally) get back on my feet. Check it out tomorrow afternoon for an announcement of a new section.

Posted in Personal | 5 Comments

I’m a Tortoise

Slow and steady.

From a day-to-day perspective it is sometimes hard to see my progress, but week-to-week it is quite evident. I can now walk mostly without my cane, although I'm slow and not totally steady. The stairs in the house have shrunk from Everest to a long nasty steep hill. I can do more stuff, and have a greater range of motion, but stamina remains a major problem: there are many more things I can do, but I can only do a very little more of them at a time.

This has been checkup week: my surgeon and cardiologist both say I'm doing great, and test results for the residues of the post-operative complications that had me on a respirator for 11 days were almost as good as they could be. My hands are the one area where there has been the least progress — they still shake a lot. Perhaps next week, when I get to stop a few of my medicines, that might improve.

I still suffer from a lot of aches and pains, mostly muscular; as I move more and differently, every muscle in my body is taking its turn to make its bid for attention. That makes it hard to sleep, and made the night-before-last's multiple interruptions by midnight text messages and phone calls from the UM emergency message system very unwelcome. The messages related to an unprecedented armed robbery of the Starbucks on campus. That's serious stuff, but I don't live on the campus. Plus, it doesn't help to learn now that the info I started receiving by text message at 11:54pm and which ended with a phone call at 12:57 was so late as to be meaningless anyway. I've gone and removed my cell phone from the university's records in order not to be bothered in the future. Perhaps I'll put it back once I start going in to work regularly.

As soon as I have a bit more energy, or my hands get a bit better, I'll start on the many thank you notes I owe, but so far between short walks or bouts of very gentle exercise, I'm lying around like a lump or reading the papers, some blogs, or undemanding books.

Posted in Personal | 17 Comments