Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Visual Travel Records

Posted on March 6, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Thanks to a trackback from Ed Bott, here is a visual presentation of the same data as in the last post:

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Have I Really Never Been to Ohio?

Posted on March 6, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

As far as I can recall, I've never been to Ohio. Somehow, that seems like a strange gap.

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Of the places I've lived in the USA, my favorites are easily Chicago and Washington, D.C., although I also had a very good time in Boulder, and New Haven wasn't that bad either. And if the circumstances were different I suspect I'd like Northern California a lot better next time. I have somewhat mixed feelings about South Florida: there's lots to like, not least the intellectual strength of the Miami faculty, but there's stuff not to like too. For one thing, it's a long plane ride from all the other places I like.

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Ottawa Update

Posted on March 5, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Marc Rotenberg is talking right now. He has much better slides than the rest of us. There's been a running joke through today's conference about people joking that I'm gloomy, and he's Pollyanaish. He denies it, though. Although he did say this morning that he thinks I read the Supreme Court's cases too gloomily…

And he has a great riff on the name of his panel 'Life During Wartime' in which he re-writes the song. I'm hoping he'll email me the lyrics. Or someone will do a parody/cover…

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I’ll Take the Express Rejection, Please

Posted on March 5, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Letters of Marque asks,

Let us suppose that you are a law professor, and that we decide to reject your piece within hours of receiving it.

OK, so far this sounds all too plausible.

Would you be offended if you received the rejection right away? If so, how long would you want to wait before receiving a rejection?

Please note that this need not imply that we didn't read your piece; it might also mean that we thought it interesting enough to pluck from the pile, but then decided to reject it later on.

I want to know right away. Unless you are willing to send substantive comments, I don't care that much why you rejected it — although if it's just because your issue was full, then it would be handy to be told when are the best times to (re)submit articles. Rejecting me now saves me the bother of phoning you for a rush read once I get another offer if I'm playing that game. Or, if I am working the system in a different way, and sending out only a few copies at first to save paper, knowing that I bombed helps me work out when it's time to send out that second wave.1, 2

But that's easy for me to say: it's not that my ego is, in relative terms, necessarily any more hardy than average, although I've been accused of that. No, the fact is that these days I rarely submit articles to law reviews any more. Nearly 100% of my articles are solicited for symposia (and these days I have to very regretfully turn down more requests than I can accept if I want each one to be sufficiently original). Yes, I know how lucky I am. And, yes, it can't last. Can it?

1 You can play this either way. Start low, get some acceptances and then ask for rush reads for the 'better' journals to whom you just sent the article — on the theory that it's more likely to be rejected, or disfavored on rush, if it has been lying around. Or, you can be arrogant, start high, and if that doesn't work then work your way down the pile. This can save more paper, but means you don't get to engage in as much strategic behavior.

2 There's something about writing about law reviews that makes me want to footnote.

Posted in Law School | Comments Off on I’ll Take the Express Rejection, Please

My Slides From the ‘Concealed’ Conference

Posted on March 5, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

There's wifi here, but all I can get is http, not ssh or sftp. So I haven't been able to upload my slides to the fast(er) server at UM. But that's ok, there's a workaround.

Here, since a few people at the conference claimed interest, is link to my Powerpoint slides Anonymity Law in the USA: Latest Developments, Familiar Problems.

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Ottawa Anonymity Conference

Posted on March 5, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

One of my first research interests was the regulation of cryptography, and this quickly led me to the equally interesting topic of the regulation of anonymity. So I'm just delighted to be attending On the Identity Trail: Understanding the Importance and Impact of Anonymity and Authentication in a Networked Society in Ottawa today, as it's jammed packed with interesting people doing great work.

The conference is joint venture of a muldisciplinary team headed by Ian Kerr that works under the rubric On the Identity Trail and faculty from the Law and Technology Program at the University of Ottawa. Talk about critical mass!

The organizers asked me to report on legal developments in the US relating to anonymity, so I'll be giving a somewhat gloomy — and uncharacteristically doctrinal — presentation at this morning's session.

Did I mention it is about 60-70 degrees colder in Ottawa than Miami?

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