Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Next Time I’m Going to Mention the Bubble Gum

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Every semester I prepare a memo for my incoming students about how the class will work. Each memo is tailored to the class, although they all share some similarities. The one for incoming first years is of necessity the longest — I posted a copy of one on this blog a few years ago as A Note for my 1L Torts Class. It hasn’t changed that much since.

In editing the note for this year’s class, I spent maybe too long trying to decide if I should add something to make it clear that I do not want students blowing bubbles in class. (In fact, I don’t particularly want my students chewing gum, but I draw the line at big pink protuberances suddenly appearing in the front of their faces.) On the one hand, I really don’t like it, and think that bubble-gum-blowing is unprofessional and inappropriate for the classroom. On the other hand, I would like to think that everyone knows this, and worry that if I am stating an obvious thing like no-bubble-blowing-in-the-classroom it will justly offend people who don’t need to be told not to expectorate in class either. In the end, I chickened out.

And yes, yet again, we had a bubble-blower this week.

That’s it. Next year I’m putting it in the class policies.

Photo Copyright 2009 by maclauren70. Some rights reserved.

Posted in Law School | 13 Comments

Somewhere, Robert W. Welch Jr. Is Smiling

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

I’m back from brief travels. Not much seems to have changed while I was gone. E.g. Bachmann says only ‘radical environmentalists’ wouldn’t drill the Everglades.

It’s the sort of theatrics that wows people and gets headlines, but has no substance as there isn’t much oil there anyway.

… geologists believe there’s not much oil under the Everglades anyway. Collier County’s Sunniland Field, the only significant oil field nearby, doesn’t produce large quantities of oil, and a former employee tells 10News the oil is difficult to refine.

…

10News sat down with USF Geologist Dr. Albert Hine, and he told us, “There is no known evidence that there is a significant hydrocarbon deposit beneath the Everglades.”

I am waiting for a democratic candidate to suggest confiscating guns from institutionalized mental patients. That seems about the same kind of thing. But of course they don’t do that. Which is why everyone is linking to Mike Lofgren’s Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

It seems to me that Obama’s party is like the Rockerfeller Republicans of the 70s and 80s. Bachmann-Perry Overdrive 1 look like the John Birchers with a human face. I’m not sure what Romney is, maybe it depends on the phases of the moon.

  1. No disrespect intended to these guys.[↩]
Posted in Politics: Tinfoil | 2 Comments

Good Luck With That

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

My brother posts 11 questions reporters should be asking Dick Cheney.

I doubt Cheney is going to go near any reporters with the guts to ask three of them.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals, Torture | 2 Comments

South Florida is Special

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

In today’s news:

Yes, really.

Posted in Miami | 3 Comments

Straight from Crazytown

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Someone should be asking all Republican candidates for President if they agree, and if they don’t agree they should be asked whether someone who believes divine political instructions are delivered via the weather is a good choice for public office.

Posted in Politics: Tinfoil | 13 Comments

What Elective Courses Lawyers Wish They Had Taken in Law School, and What Courses Were Most Useful

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Survey data reporting which elective courses lawyers wish they had taken in law school, and which were most useful, via Prof. Orin Kerr of GW Law.

Most useful:

1. Evidence — 156 respondents (27%)
2. Administrative Law — 120 respondents (21%)
3. Corporations — 105 respondents (18%)

Most wished had taken:

Of the wish list courses with more than 35 votes (6%), four were in the area of civil litigation, including the top of this list, Complex Litigation (50), plus Pre–Trial Advocacy (46), Trial Advocacy (44), and Alternative Dispute Resolution (36). Second highest on the overall wish list was Administrative Law (48), with many of those supporters listing other practice areas as their principal focus. Others high on this list were Corporate Finance (41) and Law & Accounting (38, including support outside the core practice areas). Some, but not all, of the observations based on the wish list can be explained because many of these courses were not offered when some of the respondents attended GW.

I’m glad, but not surprised, to see that Administrative Law made the top 3 for “most useful”. I highly recommend it. It also ranks highly on the “wish I had taken” scale, which fits what I hear from alums who have come back to visit. I’m somewhat surprised federal courts (aka federal jurisdiction) wasn’t ranked higher, especially in a DC school.

Posted in Law School | 3 Comments