Washington Post in Microsoft Executive Tapped For Top DHS Cyber Post reports that Team Obama has tapped Phil Reitinger, currently “chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist” at Microsoft, to be Deputy Undersecretary of DHS's National Protections Program division.
I've watched Phil in action since his days at DoJ, and agree with Stewart Baker that he's great for the job and “we should be glad he was willing to take on the responsibility”.
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.
This Lily Allen song Absolutely Nothing is very hard to get out of your head.
I couldn't find a good video of it, so here's one of The Fear instead:
I found Lily Allen via my TingTings Pandora station.
Lawrence Cunningham has a soothing historical perspective on the mass of law firm layoffs at Steel, Patience amid Adversity:
In September 2001, after terrorists attacked lower Manhattan, the stock market closed for several days. Corporate finance and deal activity contracted. Law firms lost work. Associates were let go and firms cut back hiring. Eventually, work resumed, with deal flow flourishing.
Then a professor, I went to the library to leaf through the law reviews published in the period just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. I also read books about law firms during that period.
Amid World War II, people were terrified, deal flow contracted, associates at large firms were let go and hiring contracted. Scholarship appeared to have been cut back, but in corporate and securities law, did not seem to abate or shift course due to the attacks or resulting war. Eventually, the war ended, markets resumed, expanded, deals flowed, associates were hired, paid, made partner, and prosperity resumed.
Ditto with the episodic booms, busts, scandals and havoc that have ensued—the 1960s electronics boom and bust; the 1970s foreign bribery scandals; the Vietnam conflict and related upheaval; the 1980s savings & laon crisis; the 1980s/90s junk bond boom and bust; the late 1990s / early 2000s telecom boom and bust; and the current crisis, and its coming resolution.
Patience is a virtue for all those affected by adversity, whether economic, military or otherwise.
There's more, but I want to focus the part I quoted. Yes, it's good to learn from history. And indeed, the business cycle tends to repeat. But there are two reasons why I can't quite feel soothed. First, there's the question of which is the right parallel. We're not in 1929 yet, and I still think the smart bet is that we won't get there, but until we see a floor, we can't be sure about that. Especially since just about the entire minority party in Congress, which includes a blocking minority in the Senate, has wedded itself to idiocies such as being for economic stimulus but against spending. Yes, I actually heard a senator say that on the radio last week. And there's lots of it around.
Second, as regards the legal profession we face structural changes not encountered in a while. And I don't mean the likely collapse of the inflated salary structure (and unhealthy billables/month) for the best-compensated associates (and, I'd argue, partners). That's minor compared to the competition from off-shoring legal suppliers in India and elsewhere, not to mention the looming, inevitable, introduction of computer-assisted legal drafting.
Is it time to start writing the contract-generating AI of the future?
Openwith.org offers Free programs to open any file extension! — something so useful I'm linking to it in this post so that I can find it when I need it.
(spotted via sexist pigdogs at Lifehacker: OpenWith.org Tells Your Mom How to Open That File (For Free))
The typeanalyzer says this blog has a personality type of “INTJ – The Scientists”…at least yesterday.
Could it be because I used the word “alligator”?
(Later) Actually, whatever this thing is doing, it's pretty silly — I've just run four different posts through it and gotten four different answers. Unless I am group blog, perhaps?
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