Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

New Email Making the Rounds

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

So far this election, my parents have been great bellwethers: if they forward me an email it either is viral, or goes viral in no time.

So here's today's:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

  • If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're “exotic, different.”
  • Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, it's a quintessential American story.
  • If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
  • Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
  • Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
  • Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
  • If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
  • If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7, 000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
  • If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
  • If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
  • If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
  • If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
  • If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
  • If you're husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Posted in Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 4 Comments

Fact

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

I started doing this Sept. 15, 2003.

Posted in Discourse.net | 5 Comments

A Great Job for the Right Litigation Skills Teacher

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

In addition to looking for traditional entry-level and lateral faculty, the U. Miami School of Law is also looking for someone to take over its highly popular and award-winning litigation skills program. I'm not on the search committee, although I'd be happy to field questions to the best of my ability. I suspect that the committee would consider both people with a clinical/academic background and an experienced practitioner who showed signs of being able to adapt to the academic environment.

This job is a pretty big deal to the school; the program is large and unusual, and the right person could forge a national reputation from it. The previous incumbent is now the President & CEO of NITA—the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

The University of Miami School of Law invites applications for the Director of the School’s Litigation Skills Program beginning fall of 2009. This is a tenure-track position. Appointment will be made at the associate or full professor level, depending on experience.

The School is interested in recruiting an individual with a proven record of achievement who will enhance the national reputation of this outstanding program. The Director should have extensive expertise and experience in trial practice and in teaching trial skills and a substantial record or a demonstrable interest in scholarship related to trial skills or related substantive areas.

The University of Miami School of Law Litigation Skills program is an award winning program that provides top quality simulation training in pre-trial and trial practice. Approximately 80 percent of the School’s students take the voluntary six-credit Litigation Skills I class. The Director designs skills problems, teaches litigation skills classes, and recruits, trains, and supervises the work of approximately 60 adjunct faculty. The adjunct faculty are leading practitioners and judges who work with students in small groups to develop their skills.

The Director also oversees the development of Litigation Skills II, a course for students who complete Litigation Skills I. Skills II includes advanced litigation matters such as jury selection, expert witnesses and multiparty or multi-claim lawsuits. Students who complete Skills I may also enhance their skills through a one-semester clinical placement (externship).

The Director supervises the Litigation Skills Program Manager and an Assistant to the Director. The Director works with clinical faculty to identify and coordinate externship placements with public agencies and public interest law offices. The Director develops and fosters relationships with the various agencies, courts, and firms from which Litigation Skills faculty are recruited and clinical externs are placed.

The Director should be prepared to teach one or more core courses on an annual or rotating basis, depending on the needs of the School and the scope of other responsibilities. In addition, the Director should be prepared to work with students to enhance the School’s efforts in inter-school skills competitions.

Interested persons should contact Professor Terence J. Anderson c/o Detra Davis, University of Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124-8087 or ddavis@law.miami.edu.

Posted in U.Miami | 4 Comments

The Tragedy of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Trust it to be John Quarterman, who always seems so really smart when I get to be in the same room with him, to be the one to draw my attention to Debunking the Tragedy of the Commons.

When Garrett Hardin published his famous article about the “tragedy of the commons” in Science in December 1968, he cited no evidence whatsoever for his assertion that a commons would always be overgrazed; that community-owned resources would always be mismanaged. Quite a bit of evidence was already available, but he ignored it, because it said quite the opposite: villagers would band together to manage their commons, including setting limits (stints) on how many animals any villager could graze, and they would enforce those limits.

Finding evidence for Hardin's thesis is much harder…

The source is Ian Angus, Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Debunking the `Tragedy of the Commons' (August 24, 2008).

Meanwhile, says John,

So privatization is not, as so many disciples of Hardin have argued, the cure for the non-existant tragedy of the commons. Rather, privatization can be the enemy of the common management of common resources.

This dovetails with some interesting recent legal work, such as Michael Heller's new book, The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives.

In any case, it's interesting to learn that one of the articles I found most influential in college has a slight empirical problem.

Trouble is, I think I may still believe it, since the tragedy of the commons seems to capture something one sees, or thinks one sees, in real life. As a result I still think in many, most, but not all, cases markets, or managed markets, are the way to structure large swaths of large-scale social and economic organization.

Too much economics Kool-Aid?

Posted in Econ & Money, Legal Philosophy | 13 Comments

The First Candidate to Denounce this Wins the Election

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Zero tolerance gone mad.

Boing Boing, Fourth grader suspended for using broken pencil sharpener. Note that the “use” was his trying to sharpen a pencil, not threaten someone.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 2 Comments

Does Palin Meet the GW Bush Standard?

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

In What Books on America Has Sarah Palin Read?, Steve Clemons of 'The Washington Note' pulls off the amazing feat of taking George Bush seriously as a political intellectual — and then asks if Sarah Palin makes (even) that grade.

It's a view of Bush I'm not prepared to embrace, but the questions he asks about Palin do seem like things one might like to know.

Posted in Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 2 Comments