clinicians with not enough to do

ORGANIZE FOR INAUGURATION WEEK!

A proposal from Susan Herman, new President of the ACLU.

We need to explain to our students why we think it is premature to hang up the Mission Accomplished banner when George Bush leaves the White House.

The ACLU group at Brooklyn Law School sponsored a well-attended and exciting event during the week after the election called “What Next?” to discuss the ACLU’s Restoring America program.  A dozen other student groups, like Outlaws and BALSA, were eager to co-sponsor.  The students handed out a several page summary of the Restoring America plan (from the ACLU website, http://www.aclu.org/transition/)   which provides an excellent outline for discussion, proposing changes President Obama should be making on Day One (close Guantanamo, end extraordinary rendition), and changes Congress and the President should work on during the First Hundred Days, and First Year (end restrictions on reproductive freedom, end excessive government secrecy, etc.).

I am proposing that we initiate a series of events on campuses around the country, beginning during Inauguration Week, as part of a program of Students for Restoring America, to discuss these proposals and urge students to channel their newly unleashed political energy by continuing, with the ACLU, to press the new President and Congress to do the right thing.  This is a teachable moment, where we can explain that the qualities so many came to fear and despise in the Bush Administration are the qualities we will continue to need to fight in many contexts:  willingness to give up the liberty of others for illusory gain, intolerance of dissent, peremptory decision-making, government secrecy.   Anyone interested in helping to organize or participate in such a program is welcome to contact me    (sherman@aclu.org)    or the ACLU students at  your school.  This would also be a great opportunity to get an ACLU group organized or reorganized.

 

Sign of the times

from hunter of justice by Nan Hunter

The Dollar Store cuts its prices

Harvard Dean Kagan, Former Stanford Dean Sullivan Said to be "Favorites" for Obama's SG

Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Harvard Dean Kagan, Former Stanford Dean Sullivan Said to be "Favorites" for Obama's SG

Story here.  

UPDATE:  The Boston Globe reports on Kagan's SG candidacy here.  The first commenter on the article reports his skepticism of Kagan and Obama based on his own experience at the University of Chicago, which he refers to as "Moscow on the Midway," and says no one talked to him when he declared that he was not a communist.  I suspect this fellow thinks the John Birch Society is too moderate as well.  In any case, first thing Monday morning, I'm going to find Richard Epstein and Eric Posner in their offices and let them know our reputation. 

Costs of Higher Education

from Poverty Law Blog

Costs of Higher Education

A headline from the New York Times today tells the story, "College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S." (by Tamar Levin), Dec. 3, 2008.  The associated graphic is here.  Relatedly, on Nov. 30, Tamar Levin's article about foreign study, "Going off to College for Less (Passport Required)" was published by the NYTimes. 

For postings and articles related to the rise in law school costs, see:

• William D. Henderson & Andrew P. Morriss, "What Law School Rankings Don't Say About Costly Choices," National Law Journal, Apr. 16, 2008
• A Columbia Law School explanation for why law school costs so much.
• Equal Justice Works' page on educational debt/public interest path.
• George C. Leef, "Why Law School Costs So Much," Regulation Spring 2003 [2 page article on SSRN].
• N. William Hines, "Ten Major Changes in Legal Education Over the Past 25 Years," AALS website [listing and discussing cost as number 8 in a list of ten changes]. 

-Thanks to Leiter's Law School Reports for the heads up.  E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Justice Watch: Battle over Obama Judges Already Heating Up

Justice Watch: Battle over Obama Judges Already Heating Up

Monday, November 17, 2008
Battle over Obama Judges Already Heating Up
Sixty-three days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, discussions about his judicial selection program are already heating up. As President Bush has shown, and we have repeatedly claimed, one of a president’s most lasting legacies is the one he leaves on the bench. While the president serves for at most eight years, his judges can stay on the bench for decades.

Considering the number of highly conservative and fairly young justices that President Bush has appointed, the vacancies that are left for President-elect Obama to fill are that much more crucial. Both sides are speculating about the kinds of judges our new president will pick. Progressive groups, including Alliance for Justice, are hoping that he will select jurists in the mold of Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren. Conservatives meanwhile, are gearing up for battle.

Ironically enough, those same senators who cried “Obstruction!” any time one of President Bush's nominees was questioned are now preemptively preparing to block potential Obama appointees. Apparently, these senators have adopted the mantra of change for themselves, or at least changing their tune when it suits their ideological agenda, anyway. After all, for eight years, they’ve argued that the president’s nominees demand respect and should at least receive an up-or-down vote. But before a single candidate is put forward, Republican senators are already talking filibuster.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee told the Washington Times that “it appears [President-elect Obama] is more committed to the appointment of activist judges than even President Clinton.” Breaking out the empty rhetoric of judicial activism already? That must be some sort of record. There hasn’t even been a nomination yet! Maybe we could all hold out on condemning President-elect Obama’s nominees until he at least takes office?

New blog with "Obama Posse" list

hunter of justice

On Being a Black Lawyer, a new blog by Yolanda Young, focuses on the interests and experiences of African-American lawyers. Feminist Law Professors reports that OBABL grew out of a post by Young last March on Huffington, describing racial stratification at top law firms.

OBABL currently features an "Obama Posse List" of African-American lawyers being named to posts in the  new administration.

Welcome to the blogosphere!

Williams Institute event analyzing election results available on web

from hunter of justice by Nan Hunter

Video of the November 13 panel discussion and analysis of the 2008 election results that was held at UCLA Law School, sponsored by the Williams Institute, has just become available on the web. The event features analysis by the Director of Polling for the L A Times; Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff (University of Pennsylvania Law), a leading policy advisor to President-elect Obama; Professor Ken Sherrill (Poli Sci, Hunter College), an expert on lgbt political participation; Geoff Kors of Equality California, Winnie Stachelberg of the Center for American Progress, Patrick Guerriero of Gill Action, and others. 

Not sure what to put out in the yard this Christmas? Burning-cross Christmas decoration

HT:  Feminist Law Professors by Ann Bartow

Hoyden About Town    Lauredhel on November 18, 2008

White American, and proud of it?

Not sure what to put out in the yard this Christmas?

Want to express your lurve for the Real American Family?

The American Family Association has just the decoration for you.

Predictions for the Supreme Court

Legal Blog Watch

Los Angeles Times legal reporter David G. Savage speculates today on who President-elect Barack Obama might pick for the Supreme Court. While Obama's first nominee is virtually certain to be a woman, she is not so certainly going to lean as far left as many liberals may hope, he suggests. "I think it's a virtual certainty Obama would apoint a woman," lawyer Thomas Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog, tells Savage. Among the likely candidates are 7th U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Wood, 2nd U.S. Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm.

But Savage mines an October interview Obama gave to the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press to find clues that Obama may lean towards the middle in filling high court seats. In the interview, Obama said he considered liberal justices such as Earl Warren, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall to be heroes. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that I think their judicial philosophy is appropriate for today," he added. Later, he praised Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter as "very sensible judges" who look at the facts and try to figure out how the Constitution applies.

"That's the kind of justice that I'm looking for. Somebody who respects the law, doesn't think that they should be making the law, but also has a sense of what's happening in the real world and recognizes that one of the roles of the courts is to protect people who don't have a voice."

As vice president, Sen. Joe Biden could be influential in making the nomination, Savage notes. He served on the Senate Judiciary Committee throughout his career and knows many of the Democratic appointees to the bench who could end up on the short list. Of course, all of this is academic unless and until a vacancy opens on the court, and there is no certainty of that happening anytime soon.

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on November 17, 2008 at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law profs in the Obama administration

hunter of justice

 

Posted: 16 Nov 2008 08:10 AM CST As the new administation gears up,  I'm starting a list of Lawbama profs. So far, these are all transition team members; I am not aware of any profs being appointed to full-time jobs. Alex Aleinikoff - Georgetown Law - immigration transition team Chris Edley - UC-Berkeley - Transition Project Advisory Board member; economic transition team Cindy Estlund - NYU Law - education and labor transition team Seth Harris - New York Law School - education and labor transition team; transportation transition team Dawn Johnsen - IU-Bloomington Law - justice and civil rights review team Ted Shaw - Columbia Law - justice and civil rights review team Dan Tarullo - Georgetown Law - leader of auto industry transition team ++++ Readers - please e/mail me as you know of additions.

Justice Ginsburg to 2021! And More Speculation on the Court . . .

from WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com by Ashby Jones

President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t been sworn in yet, and none of the nine Supreme Court justices have even hinted at stepping down from the bench. But that’s not stopping pundits both inside and outside the Beltway from engaging in a big game of who’s-the-next-to-go. (And frankly, we don’t blame them.)

Legal Times’s Tony Mauro has a nice piece this week on potential goings, as does ABC News’s Jan Crawford Greenburg. The conventional wisdom has long been that, with an Obama victory, members of the liberal wing of the Court — Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens and Souter — would soon thereafter hang up their robes.

Not so fast, says Mauro. “If anyone asks you, ‘When is she retiring?’ ” Ginsburg reportedly said at a law clerks’ reunion last June, “tell them I have a great role model in Justice [John Paul] Stevens, who is going strong at age 88.” Ginsburg, 75, would have to sit on the bench until 2021 to match Stevens’s tenure.

Speaking of Stevens, the Court’s only Ford appointee, if he has designs to step down, he hasn’t made them clear. Writes Mauro: “Stevens, too, still is sharp and agile at 88 and, according to former clerks, has made comments similar to Ginsburg’s about staying on the Court as long as he still enjoys writing his own opinions—which he clearly still does.”

In some ways, the strangest possible retirement would be Justice Souter’s. At 69, he’s still relatively young, by Court standards, has no known major health issues, and seems as intellectually vibrant as ever. But apparently — and this we didn’t know — he’s not a big fan of the nation’s capital. Writes Greenberg: “Souter leaves DC the second the Court adjourns for the summer to go home (literally, the second. He even has skipped the end-of-term lunch with his colleagues). And he doesn’t return until the very first conference in September.” Adds Mauro: “Friends portray him as eager to remain in New Hampshire year-round—and ready to leave, now that a liberal has been elected to succeed Bush.”

Some nice tidbits from the stories: Justices rarely step down in election years, for fear of having a vacancy become an election issue. You rarely see two justices step down during the same term, for fear of causing too much disruption. And, strangely, justices don’t always retire during the tenures of likeminded presidents (think Justice Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, both of whom stepped down during the first Bush administration).

New Documentary Here: Access Denied?: The Fight for Corporate Accountability.

I am proud to announce the release of Alliance for Justice's latest documentary film, Access Denied?: The Fight for Corporate Accountability.  This short film tells the story of Diana Levine, an accomplished professional musician who lost her hand and forearm as a result of a drug company's failure to warn of the tragic complication that could result from one method of administering the drug Phenergan.  After Diana's arm was amputated eight years ago, she won a jury trial against the drug manufacturer, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and prevailed when the company appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.  Unfortunately, she has yet to recover a single dime of damages from Wyeth – money that would allow her to retrofit her home to accommodate her disability, or to retrain in a different career.  Why?  Because Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has appealed Diana's case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the case is barred by the legal doctrine called "preemption."  The case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 3, 2008.

» Click here to read more about this case.

Produced in conjunction with twelve-time Emmy award-winning producers/directors Jon Alpert and Matt O'Neill, Access Denied? details Ms. Levine's tragic story and exposes the slow but steady transformation of our courts into institutions pursuing a conservative agenda that defends the interests of huge corporations rather than protecting the rights of Americans.  Access Denied? takes the legal issue of preemption out of the courtroom and into the real world, where Americans find themselves unable to access the courts and hold corporations accountable for the harm their products cause.

» Watch ACCESS DENIED? now using Windows Media

Thanks, 

Bradley Whitford

---

Visit www.afj.org for more information.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama from Alice Walker

From:  www.theroot.com

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

Legal Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Proposition 8, Should It Pass

Legal Papers Claim Initiative Procedure Cannot Be Used To Undermine the Constitution's Core Commitment To Equality For Everyone

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid. 

From Maya Angelou (on a similar, but not quite so momentous, occasion)

 

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no more hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spilling words Armed for slaughter. The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A River sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, Clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I and the Tree and the stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your Brow and when you yet knew you still Knew nothing. The River sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing River and the wise Rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the Tree. Today, the first and last of every Tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River. Each of you, descendant of some passed On traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, you Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of Other seekers--desperate for gain, Starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the Tree planted by the River, Which will not be moved. I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree I am yours--your Passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced With courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, the Rock, the River, the Tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, into Your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

Thoughts on Moments of Change

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO LINK BELOW - IT'S GREAT

Poverty Law Prof Blog

Thoughts on Moments of Change

This is a non-partisan blog, but that having been said, I think that come Wednesday the poverty law community might be in a situation somewhat analogous to the change in administration period between Bush Sr. and Clinton.  A wonderful article from that period captures this very well.  The article: Fran Ansley, Standing Rusty and Rolling Empty: Law, Poverty, and America's Eroding Industrial Base, 81 Geo. L.J. 1757 (1993).  Below are some excerpts that resonate strongly today (or at least perhaps by Wednesday):

"This is an important moment for anti-poverty advocates.  There are economic changes at work that threaten to exacerbate and entrench disparities that are already a disturbingly salient feature of American society. . . . The advent of a new administration in Washington, while holding out the hope of a welcome end to much that was brutal and wrong-headed in our recent national economic policy, is hardly the end of the story. . . . A strategy that used the power of the executive to give traditionally unrepresented groups an effective voice would greatly increase the executive's available options.  The nation's new leadership currently faces a set of exceedingly difficult constraints imposed by global competition, the world-wide recession, and the crippling debt burden inherited from the Reagan-Bush years, all situated in an impoverished political landscape dominated overwhelmingly by corporate interests.  The new administration does not have the tools to change that landscape alone if it wanted to, but a number of concrete steps that are within its power could help to unleash a popular energy and motion that could move toward real democratic change.  The question is whether the Administration will have the courage and the vision to follow such a strategy." 

For a decidedly partisan election related video that is great to send to friends, click here (this version attacks me but it can be customized). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu