Photo of John P. Anderson

John P. Anderson

Subscribe to John P. Anderson's Posts

Dean Anderson's scholarship focuses on securities enforcement, white-collar crime, and intersections of law and philosophy (e.g., business ethics, constitutionalism, problems of pluralism, and human rights).

His recent articles address the law and ethics of insider trading, the problem of how to build a just and enduring constitutional order in the face of increasing religious and cultural pluralism, and the theoretical underpinnings of our international human rights regime. Read More

A job posting that may be of interest to some of our readers.

———

Job Description
BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, a top-tier law school with an international reputation, is a community of leading legal scholars, teachers, students, and alumni, dedicated to providing one of the finest legal educations in the world. The breadth and depth of our curriculum, especially our clinical program, as well as our innovative spirit are distinctive in American legal education.

Boston University School of Law is seeking to hire a full-time attorney in its Startup Law Clinic (the “Clinic”). The Clinic is part of BU Law’s Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, and Cyberlaw Program, which is a unique collaboration between BU Law and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The School of Law believes that the cultural and social diversity of our faculty, staff, and students is vitally important to the distinction and excellence of our academic programs. To that end, we are especially eager to hear from applicants who support our institutional commitment to BU as an inclusive, equitable, and diverse community.

The Clinic represents current students at MIT and BU on matters related to a wide range of legal issues faced by early-stage business ventures. The…

Despite a pretty busy and different semester, I managed to read a decent bit. Some of this is because of our neighborhood book club and some is from an emerging habit of reading a bit before bed.

—–

Kwame Anthony Appiah – Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006) (Philosophy). Author in philosophy professor at NYU. Mother is English; father from Ghana. Tolerance and plurality. “Citizens of the World.” 

Compassion (&) Conviction – Chris Butler, Justin Giboney, and Michael Wear (2020) (Religion, Politics). Advocates for Christian engagement with politics that transcends party. 

Gooseberries – Anton Chekhov (1898) (Fiction, Short Story).  “Think of the people who go to the market for food: during the day they eat; at night they sleep, talk nonsense, marry, grow old, piously follow their dead to the cemetery; one never sees or hears those who suffer, and all the horror of life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . . And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently …

Decent amount of reading for a summer than seemed quite chaotic. Fairly eclectic . Always open to suggestions. 

The Plague – Albert Camus (1947) (Novel). French-Algerian town of Oran and its citizens deal with disease, death, and loneliness. Reflection here. 

God and Money – John Cortines and Gregory Baumer (2016) (Personal Finance). Two recent Harvard Business School graduates discuss thoughts on faith, finances, and giving. Less than 3% of American adults give away 10% or more of their income. Advocates for setting a floor of giving away at least 10% of gross income. In addition, the authors suggest setting an income and net worth cap and giving away the remainder. Reflection here (near the end of the post). 

How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia – Mohsin Hamid (2013) (Novel). Family, love, business, morality, and violence. Novel claims to be written in a self-help style (though it didn’t really capture the self-help voice, in my opinion). I greatly preferred Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2008) to this one, but still think Hamid is talented and worth reading. As a father and a son, I liked this quote near the end – “You feel a love [toward your son] you …

Some information for legal studies in 2019 and 2020. Please feel free to e-mail me with more information

New Hires (from the ALSB Newcomer List)

Michael Bell (New Jersey City)

Emma Best (Wake Forest)

Ilisabeth Bornstein (Bryant)

Amy Criddle (NAU)

Rustin Diehl (Weber State)

Terrence Dwyer (Western Connecticut State)

Sam Ehrlich (Boise State)

Mark Feigenbaum (Ryerson)

Valerie Flugge Goyer (California State-Northridge)

Laura Grow (Indiana)

Lindsay Jones (UGA)

Jeff Lingwall (Boise State)

Goldburn Maynard (Indiana)        

Sharlene McEvoy (Fairfield)

Thomas Miller (Western Connecticut State)

Eric Sader (Indiana)

Sejal Singh (St. John’s)

Christina Skinner (Penn)

Lateral Moves

Justin Pace from Western Michigan to Western Carolina (2020)

Jennifer Pacella from CUNY/Baruch to Indiana University/Kelley (2019)

Mike Schuster from Oklahoma State to University of Georgia (2020)

Promotions

Charlotte Alexander – appointed Connie D. and Ken McDaniel WomenLead Associate Professor of Law and Analytics

Gerlinde Berger-Walliser (UConn) – promoted to Associate Professor (with tenure)

Cristen Dutcher (Kennesaw) – promoted to Clinical Associate Professor

Kelly Eskew (Indiana) – promoted from Associate Clinical Professor to Clinical Professor

Todd Haugh (Indiana) – appointed Weimer Faculty Fellow and promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure

Jessica Magaldi (Pace) – appointed Ivan Fox Scholar and Professor of Business Law…

IMG_9322 (1)

(A bit of the harvest picked from my parent’s garden in north Georgia yesterday)

Last Thursday my neighborhood book club discussed work by poet David Whyte. This book club has been especially life-giving during the pandemic. I have deep admiration for every member of the group and always learn from our meetings. In March and April, we briefly moved to Zoom, but were unable to capture the same energy. We then decided to meet in person, bringing chairs to a member’s spacious driveway that backs up to common green space.

The work we discussed last week was not actually a book, but rather a few hours of David Whyte’s musings, only available in audio form. Much of the talk involves Whyte reading poetry – primarily his own, Rainer Maria Rilke’s and Mary Oliver’s – and relating that poetry to questions many of us ponder in midlife.

While I can’t locate the exact quote in the long recording, Whyte used a harvesting metaphor effectively. Whyte suggests that if we don’t slow down to be present for the harvest times in our lives, the fruit will rot on the vine. He reminds us, for example, that our child will only be…

Earlier today (July 14), Fordham University hosted a webinar entitled Reopening Justly or Just Reopening: Catholic Social Teaching, Universities & COVID-19.   

Speakers on the topic of the ethics of reopening schools include the following theology professors: 

Christine Firer Hinze discussed Catholic Social Thought, human dignity, and solidarity. She reminded us that reopening universities is literally a question of life and death, but is also a question of livelihood. Gerald Beyer stressed looking to the the latest science and considering the common good (the flourishing of all). Craig Ford commented on the reality that some universities may be facing financial collapse, that the pandemic is likely to be with us for a long while, and that there are no perfect solutions. Ford also suggested a focus on protecting those who are most vulnerable. Kate Ward talked about moral injury, lamentation, and redemption. A question and answer period — including on the topics of racial justice, transparency, shared sacrifices and mental health — followed opening remarks.

Helpful article here (on SSRN) by Nina Kohn. (H/T to Jessica Erickson on Twitter).

As law school classes move online, it is imperative that law faculty understand not only how to teach online, but how to teach well online. This article therefore is designed to help law faculty do their best teaching online. It walks faculty through key choices they must make when designing online courses, and concrete ways that they can prepare themselves and their students to succeed. The article explains why live online teaching should be the default option for most faculty, but also shows how faculty can enhance student learning by incorporating asynchronous lessons into their online classes. It then shows how faculty can set up their virtual teaching space and employ diverse teaching techniques to foster an engaging and rigorous online learning environment. The article concludes by discussing how the move to online education in response to COVID-19 could improve the overall quality of law school teaching.

IMG_8728(1)

A few months ago, I mentioned taking the free Yale University online course The Science of Well Being taught by Professor Laurie Santos.

Before jumping into the substance of the course, I wanted to talk a bit about the format. The course was likely filmed with better equipment than most of us will have in the fall. The videos were mostly under 15 minutes each, and the videos usually had quiz questions to keep you engaged. Then there were longer quizzes at the end of sections and discussion boards.

Even though this was a Yale course, on an interesting subject, with a gifted professor, I probably would not have paid even $1 for this course. The material was surely worth more than $1, but there is simply too much good free information online, in this format, for me to pay anything for it. This fact is sobering to me as a professor, given that at least some of my students will be online-only this fall. The real value, I think, springs from interaction – between professor and student, and between the students themselves. As such, I need to plan my courses with a fair bit of this interaction.

Moving…

What remains when the intoxicating distractions of life are removed?

Albert Camus in The Plague (1947) engages this question, and nearly 70 years later, so does Doctor Paul Kalanithi in When Breath Becomes Air (2016).

I read both of these books on vacation at Ocean Isle, NC late last month; this was not exactly light, uplifting beach reading.

Before the plague engulfed the Algerian coastal town of Oran, Camus’ narrator notes that:

Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, “doing business.” Naturally they don’t eschew such simpler pleasure as love-making, sea bathing, going to the pictures. But, very sensibly they reserve these past times for Saturday afternoons and Sundays and employ the rest of the week in making money, as much as possible . . . . Nevertheless there still exist towns and countries where people have now and then an inkling of something different. In general it doesn’t change their lives. Still they have had an intimation, and that’s so much to the good. Oran, however, seems to be a town without intimations; in other words,

…