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With a Fourth of July post, I was inclined to write something patriotic and connected with our great nation and to law schools generally. As an unabashed and unapologetic fan of the Hamilton: An American Musical, a couple of analogies from this brilliant production seemed appropriate to convey my thoughts on law school and leaving a legacy.  

First, I think most of us who are fortunate enough to serve as law professors recognize the great gift we have to pursue our passion and to be part of educating the next generation of people who understand the rule of law and have the skills to protect the rights of individuals and groups. This is especially needed for those who are marginalized or under represented and thus less likely to be able to enforce their rights without the help of our legal system.  This is an incredible legacy in America, set in motion by some our nation’s founders.  

Like John Adams defending British soldiers and Alexander Hamilton defending Loyalists after the war, lawyers (and law professors) do not need to compromise their own views to embrace the ideals they seek to uphold. We can vigorously maintain our personal views…

Recently, I participated in a focus group on running shoes for Brooks. A few years ago, I did something similar for New Balance. 

Brooks paid each participant $100 for 90 minutes. 

The group was well-facilitated, and the group members stayed incredibly engaged. The 90-minutes flew by.

The research Brooks was conducting on both shoe design and marketing was extremely qualitative. It was essentially a brainstorming session. I do think Brooks could have gotten more out of the time if they would have had everyone privately write down their own ideas first, as there were about three or four of the ten of us who dominated the discussion. 

While this type of focus group was not cheap—$1000 in payment plus renting the room plus travel for two employees from Seattle—it was surely a very small fraction of their production and marketing budget. And I do think Brooks got some valuable ideas. Brooks does this sort of thing all over the country, and their employees said that they do start to hear patterns in the responses. It is those patterns that Brooks acts on, as they can’t possibly address every one-off comment. 

This focus group made me think that universities should consider similar focus groups with…

A friend who is a member of a university faculty (non-law) some years ago recommended that I read Straight Man, by Richard Russo. I am forever thankful.  The book is a novel set in a small town in Pennsylvania and follows the trials and tribulations of an English-department faculty member at a college besieged by budget challenges, a dysfunctional department, and his own lack of motivation.   

The book is funny — sometimes laugh-out-loud funny — and for anyone on a faculty, I am willing to wager that, despite occasional absurdity, this faculty will feel like it could be yours.  The main character is sympathetic, to a point, but he is also part of the problem.  It is a fast read, and it’s one I come back to every couple years.  Perhaps it is just a guilty pleasure, but the universality of the characters and the bit of hope that emerges are things I find to be comforting in some way. It may be that the book serves as a reminder that we’re not alone in our craziness.  Everyone who has taught for a while knows a Hank, a Finny, a Gracie DuBois, Jacob Rose, a Billy Quigley.  …

I listened to a podcast today entitled “What Law Schools Should be Teaching, and Aren’t (with Mark Cohen).” Cohen is the founder and CEO of Legal Mosaic. In a previous life he served as a partner in a large law firm, a partner in his own boutique firm, a receiver, and the founder of a now defunct legal tech startup, Clearspire.

Given all of his experience, I value what he has to say about what law schools need to do to prepare students for the current legal marketplace. I recommend that you listen to the podcast yourself, but here is his list of gaps in student knowledge:

  1. How to interview clients
  2. The importance of project management, collaboration and teamwork
  3. How to provide legal solutions and not just merely legal opinions.
  4. How to use technology and deal with the rise of legal process outsourcing
  5. Marketing and getting clients
  6. The importance of emotional intelligence

Many may quibble with his list in an age in which bar passage rates are at historical lows. But I think he has a point, especially since most of students will work for small law firms and will not have the infrastructure/safety net of…

The Legal Skills Prof Blog has posted an article entitled Our Broken Bar Exam by Deborah Jones Merritt. The post discusses Merritt’s proposal for a task force on the bar exam. Merritt’s article states, among other things:

The bar exam is broken: it tests too much and too little. On the one hand, the exam forces applicants to memorize hundreds of black-letter rules that they will never use in practice. On the other hand, the exam licenses lawyers who don’t know how to interview a client, compose an engagement letter, or negotiate with an adversary.
 
This flawed exam puts clients at risk. It also subjects applicants to an expensive, stressful process that does little to improve their professional competence… The bar examination should test the ability of an applicant to identify legal issues in a statement of facts, such as may be encountered in the practice of law, to engage in a reasoned analysis of the issues, and to arrive at a logical solution by the application of fundamental legal principles, in a manner which demonstrates a thorough understanding of these principles… Why doesn’t our definition of minimum competence include cognitive skills that are essential for effective client…

More than a few legal blogs and scholars have taken note of a recent paper by Adam Bonica (Stanford University), Adam S. Chilton (University of Chicago), Kyle Rozema (Northwestern University) and Maya Sen (Harvard University), “The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity.”  The paper finds that those in the legal academy are more liberal than those in legal profession generally.  Anecdotally, I have to say I am not surprised. 

The abstract of the piece is as follows:

We find that approximately 15% of law professors are conservative and that only approximately one out of every twenty law schools have more conservative law professors than liberal ones. In addition, we find that these patterns vary, with higher-ranked schools having an even smaller presence of conservative law professors. We then compare the ideological balance of the legal academy to that of the legal profession. Compared to the 15% of law professors that are conservative, 35% of lawyers overall are conservative. Law professors are more liberal than graduates of top 14 law schools, lawyers working at the largest law firms, former federal law clerks, and federal judges. Although we find that professors are more liberal than the alumni at all but a handful of law schools, there is a strong relationship between

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As Professor Steve Bainbridge and others reported last May, SSRN was sold to Elsevier. 

Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t noticed much of a difference, except for an improved layout on the article pages.

After posting my American Business Law Journal (“ABLJ”) article, however, I got an e-mail that my article had been taken down. They claimed that the copyright was held by the ABLJ, which is simply incorrect, as my contract with Wiley (the publisher of the ABLJ) clearly states “The Author retains ownership of the copyright in the Article,” and the contract explicity allows me to post the article (including on SSRN) with citation. (Section 2.1)

I sent SSRN my contract and waited a number of days without a response. I then called SSRN’s help line and received an apology, but the person did not have the ability to post my article even though she said that they had received the contract and that everything was cleared. The article is now up (and went up shortly after my phone call to SSRN), unless they have already taken it down again.

The whole thing was quite a hassle, and I am not quite sure why they flagged this article.

I…

Businesses from small farmers to cruise lines are anxiously awaiting President Trump’s policy on Cuba and how/if he will rescind President Obama’s Executive Orders relaxing restrictions on doing business with the island.

If you’re in the South Florida area next Friday March 10th, please consider attending the timely conference on Doing Business in Cuba: Legal, Ethical, and Compliance Challenges from 8:00 am-4:30 pm at the Andreas School of Business, Barry University. The Florida Bar has granted 6.5 CLE credits, including for ethics and for certifications in Business Litigation and International Law. The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust is organizing the event.

As a member of the Commission and an academic who has just completed my third article on Cuba, I’m excited to provide the opening address for the event. I’m even more excited about our speakers John Kavulich, President, U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc;  the general counsel of Carnival Cruise Lines;  mayors of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and Doral; director of the Miami International Airport; a number of academic experts from local universities; Commissioners Nelson Bellido and Judge Lawrence Schwartz; and outside counsel  from MDO Partners, Akerman LLP, Holland & Knight, Greenberg Traurig, Squire Patton Boggs…

I have updated my business law professor jobs list here. 

While many of the schools on this list, which was originally posted this past summer, have likely now filled those positions, there are a few new postions posted in the last month or so.

Those new position postings include two in law schools: NYU (a law & social enterprise fellowship) and Victoria University (New Zealand). And five new postings are legal studies positions in business schools: Appalachian State University, Minnesota State University, Morgan State University, St. Peter’s University, and Warner University.

Later this week, I will be on the road to Los Angeles to take one of our teams to a LawMeet Transactional competition.  The competition is described as follows: 

The National Transactional LawMeet is the premier “moot court” experience for students interested in a transactional practice. The National Transactional LawMeet is a part of the LawMeet family of live, interactive, educational competitions designed to give law students a hands-on experience in developing and honing transactional lawyering skills.

I worked with a team last year that made it to the finals in New York City (their work and talent got them there, to be clear), and it was a great experience. They did the regional on their own last year, so I am hoping I don’t get in their way this time around.  

I have worked with moot court teams for years, including taking teams to the Evans Moot Court Competition at the University of Wisconsin Law School and the Mardi Gras Moot Court Competition at Tulane Law School, and they were good experiences, I think, for the students. And I have helped with our West Virginia University College of LawNational Energy & Sustainability Moot Court Competition, which I think is both unique…