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Sour grapes from Proulx

So the film based on your short story -- a great film, by the way -- wins a bunch of awards at various venues, but loses the Best Picture Oscar in an upset. What do you do?

If you're Annie Proulx, I guess you write an incredibly tacky piece for The Guardian, in which you call the Best Picture winner "Trash" and rail on the Academy, its voters, and the award ceremony in an extended rant that is neither smart nor funny.

I guess I'm still young enough to be surprised when smart, articulate people use their considerable skills -- and access to major media outlets -- to embarrass themselves in the most conspicuous ways possible. Proulx may be an author capable of a very good story, but she comes across as utterly classless in her Guardian piece, taking the description "sore loser" to a new level. To slightly adapt the old saying: Better to keep your mouth shut and let people wonder whether you're an ass, than to open it and remove all doubt.

Posted by Kaimipono at 11:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Simmons-Gladwell Chat

Bill Simmons (aka, "The Sports Guy") recently posted an email exchange he had with Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "Blink." (Part I; Part II). Not surprisingly, it is packed full of funny, great moments. Two in particular stand out. First, Gladwell writes:

Why don't people work hard when it's in their best interest to do so? Why does Eddy Curry come to camp every year overweight? The (short) answer is that it's really risky to work hard, because then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you didn't work hard. It's a form of self-protection . . . To me, this is what Peyton Manning's problem is. He has the work habits and dedication and obsessiveness of Jordan and Tiger Woods. But he can't deal with the accompanying preparation anxiety. The Manning face is the look of someone who has just faced up to a sobering fact: I am in complete control of this offense. I prepare for games like no other quarterback in the NFL. I am in the best shape of my life. I have done everything I can to succeed -- and I'm losing. Ohmigod. I'm not that good. (Under the same circumstances, Ben Roethlisberger is thinking: maybe next time I stop after five beers).

This is an interesting idea, with potential application to agency theory that I haven't seen laid out in the literature. But, the best moment in the chat comes in Part II, where Gladwell astutely observes:

It is possible, as "Moneyball" reminds us, to win with less by being smarter. But the point is not that if you have more money than someone else you automatically win more games. The point is that if you have more money that someone else you're playing a different game than they are. Wal-mart is not competing against mom-and-pop corner stores. They're in a different business. And it isn't fun, at the end of the day, to watch a mom-and-pop compete against Wal-mart. It's painful and pointless . . . Contests where one player has significantly more resources than another are not sports. They are marketplaces. To root for the Yankees or the Red Sox is the functional equivalent of rooting for Microsoft or General Electric. No thanks.

Exactly right! But here's where I run into a problem. I love the Philadelphia Phillies, and like to think of them as an underdog, gutsy team, sort of like the last non-chain bookstore in town. But last year, the Phillies' payroll was $95 million, 5th in the league. This year, it will be around $94 million. And they still can't make the playoffs (this year, their new GM has basically admitted they have no chance.)

Which means that I've somehow convinced myself to be an insane fan of baseball's equivalent of General Motors.

Posted by hoffman at 09:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Vladeck's Shining Hour

I assume that many of our readers also follow Prawfsblawg, once home to Solove, Wenger and I. But in case you haven't been to Prawfs lately, you are missing one of the most interesting discussions I've read on the legal blawgosphere in the five years I've been wasting spending time following it. The protagonists: Steve Vladeck (University of Miami first-year professor); his students; sundry law professors of the left; and some academics from the "right," including Texas Law’s Assistant Prof. Kate Litvak. The discussion revolves around Steve's decision to hold classes "off-campus" for the duration of a just-begun janitor's strike.

As Steve explained in his first post on the topic, he canvassed his students before making the decision. Nevertheless, as his second post reveals, he has been attacked vigorously by students, one of whom (in an open meeting) called for him to be fired. That hostile reaction - - which you can really taste reading the comments to the posts - unsettled Steve, as he explains most recently here:

What's perhaps been the most surprising to me is the extent to which those students who have been the most outspoken critics of what I've done have no qualms or hesitation about their entitlement -- their right -- to dictate to me the terms of my job . . . . I had always understood the academy generally, and the legal academy specifically, as characterized by the autonomy it bestows upon its members. Autonomy to decide what to teach, and how to teach it. I would've thought that "how" also included at least some flexibility with respect to "when and where" . . . And so, I pose this as a question, especially to my more senior colleagues here and elsewhere: Where is the line? At what point do we cease being servants to our student masters? We can say no to requests for recommendations. We can say no to requests that we advise student papers. We certainly get to design our own syllabi, even for the most black-letter, bar-essential classes. Indeed, the real stick we wield is our proverbial red pen. But apparently, we don't get to inconvenience some of our students in the interests of others (and other members of our community). Isn't there something of a disconnect here? Doesn't part of our portfolio include the authority and the responsibility to make that decision?

All of these posts engendered substantial comment threads, with anonymous and attributed authors. Litvak, in particular, has been blunt in her criticism. “[R]efusing to move the class is not a ‘political statement’ – it’s simply a refusal to breach a contract. The deal was for class participants to show up at a certain time in a certain place and do a certain thing. That’s what you were hired to do. That’s what you should do.” She further has argued that a law professor's classroom management decisions should pass a "viewpoint neutrality"* test. She explains that she would support Steve under limited circumstances:

[If] abortion protesters put up a sign on campus ‘This is the save-the-babies week. Don’t cross the line if you oppose abortion!’ and a group of your students announces that crossing the line violates their fundamental moral beliefs, [and Steve proceeded to] pledge to move your class outside campus. And you pledge to do the same for all student demands to meet outside campus so long as such demands are based on proclaimed moral belief. If you publicly pledge so, I will be the first to get off your case because you will demonstrate that you are in fact viewpoint neutral. Please don’t start arguing that strike picket is somehow different from the abortion (or any other) picket because of “history.” . . . [I]n this country, walkouts on the grounds of pure moral revulsion have been just as common (if not more common) as walkouts in demand for higher pay. Most of the civil rights protests fit the pattern.

She finally expresses her disdain for the enterprise of using the fact of the strike to have a discussion with students about labor law:

By the way, the “teaching moments” stuff demonstrates a spectacular naiveté and a spectacular arrogance on a part of a faculty member . . . I oppose political propaganda in the classroom not because I believe it to be consequential (I don’t), but because I believe it to be the most arrogant case of professorial self-indulgence.

Joseph Slater, Dave Fagundes, and others have since weighed in. The whole topic is actually (for the medium) a pretty nuanced, substantive, and real-world debate. I think that you have to applaud Steve for being willing to put this story out there and to face some incredibly hostile reactions as a first-year professor. All across the land, first-year teachers are ducking their heads at controversy, and obviously Steve could have done so too. But instead he keeps on blogging away, refusing (mostly) to rise to provocation, trying to imagine good motives in many of the people who have attacked him personally, and - above all - being really transparent.

There are many interesting things going on in this exchange, and I encourage you to read them for yourself, and perhaps join in. The whole thing has raised lots of questions for me, some of which I can hold until it is over. But one problem that comes immediately to mind whether strikes and related labor actions give rise to aberrant behavior and rhetoric, or whether they instead peel away pretension and bring us closer to a realistic look at law school life. The possible truth that cuts deepest is that some/many/most law students believe that their faculty aren't professionals but instead their employees. Usually (the story would go) this student opinion is cloaked by norms reinforcing hierarchy, habits of civility, and strategic calculation. Of course, the view would imply that when law professors do anything to help a student outside of class, we shouldn't see those actions as altruistic or part of the obligation that professionals owe to society, but instead motivated by the student’s hidden whip hand. Thus, professors tolerate IMing in the classroom (as a recent discussion on the contracts listserve, of all places, has suggested) because prohibiting it is not something that students let us pretend to have the power to do.

I guess I prefer to think that strikes are emotional times, and that forum’s like Miami’s public meeting encourage venting by extreme voices. The relationship between law student and law professor is, in my view, better analogized to that between client and lawyer than employer and employee. But maybe my students (who sometimes read this blog, for some reason) disagree. If so they (and other readers) are feel free to so comment, anonymously or otherwise.

[*"Viewpoint neutrality"!! And they say that economists' rhetoric is invasive!]

Posted by hoffman at 06:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

And a Fashionista Shall Lead Them

In honor of Chloe’s triumph on Project Runway (design at right), I thought I’d blog about Chris Sprigman’s and Kal Raustiala’s brilliant paper, The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and IP in Fashion Design.

"Soft IP" rights (as copyright and trademark are often called) have grown enormously. In many industries, copyrightholders are insisting on the right to control even fragments of works. Trademark holders can protect not only their marks, but also aspects of the packaging and design of their products. Promoters of this trend claim that without strong rights, no one would invest in music, books, marks, or other easily copiable expression.

But IP protection apparently isn't that necessary in the fashion industry. In couture, "copying is rampant . . . [y]et innovation and investment remain vibrant." The authors attempt to solve this "piracy paradox" by describing how the "snob value" of high fashion is preserved via "induced obsolescence." As a design gets copied, its value falls precipitously--driving early adopters to buy newer designs.

The article hits some sublime points, such as Jean Cocteau's observation that "art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion . . . produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time." But it sidesteps some normative questions about induced obsolescence that might point to new directions for IP scholarship...

First, couture appears to be a positional good--that is, its value depends at least in part on how it ranks compared with other designs. Robert Frank has done terrific work detailing the drawbacks of positional goods (in both economics and law review literatures). Drawing on the economic theory of auctions, he demonstrates that individuals can waste a lot of time and money in "positional arms races" for status. As they strive for status via "observable goods," they end up with longer commutes, more debts, and other impediments to happiness.

Now of course, the people at the top of the fashion food chain probably have money to burn. And as any careful reader of Us or People knows, there are many ways a frugal fashionista can imitate high style cheaply. But perhaps many people are choosing not to, and are indulging in shopping sprees that express little more than the capacity to outspend their reference group. Is there any way to distinguish between the aesthetic value of this sort of conspicuous consumption, and its mere signification of the buyer's purchasing power? I don't know if there is, but perhaps we should at least try to disaggregate these values before taking Virginia Postrel's celebration of the "rise of aesthetic value" too seriously.

Posted by Frank_Pasquale at 05:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Late Thoughts on the Barron/Roberts Debate

David Barron's provocative post on Chief Justice Roberts’ citation practices attracted a great deal of attention this week. Barron argued that the Chief’s opinions to date have not cited any academic commentary, noting that "it's worth watching -- and challenging if it develops into an actual theory of constitutional decision making." Steve Bainbridge retorted here: "[h]ow frustrating it must be for a con law scholar to face the prospect of decades of having the Chief Justice of the United States ignore you." But, as Ethan Leib pointed out, law professors are used to a silent reception. (Tom Smith might agree.) A commentator to Ethan’s post noted that in fact the Chief did cite an article in his opinion in Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp., 126 S. Ct. 704, 710 (U.S. 2005). Rounding out the debate, Orin Kerr unearthed some previous opinions by Roberts citing treatises (cold comfort to young profs) and suggested such work made it "a bit less likely that Roberts will differ from the other Justices in his willingness to note or engage with scholarly commentary."

There are a few balls in the air here. First, there is a predictive question: "Do the Chief Justice's three opinions to date provide a sufficiently large data set to say anything about his citation practices in the future, and, if so, what?" Second, there is a descriptive question: "What is the current practice of the Court with respect to citing secondary authority, and how has that practice changed over time?" Finally, there is a normative question: "Is citation to secondary authority a metric that we should use to evaluate the strength of an opinion by the Supreme Court? Does it matter the type of case?" And, despite being a few days late, I've a few tentative thoughts on what is going on.

From the commentary, the normative question seems to resolving in a partisan way, although why this should be is unclear to me.

Perhaps conservatives assume that most scholarly work is the product of the liberal academy. Progressive law professors and Justices are said to corrupt/seduce conservative Justices – better to ignore them entirely. But I see modern conservative constitutional law's dominant methodological approach as a kind of historical linguistics. If that is right, wouldn't conservatives want good secondary work to inform the court's deliberations, rather than the Court's own amateur inquiries? And, having informed the Court's decision, wouldn't it be better (more open, democratically legitimate, and defensible) for the court to cite whatever sources it relied upon? Finally, what about the claim of Justice Aharon Barak of the Israel Supreme Court that refusal to cite to secondary authority and other aids to interpretation results in more, and not less, discretion.

Progressives, on the other hand, want the court to cite more sources (international law being a prime example, but presumably the latest issue of the Yale Law Journal as well). I suppose that the relevant folks flip the conservative position(s): non-textual authority is likely to be more progressively oriented on some topics; the modern progressive approach to constitutional interpretation relies heavily on scholarship establishing the contours of a robust EP and DP substantive right and not on the text itself; when you control none of the Three Branches, relying on their product to further progressive ends is itself questionable. But, of course, relying too much on scholarship instead of text exposes the court to popular legitimacy problems, and to a very large extent, the Court's legitimacy is all that the some on the left thinks stands between it and the full workings out of the conservative counter-revolution. And the Court’s current importance to the left is contingent: if Al Gore or John Kerry had won, presumably worries about the Court’s hegemonic mid-90s rhetoric would still be popular.

In any event, this particular debate seems impoverished without a clear answer to the descriptive question. Robert Berring has written an article on that topic which I think is fantastic. He compared Supreme Court decisions a century apart. Berring describes the first set of opinions, from 1899, as follows:

What sources were cited? The Court relied heavily on cases. Just as the text of the cases is shorter and less convoluted, the number of cases cited is smaller. But the staple of authority was judicial reports. Cases from its own jurisprudence, cases from the various states, cases from England--all were at the center of the Court's work. Reading through the volume one finds a solid reliance on precedent.

By contrast, Alden v. Maine, from 1999,

is a wonderland of sources beyond the bounds of cases and statutes. Hundreds of cases are cited, but so are authorities from all corners of the information galaxy. Justice Kennedy delves into the Federalist Papers and Elliot's Debates on the Constitution and quickly moves to Charles Warren's The Supreme Court In United States History and David Currie's The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period 1789-1801.

Go ahead and read the paper. But more generally, there is a whole literature (some of which is found in the law librarian law review, and which appears to have been sparked in part by Wise and Schauer's "Legal Positivism as Legal Information") about the relationship between electronic access to law and it's primary content (i.e., how do opinions look different after Westlaw went live). A basic finding: as the information available to the Court has increased, so has Justices’ citation to outside work (academic and otherwise). This relationship between access and citation practice undercuts the claim that citation to academic work is a phenomena of the left.

I should say that I understand why there is sensitivity about what the Court cites. Everything the Court does is of great moment from the perspective of a scholar of constitutional law. From my securities/corporate perch, I imagine with some glee that somewhere right now there toils a research assistant reading last term's oral arguments, trying to code for a correlation between numbers of syllables used by Justices sitting to the respondent's left, the result of the case, and the Justice’s appointing president's daughter's boyfriend's name. Constitutional professors. Sheesh.

Posted by hoffman at 12:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

What does Chevron deference have to do with the Appellate Body of the WTO?

Other than that administrative law and trade law are the two subjects that my students endure from me, the connection between Chevron v. NRDC and the GMO dispute between the United States and Europe is tenuous. Perhaps we can broadly characterize them as vectors through which the federal government vindicates its policies through judicial review – be it domestic and international. But perhaps not.

How often does the United States prevail in these fora?

Orin Kerr, a terrible writer, but a perspicacious empiricist, found that in 1995 and 1996 agency interpretations received Chevron deference 73% of the time in the courts of appeals (not online, but see 15 Yale J on Reg at 30). Now Cass Sunstein and Thomas Miles are at work on a larger study of Chevron deference over a longer period of time, involving three characteristic government agencies – and even if their results show less deference to the agency interpretation, the conventional wisdom is that there’s no way that the United States could lose before anybody more than they lose in the WTO.

But that’s not how the USTR calculates it. In its view, "the Administration’s record in WTO cases involving the United States is 13 wins and 10 losses in three and a half years, a 56% success rate. From 1995-2000, the U.S. record was 18 wins and 15 losses, a 54% success rate.”

Wins – or “wins,” as Joost Pauwelyn usefully reminds us – aren’t as hard to come by for fearsome American government litigators as one might think, no matter what the fora. I find the apples and oranges comparison interesting, although not rigorous.

Posted by David_Zaring at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Over 500 Legal Blogs

Ian Best at 3L Epiphany is working on a taxonomy of legal blogs. He has compiled a list of over 500 legal blogs. He invites readers to suggest blogs he's overlooked.

Posted by Daniel Solove at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Sick Feeling In My Stomach

This morning I was poking around, trying to discover what recent web searches had brought readers to our site. I noticed someone had visited my earlier post, Execution By Overdose, so I tried to discover what had directed them to Co-Op. It turned out that the reader had been searching Google for "overdose painless." Discovering this inquiry made me instantly anxious and sick. Of course, I have no idea what motivated the reader. Maybe he or she was also troubled by the implications of state administered overdoses. But, like many others, I have lost people close to me to self-inflicted wounds. If our reader was seeking such an exit, I hope he or she will think long and hard about the choice. An overdose, I'm afraid, is never truly painless.

Posted by Dan_Filler at 10:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Moving To Drexel College of Law

As a close reader (who cared) would have seen, I am leaving the University of Alabama this summer to join the inaugural faculty of Drexel University College of Law. Since I hope to blog a bit about both the process of lateral movement, and the task of starting a new law school, I thought I ought to formally announce my move. Drexel University is one of Philadelphia's major research universities. Although it was traditionally known for its technical and engineering programs, the school has expanded its scope in recent years. Among other things, it now includes the country's largest private medical school.

Right now the law school has seven faculty members - four hired laterally and three at the entry level. We expect our entering class to include between 60 and 120 students. One of the most notable recent developments is that Judge Lou Pollack (formerly of Penn and Yale law schools) has agreed to chair the law school's Board of Visitors. There is something exciting and terrifying about creating a new law school from the ground up. I hope to share a bit of my experience working in a law school start-up. But you'll have to pardon me if I periodically find myself puffing about Drexel.

Posted by Dan_Filler at 10:20 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Arrests In Alabama Church Fires

The police arrested three college students today in their ongoing investigation of ten church fires in Alabama. The CNN story is here. Two of the students attend Birmingham Southern College, one of Alabama's elite liberal arts colleges. (For those readers who dismiss the college because they have never heard of it, and it's in Alabama, think Kenyon or Haverford. Some of my best students at Alabama Law attended BSC.) The third attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham (known locally as UAB, and in college sports polls as Ala - Birmingham.)

I'm waiting to understand the logic, or even the illogic, of their actions. They torched five predominately white Baptist congregations, and five predominately African-American ones. It's hard to see this as a mere prank but no easier to understand as a political attack. Somehow I suspect that one or more of these defendants will be blaming alcohol or drugs.

Nobody needed this string of fires, but they resonate specially in Alabama. Lets hope that the good news - the difference between now and then - is that these fires were merely pointless destruction, and not intended as a meaningful message to anyone at all.

UPDATE: The complaint in this case is available here.

Posted by Dan_Filler at 03:17 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Public Records and Identity Theft

There are new details to report about the famous Hamilton County public records website. Several years ago, the clerk of courts of Hamilton County, Ohio placed a wide range of public records online. Many of the records had extensive personal information about individuals, including Social Security Numbers and home addresses. The Hamilton County website garnered a lot of attention. The NY Times ran a story about it in 2002 called Dirty Laundry, Online for All to See (Sept. 5, 2002) at G1, by Jennifer 8. Lee:

Four years ago, Mr. Cissell decided that it was time to move the county's court records onto the Web. The documents were already public. They were already electronic. Where else to put public electronic documents but on the Internet?

"It was the natural progression of technology," said Mr. Cissell, the clerk of courts for Hamilton County, whose seat is Cincinnati.

Mr. Cissell's three-person technology staff put together the Web site at www.courtclerk.org. State tax liens, arrest warrants, bond postings -- all became searchable and accessible on the Internet.

"Everything we get is scanned and available," said Mr. Cissell, a former United States attorney. "It was very easy to open the door to the public."

Visitors have flowed to the site. So have the complaints.

Later, in 2004, it was reported that records were removed from the website due to the fact that they were being used for identity theft:

Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann announced he was removing more than 320,000 public documents from his Web site in an attempt to combat the growing crime of identity theft.

"This is a big deal. It's not something I have done lightly," Hartmann said of the deletions from www.courtclerk.org, which gets 60 million hits a year.

Today, Hartmann will begin blocking access to traffic tickets that previously have been available. Traffic tickets, Hartmann said, are particularly important to identity thieves because they contain names, addresses, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers, all information that can be used to steal an identity and rack up large bills under the new, stolen identity.

Now the details of the identity thefts caused by the posting of the documents have come to light. From the AP:

Eight people are accused of running an identity theft ring that got Social Security numbers and other personal data from a Hamilton County Web site and used the information to ring up about a half-million dollars in spending.

The suspects created false identification documents, opened credit accounts and produced counterfeit checks in several states.

The 40-count indictment charging six individuals from Cincinnati, one from Columbus and one from Ross with conspiracy and fraud was announced Friday by the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

The indictment says they stole the personal information of hundreds of people in southern Ohio, resulting in about $500,000 in losses for individuals, financial institutions and retailers. The indictment outlines 103 instances of counterfeit checks or fraudulent credit transactions at stores in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky. . . .

The personal information came from records on the Hamilton County's clerk of court Web site, other Internet sites and stolen mail. . . .

Hamilton County Court Clerk Greg Hartmann said he started removing documents containing Social Security numbers and some other types of personal data from the clerk's Web site about 14 months ago, before he was aware of the theft investigation.

Related Posts:

1. Solove, Identity Theft: Increasingly an Affliction of the Young
2. Solove, Youngest ID Theft Victim? (PrawfsBlawg) (July 2005)
3. Solove, Why Identity Theft Isn’t Pretty (PrawfsBlawg) (July 2005)
4. Solove, Identity Theft Fears and Online Shopping (PrawfsBlawg) (June 2005)
5. Solove, Identity Thief Professors (PrawfsBlawg) (June 2005)

Hat tip: Chris Hoofnagle

Posted by Daniel Solove at 01:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More Details From The Breyer Visit

In the aftermath of Justice Breyer's talk at Alabama, I find myself discovering just how little news it takes to constitute "news." Or perhaps just how much I missed when I didn't write for my college daily. For example, Breyer compared deliberations under Rehnquist and Roberts. He described Roberts' deliberations as a bit more informal, offering more opportunities for discussion. Interesting, I thought. Newsworthy, thought AP. There was other discussion of Breyer here . So here are some other things Breyer said during his trip to the University of Alabama. People can decide for themselves whether they are interesting, or simply expected.

Commenting on the professional Supreme Court bar: It is mostly a good thing, particularly given the constraints of one hour oral argument. (He'd prefer longer arguments.) In certain specialized areas - like bankruptcy - it is more helpful to have an expert in the field than an expert in Supreme Court argument. The worst thing, though, is when a high-powered attorney (like an elected official or senior partner) grabs the oral argument just for the sake of arguing before the Court, but fails to fully learn the case and prepare for argument.

Commenting on abortion and gay rights: These are very hard issues, and there is much to be said on both sides.

Commenting on his hobbies: Biking, movies, and reading.

Commenting on Jefferson's suggestion of recurring revolution: Total disagreement. One of the best developments in America is people's willingness to follow and enforce the law even when they disagree with it. This is a big step forward from the actions of Andrew Jackson in the aftermath of the Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia and Arkansas Governor Faubus in the aftermath of Brown v. Board. Despite what he sees as an erroneous decision in Bush v. Gore, Breyer is pleased by how the nation responded.

Commenting on recent unanimous decisions by the Court: Once people are on the Court together for a while, you start to know where everyone stands on issues. You just accept that there will be disagreement. Perhaps on a reconstituted Court there is more effort to find some common ground. But maybe it's just that all the tough decisions get pushed to the end of the session as people look to see who they can convince to join them.

Commenting on the meaning of "per curiam" decisions: These decisions often suggest that the Supreme Court thinks the lower court just missed something. These sorts of lower court opinions may occur more often when matters are deferred to staff clerks who write with relatively less direction and supervision.

Commenting on Justice Thomas's relative silence during argument: Thomas feels that time for argument is limited and most of his questions are ulitmately going to be addressed by someone. And he's usually right. But don't think his silence reflects any lack of preparation. He is as prepared as everyone else.

Hat tip: Howard Bashman and Orin Kerr

Posted by Dan_Filler at 12:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Whether a Fellow or a Visitor Be

The new hires news is pouring in, and already there’s been some comment on the fact that a large number of the successful applicants came from fellowships or from visits at other schools, as opposed to from practice. When I looked around for a so-you-want-to-be-a-professor gig, I applied to two schools. Each of these places were massive, lumbering beasts of the law school firmament. It now appears that visiting and fellowship opportunities cover the map, and that successful applicants can come from a wide range of institutional settings.

So which should you choose – a fellowship at a big law school, or a visiting gig somewhere else?

If you’re going into teaching for the money – and no man but a blockhead ever wrote but for money – your choice is clear. You want the visit. Possibly for US News reporting reasons, or maybe for budgetary bureaucratic reasons far above my pay grade, my spy network suggests that visitors frequently to get a salary not dissimilar than that that of new tenure track hires. If you’re thinking about a fellowship or a short-term writing job, you’ll be lucky to get more than 60 grand, and you’ll probably make much less.

Of course, if you're entering teaching for the money, I'd encourage you to compare the salaries of first year associates at New York law firms with those of tenured professors at the University of Virginia.

Posted by David_Zaring at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

From Gradgrind to Glaeser

Economic analysis is often illuminating, but sometimes it just seems to provide cover for new Gradgrinds to ply reductionist utilitarianism. Case in point: the NYT Magazine has a glowing profile of Edward Glaeser, an economist from Harvard. As a patrician, provocateur, and polymath, Glaeser is reported to have single handedly revived the field of urban economics. Here are some of his prescriptions (as reported by Jon Gertner):

1) Don’t rebuild much of New Orleans-- just let hard-pressed residents move somewhere else (and expect our exceedingly eleemosynary Congress to cut checks to each resident for $200,000, since that's what they were planning to spend on infrastructure!). And don’t try to revive struggling rust-belt cities like Detroit, either.

2) “Car-based cities” are great; they “enable residents to buy cheaper, bigger houses,” and “the average car commute is about 24 minutes; on public transportation, it is around 48 minutes.”

I have a few questions for Glaeser. First, does his model value stability at all? Let’s say that this process of dispersion in search of better jobs leaves very few nuclear families with extended families nearby to help with child and elder care. Is the resultant need to hire day care workers and visiting nurses a boon to the economy, because unpaid labor to that end wouldn’t count in the GDP? Just how parsimonious are his models?

I have some personal experience with the "exodus from the Rustbelt" that Glaeser finds so appealing…

When I was growing up, my family followed his first recommendation, moving (in search of better jobs) from Buffalo (where my father was a steelworker) to California, then Oklahoma, then Arizona (where he worked in retail). If my experience is any guide, this transition is no picnic for the families involved. But even from a strict economic standpoint, the better jobs never materialized. I hope he’d admit it’s harder to find decent wages in the “right to work” sunbelt than the more progressive “rust belt” he appears ready to let go under.

Next, regarding car-based cities...I found Glaeser's conclusions a bit rich, given that he a) co-authored a study on obesity and b) admits he has to leave for work at 6AM each morning to beat the traffic on his commute from his estate to his office. What if the 24 extra minutes spent by subway commuters are walking? Does that have any value for him? How does exercise fit into his comparison of car-based vs. train- or bus-based commuting? (And if it made people live longer, but then they needed more medical resources toward the end of life because they were less likely to die suddenly of a heart attacks, would that be a negative for him?) And isn’t he grateful for all those schlubs who (like me) take the train, leaving Route 2 a little less congested for him?

Admittedly, Glaeser has many more sensible things to say in the article. But I deeply hope that the types of questions I’m asking have to be answered before anyone else takes mathematical modeling seriously as a guide to urban policy. We are repeatedly assured throughout the article that Glaeser is a genius, “the most exciting urban researcher in half a century”… and that he’s a very sharp dresser! ("Waiting for the light to change at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, the defender of sprawl . . . — and the wearer of a splendid beige cashmere overcoat — didn't seem much suited for the suburbs of Boston." . . . I have to wonder--do these Times profiles emphasize subjects' sartorial splendor and elite connections in order to lend them credibility, or to get us to be skeptical of academic demigods whose money can insulate them from any bad consequences of the policies they recommend?)

But just because someone purports to reduce difficult, value-laden choices about the kind of society we aspire to be into a series of elegant mathematical equations doesn’t mean he’s really helped us understand our dilemma.

Posted by Frank_Pasquale at 06:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tax Scholar: Bush Is An Atheist

My colleague, Susan Hamill, is never one to shy from a fight. Four years ago she burst onto the scene with her article, An Argument For Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics. This piece, which I've noted previously was a driving force behind an ultimately unsuccessful Alabama tax reform proposal, argued that (what she termed) "Judeo-Christian" ethics demanded that true believers support a more progressive tax scheme in the state. Her arguments were the centerpiece of the statewide debate on the referendum and she was targeted by Alabama's Christian Coalition. (Curiously, she garnered the support of the national group.) I'll never forget The Economist's headline about this referendum: What Would Jesus Tax?

Well, my friends, Susan is back.

In her new paper, An Evaluation of Federal Tax Policy Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics, she argues that:

"the moral values driving the Bush Administration's tax policy decisions reflect objectivist ethics, a form of atheism that exalts individual property rights over all other moral considerations. Given their overwhelming adherence to Christianity and Judaism, I conclude that President Bush, many members of Congress and many Americans are not meeting the moral obligations of their faiths."

Powerful stuff! Susan joined the Alabama faculty as a tax scholar in the mid-1990's. About five years ago, on sabbatical, she pursued graduate work at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School - not exactly a hotbed of liberalism. These recent pieces reflect a marriage of scholarship with personal passion. Not surprisingly, people from many perspectives can find ways to disagree with Susan. On the other hand, she exemplifies a professor who believes her scholarship must have practical consequences. I have tremendous admiration for both her work and the way she has chosen to structure her professional life.

Is Bush an atheist? Who'd have thought you'd read the Virginia Tax Review to find out.

Posted by Dan_Filler at 12:46 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

An Update on Food Labels

I've gotten some on- and off-line comments about my federalism-in-food-labeling post from over the weekend. One reader points out that the market is already experimenting with food labeling, through chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, which negotiate with food manufacturers for certain production & labeling practices. Thus, if you want to do business with Whole Foods, you need to avoid a really long list of additives. Trader Joe's, which acknowledges FDA preemption of food labeling here, is quite proud of its business of re-branding private label products so that consumers can be assured of quality and price guarantees. As the reader concluded, we can see the success of such stores as an expression of consumer demand for labeling. In reality, people don’t want to actually know what is in products, they want to know that food is safe, healthy, pro-environment, etc. When you buy at Whole Foods, you get the comfort of your convictions, without actually having to read the fine print: the store has done it for you. On this understanding, we don’t need states to experiment with label design or content: the market will sort out this problem nicely.

Another reader heatedly claims that I've underestimated the cost of labeling products for multiple states. So long as producers, and not distributors, do the labeling, it will be cost-prohibitive. My response to that argument is that current labeling practices are contingent on the FDA's top-down command and control system. In a world with 50 different state practices, labeling would likely be done on-site through, say, the same type of sticker machine that currently set prices. The reader, in turn, maintains that the costs of labeling ought to considered in light of the negligible consumer benefits, and asserts that studies have found only 11% of supermarket consumers actually read labels before purchasing products. This number is debatable, of course. (A study here claims that 56% of subjects read labels some of the time). But the point that inconsistent labeling regimes would put severe burdens on smaller manufacturers obviously a good one, and would caution against allowing experimentation when the pro-consumer effects are as yet not quantified.

Posted by hoffman at 05:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Motion Denied for Incomprehensibility

This humorous court order was sent to me by my former colleague Charlie Sullivan (law, Seton Hall). The case is In re Richard Willis King Debtor, (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Tex. Feb. 21, 2006), Bankr. Case No. 05-56485-C. The order, from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Lief Clark, states:

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR INCOMPREHENSIBILITY

Before the court is a motion entitled “Defendant’s Motion to Discharge Response to Plaintiff’s Response to Defendant’s Response Opposing Objection to Discharge.” Doc. #7. As background, this adversary was commenced on December 14, 2005 with the filing of the plaintiff’s complaint objecting to the debtor’s discharge. (Doc. #1). Defendant answered the complaint on January 12, 2006. Doc. #3. Plaintiff responded to the Defendant’s answer on January 26, 2006. Doc. #6. On February 3, 2006, Defendant filed the above entitled motion. The court cannot determine the substance, if any, of the Defendant’s legal argument, nor can the court even ascertain the relief that the Defendant is requesting. The Defendant’s motion is accordingly denied for being incomprehensible.*

* Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,” after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

SO ORDERED.

Posted by Daniel Solove at 04:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Internet Censorship and the US Military

If you learned that certain blogs and websites are being censored for having political content, you'd say: "That's no surprise. China does it all the time." Well, it's not just China . . . the US Military appears to be taking some lessons from the Chinese government. A few days ago, Wonkette discussed an email it purportedly received from a soldier in Iraq complaining of Interent censorship. The email stated:

Just to let you know, the US Marines have blocked access to “Wonkette” along with numerous other sites such as personal email (i.e. Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail, etc), blogs that don't agree with the government point of view, personal websites, and some news organizatons. This has taken effect as of the beginning of February. I have no problem with them blocking porn sites (after all it is a government network), but cutting off access to our email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites is a bit much.

Another email posted recently on Wonkette is even more troubling:

Anyway, I had a few minutes today and thought I'd look and see what else was banned on the Marine web here. I think the results speak for themselves:

* Wonkette – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion.”
* Bill O’Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) – OK
* Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
* Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) – OK
* ABC News “The Note” – OK
* Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
* G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) – OK
* Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) – “Forbidden, this page (http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/) is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies.”

If this email is true, I find it to be quite troubling. It is disturbing enough that the government is censoring political views from US soldiers. It is ironic that we are denying democratic discourse to our troops who are busy attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East. And it is really alarming if only certain political viewpoints are being censored while others are not. Anyway, this story just seems too outrageous to be true, and I sure hope it isn't.

Posted by Daniel Solove at 01:35 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

Making Administrative Law Au Courant

Okay, now that the first post is out of the way, a little bit about myself. I write about administrative law, often about alternatives to traditional Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking, whether done by agencies themselves or by other lawmaking institutions, like district courts. And I’m becoming a veteran guest blogger, a – dare I dream? – poor man’s Paul Lynde of the legal blogosphere.

Some administrative law teachers have been accused of being secret aficionados of constitutional law, which they proceed to teach – somewhat dryly, I imagine – to their adlaw students. Instead of learning the regulatory process alone, these students also get lengthy instruction on, say, constitutional canons of interpretation and the separation of powers, all in the somewhat weak light of EPA rulemakings and ICC adjudications.

I’m not a secret conlaw guy, although the subjects above have reared their heads in my adlaw class. But I am closely watching the growth of another sort of administrative law scholarship that might have its heart – or part of its brain, anyway – in another legal discipline. Two NYU professors have founded a Global Administrative Law Project, international relations scholars remain abuzz about the development of transgovernmental relations, and the growing importance of global networks of regulators have been the subject of a series of panels at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting.

Have we entered the era of International Administrative Law?

Alfred Aman, among others, thinks so, and Kal Raustiala has provided the news hook for this post with a just-posted review of Aman’s book The Democracy Deficit: Taming Globalization Through Law Reform. He nicely summarizes the problem that Aman sees: “international policymaking is closed, nontransparent, and executive-dominated, and globalization itself – a phenomenon distinct from, but related to, the growth of international institutions – encourages privatization, which further compounds the democratic deficit and reduces accountability.” Aman thinks we need international APA-like procedures to deal with these problems.

International administrative lawyers have to decide who wins and loses if Aman is right (Raustiala thinks that the United States wins, though I'm not sure he thinks it's a particularly good thing), whether traditional administrative law tools or new rulemaking techniques are the right mechanisms to deal with the problems Aman sees, and more generally, how to blend the putatively orderly and hierarchical weltanschauung of administrative law with the famously anarchic and chaotic, if currently rather hegemonic, world of international relations.

I’m convinced that administrative law’s global component will become an important part of a lot of worthwhile research agendas. And I’m excited that so many terrific adlaw people are making it part of their research agendas. But more now, I think, would tax the patience of readers of even the lengthiest blog posts. Perhaps we can explore the subject further in the next few weeks.

Posted by David_Zaring at 12:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Justice Breyer At Alabama

This afternoon, Justice Breyer gave the Albritton Lecture at the University of Alabama. His talk was uncontroversial, as he staked out all the positions one might expect. Citation of foreign law? If it's helpful to read materials from other nations, why wouldn't we? We aren't bound by them. Kelo? Surprised by all the uproar since this seemed to have been the law since FDR. Being tagged as an activist? You've got the wrong Justice! Just take a look at that study by Gewirtz and Golder.

Breyer's visit was still well worth the candle. We've had a string of Justices join us in Tuscaloosa, over the last few years, a happy side benefit to our Hugo Black Fellow Program. (Former Supreme Court clerks come and teach a light load for a year, giving them a chance to test out the job and write in relative peace.) They humanize the Court and make everyone feel a little better about the institution. Justice Thomas was immensely popular among students - as he is, apparently, among clerks. He spent time, lots and lots of it, answering student questions, shmoozing one-on-one. He managed to disarm even those folks who were prepared to loathe him.

Breyer had a different battle on his hands visiting the Heart of Dixie. Many students probably expected a liberal activist. (The opening question, asking him how he believed the Constitution protected property rights, gives you a sense of things. ) With his emphasis on the primacy of legislative decisionmaking - hardly a surprise from the author of Booker's advisory sentencing guidelines opinion. - I suspect that many students found him remarkably unthreatening. They are correct. Those seeking a left-wing bogeyman on the Supreme Court will have to look elsewhere. To paraphrase Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Liberals Here.

Posted by Dan_Filler at 10:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Health Care: The Big Picture

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells have a long review piece in the NYRB correcting some common misperceptions of the U.S. health care system. They provide good empirical evidence that we both spend more than comparable countries and get worse results overall. Our system is "is unique in denying necessary care to people who lack insurance and can't pay cash."

When I talk about such chronic underperformance, I'm often "reminded" that while the U.S. may have an infant mortality rate that's higher than Cuba's, it's still the best place for someone with insurance to get sick. Krugman and Wells chip away at this notion as well, pointing out that:

The frequent claim that the United States pays high medical prices to avoid long waiting lists for care also fails to hold up in the face of the evidence: there are long waiting lists for elective surgery in some non-US systems, but not all, and the procedures for which these waiting lists exist account for only 3 percent of US health care spending

Also, anyone who's visited an ER lately has experienced the "spillover effects" of 41 million uninsured: endless waits as bad coughs and chronic pain that should have been treated in a doctor's office get routed to providers of last resort. Sadly, policymakers who might be exposed to this demoralizing spectacle tend to circumvent the normal triage procedures. Economic apartheid distorts their perception of reality.

So what to do? Krugman and Wells recommend Democrats "go for broke" and propose a "single payer" plan, but there are some problems with that...

First, precisely because of the enormous administrative costs they point out, there are powerful constituencies behind the status quo. We can all remember "Harry and Louise," but the problem goes deeper than that. For example, there are over 50,000 medical coders in the United States, whose main job is to translate the morass of codes for various medical procedures for computer systems that accept or deny payment. Multiply that number times the endless steps toward approaching, applying for, deciding on, getting, and getting reimbursement for health care, and you've got a sense of the extraordinary political opposition any "streamlining" measures are going to encounter.

Second, while Krugman and Wells skirt the "rationing" issue in their piece, this is a fundamental obstacle to government driven reform. Any entity that "runs" a health care system is going to have to make very difficulty, politically unpopular decisions at times. The better a planner can diffuse responsibility for those decisions, the more likely the plan is to succeed.

Admittedly, in the face of serious economic reversals in the U.S., political opposition to single payer may evaporate as the majority starts identifying more with the plight of the poor than the endless opportunities of the wealthy characters who dominate national life. But in the meantime, both Jacob Hacker and my colleague John Jacobi have suggested better solutions than "go for broke" single payer: namely, more incrementalist efforts to add coverage categories to existing public programs. Both Democrats and Republicans (like Mitt Romney) are starting to recognize the power of this approach to tame the manifold inefficiencies and injustices of the current system.

Posted by Frank_Pasquale at 07:11 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Why Hasn't Efficient Breach Killed Tenure?

Hi, everyone. Posts on my own scholarship to come, but why not begin with some questions about the institution of scholarship more generally?

Perhaps inspired by the latest shenanigans by the purportedly wild eyed radicals on the Harvard arts and sciences faculty, there's been some gnashing of teeth about the tenure system. Tenure sure is a unique term in an employment contract. There's no similar job security for artists, novelists, or journalists. Do academics really deserve better? Do they deserve stronger protections against termination than, say, civil servants (as an administrative law guy, when someone says "job," I think "federal pay grade")?

I wonder. But I also wonder why, if tenure begets mediocrity, deans don't simply fire the tenured professors they don't like, and present them with big breach of contract damages checks after doing so. Not every institution could afford to do so, of course, but some assuredly could - I'm looking at you, Harvard. And, while we're engaging in a bloody-minded thought experiment, I also doubt that the regulatory protections against dismissal that tenured professors enjoy - deaccreditation or probation by a university licensing outfit, for example - are really the kind of sanctions that rich, established schools have to worry about, even if they decided to clean house in an unprecedented way. Who would disaccredit the Ivy League?

So the way I see it, the death of tenure is something that schools could make happen - they just haven't chosen to do so. Maybe it's an implied endorsement of the tenure system, or maybe it's a sign of path dependence. As someone who sure would like to get tenure, I hope this unexercised power suggests that the system is a benign one. But I'd welcome explanations of tenure's survival in light of what seems to me to be a rather delicate position.

Posted by David_Zaring at 12:49 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Introducing Guest Blogger David Zaring

We are very happy to announce that David Zaring will be joining us as a guest these next few weeks. David is a professor of law at Washington & Lee University School of Law. Prior to joining Washington & Lee, David was a professor in New York University School of Law's lawyering program. He worked at the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division, was Special Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and clerked for Hon. Judith Rogers, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Hon. Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr., U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

David teaches administrative law and international trade, and he writes in domestic and international administrative law. Recent publications include: Best Practices, 81 NYU L. Rev. (forthcoming 2006); Informal Procedure, Hard and Soft, in International Administration, 5 Chi. Int'l L.J. 547 (2005); National Rulemaking Through Trial Courts: The Big Case and Institutional Reform, 51 UCLA L. Rev. 1015 (2004). Additionally, David has two more forthcoming works: The Use of Foreign Decisions by Federal Courts: An Empirical Analysis, 3 J. Emp. Leg. Stud. (forthcoming 2006); What's Next for Networks, 2 Ann. Rev. of L. & Soc. Sci. (forthcoming 2006) (with Anne-Marie Slaughter).

Please give David a warm welcome!

Posted by Daniel Solove at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Introducing Guest Blogger Frank Pasquale

We are delighted that Frank Pasquale will be joining us for a guest stint over the next several weeks. Frank is a professor of law at Seton Hall Law School. He holds a BA from Harvard, an M.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University (as a Marshall Scholar), and a JD from Yale Law School. Prior to joining the Seton Hall faculty, Frank clerked for the Honorable Judge Kermit Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, served as a fellow at the Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property in Lima, Peru, and was an attorney at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. Frank focuses his scholarship on intellectual property and health law, and he has a broad-ranging interdisciplinary approach that draws from economics, philosophy, and social science.

His recent scholarship includes, Toward an Ecology of Intellectual Property, forthcoming in the Yale J. Law & Tech. (Fall 2005); Breaking the Vicious Circularity: Sony's Contribution to the Fair Use Doctrine, 55 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 777 (2005); Beyond Napster: Using Antitrust Law to Advance and Enhance Online Music Distribution, 8 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 451 (2002) (with Kimberlee Weatherall and Matthew Fagin); and Two Concepts of Immortality: Reframing Public Debate on Stem Cell Research, 14 Yale J.L. & Human. 73 (2002). His recent works-in-progress include Rankings, Reductionism, and Responsibility (about search engine regulation) and The Law and Economics of Information Overload Externalities.

We're very excited to have Frank join us as a guest!

Posted by Daniel Solove at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Experimenting With Food Labels

Steve Bainbridge highlights pending federal legislation to preempt state food label rules that are inconsistent with the FDA's standards. He comments that the law would be a "perfectly plausible exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause." I agree, even though there are non-frivolous arguments to the contrary (federalism concerns for states' police powers; locally grown foods; etc.) But putting aside constitutional shibboleths, I think that just because Congress has the ability to preempt state legislation doesn't mean it should.

The argument against allowing states to add new disclosure requirements to food labels goes like this. The great competitive strength of the American economy is its internal free trade network. Inconsistent regulation internally is to be avoided where possible, because it results in inefficiencies as producers are forced to retool their products for different states. Moreover, producers must increase their legal compliance costs, hiring lawyers to keep track of regulations in the several states, capture regulators lobby in 50 state legislatures, etc.

But such arguments discount the benefits of permitting experimentation in dealing with cognitive problems. The science of information processing is still relatively young: we haven't gotten a handle on what disclosures trigger what types of consumption activity. As Larry Ribstein argues in a very different context here allowing states free reign to try different regulations will - as Brandeis long ago argued - create a natural laboratory allowing experimentation in reducing cognitive error. States that require disclosure of facts that consumers find unimportant will soon receive feedback to that effect. Similarly, if producers (as expected) increase prices in markets requiring more disclosure, we could obtain some evidence as to how much consumers actually value labeling. [This could get complicated given cross-border purchasing and free-rider problems, I suppose]. But most importantly, states could try different approaches to the problem of the method of regulation itself. Is the best way to encourage the right disclosure a rule (you must state the number of milligrams of sodium) or a standard (you must disclose information that consumers find valuable)? Should this process be run by regulators (as it is in the federal system) or the common-law jury?

We could start getting answers to such questions, but only if the feds back off.

Posted by hoffman at 01:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack