Archive for the ‘Conferences’ Category

CELS V: The Year of the Experiment

posted by Dave Hoffman

For the last several years, I’ve posted recaps of the Annual Empirical Studies Conference.  (See me, @ Cornell, @ USC).  This year, as promised, will be no different.  Yale hosted CELS V, and the committee did a bang up job: the food was tasty; there were no technical snafus of note; and the panels appeared to have a high degree of internal validity & congruence. Richard Brooks, Alan Gerber, Dan Kahan, Yair Listokin, Tracey Meares, and (especially) Roberta Romano are all due a round of applause, or, better yet, supersized computer monitors so they can see their data better.  In this post, I’m going to provide a running diary of the conference.  It will be like you were there with me, except you don’t have to suffer through my bouts of social anxiety!

Unfortunately, I missed the hottest ticket of the conference, Bruce Ackerman’s commentary on Law/Versteeg’s The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism.  From all reports, Ackerman said something like: “wrong questions, wrong data, wrong theory,” and then imploded in frustration.  Instead of watching those fireworks, I was watching Yair Listokin present The Meaning of Contractual Silence: A Field Experiment [Here’s an older version of the paper].  Listokin ran a field experiment selling ipods on ebay, some with a warranty, some as-is, and some silent on the warranty term. He found that individuals paid attention to the contract, and there was some evidence that the UCC default was about what they thought silence meant.  As he admitted, there were problems with the design of the study – particularly, (1) small & skewed samples; and (2) a lack of clarity about how much buyers know about ebay’s unique and self-contained dispute resolution system.  As someone remarked after the presentation, it would have been interesting had Listokin sold all the customers bad ipods (instead of good ones) and studied how the contract terms influenced behavior post-“breach”.  Then again, who needs that IRB hassle?

Read the rest of this post »

  November 7, 2010 at 1:20 pm   Posted in: Bankruptcy, Behavioral Law and Economics, Conferences, Contract Law & Beyond, Economic Analysis of Law, Empirical Analysis of Law   Print This Post   4 Comments

What Would a Policymaker That Cares About Business Do Now?

posted by Dave Hoffman

Over at the Conglomerate, a set of blogging scholars are mulling the question of “what should be the business law agenda for the new Congress and the President for the next two years?”  My answer, in a word: nothing.  Go and check out all the posts.

I’m at CELS in New Haven for the next two  days and will report on the papers when I rheturn.

  November 5, 2010 at 10:09 pm   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

Questioning the Value of Omnibus Academic Conferences

posted by Alan Chen

As part of my current job, I try to track and distribute information about conferences and workshops that will interest my colleagues and provide good opportunities for them to obtain critical feedback on their scholarly work, as well as make connections with other scholars in their fields. Perhaps because I pay more attention to all types of conferences now (or perhaps because there truly are more of them), I sense a proliferation of smaller legal scholarship workshops focusing on particular subject matters or disciplines, bringing together scholars from schools in a specific region, or fostering development of junior faculty (of course, there are also combinations of these). Much of the anecdotal feedback I get from my colleagues suggests that these smaller workshops are extraordinarily helpful to participants because of the type and depth of feedback they get on their papers. The size of these gatherings also allows for richer opportunities to engage in informal discussions with colleagues and learn about each other’s work.

All of this brings me to the larger question I want to pose. What is the purpose of the annual January AALS meeting? Don’t get me wrong. I love New Orleans and San Francisco and catching up with friends and colleagues from other schools as much as anyone. But at this point, the conference itself seems like a bit of a dinosaur. If the principal justification for the meeting is intellectual enrichment, it’s pretty inefficient. Hundreds of papers are presented, the vast majority of them beyond any single professor’s areas of interest or expertise. And personally, with some important exceptions, I often have been disappointed with the papers presented at the annual meeting compared to the papers I have heard at specialized conferences (including specialized AALS conferences). One could make the case for the general meeting as an opportunity to hear work in fields beyond our specialty areas, but how many of us actually attend panels in fields completely unrelated to our work? I’m sure some administrative work gets done at AALS, but probably nothing that couldn’t be accomplished by a conference call.

Some academic disciplines combine their annual meetings with their hiring conferences. For example, the Modern Language Association has a long tradition of facilitating faculty job interviews at its annual meeting. That approach makes a little more sense because faculties from most schools are gathered in one place to interview candidates, anyway. But the AALS separated out its Faculty Recruitment Conference from the general meeting many years ago, so that rationale has disappeared.

I approach my thinking about the AALS meeting from a resources standpoint as well. At this time of year (as the early bird registration deadline approaches), I receive lots of faculty requests for funding to attend the meeting. Our school spends a disproportionate percentage of its travel budget sending faculty to AALS. In tight fiscal times, it seems useful to contemplate whether that is a good use of funds, or whether that money would be better spent sending faculty to the smaller specialty or regional conferences discussed above. Or, might we decide after considering the heretical idea of scrapping the annual meeting that the AALS’s winter fest is just too big to fail?

  November 4, 2010 at 4:32 pm  Tags: AALS, academia, Academic Conferences  Posted in: Conferences, Law School (Scholarship)   Print This Post   6 Comments

Symposium on National Security Policy and the Role of Lawyering

posted by Sarah Waldeck

On Thursday, October 28, the Seton Hall Law Review is hosting a day-long symposium in Newark, New Jersey entitled National Security Policy and the Role of Lawyering: Guantanamo and Beyond.  Here’s the description:

The broad focus of the Symposium will be to discuss preventive detention and the future of United States national security policy.  As the United States prepares for the closing of Guantánamo Bay detention center, the country still faces the challenge of balancing national security and individual rights.  Controversy continues to plague U.S.-run prisons abroad, such as Bagram in Afghanistan; at the same time, the country has yet to resolve critical questions surrounding the scope of executive detention authority in the “war on terrorism,” leaving the future of U.S. detention policy uncertain.  We hope to discuss the mark Guantánamo has left on the United States and explore the future of preventive detention from the standpoint of lawyers, scholars, policymakers, the media, and former detainees. 

Panelists will include Peter Finn of the Washington Post,  Dafna Linzer from ProPublica, Steve Vladeck from American University and Joe Margulies from Northwestern.   You can find the full symposium schedule and a list of panelists here.

  October 16, 2010 at 1:58 pm   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

GW’s Junior Scholar Workshop and Prizes

posted by Lawrence Cunningham

As anticipated, the Center for Law, Economics and Finance at George Washington University Law School (C-LEAF)  has formally announced its first annual Junior Faculty Business and Financial Law Workshop and Junior Faculty Scholarship Prizes.    The Inaugural Workshop will be held and Prizes awarded on April 1-2, 2011, at GW Law School in Washington, DC.

Up to ten papers will be chosen from those submitted for presentation at the Workshop. At the Workshop, one or more senior scholars will comment on each paper, followed by general discussion of each paper among all participants. The Workshop audience will include invited junior scholars, faculty from GW’s Law School and Business School, faculty from other institutions, and invited guests.

At the conclusion of the Workshop, up to three papers will be awarded Junior Faculty Scholarship Prizes, of $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively. Chosen papers will be featured on C-LEAF’s website as part of its Working Paper Series. In addition to participating in the Workshop, all scholars selected to present at the  Workshop will be invited to become Fellows of C-LEAF. Read the rest of this post »

  June 8, 2010 at 1:00 pm   Posted in: Administrative Announcements, Articles and Books, Conferences, Corporate Finance, Corporate Law, Law School, Law School (Scholarship), Securities, Securities Regulation, Tax   Print This Post   One Comment

Kimberlé Crenshaw at Thomas Jefferson Law School Women and Law Conference

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

I’d like to invite Concurring Opinions readers to attend the 2010 Women and the Law Conference at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. This event, our Tenth Annual Women and Law conference, will examine the past, present and future of intersectionality. Speakers will discuss ways that intersectional analysis illuminates stories of marginalization in the lives of women of color and other groups; and will set out concrete and aspirational visions of what it means to use intersectional awareness to reshape social movements and advance social justice.

The conference will take place on April 30th at 2 p.m.  The keynote speaker is Kimberlé Crenshaw of UCLA and Columbia Law Schools, who will deliver the Ruth Bader Ginsburg lecture.  She will be followed by a distinguished panel of critical race scholars: Devon Carbado, Cheryl Harris, Russell Robinson and Saul Sarabia.

Registration is free for students and faculty.  Additional information and registration is available at www.tjsl.edu/wlp_2010 .  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I hope to see some of you there!

  April 17, 2010 at 8:24 pm   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   One Comment

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

posted by Sarah Waldeck

Professor Mike Zimmer, one of our former Co-Op guests, asked me to pass along information about A Constitutional Law Colloquium: “How Democratic is the Constitution?” For those who are interested, here are the details:

Loyola University Chicago School of Law is organizing A Constitutional Law Colloquium at the Philip H. Corboy Law Center, 25 East Pearson Street, Chicago, IL 60611. This year’s theme will be “How Democratic is the Constitution?” The event will begin on Friday morning, November 5 and end midday on Saturday, November 6, 2010.

Conference Organizers:

Professor Alexander Tsesis, atsesis@luc.edu, 312.915.7929
Professor Michael Zimmer, mzimme4@luc.edu, 312.915.7919

Loyola invites abstract submissions of 150 to 200 words from Constitutional Law professors interested in contributing to the current debates under the broad rubric of this topic. The goal of the conference is to allow professors to develop new ideas with the help of supportive colleagues on a wide range of constitutional law topics.

This is the first annual Loyola conference bringing together constitutional law scholars at all stages of their professional development to discuss current projects, doctrinal developments in constitutional law, and future goals. We hope to schedule presentations for all who submit. In this way, we will provide a forum for the vetting of ideas and invaluable opportunities for informed critiques. Presentations will be grouped by subject matter.

The submission deadline for abstracts is May 31, 2010.
Topics, abstracts, papers, questions, and comments should be submitted to:

Program Administrator Carrie Bird, clbird30@gmail.com

Participants are expected to pay their own travel expenses. Loyola will provide facilities, support, and continental breakfasts on Friday and Saturday, lunch on Friday and Saturday, and a dinner on Friday night.

  April 14, 2010 at 5:03 pm   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

Fordham Law Review Symposium on April 16 & 17: The Adequacy of the Presidential Succession System in the 21st Century

posted by Fordham Law Review

The Fordham Law Review is organizing this event along with former Fordham Law School Dean John D. Feerick, a preeminent scholar on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and former Senator Birch Bayh, framer of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

The event is a two-day symposium, bringing together leading thinkers and experienced practitioners in the area of presidential succession: Former Senator Birch Bayh, who, as framer of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, oversaw the hearings and debate on the topic; those who were on the front lines in developing the presidential succession structure (Fred Fielding, former White House Counsel to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and Benton Becker who served as Counsel to President Ford); those who have written on the subject from a variety of perspectives (Professors Akhil Amar, John Feerick, Edward Foley, Joel Goldstein, Robert Gilbert, and Rose McDermott); Dr. John Fortier and Norman Ornstein, whose work on the Continuity in Government Commission has evaluated the adequacy of this system in a post-9/11 world; Constitutional Law scholars Dean William Treanor, Professor James Fleming, and Robert Kaczorowski; as well as Bill Baker, President Emeritus of WNET.ORG.

The Fordham Law Review will publish the symposium in its December 2010 issue.

Among a number of topics that will be discussed are the ambiguities in the existing constitutional provisions (for example, can presidents invoke the inability provision of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to temporarily step down during moments of political crisis?); analysis of the constitutionality of the current Succession Act, which puts members of Congress in the line of succession; recommendations for handling a double vacancy in the Presidency and Vice Presidency and the constitutionality of current proposals for dealing with such a dilemma; important gaps and conflicts at various stages of transition (for example, disability or death prior to election or inauguration and potential conflict of interests arising in confirmation hearings of an appointed Vice President); and the constitutionality of informal—extraconstitutional and extrastatutory—arrangements between Presidents and their Vice Presidents, members of their cabinet, and members of Congress.

WHEN:
Friday, April 16 from 9:30 to 5:00 and Saturday, April 17 from 9:30 to 1:00
WHERE:
Fordham Law School
McNally Amphitheatre
140 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
This event is free and open to the public.
Full Schedule here.

  April 6, 2010 at 12:23 am   Posted in: Administrative Law, Conferences, Constitutional Law, Current Events, Law Rev (Fordham), Politics   Print This Post   No Comments

Intersectionality – brief follow-up

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

I’ve got more detailed notes from the fourth annual Critical Race Studies symposium that I had been hoping to get into shape for posting, but I’ve been swamped with other projects.  So instead of a detailed discussion of panels, I’ll just give a brief overview; time allowing, I’ll add some panel detail next week.   Read the rest of this post »

  March 23, 2010 at 8:47 pm   Posted in: Civil Rights, Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

Not-Quite-Live-Blogging Intersectionality (Part I: General overview, Thursday)

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

I’m at the UCLA Intersectionality conference, and so far it has been phenomenal. I’m going to post some brief notes about the sessions I’ve attended so far. I’m typing these up while in a session – the intersectionality teaching and reading workshop. Hopefully these will be moderately coherent.

The conference started with an introduction from Saul, and quick comments from co-sponsors (including me, because TJSL is a co-sponsor of the event. The opening event was very well attended – a hundred people or so (maybe?), even though it was at 10 a.m. on a Thursday. Read the rest of this post »

  March 11, 2010 at 4:37 pm   Posted in: Conferences, Race   Print This Post   2 Comments

The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 119, Issue 4 & Forthcoming Supreme Court Conference

posted by Yale Law Journal

January 2010 | Volume 119, Issue 4

ARTICLES
	Antibankruptcy Douglas G. Baird & Robert K. Rasmussen	648
	Fourth Amendment Seizures of Computer Data Orin S. Kerr	700
FEATURE
	American Needle v. NFL: An Opportunity To Reshape Sports Law Michael A. McCann	726
NOTE
	Strategic or Sincere? Analyzing Agency Use of Guidance Documents Connor N. Raso	782
COMMENTS
	Suspending the Writ at Guantánamo: Take III?	825
	Constitutional Avoidance Step Zero	837

On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, The Yale Law Journal Online will join with the Yale Law School Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic to host the concluding segment of “Important Questions of Federal Law: Assessing the Supreme Court’s Case Selection Process.”  The panel will bring together federal judges, members of the legal academia, and practitioners to discuss potential reforms to the Supreme Court’s certiorari process. All events will be held at Yale Law School’s Sterling Law Building in New Haven, CT. Please click here for more information.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS OF FEDERAL LAW
Yale Law School | New Haven, CT | March 23, 2010

Panel I: The Judge’s Perspective: Is the Court Taking the “Right” Cases?
4:10pm‐5:30pm, Room 129

Moderator: Linda Greenhouse (Yale Law School)
Panelists:
The Honorable José Cabranes (2d Cir.)
Drew Days (Yale Law School)
The Honorable Brett Kavanaugh (D.C. Cir.)
The Honorable Sandra Lynch (1st Cir.)

Panel II: The Practitioners’ Perspective: What Makes An Issue “Important” to the Court?
5:40pm‐6:55pm, Room 127

Moderator: Charles Rothfeld (Mayer Brown LLP and Yale Law School)
Panelists:
John Elwood (Vinson & Elkins LLP)
Orin Kerr (George Washington University Law School)
Patricia Millett (Akin Gump LLP)
Judith Resnik (Yale Law School)

  March 9, 2010 at 9:44 pm   Posted in: Administrative Law, Bankruptcy, Civil Rights, Conferences, Constitutional Law, Cyberlaw, Law Rev (Yale), Law Rev Contents, Law Rev Forum, Supreme Court   Print This Post   No Comments

Quick Reminder: Intersectionality Conference at UCLA Law, March 11-13

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

I blogged about it a few months ago, when the call for papers was still open. Now that the conference is just around the corner, here’s another short reminder.

The UCLA Critical Race Studies program – along with a great group of co-sponsors including the Women and Law Project at Thomas Jefferson Law School, the Women of Color Collective at UCLA, the Williams Institute, LatCrit Inc., and a dozen more – is hosting a not-to-be-missed conference on intersectionality. Speakers include, just to name a few, Devon Carbado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Harris, Catherine MacKinnon, Mari Matsuda, Dorothy Roberts, and Patricia Williams, along with dozens of other leading scholars of feminist legal theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, and a variety of related topics touching on different marginalized groups.

More information, including schedule and registration information, is available at the conference website. I hope to see many of you there!

  February 26, 2010 at 7:51 pm   Posted in: Civil Rights, Conferences, Feminism and Gender   Print This Post   No Comments

Call for Papers — March 12, 2010 Deadline

posted by Solangel Maldonado

Seton Hall Law School will host the Third National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, September 9-12, 2010.  This conference will address critical national and global issues through the lens of legal scholarship that explicitly and implicitly examines contemporary racial context.  It will feature panels on the “war on terror,” urban revitalization, criminal law, health care, education, immigration, human trafficking, voting rights, international and comparative law, judicial nominations, environmental justice, and corporate responsibility, among others.  It will also include a Junior Faculty and Development Workshop.

The conference planning committee is seeking proposals for panels and workshops that fit within its broad theme, Our Country, Our World in a “Post-Racial” Era.  It is also accepting drafts for work-in-progress sessions and shorter “thoughts-in-progress” sessions to informally discuss future research and writing ideas. 

Please e-mail a one page abstract of your submission to Professor Kamille Wolff, Co-Chair of the Program Committee, at kwolff@tmslaw.tsu.edu by March 12, 2010.  For more information about the conference, go to law.shu.edu/thirdnationalpoc.

  February 13, 2010 at 9:22 pm   Posted in: Conferences, Uncategorized   Print This Post   No Comments

Double Serendipity: Danielle Allen and the Institute for Advanced Study’s Sympoium on Technology and Education

posted by Deven Desai

One thing that Dan Burk, Mike Madison, Dan Solove, and a few others told me as I started my academic career was that it was important to read, read, read; attend conferences; and engage with other professors about their work. With that base one slowly but surely develops better material and grows a network of colleagues who will be able to let you know where you work is strong and where it needs improvement. I took that idea to mean go ahead and contact folks when you have something to say.

Just before I heard that I was going to be at Princeton, I contacted an old friend, Danielle Allen because some of her work on democracy and rhetoric caught my attention. Danielle and I had attended K-8 grades together but lost touch after that. It turns out that she just had seen my name in the acknowledgment section of one of Dan Solove’s books and wondered whether that was the same person she knew. It was. Danielle is at the Institute for Advanced Studies here in Princeton. We caught up over lunch, had a great time, and I learned about her work at IAS. One of her projects is the The Dewey Seminar: Education, Schools and the State, which she co-organized with Rob Reich. Here is the scope of the project:

Every society and political regime develops educational institutions and practices that substantially shape its evolution, revolutions, and stabilization over time. The Dewey Seminar will explore the interrelationships among education, justice, schools, and the state. Because of the centrality of education to the continuity of sociopolitical orders, its analysis embraces virtually all the social sciences. A significant number of the School’s Members this year will pursue work related directly to this theme-from exploring how diverse educational practices are linked to specific political orders to studying contemporary pressures on education and its capacity to support democratic political systems.

In 1916 the philosopher John Dewey published Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education. He sought an account of education that could enable human flourishing both individually and collectively for democratic citizens. Our seminar takes its inspiration from his aspirations.

Anyone interested in these topics should go to the Seminar’s home page and check the participant list.

The seminar has various components one of which is a symposium series with practitioners. At lunch, Danielle mentioned that the January symposium is on Technology and Education. The people involved and their projects to use technology to generate real change in education are ambitious and inspiring. I will be attending and thinking about how these ideas connect to IP as a barrier to innovation, the Google Book deal, and where a combination of law and technology might be able to break through current problems in technology and education. In short, I have caught up with an old friend, and I get to hear leaders in their fields talk about the promises and challenges of technology and education. It is a great start to the new year, and I am grateful to those who were part of my enjoying a little double serendipity.

  January 14, 2010 at 8:52 am   Posted in: Conferences, Education, Technology   Print This Post   No Comments

Overheard at AALS

posted by Dave Hoffman

Here are a few thoughts inspired by conversations I participated in or listened to at AALS (it’s not my fault that people persist in having very loud & irritating conversations over coffee, despite my dirty looks):

(1) A hiring committee chair talked about doing Google background checks on candidates for inconvenient facts. The rationale was that students would like come across pictures/stories themselves, and it was better to know than not. This struck me as an inevitable development, though sad.

(2) Many people complained about how the nametag culture at AALS encourages attendees to feel bad about themselves.  One solution offered was color-coded nametags that were keyed to the kind of social interaction you might expect.

Red: Individuals who, if spoken to, will inform you in great detail about a recent political fight on their faculty. Possible crazy. Avoid.  If you are engaged in a conversation with them, nod vigorously and say nothing.

Blue: Individuals who want a job at your school. Will laugh at your jokes and won’t look over your shoulder for at least two minutes. Engage as needed for a boost.  But don’t commit to anything.

Green: Individuals at schools you want to visit or move to. Will try to avoid you. Elevators are their weakness.

Black: Friends. Meet them later.

Orange: People who won’t deign to make eye contact with you.  There is no point in trying to hunt them down, except after they speak at a session, when they may treat you like a particularly dimwitted student.  Flattery will get you everywhere at that moment.

Purple: Members of your blog. Shouldn’t you know who they are?

Silver: Deans. Also known because they wear suits, and because they are looking at your pockets. Be careful. Their social skills are so much better than yours, that simply being near them makes you look more than ordinarily goofy.

Brown: AALS organizers, looking harried.  If you are outraged, consider engaging them at prepaid lunch over terrible food, when they are at a moral disadvantage.

(3)  I heard one professor telling another than she believed we were working “nine month” jobs since that is how the typical professor contract is worded (and since summer writing is rewarded through “grants” or “bonuses”).  I couldn’t disagree more.  Discuss.

  January 12, 2010 at 11:44 am   Posted in: Conferences, Law School, Law School (Hiring & Laterals), Law School (Rankings), Law School (Teaching)   Print This Post   6 Comments

Happy

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

A brief thanks and shout-out to all who attended the AALS happy hour last night. I saw Co-Op bloggers Frank, Dave, Deven, and Danielle, as well as Dan from Prawfs and a plethora of other blog readers and participants; there were far too many fascinating conversations to recap. Of course, discussions with Frank and Danielle merely whetted my appetite for their presentations later in the conference. Don’t miss Frank (and Danielle) on Privacy at 4 today (unless of course you’re going to Jaya’s immigration panel). And make sure to come to Danielle’s Saturday talk on cyberstalking. Or else we may have to track you down.

  January 8, 2010 at 8:47 am   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

Intersectionality Conference

posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger

The Critical Race Studies program at UCLA is planning an exciting conference on intersectionality this March. (Full disclosure: The Women & Law Project at Thomas Jefferson School of Law is principal conference co-sponsor, and I’m the Women & Law chair this year.) A number of very good speakers will be participating, including well-known legal scholars like Patricia Williams and Mari Matsuda as well as many scholars from other disciplines. The full list of speakers so far is very impressive. In addition, the conference organizers have issued a call for papers which relate to the topic of intersectionality, with submissions due by January 15th. The overall conference description is:

Since the publication of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s formative articles – Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race & Sex (1989), and Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics & Violence Against Women of Color (1994) – the concept of intersectionality has traversed more than a dozen academic disciplines and transnational and popular political discourse, generated multiple conferences, monographs, and anthologies, and animated hundreds of articles and essays. In the twenty years since Crenshaw introduced intersectionality, critiques of identity politics and multiculturalism and, more recently, claims of a “post-racial” era have blossomed. In 2010, we will re-visit the origins of intersectionality as a theoretical frame and site of legal interventions and consider its still unfolding potential for unmasking subordination and provoking social change.

More information about the conference can be found here. I would encourage interested Concurring Opinions readers to take a look at this very interesting conference information, and if possible consider submitting a proposal or attending the conference.

  December 23, 2009 at 3:59 am   Posted in: Civil Rights, Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

High on CELS

posted by Dave Hoffman

I’ve returned from CELS, which was a terrific conference.  Incredibly substantive and well-run.  As promised, here are a few reactions:

Best paper I saw: Amanda Geller and Jeffrey Fagan, Doubling Down on Pot: Marijuana, Race and the New Disorder in New York City Street Policing.  The original title was better: Pot as Pretext.  The idea is that if you look at the  surge of pot related arrests in NYC, a pattern emerges: using pot misdemeanors as a method of social control, with strong racial undertones.  The paper offers another perspective on the optimism expressed by many that legalization is around the corner, in turn prompted by polling data about its popularity.  To the extent that mere pot possession is now an important tool in order maintenance policing, the costs and benefits of its legalization seem different.  Indeed, the surprise of the paper is how well pot works as a method to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of felons (Volokh Conspirators’ perfect storm of bad outcomes).  Plus, Geller/Fagan’s data visualization is amazing (though the best stuff, with maps, is not in the paper).  Well worth reading, especially if you, like me, didn’t know that this was happening.

Runner Up: Yannis Bakos, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler and David Trossen, Does Anyone Read the Fine Print? Testing a Law and Economics Approach to Standard Form Contracting.  Remarkable dataset of 90,000 visitors to software sites, assembled by one of those firms that installs tracking software on your computer in return for compensation. The research question is how often to people read EULAs before entering transactions. It’s my sense that the results (almost never) give a huge, though expected, boost to the ALI Software Principles.  Consider it in tandem with Zev Eigen’s work on adhesion contracts, and the outlines of a research program are clear.

Best paper I wish I’d seen:  Shareholderism: Board Members’ Values and the Shareholder-Stakeholder Dilemma, by Amir Licht, Renee Adams and Lilach Sagiv.  They did an experimental survey on real board members, albiet from Sweden.  Basic findings: board members have unique and stable values about corporate governance that aren’t those of the general public.

Most Potential To Be Brought Up in a 2012 Presidential Debate:   The Economics of Rape: Will Victims Pay for Police Involvement, by Emily Owens and Jordan Matsudaira.  Just your classic little economics project analyzing how making victims pay for rape kits affects the likelihood of reporting a rape to the police.  The dataset?  Wasilla, Alaska, during Sarah Palin’s tenure as mayor.

Obvious Finding:  Police recruits are more likely that members of the public at large to think that mistaken acquitals are a worse problem than mistaken convictions.  (Logically, this can’t be true, as mistaken convictions mean that a criminal is walking free.)  Non-obvious findings from the paper: the modern racism scale predicts the likelihood of making a bad decision to shoot an unarmed but threatening stranger, but the IAT doesn’t.

Reaction to Suckers? I need a better set of anecdotes about suckers and contracts.

Reaction to Punishment Realism? If you like this, our torture results are going to knock your socks off.  Stay tuned!

Cool Poster? Black and Spriggs, The Depreciation of Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court. So cool.  I wish they’d coded for the age of precedent in the briefs, since I think the inputs are dispositive.  Notable as well was Eisenberg et al., The Decision to Award Punitive Damages: An Empirical Study. Sure, the results are interesting, and part of Ted’s holy war with the ridiculous folks at the Chamber of Commerce.  But the nice thing was that after a study, I concluded that Ted’s poster had the best ratio of expenditure on the poster :  vistors.  Given that he’d photocopied pages from the paper and put them on a board, my guess was a dollar spent per 20 visitors.  The mean in the room was more like 1 : 1.

Trend:  More instruments, less law.

Thanks to Dan Klerman, Mat McCubbins, Gillian Hadfield, Tom Lyon, Dan Simon and Matt Spitzer for putting together a great program!

  November 24, 2009 at 9:17 am   Posted in: Conferences, Economic Analysis of Law   Print This Post   11 Comments

Unmarried Couple Ban Symposium

posted by Solangel Maldonado

This symposium announcement just crossed my desk:

The Arkansas Law Review will host a symposium on the Unmarried Couple Adoption Ban on November 5, 2009, at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The symposium will address the legal and political issues surrounding what was Arkansas’s Initiated Act 1, banning the adoption of children by unmarried couples in the state, as well as the national context in which it was passed. It will represent a balanced presentation of the various viewpoints on this widely debated issue.

Primary speakers will be Professor Mark Strasser of Capital University School of Law and Professor Lynn Wardle of Brigham Young University Law School. Representatives from Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families and the Family Council Action Committee will also participate.

  October 14, 2009 at 1:31 pm   Posted in: Conferences, Family Law   Print This Post   No Comments

Law and Entrepeneurship at LSA

posted by Dave Hoffman

Gordon Smith, Brian Broughman, and Darian Ibrahim are organizing a “conference within a conference” at the  Law & Society Association annual meeting on Law, Entrepreneurship & Society.  The meeting will be in Chicago, Illinois on May 27-30, 2010 this year. I attended last year’s entrepreneurship panel at LSA, and it was great.  Gordon reports:

“This year the LSA is soliciting proposals for projects in the early stage of development that could be presented at work-in-progress sessions. We would be interested in developing a proposal for such a session focused on law and entrepreneurship, so please feel free to submit such projects to us.

You may submit a proposal to any of us via email, but as a default matter, please send your proposal to Gordon Smith by November 30, 2009.”

  October 8, 2009 at 2:25 pm   Posted in: Conferences   Print This Post   No Comments

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