Law Librarian Blog

King Corn, A Documentary on America's Smallest Farm

Two recent college graduates embark on a mission to see where America's food comes from—by growing it. In the rural town of Greene, Iowa, the two friends plant a single acre of the nation's most powerful crop, and then set out to follow it from a seed to the dinner plate in King Corn. [JH]

Do Insurgent Attacks Increase After Learning About US Press Coverage of Irag War Critiques?

Is There an "Emboldenment" Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq
by Radha Iyengar & Jonathan Monten

NBER Working Paper No. 13839
March 2008

Abstract: Are insurgents affected by information on US casualty sensitivity? Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an "emboldenment" effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. The results suggest that insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal. As such counterinsurgency should consider deterrence and incapacitation rather than simply search and destroy missions.

See also Travis Sharp's review, Study: After U.S. antiwar outpouring, insurgent attacks go up 7-10%. [JH]

Friday Fun: It's Great, I Heart Law School

Check out this Utah law student's video, The Two Sides of Law:

One Less Worry Video Contest To Award $10K Law School Scholarship

Student lender Access Group has announced a contest entitled “One Less Worry.” The contest will award $10,000 to the most deserving video posted on YouTube describing “what law students worry about.” Access Group will select the ten finalists based on “creativity, humor, quality, realism and overall appeal” and and then open up public voting on July 1. Whoever gets the most votes by July 31 will win a $10,000 scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. Here's the video annoucement.

Gent the word out! Looks like there will be plenty of fodder for future LLB Friday Fun features. Hat tip to Eagleionline and Legal Writing Prof Blog. [JH]

LLB Poll: Extra Pair of Hands

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Professional Reading: Privacy, Ethics, and the Meaning of News

Amy Gajda (Illinois) has posted Privacy, Ethics, and the Meaning of News in SSRN. Here's the abstract:

In November 2006, a Texas prosecutor shot himself as police entered his home to arrest him on child sex solicitation charges. Waiting outside were journalists from NBC's To Catch a Predator program, persons who had initially worked with police in the sting operation. In February 2008, a federal judge ruled that NBC's behavior in covering the events preceding the suicide could be tortious, based in part on what the court decided seemed to be a violation of journalism ethics. The plaintiff had argued that her brother's would-be arrest was not news, but a sensationalistic move by NBC to raise its ratings. The court, calling the event a public spectacle, effectively agreed.

Courts, John Marshall famously declared, must say what the law is. Increasingly, however, courts are also called upon to say what the news is. When subjects of unwanted publicity sue, journalists commonly argue that the challenged disclosures were privileged as newsworthy. Traditionally, courts minimized constitutional concerns by deferring heavily to journalists' own sense of what qualified as news. Recently, however, courts have grown decidedly less tolerant, driven by mounting anxiety over the loss of personal privacy generally and by declining respect for the press specifically. Ironically, an emerging tool used by courts to police news outlets is journalists' own codes of professional ethics. By measuring editorial decisions against gauzy internal ethics standards, courts give the appearance of deference to the profession while aggressively scrutinizing editorial judgments.

This Article demonstrates the growing threat to press freedom posed by these emerging trends. It places the conflict in historical context, explains how recent developments have undermined judicial deference to journalism in defining the news, examines the implications of the nascent resurgence of tort regulation of journalism, and concludes by suggesting that courts return to a more deferential approach in assessing newsworthiness.

Advocacy Groups Dueling over Arbitration

The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform has released a survey and research paper concerning arbitration. The survey found overwhelming support for arbitration among likely voters and the research paper rebuts Public Citizen's recent report, The Arbitration Trap:  How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers (September 2007).

Arbitration Resources: U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform | Public Citizen

[JH]

Opening: Thomson West Librarian Relations Manager, Washington, DC

Thomson West has an opening for a Librarian Relations Manager based in Washington, DC. To apply, go to the Company's career page, click on "Search Jobs" and scroll down the list or use "librarian" in the keyword search term box to bring the listing to the top. All applications must be submitted online and will automatically routed to the hiring manager.

Professional Reading: Applying Communication Theory to Statutory Interpretation

Cheryl Boudrea (UC-Davis), Arthur Lupia (Michigan), Mathew Cubbins (UC-San Diego), and Daniel Rodriguez (Texas), What Statutes Mean: Interpretive Lessons from Positive Theories of Communication and Legislation, 44 San Diego L. Rev. 957 (2007), [SSRN Download Link] is one of the most interesting articles I have read in quite awhile. Highly recommended. [JH]

Here's the abstract:

In this paper, we address a question that is hotly debated in the legal literature: How should judges interpret statutes? By way of an answer, we begin with two premises: 1) statutory interpretation is a quest by judges to determine what statutes mean, and 2) statutes are communications from a constitutionally-authorized legislature to those who are obligated to implement, enforce, or follow the law. We then argue that scientific propositions about human communication can help judges to determine what a statute's authors meant when they chose to include (or not to include) particular words in a piece of legislation. Specifically, we draw upon well-known communication theories, which emphasize that successful inference about meaning requires that the manner in which a communication is decoded relate to aspects of its manufacture in particular ways. What this insight suggests for scholars of statutory interpretation (and for judges interpreting statutes) is that discerning the meaning of any piece of legislation requires an understanding of the ways that such legislation was manufactured throughout the legislative process. This insight also provides important clues about the kinds of informational sources that can be useful to those who want to clarify the meaning of a statute.

Law and Public Policy for the Stem Cell Century

Korobkin's Stem Cell Century provides an excellent foundation from which the debate on stem cell research can be both understood as well as advanced. --  Christopher A. Riddle, Department of Philosophy, Queen*s University, Canada, Quote from his review in Law and Politics Book Review.

View the November 28, 2007 panel discussion on Russell Korobkin's book Stem Cell Century, co-hosted by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. [Additional archived webcasts of public forums from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute]

See also today's post: Mapping Stem Cell Research. [JH]

Stem Cell Century website.

About the Book

Stem Cell Century: Law and Policy for a Breakthrough Technology
by Russell Korobkin with Stephen R. Munzer

List Price: $29.95 
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (November 28, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0300122926
ISBN-13: 978-0300122923

Book Description: The explosion of interest in stem cell research raises a raft of controversial policy questions. When should human embryos be used to create stem cells? Should cloning be outlawed? Should egg and tissue donors be paid? Should we allow scientists to patent stem cells? Is the government entitled to a portion of the revenue from stem cell technology created with public funds? How should the regulators and courts balance the competing goals of access to revolutionary treatments and protection of the public from unknown risks?

Russell Korobkin, with contributions from Stephen R. Munzer, provides the first thorough discussion and analysis of these and other unsettled questions of law, policy, and ethics that surround stem cell science. His clear and concise description of complex problems coupled with logical and well-balanced  conclusions makes this volume essential reading for all Americans, general readers and experts alike, interested in the promise of stem cell research and the future of regenerative medicine.

Mapping Stem Cell Research

Dr. Jack Kessler, a prominent neurologist, shifts his diabetes research to stem cell research when his daughter is paralyzed from the waist down. Mapping Stem Cell Research [documentary's website] brings the stem cell debate to the forefront and examines the constantly evolving interplay between the promise of new discoveries, the controversy of modern science and the courage of people living with devastating disease and injury.

Performance Right Would Harmonize Copyright Policy

From the press release: "A performance-right for recording artists would correct a needless exception in U.S. copyright law, states Tom Sydnor in, "A Performance Right for Recording Artists: Sound Policy at Home and Abroad," a Progress on Point released today by The Progress & Freedom Foundation. In addition, Sydnor concludes, the Passage of the Performance Rights Act would harmonize U.S. copyright law with those of other countries, benefiting both U.S. recording artists and the U.S. economy."  [RJ]

CNN's Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination Airs Tonight

In this first installment of CNN's Black in America series, Soledad O'Brien investigates how James Earl Ray, an armed robber and escaped convict, had already spent an uncommon year on the run just a month before his path collided with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.

Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination
CNN at 9 p.m. ET
Details | CNN Black in America Series Website

[JH]

Law to Prevent Behavioral Advertising on the Internet?

Law.com has the story here:

Ever wonder what happens to the data generated from all that Internet surfing and all those searches conducted through search engines such as Yahoo, Google and Ask.com? Is the data destroyed after logging off? Is it kept? For how long? Is it used and, if so, how and by whom?

An increasing number of Americans have recently become aware that much of this data is indeed being kept and used to target advertising to them in a more precise manner, based on their interests as evidenced in their surfing and search activities -- a practice known generally as behavioral advertising. But is this lawful? If so, is it appropriate?

New York Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat who represents much of Westchester County, feels this type of advertising should not be permitted unless consumers give their permission: "Should these companies be able to sell or use what's essentially private data without permission? The easy answer is absolutely not."[FOOTNOTE 1] ...

And if the use of footnotes in the story bugs you, you'll love this.  [JJ]

Professional Reading: Fair Use v. Fair Access

I highly recommend Randal Picker's (Chicago) Fair Use v. Fair Access (SSRN). In it he makes the following four points. From the abstract:

1. The copyright act defines use rights, not access rights. That overstates slightly - especially with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the statute - but the core of copyright law addresses how works can be used assuming that legal access has been obtained. Other law addresses the circumstances under which works can be accessed.

2. Nothing in copyright itself suggests that use rights should trump access rights; indeed, our core access principles suggest just the opposite. We frequently speak of a fair use "right." I am doubtful about that on its own terms but even if we find something there, a fair use right isn't an access right. Fair use doesn't equal fair access.

3. The scope of rights given to an initial author will effect the timing and scope of investment she will make in creating a work. For many works, those investments can be made in discrete lumps. As a society, we want investments to be made incrementally rather than as one large lump as doing so allows us to get feedback from the market on the value of a work. We don't want to throw good money after bad, and if we learn that, say, the English version of a work is a failure, we don't want to bother translating it into Mandarin. Plus we will delay the time that works reach the market if we create an incentive to do large, lumpy investments rather than a sequence of investments coupled with market feedback. Authors start with one monopoly: their unique access to the work that they have created. If we do not give authors control over these follow-on works, authors will overinvest upfront in the works, since that is the only way that the can gain a return on their initial monopoly over access to the work. In that situation, we are better off to hand the author a statutory monopoly over the follow-on work rather than see the author invest real resources in creating a property right over that work.

4. Fair use is a form of rights bundling. If we decide that, say, format-shifting is fair use or is otherwise a permitted use - you sell me a music CD and I have a use right to make a personal copy on a cassette or my iPod - we are making a decision about the rights that we are bundling together. The nature of bundles is that everyone gets stuck buying the same set of rights. These bundles can be inefficiently large. Consumers would often be better off if instead we allowed rights to be unbundled, so that consumers could buy just those rights that they wanted rather than being forced to take unwanted rights. Doing that requires a narrow conception of fair use.

Alan Holoch Memorial Grant Available for AALL Annual Meeting

The Alan Holoch Memorial Grant Committee is now taking applications for the 2008 AALL annual meeting.

The Alan Holoch Memorial Grant is available to help SR-SIS members defray the cost of travel or registration for the AALL Annual Meeting in Portland.  Individuals chosen to receive the grant have the potential to make significant contributions to law librarianship through their involvement with AALL and the Social Responsibilities Special Interest Section's Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues.

For more information, please see the application on the SR-SIS website.

Recently Released, Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today

Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today
Edited by David C. Brotherton and Philip Kretsedemas

List Price: $74.50
Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (March 14, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0231141289
ISBN-13: 978-0231141284 

Book Description: America's reputation for open immigration has always been accompanied by a desire to remove or discourage the migration of "undesirables." But recent restrictions placed on immigrants, along with an increase in detentions and deportations, point to a more worrying trend. Immigration enforcement has become the fastest growing sector for spending over the past two decades, dwarfing the money spent on helping immigrants adjust to their new lives. Instead of finding effective ways of integrating newcomers into American society, the United States is focusing on making the process of citizenship more difficult, provoking major protests and unrest.

David C. Brotherton and Philip Kretsedemas provide a history and analysis of recent immigration enforcement in the United States, demonstrating that our current anti-immigration tendencies are not a knee-jerk reaction to the events of September 11. Rather, they have been gathering steam for decades. With contributions from social scientists, policy analysts, legal experts, community organizers, and journalists, the volume critically examines the discourse that has framed the question of immigration enforcement for the general public. It also explores the politics and practice of deportation, new forms of immigrant profiling, relevant case law, and antiterrorist operations. Some contributors couch their critiques in an appeal to constitutional law and the defense of civil liberties. Others draw on the theories of structural inequality and institutional discrimination. These diverse perspectives stimulate new ways of thinking about the issue of immigration enforcement, proving that "security" has more to do with improving legal rights, social mobility, and the well-being of all U.S. residents than keeping out the "other."

About the Authors: David C. Brotherton is professor and chair of sociology at John Jay and the Graduate Center, CUNY. His books include Globalizing the Streets: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth, Social Control, and Empowerment and The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang.

Philip Kretsedemas is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. A former communications director and policy analyst for the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, he is the co-editor of Immigrants, Welfare Reform, and the Poverty of Policy.

IHE Administrators Audio Conference on Regulating Social Networking Sites

Facebook, MySpace & On-Line Communities: What Your College Must Know
Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET
Live, 60-Minute Audio Conference
Online Registration | Cost: $199

From the Conference Blurb: The misuse of online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook can have serious consequences for your university.  How are students improperly using these sites and what rights do your college administrators have to monitor student behavior? How do you create an effective policy for your college? Join us for a live, 60-minute audio conference where you and your colleagues will learn:

• Drafting an Online Network Policy: Keys to Protect Your College
• The Monitoring Student Debate: Strategies to Avoid Common Pitfalls
• Keys to Effectively Utilize Public Safety, Staff, & Campus Community
• How to Use Social Networking Sites to Benefit Your Institution

Conference Presenter: Tomás Gonzalez is the Senior Assistant Dean at the Syracuse University College of Law.  He is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of legal issues and on-line communities. His expertise includes legal issues in Higher Educations, leadership and community development, academic support programs, diversity education and student success/recognition programs.

[JH]

US News Numerical Ranking for Tier 3 and Tier 4 Law Schools

Check out Geoffrey Rapp's post on PrawfsBlawg: US News Hacked?: Does the US News Web Site Display 3rd Tier & 4th Tier Law Schools Ranked in Order? [JH]

Academic Freedom in the Age of Permanent Warfare

The Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center at New York University's Tamiment Library is sponsoring the Academic Freedom Conference. The Conference will be held on April 3-4, 2008. Details (pdf). [JH]

Solove on the Contradictory Goals of Law School Rankings

Check out Dan Solove's (George Washington) US News law school rankings commentary on Concurring Opinions. Here's a snip from his post, The Contradictory Goals of Law School Rankings:

If we step back from this year's frenzy, I believe that there's an important fact about law school rankings that accounts for much of the displeasure about them. Law school ranking systems have contradictory goals. Here's why. Law schools, like many institutions, are not incredibly dynamic and changing in the short term. They often change slowly, not dramatically. The result: We shouldn't see much movement year to year in the rankings. Most schools should stay about where they are. A few schools might move over time, but any one year's movement is not significant in the grand scheme of things. So to be accurate, rankings shouldn't change all that much.

But rankings systems have a contradictory goal: They need to reflect some kind of change, or else looking at the rankings each year would be like watching glaciers move. There must be some drama in the rankings year by year. We eagerly await our rankings each year, and we don't want rankings at five or ten year intervals. And we don't want stable rankings -- we want changes to cheer and kvetch about.

[JH]

Section 108 Study Group Report

Peter Hirtle reports on the availability of the Section 108 Study Group Report, now available online:

The final report of the Section 108 Study Group, on which I have been serving for three years, has been released.  You will find it, along with an executive summary, at http://www.section108.gov.  The report and executive summary are found as links in the middle of the page; the press release about the final report is to the right.

The report examines what changes should be made to the exemptions for libraries and archives in copyright law in order to address changes brought about by digital technologies.  It may be of interest to anyone engaged in preservation, document delivery, and ILL.

Among the recommendations are:

• Museums should be included for Section 108 eligibility, as they perform many of the same functions as libraries and archives.
• A new exception should be added to Section 108 to permit certain qualified libraries and archives to make preservation copies of at-risk published works prior to any damage or loss. Access to these "preservation-only" copies will be limited.
• A new exception should be added to Section 108 to permit libraries and archives to capture and reproduce publicly available Web sites and other online content for preservation purposes and to make those copies accessible to users for private study, research or scholarship. Rights holders would be able to opt out of this provision.
• Libraries and archives should be permitted to make a limited number of copies, as reasonably necessary, to create and maintain a single replacement or preservation copy. This alteration to the current three-copy limit would, among other things, enable libraries to more securely preserve digital materials, which often involves making copies.

(reprinted with permission) [JJ]

April Fool's Prank on Law Professor Blogs Network

From ContractsProf Blog:

The Law Professors Blog Network (LPBN) is suing bloggers Franklin G. Snyder  and Keith A. Rowley for breach of contract in connection with their blogging activities on the Commercial Law blog. ... According to the complaint, although Snyder and Rowley are listed as Blog Editor and Contributing Editor respectively of the ContractsProfs Blog, they have joined "a ragtag crew of renegades seeking to undermine the LPBN's dominance in law prof blogging, promote communism and end civilization as we know it."

Not having funds for litigation fees and expenses, Blog Emperor Paul Caron and I are representing ourselves and you know what they say about that. LOL. [JH]

Professional Reading: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0

Check out First Monday's March 2008 special issue on Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0. Each article, IMHO, deserves your thoughtful consideration. [JH]

• Preface: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0 by Michael Zimmer
• Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0 by Trebor Scholz
• Web 2.0: An Argument Against Convergence by Matthew Allen
• Interactivity is Evil! A critical investigation of Web 2.0 by Kylie Jarrett
• Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation by Søren Mørk Petersen
• The Externalities of Search 2.0: The Emerging Privacy Threats when the Drive for the Perfect Search Engine meets Web 2.0 by Michael Zimmer
• Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance by Anders Albrechtslund
• History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward by David Silver

2008 CALI Conference: Call for Speakers

Among the many annual conferences, CALI's is my favorite. This year's conference theme is "Transforming Legal Education." CALI Executive Director John Mayer writes:

It is time to put the divisiveness of laptops in the classroom behind us. It is time to face our fears.  Fear of USNews ranks, fear of the student debt implosion, fear of technology and change itself.  It's time to consider the ideas of Carnegie and decide how technology impacts professionalism and ethics in legal education.  What does transformation mean to you and your institution and does technology have a central or supporting role in accomplishing our goals?

Submit your session proposals. Remember, law school "transformation" means reforming legal education.

This year's conference will be on held Thursday-Saturday, June 18-21, 2008 in  Baltimore, MD at the University of Maryland School of Law. Conference Home Page. Registration is now open. [JH]

Where Are the US News Top 30 Law Schools of 1996 Now?

If one is interested enough to get beyond the chatter about which law schools rose or fell a couple of places in the 2009 US News ranking, one might want to ask "where are the Top 10, or 20 (or even 30) law schools of 1996 now? Click on the image (left) to find out. You might note the position gains/losses for some Top 10 schools -- Penn, plus 4 from 11 to 7, Duke, minus 4 from 8 to 12, but the Top 10 list is relatively stable and that's hardly news.

The same can be said for law schools ranked 11-20 in 1996 with two notable exceptions, Iowa minus 8, from 19 to 27; and Illinois minus 7, from 20 to tied in 27th place with Iowa in 2009. Note also that Washington (St. Louis) advanced to 19th place in 2009 from 29th place in 1996.

Note well, the above-mentioned one-on-one 1996-2009 comparisons are probably misleading because US News changed its ranking method.

Historical Perspective. Any given year, law schools' US News fortunes rise and fall. Up 3 in US News one year, down 5 the next. The one-year comparison isn't very meaningful. It's just absurd fodder for University and law school PR machines. See Brian Leiter's (Texas) comments, Hall of Shame: Schools Publicizing Their Meaningless US News Ranking. 

Given that US News rankings will be used, I think prospective law students, aspiring law profs, and others should be asking, how long has a law school been in the Top 10 or 20 (or even 30)? Is the current rank a fluke? Has a school's ranking shown incremental increases or declines during the last 5 or 10 or more years?

To answer these questions, click on the below image. It is a table that displays every law school that made the US News Top 30 at least once from 1996 through 2009. These schools are listed by name by their 2009 rank. A line chart plotting ranking change by school would have been too busy so table cells are colorized according to the  following groupings: dark red for 1-10; teal for 11-20; blue-grey for 21-30; and medium gray for Below 30.

I think that by colorizing the table cells, one can visualize just how established the boundaries are for each tier. Despite US News ranking method changes only 39 schools have been ranked 30 or better during this 14-year period. It's a small group, smaller than I expected. Smaller still but not a surprise -- only 24 schools ranked in the Top 20 and 13 in the Top 10. Some sort of general US News "echo chamber" effect in play?" See Brian Leiter's posts on the echo chamber effect of US News peer review scores here and here.

Mindful of 1990s rank method changes, one can view the incremental changes in an individual law school's rank that led to the school breaking through the ceiling of a higher tier or falling through the floor into a lower tier. One can also easily spot unusual one-year declines that should be ignored. For example, how does a school like Texas go from 17-18th place for 1996-98, to 29th in 1999, then moves to 15th place in 2000 and for the next six years? The 1999 rank should be ignored. You'll see other instances where the rank reported for a law school in a particular year is too questionable to be taken seriously.

If you would like to re-sort the data by year or view a full screen display of the table, download the spreadsheet here: Download usranking19962009.xls. If you spot any errors, please file a comment for readers. I probably won't be making corrections because this is only a blog post.

Calls for US News law school ranking reform abound. See for instance, An Open Letter to Bob Morse of U.S. News by Brian Leiter, author of the leading source of alternative law school ranking information, Brian Leiter's Law School Rankings.

Endnote. Why not provide historical data for the Top 50 or Top 100 law schools? Because I subscribe to the notion that if a law school isn't listed in the US News Top 20 or its Fourth Tier, the ranking becomes increasingly more insignificant in the marketplace. "Top 20" and "Fourth Tier" mean something. Between the two lies the legal academy's middle ground, a large dot on the map that represents 69% of the ranked schools this year. [JH]

KM Apps in Law Firms

Check out Judith Lamont's KM World article, KM for Legal Apps: Time is Money, for some practical uses law firms are making with knowledge management applications. Hat tip to Dennis Kennedy. [JH]

A Foolproof Guide for Aspiring Law Profs and Lateral Appointment Seekers

Joining the Workforce, Law School Style. The AALS Meat Market, the teleconference call, the airport interview, the day-long masquerade ball on site for applicants deemed worthy of consideration, these are the rituals of the legal academic hiring process that are truly mysterious to those wanting to become law profs (or academic law librarians) as well as those wanting to move onward and upward in the legal academy.

Getting a Foot in the Door. If you didn't graduate from a top feeder school, serve as a law clerk at the Supreme Court or one of the more "elite" federal Circuit Courts, work for a top-notch large law firm, Fortune 500 corporation or Federal agency in a "hot" practice area, aspiring law profs need to establish their street credentials. That means demonstrating that you can publish and teach, perhaps as an adjunct or fellow.  Dust off your law review notes and comments, briefs, conference presentations, etc. Knocking on the door of a local law school for an adjunct gig is easy enough but getting a teaching fellowship is a different matter. Paul Caron (Cincinnati) has compiled one of the best lists of teaching fellowship resources I've seen. Check out his post on TaxProf Blog.

Landing that First Professorship. David Cases' The Pedagogical Don Quixote de la Mississippi, 33 U. Mem. L. Rev. 529 (2003) [Westlaw] is a must-read. In it, Case tells the story of his trials and tribulations as a practitioner who breaks into the Ivory Tower after several attempts.

Once a member of the Club, getting lifetime employment isn't very hard. Gladly (or pretend to be happy to) teach 1L courses so senior members of the faculty. But don't insist on teaching Con Law. Every school has an over-abundance of aspiring constitution law scholars. Go for contracts, property, torts, and those pesky mind-numbing upper-class bar exam courses like the UCC. Avoid at all costs, the legal research and writing program because that's a dead-end.

Despite the wailing over how difficult it is to get published because of the power held by law review student editors (what about the faculty advisor's input?) over your career, getting two published articles listed on your CV is substantially easier to achieve than almost any other academic discipline. There are some 170 law review titles, most of them are desperately seeking content and, unlike other disciplines, published legal scholarship does not need to be peer-reviewed. Unless you are publishing in law and economics, scholarly legal works are rarely "dead wrong." It's a "soft" discipline that defies empirical certitude. Just be sure to Shepardize your cases.

Don't worry about your articles being cited by other law review articles or court opinions. The majority aren't. Thank God for the string citation or the vast majority would never be cited. How do you get cited? Draft a sentence or two in black letter law fashion. Remember what Second Circuit Judge Robert Sack said about citation practices,when cited, law review articles are used the same way drunks use lampposts - for support rather than illumination. See Adam Liptak, When Rendering Decisions, Judges Are Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant, New York Time, March 19, 2007, at A8

In four years or so, you will be tenured. Almost every law prof gets tenure; "it's a state law". Ultimately what matters in tenure decisions is personality, not results; your peers know all too well, that the job security tenure brings means that they are going to see you in the hallways for a very long time. Upon tenure, you can start behaving like an ass but hopefully you will not become infected with the megalomania that runs rampant in the legal academy.

It's hardly a difficult road to travel when compared to the typical 7-year long odyssey associates make in large law firms where objective measures like billable hours, bringing in new clients, and winning in the transactional or litigation arenas matter in partnership decisions. You won't be compensated as much as practitioners -- hell, some of your 3Ls who land a BigLaw gig will be paid more as first year associates than you make at their hooding. But you get your summers off, can make extra cash above your annual salary during the summers if you play your cards right, be in line for those much sought after annual sabbaticals, and, if the trend towards reducing teaching loads to free up time for "scholarship" continues at its current pace, you probably will be teaching no more than one course each semester long before your retirement date arrives.

Moving Onward and Upwards. Many law profs stay put after their initial appointment, some for personal reasons. Many strive to move onward and upward. More money, more opportunities to pursue their academic interests ... working with notable colleagues, students more interested in scholarship than just passing the bar and the stimulating environment therein certainly motivate many lateral moves. Depending on where you start, what you accomplish there, and the associations you make, moving up the ranks of law schools to a Top 10 or Top 20 school is no easy task.

Hiring prominent faculty members to increase a school's reputation for US News & World Report's annual law school rankings is the name of the game and it becomes ever more competitive the closer a school is the top 10th-percentile. The law professor lateral hiring market is a seller's labor market but navigating it is no easy task. Employment law prof and co-editor of Workplace Prof Blog, Paul Secunda (Mississippi, soon Marquette) offers advice on how to go about it in his very interesting Tales of a Law Professor Lateral Nothing (SSRN) article. A "nothing," I don't think so. See this post. In offering advice on the lateral hiring market, Secunda writes:

I feel as well suited as anyone to undertake this delicate task. I offer these humble observations as someone who has been on the lateral market for the last three years and who has been turned down by numerous schools (including two after fly-back interviews), turned down a lateral offer, and finally, accepted a lateral offer from Marquette University Law School this year.

It's the best article I could find. Although I am generally dismissive of SSRN download clicks as being a measure of anything, the relatively high ratio of abstract views to downloads for Secunda's article appears to indicate that a not insignificant number of law profs are interested in learning more about this "mysterious world."

On Being Foolproof. To parse Brian Hayes for the convenience of this post , "proof is foolproof, it seems, only in the absence of fools." Today is April Fool's Day, right? [JH]

Not Aging Gracefully?

Are we an aging profession? I don't have any demographics to prove it but it seems like we may be. Of course my eyesight and short-term memory are both shot so I might not be seeing or remembering our younger colleagues. Thanks to Oprah, those of us who are not aging well have the following list of 14(!) reasons for our advancing decrepitude.

Major Ager	Its Effect
Bad Genes and Short Telomeres	Memory Loss
Oxidation and Inefficient Mitochondria	Rusting Arteries
Stem Cell Slowdown	Damage From Stress
Declining Defenses	Run-down Immune System
Toxins	Cancer, Asthma, and Allergies
Glycosylation	Heart disease, Diabetes, Nerve Damage
Calorie Consumption & Slowing Sirtuin	Obesity, Digestive Issues, Age-Related Problems
Neurotransmitter Imbalance	Emotional Issues like Depression, Cognitive Decline, Sleep Problems
Wacky Hormones	Menopausal Issues in Women and Men
Declining Nitric Oxide	Erectile Dysfunction and Other Age-Related and Artery-Related Problems
UV Radiation	Cancer, Wrinkles, Vision Problems
Disuse Atrophy	Weakening Limbs and Bones
Wear and Tear	Age-Related Conditions like Hearing Loss
Unforced Errors	Accidents

Follow this link to read an explanation for each "aging enemy."

As if the above 14 reasons weren't enough, Oprah adds 10 more reasons why you may not be aging gracefully, including chronic exposure to noise loud (damn those teenagers) and sleep loss due to your partner's snoring (damn...wait, I'm the one who snores!).

April Fool's Prank. It may be April 1st but this post is no April Fool's joke. I do, however, want to thank Lisa Britt, Acquisitions Librarian, University of Cincinnati Law Library, for pulling off the best April Fool's prank on me one year ago today. Lisa told me was pregnant that morning last year and said I turned white upon hearing the news (read anxiety -- staffing, who's going to cover!). I swear I said "OMG" out loud in response but she said I didn't. I only learned that it was an April Fool's prank much later in the afternoon in front of entire law library staff. Thanks Lisa! (Now, respect your elders.) Lisa, btw, is expecting to "publish" soon; the working title is "Baby Rufus," due on April 14th. [JH]

Opening: Freelance Bibliographer, BNA Books

BNA Books is looking for an editor to compile, in the next several months, a  one-year update to the bibliography for the ABA/BNA treatise International Labor and Employment Laws, Volume I (by approximately June 1) and to prepare the bibliography from scratch for Volume II (by approximately August 1).

Compensation provided. For more information please contact: Timothy J. Darby, BNA Books at tdarby@bna.com

Law Schools Flipping Out Over Falling US News Rankings

Above the Law is reporting excerpts and in some instances the full text of emails sent by law school deans to their students about their ranking decline in this year's US News Law School ranking. The schools? Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Buffalo and one from Case-Western that is buried deep in the long list of comments. Dropping 3 spots, from 24 to 27, Iowa has scheduled nine discussion group meetings to give students some face time with their dean.

Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Uniform Laws Commission To Study Online Authentication of Legal Materials

AALL is reporting that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) recently approved the new Study Committee on Online Authentication of Legal Materials to investigate the issues and discuss the feasibility of a uniform law or model act. Congratulations to everyone involved in AALL’s National Summit on Authentic Legal Information in the Digital Age last April for bringing the complex issues of digital authentication to center stage.

The chair and members of the new study committee will be appointed this summer, and AALL has been invited to name an observer. How about Immediate Past President Sally Holterhoff who convened AALL's National Summit?

A Step in the Right Direction.  Beginning with the 110th Congress, the Public and Private Laws on GPO Access have been digitally signed and certified. [JH]

Dennis Kennedy on Competitive Intelligence

Insightful article from ABA Journal by Dennis Kennedy:

"Gathering information on your client isn’t spying, and do­ing research on yourself isn’t egotism—it’s good business practice. Clients increasingly look to lawyers who know their business and industry well, and a common client wish is that their lawyers alert them to issues in advance, and not simply react when the client calls.

All of this has generated a new interest in something called competitive intelligence. CI addresses ways to get information you can use to be more effective in competing for business and serving clients. If you monitor court filings for your clients’ names, you might alert them to a filing and send a pleading well before they hear it elsewhere. You’re being helpful—and more likely to get the new assignment. If you monitor news items containing your firm’s name, you won’t be surprised when a client mentions the story he or she read about your firm."  [RJ]

POD Publishers Outraged by Amazon's New Restrictions

"Some Print on Demand (POD) publishers are privately screaming 'Monopoly!' while others are seething with rage over startling phone conversations they're having with Amazon/BookSurge representatives. Why isn't anybody talking about it openly? Because they're afraid - very, very afraid..." That's how POD publisher Angela Hoy starts her recent post when she broke the story on Writers Weekly (check out the supplied links for POD industry reaction and commentary). Why? Because BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary, has told POD publishers that unless their titles are printed by BookSurge, the buy buttons on Amazon for their titles will be disabled. Apparently the buy buttons already have been disabled for some POD publishing houses.

Hoy is reporting that Amazon/BookSurge will be making money two ways on Amazon sales: first the fee for publishing the books and then 48% of the list price for each Amazon sale. While the initial catalog of books POD publishers can submit to Amazon/BookSurge is free, the contract states future books would cost $50 each to process (and the cost for individual authors to publish through BookSurge is considerably higher; the average publishing package cost is more than $1,000)

In Amazon Changes POD Tactics, Removes Velvet Gloves, Karria Krozser writes

It is not surprising that Amazon has told publishers that it’s their POD (print-on-demand) service or no sales through Amazon. It is surprising that, well, anyone is surprised. Did y’all think Amazon was buying Booksurge for the fun of it? What other outcome did you expect?

I am not joking. ... Amazon is amassing what is essentially a secret army. Amazon is a business, and like real businesses, engages in actions that further Amazon’s goals. Not yours…unless your goals dovetail with Amazon’s. ... Your content is being locked to their device. Your content is being locked to their service. They get to set the terms.

What's Happening Here: Amazon is using its eCommerce site's selling clout to generate more business for BookSurge. Acquired by Amazon in 2005, BookSurge has been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to cut into the market share of POD leader Lightning Source, the major provider of POD services for Amazon.com before this change. Provider no longer for Amazon? Apparently so. Lightning Source, by the way, is owned by the same firm that owns Ingram, the US wholesaler that fills those Amazon orders which do not go through an Amazon warehouse. Ouch!

I bet that larger POD publishers will use both BookSurge and Lightning Source for future titles to capture Amazon sales but will only convert BookSurge current titles that are popular. In general, expect higher prices for POD titles.

Publisher's Weekly reports that "an Amazon spokesperson explained that the new policy will allow the company to 'marry' books with other products that a customer might buy at Amazon." As in Kindle?

Endnote. Amazon does provide a sales option for POD publishers -- the Amazon's Advantage Program (which works on a consignment model) -- but it's pretty absurd. Besides having to pay Amazon 55% of a title's list price, POD publishers would have to send their books to Amazon for warehousing and shipment to customers. Wharehousing POD titles, is that how the publishing model is supposed to work? [JH]

Patent Failure, Patent Reform Legislation

Bessen and Meurer's Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk (Princeton UP, 2008)(book details below the fold) "is a pioneering and heroic effort to quantify the ways in which our patent system has failed to live up to its raison d'être: promoting innovation. The book will be controversial. But the authors make a forceful case that deserves to be heard." -- Eric Maskin, Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and Nobel Laureate in Economics.

From AEI, There Is a Role for Congress in Patent Litigation Reform ("The patent litigation system is broken. Congress should make every effort to fix it by writing into this legislation reasonable formulas for damage awards and venue rules that discourage forum-shopping.") Is S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, [Thomas Resources] the way to go?

[RJ & JH]

Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
by James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer

List Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (March 23, 2008)
ISBN-10: 069113491X
ISBN-13: 978-0691134918

Book Description: In the last several years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to the media and to Congress that today's patent system stifles innovation instead of fostering it. But like the infamous patent on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, much of the cited evidence about the patent system is pure anecdote--making realistic policy formation difficult. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few modest reforms? Moving beyond rhetoric, Patent Failure provides the first authoritative and comprehensive look at the economic performance of patents in forty years. James Bessen and Michael Meurer ask whether patents work well as property rights, and, if not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more effective.

Patent Failure presents a wide range of empirical evidence from history, law, and economics. The book's findings are stark and conclusive. While patents do provide incentives to invest in research, development, and commercialization, for most businesses today, patents fail to provide predictable property rights. Instead, they produce costly disputes and excessive litigation that outweigh positive incentives. Only in some sectors, such as t