May 4, 2024 Michael Froomkinzetasec
Gráinne de Búrca, Rosalind Dixon, & Marcela Prieto Rudolphy, Engendering the Legal Academy, 22 Int’l J. Const. L. __ (forthcoming, 2023).
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Why do we use it? It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like). Continue reading "Feedpress test May 4, 2024"
May 3, 2024 Eli WaldLegal Profession
One of my favorite “classes” at law school was not a class at all. Once a week, along with dozens of other seemingly busy law students, I would head to Pound Hall to hear eminent international law professor Joseph Weiler lead an informal bible reading group. Two aspects of the reading group were especially intriguing: the analysis of the Old Testament from the perspective of “thinking like a lawyer” and the group’s inclusivity. All were welcomed and no prior knowledge or experience was required. The only thing one was expected to do was read the weekly portion ahead of the gathering. The reading group carried no credit and yet regularly it was standing room only. People attended because it was a fun intellectual exercise. It was a highlight of my days at Harvard Law School.
Daphne Barak-Erez’s new book, Biblical Judgments, reminds me of the old law school reading group. Barak-Erez invites readers to “think about law and legal institutions by a rereading of the Hebrew Bible,” revisiting hidden assumptions underlying, and testing correlations to, contemporary legal systems. (P. 1). The manuscript explores excerpts from the Old Testament to illuminate contemporary challenges confronted by lawyers in six areas of law practice: law and government, judging and judges, human rights and social justice, criminal law, private law, and family and inheritance. My favorite section is Part III, dealing with individual rights and social justice. It tackles topics such as discrimination, harassment, and racism, not shying away from acknowledging the limitations of pursuing social justice back in Old Testament times and—in what is one of the book’s important takeaways—now. Turning to the old text, Barak-Erez effectively mines new, refreshing, and often surprising insights, compelling readers to revisit and rethink their own perspectives and convictions. The analysis of the principle of “an eye for an eye,” (pp. 247-48), is a typical gem, arguing persuasively that retribution is not only a justification for imposing liability but also at the same time a call for proportionality and limiting the scope of liability. Continue reading "Biblical Insights for Lawyers"
May 2, 2024 Anders WalkerLegal History
Edward J. Larson will probably be banned in Florida. His new book, American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795, plunges headfirst into a roiling debate over America’s racist origins, a debate that splashed across Internet platforms five years ago when The New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project, a collection of hard-hitting essays on America’s anti-Black past. Headed by investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project claimed that the true founding of the United States was 1619, the year the first Africans arrived in British North America, and that the true story of the United States was – and remains – one of relentless racism against Black people. Even the Revolution, argued Hannah-Jones, was motivated by a racist desire to preserve slavery.
Hannah-Jones received mixed reviews for her polemic from historians, but she captivated progressive audiences with a national speaking tour, a Hulu documentary, and a “1619 Curriculum” for public schools. Conservatives countered with their own “1776 Project” (sponsored by the Trump White House) and a Senate bill aimed at “Saving American History” sponsored by Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, and others. “The 1619 Project is based on false narrative,” declared Senator Blackburn, “and a stack of lies about our country.”
Into this “partisan minefield,” as he puts it, steps Larson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and law professor who takes up many of the points made by The 1619 Project and elaborates on them by deftly weaving together an array of familiar secondary sources and not-so-familiar primary ones. Out of this comes a frank look at just how prevalent racial prejudice was in America during the late 18th Century, both North and South. For example, Larson provides us with a startling look at the racial views of Benjamin Franklin, a Framer who did not own enslaved people but nevertheless imagined that America would be better off without Blacks. “Why increase Sons of Africa,” complained Franklin, “by Planting them in America [?]” Continue reading "Original Glue: The Role of Race at America’s Founding"
May 1, 2024 Andrew HalpinJurisprudence
The common practice of teaching law students the rules of precedent is a misguided one, if we take seriously what María Beatriz Arriagada has to say in her article in a recent issue of Ratio Juris. In “The Two Faces of Precedent: A Hohfeldian Look,” Arriagada offers a radical alternative to the conventional portrayal of precedent as a system of regulative rules.
Arriagada’s article stimulates and provokes across a range of issues. Commencing with a preliminary reflection on the nature of analytical legal philosophy/theory (Pp. 25-26), she offers a number of insights to challenge assumptions made on the way the practice of binding precedent works, in developing her own structural analysis of precedent. At the same time, Arriagada draws on a sophisticated understanding of the Hohfeldian analytical scheme in her efforts to bring precision to a detailed analysis of the actual workings of precedent. Continue reading "The Powers of Precedent"
