Debris
«chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète.»Archive for law school
First Amendment does not compel public law school to fund group that excludes members based on “Statement of Faith” and “sexually immoral lifestyle”
A federal court has granted summary judgment dismissing a suit against the University of Montana Law School for denying funding to a Christian student group because of the group’s exclusionary membership standards.
As at many law schools, the University of Montana maintains a non-discrimination policy under which all groups receiving funds from student activity fees must be open to all students. However, the Christian Legal Society (“CLS”), while allowing anyone to attend meetings, grants full membership only to those who sign the group’s “Statement of Faith”, and refuses membership based on “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle”.
The CLS sued, contending that the Law School’s denial of funding violated the group’s First Amendment rights. As the court explained, the case thus turned on “the tension between a public law school’s interest in enforcing its non-discriminatory policies and a religious student group’s interest in exercising its constitutional rights of free speech, association and religious exercise.”
In granting summary judgment, the court noted that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently rejected a similar lawsuit by the CLS against the University of California Hastings School of Law. The court concluded that the Law School’s non-discrimination policy, which applies to all student groups in a neutral manner and did not single-out the CLS based on its religious viewpoint, furthers a legitimate interest that outweighs the incidental burden on the CLS’s religious expression.
There Ain’t No Sanity Claus
Supremacy Claus, a blog by someone who obviously suffers the lingering psycho-emotional effects of some awful experience with law school or the legal system, deserves a prize for one of the most (unintentionally?) hysterical (in both senses) statements ever about legal education:
The IRAC is from Peter Abelard and Alexander of Hales, monks of the High Middle Ages. Worst, they were French.
The rest of Supremacy Claus consists largely of similar “gibberish in massive quantity” (a description the blog applies, perhaps not unfairly, to legal education). Perhaps the whole site is some kind of clever satire. Or perhaps not.
Elon Law names new Dean
We just got the very good news today that the University has appointed George Johnson as Dean of Elon Law School. George has been serving as interim Dean since Leary Davis, the founding Dean, stepped down this summer. Having served on the search committee, I can attest that Dean Johnson emerged from a very competitive pool of candidates, and everyone in the Elon community is delighted with the choice.
Welcome, Elon Law Class of 2011
Orientation for new students begins today. This year, I’ll be teaching Civil Procedure, so I’ll have an opportunity to intimidate teach the 1Ls (unlike last year, when I only taught the jaded 2Ls). I’ve modeled my first lesson plan on this example.
Elon Law Talent Show
I apologize for the late notice, but Debris readers in Greensboro (or willing to make the trip) are cordially invited to the inaugural Elon Law School Talent Show, which takes place at the Law School (201 North Greene Street) tomorrow evening. Admission is $4, with the money going to support student activities.
I will be performing as part of a vaguely bluegrass trio under the name “Specific Performance”. Which just goes to show how loosely we’ve defined “talent”.
Cheese, Flies, & Business Organizations
BYU law professor Gordon Smith has embarked on a fascinating study of business organization and relations among cheesemakers in Wisconsin. What a great idea — he’ll undoubtedly have loads of fun collecting his data, and the study promises to shed light on the interesting, and underexamined, world of business cooperatives. And it gives me a great idea for yet another project in my burgeoning research agenda on law and fly fishing: business organization and relations among fly shops. In his cheesemaker study, Gordon is looking at how small Wisconsin producers have adapted in the face of competition from large national operations (many based in California). Traditional local fly shops are likewise facing competition from large national retailers like Cabela’s, Orvis, L.L. Bean, and a slew of online vendors. It would be interesting to examine the business strategies local fly shops have adopted in an effort to stay alive.
(Alas, YouTube doesn’t appear to have a clip of the Harlan Pepper fly shop scene from Best in Show.)
It’s a Wonderful Second Life
For about the past month, I’ve been exploring the virtual world of Second Life, with an eye toward research on legal issues and legal communities there. What I’ve seen thus far has been fascinating. Right now, a controversy is brewing over a decision by Linden Labs (creators of Second Life) to shut down in-world “banks” offering participants interest on virtual currency deposit accounts. Many fear that the decision will spur a run on the “banks”, fueling exactly the problems that Linden Lab says are behind its decision. There is also an interesting issue on the horizon concerning an impending initial public offering of shares in a Second Life corporation. Among other things, there is a question as to whether such an IPO would be subject to U.S. or other securities regulations, particularly in light of the fact that Second Life currency is readily convertible into U.S. dollars.
Meanwhile, I’ve arranged to be part of a soon-to-be-launched Second Life Law School, which will offer classes open to both real-life law students and the Second Life public at-large. The virtual law school will not seek accreditation nor award degrees, but rather aims at providing general education about legal issues.
Debris readers who participate in Second Life are welcome to contact me through my in-world identity, Forelle Broek.
Taking stock, and finding a bull market
As the year winds to a close, it is customary to reflect on the past and look toward the future. For me, the most significant development of this past year was my move to a new city and my start at a new career. Nearly 6 months in, I remain unreservedly happy about both. Being a professor has been my goal for most of my adult life. I’d likely have been happy with just about any academic job; but Elon, where I’ve landed, has proved to be a remarkably good fit.
All of which leaves me scratching my head at the suggestion that law professors, as a group, are unhappy, or at least uneasy, with their careers. Paul Caron, writing at MoneyLaw, suggests an explanation for this ostensible problem, which he derives from a recent book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job:
The first sign of a miserable job is anonymity, which is the feeling that employees get when they realize that their manager has little interest in them a human being and that they know little about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.
The second sign is irrelevance, which takes root when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others. Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone’s life–a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor–in one way or another.
The third sign is something I call “immeasurement,” which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. Employees who have no means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, must rely on the subjective opinions of others, usually their managers’, to gauge their progress or contribution.
Like Professor Bainbridge (with whom I can’t claim to have much else in common), I don’t think any of these signs applies to my work.
My dean most certainly expresses a sincere interest in me, not only as a faculty member but as a human being. So do the rest of my colleagues, and indeed my students. And I likewise take such an interest in each and all of them. Perhaps this is attributable to Elon Law’s being a new institution. Or perhaps we are successfully developing a culture of mutual respect. Either way, I most definitely do not feel anonymous at Elon.
Nor do I feel irrelevant. Most obviously, my work makes a big difference in the lives of my students, not just immediately, but down the road. The students at Elon have taken a big chance by attending a new law school rather than an already established one. My colleagues have likewise taken the same chance by choosing to teach here. None of us forgets for a moment that we are counting on each other to establish Elon rapidly and firmly as a serious and worthy institution, of which we can be proud to be among the creators.
As for measurement, that’s not something I give much thought to anyway. I’m instinctively suspicious of “metrics” and “benchmarks” and other techniques of questionable quantification. But, for what its worth, I get sufficient feedback to give me some sense of how others think I’m doing. The dean has been generous with his assessment, both in the sense of offering it freely and framing it positively.
I anxiously (in both senses of the word) await my first set of student evaluations. I confess to occasionally peeking at RateMyProfessor.com to see if they’ve posted anything about me (not yet, and I hold out no hopes of a chili pepper).
To my few but loyal readers, I wish the very best of new years.
Santa’s little faculty helpers
Ho-ho-ho! I’m guessing it was an Elon Law student, seeking to blow of some pre-finals steam, that prepared this. “Elfin” is about the last word that anyone would use to describe me. Which goes a long way to explaining why I laughed so hard.
