Law Roundtable

My class in private equity and venture capital doesn’t know it yet, but I think I might have them read Harvard Law School’s John Coates’ new empirical paper on the effects of ownership on M&A, or at least some important sections of it.  I’ve just been through it and ...

The WSJ’s ‘Heard on the Street’ has an interesting item today comparing California and Greece from the standpoint of the bond markets.  Bottom line is that California fares far better than Greece in investors’ minds.  It’s a question, of course, how much of that is attributable to how investors ...

In the New York Times, Adam Liptak has a Sidebar column on the remarkable story of Shon Hopwood. I have particular reasons to find the story compelling, as I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Shon on briefs and I was clerking the Term that the Supreme ...

This is a very fast note on the question of European political economy raised in my last post.  It’s not intended to be exhaustive, and yes, it is pretty conclusory.  My impression over many years as an international law professor who bridges the public and private law divides; not a ...

Paul Krugman writes:

The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something ...

Here’s a draft of the new section on Writing an Abstract, to be published in the fourth edition of my Academic Legal Writing book. There’s still plenty of time to improve it, so I’d love to get feedback. (By the way, the abstracts I give as examples are ...

From Ware v. South Texas Family Planning & Health Corp. (S.D. Tex. Jan. 26), a case in which a father sued a clinic for giving a “morning-after” contraceptive pill to his 14-year-old daughter without the parents’ permission:

Plaintiff contends that Defendants are a public nuisance because the “activity” that ...

That’s the odd result of Haskell v. Brown, decided a month ago by Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California. Judge Breyer (not to be confused with Justice Stephen Breyer, his brother) refused to preliminary enjoin the collection of cheek swab samples from arrestees, largely because ...

Never expect compensation for a good deed. �Rarely will those you help ever even bother to thank you - let alone pay you. �Just ask�Anne Danaher.

Anne Danaher, Erin Brockovitch style, was a non-lawyer who spent thousands of hours fighting for a cause she believed was just. �Nevertheless, she is being ...

Over at The Faculty Lounge, there are some pictures of sit-ins from the early 1960s.  Regarding a 1963 sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi, TFL writes: “By one account, members of the all-White Jackson police force stood guard outside, while several FBI agents (the guys in back wearing shades) ‘observed’ from ...

I saw this ad during the Super Bowl–sorry, I mean “The Big Game”–yesterday, and originally thought it was some sort of political issue ad. Although it is funny, in a creepy way, it is not clear to me what the ad agency and Audi are saying here about The ...

A pretty poor argument (see p. 6), it seems to me — the law applies to speech of a certain content, and is justified by a worry that the content of the speech will mislead people.

I’ve argued that the ban is constitutionally permissible, because it fits ...

A San Diego federal district court recently provided guidance on what constitutes an "adverse employment action" and how an employer's shifting reasons for its actions may affect a discrimination case. In Coyne v. County of San Diego, the plaintiff, an employee, sued her employer for ...

Over the past decade, Buddhism, Taoism, and Greek and Roman wisdom are all being scientifically validated. �Probably there is little reason to read past Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. �In general: You are who you choose to be. �You become your actions.

Epictetus said:�"If you want to be a writer...write." How banal? ...

Last week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked for an estimate of House Democratic losses in the 2010 election. While the answers are reported in clusters of 10, the median estimate for the Left appears to about 20 seats. The median on the Right was in the mid-30s. ...

Last fall I was on a great panel at Stanford Law School on robotics and the law.  It had great people on it — Dan Siciliano, Paul Saffo, and Ryan Calo.  Great discussion; one of the things it brought home to me, as someone who came to law-and-robotics issues from ...