Musical Chairs: Larry Lessig to Harvard Law School
Dean Elena Kagan strikes again. From an HLS press release:
Renowned legal scholar Lawrence Lessig has been appointed to the faculty of Harvard Law School, and as the faculty director of Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. The announcement was made jointly today (Dec. 12) by Harvard University Provost Steven E. Hyman and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan.
Lessig — a widely acclaimed expert in constitutional law, cyberlaw, and intellectual property — comes to Harvard from the faculty of Stanford Law School. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2000, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School.
Dean Kagan and HLS have been on a tremendous hiring spree. One source sums it up: “Can we get a list of who’s left — not counting federal judges like Posner, Easterbrook and Calabresi — that Kagan hasn’t scooped up in the last few years? Dworkin? Ackerman? Epstein?”
Says a second: “Dean Kagan is a juggernaut. In spite of losing about 25 percent of its endowment, Harvard is apparently not in a hiring freeze.”
More discussion, including words from Professor Lessig, after the jump.
A Stanford law student shrugs off the loss: “Students here have mixed feelings about the man. He is famous for his work on copyright and internet stuff, but his teaching isn’t focused on what people came here to learn from him. Also, he’s not very friendly.”
Not very friendly? That’s surprising, for a man who has almost 2200 friends on Facebook.
Professor Lessig explains the reasons for his move over at Jonathan Zittrain’s blog (because, as Lessig explains on Twitter, his own blog was hacked). Lessig raves about his time at Stanford, but explains that given the shift in his scholarly focus, “from free culture related issues to (what I called) ‘corruption,’” he couldn’t pass up the extraordinary opportunity offered by HLS and the Safra Center.
Congratulations to Harvard on its hiring coup, and to Professor Lessig on his new gig!
Lawrence Lessig Named Professor of Law at HLS [Harvard Law School (press release)]
Required reading: big news [The Future of the Internet]
Larry Lessig: From Copyright to Politics, from Stanford (Back) to Harvard [WSJ Law Blog]
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Comments
first
FirsT!
phirst
MUfirSTACHE RIDE!
meh, we still got MacKinnon (and a certain Michigan student might need her as an advocate in the near future).
-Michigan STUD
Victttory in the first wars!
- 1
Prof. Lessig, the man who never met a case he didn't lose. Well, almost.
Dude, it's Friday, December 12th for God's sake, almost five o'clock, and no bonus announcements from anybody? Weil, Sullivan? Crickets?
Dude looks like a cartoon. Who takes this guy seriously?
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http://www.atsealawyer.com/Bio/JamesBeard.asp
It's a shame HLS couldn't get the West Wing caricature of Lawrence Lessig played by Christopher Lloyd. I'd take Con Law from Doc Brown any day.
John Larroquette's "Lionel Tribbie" (aka Larry Tribe) is the best.
-- Elie Mystal
Lawrence Lessittt
Chicken curry guacamole
I can't believe there haven't been bonus announcements, either!
I wonder what happens to the class that he was going to teach with Jack Goldsmith on making laws for a new city. If both of them are at Harvard, is it still being offered? I wanted to get credit for SimCity law school style.
Elie and #5: Strossen would be a much better catch for any law school than MacKinnon or Dworkin.
18: very subtle NYU trolling.
5, Elie, 18: You're all wrong. The real catch would be if Harvard stole JAMES JUSTESEN WHITE - King of the UCC
Does Dworkin still teach his 3L Mustache Ride class?
19,
You call that subtle?
how come no post for columbia stealing world-reknown tax expert michael graetz from yls? your hls bias is appalling elie...
19: trolling indeed. but trolling for ideas, not schools.
ALERT:
#'s 22-24 are each Deans at Mustache Ride Univ.
Really? A post about Lessig going to HLS and not about Epstein going to NYU? Talk about HLS bias!
this is almost as big news as that us attorney guy that no one ever heard of going to kirkland (i think) for like 20 million per year!!!!!
extra! extra!
20: Fu*k you. Robert Summers is the UCC. White is his research assistant.
legal scholar-- what a load of shit. get a real job for Christ's sake.
Strossen is at NYLS, so how is that NYU trolling?
Anyways, why is Lessig news? He'll leave HLS in a year or two to go work at Columbia or NYU, and then he'll move back to Stanford, and then Chicago, and then Harvard. I mean seriously, why is it news when the village bicycle moves?
What the fuck is the matter with this guy switching law schools all the time - make a pick and stick with it!
What does that "tipster" mean by "who's left?"
Does this person mean "public intellectual"? Or does this person mean "respected academic in his or her field?"
Because yes, HLS has most public intellectuals. But they certainly don't have every major law prof, not by a long shot.
Summers dominates the UCC and makes White edit his book for him. White wouldn't know particularistic if it bite him on his ass. Summers has eyes like a hawk.
HLS is like the Yankees -- they scoop up all the big-name talent that's peaked, but it hasn't does them any good in terms of beating out Yale for #1 or passing Stanford for undisputed #2 / winning a world title lately.
Also, as the SLS student pointed out, Lessig isn't noted for being super-friendly either, so he's not going to make HLS any more student-oriented as opposed to a giant research factory for its professors and a giant diploma factory for its students. Bigger is not always better and scooping up all the big names isn't going to solve HLS's problems.
Tax guru Martin Ginsburg also recently moved to GULC.
KILLSELF FOR ANALOGIZING RANKINGS TO THE WORLD SERIES 34
From Leiter: "The Amazing Dean Kagan Strikes Again!"
Under normal circumstances, I hate plagiarism. In this instance, however, Elie's willingness to implicitly admit that he is incapable of doing a good job as EIC and must instead resort to leeching from Leiter is a commendable show of modesty.
Nonetheless, Elie, you're fired. Right Lat? Right? We can't have this sort of conduct here! Right?
Lessig is a notoriously bad professor. Part of his Constitutional Law final last year was a true-false section with questions like "Marbury v. Madison was a brilliant decision."
Mackinnon almost came to HLS, but demanded to be the highest paid law professor in the country, apparently. Yeah right.
34 - except the reason why it's not #1 in the rankings is their higher student to faculty ratio. so in this case, bigger is better.
38: What was the answer to that question?
stanford = TTT
42 was probably the crazy Cardozo booster on the other thread that was getting a lot of posts.
38 is wrong. the final asked: does larry lessig think that marbury was a brilliant decision?
44: That just proves the point even more!
45: what brilliant insight, i did not think of that.-44
44: Well, inquiring minds want to know, does he or not?
47: No I don't.
- inquiring mind.
28, 33: Summers is White's bitch. He's not even the most prestigious Prof. Summers...lol.
Stop your blatant Cornell trolling and submit to the JUSTESEN!!!
30: You dummy. Of course NYLS and NYU are the same. That's like saying that Harvard Law School and Harvard University Law School are different.
34: What imaginary problems of HLS's are you referring to?
37: You are an idiot. If you read the byline, you'll see that your precious Lat actually posted this piece, "plagiarism" and all.
Robert Summers is no one's bitch.
Summers was given the UCC by god himself. White's UCC analysis is so poorly thought out you would think a 1L law student of his wrote it...oh wait, they did.
34 is clearly a misinformed Stanford student. If anything, Stanford should be 4 or 5. Were it not for: a. its name, and, b. its lack off peer competitors out on the lonely coast, it would have the ranking it deserves.
Also, the 'pick them up after their prime' role is already taken by NYU - they've been doing it for the last 10 years (most recently with Epstein a few weeks ago).
54 -- I know it stings to have the Harvard JD and still not be the best. It's OK.
54 -- Of course Stanford's rating is partially due to its name. It's not exactly a coincidence that all the top law schools (except for NYU) are associated with top universities. In fact, most older law schools got their starts as law departments within their university -- thus, having an elite name to attract the best profs with was the key to developing a top law school.
Are you trying to argue that HLS would be where it is in the rankings and attracting top prof talent without the Harvard name behind it? HLS without the Harvard name behind it would basically be GULC -- reasonably prestigious, but oversized and nothing super special.
And if you think I'm only picking on HLS, YLS and SLS without their brand names would basically be the caliber of a Duke or Cornell -- decent enough, but not regarded as elite because they're too undersized and not located in major cities.
Take a survey of all Americans with the following question: What's the best law school in the country = 90% will say Harvard.
Survey abroad of same question: 98% say Harvard (2% might say Oxford, thinking it's in the U.S.)
57: Exactly. Everyone and their mom has respect for Harvard. You can't say that about Stanford or Yale.
57, yes, surveying the public is definitely the best way to figure out what the best school are. These would be the same survey-everyone rankings that year-after-year list NYU, Notre Dame, and Ohio State as part of their top 10 best undergrad colleges. See any problem with the survey methodology yet?
At least the infamously horrible Cooley rankings use SOME (albeit flawed becuase totals could as much as percentages) objective criteria. If you're really convinced Harvard is the best law school just because a majority of random guys off the street who don't necessarily know anything about law schools think so, then I'm glad to let you have that honor.
This is 58 again: I was referring to educated people.
57- yes, that is why all of us that went to Yale chose it. So that the "public" would know who was number 1. You dont get it, and you never will
Suffice to say, I don't think most YLS or SLS students are as obsessed with just having to be number 1 as many HLS students seem to be. I guess it goes to the types of personalities that the three schools attract.
Come to think of it, the same seems to be true with the ugrad rankings but with Harvard and Princeton. While I don't hear about Princeton kids caring that much, enough Harvard kids have been known to namedrop their affiliation with the school that the practice now has its own name (dropping the h-bomb). Anyone seeing a pattern here?
will this "biglaw" board now return to its usual level of posting now that finals are done?
seriously, tards, who gives a shit that some professor is going from one school to another? be far more concerned that biglaw is debating whether to cut associate headcount by 30% or a more humane 20% next year....thanks bush! heckuva job on that economy thing....and you too senate republicans - spending one month of the bullshit iraq war budget to save detroit would be like saving new orleans....or any other city where those pesky poor folk live...
Pepperdine has Grant Nelson, Dale Whittman and Akil Amar on the list for this year. And Amar has made it known he will be heading there after his tenure at YLS.
Plus w/ Starr as dean, SCOTUS members abound. Roberts was the judge at the moot court competition last year...
64--Pepperdine is the definition of TTT.
Make that CCCTTT, Crazy Christian Conservative TTT.
James Justesen White's UCC analysis is nearly unanimously accepted by the courts (see 2-207).
He lets Summers add his name to the book because he needs some counterarguments to show the vast superiority of his genius.
JUSTESEN = UCC
Do either Summers or White know anthing about (reduced-rate) mustache rides?
Good riddance. Lessig was by far the worst professor at Stanford. Thank you, Harvard, for taking out our trash.
Stanford = Mustache Ride Univ.
66-White's UCC analysis may be "nearly unanimously accepted by the courts," but if you read particularistically (and like a snail/hawk), you will see that Summers's interpretations are clearly better-supported (textually) and better-reasoned. See 2-207.
67-I doubt Summers does, but maybe White can help you out. If he can't, perhaps someone else at Michigan can--they seem to have some experience selling services of that nature
70 Nailed it....both counts!
64 - why in the hell is Amar going to Pepperdine? Anyone know? The weather? Someone's got to have the goods here.
72:
Amar found Jesus!
70:
I'm afraid you're mistaken. White is realized that in practices businesses/lawyers can't afford to read every document "particularistically" in a fluid dead. His legal acumen has led him to logical solutions that actually work in practice.
That's why JAMES JUSTESEN WHITE is loved and revered by all!
As for mustache rides, I refer you to one of White's oft used lines..."rikers island is full of consumers"
74-I'm not quite sure what your first point is supposed to be (hint: try writing in English next time), but you seem to be suggesting that Summers's interpretation of the UCC is unworkable in practice. I would disagree--I see no reason why Summers's "fall out" rule (for example) would be either unworkable or unfair. See 2-207 (again).
As for the mustache rides--apparently JAMES JUSTESEN WHITE *does* know where to get them at a discount.
Summers got a medal for tackling a crazy guy on a plane and sitting on him until the plane landed. I think he wins.
72- It's for the mustache rides.
76: White has killed before...true story.
Robert Summers gives mustache rides to White's Missus, even though Summer's doesn't have a mustache. That's how awesome Summers is.
Oh, and White pees sitting down. True Story.
76 - that was Henderson, not Summers. Though I'm sure Summers was tackling people long before planes were even invented.
Summers is the Chuck Norris of contract law
F*ck 1L's suck. Shut up, all of you.
Hadley and Baxendale once argued over a broken crankshaft. Robert Summers then proceeded to eat them both, for being so petulant. Foresee THAT, assholes.
"Lessig is a notoriously bad professor. Part of his Constitutional Law final last year was a true-false section with questions like 'Marbury v. Madison was a brilliant decision.'"
fidelity to role, dood.
Robert Hillman:Summers::Scottie Pippen: Michael Jordan
Hey 82, STFU. I got chunks of guys bigger than you in my mustache.
Summers:White::Trig Palin:White
White wouldn't even need the UCC because K's would be enforced if he just stared at them...but he does it for the lulz (and the $$$).
White:Contract Law::Rich Rodriquez:UM Football
89: You are correct, JJ White is the leader of K law.
White:Summers::OSU Football:UM Football
LOL at 61 pretending to go to Yale
Rumor has it that Summers sexually assaulted his male research assistant in 05 and 06. I think he sat in gum.
Lawrence Leftist never met an IP right he didn't hate.
Summers:White::Lat::Mystal
This is probably the biggest move in recent years along with Sunstein to Harvard.
Pretty big blows to Stanford and Chicago -- and more confirmation that as much as Harvard sucks for its students, it is pretty much the academic center of the universe for faculty.
Vanderbilt sniped W. Kip Viscusi away from Hahvahd a year or two ago.
96 - actually, HLS doesn't suck for its students (mostly due to Kagan and the funding brought in by her predecessor Clark). the vast majority of students who are miserable there would have been miserable anywhere they went.