Harold Koh

Justice Harold Hongju Koh?

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harold koh harold hongju koh.jpgThat’s the prospect repeatedly pushed in a two-part profile of Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh, from the Yale Daily News. The profile has been discussed extensively in the legal blogsophere (see links below).
Oh goodness. We could say something snarky and dismissive (e.g., “Hell to the N-O”). But we will comport ourselves with the dignity you expect from a leading gossip blogger.
We will merely refer you to what others have already said on the subject. E.g., Professor Stephen Bainbridge (“Koh’s appointment to the SCOTUS would be an unmitigated disaster.”); Professor David Bernstein (Koh is “a highly partisan liberal Democrat under whose tenure as dean conservative and libertarian students have felt increasingly uncomfortable”); and commenters at the WSJ Law Blog (“a severe narcissist,” “a political zealot,” and “[Harvard Dean] Elena Kagan would be a better choice”).
(Our favorite comment, from a WSJ Law Blog reader: “Other than that he’d be a sure vote for declaring Gitmo detainees have a constitutional right to Social Security benefits, I do not see the appeal.”)
So we’re holding our tongue. We do not want to have our YLS degree revoked after the fact.
A few more thoughts, after the jump.

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Yale Dean Harold Koh Hearts Conservatives

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Yale Law School dinner 5.JPG
Last Friday night, we attended a Yale Law School alumni dinner here in Washington, at Acadiana restaurant. It was timed to coincide with the big AALS conference of law professors in DC, since so many YLS alums are in legal academia.
The keynote speaker at the dinner was Professor Heather Gerken, who was snatched up from Harvard by Yale last year. She gave an interesting talk about her proposal for a “Democracy Index,” a national system for ranking the election-law practices of the different states. (We won’t repeat her remarks here, since Professor Gerken’s proposal is laid out in detail in her Legal Times commentary.)
Before Professor Gerken spoke, the audience was addressed by Dean Harold Hongju Koh. He updated us about recent developments at the law school, and gave the standard spiel about the brilliance and diversity of Yale’s first-year class.
(In case you’re wondering, the Yale 1Ls have a median GPA of 3.91. Their ranks include oodles of Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars… and a massage therapist. You can have the Rhodies, the whole lot of ‘em; just give us the massage therapist.)
Dean Koh also delivered remarks that could be viewed as part of his new charm offensive: an attempt to reach out to YLS conservatives, in the wake of some criticism on that front.
Some random photos — plus very surprising news about Justice Clarence Thomas and Yale Law School, the alma mater he’s had a rocky relationship with — after the jump.

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Dean Harold Koh Launches a Charm Offensive

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Harold Koh Harold Hongju Koh Harold H Koh Yale Law School Above the Law.jpgWe received an interesting tip last week from a Yale Law School source:

I thought you might be interested in this email, which just went out to the Yale Federalist Society email list. It seems you may have struck some fear into Harold Koh with your recent coverage of his ideological tendencies.

Here’s the email (which we were asked not to publish until after the meeting in question had taken place):

From: Eugene Nardelli, Jr.
Date: Dec 13, 2006 4:52 PM
Subject: Fed Soc: Lunch With Dean Koh
To: [Yale Federalist Society mailing list]

Federalists,

This Tuesday, the 19th, Dean Koh will be hosting lunch with some of our members. Lunch will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 or so in the Dean’s office. Dean Koh has called this meeting for the the specific purpose of giving an opportunity for students to voice their concerns, if any, about the way the school and the Dean treat conservative voices of students, guests, and alumni.

We welcome you to join us and share your thoughts with the Dean, however, the office is small and can only seat a limited number of students. Please email me if you would like to attend.

Eugene
[President of the Yale Federalist Society*]

Our tipster added:

I imagine most people will have left New Haven for break by lunchtime next Tuesday… It makes one wonder about Koh’s sincerity (if there wasn’t already enough reason to wonder).

Fair enough. But we’re willing to give Dean Koh the benefit of the doubt. His hosting of a luncheon with the Yale Fed Soc is welcome news. If you were at the meeting and can give us a report on what transpired, we’d love to hear from you.
And here’s a postscript from New Haven:

Hadley Arkes** came to YLS last week to give a lecture sponsored by the newly-formed Yale Law Students for Life group. Koh stopped by the reception beforehand — something he has never in the past done for a conservative speaker invited by FedSoc or similar — and chatted with Prof. Arkes. So apparently he’s making more of an effort to reach out to conservatives these days.

Again, we’re pleased to learn of Harold Koh’s recent outreach to right-of-center folks (and we hope that it continues into the new year). Efforts by a law school dean to develop an academic environment that welcomes different points of view are all for the good.
* We’re guessing that Eugene Nardelli Sr. would be the New York State appellate judge, Eugene L. Nardelli.
** You may recall Professor Arkes from his participation in this wacky panel discussion.
Earlier: Attention, Concerned Alumni of Yale: Justice Alito Gets (Green)housed
Harold and Linda, Sittin’ in a Tree…
An Addendum on Nino in New Haven

ATL Week in Review: December 4 – 8

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Christmas tree.jpg* The holiday season is here, and you know what that means: year-end bonuses for law firm associates. On Friday, Milbank Tweed made the first big bonus announcement. And this time it wasn’t fake.
* They talk a lot about “due process” over at Yale Law School. But questions have been raised concerning the process by which Linda Greenhouse, SCOTUS reporter for the New York Times, was selected over Justice Samuel Alito for the school’s prestigious Award of Merit.
* If Greenhouse benefited from preferential treatment from YLS Dean Harold Koh, it wouldn’t have been the first time.
* Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer: not just geniuses, but also an inspired comedic duo.
* Speaking of great legal minds, Professor Noah Feldman is leaving NYU for Harvard Law School.
* And speaking of NYU Law School, if you haven’t already voted in the 3L hotties contest, there’s still some time left. Polls close tomorrow at 3PM (Eastern time).
* Finally, we have a new little sibling. Please extend a warm welcome to Supermogul: The View From the Top.

Harold and Linda, Sittin’ in a Tree…

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samuel alito harold koh linda greenhouse.JPGWe’re delighted that our scoop about Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh pushing Linda Greenhouse over Justice Samuel Alito for the YLS Award of Merit has been picked up so widely. It even made the pages of the Holy Trinity of the Right-of-Center Blawgosphere: Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy (Jonathan Adler), and Althouse.
As noted, our transcript of the deliberations was fictionalized and satirical. But it is based upon what we’ve learned about the process by which Greenhouse was selected.
If you disbelieve our account in its entirety, allow us to share with you some supporting information. This isn’t the first time that Dean Koh has been accused of showing favoritism towards Linda Greenhouse. Consider the case of the Harry Blackmun papers.
Koh, a former law clerk to Justice Blackmun and advisor to his daughter Sally, played a major role in giving Linda Greenhouse exclusive, early access to Blackmun’s papers — much to the chagrin of other news organizations. As reported at the time by Tony Mauro:

Blackmun’s daughter Sally, the executor for the papers, said in an interview last week that Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, and Nina Totenberg, longtime Court correspondent for National Public Radio, have been given exclusive pre-release access to the papers for their respective media of print and broadcast journalism….

The Washington Post asked for early access before the exclusive arrangement was made, but was denied. Editors at the Post were described by one knowledgeable source outside the newspaper as “livid” over the favored treatment granted to the Times.

Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Post attorney David Kendall of Williams & Connolly repeatedly sought reconsideration of the exclusive deal, without success, according to sources at the Post. The Post petitioned Sally Blackmun and Yale Law School professor Harold Koh, a former clerk to the justice and now an adviser to Blackmun.

A Post source says that Koh invited the newspaper to make a proposal for early access last July, but did not mention a deadline. According to the source, by the time the Post replied in September with a plan for non-exclusive early access, the decision had already been made to give the Times exclusive access.

Say it ain’t so! Dean Koh had already made up his mind, in favor of La Greenhouse? Quelle surprise!

For her part, Greenhouse says she began talking with Koh last July, but did not seek exclusivity. The offer to give the Times the only print media preview “fell in my lap,” she says….

Koh declined to comment on why Greenhouse and Totenberg were selected.

So what is the origin of Linda Greenhouse’s Svengali-like power over Harold Koh?
We have a theory. Check it out, along with a bunch of interesting links, after the jump.

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Attention, Concerned Alumni of Yale: Justice Alito Gets (Green)housed

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samuel alito harold koh linda greenhouse.JPGChristmas is less than three weeks away. Are you stumped about what to get for your liberal lawyer friends?
Assuming they’re okay with Christmas gifts — maybe they object to even personal celebration of the holiday — have we got an idea for you: Harold Hongju Koh Bobblehead Dolls!!!
Harold Koh is the dean of Yale Law School. And he’s an unapologetic liberal, regarded by some YLS students and alumni as allowing his personal political beliefs to affect his work as dean (not for the better). It’s only natural for the Yale chapter of the ACS, a leading liberal organization, to honor him with a bobblehead doll.
Above the Law has just learned of another manifestation of Dean Koh’s alleged political hackery. One of his deanly duties is to preside over the committee that selects a recipient for the Yale Law School Award of Merit. This prestigious and prominent honor is presented each year to an outstanding graduate or longtime faculty member of YLS.
We’ve heard that Dean Koh, short-circuiting any real discussion, essentially ordered that the 2007 Award of Merit would go to Linda Greenhouse — the left-leaning Supreme Court correspondent of the New York Times. Other committee members proposed Justice Samuel Alito ’75, confirmed earlier this year to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the most natural and appropriate choice. But Dean Koh squelched their support for the conservative jurist. He cut short the deliberations, declaring by fiat that Greenhouse — who did a one-year master’s program at Yale — would receive the award.
Does this strike you as outrageous? It gets worse. The reasoning employed by Dean Koh — to the extent that he employed reasoning, as opposed to simply forcing his pick upon the committee — was pretty dubious.
Based on what we’ve heard, we’ve created a fictionalized transcript of the committee meeting. Check it out, after the jump.

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The Eyes of the Law: Justice Scalia’s Harvard Homecoming

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Antonin Scalia Justice Antonin Scalia Above the Law Legal Gossip.jpgOver at Bench Memos, Ed Whelan — one of our favorite commentators on matters judicial — provides a great account of Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent visit to his alma mater, Harvard Law School. Here’s an excerpt:

The dinner that Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan hosted on Wednesday evening to honor the 20th anniversary of Justice Scalia’s appointment to the Supreme Court was a delightful event, far exceeding my hopeful expectations.

In her own remarks honoring Justice Scalia, Dean Kagan was eloquent, warm-spirited, insightful, and very amusing. She presented Justice Scalia with a letter from Chief Justice Roberts congratulating him on reaching the “midpoint” (or some similar term) of his service on the Court. With wonderfully apt remarks, she also gave him, as a memento of the dinner (which featured salmon as the main course), the framed original of a humorous letter from the great Justice Joseph Story offering thanks for a gift of salmon. The celebratory remarks of professors Charles Fried, Laurence Tribe, and John Manning were likewise excellent.

Read the full report here. As Whelan notes, the welcome extended to Justice Scalia in Cambridge — by law school dean hottie Elena Kagan — was notably warmer than the somewhat chilly reception accorded to Nino in New Haven.
Harvard Law School Celebration of Justice Scalia [Bench Memos on National Review Online]
Earlier: An Addendum on Nino in New Haven

Congratulations, Dean Rangappa!

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asha rangappa 2 asha rangapa asha ranggappa asha ranggapa.JPGSome happy news from New Haven, Connecticut. Seriously.

It’s about Asha Rangappa, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Yale Law School — and here at ATL, better known as the winner of our recent Hottest Law School Deans contest. Check out this memo, from YLS Dean Harold Koh:

To: Yale Law School Community
From: Harold Hongju Koh

If you have not already heard the wonderful news, I am delighted to report that Asha Rangappa and Andrew Dodd’s new baby boy, Paras Nikhil Dodd arrived on November 21, 2006! (He was instantly named “America’s Hottest Law Baby.”)

Baby Paras weighed in at 8 pounds even, 22 inches long and is wonderfully healthy. The whole family is now home from the hospital and doing well–tired but happy. If you’d like to send congratulations, their home address is [redacted -- America's hottest law school dean must be kept safe from unhinged admirers].

Please note that the baby’s name is “Paras” with an “a.”

We don’t think we’re flattering ourselves in construing the reference to “America’s Hottest Law Baby” as a shout-out to ATL. How cool!

(This shout-out does raise the possibility that Dean Koh has read Above the Law. If so, Dean Koh, we hope you weren’t upset about this post. Or this one, with comments. Everything we do around here is all in good fun.)

An Addendum on Nino in New Haven

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harold koh harold hongju koh.jpgAn interesting update to our prior post about Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent appearance at the Yale Law School. From a current YLS student:

Some of us were bothered — though not exactly surprised — by Dean Harold Koh’s tepid introduction of Justice Scalia. Koh couldn’t seem to find anything warm and welcoming to say about Scalia. Rather, he spent his entire introduction praising Christine Jolls.

It was as though Scalia wasn’t even there. Koh’s lack of hospitality was particularly striking when compared to how he often gushes about other relatively unremarkable visiting speakers.

Like our correspondent, we’re not entirely surprised. We haven’t met Dean Koh in person, and he wasn’t dean when we were at Yale. But we have heard through the YLS alumni grapevine that he is more ideologically motivated, and less evenhanded, than his predecessor as dean, Tony Kronman.
We’ve also heard Dean Koh compared to Dean Elena Kagan of Harvard Law School in this regard. Dean Kagan is politically active on the liberal side. Like Dean Koh, she served in the Clinton Administration (as a domestic policy advisor and in the White House Counsel’s office). She was nominated to the D.C. Circuit by President Clinton, but was denied a vote, and she’s a possible SCOTUS nominee in a Hillary Clinton Democratic administration. But despite her personal leanings, Dean Kagan has been widely praised for supporting intellectual and ideological diversity on the Harvard Law School campus.
(Also, Dean Kagan was a nominee in our Law School Dean Hotties contest. She did not prevail, losing out to a Yalie (Asha Rangappa). But just like the Oscars, it’s an honor just to be nominated.)
Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Did Poor Justice Scalia Have to Spend the Night in New Haven?
Law School Dean Hotties: Your Female Nominees
“Harvard Law On A Heterodox Spree, Listing to Right” [Volokh Conspiracy]

Separated at Birth: Sheila Birnbaum and Harold Koh?

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When we surfed over to the WSJ Law Blog a few minutes ago, quickly scanned the page, and saw the photo for this post, we thought it had to do with Yale Law School. But upon closer inspection, we learned we were wrong.
Instead, it was a post about Skadden Arps partner Sheila Birnbaum. Birnbaum, who heads Skadden’s Complex Mass Tort and Insurance Group, has a nickname reflecting her expertise: “The Queen of Toxic Torts.” The superstar litigatrix attended the Supreme Court oral arguments this morning in the Philip Morris punitive damages case.
So why did we think, for a few brief seconds, that the post was about Yale Law School? Here’s why:
sheila birnbaum harold koh harold hongju koh sheila l birnbaum.JPG
Sheila L. Birnbaum [Skadden]
Dean Harold Hongju Koh [Yale Law School]

The Eyes of the Law: Legal Celebrity Sightings

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spyglass 2.jpgCelebrity sighting columns are a staple of gossip magazines and gossip blogs. E.g., Gawker Stalker, Wonk’d, Judicial Sightations. So, in this spirit, we proudly present The Eyes of the Law — your source for all the legal celebrity sightings that are fit to print (and a few that aren’t).
Since we don’t get out that much — we get an electrical shock if we stray ten feet from our keyboard — we need your help. We’ll need you to make the sightings and submit them to us, by email (subject line: “Sighting”). Then we’ll publish them on the internet, for all the world to enjoy. (We’ve already received a few; keep ‘em coming!)
A few tips and guidelines to help you in your celeb-spotting:

(1) When you make a sighting, please be as observant as possible. How was the person looking — hot, or not? What were they wearing? What kind of mood were they in? Were they alone, or with others?

(2) On a related note, digital photographs to support your sighting are especially welcome. A thousand words, etc.

(3) A true “sighting” requires seeing the personality outside of their natural habitat — and preferably doing something that one might not expect them to be doing. So sightings of federal judges in courthouses and law school deans in the halls of their schools don’t count. But we welcome sightings of judges or deans at, say, a baseball game — or, better yet, a nudie bar.

Here are the types of people who qualify as sighting subjects in our book:

(1) any federal judge (but we’re talking Article III here — no bankruptcy or magistrate judges, ick);

(2) any member of a state’s highest court;

(3) a state court judge from a lower court, but only if they’re notorious for doing the kinds of things that state court judges are known for doing (e.g., using a penis pump on the bench, facilitating the escape of a violent felon, etc.);

(4) famous practicing lawyers, like David Boies, Ted Olson, Mark Geragos, or Ben Brafman (if you have to explain who they are, they’re not famous);

(5) prominent law school deans, like current Yale dean Harold Koh, current Harvard dean Elena Kagan, and former Stanford dean Kathleen Sullivan;

(6) well-known law professors, like Laurence Tribe, Lawrence Lessig, Lani Guinier, or Anita Hill (no, your first-year legal writing instructor doesn’t count); and

(7) law-related television personalities, like Judge Judy Sheindlin, Nancy Grace, or Jeffrey Toobin.

This list is not exhaustive; we may have overlooked certain categories of legal eagles that we’d like you to spot. But it gives you a good idea of the kinds of people we’re interested in.
So enough idle chatter; get to it. Rustle up some juicy sightings, and submit them to us forthwith, by email. Much thanks!