Randy Barnett

Breaking Bad at a Leading Law School: T14 Law Student Sentenced to Four Years for Meth Dealing

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A critically acclaimed television drama, Breaking Bad, tells the story of a high school chemistry teacher who turns to a life of crime: making and selling methamphetamine. The show’s premise suggests that criminals and drug dealers come from all walks of life.

That apparently includes the legal profession. Last night brought word of a promising young law student who just got sentenced to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to selling meth. Better call Saul?

And this student didn’t turn to drug dealing because he was terrified about his post-graduation employment prospects. They were probably fairly bright, since he had an above-average GPA at a so-called top 14 or “T14″ law school….

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Liberal Law Professors and Guns: An Improbable Romance

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gun pistol firearm Second Amendment Above the Law blog.jpgLiberal law professors can be pretty predictable in their tastes. Volvo stationwagons. Fair trade coffee. Guns.
Guns? Yes, guns. No, not gunners — guns. Firearms. Bang bang. The good ol’ Second Amendment.
According to a very interesting NYT article, by Adam Liptak:

In March, for the first time in the nation’s history, a federal appeals court struck down a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. Only a few decades ago, the decision would have been unimaginable.

There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns.

In those two decades, breakneck speed by the standards of constitutional law, they have helped to reshape the debate over gun rights in the United States. Their work culminated in the March decision, Parker v. District of Columbia, and it will doubtless play a major role should the case reach the United States Supreme Court.

Legal academic debate with real-world ramifications? Wow. This truly is newsworthy.
Thoughtful blogospheric reactions from Jonathan Adler, Jack Balkin, Randy Barnett, and Michael Dorf, among others. We were most amused by Professor Dorf, who blog-slaps Liptak, before concluding his post in delightfully catty fashion:

Full disclosure: I spoke with Mr. Liptak last week and expressed skepticism (along the lines described above) about his causal claim. I guess I didn’t say anything quote-worthy.

HA. Hell hath no fury like a law professor not name-checked.
(Sorry, Professor Dorf — not everyone is as susceptible to your charms as Justice Kennedy. You may spend your entire life searching for a jurisprudential romance to match what you had with AMK at One First Street, back in the heady days of October Term 1991.)
A Liberal Case for the Individual Right to Own Guns Helps Sway the Federal Judiciary [New York Times]
Scholarship and the Second Amendment in the Courts [Dorf on Law]
How Liberals Saved the Second Amendment [Volokh Conspiracy]
Scholars and the Second Amendment [Volokh Conspiracy]
The Second Amendment is Embarrassing No More [Balkinization]

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Writing About the Law: A Correction, and Photographs

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NYLS 13 James Lindgren Jim Lindgren Randy Barnett Randy E Barnett Volokh Conspiracy Cameron Stracher Above the Law.JPG
A pair of Volokh Conspirators, Professors James Lindgren and Randy Barnett, at last week’s NYLS conference on writing about the law. Inset: Professor Cameron Stracher, who organized the symposium.
In our write-up of the NYLS conference panel on law reviews, we offered the following fashion commentary:

Professors Barnett and Stracher are both rockin’ the “downtown auteur” look: black or dark blue suit, dark collarless shirt, no tie. Not bad in a vacuum, but unfortunate that they’re on the same panel with the same look (except as to the color of their shirts).

Professor Barnett has taken issue with our observations. He claims that he was wearing a crewneck shirt, while Professor Stracher was wearing a turtleneck — and that “a world of difference” exists between the two.
We pulled out our photographs of Professors Barnett and Stracher. Professor Barnett is clearly wearing a crew neck — the same crew neck he’s wearing in his website photo, it seems. But we couldn’t tell the type of Professor Stracher’s collar (above inset).
So we looked up Professor Ann Althouse’s more detailed photograph of Professor Stracher (together with yours truly). Yep, that’s a turtleneck (although a relatively short one).
We apologize to Professor Barnett, and we regret the error.
In addition, Professor Lindgren wanted to clarify his choice of a button-down shirt (for which we criticized him). He explained that he has several levels of sartorial formality, and he deliberately chose a button-down because he viewed the NYLS conference as calling for a moderate rather than extreme level of formality. Given the fairly laid-back nature of the proceedings, we can see where he’s coming from.
For true legal-media-and-academia groupies, additional pictures of top legal journalists and law professor bloggers appear after the jump.

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Writing About the Law: A Quick Linkwrap

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Writing About the Law New York Law School NYLS Above the Law.jpgWe had a blast at last week’s Writing About the Law conference, at New York Law School. And we weren’t the only ones. Here’s a (rather belated) round-up of conference coverage from the blogosophere:
1. Social life of a blawger [Overlawyered]
As you can see from his post, Walter Olson was a social butterfly at the conference. We enjoyed sitting next to him at lunch, where we talked about — what else? — his famous neighbor in Chappaqua, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let the conversation begin!
2. Blawgers are Dirty Swingers [QuizLaw]
Dustin wasn’t even at the conference, but he used Walter Olson’s post as the jumping-off point for this entertaining write-up. Even Ann Althouse was amused — despite being the subject of the line, “One night with Ann Althouse is all I ask, man. It’s all I ask.”
(Back off, Dustin — she’s with us.)
3. At the “Writing About the Law” conference [Althouse]
Speaking of Professor Althouse, here’s her account of the proceedings. It’s a multimedia extravaganza. In addition to several photos, it includes an amusingly awkward video. Technology is swell!
4. “Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part I
“Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part II
“Writing About the Law: From Bluebook to Blogs and Beyond” at NYLS, Part III
A trio of substantive write-ups of various panels, from Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog.
Despite his brilliance, the lanky Professor Solum shares our tendency towards typos. Is referring to the Duke lacrosse team rape case as “the Dukie case” a Freudian slip?
5. Ripped From The Headlines [Soloway]
Photographs from the conference (including a profile shot of us typing away on our laptop).
6. Live-Blogging the NYLS Symposium on Writing About the Law [TaxProf Blog]
A linkwrap by Professor Paul Caron (who has duly noted our comments on his shirt selection).
7. Is John McCain’s website suggestive of NAZI iconography? [Volokh Conspiracy]
Professors Jim Lindgren and Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy both spoke at the conference, but haven’t really blogged about it. This VC post, from Professor Lindgren, includes a brief shout-out to Professor Althouse: “It was a pleasure to see Ann Althouse at the New York Law School conference yesterday.”
Here’s a picture we took of these two professors, mugging for the camera:
NYLS 1 James Lindgren Jim Lindgren Ann Althouse.jpg

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