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Technogeek posted:Wouldn't Nixon v. Fitzgerald mean that any such lawsuit would result in a "lol no gently caress off" ruling, though? Probably. I didn't say I subscribed to his insane theory, I just think it's hilariously funny.
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Dec 24, 2014 00:25
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Kalman posted:Probably. I didn't say I subscribed to his insane theory, I just think it's hilariously funny. Law Professors who have never practiced law with insane theories of how the law works or should work are some of the best parts of law school. My family law professor believed that stay at home mothers should be paid by the federal government. Not given their existing tax credits for kids and whatnot, actually given a federal wage.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:31
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Guess who else created strong financial incentives for mothers to stay at home with their kids? http://webpage.pace.edu/nreagin/F2005WS267/ReginaGennari/history.html
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Dec 24, 2014 16:03
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ActusRhesus posted:Law Professors who have never practiced law with insane theories of how the law works or should work are some of the best parts of law school. My family law professor believed that stay at home mothers should be paid by the federal government. Not given their existing tax credits for kids and whatnot, actually given a federal wage. Was he saying that the federal government should provide transfer payments based on the federal wage scale, or that they should literally be employees of the federal government? If it's the former, it simply sounds like a decent guaranteed minimum income conditioned on taking care of a dependent. I get how this may be unorthodox policy, but if you replace "mother" with "qualified dependee" why would the courts take issue with it?
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Dec 24, 2014 16:20
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It sounds like the typical "academics don't deal with the real world" anti-intellectual bullshit brought up by the typical filth. It's often warbled against scientists as though empiricism and data aren't things science involves, but it certainly is the same old "you fuckers and your theories" line as it has always been.
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Dec 25, 2014 06:27
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FAUXTON posted:It sounds like the typical "academics don't deal with the real world" anti-intellectual bullshit brought up by the typical filth. It's often warbled against scientists as though empiricism and data aren't things science involves, but it certainly is the same old "you fuckers and your theories" line as it has always been. Law professors aren't scientists.
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Dec 25, 2014 16:04
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FAUXTON posted:It sounds like the typical "academics don't deal with the real world" anti-intellectual bullshit brought up by the typical filth. It's often warbled against scientists as though empiricism and data aren't things science involves, but it certainly is the same old "you fuckers and your theories" line as it has always been. No. Not at all. Huge price tag aside, law school is a glorified trade school that exists to prepare law students for the passage of the bar and the practice of law. It's not "anti-intellectual" to recognize that a professor who has substantive experience in the legal field may have a better foundation of knowledge as to how the law actually works. On the flip side, you can have a Constitutional scholar who thinks a closed door cabbal with information unreleasable to the public is adequate due process for whacking a US Citizen.
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Dec 25, 2014 16:36
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That's not a particularly unorthodox policy proposal, even- it's textbook law and economics movement thinking. Edit: on the flip side, Actus, you can also get profs whose time as advocates colors their view of policy to the point of bias- especially in fields where the subject is a) political and b) all lawyers in private practice are coaligned, usually against the government apparatus. Here I'm thinking of criminal and immigration law, two places that are founts of libertarianism in both the profession, the civic discourse, and, IMO as a result, the academy. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 16:40
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Conversations about legal scholarship may not be best suited for the SCOTUS thread (but I'm not quite sure where else it would go), but I find it a pretty intriguing topic of discussion. CJ Roberts (hey, look, a SCOTUS connection!) is well known for his comment: "Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something, which I’m sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to the bar." This caused quite a stir in the circles who even paid attention to the comment, and many a law professor went soul searching to justify their academic existence. Here is Professor Dorf exploring the issues the bench/bar has with legal academics, which I found to be pretty interesting if you're even moderately interested in the concept of "legal scholarship": Dorf on Law: Judge Harry Edwards Is Still Unimpressed With Legal Scholarship.
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Dec 25, 2014 18:00
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Discendo Vox posted:Edit: on the flip side, Actus, you can also get profs whose time as advocates colors their view of policy to the point of bias- especially in fields where the subject is a) political and b) all lawyers in private practice are coaligned, usually against the government apparatus. Here I'm thinking of criminal and immigration law, two places that are founts of libertarianism in both the profession, the civic discourse, and, IMO as a result, the academy. The most laffo is classes taught by judges. "Essay Question no. 3 (60 minutes): tell me why my dissent in Bigcorp v. Biggercorp was a correct statement of the law"
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Dec 25, 2014 18:09
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eviltastic posted:The most laffo is classes taught by judges. "Essay Question no. 3 (60 minutes): tell me why my dissent in Bigcorp v. Biggercorp was a correct statement of the law" Actually, my crim law and victim's rights classes were taught by a sitting federal judge adjunct professor. He was awesome and one of the most respectful of opposing views on the law professors we had at the school. We had some pretty amazing class discussions under his watch because everyone felt comfortable expressing their views without fear of "oh poo poo if I tell the prof I think he's full of poo poo, will it impact my grade?" Appellate Advocacy was a pretty great class too, taught by a former public defender appellate advocate. ActusRhesus fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 18:12
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ActusRhesus posted:Actually, my crim law and victim's rights classes were taught by a sitting federal judge adjunct professor. He was awesome and one of the most respectful of opposing views on the law professors we had at the school. We had some pretty amazing class discussions under his watch because everyone felt comfortable expressing their views without fear of "oh poo poo if I tell the prof I think he's full of poo poo, will it impact my grade?" Your experiences sound awesome, but I suspect they're not the norm.
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Dec 25, 2014 19:11
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Discendo Vox posted:Your experiences sound awesome, but I suspect they're not the norm. Fair enough. Our school was a small T50 focused on clinic placements and drafting seminars. Major emphasis on preparing for the actual practice of law. Seems to be working well for them. 92% employment rate 6 months after graduating for class of 2013 (and unemployed # includes people not actively seeking employment), average debt under six figures. I maintain, law school is best when it's treated like a trade school.
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Dec 25, 2014 19:16
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ActusRhesus posted:Fair enough. Our school was a small T50 focused on clinic placements and drafting seminars. Major emphasis on preparing for the actual practice of law. Seems to be working well for them. 92% employment rate 6 months after graduating for class of 2013 (and unemployed # includes people not actively seeking employment), average debt under six figures. I think that's correct for most purposes, particularly if it cultivates a mentality and perception of legal practice as a professional trade and not its current quasi-moral standing. The difficulty is that law and its practice directly intersects with and effects broader ethical and policy debates. Your school sounds awesome. My school had a very mixed set of faculty. Let me tell you about getting taught property law by Joe Paterno's lawyer... More generally I think you're capturing what should be the institutional focus of legal education. I'm fine with professors writing and studying legal philosophy, which can be very important- I just think it should be somehow held separate (and very publicly separate) from legal trade education. Maybe a separate, funded degree in legal studies? But further separating academic and professional probably isn't the solution either... On reflection, I think the problem isn't that law profs and other lawyers, practicing or professor, study or discuss academic or theoretical material. I think the problem is that a disproportionate amount of them are really bad at it. All the rhetorical training doesn't help. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 19:34
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ActusRhesus posted:No. Not at all. Colleges of education are the same way. Once in a while you get a good instructor but for the most part you have professors who haven't set foot in a K-12 classroom in 30 years trying to tell you how to teach. It's pretty bullshit
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Dec 25, 2014 19:45
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My crim law professor was so good at what he did that he was likely murdered by someone he was assisting with prosecution against.
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Dec 25, 2014 21:44
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Green Crayons posted:Law isn't a science. I wasn't saying they were, not sure how you managed to misread that badly.
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Dec 25, 2014 22:54
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FAUXTON posted:I wasn't saying they were, not sure how you managed to misread that badly. Your expressed fear of anti-intelleculism dimishes greatly when the criticism of "the real world" is lodged not against scientists using empiricism, but is used against academics who push theory justified by normative values without reflection on practical costs/implications/requirements. Not sure how you failed to pick that up from my comment. (No seriously not sure what other point you would get out of the fact that law professors aren't scientists in response to your fear about anti-intellectualism directed to scientists.) Green Crayons fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 02:16
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He said it's often used against scientists, not exclusively used against scientists. It's still a problem when used against humanities academics.
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Dec 26, 2014 02:49
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Happy holidays, everyone. Our Supreme Court nomination process:quote:When Graham questioned her about the Christmas Day bomber, Kagan started to answer seriously until he cut her off, asking her instead what she was doing on Christmas Day. VVV yes, this is a moment of levity. fosborb fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 03:00
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^^^ I believe that was a moment of levity? Also, Graham is pretty chill when it comes to nominations. He's one of the few republicans who have gone on the record (and voted correspondingly at times) that judicial nomination votes in the Senate should be based purely on competence of the nominee, not ideology. Discendo Vox posted:He said it's often used against scientists, not exclusively used against scientists. It's still a problem when used against humanities academics. It's a valid criticism, and pointing out the circumstance when it is least valid (scientists; empiricism) - unrelated entirely to the topic a hand (law professors' opinions about their normative vision of society) - is concern trolling 101. Unless if he thinks "fails to consider the practicalities" is an anti-intellectual criticism of the law professor's idea that stay at home parents should get a federal wage? His blanket statement certainly didn't really support a specific position, but I'd be interested to see more I that's the case.
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Dec 26, 2014 04:27
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Yes, because accuracy of scope in argumentation is irrelevant concern trolling in the scotus thread.
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Dec 26, 2014 20:00
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Discendo Vox posted:Yes, because accuracy of scope in argumentation is irrelevant concern trolling in the scotus thread. Pretty much everything is concern trolling in the scotus thread.
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Dec 26, 2014 20:04
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"I disagree with you about what parts of this argument are important" == "you are a concern troll". I now think that the concept of "concern trolling" and its invocation do more damage than actual concern trolling, and possibly trolling as a whole.
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Dec 26, 2014 21:23
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Mhm. I look forward to seeing how his concern over "fails to consider practicalities = anti-intellectul criticism," remains relevant to this conversation about some random legal academic's theories about how society would best operate in regards to their pet topic.
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Dec 26, 2014 21:31
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Discendo Vox posted:"I disagree with you about what parts of this argument are important" == "you are a concern troll". I now think that the concept of "concern trolling" and its invocation do more damage than actual concern trolling, and possibly trolling as a whole. This is an awesome post/avatar combination. So King v Burwell is, in all likelihood, going against the plaintiffs? I keep seeing media outlets treat it as a serious case, and not a blatantly ideologically driven attempt to allow red state governments to cut off some more of their nose to spite their face.
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Dec 27, 2014 15:30
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Rygar201 posted:So King v Burwell is, in all likelihood, going against the plaintiffs? I keep seeing media outlets treat it as a serious case, and not a blatantly ideologically driven attempt to allow red state governments to cut off some more of their nose to spite their face. Nobody knows for sure but the fact that the court took it at all given the lower courts' decisions is a bad sign. Green Crayons posted:thinks "fails to consider the practicalities" is an anti-intellectual criticism of the law professor's idea that stay at home parents should get a federal wage? Because "fails to consider the practicalities" is what comes out of the maws of the mewling garbage who deny the effect of humanity on the global climate (among other science and theory to be clear). It's code for "Because I disagree politically with your conclusion, I am going to assert your knowledge and research aren't valid and instead claim this plumber/secretary/trucker/old shithead is more authoritative on <complex academic topic> because <platitude.>" The fact that those same filth level the same charge against law professors rather than climate scientists doesn't suddenly validate it any more than some dickhole's job in middle management validates their mutterings about the constitution's treatment of emergency powers.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:09
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Talk about tilting at the windmills, jesus. There's nothing outrageous about the comment that actually doing a thing makes you better at doing the thing than people who don't have any practical experience with it. Only morons would take issue with that.quote:Because "fails to consider the practicalities" is what comes out of the maws of the mewling garbage who deny the effect of humanity on the global climate (among other science and theory to be clear). It's code for "Because I disagree politically with your conclusion, I am going to assert your knowledge and research aren't valid and instead claim this plumber/secretary/trucker/old shithead is more authoritative on <complex academic topic> because <platitude.>" The fact that those same filth level the same charge against law professors rather than climate scientists doesn't suddenly validate it any more than some dickhole's job in middle management validates their mutterings about the constitution's treatment of emergency powers. You sure like to go on about 'filth' without saying anything that remotely makes sense or is interesting in the slightest.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:58
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Here's a piece on my favorite SCOTUS Justice (Sotomayor), talking about why she's so damned awesome: How Sonia Sotomayor became the Supreme Court's preeminent defender of civil liberties. Move over, Ginsburg. /threadheresy FAUXTON posted:Because "fails to consider the practicalities" is what comes out of the maws of the mewling garbage who deny the effect of humanity on the global climate (among other science and theory to be clear). It's code for "Because I disagree politically with your conclusion, I am going to assert your knowledge and research aren't valid and instead claim this plumber/secretary/trucker/old shithead is more authoritative on <complex academic topic> because <platitude.>" The fact that those same filth level the same charge against law professors rather than climate scientists doesn't suddenly validate it any more than some dickhole's job in middle management validates their mutterings about the constitution's treatment of emergency powers. Your excessive vitriol towards this criticism is so out of place, and incredibly off the mark, within the context of legal academia. It's the bar and bench who have criticized law professors' academic work as lacking practical moorings, not lay persons uninvolved in the field. And the criticism comes from a place of - hey, if the academic work is intended to effect the "practice of law" (however you want to define that), whereby the bar and bench are the ultimate audience for the academic work, then the work should have some ability to be fit into the practicalities of how the legal world works. Granted, I do think there is some problem with this criticism, even when levied against legal academia, because some of the stuff is not intended for the bar and bench. Sometimes legal academic work argues for changes that requires a different audience - the legislature - to act, because of the limited nature of the institutional power of lawyers and judges operating within the adversarial system. For example, AreWeDrunkYet was questioning whether courts would take issue with our favorite law professor's position that stay at home parents should get paid a federal wage. Who knows? I'm not entirely sure why courts would come into the equation, because that is a system that would be enacted through the legislature, not as a result of a lawsuit. But even then, pushing such large, legislative policy positions isn't really the bread and butter of what legal work actually is (that is, advocating for a particular client, be it in litigation/transactional work/etc). And so the criticism still maintains some salience, because if the bench and bar isn't the intended audience, then perhaps you're not actually writing "legal" academic work (even if it is still valid intellectualism) and are ignoring the fact that your theories are being foisted on an audience who can't do anything with your ideas.
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Dec 27, 2014 18:50
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FAUXTON posted:Nobody knows for sure but the fact that the court took it at all given the lower courts' decisions is a bad sign. Except in this case, you care completely incorrect because no one in this thread, the filth you so oppose, has relied on a plumber/secretary/trucker/old shithead for their view on the law. They are preferring the experiences of people with significant experience in the practice of law...what's the word for them? Oh, right...lawyers. Much like you argue a scientist's views on matters of science is more valid, a lawyer or judge's view on how the legal system works in practice is also more valid than someone who has never stepped outside the theoretical ivory tower of academia. There is a huge difference between being "anti-intellectual" and recognizing when a person has no actual experience in the field of their alleged expertise. It would be like putting forth a climate "scientist" who had never actually set foot in a lab or done any field research. So your analogy doesn't really work here.
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Dec 27, 2014 22:02
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The analogy entirely holds, and you are in fact making the exact same argument. Professional involved in a field do not have a magical insight into policy and law that places them above the "ivory tower". The arguments being raised are, in fact and structure, the exact same anti-intellectual and theory averse privilege-seeking that are hallmarks of the broader anti-academic argument. Lawyers and the law are not special or exempt from the same lines of reasoning. lovely professors with lovely ideas exist regardless of their professional background. The veneration of professional experience is an excellent way to ridicule and attack ideas without addressing their content or ramifications- Green's having to back down and away from a specific example is telling in this regard. To the extent that there are defects in the legal academic theory environment (and there are, massive ones), they come from legal academia being insufficiently academic. A particular problem is the format and editorial staffing of law journals, which is completely insane compared with practices in other academic fields. To the extent that law professors produce non-practicable ideas, it is as much a product of their upbringing in the current, poorly constructed legal professional structure as anything else.
Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 23:16
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I'm going to have to disagree there. I think a person with experience practicing law absolutely does have insight into the practicalities of the legal profession. I fail to see how recognizing that is "anti-intellectual." But your point on the asinine way law journals are staffed is a valid one.
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Dec 27, 2014 23:41
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Green Crayons posted:Granted, I do think there is some problem with this criticism, even when levied against legal academia, because some of the stuff is not intended for the bar and bench. Green Crayons posted:But even then, pushing such large, legislative policy positions isn't really the bread and butter of what legal work actually is (that is, advocating for a particular client, be it in litigation/transactional work/etc). And so the criticism still maintains some salience, because if the bench and bar isn't the intended audience, then perhaps you're not actually writing "legal" academic work (even if it is still valid intellectualism) and are ignoring the fact that your theories are being foisted on an audience who can't do anything with your ideas. That's the point of academia, and why I'm calling that criticism out as anti-intellectualism - if theoretical discussion isn't intended for 1:1 usage in the courtroom, then what place does grouching about  "the practicalities" have?
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Dec 27, 2014 23:42
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ActusRhesus posted:I'm going to have to disagree there. I think a person with experience practicing law absolutely does have insight into the practicalities of the legal profession. I fail to see how recognizing that is "anti-intellectual." The problem is that the original framing treats that insight as absolute and privileged, and tried to hold up an example of one prof's idea as "those crazy ivory tower people"- as if Posner and Scalia were founts of practical professionalism. Field experience can also be a source of bias (particularly in the courses/fields I referenced earlier where private practice is all on one side of things). The problems of the legal academy are that a lot of the theory is lovely, the writing practices make for lovely theorizing, and practical experience in law tends to include a knack for persuasive rhetoric, which can be toxic in developing things like peer review of articles.
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Dec 27, 2014 23:47
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Discendo Vox posted:The problem is that the original framing treats that insight as absolute and privileged, and tried to hold up an example of one prof's idea as "those crazy ivory tower people"- as if Posner and Scalia were founts of practical professionalism. Field experience can also be a source of bias (particularly in the courses/fields I referenced earlier where private practice is all on one side of things). The problems of the legal academy are that a lot of the theory is lovely, the writing practices make for lovely theorizing, and practical experience in law tends to include a knack for persuasive rhetoric, which can be toxic in developing things like peer review of articles. I'm not aware of any peer review requirement for law review articles. And I was managing editor for a law review.
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Dec 27, 2014 23:59
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ActusRhesus posted:I'm not aware of any peer review requirement for law review articles. And I was managing editor for a law review. That's kinda my point- even in the wackiest postmodern continental humanities, peer review is still a cornerstone of the academic publishing process. Law reviews are often people trying to speak to an empty room, and receiving the feedback and scrutiny of an empty room. Even when there is a legal academic discourse, the professional rhetoric of the field (which is a whole separate black hole of terror I've actually published and taught on a little bit) makes legal theorists talking to each other rather than around each other a rare phenomenon. (I understand most european law reviews are academic rather than student organizations, and there is peer review there- I haven't looked into it, though.)
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Dec 28, 2014 00:12
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Discendo Vox posted:That's kinda my point- even in the wackiest postmodern continental humanities, peer review is still a cornerstone of the academic publishing process. Law reviews are often people trying to speak to an empty room, and receiving the feedback and scrutiny of an empty room. Even when there is a legal academic discourse, the professional rhetoric of the field (which is a whole separate black hole of terror I've actually published and taught on a little bit) makes legal theorists talking to each other rather than around each other a rare phenomenon. Yeah, sure.
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Dec 28, 2014 00:30
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The Sokal thing isn't taken as a serious criticism for a number of realms, many of them in that linked Wikipedia article. I say that as someone on the quant side of things, and as a detractor of a bunch of features of some forms of the continentàl academic structure.
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Dec 28, 2014 01:04
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Discendo Vox posted:The problem is that the original framing treats that insight as absolute and privileged, and tried to hold up an example of one prof's idea as "those crazy ivory tower people"- as if Posner and Scalia were founts of practical professionalism. Field experience can also be a source of bias (particularly in the courses/fields I referenced earlier where private practice is all on one side of things). The problems of the legal academy are that a lot of the theory is lovely, the writing practices make for lovely theorizing, and practical experience in law tends to include a knack for persuasive rhetoric, which can be toxic in developing things like peer review of articles.  - but I personally think appellate judges are poor bastions of understanding practical realities of the practice of law. Trial judges and lawyers are where it is at.)The original framing was FAUX asserting that impracticality criticism is used by the "typical filth" and is inherently anti-intellectual. When it isn't. It's a valid criticism, that has varying degrees of relevance depending upon the particular context, and particular idea, of a situation. But, once again, it isn't a blanket anti-intellectualism criticism. Especially so in the realm of legal academic work. I also haven't backed off from my point that the "fails to consider practicalities" criticism does apply to our favored law professor's idea of giving a federal wage to stay at home parents. It ignores the practical reality of what his audience can accomplish (lawyers and judges can't implement the changes he want), and it ignores the practical reality of his idea's ability to be implemented in our political system. Recognizing that a law professor's idea is impractical in both of these ways does not mean that the idea is worthless on a normative level; but it does mean that it is worth very little to those who are practicing law. Which is his audience. FAUXTON posted:That's the point of academia, and why I'm calling that criticism out as anti-intellectualism - if theoretical discussion isn't intended for 1:1 usage in the courtroom, then what place does grouching about It appears you missed the big connecting point between those two paragraphs. If legal scholars are intending their legal academic work to be directed at a non-legal audience (e.g., legislative policy - which I will grant has legal overtones, but isn't in the realm of "law school/law profession"), then that academic work is not really "legal" academic work and the criticism still stands. It has no practical or even theoretical relation to the legal realm - that is, no relevance to their actual audience. At any rate, the bench and bar don't have use for legal academic work except to the extent that it can be actually used by the bench and bar. Which requires considering the practicalities implicated by the academic work. So concerns about practicalities coming from the bench and bar is not anti-intellectualism, it arises from wanting to know how the academic work is actually valuable to the bench and bar. To the extent legal academic work is intended to be pure theory, divorced from the real world and to be judged purely on its theoretical value, I agree that practicality considerations aren't relevant. But then again, purely theoretical academic legal work hasn't come up in this thread until right now.
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Dec 28, 2014 05:22
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Green Crayons posted:If legal scholars are intending their legal academic work to be directed at a non-legal audience (e.g., legislative policy - which I will grant has legal overtones, but isn't in the realm of "law school/law profession"), then that academic work is not really "legal" academic work and the criticism still stands. It has no practical or even theoretical relation to the legal realm - that is, no relevance to their actual audience. This is incorrect, which is a problem for your position. Legislative policy is absolutely in the realm of law school/law profession.
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Dec 28, 2014 18:26
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