David Gamage interviewed on NBC, February 14, 2014
“We can’t rule out, based on the numbers we see now, that almost everyone on the exchange pool is somebody who had some form of insurance before,” noted David Gamage…who helped implement the Affordable Care Act while working at the U.S. Treasury Department. “Now, that may or may not be the case…. We just don’t know yet. We’ll have much better information in a few months.”
Kennard leaves imprint on the law—and a seat to fill
Jesse Choper quoted in The Recorder, February 14, 2014 (subscription required)
Liu’s selection “is a very good template for guessing who he’s looking for,” said UC Berkeley law professor Jesse Choper. “It’s clear that he’s looking for someone who’s very smart and very thoughtful.… I think he’s going to look for a moderate liberal, maybe like Joyce Kennard.”
Can Wendy Davis have it all?
Jennifer Granholm quoted in The New York Times, February 12, 2014
As former Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, a Democrat, told me: “Politics is so far behind the other sectors, I guess because in a democracy you have to appeal to the broadest spectrum in order to get elected. People still expect a more traditional thing from female politicians. Calling a man ambitious is seen as a positive thing. With a woman, it’s a negative.”
Forensic scientists support El Salvador’s steps to investigate El Mozote massacre
-Cristián Orrego Benavente quoted in The Huffington Post, February 11, 2014
“We do need great wisdom in these four days so that we can agree to an action plan—not in months but in weeks,” said Dr. Cristián Orrego Benavente, director of the Human Rights Center’s Forensic Program, at the outset of the meeting, expressing the need to act quickly.
-Andrea Lampros writes for The Huffington Post, February 11, 2014
Like the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 and six Jesuit priests in 1989, the massacre of El Mozote is both a painful reality and a tragic symbol of the darkest days of the war. Over three days in the eastern department of Morazan, the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion terrorized and killed more than 1,000 villagers, among them some 400 children—the youngest only three days old.
As law schools struggle, diversity offers opportunities
Marjorie Shultz cited in The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 10, 2014
Marjorie M. Shultz and Sheldon Zedeck … conducted a study in which they identified 26 skills that were important to lawyer effectiveness…. The professors found that the LSAT had very weak predictive value for 10 of the skills and no value at all for the other 16. Interestingly, two of the 10 correlations were negative—meaning, the higher the LSAT score, the less effective the lawyers in the study were at exhibiting the skills in question (in this case, networking and community service). Undergraduate GPA had even less predictive value across the 26 skills.
China’s rubble-strewn path to land reform
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2014
The need for real reform of rural land law, not just promises from the central government, is illustrated by the highly publicized case of Wukan, a fishing village in Guangdong Province that had once fueled hope for change but which now languishes as an example of the intractable difficulties faced by China’s farmers in defending their rights.
Witnesses say executions are botched as states use untested, secret drug cocktails
Megan McCracken interviewed on Democracy Now, February 7, 2014
What’s important now is that the courts in Missouri and in other states take the time to gather the necessary information, let the prisoners present their evidence, and do a real examination of these protocols, of the use of new drugs, to determine if there are constitutional infirmities.
Anxiety trumps law in Party’s crackdown on activists
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2014
There is an ironic twist in the fact that Xu and President Xi Jinping have both been campaigning against the same problem in Chinese society: the pervasiveness of official corruption. But while Xi has focused on the lifestyles of officials, Xu has sought to go deeper by insisting that officials be required to disclose the sources of their wealth.
New Fed chief Janet Yellen lets a long career of breaking barriers speak for itself
Mary Ann Mason quoted in The Washington Post, February 2, 2014
Even today, many female academics pay what Berkeley law professor Mary Ann Mason calls a “baby penalty.” Mothers are 35 percent less likely than fathers to be hired for a tenure-track job in economics or other fields of science at any university, according to her research. “If you’re six months or nine months behind [the tenure clock], your male colleagues and the granting agencies don’t have a lot of sympathy,” Mason said.
Law prof teaches meditation techniques for lawyers
Charles Halpern quoted in ABA Journal, February 1, 2014
“We keep the discussions grounded in mindful awareness,” explains Halpern, the author of Making Waves and Riding the Currents. “Because of the reflection and inwardness of practice, lawyers increase their receptivity and can go to a deeper place in discussion…. It’s such a relief for lawyers to let go,” he says. “In that silence, a real sense of community emerges. People are hungry for that.”