Opinion

Katherine K. Baker is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law and has an article titled Bionormativity and the Construction of Parenthood in a forthcoming 2007 issue of the Georgia Law Review. A thorough and fascinating article, it provides a model for understanding and analyzing the modern American legal system’s … Read more

Carolyn Shapiro is an Assistant Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and she published an article last year titled The Limits of the Olympian Court: Common Law Judging versus Error Correction in the Supreme Court in the Washington & Lee Law Review. In her article, she shows how the Supreme Court’s certiorari process … Read more

Carolyn Shapiro is an Assistant Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and she published an article last year titled The Limits of the Olympian Court: Common Law Judging versus Error Correction in the Supreme Court in the Washington & Lee Law Review. In her article, she shows how the Supreme Court’s certiorari process … Read more

My latest blog is a technical analysis of a semi-famous hypothetical from law and economics. I imagine that it will be pretty boring to anyone outside of law…

In American civil trials, plaintiffs must prove their cases by a preponderance of the evidence. Courts often define this as “more likely than not,” and some courts and commentators define it as a greater than 50 percent probability of being true. Many courts have rejected the 50 percent definition, however, and Judge Richard Posner uses … Read more

In the retrial of State v. Safi, the court has banned the use of the words “rape,” “sexual assault,” “victim,” “assailant,” and “sexual assault kit.” A lot of people think it the judge is crazy, but I don’t.

In the retrial of State v. Safi, the court has banned the use of the words “rape,” “sexual assault,” “victim,” “assailant,” and “sexual assault kit.” Nebraska’s first attempt to prosecute Pamir Safi ended in mistrial when the jurors deadlocked seven votes to five votes. The ban was in effect for the first trial, and the … Read more

My latest blog post is about some funny and interesting moments at the Conrad Black trial.

The Conrad Black trial raged for 15 weeks in the federal courtroom of Judge Amy St. Eve. At the end of closing arguments, the judge said that it was a pleasure to work with so many highly skilled lawyers, and it is easy to understand why. The four defendants and the government were represented by … Read more