Once again the law blogosphere is alive with discussions of the hiring process. A few years ago (okay, six) I posted some job talk topics that I thought candidates should avoid. Since recycling is now part of our moral duty, I’m recycling this old material — with five new topics added in to justify it.
Here are the top-ten topics to avoid from 2005:
10. Time Travel and Originalism: Using Technology to Learn What the Founders Really Meant
9. The Right to Bear Arms Should Include Surface-to-Air Missiles
8. The Law and Economics of Negligence: What I Learned in 1L Torts
7. The Sex Life of Law Students: My Three-Year Empirical Study
6. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? A Deontological Approach to Epistemological Failure
5. The Law & Economics of Law & Order
4. La Cosa Blogstra: Why volokh.com is a Criminal Conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371
3. Barking Up the (Wrong) Poisonous Tree: Is Tainted Evidence Admissible If It Would Have Been Found By Dogs?
2. Parsing Rule 10b-5: Thoughts from Das Kapital
1. In re Random Corp. Class Action Litigation: Illuminating Points I Made in My Brief
I think #9 looks a little different in hindsight, no? And here are five more:
11. Rethinking the Eighteenth Amendment: An Argument for Repeal
12. Scoop or Else: Using DNA Evidence to Track Down Dog Waste Offenders
13. Chicken Chicken?: A Response to Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken
14. Don’t Mess with Texas: Why Secession Just Makes Sense
15. Capital Punishment for Misdemeanor Offenses: A Retributive Approach
Posted by Matt Bodie on October 27, 2011 at 03:42 PM
Comments
16. If the penalty is capital punishment, is it still a misdemeanor?
Posted by: Steven Lubet | Oct 27, 2011 4:46:02 PM
Why o’ why don’t you post more, Matt? This blawg is so much better with you.
Posted by: Holling | Oct 27, 2011 3:57:41 PM
Actually, #15 looks a lot like Becker (1968) — the leading law and economics article on criminal punishments. True, it is not a Kantian retributive approach, but it leads right to the conclusion of capital punishment for misdemeanor offenses.
Posted by: TJ | Oct 27, 2011 3:51:36 PM