Marquette Law Review Symposium on The Ethics of Legal Scholarship

HI was delighted to participate in this law review symposium by the Marquette Law Review on the ethics of legal scholarship in the fall of 2017. I was a co-organizer but most of the hard work was done by the law review editors and by co-organizers Chad Oldfather and Carissa Byrne Hessick. The articles feature varied perspectives and topics. I hope those interested in academic ethics and especially legal academic scholarly ethics will read and enjoy this issue. (My own contribution is here. The SSRN version is here.)

One specific goal we had, in the words of the symposium introduction, was to “arrive at” and publish “some common, generally agreed upon answers and principles.” We thus lead off with a set of “Draft Principles of Scholarly Ethics.” They should not be taken as having commanded the absolute consensus of all the participants, and we certainly do not claim that all legal scholars will agree on these principles. To quote the introduction again: “Our attempt . . . to put something specific on the table, agree on it, and share it with our colleagues was never meant to be a final and definitive answer to the questions that confront us concerning the ethics of legal scholarship. It was not meant to end the discussion. But we have attempted to provide a useful place from which to begin and continue such a discussion.” We hope the draft principles will do this, serving as a jumping-off point for future discussion of this subject, which certainly is not going away and will if anything grow in light of both the rise of law professor participation on social media and the current political situation.

Enjoy. Thanks again to both Chad and Carissa as well as the other participants, and congratulations to the Marquette Law Review editors involved in making this happen and bringing it to print.

Here is the table of contents for the issue: