In legal circles, my last name is a mixed bag. On the plus side, most people are amused that I share a name with a Justice I profoundly disagree with on most legal questions. On the downside, my name is constantly misspelled like the Justice, as Blackmun. According to the WestLaw Law Journal database, there are at least five citations to “Josh Blackmun.” (For academics, citations are the coin of the realm). In 2011, Judge Sykes kindly cited an article I co-authored with Ilya Shapiro in her opinion in Ezell v. City of Chicago. I was thrilled, until I realized my name was spelled, Blackmun. I put a call into the 7th Circuit’s clerk’s office, and the PDF was fixed later that day.

However, this correction from the L.A. Times may be my favorite!

(I Should note that my praise was qualified–see my article in National Review).

The Chicago Tribune, which syndicated the story, offered a similar correction.