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Between 2009 and 2020, Josh published more than 10,000 blog posts. Here, you can access his blog archives.

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Wanna be a Law Prof? Attend the Aspiring Law Prof Conference at Arizona State

August 1st, 2011

I attended this free conference in 2009 at Arizona State University and found it extremely helpful.

Designed for Visiting Assistant Professors, Fellows and others who plan to go on the academic teaching market, but valuable to anyone considering a career as a law professor.

  • Learn to succeed in the entry-level law teaching market
  • Obtain an insider’s perspective on the appointments process from faculty with extensive hiring experience
  • Participate in a mock interview or mock job talk and gain feedback from law professors

There is no cost to attend; just pay your own way to Tempe, Arizona (outside Phoenix). This year, the inestimable Eugene Volokh is the featured speaker, in addition to a number of other great profs.

 

“One could even consider certain marriages where there are unequal financial resources to not be overly dissimilar” from Prostitution

August 1st, 2011

A fascinating, and somewhat disturbing feature on HuffPo about college students signing up as “Sugar Babies” hoping to meet “Sugar Daddies” to help pay off student debt.

Enter the sugar daddy, sugar baby phenomenon. This particular dynamic preceded the economic meltdown, of course. Rich guys well past their prime have been plunking down money for thousands of years in search of a tryst or something more with women half their age — and women, willingly or not, have made themselves available. With the whole process going digital, women passing through a system of higher education that fosters indebtedness are using the anonymity of the web to sell their wares and pay down their college loans.

But is it Prostitution?

Allen Lichtenstein, a private attorney in Las Vegas who specializes in first amendment issues, affirms that in order for an exchange to be classified as prostitution there has to be a clear “meeting of the minds” that the arrangement is a quid pro quo, or exchange of sex for money. Absent an immediate sex-for-pay exchange, the legal waters grow far murkier.

“One could even consider certain marriages where there are unequal financial resources to not be overly dissimilar,” says Lichtenstein. “But any relationship that is an ongoing one that’s not purely about sex but may have a sexual aspect to it, you can’t really classify as prostitution. It would simply cover too much ground.”

But Weitzer views more extended, involved relationships — say, a monthly stipend or dinner and occasionally having sex — as ways for both “college girls and sex workers to camouflage what’s very likely prostitution.”

Related is this headline: Housewife Charged In Sex-For-Security Scam

 

Why did Linda Greenhouse call Breyer’s Dissent in EMA: “most unusual judicial performance”

August 1st, 2011

Barry Friedman, in The Will of the People has this passage on point to Greenhouse’s criticism:

The cases in which the Supreme Court seems to deviate from public opinion most often are those involving the First Amendment, which could be explained because the First Amendment has its own special constituency, the press. Journalists love the First Amendment for obvious reasons (it protects freedom of the press). 80 The justices are more likely to be attacked in print (or praised) for their decisions in First Amendment cases than almost any other. 81 But journalists also may provide the justices with a distorted view of public opinion. The fondness of the media may explain the Court’s particular willingness to stand tough on certain First Amendment rights—such as for pornography and against school prayer—even when the country generally expresses contrary views.