Many thanks to Dana Fallon at the GMU Alumni Society for running this great piece about the Harlan Institute, and several members of our team from Mason–Corey Carpenter, Cara Tucker, Laura Lieberman, John Ure, and Adam Aft.  As I noted in the story, “It’s a very ‘George Mason’ kind of story.”

In 2009 Josh Blackman (’09) turned a random comment about whether Vegas would take bets on the outcome of the Citizens United case into an online phenomenon and educa- tional non-profit organization.

“It’s a very ‘George Mason’ kind of story,” Blackman says. “I was joking that there should be a fantasy league for the Supreme Court, then realized this actually might be good idea. I started work on a program to support the idea and built it in three weeks. It went viral over- night, and we got amazing media coverage. Immediately after FantasySCOTUS was launched, we had about 1,000 people signed up. I had thought we might get a couple hundred law stu- dents.”

Blackman’s efforts resulted in a Supreme Court Fantasy League with over 13,000 at- torneys, law students, and other avid Supreme Court followers making predictions about all cases that the Supreme Court decides.

PDF here.