Navel-Gazing
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Most cited legal philosophers by D-Index according to research.com (CORRECTED & UPDATED)
We’ve noted the “D-index” (an h-index for discipline-specific journals) calculated by research.com previously. (Their rankings of universities in law are pretty silly, since the faculty lists include deceasd faculty, retired faculty, and faculty who are not law professors.) They clearly don’t count law reviews for D-index, only faculty-edited journals, which is appropriate for legal philosophy.…
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Reduced summer blogging schedule
Although most Northern Hemisphere readers are already done with the academic year, at Chicago (on the quarter system) we still have teaching and grading, the latter into early June. I’ll be reducing the frequency of posting starting now, to help me have the time for the latter obligations. But I will continue to post through…
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“Great” moments in (what is definitely extremely) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Holy Rockin’ Band, “Guns,” 1981
Continuing last week’s journey down (my) memory lane, I wrote this song after the murder of John Lennon and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. It’s lyrical content is still relevant, given America, alas. (I still haven’t heard anyone say: “ban all guns.”) (As noted in the earlier post, this is a 4-track recording, literally…
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I’ll be at Princeton next Tuesday to give a public lecture on academic freedom…
…thanks to a kind invitation from the philosophy majors. Hope to see some readers there. I got my BA in philosophy from Princeton in 1984, and the only faculty member I had a class with who remains is Mark Johnston (he had just started in Spring 1984, and was quite tolerant of my irresponsibly missing…
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Advertising update
After a slow start to the new blog site, traffic has returned to about 275,000 page views per month, which is almost back to the levels of the old blog site. (The counter on WordPress is different than what I used at Typepad, which seems to have picked up more bots, but I’m unsure). Thanks…
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A new policy on advertising MA and PhD programs
Going forward, I am only going to take ads from programs that I think are worth considering (the PGR will be a pretty good benchmark for that, but schools should feel free to ask me). Because many prospective students look to the blog for guidance on quality, including the quality of programs, it occurs to…
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I’m falling behind on email…
…and will probably not be able to respond to everyone. It’s a very busy quarter for me, with a lot of new preparation (for both my seminar and my Jurisprudence II course). My apologies to those who do not get replies. I still welcome, of course, emails with information and/or links.
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“25 Most Influential People in Legal Education”…
…based on the annual poll by The National Jurist. I’m the highest rank person on the list (at #13) who isn’t a Dean or head of the AALS or LSAC or some other major law school-adjacent organization. I’m just a guy with a blog, which means I owe this recognition to you, loyal readers. Thank…
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Finding older posts, now that the Typepad links are broken (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 16 A recent comment on an older post notes, correctly, that old intra-blog links based on the Typepad URLs no longer work, now that all these posts have migrated to WordPress, the current blog service provider. Readers should note that there is a search engine for the blog in the…
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I’m at Columbia’s Law & Philosophy Workshop this week…
…so comment approval may be a bit slow (and posting will be a bit lighter for a couple of days). Thanks for your patience.
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“From a Realist Point of View”: coming in March
That’s Thucydides on the cover! Readers will know some of the distinguished scholars kindly endorsing the book, but may not know the first two: Michel Troper is the preeminent French legal realist, who also introduced legal philosophy to French legal education in the 1970s (and was, I learned, a visiting professor here at Chicago a…
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“From a Realist Point of View” now delivered to the press and should be out in Spring 2026…
…in the "Oxford Legal Philosophy" series. Here's the official OUP blurb: From A Realist Point of View combines new essays with revised versions of the most important recent work of preeminent legal realist Brian Leiter. This collection offers a systematic and philosophically ambitious account of legal realism and links it, for the first time, to…
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Summer quasi-hiatus from blogging has begun…
…as readers may have gathered. I'll continue to update the laterals list, and will try to post about important or time-sensitive matters, but don't expect much regular content until August. Good wishes to readers for a productive and enjoyable summer!
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We have a new Dean: Adam Chilton
I'm delighted with this outcome. I should note we had three remarkable finalists, all outstanding, so we were very fortunate indeed. (A public "thank you" to my colleague Jonathan Masur who led the Dean Search Committee, and did a great job!) As Professor Chilton comments in the preceding news release: "I strongly believe that the…
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Law professors reading Marx
A nice note from a law professor elsewhere: I wanted to pass on a note thanking you for your marvelous book with Jaime Edwards on Marx. The explanation of ideas is lucid and exactly what this non-expert needed as a clear and comprehensive introduction. Like many, I have read at one time the Manifesto and bits…
Andrei Rodin is circulating a letter demanding the liberation of Svetlana Mesyats: https://philomatica.org/2026/05/open-letter-in-support-of-svetlana-messiats/. The prosecution has demanded a sentence of…