Law Commons^™

New Environmental Crimes Project Data Shows That Pollution Prosecutions Plummeted During The First Two Years Of The Trump Administration, David M. Uhlmann

Other Publications

The latest data from the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School shows a dramatic drop in pollution prosecutions during the first two years under President Donald J. Trump. The data, which now includes 14 years of cases from 2005–2018, shows a 70 percent decrease in Clean Water Act prosecutions under President Trump, as well as a more than 50 percent decrease in Clean Air Act prosecutions. The data again shows that most defendants charged with pollution crime commit misconduct involving one or more of the aggravating factors identified in my previous scholarship, so prosecutors continue to …

Tribute To John Pickering, Evan H. Caminker

Other Publications

I had the great fortune to work with John Pickering during my own stint as a young associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. One of my first projects at the firm was to assist John in writing an amicus brief in the landmark right-to-die case involving Nancy Cruzan. Learning to draft a Supreme Court brief from such a master advocate was a memorable experience. Of course, John taught me a great deal about first-rate brief writing, but much more significantly, he illustrated by example the possibility and importance of marrying reason with passion, and of dedicating one's energy and talents …

Linking The Visions, Donald J. Herzog

Other Publications

Professor Donald Herzog talks about his teaching and work.

Linking The Visions, Thomas A. Green

Other Publications

Professor Thomas Green talks about his teaching and work.

Linking The Visions, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Other Publications

Professor Phoebe Ellsworth talks about her teaching and work.

Linking The Visions, Christina B. Whitman

Other Publications

Professor Christina Whitman talks about her teaching and her work.

Linking The Visions, Omri Ben-Shahar

Other Publications

Professor Omri Ben-Shahar talks about his teaching and work.

Focus On Faculty - Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Other Publications

As a teenager, I had a passion for studying foreign languages. I loved immersing myself in an unfamiliar idiom, struggling to make sense of another system for parsing words and sentences to describe experiences and observations. I reveled in subtle differences in the meaning of words that were sometimes, but not always, equivalents in translation. Most intriguing of all were the occasional insights I gained into the limitations of my own language when I recognized that a foreign locution simply has no English equivalent.

Focus On Faculty, Richard D. Friedman

Other Publications

Professor Richard Friedman talks about his scholarship and work.

Focus On Faculty, William I. Miller

Other Publications

Of late my interests, by free association and devious paths, have shifted to the emotions, especially those passions that accompany our moral and social failures.

Faculty Spotlight, Nicholas J. Rine

Other Publications

Professor Nicholas Rine talks about his teaching and work.

Faculty Spotlight, Grace C. Tonner

Other Publications

Professor Grace Tonner talks about her teaching and work.

Faculty Spotlight, Michael Heller

Other Publications

Professor Michael Heller talks about his teaching and research.

On Retiring From A Deanship, John W. Reed

Other Publications

The reason for the italicized "from" in the title of my remarks is to distinguish it from the comments that I made at our meeting in Tucson four years ago, under the title "On Retiring to a Deanship." For those of you who were not there, I should mention that five years ago, as I was about to reach retirement age at the University of Michigan Law School-what the late William L. Prosser used to call the age of mandatory senility-Wayne State University in Detroit asked me to serve as its dean for a term of five years. Lobbied by …

Wade H. Mccree, Jr., David L. Chambers

Other Publications

At Wade McCree's funeral service in Detroit, Otis Smith introduced the many people who spoke. Mr. Smith reminded us that, when Wade ceased to be Solicitor General, he had many offers from law firms in Washington and New York. Wade, he said, turned the offers down and chose to remain in public service. When Mr. Smith made this statement, my first thought was, "Wade didn't stay in public service. He became a law professor." After all, for so many of us teachers, life is a wonderful self-indulgence, the opportunity to read and write just what we please. But, of course, …

On Retirement To A Deanship, John W. Reed

Other Publications

As most of you know, I have been a teacher for more than forty years. I entered teaching at Oklahoma after four years with the Stinson Mag firm in Kansas City, and I have been on the University of Michigan faculty since 1949 except for a four-year aberration as dean at the University of Colorado Law School in the mid-1960s. As you would suppose, I am reaching the mandatory retirement age. (That's what the late Dean William L. Prosser called the "age of statutory senility.") The current year would have been my final year of teaching at the University of …

Alfred F. Conard And Allan F. Smith, Terrance Sandalow

Other Publications

I am delighted to be able to participate in honoring Al Conard and Allan Smith, but I confess that I am puzzled as to why I have been invited to speak. I have not had either as a teacher. Moreover, their scholarly contributions are sufficiently removed from my areas of interest that I cannot evaluate the importance of their work. Nor was I in a good position to observe Allan's service as Dean or as Vice President for Academic Affairs.

The Anatomy Of A Clinical Law Course, James J. White

Other Publications

Since the summer of 1965 when the Michigan Supreme Court first authorized law student practice on the behalf of indigent persons, students at the University of Michigan Law School have been engaged in extensive practice on behalf of indigent persons in Washtenaw County. Between 75 and 125 second and third year students at the University of Michigan Law School each semester have worked at the Washtenaw County Legal Aid Clinic under the direction of the OEO Staff attorneys. Students receive neither credit nor pay for such work and their activities are not directly supervised by the faculty. That volunteer experience …

Academic Life And The Great War, Henry M. Bates

Other Publications

The address of Dean Henry M. Bates on academic life and the war, delivered at the opening of the 1917-1918 University of Michigan Law School year, is the topic of this comment.

Requirements Of A Legal Education, Bradley M. Thompson

Other Publications

The sentiment which has been assigned to me and to which, in a Pickwickian sense, I am to respond, covers the whole field of a lawyer's professional education. It is a subject of special interest to the bar, and of much importance, indeed, to all, for the bar furnishes from its ranks all the members of the judicial department, one of the three co-ordinate departments of the government, whether state or national. And since every member of the bar is a member of the court before whom he practices, we constitute, at least, one third of the government. And if …

Changes In The Balance Of Governmental Power, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

“In taking up for brief review the action of the convention in framing, and that of the people of the Union in adopting the Federal Constitution ninety years ago, we should be able after such a lapse of time, and in view of our diversified experience under it, to deal with it in a spirit of dispassionate criticism, and without boasting or unreasonable exultation. Yet we may perhaps truly say that the act itself was the most notable in government-making of which history bears record….”

The Lawyer’S Duty To Be Faithful To His Own Manhood, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

“On a previous occasion similar to this when I was invited to address a few parting words to a class of law students, I directed their attention specifically to their duty to observe fidelity to their clients. To-day I shall call your attention to a duty equally imperative, and perhaps still more often neglected, namely: the duty of fidelity to one’s own manhood....

“I shall have accomplished fully my purpose in these parting admonitions if I impress upon your convictions the paramount importance of observing in all your professional life the obligation of fidelity to truth, to justice, …

The State Of The Law: A Test Of National Progress, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

“The work to which the student in law first addresses himself is the fixing in his mind of certain principles which are agreed upon, or are supposed to be, and which collectively constitute the body of the law…. The brief remarks that I shall make will be addressed to two points: 1. That the law of the land must in the main be the handiwork of those who administer and practice it, and 2, That the final and most satisfactory evidence of assured national advancement must be found in the state of the law….”

Washington: His Character And The Lessons To Be Drawn From It, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

Justice Cooley’s memorial on the occasion of Washington’s birthday: “In fabulous history nations are founded by gods. But these gods are only impersonations of the rough virtues most prized in a barbarous age, and their worship is therefore an adoration of those qualities … We have no fabulous history of our nation … Great characters may loom up as the builders, but they are not simply exaggerated personifications of power and force; they are men with human qualities, whose lives, in the records which are preserved, are open to our inspection; we may see what manner of men they were, …

Hints To Young Lawyers. An Address Delivered To The Senior Class Of The Law Department Of The University Of Michigan, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

Professor Cooley’s counsel to the gentlemen departing the Law Department: “To those of you who are about to bear away from this institution the certificate of its approbation, I have a few words to say in response to what I understand to be your desire, that my last address should be devoted to such hints of a practical character as may be of service to you in your professional career. The transition from the life of a student to that of a practicing lawyer is so great that it is not possible for one to be too well prepared by …

Law And Lawyers In Society: An Address Delivered Before The Graduating Class Of The Law Department Of The University Of Michigan, March 28, 1866, James V. Campbell

Other Publications

"We have spent some pleasant time together in searching out the foundations of the law. In studying its principles, you have acquired, I trust, a creditable amount of knowledge upon the special topics which are most likely to claim the attention of active lawyers ...."

"You need never fear to aim to high. The arrow never gravitates upward. The great danger among lawyers is, that they sometimes aim to low...."

Closing Remarks Of Prof J.V. Campbell To The Graduating Class Of The Law Department, March 21st, 1863., James V. Campbell

Other Publications

[The following remarks of Professor Campbell, at the close of his series of Law Lectures for the present year, having been unanimously requested by the class for publication, were kindly furnished by him. Being extempore, and prompted solely by the feelings and emotions of the hour, it is the wish of those who heard those words of counsel and farewell to publish them, verbatim, as delivered.] ....

"....But among our thoughts the question will arise, To what end have we been spending this long period in searching out and studying the principles of the law? ... Why then have …

Address By Hon. Thomas M. Cooley, And Poem By D. Bethune Duffield, Esq., On The Dedication Of The Law Lecture Hall Of The Michigan University, Thomas M. Cooley, D. Bethune Duffield

Other Publications

A stirring address by Professor Cooley upon the occasion of the dedication of the Law Lecture Hall of the first Law School Building. He begins: "Students in the Department of Law: While Michigan was yet a wilderness, only feeling along its borders the advancing tread of civilization, and only hearing here and there the sound of the woodman's axe, the wisdom of American statesmen made provision for the establishment in the territory of a great University...."

On The Study Of Law: An Address At The Opening Of The Law Department Of The University Of Michigan, October 3, 1859, James V. Campbell

Other Publications

Professor Campbell's address on the occasion of the inauguration of the Department of Law at the University of Michigan, laying out the hopes for and expectations of the newly-created unit. He sweeps wide through the history of the State and the nobility of the profession: "Let everyone come to the study of the Law with a proper sense of its dignity and importance."