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Ideas

More on the Future of Legal Scholarship

The editors of The Yale Pocket Part didn’t ask me, but I think that their online collection of “Future of Legal Scholarship” posts — and the editors’ introduction — had a chance to advance the ball, but failed. The entire project rests on two premises: (1) whether new technologies will enable more people to find and read traditional scholarship; and/or (2) the legal academy should stand up and salute the distinction between traditional scholarship, which is fine for what it is and which should continue, and “other stuff” (almost exclusively, blogging), which is also fine, but for other things. It’s a retread of the “does blogging count as scholarship?” “debate,” and that question leads everyone to a dead end. Blogging isn’t scholarship. But so what?

Read More »More on the Future of Legal Scholarship

Seal of the Cyber-Confessional?

The NYT reports on church sponsorship of a site called mysecret.tv, which encourages visitors to confess whatever is causing them guilt or anxiety. About 1500 such “confessions” have been posted already.

Though the site’s founder explicitly disclaims any offer of “absolution,” the postings appear therapeutic for many. Should the social benefits of this “confession” lead the law to protect it to the same extent it protects more traditional fora of repentance? That is, should a seal of the confessional extend to cyberspace? Read More »Seal of the Cyber-Confessional?