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Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu David Luban david.luban at gmail.com Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu Compendium of posts on Hobby Lobby and related cases The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, and OLC The Anti-Torture Memos (arranged by topic) Recent Posts Have You Received This "Honor"?
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
Have You Received This "Honor"?
Brian Tamanaha
Imagine the pride I felt when I received the following letter:
Comments:
Being the humble introvert that I am, Prof. Tamanaha, I have to repeatedly turn down the invites I get to submit my biography/CV to the folks who put out the all-important and seminal reference work "Who's Who In Amateur Underwater Photograpers Who Never Finished Law School" (along with a cheque for several copies of such to place on our coffee table and impress our house guests). ;-)
Cheers,
Arne,
You are right to point out that there are a bunch of these "appeal to the ego" scams (How many "who's Who" books are out there?). I suspect it is a great way to raise money. My specific disappointment is that the ABF would stoop to this (though again, I might be wrong). Brian
If you prefer to otherwise immortalize your name, I hear that the International Star Registry will put your name on a star and register it (in book form) with the U.S. Copyright Office for only $54.00 and a visit to starregistry.com.
[unsnark]Actually, this sounds similar to the sponsorship levels you can achieve when donating to public television, but there you usually also get the DVD of Loretta LaRoche's stress management seminars. There is at least a hint of deception in the presentation, as they try to focus on the title, not the charitable donation that they are after.[resume snark] Please remember that the value of your tax deduction is reduced by the value of any premiums you may receive. Based on your description, I can only imagine the value of adding Fellow, ABF after your name, so you would likely get the full value of your charitable contribution.
Here is a link to the Fellows website--it sounds legit.
http://fellows.abfn.org/index.html As for me, I would never belong to a club that would accept the likes of me as a member
Here's the political version:
The call starts with flattery: You have been named businessman of the year, or physician of the year, or state chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee's Business Advisory Council. Then comes the fundraising hook: a request for as much as $500 to help pay for a full-page Wall Street Journal advertisement, then a request for $5,000 to reserve a seat at a banquet thrown in your honor. Can't handle that? How about $1,250 for the no-frills package?
NAL,
You're right. That was an exaggeration, though I don't earn enough to write checks for $250 for ten years without hesitation. Again, my main objection was to the deception. I guess the point of the responses is that this kind of pitch is normal today, so there is no reason to take it poorly. Should I apologize for calling out the ABF? Brian
Prof. Tamanaha:
Should I apologize for calling out the ABF? By no means, perfesser. As Judith Martin (a/k/a "Miss Manners") would say, "Just because poor manners has become commonplace is no excuse for your own indulgence". You should call them on this scam (as evident from the seemingly cheap universality of the bestowed "honour"). If they want money, the polite thing is to ask for it. And then, if they see fit, then can acknowledge you for that if they'd like, with some appropriate 'honourific' (like, you know, "charter member" or "lifetime supporter"....) Cheers,
What idiots! Everyone knows that you ask for all the money upfront and don't send the notice to everyone. This would have been more successful if they had asked for $2500 for 10 years and just send it to 10% of your fellow dupes each year.
Anyway, this is a great trick: hey, you can open your wallet and give me money. I'll kiss you ass and say nice things about you in public. Personally I can't even get my wife to do that. That's the clue.
To add to Fraud Guy's alternate immortalization schemes, perhaps you could start your own law blog...call it...Tamanahawk...or Tamanawannablogya. (Please don't be offended. I am merely making a play on Professor Balkin's choice for his blog name.)
-- The Casual Observer
I think that membership is a genuine honor. Membership is limited to 1/3 of 1 percent of the bar and requires nomination by an existing member and election (at least in NJ) by the existing membership. In my (limited) experience, it is not unusual for a lawyer to be nominated but fail of election.
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I don't know about the NY chapter, but in NJ, the fellows are among the most prominent members of the bench and bar. They get together twice a year for dinner. The fellows tend, however, to be light on academics. If NY works the way that NJ does, I suspect that what may have happened with you and your colleagues is that some existing fellow (perhaps an alum of St. Johns) thought that the fellows could use some academics (perhaps particularly from St. Johns). As an academic, I try to attend these dinners as one way of maintaining social contact with the bench and bar.
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Books by Balkinization Bloggers Jack M. Balkin, Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation (Yale University Press, 2024) Mark A. Graber, Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (University of Kansas Press, 2023) Jack M. Balkin, What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision - Revised Edition (NYU Press, 2023) Andrew Koppelman, Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) Gerard N. Magliocca, Washington's Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington (Oxford University Press, 2022) Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2022) Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric, Power to the People: Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism (Oxford University Press 2021). Mark Philip Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak, eds., Making the Forever War: Marilyn B. Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). Jack M. Balkin, What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Same-Sex Marriage Decision (Yale University Press, 2020) Frank Pasquale, New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI (Belknap Press, 2020) Jack M. Balkin, The Cycles of Constitutional Time (Oxford University Press, 2020) Mark Tushnet, Taking Back the Constitution: Activist Judges and the Next Age of American Law (Yale University Press 2020). Andrew Koppelman, Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty?: The Unnecessary Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2020) Ezekiel J Emanuel and Abbe R. Gluck, The Trillion Dollar Revolution: How the Affordable Care Act Transformed Politics, Law, and Health Care in America (PublicAffairs, 2020) Linda C. McClain, Who's the Bigot?: Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, Democracy and Dysfunction (University of Chicago Press, 2019) Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Duke University Press 2018) Mark A. Graber, Sanford Levinson, and Mark Tushnet, eds., Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (Oxford University Press 2018) Gerard Magliocca, The Heart of the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights became the Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2018) Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (Peachtree Publishers, 2017) Brian Z. Tamanaha, A Realistic Theory of Law (Cambridge University Press 2017) Sanford Levinson, Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (University Press of Kansas 2016) Sanford Levinson, An Argument Open to All: Reading The Federalist in the 21st Century (Yale University Press 2015) Stephen M. Griffin, Broken Trust: Dysfunctional Government and Constitutional Reform (University Press of Kansas, 2015) Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015) Bruce Ackerman, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2014) Balkinization Symposium on We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution Joseph Fishkin, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity (Oxford University Press, 2014) Mark A. Graber, A New Introduction to American Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2013) John Mikhail, Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls' Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment (Cambridge University Press, 2013) Gerard N. Magliocca, American Founding Son: John Bingham and the Invention of the Fourteenth Amendment (New York University Press, 2013) Stephen M. Griffin, Long Wars and the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 2013) Andrew Koppelman, The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform (Oxford University Press, 2013) James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain, Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (Harvard University Press, 2013) Balkinization Symposium on Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues Andrew Koppelman, Defending American Religious Neutrality (Harvard University Press, 2013) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012) Sanford Levinson, Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (Oxford University Press, 2012) Linda C. McClain and Joanna L. Grossman, Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2012) Mary Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2012) Jack M. Balkin, Living Originalism (Harvard University Press, 2011) Jason Mazzone, Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law (Stanford University Press, 2011) Richard W. Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, First Amendment Stories, (Foundation Press 2011) Jack M. Balkin, Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World (Harvard University Press, 2011) Gerard Magliocca, The Tragedy of William Jennings Bryan: Constitutional Law and the Politics of Backlash (Yale University Press, 2011) Bernard Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (Harvard University Press, 2010) Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2010) Balkinization Symposium on The Decline and Fall of the American Republic Ian Ayres. Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done (Bantam Books, 2010) Mark Tushnet, Why the Constitution Matters (Yale University Press 2010) Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff: Lifecycle Investing: A New, Safe, and Audacious Way to Improve the Performance of Your Retirement Portfolio (Basic Books, 2010) Jack M. Balkin, The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life (2d Edition, Sybil Creek Press 2009) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging (Princeton University Press 2009) Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Barrington Wolff, A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association (Yale University Press 2009) Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, The Constitution in 2020 (Oxford University Press 2009) Heather K. Gerken, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It (Princeton University Press 2009) Mary Dudziak, Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press 2008) David Luban, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge Univ. Press 2007) Ian Ayres, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart (Bantam 2007) Jack M. Balkin, James Grimmelmann, Eddan Katz, Nimrod Kozlovski, Shlomit Wagman and Tal Zarsky, eds., Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment (N.Y.U. Press 2007) Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck, The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (N.Y.U. Press 2006) Andrew Koppelman, Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines (Yale University Press 2006) Brian Tamanaha, Law as a Means to an End (Cambridge University Press 2006) Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (Oxford University Press 2006) Mark Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge University Press 2006) Jack M. Balkin, ed., What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said (N.Y.U. Press 2005) Sanford Levinson, ed., Torture: A Collection (Oxford University Press 2004) Balkin.com homepage Bibliography Conlaw.net Cultural Software Writings Opeds The Information Society Project BrownvBoard.com Useful Links Syllabi and Exams |