Politics, Gubanatorial Privilege, and the Profession: The Decline of Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann

Abstract:     
This article develops a theory of fact intensive legal scholarship that stresses the importance of people and their stories in our legal and political processes. My article argues for better writing, indeed writing that actually engages the legal scholar in a story, and more generally a narrative legal discourse. It is, after all, the facts and the stories behind our legal opinions, theories, and articles that make law interesting. All too often this is forgotten in legal scholarship and law schools where the differences in opinions' language is parsed, but passing attention is paid to the facts that require such hair-splitting.
The substantive legal material covered herein includes analysis of the Ohio Supreme Court's recognition of a gubernatorial communications privilege. The article takes a critical stance on the Ohio Supreme Court's decision to recognize an overly expansive gubernatorial communications privilege as exhibited in the Dann v. Taft trilogy of cases. Little attention has been paid to these decisions in scholarship and where it has, the results have tended toward a positive treatment of the decisions.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 21

Keywords: Marc Dann, Attorney General, Ohio, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Writing, Investigative Journalism, Executive Privilege

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