Force Majeure in Legal Scholarship

Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 14, pp. 427-429, 1997

3 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2013

See all articles by James Ming Chen

James Ming Chen

Michigan State University - College of Law

Date Written: 1997

Abstract

Who's to blame when legal scholarship is bad? Not pedestrian, repetitive, uninspired, or poorly conceived-just bad. If those crazy Minnesotans at Constitutional Commentary are to be believed, the fault lies with us scholars, that we are overweening. The "manifestly reasonable strategy" of "taking... shocking position[s]" in the quest for tenure generates "Gresham's Law of Legal Scholarship." Warped as it is by rampant "Ph.D. envy," the market for legal scholarship values '''paradigmshak[ing]'" hypotheses over "'extremely intelligent conventional legal scholarship.", A decade after Daniel Farber railed against academic "brilliance," legal scholars everywhere are still seeking the elusive "play of intelligence" and usually missing it. We could tell many stories on bad scholarship, but that would lie beyond the realm of reason.

Suggested Citation

Chen, James Ming, Force Majeure in Legal Scholarship (1997). Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 14, pp. 427-429, 1997, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2255155

James Ming Chen (Contact Author)

Michigan State University - College of Law ( email )

318 Law College Building
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
United States

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