Dear email readers: Please subscribe to Atom feed

Dear reader, if you read The Savory Tort via email subscription, then, first, thank you; and, second, regrettably, a small change will be necessary for you to continue your generous devotion of time to this blog.

Google will terminate its Feedburner application in July 2021.  Feedburner is Blogger's email delivery service.

There are many online tools to manage your blog reading.  For those of us who still depend on email in our work, email remains our favorite way to learn about new blog postings.  It's a simple matter to replace the function of Feedburner, which is, essentially, to convert an RSS or Atom feed to email.  I'll be doing this for the blogs that I follow.

My favorite and an easy-to-use tool to get this done is Blogtrottr.  This tool is recommended by librarians at the University of Missouri.  Blogtrottr's ad-supported plan is free.

All you need to do is enter the URL of a blog's RSS or Atom feed and your email address into the boxes on Blogtrottr's home page, where it looks like this:

Even if you don't know a blog's RSS or Atom address, Blogtrottr usually can detect it, if there is one, if you enter the URL of the blog's home page (for example, http://www.thesavorytort.com/).  Blogtrottr lets you decide whether you want to receive real-time notifications or periodic digests.  The system will send you an email to confirm your subscription choice.  Of course, you can unsubscribe from a blog anytime.

The Atom feed URL for The Savory Tort is

http://www.thesavorytort.com/feeds/posts/default

You can highlight and copy, or right-click and copy that link.  The link is always available in the right column under "Subscribe" / "Posts" / "Atom."

Trump litigation in legal education: Come for the car wreck, stay for the seminar

Coinciding with the U.S. presidential election in the fall semester of 2020, August to November, I'll be teaching a 15-student seminar in "Trump Litigation."

Donald J. Trump is a phenomenon in U.S. litigation, principally litigation over obligations (contract and tort).  He and his enterprises are infamously litigious; perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of Trump litigation is USA Today's remarkable compilation of data from more than 4,000 cases, by investigative journalist Nick Penzenstadler and team.  This vast body of litigation offers at once a deep sea in which one can dive into the doctrine of torts, contracts, and civil procedure, and an opportunity to ask the big questions I relentlessly press on first-year law students, such as whether the common law litigation system represents a pinnacle in human achievement in dispute resolution, or a disastrous failure.

No one knows now whether Donald Trump will be "a thing" after January 2021.  So I thought this fall would be an optimal time to capitalize on the Trump phenomenon as a teaching opportunity.  Here is the short course description:

Trump Litigation Seminar.  Investigation of civil court cases involving Donald Trump, and his family and businesses, in personal rather than public capacities. In tandem with the 2020 election cycle, this seminar invites students to examine public litigation files to study advanced doctrine in obligations law, to witness litigation skills and strategy, and to analyze public policy in American civil dispute resolution. Final paper.

As described, this seminar is calculated to be something of a capstone experience for third-years, comprising threads of doctrinal study, litigation skills, and discussion of theory and policy.

As I previewed to co-panelists at the Law and Society Association and the Southeastern Association of Law Schools conferences in 2019, my plan was to create an open-source course module that would be ready in summer 2020 for adoption, in part or in whole, by faculty in law, political science, mass communication, or other areas, exploiting the same fall time frame to explore Trump litigation with students.

Unfortunately, that summer project won't happen.  The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found itself in a budget crisis after refunding student fees for room and board amid the coronavirus lockdown.  To help fill the hole, UMass Law canceled faculty compensation for summer 2020.

I plan still in the fall to use a blog page, ancillary to The Savory Tort and in conjunction with Dropbox cloud storage, to furnish resources for my seminar students.  To the extent that there might be any utility in those materials for anyone else, I am making the page public.  I will adapt and populate the page as I prepare the materials.  I have invested considerable effort in amassing and organizing litigation files on a range of key Trump cases, and it seems a shame to hoard them for my class, when they might be useful to others, whether for teaching, research, reporting, or just civic interest.

My focus here, again, will be to support my seminar, not, as originally planned, to support an open-source course module.  So I reserve the latitude to post what I want when I want to, and to make changes as it suits the needs of my class.  The page probably will undergo a lot of changes between now and when class starts in the second half of August, and more yet as the class develops in the fall.  That said, if you are a teacher, researcher, or journalist in need of something it looks like I might have but have not posted, or you have questions about what I've posted, please do reach out, and I'll help if I can—my availability being spotty while away from my desk until August 17.

Welcome to the Trump Litigation Seminar.

'Ley contra la pandemia': CFP se extiende a las contribuciones en español

¡Convocatoria de contribuciones!

Los académicos, estudiantes, profesionales, todas las disciplinas, todas las naciones, están invitados a contribuir con artículos, comentarios y otros trabajos al nuevo sitio web y blog, Law Against Pandemic. Se aliente especialmente el trabajo de los estudiantes.  (CFP en inglés via The Savory Tort.)

Law Against Pandemic es un espacio para el debate sobre los aspectos legales de las pandemias como una herramienta de desarrollo y popularización de los logros de las ciencias sociales. El objetivo principal del proyecto es a crear una plataforma de publicación de artículos de alta calidad sobre aspectos legales de pandemias, para contribuir al discurso y al análisis de posibles soluciones.

Se aceptan textos en inglés, francés, alemán, polaco, y, ahora, español.

Lea más en las directrices de Law Against Pandemic (inglés).

  

Siga Law Against Pandemic en Facebook y en Twitter.

 

 Envíe su manuscrito por email.

Estos comentarios recientes se publican en Law Against Pandemic.

Alternative dispute resolutions during global pandemic and beyond
by August Adamowicz

Is there a tool that could be used by the lawyers to mitigate the negative effects arising from the situation we are in? I believe that in some instances proper use of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods could help resolve disputes remotely, but also after the epidemic ends it could reduce the number of urgent court cases and at least in some part help to return the judicial system to normal functioning.  Read more.

Pandemic and international trade law. Is there a silver lining?
by Cyprian Liske

Current events show more clearly than ever how strong economic interconnections between countries are in the modern, globalised world. A severe crisis in just one country can break supply chains around the whole globe, not even to mention financial consequences which, as we know at least since 2008, can spread just like a deadly virus.... How do the countries choose to deal with it internationally? Do we restrict trade in the face of such dangers? Or are we trying to liberalise it in order to keep the flow of goods? What about the export of deficit goods which may be used by countries to fight pandemic domestically?  Read more.

Labour market after COVID-19
by Łukasz Łaguna

Currently, the whole world is fighting the COVID-19 epidemic. All countries are racing to find anti-crisis solutions to ensure the least possible losses for every labour market. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that no country in the world will be able to maintain such intensive financial assistance in the long run. High social benefits are only an ad hoc aid for the temporary maintenance of financial continuity of entrepreneurs.  Read more.

CFP: Law Against Pandemic

Calling contributors!

Scholars, students, practitioners, all disciplines, all nations, are invited to contribute articles, commentary, and other work to the new website and blog, Law Against Pandemic.  Student work is especially desired, so professors, please spread the word (at an appropriate social distance) in your schools.

Law Against Pandemic is a "[s]pace for debate on the legal aspects of pandemics as a tool of development and popularisation of the achievements of social sciences." The project states as its main goal, "Creation of a publishing platform for high quality articles on legal aspects of pandemics, in order to contribute to the discourse and the analysis of possible solutions."

"We will publish articles and commentaries on the interrelations between law and pandemics.  There is no character limit. We accept texts in English, French, German, and Polish."

Read more in Law Against Pandemic guidelines.

 

Follow Law Against Pandemic on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

 Email submissions.

Currently available from Law Against Pandemic:

Mikołaj Sołtysiak, SARS-CoV-2 a stosunki zobowiązaniowe [SARS-CoV-2 and contractual relations].  Mikołaj Sołtysiak is a third-year student in civil law at Jagiellonian University in Poland.  The article is in Polish; here is the abstract, my translation:

The epidemic state means a period of extraordinary circumstances affecting many contractual relationships. Civil law provides for certain constructs that will enhance the content of contracts in exceptional circumstances, but only to a limited extent. Many situations caused by SARS-CoV-2 do not qualify for the use of mechanisms such as rebus sic stantibus, or lack of liability due to force majeure, and yet, it seems axiologically inappropriate to be indifferent to such cases. Here the key role of the legislator is revealed.

While Sołtysiak contemplates a need for the exercise of legislative power, I contributed a piece to Law Against Pandemic on the need in the United States for the federal executive authority to step up to the challenges of the coronavirus crisis.

[March 21, 2020] Sabbatical update: For obvious reasons, I am home, and not in Africa. Thanks to my wife who booked my return journey from Windhoek to Boston. Stay tuned for a return to normalcy. Meanwhile, #QuarantineLife.

[January 28, 2020]  Greetings, readers.  I am on sabbatical in the spring semester 2020, working on a couple of projects in law and development.  Watch below for occasional shares while I visit some parts of the world about which I have researched and written.  Watch later for a project on teaching litigation with Donald Trump materials, anticipated in time for the fall semester and election.   
Happy year of the rat!