Allen Sumrall

Can you email me a copy?

I’ll ping them again.

I keep trying to get NDLR to post videos of the panels. They exist somewhere.

Thanks Beau!

Last year also was the 100th anniversary of the Judiciary Act of 1925, which was the Notre Dame Law Review’s stated justification for doing its symposium on that topic. It naturally featured a lot of Taft.

Surely someone has written something about judicial aggrandizement before.

Very happy to announce that The Chadha Presidency is now forthcoming in the @georgetownlj.bsky.social! ssrn.com/abstract=536...

It also implies the existence of Barry Loudmilk.

So, law friends. I know that this is about #1000 on your list of concerns, but I write a lot of external evaluation letters for tenure/promotion cases in poli sci. Because of my work, I often write for folks who study law-related topics. Many publish some of their work in law reviews.

There are many ways to interpret this, as the other comments have suggested. There’s a huge difference between, “I want people to read my work and take it seriously” and “I did this work specifically to support my preferred policy/social/institutional change and I hope my work causes that change.”

This might be the most niche meme I’ve ever seen but I understand it perfectly.

Please do!! I’d love to read it. If you can’t find my email, DM me.

Yes. No notes.

Hopefully in a good way?

The Government Department, not the LBJ school! I was the first (of two) at UT to complete the combined JD/PhD with the gov dept and law school.

This article is out but it’s part of my book project on the same topic. So feedback is welcome!

This piece took years. An earlier draft was a chapter of my dissertation. It benefitted from the feedback of many, including @jktulis.bsky.social, @joshchafetz.bsky.social, @beaubaumann.bsky.social, @mgraber1.bsky.social, @richardre.bsky.social, and many others.

Just discovered that one of my articles was published! In it, I argue that judicial power has multiple components or dimensions, one of which is ideational. In other words, ideas and norms about courts’ proper role empower them over and above the traditional formal sources of power. Check it out!

There's only so much a constitution can do to channel or incentivize institutional perspective to align with the duties of the office. If someone simply refuses to do their constitutional duty, it's hard to fault the constitution itself.

I’m not (yet, etc.) a law professor but, when I’d grad undergrad conlaw exams when I was in grad school, I’d give exams like that about half credit or maybe little more.

Perhaps. But we’ve sometimes seen longer and more thorough explanations (even if unsatisfactorily so) come out on the “shadow docket” and I don’t think that removes them from the category, whatever we call the category. And maybe this is reason to justify terms rather than just reject others!

You may be right. I’m not sure I’ve seen an affirmative justification for continuing to use the “shadow docket” label rather than arguments that other labels are wrong. But maybe I’ve missed something in all the public writings.

My understanding is that it’s called the “shadow docket” because the decisions are made without the same procedural hurdles, press coverage, and public scrutiny as the cases on the merits docket. It’s about the process, not the decisions’ public rationale. At least that’s my understanding.

Maybe, but that doesn’t bear on the debate about what we call it.

One irony of the “shadow docket” term is that the more we talk about it, the less “in the shadows” it is.

Ah yes. Got it. Thanks.

Useless because Congress can’t/won’t legislate in response to national problems?

Opinion | At the Supreme Court, Scenes From a Judicial Backlash

1/ A few thoughts about @williambaude.bsky.social’s comment in yesterday’s NYT chat that, “It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/o...