Something has been bugging me about the much-praised Mark Carney's speech in Davos. And given that I've been reading legal/political speeches with my students, I decided to try to figure out what exactly bothered me about Carney's speech. open.substack.com/pub/rtall/p/...
I wanted to find the location of a 150-year old thought experiment on free will proposed by William James. I ended up in a map-nerd detective story open.substack.com/pub/rtall/p/...
If you're a law professor and you think your student evaluations are unfair, you might want to read this and reconsider your complaints rtall.substack.com/p/being-a-la...
"There was also a fine set for any teacher who tried to avoid a difficult question by postponing its treatment..."
AI optimists like to mention the “Jevons paradox.” But the Jevons paradox doesn’t tell us who will make money and who will get squeezed in the age of AI.
Some thoughts on AI, lawyers, and the Jevons paradox substack.com/@rtallarita/...
...and other interesting things. In the next few days, I will publish a condensed transcript on Mostly Footnotes, my new substack. You can subscribe (it's free of course) to get notifications about new content.
➡️https://rtall.substack.com
Yesterday, I had the pleasure to speak with David Wakeling, Global Head of the AI Group at A&O Shearman, in front of an audience of HLS faculty and students.
We talked about how associates use AI, the future of Big Law and law schools...
From my conversations with ChatGPT 5: Is it try to placate me? Should I be more or less worried after this? www.linkedin.com/posts/robert...
On the lax standards at Harvard, 1866:
"Harvard Law School at the time had ... no examinations: its only requirement... was periodic attendance at lectures... [Oliver Wendell] Holmes stopped doing even that... Harvard still awarded him a degree" [G. Eward White 2009]
"Very interesting and recommended" Not bad for a "law & baseball" paper! Thanks @lsolum.bsky.social!
Over at @HarvardCorpGov there's a short summary of my new paper with Kenneth Khoo on the stock market response to SB 21 |The Price of Delaware Corporate Law Reform corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/08/04/t...
Tonight we’ll learn the fundamentals of scorekeeping
New working paper (with Kenneth Khoo) on the controversial Delaware corporate law reform (SB 21). We examine the market reaction to SB 21 through a series of event studies and we find that the market thinks the new rules are bad for investors.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Comments welcome!
I haven’t visited Henry in a while—five or six months. Sorry, Henry. But he’s doing well—just a bit grumpy these days. “Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice?”
Yes! It's the light warning about the next tunnel. But congratulations on this well-deserved end of one tunnel!
Im here to tell you that a harpsichord solo can be exhilarating if Ian Watson is playing Brandenburg no. 5
The new Delaware bill on controlling shareholders is the end of an era. www.linkedin.com/posts/robert...
When I make "Tallarita's Corporations Illustrated" publicly available, I'm sure this will be one of the most beloved illustrations
I don't know anything anymore about films, but I can't forget the epiphany of watching this when it came out, in a small theater in Rome, in Via delle Quattro Fontane. Lynch was pure, absolute cinema. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTYz...
In one of my previous lives I was in love with cinema. I went to festivals and wrote reviews and critical essays for independent webzines. And it was mostly David Lynch's fault.
I like the debate on whether today's economists should read old economists, but a more interesting one is whether generals should travel to the battlefield with a small library of classics
If I had to found a new religion, it would be entirely based on Moby Dick. Its scripture would be the novel itself and its theologians would write endless commentaries on the moral, spiritual, and existential implications of random quotes of the Moby Dick bot
Many people don’t like the idea of a literary canon. I do like it, but if the editor of the NYT Book Review doesn’t read the canon, (sadly) there is no canon.
Then, if the topic permits, you should start with a “funny story.” Or, if the topic is too serious for this, with something sad, new, or terrible. Because, when one has already eaten too much, you refresh their appetite by giving them something bitterish or something sweet.
Fourth, sometimes readers are fatigued even before starting to read, like when you are trying to contribute to an already huge literature. In this case, you “should promise to speak more briefly than you were prepared to speak.”
And how do you show that the issues are important? If they concern all humanity, that particular audience, the interests of the republic, some illustrious people (yes, this applies to academic papers), or the immortal gods (this, unfortunately, doesn’t apply).
Third, there’s only one way to win the reader’s attention: show that the things you are going to say are important, novel, and incredible (magna, nova, incredibilia). Well, they don’t need to be truly “incredible” in our line of business, but they shouldn’t be obvious.
Uncertain cases (anceps genus causae): These are cases on which reasonable people disagree. The introduction should immediately tackle the disputed question.
Complicated cases (obscurum genere causae): If the issues are difficult to grasp, you should make the reader receptive by presenting an outline of the case (summam causae) briefly and in plain language (aperte et breviter).
Modest cases (humile genus causae): When the reader is likely to treat the topic dismissively, you must first explain why the issue is important and make the reader pay attention.
