[JURIST] JURIST's Paper Chase has outgrown the confines of JURIST's front page, and is about to move to a new webpage all its own. Paper Chase updates will be very intermittent over the next couple of days as we make the transition, and our front page is adjusted accordingly. Paper Chase will still be accessible from here, but what you will see will be rolling highlights of Paper Chase's RSS feed (the URL of which, by the way, will not change) rather than the weblog itself. Stay tuned!

[JURIST] As previously noted in JURIST's Paper Chase, UC Berkeley School of Law [official website] and Stanford Law School [official website] both hosted major IP and technology law conferences over the weekend. The New York Times reports in its Monday edition.

Harold Koh [faculty profile] and Amy Chua [faculty profile] joined other professors and human rights experts over the weekend for a symposium at Yale Law School [official website] on the relationship between local and international actors in rebuilding war-torn nations. The Yale Daily News has more.

Jan Schlichtmann, the crusading attorney played by John Travolta in the 1998 film "A Civil Action" about Schlichtmann's representation of Massachusetts families whose children were diagnosed with leukemia after drinking contaminated tap water spoke at the University of Florida Levin College of Law [official website] Saturday. The University of Florida Alligator reports.

Kim Ford-Mazrui [faculty profile] of the University of Virginia School of Law [official website] warned an audience celebrating Black History Month there February 20 that the US Supreme Court is likely to strike the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy, a move that may end possibly end university affirmative action nationwide. UVA Law has more.

[JURIST] Monday on SSRN:

Law, Rules and Presidential Selection [abstract]
by Samuel Issacharoff [faculty profile] of Columbia Law School [official website]
From the Abstract: "Robert Dahl, in 'How Democratic is the American Constitution?' criticizes the institution of the Electoral College as 'morally, politically, and constitutionally wrong.' This Article addresses the third of those claims. Dahl's critique, like many directed against the Electoral College, presumes a constitutional commitment to majoritarianism. This Article examines the rather commonplace departures from strict majoritarian rule in the Constitution, and concludes that the distortions from majoritarian preferences created by the Electoral College are actually much smaller in scope than those created by the U.S. Senate, the Article V amendment process and, to some extent, the House of Representatives. Moreover, subsequent constitutional developments - namely the 'Reapportionment Revolution' of Baker v. Carr and later cases - have not enshrined a constitutional principle of simple majoritarianism that might undermine the constitutional foundation of the Electoral College."

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in Sell v. US [US SC docket] (forced medication, competency to stand trial - read backgrounders from DC appellate litigators Goldstein & Howe and Sam Heldman) and Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates [US SC docket] (First Amendment, telemarketing fraud - more from Goldstein & Howe and Sam Heldman).