Madisonian

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By: University of Pittsburgh School of Law

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Michael Madison

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The following was published on July 5, 2021 at Postindustrial, a Pittsburgh-based magazine. Part 1 was published at Postindustrial on July 1, 2021 and is reproduced here. By Michael Madison Where is Pittsburgh’s growth going to come from?  Partly, it may come from the ever-elusive productivity gains that arise from substituting computers for humans. Partly, it may come from us, from our increasing and changing patterns of consumption. Like most of the U.S., Pittsburgh…
The following was published on July 1, 2021 at Postindustrial, a Pittsburgh-based magazine. Part 2 was published at Postindustrial on July 5, 2021 and is reproduced here. By Michael Madison Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor, a favorite in Pittsburgh’s iconic Strip District, made national headlines recently when the co-owners responded to difficulty in recruiting scoopers by raising wages to $15 per hour. As an anecdote about labor markets in a Postindustrial city, the episode…
This is a simple directory of full-time law professors hosting and/or producing podcasts. I pulled all of the information here from public websites and Twitter. Inclusion criteria are simple. For each podcast, at least one host and/or producer must be a full-time member of a law faculty. Podcast series produced by law schools or centers or institutes within law schools are also included. Podcasts hosted or produced by students, including podcasts associated with student-edited journals,…
The following was published on March 31, 2021 at Postindustrial, under the headline “Renewing Pittsburgh’s Governance.” It is Pittsblog-ish content. What does that mean? I explained earlier, here. There is more Pittsblog-ish content to come. Happy New Year. By Michael Madison A little more than 15 years ago, I made a minor name for myself as a Pittsburgh observer by publishing a newspaper column that argued, bluntly, that the Allegheny Conference on Community Development had outlasted …
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The following was published on January 1, 2021 at Postindustrial, under the headline “Let’s expand what it means to be ‘a Pittsburgher.’” It is Pittsblog-ish content. What does that mean? I explained earlier, here. There is more Pittsblog-ish content to come. Happy New Year. By Michael Madison What if the future of Pittsburgh did not ritually invoke the historical sweat equity of steelworkers and their wives and children? What if the future of Pittsburgh did…
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The following was published last month at Postindustrial, in print and online, under the headline “Imagining a future Pittsburgh for all: Creating a thriving postindustrial economy means moving past a region of our imagination.” This is Pittsblog-ish content. What does that mean? I explained earlier, here. There is more Pittsblog-ish content to come. Pittsburgh’s public sphere has no shortage of great, idealistic, ambitious goals for a new, 21st century, now post-pandemic Pittsburgh: equity, inclusion, wealth, happiness,…
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Begin here. Then read this. Evidence Despite the many flaws of law schools today, and despite naivete, ignorance, and obstinacy on the parts of schools, faculty, law firms, and practicing lawyers, I’m optimistic about the future.  Why?  Because I look at the large number of things in flux today, even looking only and specifically at law practice and legal education, and my story-oriented interpretation is that somethings (plural) are starting to shake loose. The scriptwriters,…
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This is the third and final installment of a response to a recent Forbes.com essay from Mark Cohen about the present and future and future of legal education. Mark’s essay is “Post-Pandemic Legal Education.”  I posted a quick hot take as Legal Education’s Waterloo, dove in more deeply with Legal Education’s Waterloo: Urgency, and jumped to the end of the story in Legal Education’s Waterloo: The End Game.  This is…
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Begin here. Story One  Evolutionary (or adaptive) professionalism.  Technological change, shifting financial markets, expanding and contracting labor markets, fluid trade patterns – the legal profession has seen these before, and it’s seeing related things now.  The values and principles that define law, lawyers, and the profession are durable and transcend the details of specific organizational forms and educational pathways.  Law schools today and law practice organizations should steer into the skid, so to speak,…
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This is the second part of a promised three-part response to Mark Cohen’s recent Forbes.com essay (“Post-Pandemic Legal Education”) about what confronts legal education today and what awaits it in the future. My initial hot take appeared here, as Legal Education’s Waterloo. My first substantive reaction, Legal Education’s Waterloo: Urgency, agreed with the premise that US legal education confronts immense challenges, but it focused on cultural prompts rather than financial ones…