The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Video: Lee Fennell Discusses Her Book, "The Unbounded Home"

The University News Office recently produced a short video interview with Professor of Law Lee Fennell, in which she talks about the ideas in her recent book, The Unbounded Home. According to the book's publisher, it

grapples with a core modern reality -- that the value and meaning of a home extend beyond its property lines to schools, shops, parks, services, neighbors, neighborhood aesthetics, and market conditions. The resulting tension between the homeowner’s desire for personal autonomy at home and the impulse to control everything that could affect the home’s value fuels continual conflict among neighbors and communities. 

The home’s unbounded nature implicates nearly every facet of residential life, from the financial vulnerability of homeowners to the persistence of segregation by race and class. This book shows how innovations that increase the flexibility of property law can address critical issues of neighborhood control and community composition that have been simmering unresolved for decades -- and how homeownership itself can be reinvented to better deliver on its promises. 

The video interview is embedded after the jump.

Audio: Leiter, Nussbaum, and the Top 10 Most Pressing Philosophical Issues for the 21st Century

Philosophy Talk, a weekly, one-hour radio series, recently celebrated their 200th episode with a discussion of the "Top 10 most pressing philosophical issues for the 21st century." The discussion included Chicago's own Brian Leiter and Martha Nussbaum. Listen to the show here.

Audio: Epstein on Bilski

Continuing with today's Epstein/Fed Soc theme, the Federalist Society has posted a recording of Prof. Epstein discussing Bilski v. Kappos. The SCOTUS heard oral argument in the case on November 9. According to the Fed Soc site,

The issue in this case is whether a "process" must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or transform a particular article into a different state or thing in order to be eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

You can download the podcast here.

Video: Richard Epstein on the Redistribution of Wealth

Over on the Federalist Society's YouTube Channel, they've posted an 11-part series entitled "Redistribution of Wealth," recorded at the 2009 National Lawyers Convention on Thursday, November 12, 2009. Our own Richard Epstein was one of the discussants.

Other participants included Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO of Forbes Inc. and Editor of Forbes Magazine; Prof. Jed Rubenfeld of Yale Law School; Andrew L. Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union; and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as the moderator.

Video: Richard Posner on Fiscal Irresponsibility and the Future of the U.S.

The Council on Foreign Relations has posted a video of Judge Posner discussing the topic "Fiscal Irresponsibility Clouds the Future of the United States." The discussion is part of the CFR's C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics.

Audio: Milton Friedman on "Capitalism and the Jews"

If you're looking to something to do during that extra hour this weekend, you may want to check out an audio file that was just uploaded to the Law School's website: a talk by legendary University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

This recording was made on October 15, 1978 by James H. Fox, JD '78.

The speech was originally scheduled for the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation, but was moved to the University of Chicago Law School Auditorium upon the announcement the week before of his Nobel Prize in Economics.

In the talk, Professor Friedman begins with two seemingly contradictory propositions (namely, "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who owe so great a debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism as the Jews," and "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who have done so much to undermine the intellectual foundations of capitalism as the Jews") and then attempts to reconcile them.

Video: Epstein Debates Judy Feder on Health Care

NYU has posted a video of a recent debate between Richard Epstein and Georgetown's Judy Feder about health care reform. You can watch the video here, and below is a sneak peek of Epstein's position, courtesy of the NYU website:

While agreeing with Feder that the system needed drastic fixes, Epstein differed stridently on what was required. Arguing that “cartel-like restrictions,” mandates, and subsidies in government programs like Medicare had caused healthcare’s woes, Epstein said that the current model of a system like Medicare was not tenable when extended to the broader population: “If all you’re going to try to do is to give everybody the same level of protection that you give to current Medicare recipients, you’ll not be able to finance it with any of the devices that she’s talking about.”

One of the primary problems, Epstein said, was that potential competitors to existing insurance firms lack free entry into local markets, resulting in insurance monopolies. He argued that Obama should pass legislation to correct a “deeply anticompetitive system,” but predicted that the administration would instead “buy off all the interest groups with corrupt bargains” and introduce taxation and cross-subsidy programs that “will bankrupt the nation.” The public health plan option, Epstein continued, would be run by a “bunch of blithering incompetents.... What you’re watching here is a grotesque concatenation of every bad left-wing liberal policy in the last 40 years, and the time has come to stop it.” Epstein prescribed instead a series of “mid-level rationalizations” involving medical malpractice and price restriction issues, as well as the application of contract law.

Audio: Richard Epstein on Patent Rights in the Supreme Court

Continuing our recent (unintentional) theme of patent law and the Supreme Court, we'd like to draw your attention to a recent Federalist Society podcast that featured our own Richard Epstein, along with Scott Kieff (George Washington University Law School), Mark Lemley (Stanford University Law School), Fred von Lohmann (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and Adam Mossoff (UChicago Law '01 and now prof at George Mason University School of Law), discussing the Quanta case. Listen to the podcast and get some more background on the case here.

Audio: Jonathan Masur on Patent Law and the Future of Economic Regulation

This year's annual First Monday lectures -- given each year to give alumni in several cities a chance to discuss with current faculty the issues facing the Supreme Court in its upcoming term -- were presented by Assistant Professor of Law Jonathan Masur. His talk was entitled "The Assertive Supreme Court: Patent Law and the Future of Economic Regulation." The version presented at the lecture in Chicago last week is now online.

Audio: Epstein and Lessig on Campaign Finance Reform

Richard Epstein recently faced off with former Chicago prof Lawrence Lessig on campaign finance reform on the WRFU program The Logic Consortium. Professors Epstein and Lessig agreed heartily on the goals, somewhat less so on the means. You can listen to the program here.