Michael Smith

Going on the market may seem hard, but think of how much worse it is for people who have to attend job talks and pretend to have read the paper.

1/x Really excited to say that my job talk paper, “Remembering Congress in the Myers-to-Humphrey’s Interregnum,” is coming out through the Pennsylvania Law Review. I am dying to work with Penn’s outstanding editors to bring this paper to the finish line. Thanks, y’all!

Kash Patel chugging a beer in the hockey locker room. Beer is labeled "my articles" and his shirt is labeled "Harv. L. Rev."

Keeping my submission memes timely

there can be genuinely good use cases for LLMs when teaching, but far too often, it's literally just people phoning it in and using an LLM to pick up the slack

Wonderful work from my colleague, Stan! Check it out: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A black cat crouching right in front of the camera, looking on with an intense expression as it licks its nose.

Good evening, friend

Waiting for Akhil

What the hell?!

(In case anyone is worried, this is a bit. What the hell is an emergency podcast episode.)

I've seen complaints about how @ssrn.bsky.social is deteriorating, nearly all of which I'm experiencing as well.

Another problem I've been noticing in the last month or so is that recently posted papers don't appear in Google search results. Old ones come up, but new ones are invisible. Not great!

Videos like this demonstrate how kind I continue to be in my work on generative AI: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

How is this different from any other day of my life?

sorry, my weekend is booked solid listening to emergency podcast episodes about the tariff case

At @uofoklahomalaw.bsky.social, we are committed to supporting the work of junior faculty. This week, we hosted a regional workshop, for junior faculty from four schools in the area. We look forward to hosting more events in the years to come!

The SSRN abstract for Noah Chauvin's article "The Capture of the Congressional Intelligence Committees."

"The Capture of the Congressional Intelligence Committees" is forthcoming from the UC Irvine Law Review! It argues that Congress's intelligence oversight committees have become the intelligence community's biggest boosters on Capitol Hill.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Boring! Do better!!

Done with reading Learning Resources and prepping it for class. Now onto the blessedly short (26-page!) cybercrimes moot court problem for tomorrow's practice round.

Proposing my state constitutional law course by writing "Constitution" on a piece of paper, adding an "s" at the end, and then drawing a vertical line through the s.

(1) The value of weird scholarship; (2) Varieties of odd work, how to write it, why to publish it; (3) @brianlfrye.bsky.social; (4) Whoever is cheap enough to bribe; (5) Everyone comes up with an insane idea on the fly and submits it before the symposium's end; (6) $0.00 (spent all money on bribe).

I'm teaching it Monday and will now be referring to it as "The Case That Other Law Professors Don't Want You to Know About."

Do we need concurrences commenting on concurrences commenting on concurrences?

Thrilled that my article, Forgotten Framers: Black Conventions and the Second Founding, is forthcoming in the Stan. L. Rev. @stanlrev.bsky.social. It discusses Black Conventions held during Reconstruction and how these conventions are critical to a proper understanding of the 13, 14, & 15th Amdts.

Brian Krassenstein tweet, edited to say, "While many of you are likely yelling "GO PATRIOTS" or "GO SEAHAWKS" I'm yelling "GO NEAL KATYAL and the rule of law!"

Just wrapped up a day of workshops at OU's regional junior faculty workshop!

Did anything happen in the meantime?

Thrilled that my article with William ("Chip") Carter, An Originalist Critique of Fetal Personhood, is now forthcoming in the Pennsylvania Law Review!!! It was weirdly fun to spend months buried in 19th century dictionaries & Locke's writings. We are still editing but hope to have it online soon!

this is what it's like to send out multiple articles in a single submission cycle

Do I know anyone in San Antonio who’d want to meet up for dinner tomorrow? #BskyMeetup

My go-to used bookstore: Cheever Books.

Lunch (and top) recommendation: La Fonda on Main. Breakfast: two of my go-to's were Magnolia Pancake House and Max & Louie's, but honestly most hole-in-the-wall Mexican places will have good breakfast tacos, which would be my top choice if I were only visiting. Missions: good activity.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“Woah, I thought we were just having a good time here! This unitary executive thing was small time. I don’t know what these crazy kids are up to nowadays.”