Some news of varying degrees of excitement:0-11

Ah, the beginning of exam-grading period: it is, by my lights, the best time to procrastinate by writing incessantly. And while my wife could have been eating donuts with Jack in Tucson the last few days, I've had the chance to finish assemble cobble from here and there a shitty first draft of Implementing Retributive Damages. Ok, "draft" is overstated; there are still various holes  in the text to write.  But as the second of a trilogy -- you can read a more developed draft of the first part, Retributive Damages, up on SSRN --  Implementing Retributive Damages raises and hopefully resolves all sorts of neat policy questions that I had to defer from the first installment. 

This bricolage comes just in time. On Thursday I'm slotted to present the basic ideas of the paper to my colleagues here at FSU Law over lunch before going on the road with it this summer to Vancouver, NYC, and Palm Beach. If you're in the 'Hassee this Thursday, and interested, please let me know--you're welcome to come munch on Qdoba or some such with us while I talk about pluralism about punitive damages purposes, punishing entities, dirty-handed plaintiffs, and procedural safeguards for civil defendants facing retributive damages.

Speaking of FSU Law, some really great news in the last few days has emerged. First, our graduates just led the state in bar passage--again. Florida State ranked first among Florida’s ten law schools in the passing rate on the February 2008 administration of the Florida Bar Examination. Our first place passing rate of 93.6% was followed by UF’s passing rate of 88.3%. The overall passing rate was 76.4%. Florida State Law has had the highest passing rate in four of the last five administrations of the Florida Bar Exam.  Second, and at least equally impressive, the Dean recently announced that according to data recently released by the ABA, Florida State Law has the 13th best alumni giving rate among the nation’s law schools, at 26.1%, with only two state schools ahead of us, UVa and UCLA.  Given FSU's relative youth and its status as a public law school, I think that sense of alumni engagement says something quite good about the school -- and our development office!  Moreover, it looks like this coming year we will have a burgeoning smatter of criminal justice-related activities and initiatives that I'll be coordinating with Wayne Logan. More on that to follow.

Last, though definitely not least, Prawfsfest! is coming!! After two successful incubator workshops at Miami and Loyola LA the last two Decembers, we are now contemplating a move toward doing them on a semi-annual basis instead of an annual one. Well, that's the ambition; that, and warm weather hosts during the winter.  Toward that goal, I'm thrilled to announce that Dean Nora Demleitner and her colleagues at Hofstra will be hosting Prawfsfest! this coming July. Details are still being worked out, but we will gather in NY before the SEALS Conference. Stay tuned for more info on this great match: Hawfsfest! at Prawfstra. Er, I meant Prawfsfest! at Hofstra.