Posner

[Volokh, Eugene]

John Noble writes (among other things):

> I searched Westlaw's law review database for "judge," "honorable" or 
> "hon" in the author-field and came up with about 450 hits dated 
> within the last two years. I only scanned the titles of the first 
> 200, but they were all about judicial administration, trial advocacy, 
> or tributes to deceased, retired or celebrated brothers on the bench, 
> including an interesting "Tribute to Judge Richard A. Posner," 61 
> NYUANSAL 9, by 2d CA Judge Pierre Leval, recalling their days 
> together at Yale Law School -- "When Dick spoke in class, what had 
> been obscure and confusing would suddenly become clear." I didn't see 
> any articles that addressed the merits of a controversial legal 
> issue, much less one snatched from the headlines.

	My former boss, Judge Kozinski, often writes or cowrites
articles on substantive legal issues; his piece with Stuart Banner on
Commercial Speech has been pretty influential (it's been cited about 200
times in the law reviews).  When I was clerking for him, we cowrote a
response to Akhil Amar's piece on R.A.V., which talked more generally
about "hate speech" regulations, and asserted conflicts between
constitutional provisions.  Pierre Leval has written several articles on
copyright and trademark while a sitting judge; one of them has been
cited 350+ times.  Justice Stewart wrote a pretty important article on
the Free Press Clause in his day.  Frank Easterbrook has written quite a
few articles on substantive topics while a sitting judge.

	It's true that most judges have little interest in writing law
review articles on substantive topics; but some judges are interested in
this, and do write on controversial legal issues.