Update on the status of the blog

 If you are a long time reader of this blog you will have noticed that I have not posted anything in almost six months and that I posted less frequently than usual in the past couple of years.  The reason for this is that I have been slowly moving toward retirement and that I have started to spend more time on other courses I teach and on projects that I want to pay attention to in the near future.

I have been posting my comments here for more than 15 years which is longer than the average lifespan of most blogs.  Now it is time for me to start to cut back a little and manage my time more efficiently.  I will continue to post commentary from time to time but, more than likely, not very frequently.  

I started this blog as a way to provide my students access to stories from the news related to what we cover in class, but which we did not have time to discuss in the classroom.  Essentially, it was meant to provide supplementary readings.  Slowly but surely, however, people other than my students started to pay attention and eventually I had more “outside” readers than students following the posts.  

I want to thank each and every one of you for following the blog, reading the stories, and for sending me materials to comment on and messages of support and criticism. 

New article on SSRN

Professor Stacie Strong recently posted an article on SSRN which may be of interest to some of you.  It is called Pro Bono Publico Versus Pro Bono Presidential. Its abstract reads 

In March and April 2025, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders directed at various law firms that had represented clients or undertaken actions with which the president disagreed. Those executive orders imposed various sanctions capable of destroying the firms financially. The administration also threatened a number of other law firms with similar types of executive orders.

While a few law firms chose to challenge the executive orders in court, the majority of firms targeted by the president entered into informal settlement agreements whereby the firms promised to provide between $40 million and $125 million worth of free “pro bono legal services” to causes supported by the president. In return, the president either revoked any sanction-containing executive orders or withheld from issuing such orders.

This Essay considers the propriety of these pro bono agreements from several perspectives. First, this Essay considers the voluntary nature of pro bono and examines the propriety of the executive branch coercing private lawyers to accede to particular pro bono obligations. Second, this Essay discusses the nature of pro bono activities as a means of assisting indigent individuals and considers whether presidential efforts to direct how private law firms fulfill their pro bono obligations constitute an improper privatization of the executive branch’s policy goals, particularly given presidential cuts to and curtailment of conventional public means of fulfilling those policy goals. Third, this Essay considers whether and to what extent the executive orders and settlement agreements discussed herein violate hard or soft principles of international law. The Essay concludes with brief suggestions about how to proceed going forward.