Well, the first blurb for Holy Hullabaloos is in, and I'm delighted to report that Pam Karlan, the super Stanford Law Prof and Supreme Court adovcate (her official title is the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law) has kindly said some lovely things about the book for which I am quite grateful. When I was in law school, I took Professor Karlan's Voting Rights class. It was a delight. Karlan is not only brilliant and a great teacher, but she's funny as well. That's a rare combination in the law prof business, I can assure you (Bill Treanor, the dean at Fordham, is another member of this rare group of brilliant but hilarious legal academics). In addition to all her writing and teaching, Pam also argues lots of cases at the Supreme Court and usually gets more laughs from the audience than any of the Justices, which is no easy feat. She was on various short lists for the Solicitor General position that the President has now nominated Elena Kagan for (though if Kagan were to move up to, say, Supreme Court Justice, I'm sure Karlan would come up again) and is even talked about as a possible Justice on the Court itself. Her blurb I think perfectly captures the whole idea of the Holy Hullabaloos project. Here it is:
I've read a lot of entertaining travelogues and informative studies of Supreme Court cases, but never at the same time. Think Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation meets Peter Irons' The Courage of Their Convictions. When Jay Wexler revives the old practice of riding the circuits to visit the sites of the Court's great religion clauses cases, readers who tag along will enjoy the ride so much that they may not realize how much law they've learned along the way. Thank God for Holy Hullabaloos.
Thank you Pam!