Law Review

Prevailing traditions at the Yale Law Journal have always lent its pages an air of academic monasticism, the appropriate stylelessness for sophisticated subscribers. With the July issue, however, the discerning eye will see a distinct change. Of course, the language retains the same clanging formality, and, between covers, the unillustrated pages remain as gray as headstones. But the footnotes? Your honor, we offer evidence of a creeping interest in life outside the cloister: (3) "L.A.

A friend of mine had his name in the paper the other day. It was in an article speculating about who might inherit a prestigious post in the literary world when the current grandee retires. The article said that my friend would have led the list 10 years ago. Ouch! The obvious though unstated implication is that now he's too old. He just turned 60. He says he already has his dream job and didn't mind the idea that, because he is 60, some career opportunities have moved beyond his reach.

Barack Obama stares silently at a wall of fading black-and-white photographs in the muggy second-floor offices of the Harvard Law Review. He lingers over one row of solemn faces, his predecessors of 40 years ago. All are men. All are dressed in dark-colored suits and ties. All are white. It is a sobering moment for Obama, 28, who in February became the first black to be elected president in the 102-year history of the prestigious student-run law journal.

The video billed as Andrew Breitbart's last project is posted on the late conservative provocateur's website. It is so far provoking outrage from some corners and yawns from others. The footage of a Harvard law student protest in 1991 captures then-Harvard Law Review president Barack Obama speaking in support of a professor who had launched a campaign to push the school to hire more minority women to its faculty. Former Harvard professor Derrick Bell, the first black tenured professor at the institution, was eventually fired after refusing to come back from a leave over the issue of minority hiring.

It's only a half-hour subway ride from gritty, crowded Chinatown to the upper Manhattan campus of Columbia University, where earnest law students hustle purposefully from classroom to library. But Lawrence Wu, editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review, has come a lot farther than that since he wore his hair spiked and bleached and quit high school to join a Chinese gang. As a teenager, he patrolled his gang's turf on East Broadway and shook down shopkeepers for protection money.

A friend of mine had his name in the paper the other day. It was in an article speculating about who might inherit a prestigious post in the literary world when the current grandee retires. The article said that my friend would have led the list 10 years ago. Ouch! The obvious though unstated implication is that now he's too old. He just turned 60. He says he already has his dream job and didn't mind the idea that, because he is 60, some career opportunities have moved beyond his reach.

The embattled dean of a Santa Ana law school, accused of plagiarizing other works in a fall 2000 law review article about human rights, denied any wrongdoing Tuesday even as new questions arose about another, unpublished manuscript he wrote in 1996 on the same subject. Winston L.

Barack Obama's entry into politics came on a winter morning at the white-columned Harvard Law Review building when, about 2 a.m., a deeply divided editorial staff chose him as the first African American to lead the prestigious publication. It was no small accomplishment. Obama, who at nearly 30 was older and more world-wise than most of his classmates, had to navigate among sharply drawn factions of conservatives and liberals to beat 18 other candidates for the job.

Harry M. Cross, 88, a former National Collegiate Athletic Assn. president and law professor expert on property division in divorce cases, died Oct. 10 in Kirkland, Wash., of complications from knee surgery. A prominent member of the law faculty of the University of Washington from 1943 to 1984, Cross became the university's representative to the NCAA because of his passion for sports and playing by the rules.

Richard Lee Rykoff, 75, a Los Angeles attorney who defended film stars in the anti-communism McCarthy era. He was educated at UCLA and Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Law Review. After studying Japanese, Rykoff served as an interpreter and translator for Adm. Chester Nimitz during World War II. During the 1950s, the lifelong liberal lawyer defended Van Heflin, Lloyd Gough and other members of the film industry who were questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

John Davies, a major civic figure in San Diego for decades, particularly in education, urban planning and the revitalization of a once-crumbling downtown, died of pancreatic cancer Friday at his home in downtown San Diego. He was 76. Along with his civic involvement in San Diego, Davies was a member and then chairman of the University of California Board of Regents and also a trustee of the UC San Diego Foundation. Davies was a confidant and political ally of Pete Wilson during the latter's tenure as mayor, U.S. senator and California governor.

Handing the Obama administration a legal victory, the federal judge in Florida who ruled the new healthcare law unconstitutional has cleared the way for continued implementation of the sweeping overhaul. In a ruling released Thursday, Judge Roger E. Vinson, one of two federal judges who have said that the federal government cannot require Americans to get health insurance, stood by his Jan. 31 conclusion that the insurance mandate invalidates the whole law. But he backed the administration's request that his earlier ruling be stayed while appellate courts review the constitutionality of the new law. Vinson called on the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta to expedite that process so the healthcare law could be considered by the nation's highest court.

President Hamid Karzai said he had ordered a review of a new law that critics say makes it legal for men to rape their wives, responding to criticism from around the world that included sharp comments from President Obama. The law is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up about 10% of the country's 30 million people. Under one article, Shiite husbands are given the right to demand sex every fourth night unless the wife is ill. The United Nations Development Fund for Women has said the law "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband."

A company that installs the oversized advertisements known as supergraphics has gone to court to demand that Los Angeles let it keep images on as many as 118 multistory buildings while federal judges review challenges to city billboard regulations.

Officials at Eastern Michigan University violated federal law when they publicly ruled out foul play in the death of a student who actually had been raped and killed in her dormitory room, a U.S. Department of Education review concluded. The 18-page federal report said the school's actions violated the Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities to disclose campus security information, the school said in making the report public Tuesday.

Orange County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with the creation of a civilian commission that would review misconduct complaints against county law enforcement. The board agreed to spend two months fine-tuning details of the proposal before giving final approval, a concession to the sheriff, district attorney and some board members who criticized the current version.

John Davies, a major civic figure in San Diego for decades, particularly in education, urban planning and the revitalization of a once-crumbling downtown, died of pancreatic cancer Friday at his home in downtown San Diego. He was 76. Along with his civic involvement in San Diego, Davies was a member and then chairman of the University of California Board of Regents and also a trustee of the UC San Diego Foundation. Davies was a confidant and political ally of Pete Wilson during the latter's tenure as mayor, U.S. senator and California governor.

Barack Obama's entry into politics came on a winter morning at the white-columned Harvard Law Review building when, about 2 a.m., a deeply divided editorial staff chose him as the first African American to lead the prestigious publication. It was no small accomplishment. Obama, who at nearly 30 was older and more world-wise than most of his classmates, had to navigate among sharply drawn factions of conservatives and liberals to beat 18 other candidates for the job.

The place is called "the cage," and the lanky first-year New York University law student would soon find out why. He had come for a friendly game of three-on-three, a bit of pickup basketball on the legendary asphalt courts at Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street in Manhattan. Instead, he was guarded by a guy who fouled him hard, shoved him into the chain-link fence, and answered every complaint with an unapologetic: "Hey, that's how we play in New York."