Studying for ConLaw Finals? Binge watch 11 hours of SCOTUS Videos

For only $19.99, you can instantly stream our 11-hour library, and learn about the 100 Supreme Court cases everyone should know. Or jump around to watch the cases you studied in class. Here is a preview of all 100 videos. Click the "playlist" feature (3rd icon from the right):

 

Comments

[UVaGrad]

So you’ve gone from unceasing self-promotion to out-and-out “please buy my shit”?

You are easily the worst thing to happen to the VC in years. THIS IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL BLOG.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Now it's hucksterism, aimed at students anxious as they approach important examinations.

These guys thought this blog would make conservatives more attractive to those who hire law faculties at strong schools?

I am heartened to observe that this -- partisan polemics with a legal veneer; viewpoint-dependent censorship; shabby hawking and peddling; telling levels of white, male participation -- appears to be the best right-wing legal academia can do these days.

[Derelictionofbooty]

The best the left can do these days is an ideology as juvenille as: WHITE=BAD people, OF COLOR+GOOD People.

you are a brilliant algorithmic troll Reverend, I do gotta hand it to you.

[apedad]

Actually, what's juvenile is equating creating equal opportunity for all with removal of opportunity for white people.

If you're a white person and your life sucks then (ceteris paribus and with obvious exceptions), it's your fault.

[Derelictionofbooty]

Whereas when you of color and it sucks its just the system man.
I would just say that leftists dont seem to understand what a multivariate analysis is and that a disparity isnt ipso facto evidence of discrimination.

And nobody equated equal opportunity with removal, unless you so construe the granting of special privileges (in perpetuity apparently, as the left seems to envision no end to the affirmative action diversity grift)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What the left can do is our strongest schools and our strongest communities.

The liberal-libertarian mainstream: Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, Yale, Princeton. And many others. Conservatism: Hillsdale, Brigham Young, Grove City, Biola, Liberty. And many others. In general, the more conservative the campus, the lower the ranking.

The liberal-libertarian mainstream: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. Conservatism: Wyoming, Alabama, North Dakota; assorted can't-keep-up towns in Texas and Tennessee.

[Kazinski]

Why don't you hit the tip jar, and dig deep, then so everyone at Reason has a merry Christmas?

Or are you just going to suck up the free content and whine about the occasional blurb? Or better yet lobby for a return to the WaPo and the paywall?

This is a Libertarian blog after all, a little free market capitalism interspersed with the free content shouldn't shock anyone.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Prof. Volokh has provided me with plenty of entertainment over the years, and if he told me he wanted me to give him $20, I'd probably do it, especially if he was proposing to split it with the other bloggers.

Prof. Blackman's posts, by contrast, are at best tedious, and I prefer the tedious ones to the bottomless pool of self-promotion that he's been dragging this place into. I would probably be willing to invest a modest amount of money to have his postings removed from my version of the site, but I'm certainly not going to tip him.

But Prof. Blackman isn't asking for a tip. He's using this blog to advertise a tie-in product for his book. And he's advertising it in a particularly unethical way. Watching 11 hours of these videos isn't going to be a useful way to study for a law school exam, and I have to assume that a law professor knows that. So the fact that Prof. Blackman cares more about whatever his cut of the $19.99 would be than providing students with actual help. (Cf. Prof. Kerr, whose guide to reading cases is both very helpful, and offered gratis.)

[UVaGrad]

I own a copy of Volokh’s Academic Legal Writing. I bought it in law school. It helped me write on to law review!

If he said “we’re asking $10 from readers to pay for servers,” I would kick in 10 bucks.

Blackman is just using this place as a platform to pump up his own wallet. His interesting stuff tends to be cross-posted elsewhere (such as the musings on Roberts presiding over impeachment that also ran at Balkinization). His shit is just one giant combination of “please line my coffers” and “pretty please make me a SDTX judge,” with the occasional “I am annoyed by my objectively awesome life” thrown in for good measure.

People used to shit all over Stewart Baker. At least disagreements with him were substantive.

[Derelictionofbooty]

I feel like this is terrible advice for law school students

[LawTalkingGuy]

Everyone is different, but yeah, I don’t think this would be a very productive use of money or time for most students.

[David Welker]

It probably is a decent investment, assuming the video are well done. Less than $2 per hour of video.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Whether the videos are good or not, they're almost certainly not a good study tool for law students, which is how Prof. Blackman is advertising them.

Law students, if you find yourselves with 11 hours and $20 to spare in the next month, you have much better things to do with it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Save the 11 hours for outlining, practice problems, some group study, and reviewing cases.

If you’re really stuck, and it’s not in the library, spend the $20 on a nutshell for the class you’re having the hardest time with. Otherwise, save it for some post-finals drinks with your friends.

[anorlunda]

We love you Mr. Blackman, but that does not excuse SPAM on this blog.

Where are the Reason moderators?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Where are the Reason moderators?"

Policing for "civility," which in practice involves censoring those who make fun of conservatives, mostly.

[DerekCar]

You are ruining this blog.

[David Welker]

I think the idea of these videos is very cool. I have nothing against them or the promotion of them. However, I think that we should avoid marketing hype here at the Volokh Conspiracy. Which I would distinguish from self-promotion.

There are exactly 100 cases that "everyone" should know? Interesting. Such a "coincidence" that the number of cases that should be known is such a round number.

That it is a round number is marketing hype, not reality. People like numbers ending in zero. 100 ends in zero. So, we will say that the number of cases that should be known is 100.

If humans had 8 fingers instead of 10, maybe the number of cases that everyone should know would be 64 instead (presumably written as 100, if we had an octal instead of decimal numbering system).

I get it that if you rank Supreme Court cases by order of importance (using some sort of criteria that is most likely at least somewhat arbitrary and biased), you can come up with the top N cases, where N can be any number. Why not a round number?

But the addition of "everyone" should know? They should know the top 100 cases, but not the top 101 cases? And know for what purpose? Pure marketing hype.

[Doug Heffernan]

The title of this "piece" of advertorial content on Volokh mentions 11 hours of video content.

The preview videos on youtube mention 12 hours.

Even if the latter is correct, the average time of each of the 100 videos must be only around 7.2 minutes.

Maybe a great job can be done in that amount of time, but it sure doesn't look that way based on the "free" preview minute of each video on youtube. The video production team at Wolters Kluwer need some training themselves on how not to make their videos look like infomercial ads on legacy TV.

Maybe provide a free full video for a few of the cases so that prospective purchasers can make an informed decision about whether or not they have any value, or are at least less sucky than they seem.