learn your bob dylan, cause the judiciary just loves him.
A
couple of weeks ago I read an item in Idealawg
about Professor Michael Perlin of
New York Law School who apparently enjoys the music of Bob Dylan so much that
he works Dylan song
lyrics into the titles of all of his articles.
This reminded me of an item I read this summer about U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. In a dissent filed this summer in Sprint v. ACC, Chief Justice Roberts wrote: “’When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisted (Columbia Records 1965).”
Although legal historians have likely ignored Roberts’ Sprint dissent, Dylan aficionados immediately objected to Roberts’ correction of Dylan’s grammar. The actual song lyric is: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
Principal among these objectors is Professor Alex Long of the Oklahoma University City School of Law. A couple of years ago Professor Long published a study of the most often cited song lyrics in judicial opinions and legal periodicals. According to Professor Long’s results, Bob Dylan is the most cited, followed by the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, and Paul Simon.
Professor Long blames Roberts’ error on his law clerks: “I suppose their use of the Internet to check the lyrics violates one of the first rules they learned when they were all on law review: when quoting, always check the quote with the original source, not someone else’s characterization of what the source said.”
Apparently, USF Law is now offering meditation and interpersonal skills courses to help their students with social skills. How many more clerking errors will there be before law schools wise up and start offering music classes?
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