By Andrew Cohen
A published author himself, Professor Robert Berring ’74 knows how arduous the journey can be from initial idea to finished book. But that didn’t stop him from needling his colleagues at a recent reception feting Berkeley Law faculty who have published books since last year.
Returning to his longtime role as MC of the annual event after a brief hiatus, Berring divvied the roster of books into various categories and—befitting the occasion—bestowed some winning wordplay honors.
Two timely examples, as Election Day approaches: The “Why I Shouldn’t Have Watched the Presidential Debates” award for On War and Democracy by Christopher Kutz, and the “Where Are Your Deleted Emails?” award” for Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy by Chris Jay Hoofnagle.
The event celebrated the authors’ impressive range of expertise, research and creativity. The books confront topics such as corporate taxation, legal theory, ocean law, juvenile justice and the pursuit of war criminals since World War II. Professors Jesse Choper, Meir Dan-Cohen, Peter Menell, Robert Merges and Harry Scheiber have each published multiple books since 2015.
Berkeley Law’s scholars tackled several hot-button areas and produced some groundbreaking work. To wit: Kenneth Bamberger and Deirdre Mulligan won the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ 2016 Privacy Leadership Award for their comparative study of privacy regimes and corporate privacy practices in the U.S. and Europe. Their book, Privacy on the Ground, marks the first major examination of how privacy regulations actually work in practice to change corporate or government behavior.
Creative writing
Many of Berring’s bestowments drew laughter from the crowd. They included “Most Seductive Jacket Copy” (Dan-Cohen’s Normative Subjects: Self and Collectively in Morality and Law), the “Sliced, Diced and Concise” award for the group’s shortest book (John McNulty’s Federal Income Taxation of S Corporations), and the “Practice What You Preach” honor (Daniel Farber’s Climate Change Law), which is printed on “elemental, chlorine-free, recycled paper containing 30 percent post-consumer waste.”
Other creative gems: The “Book You’re Most Likely to See Someone Reading on a BART Train” award to Eric Rakowski for The Trolley Problem Mysteries, the “Herding Cats” award for the Oxford Handbook of Hobbes—a composite of 27 separate chapter authors co-edited by Kinch Hoekstra—and Peter Menell’s hefty three-volume Patent Case Management Judicial Guide that Berring said could also be used as a formidable weapon.
All humor aside, Berring pointed out the books’ stellar reviews and significant impact. In bestowing his Rookie of the Year award to Karen Tani, the group’s youngest author, he noted that States of Dependency: Welfare, Rights, and American Governance, 1935-1972 “was one of the best-reviewed books” and marked “the obvious start of a stupendous career.”
Berring also hailed a new approach to how books are published. Earlier this year, Menell founded Clause 8 Publishing to promote the creation and dissemination of innovative, timely, educational resources at reasonable prices that ensure fair revenue flow to authors. Clause 8 aims to streamline the publishing process and capitalize on evolving digital platforms as well as print-on-demand.
“It’s one thing to publish a book,” Berring said. “It’s another to re-think how books are published. This is a real paradigm shift.”
Berkeley Law Faculty Books 2015-2016
Kenneth Bamberger and Deirdre Mulligan. Privacy on the Ground: Driving Corporate Behavior in the United States and Europe.
Andrew Bradt, Stephen Bundy and William Fletcher. Pleading and Procedure: Cases and Materials (11th edition), co-author Geoffrey Hazard.
Jesse Choper (co-author). Constitutional Law: Cases, Comments, and Questions (12th edition), co-authors Richard Fallon, Jr., Yale Kamisar, Steven Shiffrin, Michael Dorf and Frederick Schauer; 1st Amendment: Cases-Comments-Questions (6th edition), co-authors Steven Shiffrin and Frederick Schauer; Leading Cases in Constitutional Law (2015 and 2016 editions), co-authors Richard Fallon, Jr., Yale Kamisar and Steven Shiffrin.
Meir Dan-Cohen. Rights, Persons, and Organizations: A Legal Theory for Bureaucratic Society (2nd edition); Normative Subjects: Self and Collectively in Morality and Law.
Daniel Farber (co-editor). Climate Change Law, co-editor Marjan Peeters.
William Fernholz, Stephen Rosenbaum and Susan Schechter (co-authors). Building on Best Practices: Transformative Legal Education in a Changing World, many co-authors.
Kinch Hoekstra (co-editor). The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes, co-editor Al Martinich.
Chris Jay Hoofnagle. Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy.
Christopher Kutz. On War and Democracy.
John McNulty. Federal Income Taxation of S Corporations (2nd edition).
Peter Menell (lead author). Patent Case Management Judicial Guide (3rd edition, three volumes); Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age: 2016 (three volumes), co-author Robert Merges; Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (2nd edition), co-authors Mark Lemley and Robert Merges.
Robert Merges. Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age: 2016 (three volumes), co-author Peter Menell; Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (2nd edition), co-authors Mark Lemley and Peter Menell.
Eric Rakowski (editor). The Trolley Problem Mysteries.
Susan Schechter (co-author). Learning from Practice: A Text for Experiential Legal Education (3rd edition), many co-authors.
Harry Scheiber. Bayonets in Paradise: Martial Law in Hawai’i during World War II, co-author Jane Scheiber; Constitutional Governance and Judicial Power: The History of the Supreme Court (editor); Science, Technology, and New Challenges in Ocean Law (co-editor with James Kraska and Moon-Sang Kwon).
Steven Davidoff Solomon (co-author). Mergers and Acquisitions: Law, Theory and Practice, co-authors Claire Hill and Brian J.M. Quinn.
Eric Stover and Alexa Koenig (co-authors). Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremburg to the War on Terror, co-author Victor Peskin.
Karen Tani. States of Dependency: Welfare, Rights, and American Governance, 1935-1972.
John Yoo (co-editor). Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State, co-editor Dean Reuter.
Franklin Zimring (co-editor). Juvenile Justice in Global Perspective, co-editors Maximo Langer and David Tanenhaus.