Jim Chen made my day, and I mean that sincerely, not at all in a Dirty Harryesque “Go ahead, make my day” kind of way (see also), quite the opposite. Read this post at MoneyLaw, and then read this one. Jim’s academic scholarship has generated a lot of controversy over the years, and while I don’t always agree with him on specific issues, it’s hard not to admire his fearlessness. Neither embracing feminism nor copping to a working class family background is helpful to the career of a typical legal academic, but Jim seems to be doing both.
–Ann Bartow
I’m not at all surprised at what you say here about Jim. I recently had the privilege to correspond with him (he initiated it!) and was quite gratified to learn how genuinely and broadly humane (in the classical sense) and generous the man is (his intellectual prowess goes without saying). He kept up the correspondence even after learning I possess few academic credentials (no PhD for instance), and none whatsoever in the law. You really hit the mark regarding his ‘fearlessness,’ a virtue all-too-rare in the academic world.