chicago southwest?

buffs has posted recently posted about ways to raise CU Law's profile. here's another option, based on an illuminating article in this week's NYTimes magazine. the story highlights Constitution in Exile, that other judicial activism movement, which seeks to restore supreme court jurisprudence to the Lochner era philosophy of inalienable economic rights. while its guru is Richard Epstein, author of our torts book and the intellectual sin qua non of the deregulation movement, many of its proponents have roots right here in Colorado. one is potential Rehnquist replacement Michael W. McConnell, now on the 10th circuit, as well as several "activists" involved in some of Joe Coors' early political organizations like Mountain States Legal Foundation.

given Colorado's increasingly conservative bent, combined with CU's smattering of Epstein adherents (soon-to-be Solicitor General Allison Eid chief among them), perhaps CU Law could re-brand itself. we'd be University of Colorado School of Law: Chicago Southwest, the wild west pioneers of legal objectivism. here, Lochneresque law could start a Sagebrush Rebellion against the Environmental and Indian Law departments, and those gunners in the Federalist Society would have guaranteed Supreme Court clerkships. amoral professors could finish the state's battle against medicaid and lead the rush to drill through the bottom of Grand Lake. meanwhile, CU would take a seat at the table of the top 10 law schools and play footsie with the likes of Yale and Stanford.

sure, this deregulatory legal philosophy would put even the most sold-out corporate lawyers out of business, and the rest of us would be left eating porridge in the legal aid clinic. but that's one way to raise the value of our degrees...