Chemerinsky to Jacobs: Let's Debate
When 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs made his “provocative” remarks regarding pro bono service at a Federalist Society meeting earlier this month, he may have stirred up more than he bargained for.
Now Erwin Chemerinsky, the University of California-Irvine dean who’s been critical of the judge’s position, is challenging him to a debate.
“I vehemently disagree with Judge Jacobs’ views on pro bono work, public interest advocacy, and impact litigation,” Chemerinsky said in a statement sent to the ABA Journal and others late this morning. “A debate could be an important forum for exploring this issue in more depth.”
The comments, first noted in bits by reporters who attended the Oct. 6 event, have drawn the ire and sometimes praise of ABAJournal.com readers. Upon reading reports from the speech, Chemerinsky fired off an outraged response on the National Law Journal’s op-ed page. Chemerinsky asked Jacobs to rethink his remarks and apologize.
But Jacobs did no such thing. Instead, he complained in a statement to the Wall Street Journal Law Blog that his comments, that some pro bono by law firms is “self-serving” and “anti-social,” were taken out of context. Indeed, Jacobs, in his speech lauded much pro bono work as being part of the “great tradition of American volunteerism.”
The Federalist Society attempted to further clear things up Thursday by posting the speech (PDF) in full on its website.
And also on Thursday, Michael Jordan, a representative of Jacobs’, told the ABA Journal that Jacobs “is not going to comment beyond what was said to the Wall Street Journal reporter. The judge doesn’t want to create a public controversy by going tit-for-tat with the dean. The entire speech is now out there for people to read.”
But Chemerinsky, after reading the full remarks, was unmoved.
“Having read Judge Jacobs’ speech, I believe that the newspaper reports about it were accurate,” Chemerinsky said, noting that Jacobs twice referred to pro bono as “anti-social.”
Chemerinsky adds that, “The speech is very strong in criticizing public interest law and impact litigation. The overall message is very critical of the vast majority of pro bono work, and certainly of public interest law, in the United States. I thus believe that the reports of his speech were in context and that my criticism was necessary and appropriate.”
The dean proposes that the two debate the issue in an event possibly co-sponsored by the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society.
