This is bizarre. I did not receive this email, and I hope that he isn't a Wisconsin alum. "Notoriety." That's classic!

another uw law prof here, to say that (a) i didn't get it either, thank goodness, and (b) OMG do the Marquette folks think those of us living in Madison are ruralites as opposed to urbanites?

Is your objection solely about the impropriety of a professor passing off the work of a ghostwriter/researcher as his own? Or do you also object to a professor collaborating with a professional writer to produce a journal article that is genuinely the professor's considered, scholarly thoughts on a matter? I know there are academics and researchers who are excellent at theory and research but not so good at making themselves clear in writing. They need help communicating. Where do you draw the line?

Excuse me for intruding with this unusual proposal, but obtained your name from a list of law professors, and wish to approach you with an idea that must be held in absolute confidence.

I am Baghava Gita, research clerk to Prof. Mindu of the College of Law of the University of Nigeria. Prof. Mindu unfortunately was killed in an airplane crash on April 22, 2005, and my attempts to contact his family have been to no avail.

Prof. Mindu left, in finished form, twelve law review manuscripts which, he indicated to me, were certain of acceptance at Harvard L. Rev. or Yale L.J.. The topics concern the hottest legal issues of the day, and his thoroughly-documented conclusions run contrary to the prevailing wisdom in each field.

The law reviews in this country, to which I have submitted them, indicate that that, while they are works of genius that would surely earn tenure at an Ivy-league college in the US, they are uninterested in articles on American law, so I must get them out of the country.

If you will advance the modest costs of blue-booking them and shipping, I will be happy to allow their use under your name. Please contact me with your bank account number so that we can complete this transaction. Again, this proposal must be held in absolute confidence between us and anyone who reads this posting on the world wide web.

Thanks, David. That was fun.

Susanna, the line between research assistance and authorship can get blurry, but the person who wrote Christine's email was not playing in the blurry area.

Alta, I completely missed Christine's referance to urbanites. She probably wrote that because I am forever talking about living amidst silos and dairy cows.

All of us law profs at Marquette today received an interesting business offer in the mail today.

With sentences like that, perhaps you should have someone do your writing.

Ha! I love the Inigo Montoya reference...

"With sentences like that, perhaps you should have someone do your writing."

Have you considered suicide?

.

I could hire an editor for my blog posts ($30-$100), but I like to keep it real with my colloquial phrasing and intended awkwardness.

The really odd part of his offer was his relative pricing scheme: his fee for writing an article is just two to three times his fee for bluebooking? Yes, Christine's "economic analysis of babysitting and writing" showed his writing rates to be a steal, but his bluebooking rates are too. Marquette pays my research assistants $12/hr to bluebook my articles; I'd be scared to calculate what the school paid for me to have two RAs do my bluebooking....

Yes, it is dishonest to buy prefab law articles just like a college sophomore buying his history paper off the internet. Would any honest law professor tolerate this among his students? Yet, in view of the things their graduates will proceed to do as a matter of routine, in violation of legal ethics, objecting to this commercial plagiarism is a case of straining at a gnat when you regularly swallow camels. When the law professors of our country succeed in convincing their students that they must not bill two clients for the same hour of work or bill four hours for a one-sentence letter or bill an associate's work as though it were done by a partner, then their ideas about ethics will deserve to be taken seriously.

In line with David's modest business proposal:

GET TENURE NOW!!! Are you afriad of not pleasing your tenure comitttee? Do you feel inadequit when you compare the length of published articels? STOP BYING fAKE PILLS AND CREAMZ! Money=back garanteed formula will AMAZE your peers with your prolixity and erudition.

CALL NOW!!!! If U don't, and ur neighbor in the office next door does, youll have only urself to blame....