prior probability

Our home institution (the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla.) has been celebrating commencement ceremonies this week. Accordingly, we are featuring Steve Jobs’s 2005 Commencement Speech for our students who are starting a new chapter in their lives …

P.S. Prior Probability has decided to stop blogging on Sundays.

The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.” Remember this as you read this creative class action lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on May 5, 2015 against boxer Manny Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum, alleging fraudulent concealment (see paragraphs 27-32 of the complaint), statutory consumer fraud under Nevada law (paragraphs 32-35), and conspiracy to commit fraud (paragraphs 36-39). Nevada attorney Brandon McDonald brought this lawsuit on behalf of all boxing fans who either bought tickets or purchased the pay-per-view to the May 2, 2015 championship bout between Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao and Floyd “Money” Mayweather. Under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, however, a lawsuit must meet the following requirements in order to be certified as a class action: Continue reading →

If we are going to pay student-athletes in college for playing sports, why not tie the salaries of the student-athletes to the salaries of their coaching staffs. Let’s use college basketball to illustrate our proposal. The Kentucky Wildcats have 16 players on their roster. The coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, John Calipari, makes $8 million USD per year. (For simplicity, let’s ignore the salaries of the other coaches on his staff.) Under our proposal, each player on Coach Calipari’s team would be entitled to $500,000 each year. (We would award each player on the team equal shares of the coach’s salary for reasons of equity, but we are open to suggestions.) The rationale behind our proposal is this: if universities can afford to pay millions of dollars to their coaches, surely they are also able to afford to pay their players, right?

… for an apology from Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots. Instead of apologizing for his team’s rampant cheating, Mr Kraft released this statement in response to the conclusion in the Wells Report that it is “more probable than not” that Tom Brady cheated in the AFC championship game last January 18th. Among other things, Mr Kraft says: “As compelling a case as the Wells Report may try to make, I am going to rely on the factual evidence of numerous scientists and engineers rather than inferences from circumstantial evidence.” There are two problems with this particular sentence in Mr Kraft’s statement. First and foremost, all evidence, at the end of the day, is probabilistic or circumstantial. As we wrote in our previous blog post on this subject, the absence of any direct or smoking-gun evidence is not evidence of absence. In addition,  Mr Kraft makes the mistake of conflating “factual evidence” with interpretations of the evidence. Simply put, opinions by “scientists and engineers” (however numerous) are not factual evidence; they are just interpretations of the evidence. Finally, as we stated previously on 28 January 2015, it is you who owes your fans an apology. Why aren’t you man enough to apologize already?

Do we really need 50 separate State bar exams in an era of global markets? We have always thought that bar exams and other forms of occupational licensing should be declared illegal restraints of trade under U.S. antitrust laws. After all, you don’t need a license to sing opera or play baseball (or teach law!), and yet somehow, the lack of occupational licensing in these fields has not diminished the quality of operas or baseball games at the professional level. In addition, one of the worst aspects of occupational licensing is that they are “location specific”: a barber’s license or taxi permit in one city is not valid in any another. Likewise, a law license issued by one State bar is not valid in any other State. But this anti-competitive lack of license-portability in the field of law may soon begin to change, now that New York State will officially replace its traditional (i.e. State-specific) bar exam with a standardized bar exam called the Uniform Bar Exam, according to this report in the N.Y. Times. Traditionally, law school graduates are authorized to practice law only in the State in which they have passed the bar exam. The Uniform Bar Exam, by contrast, is “portable,” meaning that law school graduates that pass this exam will be able to practice law in any of the States which have adopted it. (With New York, sixteen States have now adopted a standardized national bar exam. The nation’s three most populous states–California, Texas, and Florida–however, still run State-specific bar exams.) Will New York State’s move produce a Schellingesque “tipping point” leading to a national bar exam?

Happy Anniversary, Sydjia.

Are there more or less video-rental stores than one-hour photo shops in the U.S.?

Hat tip: moseslikesducks (via reddit).