Ah yes yes wrote:
Posner is irresistible to 1Ls and laymen.
I wasn't aware that he had any particular following among 1Ls (except perhaps at U. of Chicago) or laymen. That would be quite a change from his popular standing when I first met him almost thirty years ago, when he was introduced to me as "the Devil himself," a gentle poke at his reputation as the crazy right-wing law-and-economics guy who seemed to support things like competitive markets for buying and selling babies. In any event, I'm glad to hear that he has a big following among 1Ls and laymen; many sophisticated legal scholars have long enjoyed him, especially since he got into this running feud with Nino Scalia about (among other things) the justice's allegedly principled application of textuallism and a dash of originalism.
Speaking of Scalia, I don't recall seeing any particular response to his dissent by Posner. Too bad. It was classic Scalia, raging at his own impotence in dissent as well as the overwrought language in Kennedy's majority opinion. I especially enjoyed his attack on his own court as a bunch of old Harvard and Yale lawyers who are out of touch with real Americans, and his wonderfully dated line, "Ask the nearest hippie," which inadvertently demonstrated his point.