Molly Brady
@mollyxbrady
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Professor @Harvard_Law writing on property institutions, land use, private law, and eminent domain. Section 3 overlord. Always half-joking. (AKA Maureen.)
Cambridge, MA
Joined July 2014
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Pandemic babies: not totally sure about leaving the house
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I am so excited to share that as of July 1, I will officially be promoted to Professor of Law with tenure at
@Harvard_Law
.
Also, I am pregnant and expecting my first kid this fall! Here is a Zoom portrait to memorialize The Times.
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BLIZZARD UPDATE: Here in Boston we’ve received approximately 1/2 a large Dunkin iced of snow
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Whichever law student in Iowa made this
@espn
GameDay sign about eminent domain has really upped the level for all of us.
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I may not have an article in this cycle, but my premature son—born in just the 5th percentile of boys by height and weight—was today in the 91st. 🤱 🥇
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PROPERTY PROFESSORS EVERYWHERE THIS IS OUR TIME TO SHINE ON THE NATIONAL STAGE
You guys there is a FOX running around the White House right now.
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To demonstrate his respect for the “first in time is first in right” principle, this saucy (blonde) intruder crashed into the world just over five weeks ahead of schedule on October 3. His mother couldn’t be more delighted with the acquisition. 🦊 🧡
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Welp, came across a striking bookplate in today's research. Apparently about 2500 books are stamped with them:
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I’m on Twitter because I really enjoy watching the nation’s greatest legal scholars debate pressing questions, like last night, when I got to watch them decide whether Gen X can claim In Da Club
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I swear I will return to regularly scheduled Property posting but I mean, look at this gunner
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I believe the Property principle for this is “no take-backsies” (happy July 1 to all academics who celebrate)
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Well, at least this is why my husband was screaming “EMINENT DOMAIN! EMINENT DOMAIN!” in my living room
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I will not be taking further Christmas presents at this time
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A thousand balloon trespass questions, coming to Property finals near you
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I’m sorry, I promise I’ll get back to the property law tweeting soon, but I learned tonight on the phone that my mom is in a feud with a local magician.
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My neighborhood Facebook group is debating who bears responsibility for a fallen tree straddling a boundary line and they’ve moved into the WHALE OWNERSHIP hypotheticals. Feel like this is my moment to shine, will report back
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I have my tenured faculty portrait today! Joke’s on you, Harvard, because the baby automatically gets tenure once he’s on the wall
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Thrilled to share my latest, Turning Neighbors Into Nuisances, in
@HarvLRev
. It explores an odd private law device preceding the rise of zoning and Euclid - the nuisance covenant - & other twists in early legal campaigns to control the apartment building.
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Would appreciate prayers and good thoughts for my son, affectionately known to property students as Sloopy McSloopface. He is having a tough battle with RSV right now, along with many other kids across the country.
“There’s no space anywhere."
A pediatric ER doctor on the front lines of the RSV surge at the nation's oldest children's hospital describes how a deluge of patients is causing long waits, delays in care, and a capacity crisis.
My latest for
@TODAYshow
:
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I asked my incoming students for their "walk-out songs" (e.g., what would play if you were up to bat in a game/when the actor playing you in a movie comes on-screen). I am alternately laughing hysterically and extremely pumped up, truly could not be more excited for my Section.
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My husband is auditing a constitutional history class this semester and right now he is extremely excited at the dinner table about Ex parte Milligan. Can one of you con law people come over here and deal with this
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Belated celebration, but I did achieve my year-long goal of getting a Peloton instructor to say “Blackacre” yesterday, so things aren’t all bad.
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In my forthcoming paper, one cool find was a link between the rise of zoning in the 1920s and the then-recent influenza pandemic.
On a more serious note, I wonder if anyone ever studied the impact of 1918 on 1920s era mentality. A lot going on in that period though.
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Very excited to teach the new generation of baby Trusts and Estates lawyers radicalized by the
@nytimes
Free Britney documentary
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Some personal news: now, when my son looks up at me, he gets to think “why is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law singing this song about prunes”
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Innocent husband, on proofreading a 25-page essay of mine instead of the typical 72-pager: (tentatively) “I think more law review articles should be this length?”
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I will be so sad if Harvard ever stops using my freshman ID photo on all internal sites
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Rec letter season is upon us, and my students do not disappoint in filling out the request form the school provides
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I thought being a law professor was the best job in the world, then I realized I could've been the real lawyer that wrote this, and I will never be happy again
So,
@TheOnion
filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in defense of parody under the First Amendment… and it’s exactly what you’d expect.
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🚨 VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT FINDS THAT RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS PURPORTEDLY REQUIRING STATE TO KEEP DISPLAYING THE LEE MONUMENT IN RICHMOND ARE AGAINST PUBLIC POLICY!!!! 🥰😍❤️💪🏻😭🌈
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I had a horrible experience in a lawprof interview in this hotel that I left crying (& having to run to another interview). A member of the Wardman Park staff let me into a room she was cleaning, hugged me, and gave me a towel for my face & an orange juice. I think of her a lot.
The owner of the historic Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington filed for bankruptcy
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Normal law professors: my next paper is X, which builds on my prior work in Y and Z
Me: my next paper has got to have something to do with this 1820s case I just found on "the character and nature" of a person's right to a particular seat in a church pew
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This (difficult) Halloween, may this cheer you up: I didn’t realize that the DMV took your photo when you did your learner’s permit test, so I showed up in costume (Princess Leia in skeleton earrings) after school on Halloween 2002. I had this on my license for 8 years.
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🙋🏼♀️ My law school classmates talked about it like I had an illness. “Banquet is this Friday! Oh, sorry Molly.” After rejection, I decided that I would only do stuff that I was really excited about. Well, I wrote a bunch of papers in my free time and...it worked out pretty well. ♥️
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Last Property class w/
@Harvard_Law
1L section: ☹️
Found out I received one of the
@HLS_StudentGov
Teaching & Advising Awards, w/ lovely notes: 😀😭
Real emotional roller coaster over here, but quite grateful for years of great students and for the opportunity to do this gig.
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Honored to be among the 1000 most-cited faculty in low-citation-count fields under the age of 36. I credit my love of deeds for this achievement
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The ideal holiday gift for the property professor in your life: Anthropologie is selling a bundle of sticks for $42. (Sadly, it appears sold out. Hope it’s temporary, because I can already envision where I want the “right to exclude” to go on my mantel.)
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My latest, Property and Projection, forthcoming
@HarvLRev
: the history and doctrine surrounding light projections on *private* buildings (e.g. homes) and what it tells us about privacy, nuisance, trespass, and property itself. Comments most welcome!
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Just wrote a string cite featuring both The Bible and Law School Memes for Edgy T14s, time to hang up the pen folks
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Lawprofs:
@UVALaw
3L Jordan Minot has posted his cool
@VirginiaLawRev
Note, "The Irrelevance of Blackstone." It uses 18th c student notes and curricula to show that Blackstone was "far from the most widely read law book in 18th c America." HIGHLY recommend
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Just had an intense 45-minute dinner table discussion with my husband about the interaction between adverse possession and land recording systems. I look back and think, that sweet, innocent 19-year-old Midwestern boy had no idea what was coming
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If you were debating putting faculty portraits somewhere in your law school, let me just say it is HIGHLY popular with toddlers
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Adverse possessor, remainderman, subdivider, finder, I’m so sorry everyone I will now banish myself from the internet
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Close enough, I guess
“house law scholar” 🤷🏼♀️✅
“Harvard Law University” 🙃
“A specialist in asset law, named a professor of legislation, efficient July 1” (oh no, for legislation’s sake) 😨
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The best thing happened to me today: needed Baker's "Introduction to English Legal History" for a little equity question, so I ran over to my neighbor
@LizPappKamali
's office to see if she had a copy handy. Not only did she have multiple editions, she *took one out of her purse*
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Thank you everyone for your good thoughts and prayers - we are at last alert today. Not out of the woods with the fever or appetite, but hopefully on the mend. So much love to my students, friends, and colleagues - there is much good in the world (and even this bird site).
Would appreciate prayers and good thoughts for my son, affectionately known to property students as Sloopy McSloopface. He is having a tough battle with RSV right now, along with many other kids across the country.
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Fall is a tough season not just for the usual academic reasons, but also because it’s when I got an unwanted title: NICU mom. Sept is NICU awareness month. Holding space for all those who arrive as parents similarly, and grateful for the literal tree hugger my NICU babe became.
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I’m so excited about this honor.
#ASLH
was the first academic conference I eve attended, and I’m missing it lots. Thanks to many friends
@YaleLawSch
,
@YaleLJournal
,
@UVALaw
, and
@Harvard_Law
for helping me take this wild and weird article I love across the finish line.
Congratulations to Prof. Maureen Brady (
@mollyxbrady
), winner of the
#ASLH2020
Cromwell Article Prize for "The Forgotten History of Metes and Bounds," Yale Law Journal (2019):
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My mother’s book on raising highly successful children would be somewhat unconventional.
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Spoiler alert: its me! And thanks for some of the snarky suggestions - I already have rosaries and unfortunately, like my glider/rocker, my ventilator is on backorder from Pottery Barn Kids (this is a joke, I have to retain my humor).
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Thrilled to announce that I have sold the rights to my life story
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, an Original series from Marvel Studios, starts streaming August 17 on
@DisneyPlus
.
#SheHulk
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Truly the honor of a lifetime to become a
@Harvard_Law
Halloween costume, complete with baby/bundle of sticks (also where can I buy this wig for myself)
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You know you’ve spent too much time in a law school environment when you’re walking in the grocery store wine section and you think, “hm, weird they have a whole aisle for 3Ls”
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Was able to go on one of my property field trips in London: this is Leicester Square, subject of the covenant in Tulk v. Moxhay and thus where the equitable servitude was invented!!!!!!! Very unclear why there is not a monument or shrine specifically for that, but coping
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Pleased to announce that I finished uploading a CV for legitimate purposes before realizing a bunch of lines had inexplicably autocorrected to “Faculty Workbop” 🎶
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Inspired by
@TFrampton
, one of my fabulous
@Harvard_Law
TAs and I worked on a Property Playlist for Section 3 this semester. I am deceased at how this turned out. Link here, track list below (there are sooo many more options + sorry Nana for swears)
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Pleased to announce I’ve confirmed my title as “Harvard Professor Most Likely to Personally Haul Rug from Trash Across Mass Ave”
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Probably should’ve googled “full Monty” before using it 30 times in a conversation with a senior university administrator just now
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This took guts (in addition to luck). I was in the first class of the Yale PhD in Law and HLS’s first junior lateral hire. A small number of people have been jerks about my choices or my work. Let me just say that it has truly been a joy proving you wrong.
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I was just mining a quiz I found online for ideas for a practice problem, and I was like, "wow, these quiz questions are great and have clear right answers." Folks, it was then that I realized I wrote the quiz
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Yay property history! 9th Circuit cites my
@YaleLJournal
article (and thrillingly, the Boston Town Meeting of 1772) for proposition that 4th Am arose in part "out of a concern that governmental trespass to property could lead to subsequent physical harms"
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sometimes a win is just the friends you made along the way
🚨WIN: Today we secured a unanimous 9-0 win at the U.S. Supreme Court in a case protecting the ability of Texas to handle compensation disputes under State law for any allegedly taken property.
For as long as Texas has been Texas, it has recognized that property rights are
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Enjoyed discovering an 1884 NY case in which Sullivan & Cromwell sought to enjoin a puppet show on a New York sidewalk featuring (among other things) "a dancing human skeleton" and a "living clown." Law firm practice is drier now. Jaques v. Nat'l Exhibit Co., 15 Abb. N. Cas. 250.
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Spring 2021 has really given us an embarrassment of great property books. Now it just needs to give me more time in the day
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I've added a line to my draft syllabus called "An Unpredictable Baby" that promises the class can name the baby if he comes early and messes up our class schedule. Boaty McBoatface Brady has a nice ring to it
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Niche content but my husband's constitutional history paper (a biographical sketch) on Justice Owen Roberts is titled "Switches Get Stitches" and honestly I have never been prouder
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Property professor + nesting instinct = waking up at 3 AM in a cold sweat because I haven’t amassed enough landholdings for the baby
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Had a great time bringing son to visit
@UVALaw
today (jk he screamed like a pterodactyl in the library the entire time, I am so sorry current summer workers)
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At a recruiting event, a partner asked what our SOs did. The men said “teacher” and “stays home.” I said “track coach”; he said “oh, that’s great, you’re the type of female associate we love, because you can never leave!” I guess his litigation skills exceed his predictive ones.
Adding on to this:
If I were a dude attorney, I would simply not offer unsolicited career advice to women about how they can't be a successful attorney and have children at the same time!
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No interest in weighing in on the flag contretemps but this is FOR SURE going into my joint tenancy slides
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Today, as beds fill, after pay cuts, lengthened shifts, days delivering bad news, even canceling her own wedding, my little sister receives her first dose of vaccine.
I am so proud of my sister, an ER doctor in Rhode Island, who is working very hard right now. As you can see, we dressed for the jobs we wanted as kids (her actual hero with doctor bag, me nerd). She is the best imaginable person for the job.
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Spring break dispatches from
@Harvard_Law
§ 3, with four members confirming the 2 PM shadow cast by the Fontainebleau over the Eden Roc pool. (Also, “[a]ll reproduction rights deeded to Prof. Brady and her heirs,” *sniffle* I’m just so proud)
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Once a year, I think of the time a prominent law professor told our class "the declaratory judgment action was invented in my office"
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Lawprof achievement(s) unlocked: I have now had occasion to cite 1 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1887) (it's James Barr Ames, Purchase for Value Without Notice, for ye morbidly curious).
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Greet each day with the optimism of my son, who is convinced this is finally the day that he’s going to fit this entire turtle in his mouth
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Openly eating a meatball sub on a Zoom, that's where we are
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With tenure, the most daring thing I've done so far is tell one of my colleagues that one of my two walkout songs is "Hollaback Girl" with the understanding that he might disclose this to the entire faculty in two hours
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Negative two minutes into the
@harvard_law
Parody show and already cause for serious concern in the program (jk so excited to see so many of my students perform!!!!!)
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Ten years ago—at about this time—after finding out I’d gotten into the PhD in Law, I came down from my office on the 42nd floor of the Prudential Center to pray in this chapel about whether jumping into academia was the right thing to do.
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Now on
@SSRN
: "The Forgotten History of Metes and Bounds," forthcoming
@YaleLJournal
. It describes the legal history surrounding obtuse property descriptions in recording institutions and articulates the importance of customization within property regimes.
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Today, sparkling apple juice and delight that I get to make studying law that shapes the places we live my job. Not bad for this ham from Utica (my urban design skills still need work).
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Here's Procopius's account of social distancing and the consequences of the Justinianic plague in 542: "During that time it seemed no easy thing to see any man in the streets of Byzantium, but all who had the good fortune to be in health were sitting in their houses . . . "
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