A Reason to Be A Skeptical Reader and A Careful Author: At Wall Street Journal's Law Blog, Dan Slater reports that the Dean of Tulane Law School has apologized to the Louisiana Supreme Court for errors in a professor-authored law review article. The article, written by Tulane Prof Vernon Valentin Palmer, suggested that the Louisiana Supreme Court justices tend to decide cases in favor of litigants and lawyers who contribute to their campaigns. Back in January, when the publication of the article was still pending, Adam Liptak of the New York Times wrote a story discussing the article. In his article, Liptak cited arguments that dismissed the Tulane professor's findings. Turns out Liptak's skepticism was well founded. Yesterday, the Times-Picuyane published excerpts of the Dean's apology. Dean Poronoff wrote: "Because of the miscalculation in the underlying data, the reliability of some or all of the authors' conclusions in the study as published has been called into question." Professor Palmer has apologized for the errors, but still stands by the results of the study. With all the mistakes corrected, Professor Palmer still claims, broadly speaking, the study's conclusions remain the same.