Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports

News and views about law school and law

  • Which top school do law students think is most overrated in US News?

    A reader sent me the results of a poll being conducted on a genuine pre-law chat board (in other words, not Autoadmit) about which school is "most overrated," referring to its US News rank.  (No over- or under-ratings occur, of course, in responsible rankings.) 21.5% of the 200 students who voted on this site picked…

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  • McCain and Clinton Exposed

    Revealing portraits of the two front-runners, here and here.  (The latter is mostly about Bill, but since Hillary’s main claim to pertinent "experience" grows out of her marriage to the former President, it is surely relevant about what her actual policies are likely to be.)  Of course, neither may be front-runners for long, given the…

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  • Klarman from Virginia to Harvard

    Michael Klarman (legal history, constitutional law) at the University of Virginia has accepted the senior offer from Harvard Law School.  (The HLS press release is here.)   He is the fifth former member of the UVA law faculty to migrate north in the last (roughly) seven years; the others are Jack Goldsmith, Daryl Levinson, William Stuntz,…

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  • Australian Economist Quiggin on Sunstein, the Internet, and Democracy

    An interestingly different perspective here.

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  • Law Dragon Magazine Names 9 Law Profs Among the Nation’s “500 Leading Lawyers”

    Complete lists here, including a description of what may be loosely described as the "methodology."  Those recognized this year:  Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard), Jack Goldsmith (Harvard), Neal Katyal (Georgetown), Kenneth Klee (UCLA), Harold Koh (Yale), Mark Lemley (Stanford), Geoffrey Stone (Chicago), Jonathan Turley (George Washington), and Elizabeth Warren (Harvard).   Judge Richard Posner, who still teaches part-time…

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  • Misleading or Informing with Data about Graduates in Law Teaching?

    We noticed a couple of weeks ago Michigan’s surprising claims about alumni in law teaching, and now another reader has pointed out this from Columbia Law School: Columbia Law School ranks third among law schools in the number of it’s [sic] J.D. alumni in teaching positions at American law schools. This is particularly striking, since…

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  • So How Does NYU Recruit Hard-to-Get Faculty (esp. from a certain school in Morningside Heights)?

    Here’s how: Columbia University, in a never-ending search for a larger campus, has long had an outpost for faculty housing at 455 Central Park West — 53 apartments in an 26-story tower attached to the French Renaissance chateau at West 106th Street. So it was something of a surprise when a foundation associated with New…

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  • Initial Set of Finalists for University of Washington Dean Search Announced

    Here; they are Mary Anne Bobinski, currently Dean of the law faculty at the University of British Columbia; Gregory Hicks, currently Interim Dean at Washington; Steven Willborn, currently Dean of the Law School at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; and Lawrence Zelenak, a law professor and tax scholar at Duke.  It’s fair to say…

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  • Tom Smith’s Lovable, Smelly Dog

    Law professor Tom Smith (San Diego) really must be the funniest blogger in legal academia.

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  • Obama’s “Endorsement” of Ronald Reagan

    Robert Lipkin (Widener) comments.

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  • The Case of Padilla v. Yoo

    David Luban (Georgetown) has a helpful analysis of what’s at issue.

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  • More on Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship and “Non-Elite” Law Schools

    Professor Tamanaha has posted more thoughts on the subject du jour.  He is surely right that there is a crisis brewing in legal education at those schools that are charging hefty tuitions that far outstrip what most of their graduates can realistically repay in a reasonable time.  The puzzle, to my mind, is why Professor…

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  • Krotoszynski from Washington & Lee to Alabama

    Ronald Krotoszynski (constitutional law, administrative law, comparative constitutional law) at Washington & Lee University has accepted the Stone Chair in the Law School at the University of Alabama, where he will also assume the post of Director of Faculty Research.  Since Professor Krotoszynski was in play at a number of other law schools as good…

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  • Why Non-Elite Law Schools Should Not Invest in Interdisciplinary Scholarship

    Brian Tamanaha (St. John’s) comments: In the elite law school universe–with huge endowments and ample resources, with large faculties, with graduates who become corporate lawyers and donate more money, with graduates who become academically-oriented law school professors–the interdisciplinary movement can be justified. In the non-elite law school universe–with schools almost entirely dependent upon tuition, with…

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  • Penn State’s Ackerman Named Dean at Wayne State

    The Wayne State press release is here.

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  • A Favor

    For those readers with blogs, who also maintain a blogroll, please consider adding a link to Brian Leiter’s Legal Philosophy Blog.  Thanks!

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  • Rewriting Constitutional History?

    It’s no surprise when hack pundits like Michelle Malkin do it–but it certainly is when Judge Posner and Professors Bradley and Goldsmith pick up and effectively legitimize the same misinformation. UPDATE:  In the comments at the second link, above, Professor Bradley (Duke) comments: I can’t speak to Judge Posner’s views, but certainly Jack Goldsmith and…

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  • Where U.S. Law Faculty Went to Law School

    In response to my earlier posting, an Assistant Dean at Michigan sent me some interesting numbers culled from the AALS Directory of Law Teachers.  The data was presented in aggregate form, which works to the advantage of larger schools like Michigan, and covered all those listed in the directory, meaning those who earned their law…

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  • The Democratic Contest…as Seen from Britain

    This is more illuminating and direct than anything I’ve seen in the U.S. media of late.  It gives a good sense of some of the ugliness to come.  The quotes from voters in South Carolina are priceless–the first for what it says about voter ignorance and prejudice, the second for cutting to the chase about…

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  • Ludicrous Hyperbole Watch: University of Michigan Law School

    I haven’t run one of these in awhile, but having recently gotten a solicitation for money from my law school alma mater, Michigan, I decided to peruse the Law School homepage, only to find this: The University of Michigan Law School is the international center for interdisciplinary legal scholarship and teaching. It’s not entirely clear…

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  • “Originalism is Bunk”

    So argues my colleague Mitch Berman in this new paper.  I don’t usually flag papers, but this one is important, and every originalist will have to reply (though some of them will have to surrender, at least if they know what’s good for them!).

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  • The Contest for the Democratic Nomination

    I am curious to hear what law professors make of the Democratic nomination process (it does, after all, involve three lawyers!).  The remarkable change in fortunes for Hillary Clinton over the last couple of weeks seems to betray almost a sense of relief among voters, as though now they have another viable and competitive candidate…

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  • Tsai from Oregon to American

    Robert Tsai (constitutional law), Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, has accepted a tenured offer from the law school at American University in Washington, D.C.

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  • New: Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Law

    I am very pleased to announce that Leslie Green and I will be editing a new annual, the Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Law, which will publish commissioned and solicited work by leading established and emerging scholars in the philosophy of law. The first volume will appear in 2009, and all volumes will appear…

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  • What explains the increase in lateral hiring? Not U.S. News!

    Michael O’Hear (Marquette) asks what explains the apparent increase in lateral hiring in the last decade or so.  One possibility he considers is this: [T]he importance of the U.S. News survey has made law schools more sensitive to their reputation within the national legal academy, and lateral hiring seems more likely to provide an immediate…

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  • More on KC Johnson’s Critique of Duke Faculty Members

    There are a couple of updates to the original posting that may be of interest to those who have been following this matter.

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  • Seattle’s Eric Chiappinelli Named Dean at Creighton

    The Creighton news release is here.

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  • Secunda from Mississippi to Marquette

    Paul Secunda, an expert on employment law who is assistant professor at the University of Mississippi, has accepted a tenured offer from the law school at Marquette University, where he will start in 08-09. 

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  • A Google Curiosity

    The top two results for a Google search of "Leiter" are my philosophy blog and this blog.  Take that Al Leiter and Felix Leiter!

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  • Are Law Professors Unhappy?

    Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA) disputes (convincingly to my mind) that they are.  Of course, everyone knows why Professor Bainbridge is happy!

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  • A Dangerous Piece of Legislation

    It is the "Prevention of Violent Radicalism and Homegrown Terrorism" act, whose provisions and implications are discussed here.  As the author notes: Promoted as a relatively innocuous public safety measure, the bill directs money to the Department of Homeland Security for research on homegrown terrorist-Americans in our midst. While this may seem to make sense,…

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  • Lipkin on Edwards and “class war”

    Robert Lipkin (Widener) has an interesting statement about John Edwards’s Presidential candidacy.

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  • More Holiday Humor: The Lawyer’s Version of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”

    Here.

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  • Politically Correct and Non-Legally Binding Holiday Wishes

    MOVING TO THE FRONT from Dec. 22, 2006 ========================== Via reader Ian Best comes this all-purpose set of seasons greetings, written by Professor Gary Potter (Music, Indiana-Bloomington): From me ("the wishor") to you ("the wishee"): Please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress,…

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  • Practices Relating to Oversight by Schools of Law Reviews

    UPDATE:  Moving to front, since I stupidly neglected to open comments the first time! A colleague at American University writes: A committee I’m on at the American University Washington College of Law is preparing to examine the questions below, and I suggested that to elicit more information more efficiently we submit them to a blawg…

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  • Justice Thomas: “Take This Job and Shove It!”

    Well, he doesn’t quite say that, but it’s close: Clarence Thomas told an overflow crowd at Chapman University Monday evening that he never wanted to become a Supreme Court justice, or even a judge.    "There’s not much that entices about the job," Thomas said, answering questions from the public that provided a rare glimpse…

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  • Kysar from Cornell to Yale

    Douglas Kysar (environmental law, products liability, behavioral law and economics), Professor of Law at Cornell University (and a visiting professor of law currently at UCLA), has accepted a senior offer from Yale Law School.  The YLS press release is here.

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  • Trends in Law Blog Readership

    Blog Emperor Caron has, of course, collected the facts!  Traffic stats are, in one sense, misleading, since there are huge differences in visit length between blogs as well.  The average length of a visit to this blog tends to be over one minute and forty seconds most of the time; the average length of a…

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  • The Hopeless Association of American Law Schools

    With another meeting on the horizon, I thought I’d flag my post on the AALS meetings from a few years ago.  Whether it is the meetings of the American Law & Economics Association, or the annual Analytic Legal Philosophy conference, or the newer Empirical Legal Studies conferences, my sense is that specialist meetings of scholars…

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  • Students Suing Their Law Schools: A Trend?

    Curious National Law Journal story here.

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