Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports

Rodriguez from San Diego to Texas

September 5, 2007

This has been in the works for awhile, but we are delighted that Dan Rodriguez is now here at Texas!
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Top 35 Law Faculties Based on Scholarly Impact for 2007

September 4, 2007

The study previewed here and described here is now on-line here (with some corrections since the time of the preview I should add). The data was collected in early July and placed on spread sheets. As corrections to the faculty lists came in, the results were up-dated. Additional corrections and additions may be made in…
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Protecting Philosophical Ideas with Copyright?

September 3, 2007

I’m posting this query here in the hope that other law professors with pertinent expertise will weigh in. A philosophy graduate student writes: I wonder has the topic of copyrighting philosophy ever come up? I mean, what do you do if you have a great idea or solution to some puzzle in logic or what…
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Ranking Law Reviews by “Author Prominence”

August 31, 2007

This, sad to say, has to be the most pointless ranking exercise since the Cooley silliness, one that truly succeeds in conveying no meaningful information. Is there anyone teaching in a law school in the United States who gives a damn whether a law review has published a President, a Senator, or a celebrity? Wow!…
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More on Ave Maria Law’s Efforts to Fire a Tenured Professor

August 30, 2007

Here.
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Hathaway from Michigan to Melbourne

August 29, 2007

James Hathaway, a leading authority on refugee law at the University of Michigan Law School, will take up the post of Dean of the law faculty at the University of Melbourne in January 2008. This is the first time I can recall a member of a leading American law faculty moving to a Deanship in…
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UVA Seeking New Dean

August 28, 2007

Although I’ve not seen a public announcement to this effect, it appears John Jeffries, Dean of the Law School at the University of Virginia since 2001, is planning on stepping down, since the school is now advertising for a new Dean to assume office next summer.
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Young from Texas to Duke

August 28, 2007

It is with sadness that I report that my colleague Ernest Young (constitutional law, federal courts) has accepted a senior offer from the law school at Duke University, where he will start in January. Duke students will be pleased to know that they are not only getting a distinguished scholar but also an outstanding classroom…
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Duke’s Chemerinsky Reported to be “Leading” Candidate for Deanship of New UC Irvine Law School

August 27, 2007

National Law Journal story here.
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Over in Legal Philosophy Land…

August 27, 2007

…an epistemological puzzle about legal positivism? UPDATE: For the benefit of new readers, I should note, again, the purpose of the new blog and its commenting policy.
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Hundreds of Alumni Speak Out on Faculty Purge at Ave Maria Law School

August 27, 2007

Here.
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1L Doctrines Set to Music

August 26, 2007

Courtesy of Josh Keesan, a Boalt law student.
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The Truth about Law Review Submissions…

August 23, 2007

…at last!
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Johnson, former Minnesota Dean, to Return to UVA Faculty

August 22, 2007

Alex Johnson (critical race theory), who served as Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School for four years, is rejoining the law faculty at the University of Virginia, which he left to become Dean at Minnesota.
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Rubenstein from UCLA to Harvard

August 21, 2007

William Rubenstein (civil procedure, class actions, sexual orientation and the law) at UCLA has accepted the senior offer from Harvard Law School. The HLS press release is here.
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Per Capita Scholarly Impact Study for 2007 Will be On-Line in September

August 20, 2007

We have finished the scholarly impact study described here. We ranked the top 35 law faculties based on per capita mean and median scholarly impact based on citations to each member of the faculty since 2000. The complete results will be on-line in September, including instructions for schools wanting to complete comparative self-studies. Adjustments will…
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In case you were wondering about the names and affiliations of the 300+ law professors who are now blogging…

August 17, 2007

…Daniel Solove (George Washington) has the information you seek! Soon it will be easier to compile a list of law professors who are not blogging. (Of course, the number who are listed as being members of a blog and the number who actually blog are quite different.)
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An Illuminating Review of Roberto Unger’s Most Recent Book

August 16, 2007

Here (which is an excellent on-line resource that some law professors might find useful).
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Wall Street Journal’s Ranking of Colleges in Terms of Success of Their Graduates in Gaining Admission to Elite Professional Schools

August 14, 2007

I just discovered this ranking of colleges by The Wall Street Journal is four years old, but interesting nonetheless. The WSJ looked at the percentage of graduates from each college who were admitted to "elite" professional schools in the fields of business, law, and medicine. This, of course, will penalize schools which have unusually large…
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American Lawyer Survey of Associates

August 11, 2007

Story here; an excerpt: Here’s the state of associate life. Associates aren’t miserable, except perhaps in certain high-pressure New York precincts. The average satisfaction score hit a record high this year: 3.81 on a five-point scale…. Associates don’t plan on staying. Despite the high level of job satisfaction, only 44.9 percent of the respondents predicted…
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Five Legal Scholars Elected to the British Academy

August 9, 2007

The British Academy press release is here. The new Ordinary Fellows are: Andrew Burrows (commercial law, restitution, torts) at Oxford University; Ross Cranston (commercial law and history of commercial law) at the London School of Economics; Anthony Ogus (economic analysis of law) at the University of Manchester; and Genevra Richardson (law and psychiatry, administrative law,…
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More on the Proposed New ABA Bar Pass Standard for Law Schools…

August 6, 2007

…from Michael Froomkin (Miami).
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Silly Article in Boston Magazine about Harvard and Noah Feldman

August 5, 2007

Here. The reporter struck me as unusually dumb, and was fixated on the idea that "big egos" at Harvard Law School couldn’t get along because they were "big egos." Although I repeatedly gave him alternative, and more plausible, explanations for why the school, until Dean Kagan, had been unable to do a lot of lateral…
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New URL for my Legal Philosophy Blog–Plus a New Paper on “Explaining Theoretical Disagreement”

August 3, 2007

My legal philosophy blog has moved to its new (and this time permanent) location, where I have also posted the abstract for a new paper on the problem Dworkin dubbed "theoretical disagreement" about law.
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More on Professor Churchill’s Legal Claims

August 3, 2007

Paul Secunda (Mississippi) helpfully details the obstacles confronting a First Amendment claim by a public employee in light of Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). Professor Secunda writes: Churchill must jump through the following hoops to succeed on a First Amendment Pickering claim: (1) that he was not speaking pursuant to official…
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The Crisis at Ave Maria Law School Grows Worse

August 2, 2007

We have noted the problems there previously, but now the Administration is trying to fire a tenured professor under circumstances that appear to be, shall we say, suspicious. There is more information here. UPDATE: This memo from Notre Dame Emeritus Professor of Law Charles Rice to the Ave Maria Board is really quite stunning. His…
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Economist Smith from George Mason to Chapman

August 1, 2007

Vernon Smith, a seminal figure in "experimental economics," whose work has also been influential in behavioral law and economics scholarship over the past decade, is moving with his research team from George Mason University to Chapman University. Smith’s joint appointments will include one in the Law School there. Smith received, with psychologist Daniel Kahneman, the…
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Burrows, Caulfield Elected to Royal Society of Canada

July 31, 2007

Law professors John Burrows, an expert on Aboriginal legal issues at the University of Victoria, and Timothy Caulfield, a specialist in health law at the University of Alberta, are the two law faculty among the newly elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. Also elected was criminologist Serge Brochu at the University of Montreal. …
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More on Suspicious Discrepancies in Employment Stats Reported to US News vs. the ABA

July 29, 2007

From famed U.S. News sleuth Tom Bell (Chapman).
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All Hail the Emperor!

July 27, 2007

Blog Emperor Paul Caron is 50 years old today. Happy Birthday Paul! Like many rulers of vast empires, he has chosen to celebrate his birthday with an act of extraordinary magnanimity: he will forego his 50% of the revenue on the blog empire in 2008, turning it over to us, his minions! All hail Blog…
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How to Move From Teaching Law Outside a Law School to a Law School Position?

July 26, 2007

Reader Rob Frieden writes: I am interested in starting a thread on lateral entry into a law school by non law professors. I am a law professor "without portfolio" in the College of Communications at Penn State University. I have a J.D from UVa (1980). My research agenda has brought me increasingly in league with…
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The Case of Professor Churchill

July 25, 2007

Now that the University of Colorado Board of Regents has voted to fire Professor Churchill–a sanction recommended by only one of the five members of the Committee that prepared the report on Professor Churchill’s research misconduct–some readers may be interested in my earlier remarks on the subject. A number of law professors have played important…
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“Judges Behaving Badly” in the Clerkship Hiring Process

July 25, 2007

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has the details.
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Misbehavior by Law Students and Its Consequences for Bar Admission

July 24, 2007

Interesting essay by Steven Lubet (Northwestern); an excerpt: Two days after the massacre at Virginia Tech, an anonymous post on the despicable AutoAdmit Web site (previously best known for repulsive comments about women and minorities) raised the possibilty of a replay at a San Francisco law school. The post was headed "Just decided not to…
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More Employment Stats Differences

July 24, 2007

If the new U.S. News approach to employment statistics had been used for last Spring’s ranking, a number of schools outside the top ranks would have also had rather big differences between the scores they reported then and what they would have to report under the new method: Pepperdine (97.2 to 84.1) -13%…
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New Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies

July 20, 2007

Mary Dudziak (USC) has the details, as well as advice on the application process.
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Google Ads on SSRN–and Some Odd (shall we say) Juxtapositions

July 19, 2007

Michael Fischl, the labor law scholar at the University of Connecticut, writes with the following strange SSRN experience (I vote for cry!): I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at the experience I am having with SSRN, but I thought it would interest you and perhaps other legal academics as well. About a week…
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Don’t Name Your Law School After a Racist! (*Updated*)

July 19, 2007

Or else you’re headed for trouble. UPDATE: The foul-mouthed former head of the Board of Trustee at Roger Williams University has asked that his name be removed from the law school, which is no doubt a welcome turn of events for the faculty and students there who do not deserve the unfortunate association.
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How Many Degrees of Separation Are You from Cass Sunstein?

July 18, 2007

At last, thanks to Professors Edelman and George at Vanderbilt, we have the answer! Professor Edelman writes: We had to search by hand through multiple data bases to track down co-authors of co-authors of Sunstein for our project and we really need more eyes on the results to ensure that we got everyone who belongs.…
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What the Employment Stats from the Last US News Rankings Would Have Looked Like Under the New Approach

July 17, 2007

A colleague sent me a revealing chart, showing what the employment stats for the top law schools would have looked like if U.S. News had already been employing the new policy of treating those unemployed but allegedly "not seeking employment" as part of the stats. UCLA’s placement would have fallen from the reported 99.7% to…
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