Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports

News and views about law school and law

  • Alabama Offers Sparkman Chair to Washington & Lee’s Krotoszynski

    Ronald Krotoszynski (administrative law, constitutional law, comparative public law) at Washington & Lee University has been offered the John J. Sparkman Chair in the law school at the University of Alabama, where he will visit during the 2007-08 academic year before making a decision on the offer.

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  • Hurd to Step Down as Illinois Dean, and Return to Faculty

    Heidi Hurd, who as Dean for the past five years of the University of Illinois College of Law has almost completely transformed that institution, will be stepping down this summer to return to the faculty.  As soon as a news item is posted, I will link to it.   Dean Hurd will be a tough act…

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  • Citation Study Methodology

    A colleague at DePaul made the helpful suggestion that I should describe the methodology for the citation study for which I have been soliciting corrections to the draft faculty lists.  I shall utilize the same search methodology as in the July 2005 study.  The two differences will be that (1) we shall search every non-emeritus…

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  • “Chip on the Shoulder” Department

    Someone named Richard Neumann, who teaches civil procedure and legal writing at Hofstra, thought to cc: me on an e-mail he sent to a listserve for, I believe, clinical law professors.  He was "reacting" to this.  He wrote: The methodology makes this study worthless.  Not only does it exclude about 70% of law school faculties,…

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  • Catty Remark of the Month

    In the midst of last week’s discussion by Randy Barnett (Georgetown) and Einer Elhauge (Harvard) of why there are so many visiting professors, an anonymous law professor posted the following hands-down winner for cattiest comment of the month.  Remarking on another commenter who said, And [Harvard professors will] tell you that only with the uptick…

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  • Benkler from Yale to Harvard

    Yochai Benkler (information law and policy, communications law, intellectual property) at Yale Law School has accepted the senior offer from Harvard Law School.

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  • Workplace Prof Blog on the Ledbetter Decision

    Here.

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  • Visiting Professors (07-08) in Contracts and Commercial Law

    Here.

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  • “Conservative Organization Flourishes at Yale Law School”

    This is an actual headline and news story on the front page of the YLS web site. That they need to post items like this may explain some of what was motivating Peter Schuck (Yale) in our debate about law schools and "ideological diversity" awhile back.  But as I said then:  "we shouldn’t visit the…

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  • Harvard has a lot of offers outstanding!

    So reports Einer Elhauge (Harvard)–in addition to those we’ve reported previously (Michael Klarman [Virginia], Martha Nussbaum [Chicago], William Rubenstein [UCLA], and Cass Sunstein [Harvard]), Professor Elhauge also now confirms offers to Yochai Benkler (Yale), Richard Ford (Stanford), Pamela Karlan (Stanford), Robert Post (Yale), Seana Shiffrin (UCLA), Reva Siegel (Yale), and Henry Smith (Yale).  My guess…

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  • Sitkoff from NYU to Harvard

    Robert Sitkoff, who only last year moved from Northwestern to NYU, has now accepted a senior offer from Harvard Law School.  The Harvard news item is here.

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  • Whittier Facing Possible Loss of ABA Accreditation

    Details here. UPDATE:  More on the Whittier situation here.

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  • Why so many visiting professors?

    A couple of faculty, including one Dean, wrote in to remark that the number of visitors at the top schools is double what it was 10-20 years ago.  The question is what explains this development?  My hypothesis is that the efforts by Harvard and Columbia to expand their faculties has created enormous pressure all the…

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  • Greenberg, Leiter, Quine, Realism, Naturalized Jurisprudence

    Via Solum, I see that Mark Greenberg (UCLA–but whom we’re fortunate to have at Texas this calendar year as a Harrington Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Law School) has put on-line a revised version of the very fine paper on my work that he gave at a conference at Columbia six years ago. …

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  • Gibson, Dunn Partner in NYC Named New LSU Law Dean

    Blog Emperor Caron has details and links.

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  • Congratulations to UT Law’s Class of 2007

    It’s been a pleasure and privilege to have had the opportunity to work with many of you during your time in the Law School. I’m sure I speak for all my colleagues in wishing you much professional success and personal happiness in the years ahead.  I look forward to seeing many of you at today’s…

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  • UC Irvine Authorized to Hire a Founding Law Dean

    So reports this local newspaper: UC Irvine officials got the go-ahead today to hire a founding dean for the university’s recently approved law school, at an annual salary of $233,200 to $364,300. The campus has begun recruiting for the position, in hopes that the new school will open in 2009. No one has been selected…

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  • Miller to Retire at Harvard, Take Up Post at NYU

    Arthur Miller, co-author with my late great colleague Charles Alan Wright of the leading treatise on Federal Practice and Procedure, will retire from the Harvard Law School faculty where he has taught since 1972 (Miller turns 73 this year).  In the fall, he will take up a University Professorship at New York University School of…

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  • Washington & Lee’s Morant to be New Dean at Wake Forest

    Blake Morant (administrative law, contracts, media law) at Washington & Lee has been appointed the new Dean of the law school at Wake Forest University.  The Wake Forest press release is here.

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  • Interview about Legal Philosophy

    I’ve posted at SSRN the text of an interview with me about legal philosophy, which will appear in the volume Legal Philosophy:  5 Questions, due out later this year.  The questions that all those interviewed address are the following: 1. Why were you initially drawn to the philosophy of law? 2. For which of your…

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  • Why is it so easy to get tenure in law schools?

    With all the blogospheric chit-chat about tenure, I thought I’d post, once again, a link to this old discussion of mine (prompted by a question from a philosopher) about why it is so easy to get tenure in law schools. I’d be curious to hear what other law faculty think.  Post only once; comments may…

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  • Harvard Makes Offers to Rubenstein, Sitkoff

    Harvard Law School has made tenured offers to William Rubenstein (civil rights, civil procedure) at UCLA and Robert Sitkoff (wills, trusts & estates) at New York University. 

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  • Top 10 Corporate and Securities Articles of 2006

    Courtesy of Robert Thompson (Vanderbilt), here is the list of authors whose articles were chosen as among "the 10 best corporate and securities articles" based on a poll of scholars in the field:   Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard), Bernard Black (Texas) (two articles), Stephen Choi (NYU), Brian Cheffins (Cambridge), James Cox (Duke), Jill Fisch…

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  • On Tenure

    There is a flurry of (rather ignorant, it seems to me) postings by academic bloggers (mostly law professors) about tenure, most of which are linked from this item.  In response to one of the items, David Luban (Georgetown) makes an excellent point about tenure and academic freedom: The reason that tenure appears to function to…

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  • Now: Visits and Hires in Legal History

    From Prof. Dudziak.

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  • Hires and Visits in Labor and Employment Law

    Following the example of Blog Emperor Caron, Professor Secunda has collected the details for folks in his field.

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  • Mann from Texas to Columbia

    Ronald J. Mann (commercial law, intellectual property), my esteemed colleague at the University of Texas School of Law, has accepted a senior offer from Columbia Law School.  He will be missed in Austin!

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  • Wendel on Autoadmit and Anthony Ciolli

    An informative post by legal ethics expert Brad Wendel (Cornell), who quietly shreds some of the rationales Mr. Ciolli and his partner Jarret Cohen offered in defense of their notorious "discussion" board.

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  • Koh, Lessig Elected to American Philosophical Society

    The list of new members is here.  Lawrence Lessig (Stanford) was elected in the "Social Sciences" category, while Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, was elected in the category for "The Arts, Professions, Leaders in Public & Private Affairs."  Judge David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit was also elected in the latter category.

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  • Placement of Graduates in Law Teaching–from Solum’s Data

    MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 26:  TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO REPORT TO SOLUM!  (DATA BELOW IS NOT UPDATED FROM WHERE THINGS STOOD ON 4/26–WILL UPDATE WHEN SOLUM COMPLETES COLLECTING REPORTS.) Perhaps as a way of inspiring more schools to report their rookie hires to Larry Solum, let me present some data based on the…

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  • Marquette Gets $51 Million Gift

    Wow!

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  • Polsky from Minnesota to Florida State

    Gregg Polsky, a tax scholar at the University of Minnesota School of Law, has accepted a senior offer from the law school at Florida State University. UPDATE:  Blog Emperor (and tax scholar) Caron comments on the Polsky hire.

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  • Me

    So I’m getting asked this enough, that I should probably post something, especially given some of the weird rumors circulating in Cyberspace that have been sent my way the last couple of months.  I do have an offer from the University of Chicago Law School, where I had a very rewarding visiting stint last fall. …

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  • Bowman from Northwestern to Cornell

    Cynthia Grant Bowman, a leading scholar in feminist legal theory, family law, and international human rights at Northwestern University School of Law, has accepted the Chair in Feminist Jurisprudence at Cornell Law School (previously held by Martha Fineman, now at Emory).

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  • Vanderbilt’s Rasmussen to be New USC Law Dean

    Robert Rasmussen, a leading bankruptcy law scholar at Vanderbilt, will be the new Dean of the law school at the University of Southern California.  His wife, Rebecca Brown, a constitutional law scholar at Vanderbilt, will also join the USC faculty.  USC’s Dean Search failed last year, but it seems like the school has now realized…

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  • Wall Street Journal Blog Reports that Autoadmit’s Ciolli Has Had His Job Offer Rescinded

    The story is here; an excerpt: [L]aw firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge rescinded its job offer to Anthony Ciolli, the 3L at Penn Law who resigned as “Chief Education Director” of AutoAdmit last month. He resigned in the wake of a WaPo exposé on how the site in part served as a platform for…

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  • Amar from Hastings back to UC Davis

    Vikram Amar (constitutional law), who moved to the University of California, Hastings College of Law from UC Davis almost ten years ago has now accepted a senior offer to return to Davis effective July 1.  That’s a big coup for Davis!

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  • Crisis at Ave Maria Law School

    Dean Mark Sargent (Villanova) has posted the full text of a statement by faculty at Ave Maria here; if even a portion of the allegations against Dean Dobranski are true, then his career in academic administration is probably over.  Here is an excerpt from the statement: {L]ast spring, a substantial majority of the faculty issued…

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  • UW’s Stilt Named 2007Carnegie Scholar for Work on Islamic Law

    Kristen Stilt, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington at Seattle (and a 1993 UT Law grad, as it happens), has been named a 2007 Carnegie Scholar for her work on Islamic law and history by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.  (Stilt also has a tenure-track offer from the law school at…

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  • New Law Fellows of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Announced…

    …here.  The new members are:  Akhil Amar (Yale), Christopher F. Edley, Jr. (Dean at Boalt, formerly Harvard), Henry Hansmann (Yale), Herbert Hovenkamp (Iowa), Pamela Karlan (Stanford), Judge David Levi (U.S. District Court in Sacramento, soon to be Dean of Duke), former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Richard Revesz (Dean at NYU).  (I am told O’Connor’s…

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