Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports

Wake Forest Dean Jane Aiken should resign…

April 1, 2020

…since she has unnecessarily humiliated a member of her faculty and violated his academic freedom. I don't often agree with Eugene Volokh (UCLA), but I agree with his criticism of the Dean's handling of this situation. (For earlier discussion of these issues, involving another Dean who did not understand his obligations, see here.)
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New “Emergency Relief Fund” for law students, funded by Access Lex, administered by law schools (Michael Simkovic)

March 31, 2020

The Access Lex Institute is providing $5 million in total to fund an emergency relief fund for students at each of 200 law schools. Each law school will receive $25,000. Law schools will be responsible for administering the funds to assist students in need. The press release describes the purpose of the funds as follows:…
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Would triage plans for the use of ventilators (etc.) that favored those who were younger and healthier violate civil rights law?

March 30, 2020

I'm curious to hear what informed readers make of this story. Comments may take awhile to appear (as they are moderated when I have time), please submit your comment only once. Thanks.
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Coronavirus

March 26, 2020

Here I am mostly continuing with my usual coverage of law school-related news. At my other blog on philosophy and the academy more generally, I am doing a lot of posts about the coronavirus, for anyone who is interested (the link will take you to the posts specifically about coronavirus matter). Good luck to all…
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Pass/fail grading?

March 25, 2020

Some law schools (including some that didn't have real grades to start with) have switched officially to pass/fail as classes move online; others have not. Law professor Jonathan Adler (Case Western) argues against switching to P/F, while Noah Zatz (UCLA) argues in favor. My own view is that it probably depends on the school and…
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Another online guide to using Zoom…

March 21, 2020

…from law professor Josh Blackman (South Texas). (Thanks to Paul Horwitz for the pointer.)
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Teaching online

March 20, 2020

A short video guide from law professor Seth Oranburg (Duquesne).
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UCLA chapter of NLG is an embarrassment to the NLG

March 19, 2020

The UCLA Federalist Society had the temerity to invite Professor Doriane Lambert Coleman from Duke Law School, a former competitive female athlete who has written carefully and thoughtfully about the complex issues raised by the participation of trans women in female sports (see, e.g., this article). The UCLA Law School chapter of the NLG decided…
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All U.S. law schools have now moved to online instruction…

March 18, 2020

…so reports Blog Emperor Caron.
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New USNews.com “program” rankings for law schools

March 17, 2020

USNews.com "program" rankings for law schools have usually been even more worthless than the "overall" rankings of law schools, mostly tracking how well schools market a "program" than the actual quality of faculty or offerings. (Tax is the classic example.) This year they added four new categories: "Business and Corporate Law", "Contracts and Commercial Law,"…
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92% of law school have moved to remote teaching due to coronavirus

March 14, 2020

Blog Emperor Caron has the details.
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“Capitalism, Social Democracy and Socialism: Which is Right for America?”

March 11, 2020

In what is probably my last trip for a good while (having so far cancelled events in Canada, England, and Ireland,with no doubt more to come), I'll be driving up to Madison today for a debate/discussion with the economist Bryan Caplan (George Mason). So probably not much new until Friday. Since "social distancing" is the…
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What is your law school doing in response to the impending coronavirus pandemic?

March 9, 2020

This is an open thread for law faculty to post about what their schools are doing: e.g., cancelling classes, "remote" teaching or exams, cancelling conferences, prohibiting faculty work-related travel etc. Feel free to link to public resources/statements by your schools. Submit your comment only once, they are moderated, and may take awhile to appear.
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Coronavirus comes to Yeshiva University and (maybe) its Cardozo Law School

March 6, 2020

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 4–SEVERAL UPDATES Message to the Yeshiva and Cardozo community here. UPDATE: New York Law School taking precautions as well. ANOTHER: Promising news out of Cardozo, from the Dean; an excerpt: There are still no known cases of the Coronavirus in the Cardozo community. The Manhattan attorney who tested positive for…
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What happened to Adrian Vermeule?

March 5, 2020

Here he is suggesting conservatives opposed to Trump should be sent "to the camps" and here he is defaming atheists. Bizarre. UPDATE: He's apparently deleted his Twitter account in the wake of the former episode.
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The meaningless “Primary Research Group” survey of “law faculty and staff”

February 27, 2020

Back in 2015. This "survey" has been making the rounds, despite being obviously meaningless: it is based on a survey of 96 "faculty and staff" in the U.S. and Canada. Only 96! There are some 8,000 law faculty in the United States alone, and I would guess that the 16 law schools in Canada have…
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Regarding memorial notices

February 25, 2020

It is not possible to record the passing of every member of the legal academic community. I try only to post memorial notices for faculty who are likely to be nationally known for their work. I'm sure I sometimes make mistakes of omission, for which my apologies.
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Concordia Law in Idaho to become part of Concordia University in Minnesota…

February 24, 2020

…after the original parent campus in Oregon closes.
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“What makes the San Diego originalism conference so good”…

February 21, 2020

…as described by my colleague Will Baude also explains exactly what makes the AALS annual meetings so worthless from an intellectual point of view. The annual Analytic Legal Philosophy conferences used to be good in this way too for the first ten years or so, although not so much anymore unfortunately.
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In Memoriam: Francis McGovern (1945-2020)

February 18, 2020

A longtime member of the Duke law faculty, he was also a regular visiting professor of law at the University of California, Hastings. He was an expert on products liability and mass tort litigation, and served as the court-appointed "special master" in many major tort cases involving opioids, silicone implants asbetos, lead paint and others. …
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Technology and lawyer’s work

February 17, 2020

Article here, including interesting obserevations from Dean Jennifer Mnookin (UCLA).
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Novartis demands a 15% discount from its outside law firms unless they put more women and minority lawyers to work on Novartis legal matters (Michael Simkovic)

February 13, 2020

Bloomberg reports that Novartis AG, a Swiss Pharmaceutical firm with a Market Capitalization in excess of 220 billion USD and U.S. headquarters in Boston, is demanding that its U.S.-based outside law firms ensure that at least 30 percent of associate billable hours on Novartis matters are completed by associates who are female or members of…
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Law review EICs at the top 16 law schools are all currently women

February 12, 2020

A conference in their honor was recently held in Washington, DC. (Top 16, by the way, is a far more sensible demarcation than "top 14," which designates nothing of significance in the real world.)
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Blog Emperor links to “the College Fix” regarding his pet issue du jour

February 11, 2020

Here. (The College Fix is part of the right-wing media-sphere devoted to attacking universities.) Here's the relevant part of my exchange with the student author, Troy Sargent, of the College Fix piece now deemed newsworthy. Mr. Sargent: I am a reporter with the College Fix and appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. …
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Who controls a journal: the editorial board or the publisher?

February 10, 2020

The entire editorial board of the European Law Journal has resigned in a dispute with publisher, Wiley, over who the new editors will be. Legally, it looks like Wiley can appoint the editors, but the credibility of the journal is now shattered. (Thanks to Matt Kramer for the pointer.)
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The need for standards governing the correction of errors in digital publications

February 6, 2020

Professor Janet Sinder (Brooklyn) discusses.
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Leshem v. University of Southern California

February 5, 2020

We recently noted an open letter regarding irregularities in Professor Leshem's tenure review, which is the subject of on-going litigation. Here is Professor Leshem's most recent brief in the legal case: Download Opening Brief Leshem (highlights added) And here is USC's response: Download 200204 Respondent's Brief dtd 2-4-20
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“Academic feeder judges”

February 3, 2020

This is useful, from Professor Howard Wasserman (Florida International University). Note that it includes judges who are no longer on the bench, as well as many who still are.
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Rostron & Levit’s guide to submitting to law reviews updated

January 30, 2020

Their message follows: Dear Colleagues, We just updated our charts about law journal submissions, expedites, and rankings from different sources for the Spring 2020 submission season covering the 203 main journals of each law school. We have created hyperlinks for each law review to take you directly to the law review’s submissions page. Again the…
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Does membership in the Federalist Society or American Constitutional Society undermine the appearance of judicial impartiality? (Michael Simkovic)

January 29, 2020

A draft judicial ethics advisory opinion would discourage judges and their clerks and staff attorneys from being members of either the conservative/libertarian Federalist Society or the liberal/progressive American Constitutional Society because of concerns that membership in such overtly ideological / political organizations could create an appearance of partisanship that could undermine perceptions of judicial impartiality. …
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Law professors are more religious than scientists, but it probably doesn’t matter much (Michael Simkovic)

January 28, 2020

At Taxprof blog, Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine) covers a study by James Lindgren (Northwestern) about the religious beliefs and practices of law professors. Lindgren compares law professors to the overall U.S. population and finds that law professors are more likely to express doubts about the existence of God. This study is part of a line…
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Surprisingly large number of law professors believe in God and are religious compared to other highly educated academics

January 27, 2020

That isn't the takeaway emphasized by the Blog Emperor or the study's author, but it's surely what must leap out at any person knowledgeable about the academy. For example, more than 50% of law professors generally believe in God or a "higher power" (21% are absolutely certain that God exists), while only 24% are atheists. …
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Consumer Reports: Leaked White House plan to slow progress on fuel economy standards will hurt consumers’ health and finances (Michael Simkovic)

January 24, 2020

From Consumer Reports: "A Trump administration plan to lower automotive mileage targets for future model years that could be approved in a matter of weeks would result in hundreds of dollars in [annual] added costs for consumers, according to a new U.S. Senate analysis. . . . The proposed regulation, called the Safe Affordable…
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An open letter regarding a controversial tenure decision at USC Law

January 22, 2020

The letter is here, and includes many prominent signatories (the letter is accepting more signatories as well). The case concerns Shmuel Leshem, who was denied tenure in 2013; the controversy concerns the solicitation and use of confidential journal referee reports as part of the tenure process. I would agree, for the reasons given in the…
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A preview of what Hein citation rankings might look like (courtesy of Ted Sichelman)

January 21, 2020

Recently, Professors Paul Heald (Illinois) and Ted Sichelman (San Diego) released law school faculty rankings that combined SSRN downloads and HeinOnline citations (here). (I'm skeptical about the value of SSRN rankings, as I've noted many times in the past: e.g., here and here). In their study, Heald and Sichelman included Hein-only rankings, combining both historical (all-time) and…
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David versus Goliath: Law professor sues New York Times Company over misleading and allegedly defamatory headline (Michael Simkovic)

January 16, 2020

Professor Lawrence Lessig recently sued The New York Times Company for defamation for incorrectly suggesting in a headline and lede that Lessig advocated soliciting donations from a convicted sex offender. The New York Times wrote: "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret . . . It is hard…
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Van Horn discusses the legacy of corporate funding for the “Chicago School” of law & economics (Michael Simkovic)

January 15, 2020

Pro-market, a blog at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, recently published a retrospective by Robert Van Horn discussing the early financial and intellectual ties between the Chicago school of law and economics and powerful corporate interests, and the controversy such ties engendered. The University of Chicago's work on…
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Judge erases 200K+ in student loan debt for 2004 law school graduate

January 15, 2020

Interesting story.
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Blog highlights from 2019, 4th quarter: October, November, December

January 13, 2020

October Society for Empirical Legal Studies objects to use of HeinOnLine citation data to measure "scholarly impact" November The growing importance of "privacy law" Another academic administrator (a law professor, no less) who doesn't understand her job December Jonathan Turley (George Washington) is not the "second most-cited law professor in the country" Wealthy Penn Law alumnus…
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What is a realist theory of law?

January 10, 2020

This programmatic essay, which was written for translation into Portuguese and Spanish for legal philosophy journals in South America, may be of interest to some readers.
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