TaxProf Blog

Graduation Day

Reed Caron, B.S. Mathematics, Grinnell College:

For more on my journey with my son, see:

• Off to the Ranch (July 1, 2005)
• Goodbye Sandy (June 6, 2006)
• Happy 16th Birthday, Reed (June 25, 2006)
• Opening Day and the Passage of Time (Apr. 2, 2007)
• A Father's Strange Bliss (Apr. 16, 2007)
• The Tax Prof Circle of Life (May 13, 2007)
• Schadenfreude at the Hampton Inn (Oct. 5, 2008)
• Belated Thanksgiving (Dec. 1, 2008)
• Graduation Day (June 5, 2009)
• Breakthrough Cincinnati (Aug. 1, 2009)
• A Bittersweet Day (Aug. 17, 2009)
• The Reach of the Blogosphere (Sept. 2, 2009)
• The Good and the Bad in Sports (Nov. 7, 2009)
• Off to the Big Dance (Nov. 9, 2009)
• Tax Stories in Paradise (Mar. 22, 2010)
• Farewell, Malibu (Mar. 30, 2010)
• Sending Your Child Into a Hurricane (July 4, 2010)
• Farewell, San Diego! (July 28, 2010)
• GOOOAAALLL!!! (Oct 31, 2010)
• What Does $49,144 Tuition Buy? A Mohawk. (Oct. 3, 2011)
• Farewell, 3810 Miami Road (Aug. 10, 2012)
• GOOOAAALLL!!! (Sept. 4, 2012)
• The Last Game (Nov. 3, 2012)
• Our Christmas Gift (Dec. 23, 2012)

WSJ: Law Schools Turn to Non-J.D. Students to Make Up for Enrollment Shortfall

Wall Street Journal:  More Often, Nonlawyers Try Taste of Law School:

Law schools hunting for students as their enrollment numbers drop are increasingly trying to attract an unexpected group: people who have no intention of practicing law.

Doctors, environmental consultants and even an urban planner have signed up for the programs, which offer master's degrees in law and typically cost about the same as one year of law school.

Pitched at midcareer professionals, the programs tend to draw people who work in heavily regulated fields where compliance with a growing body of rules requires an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the law. Some students also hope to gain a competitive edge. ...

Student enrollment in programs that don't offer a juris doctor, or J.D.—the traditional three-year-law degree—has increased 13% since 2010, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of American Bar Association data. ...

"Adding new degree programs is like a company diversifying its product lines. If demand for one sags, you've still got alternative sources of revenue coming in," said Paul McGreal, dean of the University of Dayton School of Law, which now offers master's degrees for nonlawyers and practicing attorneys alike. ... Barry Currier, the ABA's managing director of accreditation and legal education, said more non-J.D. programs are popping up now for two reasons: They can generate revenue for schools, and they respond to market needs for people with specialized training.

Update:

• ABA Journal, Schools Market to Mid-Career Professionals as Fewer Traditional Students Seek Law Degrees
• Above the Law, Law Schools Target New Students To Fleece

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• Sense and Sensibility: Estate Planning Lessons From Jane Austen
• WSJ:  Tax Court Slaps Down IRAs Holding 'Alternative Assets'
• The IRS Scandal, Day 9
• FATCA:  Toward a Multilateral Automatic Information Reporting Regime

Sunday:

• SNL on the IRS Scandal
• The IRS Scandal, Day 10
• Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
• Benefit Corporations and the Business Expense Deduction

The Most Racially Diverse Law School Faculties

The Most Racially Diverse Law School Faculties, Lawyers of Color Law School Diversity Issue:

• Charlotte
• Florida A&M
• Florida International
• Hawaii
• Howard
• Inter American
• John Marshall (Atlanta)
• Liberty
• New Mexico
• North Carolina Central
• Puerto Rico
• Southern
• Texas Southern

For more, see:

• Lawyers of Color, Why Faculty Diversity in Law Schools Is Important
• Lawyers of Color, Minority Law Faculty Directory of 200 Law Schools
• JD Journal, Survey Shows US News’ Leading Law Schools Lack Diversity
• National Law Journal, 'U.S. News' Top Law Schools Fall Short on Diversity

Gillers: The Two-Year Law Degree: Undesirable but Unavoidable

Stephen Gillers (NYU), The Two-Year Law Degree: Undesirable but Perhaps Unavoidable, 2013 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol'y Quorum 4:

Professor Stephen Gillers responds to Professor Estreicher’s proposal for a two-year law degree that will qualify a graduate to take the bar examination [The Roosevelt-Cardozo Way: The Case for Bar Eligibility After Two Years of Law School, 15 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol'y 599 (2012)]. Professor Gillers states that while two years of law school may be sufficient to practice many types of legal work, it will put two-year graduates at a professional disadvantage. The lower knowledge base of two-year graduates will make them less attractive candidates in an already tight job mar-ket. Furthermore, even if New York allows a two-year degree to qualify for the bar exam, it will limit two-year graduates to practicing in New York only, as reciprocity from other states is not expected.

Gabilondo Named One of 50 Most Influential Minority Law Professors

José Gabilondo (Florida International) is the only Tax Prof named to Lawyers of Color's 2013 50 Under 50 List ("The Most Influential Minority Law Professors 50 Years of Age or Younger") in its Law School Diversity Issue:

José Gabilondo joined the College of Law after working in financial market regulation at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the World Bank. He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2009-2011. Professor Gabilondo teaches tax and corporate finance. He is co-author of Corporate Finance Debt, Equity, and Derivatives Markets and their Intermediaries in the American Casebook Series. He is a nationally recognized commentator in the Spanish-language media on financial and economic matters.

For the complete list of the 50 Under 50, see here.

American Lawyer: There Are Two Law School Grads For Every Available Law Job

The American Lawyer:  Most States Saw Lawyer Surplus Grow From 2009 to 2011, by Matt Leichter:

[I]n 2011 there were more than two ABA law school graduates and three new lawyers for every job opening in the United States.

STATE/BEA REGION	No. ABA Law School Graduates		No. Bar Admits		Ratio ABA Grads to Annual Lawyer Jobs		Ratio Bar Admits to Annual Lawyer Jobs
	2009	2011	2009	2011	2009	2011	2009	2011
Alabama	405	416	522	548	2.03	1.73	2.61	2.28
Alaska	0	0	93	106	0.00	0.00	3.10	5.30
Arizona	378	490	418	689	1.35	1.09	1.49	1.53
Arkansas	249	269	278	307	2.26	2.07	2.53	2.36
California	4,688	4,964	6,766	6,627	1.99	1.99	2.87	2.66
Colorado	518	462	1,055	1,256	1.57	1.36	3.20	3.69
Connecticut	531	526	841	559	2.79	2.77	4.43	2.94
Delaware	237	252	154	122	3.95	4.20	2.57	2.03
D.C.	2,129	2,116	4,082	3,164	2.19	1.48	4.21	2.21
Florida	2,787	2,998	2,990	3,646	2.03	1.53	2.18	1.86
Georgia	896	896	1,112	1,288	1.18	1.30	1.46	1.87
Hawaii	88	101	176	208	1.47	1.68	2.93	3.47
Idaho	93	104	249	210	1.03	1.49	2.77	3.00
Illinois	2,166	2,183	3,085	2,928	1.92	2.25	2.73	3.02
Indiana	828	818	666	643	2.44	3.03	1.96	2.38
Iowa	341	342	351	431	2.44	2.63	2.51	3.32
Kansas	297	309	470	395	1.75	2.21	2.76	2.82
Kentucky	385	455	533	645	2.14	2.39	2.96	3.39
Louisiana	811	797	723	744	3.24	2.95	2.89	2.76
Maine	93	90	166	163	1.86	1.29	3.32	2.33
Maryland	548	594	1,373	1,653	2.03	1.49	5.09	4.13
Massachusetts	2,316	2,288	2,328	2,416	5.39	3.27	5.41	3.45
Michigan	2,016	2,072	1,099	1,099	4.29	6.48	2.34	3.43
Minnesota	962	887	1,034	923	2.60	2.77	2.79	2.88
Mississippi	347	316	281	284	2.31	10.53	1.87	9.47
Missouri	898	890	1,062	965	4.08	2.02	4.83	2.19
Montana	77	84	153	192	1.28	1.20	2.55	2.74
Nebraska	280	283	112	245	2.80	4.04	1.12	3.50
Nevada	140	128	392	542	0.93	0.98	2.61	4.17
NH	144	147	300	296	2.88	2.45	6.00	4.93
New Jersey	791	783	2,691	2,844	1.46	1.04	4.98	3.79
New Mexico	112	106	278	287	1.60	1.51	3.97	4.10
New York	4,776	4,703	10,194	9,855	2.81	2.92	6.00	6.12
North Carolina	1,055	1,123	1,140	1,101	2.34	2.44	2.53	2.39
North Dakota	83	81	115	195	2.77	2.03	3.83	4.88
Ohio	1,495	1,411	1,117	1,324	3.25	2.57	2.43	2.41
Oklahoma	494	462	450	465	2.35	1.71	2.14	1.72
Oregon	531	537	682	795	3.32	2.98	4.26	4.42
Pennsylvania	1,715	1,739	1,666	2,404	2.68	2.35	2.60	3.25
Puerto Rico	554	678	506	557	5.54	6.78	5.06	5.57
Rhode Island	184	158	209	185	2.30	2.63	2.61	3.08
South Carolina	405	418	475	508	2.13	2.09	2.50	2.54
South Dakota	73	55	115	96	N/A	1.38	N/A	2.40
Tennessee	445	472	903	821	2.12	N/A	4.30	N/A
Texas	2,337	2,343	3,395	3,476	1.56	1.44	2.26	2.13
Utah	281	285	458	606	1.00	1.36	1.64	2.89
Vermont	191	175	74	109	3.18	3.50	1.23	2.18
Virginia	1,429	1,350	1,430	1,452	1.96	1.78	1.96	1.91
Washington	694	657	1,090	1,148	1.58	1.43	2.48	2.50
West Virginia	149	125	254	307	2.48	1.56	4.23	3.84
Wisconsin	487	484	855	920	2.56	1.94	4.50	3.68
Wyoming	71	73	151	112	2.37	0.91	5.03	1.40
U.S.A. (States)	44,000	44,495	61,112	62,861	2.26	2.09	3.14	2.95
U.S.A. (BLS)					1.83	2.10	2.54	2.97
New England	3,459	3,384	3,918	3,728	4.02	2.99	4.56	3.30
Mideast	10,196	10,187	20,160	20,042	2.44	2.04	4.82	4.02
Great Lakes	6,992	6,968	6,822	6,914	2.70	2.95	2.63	2.93
Plains	2,934	2,847	3,259	3,250	2.85	2.41	3.16	2.75
Southeast	9,363	9,635	10,641	11,651	2.01	1.92	2.28	2.33
Southwest	3,321	3,401	4,541	4,917	1.61	1.41	2.20	2.03
Rocky Mtn	1,040	1,008	2,066	2,376	1.32	1.31	2.62	3.09
Far West	6,141	6,387	9,199	9,426	1.92	1.91	2.87	2.82

Two More Schools Join Rankings Hall of Shame

Robert Morse (Director of Data Research for U.S. News & World Report), Updates to 2 Schools' 2013 Best Colleges Ranks:

Two schools – University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and York College of Pennsylvania – recently advised U.S. News that they submitted inflated data that were used in the 2013 Best Colleges rankings, resulting in their numerical ranks being higher than they otherwise might have been. In both cases, the same incorrect data were also reported to many other parties including the U.S. Department of Education.

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a Texas school in the Regional Universities (West) rankings category, advised U.S. News that it reported an acceptance rate (which accounts for 1.5% of the overall ranking) of 27.4%, rather than the actual 89.1% rate.

York College, a Pennsylvania school in the Regional Universities (North) rankings category, advised U.S. News that it reported average SAT scores (which account for 7.5% of the overall ranking) of 545 (math) and 532 (critical reading), rather than the actual 527 (math) and 516 (critical reading) SAT scores. York College admitted that it has been misreporting SAT scores for more than a decade.

Other members of the Rankings Hall of Shame:  Bucknell, Claremont McKenna, Emory, George Washington, Illinois, Tulane, and Villanova.

The Legal Job Market: Not As Bad As You Think?

Following up on last week's post, Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market: 

Above the Law Critiques Borden's The Coming Resurgence of the Legal Profession and Legal Education

Following up on last week's post, Brad Borden: The Coming Resurgence of the Legal Profession and Legal Education Fueled by Third-Party Litigation Financing:  Above the Law, Third-Party Litigation Financing: The Latest Chimerical Lifeline For The Legal Profession, by Joe Patrice:

[S]ome law firms (and most clients) are realizing that the era of big staffing is over. The “manual labor” of document review and due diligence can be farmed out to the glut of out-of-work attorneys willing to make peanuts to service their loans. An improving economy will drive up the wages they can demand (because they could leave the law entirely to take advantage of better opportunities), but not to the level that once enticed students to law school in droves. If law students aren’t guaranteed of getting boom-era salaries — and the majority of law students never will -- there is nothing that will convince students to take on the debt law schools create unless the schools embrace fundamental change.

Professor Borden seems to be holding out for [third-party litigation financing] to rejustify the status quo legal landscape. TPLF may be a lot of things, but a TARDIS is not one of them.

The challenges facing a stagnant legal market cannot be addressed when you begin from the premise, “How can we go back to exactly where we were before?” It’s the kind of “everything’s cyclical” thinking critiqued in Bruce MacEwan’s new book, Growth Is Dead: Now What?: Law Firms on the Brink.

More on Banning C Grades in Law School

Following up on Friday's post, Law Prof: Let's Scrap the 'Gentleman's C':

• The Volokh Conspiracy:  Eliminating the “C” in Law School Grading?, by Kenneth Anderson (American):

I’d say the professor who hands out a C grade (at least in a school that doesn’t mandate a set number of C grades and perhaps often in those schools as well) and then says, it’s just another grade and is just a data point like any other, is probably wrong as to the perception of the signal. As a social fact about what grades say, in my experience, a low GPA that has several B- but no C grades will often be better (i.e., in its consequences in the real world of employers and jobs) than exactly the same GPA with a C grade. The C grade sends a signal all by itself that is independent of being merely a data point like the rest. I can think of employers who would rule out considering a candidate with a C on the record, but might not rule out someone with the same GPA. Since I think this is so – but don’t think this makes a lot of sense – I agree with Silverstein’s argument that it would be better to get rid of the C grade, unless one is seeking to send a signal of some culpable failure to do the work rather than simply poor performance.

• Above the Law:  The Wussification of Legal Education Continues, by Elie Mystal:

I don’t mean to sound like Col. Nathan Jessup, but Christ on vitamin supplements, instead of playing into the weak-ass mentality of new law students, maybe law school should be training these kids for a life where not everybody can be above average! Some of these kids won’t get jobs, some of these kids will lose trials, some of these kids will have their briefs sent back to them drenched in red. What are these law students supposed to do then? Cry? BITCH ABOUT THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING?

Silverstein’s ideas might sound like they are helping students, but really this is the kind of thing that only helps law professors who don’t want to do the hard work of dealing with disappointed millennials confronting their own failure. Not giving out C’s means less time grading, and less time “justifying” the grades to pissed-off law students. It’s just another law school idea that makes things better for the faculty without actually helping students.

Because getting a C — and then coping with it and overcoming it — is probably the most valuable lesson some of these kids will learn in law school.

Brooklyn Law School Responds to Tenured Prof's ABA Complaint

Following up on yesterday's post, Tenured Brooklyn Law Prof Files ABA Complaint Against School: the Brooklyn administration has asked me to post this statement:

We have heard from several faculty members about your blog’s report that an ABA claim has been filed against Brooklyn Law School. While we have yet to receive an official copy of the filing, from what we understand of the complaint, it is unfortunate that this professor has apparently chosen to attempt to gain leverage in what is essentially a personnel issue by complaining to the ABA and in the press. We look forward to addressing the matter with the ABA and are confident that the ABA will find the professor’s claims to be wholly without merit.

For more, see The American Lawyer.

Update:  Above the Law:  The More Law Schools Change, the More Law Faculty Will Start Pitching a Fit, by Elie Mystal

Public College and University President Salaries, 2012-13

Chronicle of Higher Education:  Public College and University President Salaries, 2012-13:

1. Graham B. Spanier (Penn State University):  $2,906,721
2. Jay Gogue (Auburn University):  $2,542,865
3. E. Gordon Gee (Ohio State University):  $1,899,420
4. Alan G. Merten (George Mason University):  $1,869,369
5. Jo Ann M. Gora (Ball State University):  $984,647
6. Mary Sue Coleman (University of Michigan System):  $918,783
7. Charles W. Steger (Virginia Tech):  $857,749
8. Mark G. Yudof (University of California System):  $847,149
9. Bernard J. Machen (University of Florida):  $834,562
10. Francisco G. Cigarroa (University of Texas System):  $815,833

• Chronicle of Higher Education, For Many Public-College Presidents, Home Is an Uncalculated Benefit
• New York Times, Public University Presidents Are Prospering, Annual Compensation Study Finds

Tax Partner Tony Nitti Reflects on His Brain Aneurysm

Inspiring story from tax partner (and blogger) Anthony J. Nitti (WithumSmith & Brown, Aspen, CO), Five Years After a Brain Aneurysm, Fear of Dying Can't Make Me Quit Living:

As I sat down to write today, it dawned on me that this might come off as a touch self-indulgent. But then I realized that a blog, by definition, is inherently self-indulgent, is it not? So here goes…

Five years ago today was the single worst day of my life. Two weeks earlier, a three-month battle with debilitating migraines ended in a terrifying diagnosis: a brain aneurysm. And on the morning of May 9^th, 2008, I kissed my wife goodbye before being wheeled into an operating room, where Dr. Robert Rosenwasser of Thomas Jefferson Hospital proceeded to cut through my skull, recess my brain, and clip off the offending artery. ...

My surgery went fantastically well, and a quick series of self-tests performed while still in my hospital bed confirmed my belief that cognitively, I was completely intact. The physical and emotional recovery, however, was another matter altogether. If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this process, it’s that when recovering from a life-threatening ailment, the real challenge often doesn’t begin until the healing is complete. ...

I’ve seen first-hand what fear can do to a man. How visions of a foreshortened future can elevate one’s instinct for self-preservation above all others, driving a person once brimming with life to spend their remaining days in a self-imposed protective bubble. To die without dying. I was desperate to not allow that to happen to me, but I was terrified of the alternative. ...

I realized I’d enjoyed a blessed existence for 33 years prior to my diagnosis, a life devoid of tragedy or adversity. I had supportive parents and a loving wife who would encourage me in my return, despite what was likely their natural instinct to beg me to live out my days from the safety of the couch. In fact, it was my mother who challenged me not to allow one bad experience to become my defining moment. It was she who would remind me, in a way that only an Eastern European mother could pull off, that she would “kick my butt” if I didn’t get back to living my life to the fullest. And I love her for that more than she can ever imagine.

If that weren’t enough motivation, a few months after surgery, my wife and I found out we would be welcoming a son into the world. Faced with that prospect, I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my days explaining to my boy that Daddy had to quit living out of fear of dying. ...

Five years later, I can proudly say that I have taken my life back, and I hope beyond hope that my story is able to provide inspiration. And to top it all off, just as my father promised, life is better than I ever could have imagined. ...

In addition to our son Ryan, our daughter Emily was born one year ago next week. Anytime I find myself thinking existentially, questioning why I survived when so many don’t, all I need to do is look at my son and daughter, and it all makes sense. I was meant to watch them grow up. ...

But if you take nothing else away from my story from the past year, take away the understanding that happy endings do indeed exist. Sure, life can seem cruel and unjust at times, but every once in a while, it can go the other way too. Life can be beautiful. Life can be just. Life can smile upon you, handing you miracles you never thought possible.

For the past several yars, I have ended my one-week Introduction to Law course for incoming 1Ls with this chorus from One Life to Love by 33 Miles:

You only get just one time around,
You only get one shot at this,
One chance,
To find out,
The one thing that you don't wanna miss,
One day when its all said and done
I hope you see that it was enough,
This one ride,
One try,
One life,
To love.

Tenured Brooklyn Law Prof Files ABA Complaint Against School

On the heels of the new standards adopted by Brooklyn Law School for the dismissal of faculty (here and here):  a tenured Brooklyn faculty member has filed an explosive 12-page ABA complaint against the law school:

The matters asserted in this complaint concern issues in the administration of the law school that the complainant believes threaten the ability of the institution to provide a sound program of legal education consistent with the ABA Standards.

The specific allegations pertain to a recent organizational change in the school creating a new office of president; withholding of material information concerning a dean candidate; the full-time employment outside the law school of the current dean; executive decisions of school policy made without faculty input; waste and mismanagement of school resources, including exorbitant administrative and faculty salaries; denial of academic freedom; and retaliatory action threatened for making a complaint to the ABA Accreditation Committee.

Among the serious allegations (citations omitted):

The salaries for executive positions have increased every year without any justification based on performance. Examples of self-dealing have involved appointment of Board members to the salaried teaching staff, free use of luxury apartments to Board members, the payment of exorbitant salaries to administrative officers and selected faculty, salary determinations based on friendship and loyalty rather than merit, and lack of transparency about financial matters of the law school and its faculty. ...

The supra competitive levels of executive compensation along with the salaries paid to the top five professors at the law school, as reported in recent IRS 990 filings, rival and exceed the compensation levels of tenured professors of law at Harvard or Yale. In times of acute crisis in legal education, compensation levels at Brooklyn Law School for a small handful of professors and administrators represent a level of mismanagement, waste, and self-dealing that violates Standards 201, 204, 206 and 404.

Discussion: The total value of the salary and benefits provided to the president of the law school—which include a tax-free furnished apartment complete with designer kitchen and skyline views of Manhattan, a car, and a driver—exceed a million dollars. This is the highest compensation paid to any law school dean or administrator in the United States. The salary and benefits lavished on the administrators of the law school impose a drain on the resources of the institution that detract from the educational mission of the law school, increase tuition costs of students, and add to the financial burden of law school graduates. The health and continued survival of the institution to which I have dedicated my career is threatened by waste, mismanagement and potential self-dealing creating serious violation of Standards 201, 204, 206 and 404.

It will be interesting to see how the Brooklyn Law School administration responds to these serious allegations and what action the ABA takes.

Update:  Brooklyn Law School Responds to Tenured Prof's ABA Complaint

Department of Education Should Terminate ABA's Role as Law School Accreditor

National Law Journal op-ed:  ABA and Legal Education: Change Won't Come from Within, by Michael L. Coyne (Associate Dean, Massachusetts School of Law):

With calls from The New York Times among others for drastic changes in legal education; near-universal agreement that the ABA's system of legal education is broken; and with hope in the air that this time meaningful reform will come to legal education, it's time to review the recent history of attempts to reform ABA legal education.

Time and again, the ABA's Section on Legal Education has stood steadfast against efforts to reform its law school accreditation activities. Since legal education provides access to justice, power and social mobility, urgent reform is needed now. The Department of Education should terminate recognition of the ABA as a federally approved accreditor of law schools, and state supreme courts or state legislatures must amend their rules or statutes to allow the graduates of any law school accredited by any federally approved accrediting agency who are of sufficient character and fitness to take that state's bar examination.

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• WaPo and WSJ Agree: IRS Targeting of Conservatives Is Appalling
• ABA Tax Section May Meeting
• College Advice From The Daily Show
• State Beer Taxes

Sunday:

• Happy Mother's Day:  Tax Attorney Son Tries to Deduct $1.2 Million for Caring for Infirm Mother
• Schmalbeck on the IRS 'Targeting' of Conservative Groups
• A Cincinnati Lawyer's Rise, Fall, and Redemption ... in Hawaii (Thanks to a Tax Prof)
• Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

A Cincinnati Lawyer's Rise, Fall, and Redemption ... in Hawaii (Thanks to a Tax Prof)

In the small world department:  my Pepperdine colleague Shelley Saxer is completing a visit at Hawaii and dropped me a note about her colleague next door, Ken Lawson, whose faculty bio only begins to capture his extraordinary journey:

Ken Lawson is the associate director of the Hawaii Innocence Project and an associate faculty specialist at the William S. Richardson School of Law. He had a successful law practice in Cincinnati, Ohio, until his license to practice law was revoked because of misconduct while addicted to prescription painkillers. He pled guilty to the felony of obtaining controlled substances by fraudulent means and served 10 months in federal penitentiary. Mr. Lawson is now active in the Hawaii Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program.

Ken started his legal career as an associate in one of Ohio’s oldest and largest law firms. He eventually started his own firm, which grew to 12 lawyers. Over that 18 year period, he was lead counsel in more than a hundred criminal trials, including many murder and capital cases. He also litigated numerous civil rights and police misconduct cases in both federal and state courts and had an active appellate practice. Ken won numerous cases that were considered by many to be “unwinnable”. These and many of Ken’s other cases were followed closely by the media, and he made numerous appearances on CBS, ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Court TV, and numerous radio shows. Some of the appearances related to his cases but he also was frequently asked by reporters to comment on and explain to lay audiences the legal issues in other newsworthy cases.

Ken’s high-profile clientele included NFL star Elbert “Ickey” Woods, NFL star and professional baseball player Deion Sanders, and entertainer Peter Frampton. More important to Ken, he represented many “everyday” people, including a single mother whose 16 year old juvenile son, incarcerated in an Ohio prison for adults, had died after being stabbed 16 times by the leader of a racist hate group, the Aryan Nation.

From a recent article in Cincinnati Magazine, Soul Survivor: From His Fiery Fame as "The Pit Bull Lawyer" to Finding His Family, the Unlikely Redemption of Ken Lawson:

At the top of his game, Ken Lawson was the Ray Lewis of the Hamilton County Courthouse — the linebacker lawyer nobody wanted to run into.

He was “Law Dog,” bigger than life on a colorful two-story mural in the West End. On posters he was a warlord, seated on a skull-topped throne, the decapitated head of a white man rolling at his feet. On the streets he was the answer to the Cops theme song: “What ya gonna do when they come for you, bad boys, bad boys?”

In the eye of the hurricanes that swirled around race — riots, lawsuits, stormy city council meetings, press conferences, headline-grabbing accusations — there was Lawson, an adopted kid who traced his biological father to Cincinnati heavyweight boxing champ Ezzard Charles. ...

His drug habit — prescription opiates (Oxycontin, Percocet), weed and cocaine — reached $1,000 a day. He stole from his clients, failed to show up in court, was “sick” for weeks at a time. A judge finally asked for an investigation. He was convicted of organizing a drug ring with a local doctor and sentenced to two years in prison.

But that’s not the end of his story. It was just the beginning. ...

“It was a nightmare,” he says from his new home in Hawaii. “If I had a way of dying, I would have done it.” During detox, “for 45 days, the only way I could stop shaking was to take three or four hot showers a day. I would put a chair in there and just sit until the hot water ran out. I was hopeless. Hopeless.”

“My first day sober in years was Feb. 1, 2007.  My drug habit was so expensive that I had depleted all of our money and was stealing from the client trust account to support my addiction to painkillers.  When I got out of detox, our house was in foreclosure, my law license was about to be suspended, I was being investigated by the DEA, the kids’ tuition had not been paid, all of the rotten stuff I did and the rotten person I had become was all over the news for months, and I was looking at going to prison.

“My sponsor kept telling me that God had me right where I was supposed to be. The kids and I were living in my mother’s house in my old bedroom. Boy, was I being humbled; and, looking back, I needed to learn some humility.”

His wife, Marva, stuck by him through it all. “I love him unconditionally,” she explains. “I knew him as ‘Kenny,’ that boy in high school who was relentless even then. ... Marva, whose parents didn’t finish eighth grade, went to college, then medical school, became a psychiatrist, found a job in Hawaii and moved there “on a wing and a prayer, trusting God.” To raise money to join her, Ken mowed lawns and did odd jobs. “My sponsor took up a collection, and we had enough funds for plane tickets. ...

The dark hours emphasized the light around the corner. “If I had not gone to prison, I would not be the person I am today.” ...

Randall Roth, the University of Hawaii [tax] law professor who took a chance to help Lawson get hired as office manager for the Hawaii Innocence Project, says, “Anyone who doesn’t believe in second chances, or the concept of redemption, hasn’t met Ken. His failures are well documented, but I’m convinced that he can and will do more good for people during the rest of his life than anyone else I know could do in 10 lifetimes. I value his friendship greatly and I trust him completely.” ...

“The easy answer to what happened is alcohol and drugs,” Lawson says. “But the honest answer is that I was off track way before I took my first drink or drugs. My thinking about what life was about was way off track. I thought it was money, things, power, prestige. I kept chasing that stuff and none of it could fill that hole in my soul.”

“The irony is that all of the people that God put in my life to help me have been white. I found it ironic that very few blacks showed up in court to support to me. I’m not angry or even bitter about this as I’ve come to learn to accept people for who they are, wherever they are in life. 

“However, over the last few years I have come to see how racism was such a distraction from the truth. The truth is, I ended up hitting bottom as a direct result of choices I made. I had to learn that blaming others for my problems keeps me from seeing the truth about myself. By refusing to accept responsibility for our own conduct, by refusing to forgive others for their wrongs, the community stays resentful.

“I was wrong for the positions I took with the police and race in Cincinnati, but it’s not until I was able to do a complete and honest self-inventory that I was able to see the truth about my actions. So I have learned that my resentments and anger hurt me more than the person I’m resentful at.

“Life and where it takes us is so amazing. When I can stay in the moment and think of others more than myself, is when I truly realize what a gift life really is! Sometimes I look back on that part of my life when I chased money, power and success thinking it is what life is about and I often just wonder, ‘Where have I been all this time to miss so much of what really matters?’ “Well, I’m present now.”

College Advice From The Daily Show

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• New York Times, Student Debt Slows Growth as Young Spend Less
• Wall Street Journal, Cutting Down Student Debt Obama Plan Would Ease Burden, but Critics Say It Could Promote Overborrowing
• Matt Leichter, I Attempt to Match the Times’ Non-Reporting:

[The New York Times] article states that the average ... debt-to-income ratio for households under 35 has grown from 1:1 to 1.5:1 between 2001 and 2010. How lifetime earnings can rise while the young ... are spending more on debt service is unexplained. ... [C]ollege-educated Americans make less money than they used to.

To be fair, though, I’m going to give a little credit to the Times because people’s incomes would be higher if the economy were at full employment, and it’s not. In other words, it’s unlikely structural degree oversupply is the primary force depressing college graduates’ earnings. Thus, the 1.5:1 debt-to-income ratio should be lower than it is. But just when exactly will college graduates in their 20s and early 30s “make up for lost ground” after their prime earning years? The Times doesn’t say.

Law Prof: Let's Scrap the 'Gentleman's C'

Wall Street Journal Law Blog:  Law Prof: Let’s Scrap the ‘Gentleman’s C’:

Law schools should embrace grade inflation, says Professor Joshua Silverstein of the William H. Bowen School of Law. In a forthcoming paper in the University of San Francisco Law Review [A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education], Mr Silverstein makes the case for why law schools should substantially eliminate C grades and raise the minimum cumulative GPA for good academic standing to a B minus.

Joshua Silverstein (Arkansas-Little Rock), A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education:

This article contends that every American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades by settings its good academic standing grade point average at the B- level. Grading systems that require or encourage law professors to award a significant number of C marks are flawed for two reasons. First, low grades damage students’ placement prospects. Employers frequently consider a job candidate’s absolute GPA in making hiring decisions. If a school systematically assigns inferior grades, its students are at an unfair disadvantage when competing for employment with students from institutions that award mostly A’s and B’s. Second, marks in the C range injure students psychologically. Students perceive C’s as a sign of failure. Accordingly, when they receive such grades, their stress level is exacerbated in unhealthy ways. This psychological harm is both intrinsically problematic and compromises the educational process. Substantially eliminating C grades will bring about critical improvements in both the fairness of the job market and the mental well-being of our students. These benefits outweigh any problems that might be caused or aggravated by inflated grades. C marks virtually always denote unsatisfactory work in American graduate education. Law schools are the primary exception to this convention. It is time we adopted the practice followed by the rest of the academy.

	75th Percentile		50th Percentile		25th Percentile
	Undergrad	Law School	Undergrad	Law School	Undergrad	Law School
1st Tier	3.81	3.49	3.68	3.28	3.45	3.03
2d Tier	3.68	3.40	3.47	3.17	3.20	2.96
3rd Tier	3.61	3.34	3.38	3.06	3.11	2.83
4th Tier	3.45	3.20	3.17	2.91	2.88	2.66
Total	3.64	3.35	3.44	3.09	3.17	2.84

Reinventing Law (and Law School)

ABA Journal Legal Rebels: How This Duo Is Trying to ReInvent Law School, by Daniel Martin Katz (Michigan State) & Renee Newman Knake (Michigan State):

Greetings from ReInvent Law, our law laboratory devoted to technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship at Michigan State University College of Law. You read that right. We are law professors with a laboratory where we teach technology, analytics, innovation, and entrepreneurship in legal services. We are law professors devoted to training lawyers for the law jobs of the 21st century. And yes, math will be on the exam. This is the New Normal in legal education.

The legal services and products industry is undergoing a significant transition. For many current and future legal jobs, understanding the law is a necessary but no longer sufficient condition for success. We believe that part of the solution to the crisis currently facing the law profession and legal education involves principles of technology, legal analytics, design thinking, and the advent of new, process-driven delivery models.

Entrepreneurship is one cross-cutting and core component that is often missing in legal education. At most institutions, {law + entrepreneurship} involves law students advising would-be entrepreneurs. While we support such efforts, this conception largely misses significant, emerging opportunities that are being created in the legal market. To this end, we are interested in training lawyers to be entrepreneurs, not merely to advise them. This training is useful for a variety of future pursuits, whether to better understand clients or to embark on one’s own entrepreneurial endeavor. Along with traditional legal training, entrepreneurship pedagogy also can help inspire students to curate new markets for legal services and thereby help fill the vast access-to-justice gap. Many appropriately bemoan the reality that millions in this country go without needed legal representation, but few actually craft scalable solutions to help tackle the problem. Clinics are simply not sufficient. The answer is better regulatory and business models with technology and analytics as core components.

We do not purport to have solved all of the issues in legal education, but we are working thoughtfully and quickly to offer students the additional skills that employers have told us would make a difference in their respective hiring decisions.

(Hat Tip: Greg McNeal.)

Nine Law Schools Now Offer Two-Year J.D.

According to the National Law Journal, nine law schools now offer a two-year J.D.

• Brooklyn
• Dayton
• Drexel
• Florida Coastal
• Northwestern
• Pepperdine
• Southwestern
• Vermont
• Washburn

2013 World Law School Rankings

2013 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Law School Rankings (methodology: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per paper, h-index per faculty member), along with the latest SSRN World Law School Faculty Rankings:

1. Harvard (#1 in SSRN)
2. Cambridge (#39)
3. Oxford (#19)
4. Yale (#6)
5. Melbourne (#26)
6. NYU (#7)
7. London School of Economics (#96)
8. Columbia (#4)
9. Stanford (#5)
10. Sydney (#27)
11. University College (London) (#55)
12. New South Wales (#79)
13. Monash (#132)
14. Australian National (#102)
15. Chicago (#3)
16. King's College (London) (#128)
17. UC-Berkeley (#13)
18. Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne (#758)
19. Victoria University of Wellington (#148)
20. University of Hong Kong (#133)
21. University of Toronto (#25)
22. National University Singapore (#105)
23. Georgetown (#9)
24. University of Auckland (#385)
25. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (#160)

Other law faculties in SSRN's Top 25 are George Washington (#2), Tilburg (#8), Pennsylvania (#10), Northwestern (#11), UCLA (#12), Illinois (#14), Vanderbilt (#15), Duke (#16), Michigan (#17), Minnesota (#18), George Mason (#20), USC (#21), Virginia (#22), San Diego (#23), and Fordham (#24).

LLM: Lawyers Losing Money

The American Prospect:  LLM: Lawyers Losing Money, by Bryce Stucki:

To critics, the degree is little more than a scam making extra cash from attorneys desperate to burnish their credentials in a brutal legal job market. ...

From the early 1970s to the late 1990s, the LLM was a marginal degree aimed primarily at foreign students and a few American lawyers looking for specialized knowledge in areas like tax law. An LLM is not necessary to work as a lawyer, no member of the Supreme Court holds one, and successful pursuers of the Master in Laws will end with more education than most of their professors. Since LLM candidates take the same courses as JDs, students earning a first degree in law, they require little overhead. LLM students often pay the same tuition as JDs and rarely receive financial aid. Schools are not required to report any job stats for LLM graduates, meaning students cannot investigate either the salary or nature of the work a typical graduate from the program can expect to land. LLMs also cannot hurt a school’s U.S. News ranking since their qualifications aren’t disclosed, meaning schools admit less-qualified applicants into their LLM programs. In the context of the massive threats to revenues law schools are now facing, it’s easy to see why the degree referred to by critics as a “cash cow” is growing in popularity at schools around the country. Although LLM students comprise less than 7% of law school enrollments, the total number of LLM degrees has risen 65% in the past decade, including, since the financial crash, an abundance of new programs aimed at U.S.-trained lawyers, such as Nebraska’s LLM in space law or NYU’s in environmental law. Given the lack of data and their generally poor reputation with big law firms, most lawyers and law students who’ve heard of the degree tend to view non-tax LLM programs as cash grabs. ...

Since schools must now be transparent about employment numbers, many are seeking to maintain revenues by lowering their admissions standards and venturing further into what Paul Caron, a visiting professor at Pepperdine University calls the “unregulated wasteland” of the LLM. The ABA does not require schools to publish employment figures for LLMs and does not plan to. Law schools are still free to disseminate these numbers but the few that do, such as New York University and Northwestern, often release stats that are not up to ABA standards for JD outcomes. To critics, the lack of transparency is strikingly familiar to the opacity surrounding JD employment numbers pre-2012.

“The lack of data tells you something,” says Brian Tamanaha, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the book Failing Law Schools. “Certainly if they were paying off quite well, schools would be advertising that.” Despite the lack of data, critics are quick to question the value of an LLM—“LLM stands for Lawyer Losing Money,” says University of Colorado-Boulder professor and frequent law school critic Paul Campos. Even tax, often considered an exception to the bad-LLM rule, may be losing its luster in a weak job market flooded with more and more LLM grads every year. “It’s almost a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of attitude,” says Caron, an expert in tax law who has co-authored guides for selecting a LLM program in tax [Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Why and When?; Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Where?]. “It’s a shame there’s not more information available.” ...

Despite the downsides, LLM programs continue to grow. And while many U.S.-trained LLM students are professionals looking to improve their skills who continue to work at their current jobs, a significant, and likely increasing, number are either fresh out of law school or victims of underemployment. They may see an LLM program as a good place to network or to improve their credentials if their JD is from a lower-ranked school, no matter what the cost.

More on Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market

Following up on last week's post, Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market:  Benjamin Barros (Widener):

• Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market - Part II
• Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market - Part III

I have made three major points in this series of posts.  First, I have argued that based on data on what graduates of the Widener-Harrisburg classes of 2010 and 2011 are doing now, many more recent law schools graduates are getting legal jobs than the nine-month job data would suggest.  Second, I have explained why I am skeptical that the current anemic state of the job market is the result of structural, as opposed to economic, factors.  Third, I have explained why we should be cautious in our interpretation of Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the legal job market.

I will close with two other points.  First, I think that an important concrete step that we could take to improve graduate employment rates is to move the timing of the bar exam from the summer after graduation to the summer after the second year of law school.  As I explained in my first post in this series, I think that bar timing is one part of the story of why nine-month data does not provide a full picture of graduate employment.  Moving up the bar exam would help even in a more robust economy where more students are getting jobs within nine months of graduation, because graduates who landed jobs could start working sooner.

Second, nothing in this post suggests that we should not be concerned about student debt.  At a few points in this series, I mentioned as an aside that I think it is wrong to focus on first year salaries when talking about law school affordability.  I do think that – many entry level legal jobs (clerkships, ADA positions) have relatively low salaries but typically provide graduates with experience that can lead to higher paying jobs later.  Entry level small firm jobs also often don’t pay a high salary to start, but the salary goes up over time.  I also think that statements about graduates’ ability to service their debt that do not take cost of living into account paint with too broad a brush.  A given salary goes a lot farther in, say, Harrisburg PA, than it does in New York City.  This said, we could always use better and more thorough salary data, especially data that captures salary changes as a lawyer progresses through her career.  I hope to include some data on salary in future iterations of my alumni study.  Further, legal academics should be concerned about cost and student debt issues.  Constant tuition increases of above the rate of inflation are inherently unsustainable.  Finally, cost issues have come up at various points in the comments to this series.  I plan to address cost issues in a future post.

Law Faculty Salaries, 2012-13

The Society of American Law Teachers has released the results of its 2012-13 Salary Survey, reporting the median faculty salaries and summer stipends at 68 of the 200 American law schools (132 law schools either refused to participate or did not respond to the survey). Here are the median faculty salaries and summer stipends of the responding law schools in the Top 102 of the latest U.S. News law school rankings:

U.S. News	Law School	Assistant Professor	Tenured Professor	Summer             Stipend
26	Iowa	n/a	184,800	15,000
31	North Carolina	115,826	174,417	15,000
33	Georgia	121,400	180,765	27,500
36	Ohio State	118,320	159,216	12,500
46	Florida	111,240	158,000	26,757
48	UC-Hastings	112,942	187,221	10,000
58	Kentucky	107,134	123,221	12,000
61	Nebraska	101,178	150,720	11,000
61	Tennessee	n/a	122,316	17,000
64	Denver	107,620	140,922	9,000
64	New Mexico	87,159	121,909	16,250
68	Arkansas-Fay.	89,100	139,300	17,500
68	Loyola-L.A.	114,268	174,673	15,000
68	Oklahoma	95,000	126,080	10,000
68	San Diego	n/a	173,400	15,000
68	UNLV	n/a	147,002	17,000
76	LSU	104,000	145,170	18,000
80	Michigan State	115,825	146,832	12,000
86	Kansas	112,560	143,250	12,000
86	Northeastern	109,306	179,362	7,500
86	Rutgers-Newark	133,599	186,000	10,000
91	Rutgers-Camden	121,251	171,508	10,187
91	West Virginia	n/a	139,629	10,000
94	Oregon	105,000	135,578	5,832
98	Indiana-Indy	n/a	127,047	14,000
98	South Carolina	114,860	140,080	20,250
102	Mississippi	105,000	141,359	9,000
102	St. Louis	96,600	128,000	13,000

Above the Law recently has blogged individual law faculty salaries at these elite schools:

• Virginia (#7 in U.S. News) (salary spreadsheet)
• Michigan (#9) (salary spreadsheet)
• UC-Berkeley (#9) (salary spreadsheet)

See here for individual law faculty salaries at twenty public law schools (Arizona State, Florida, George Mason, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri-Columbia, North Carolina, Ohio State, Rutgers-Camden, Rutgers-Newark, SUNY-Buffalo, Texas, Texas Tech, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, UCLA, Virginia, William & Mary, and Wisconsin). 

The Shrinking Law Faculty Lateral Market

Lawrence Cunningham (George Washington) reports on the "deep dive" in law faculty lateral moves this year:

Year	Schools	Faculty
2006	71	132
2007	72	131
2008	80	136
2009	68	114
2010	72	92
2011	55	93
2012	56	84
2013	41	56

Of course, the 2013 figures are still incomplete (two lateral tax faculty moves are not reflected in the data). One commenter notes that over 10% of the moves (6) are from St. Louis, which suffered greatly in the past year. Interestingly, seven of the nine lateral tax faculty moves involved California law schools.

Legal Education: A New Paradigm

Ernst Van Bemmelen van Gent (Bynkershoek Research Center on Legal Education), Legal Education: A New Paradigm, 1 Bynkershoek L. Rev. 2 (2012):

In the past, between the years 1800 and 1950, legal education was a local, generalist, apprentice-based, non-corporate, and highly academic self-explanatory affair. Most of the legal professionals regarded themselves as involved in ex-post private law and criminal litigation/trials. Legal theory and the curriculum, correspondingly, could focus mainly on local private and criminal law contained in approximately 10.000 pages.

At the start of the 21st century a number of things have changed. Around 100 specialized areas of legal theory and practice have emerged, along with millions of pages of new material. The sources of these new rules are increasingly international and regional, especially in Europe. The legal profession has also industrialized. The sole practitioner is outnumbered by legal professionals that are mass producing legal services and legislative instruments, as well as adjudicative products. Client demand has changed the emphasis to be more focused on ex ante: preventing disputes. Employers are expecting more than ever that graduates are well on their way through this increased volume of material, plus well versed in critical thinking, advocacy and research techniques. Moreover, in the countries where legal education is subsidized, universities are expected to educate more pupils for less money, plus accepting lower entry qualifications favoring historically less privileged groups. This process includes attempts, again especially in Europe, to harmonize the higher education degree structure across states.

Law school traditions have not responded to these developments yet. The curriculum and teaching techniques have remained largely the same as in the 1800 to 1950 era.

The time is ready to change legal education drastically. To guide and justify that change, a modern, 21st century paradigm is required, addressing what the legal profession entails, what issues the legal profession deals with and what legal competences are required, to solve legal problems cheaply, efficiently and in a client friendly manner. Such a new paradigm should also provide the necessary assessment criteria evaluating, which law graduates may be permitted access to legal practices, including the various professional bodies admission procedures but also corporate hiring practices for junior and senior positions.

This article provides such paradigm. It describes and defines the legal profession along four types of legal practices that exist all over the world. It identifies the “top 55 legal issues” that are most fundamental to any legal practice. It selects 50 areas of law that are necessary for instruction in law schools. More importantly, it argues which 6 legal skills/competencies should be the guiding tool for curriculum and assessment design, as well as the criteria for recruitment, life-long learning and career development in the legal profession. Furthermore, the new paradigm for legal education integrates the global ambitions (UN, OECD, G20) in the fields of sustainable development and rule of law into the daily reality of the legal profession, legal education and legal research.

Epstein: There Is No Crisis in Big Law or Legal Education

Richard A. Epstein (NYU) reviews Steven J. Harper (Former Partner, Kirkland & Ellis; Adjunct Professor, Northwestern), The Lawyer Bubble (Basic Books, 2013):

Law schools are under siege. Applications have dropped to around 54,000 annually, from around 100,000 in 2004. First-year enrollment has slipped to under 40,000 students, from 50,000 in 2010. Jobs are scarce—especially for students coming from lower-tier law schools. The average annual tuition has risen to just over $40,000 per year, from about $23,000 in 2001. Average debt on graduation has followed suit, jumping to about $125,000 in 2011, from $70,000 in 2001. No wonder many experts expect perhaps a dozen schools to close their doors within a year while other schools slash their class size, faculty and staff to stay open.

Meanwhile "Big Law"—the largest 200 or so law firms, which serve elite corporate clients in major urban areas—are under stress. Firm size has topped out, and both partnership shares and entry salaries are treading water at best. Clients now scour bills and disallow certain fees. Alternative, transaction-based fee arrangements are now more common. Competition has replaced cushy long-term relationships.

Terrible news, for sure. But is the "Profession in Crisis," as the subtitle of Stephen J. Harper's "The Lawyer Bubble" has it? The answer is no. A bubble may have burst, but not for the high end of the profession or for the thousands of attorneys working in specialized niches. ...

[T]he author ignores the more salient fact that the vast majority of big firms have avoided this grisly fate. Mr. Harper never looks into how these savvy firms survive in a tough environment. They do so, in part, by avoiding overstaffing, by cutting bad clients and by paying premium wages to young associates—many of whom, debts paid, happily bail out for less stressful work as in-house counsel for companies or in the government and nonprofit sectors. Over all, the model proves stable: With Congress passing monstrosities like Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act, top-flight legal talent is needed more than ever to guide well-heeled clients through the growing regulatory maze.

Ironically, Mr. Harper misses the most significant recent dislocation in the practice of law, which is at the consumer end of the market: the rise of low-cost online law firms like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer that aid clients in drafting standard partnerships, wills, leases and the like. These firms pose a mortal threat to sole practitioners, not to Big Law.

So what does the new legal environment mean for legal education? Mr. Harper thinks that law schools fail because their faculties won't sully their hands with people with "actual experience" but seek out people "who are good at big ideas." ... Mr. Harper charges that academics like me, who are obsessed with high theory, cause "institutional inertia" in law schools and prevent the sort of evolution necessary to gear students up for the 21st-century legal market. The author's recipe for change includes large doses of hands-on instruction on business relations and practice skills. But law schools can't just be "practical training" centers, as Mr. Harper would have them; they must make sure that their students grasp the fundamentals of legal theory and doctrine. Future lawyers must also be capable of connecting law with collateral disciplines ranging from corporate finance to game theory to cognitive psychology. ...

Mr. Harper's blunderbuss condemnation of most large firms and most law schools is off-target. By and large, they have proved resilient in a competitive legal climate.

WSJ Law Blog, Pricking the "Lawyer Bubble":

Mr. Harper told Law Blog by email that “despite Professor Epstein’s contrary assertion, my book doesn’t advocate that law schools abandon the ‘fundamentals of legal theory’ in favor of practical training.” And as to the question of Mr. Epstein’s experience, Mr. Harper stands by his description, saying, “The perspective of a retained expert for a client is much different from that of anyone who has worked inside a big firm.”

Borden: The Coming Resurgence of the Legal Profession and Legal Education Fueled by Third-Party Litigation Financing

Huffington Post:  Third-Party Litigation Financing and the Impending Resurgence of the Legal Profession, by Bradley Borden (Brooklyn):

The deterioration of the legal jobs market and the crisis in legal education have dominated recent headlines. Some conclude that the current weak market reflects the new normal in legal education and the profession, and they fill the ether with their tales of doom and gloom. I remember hearing the term "new normal" just prior to the Dotcom Bust in the early 2000s, so such references signal to me a radical change is coming. The growth of third-party litigation financing (TPLF) may be the catalyst that ushers in a reversal of the legal market and an unprecedented resurgence of the legal profession.

Despite its critics and shortcomings, TPLF has significant legal and professional support and is gaining significant traction. The concept is simple: finance companies fund the cost of litigation in exchange for a share of a plaintiff's potential recovery. The hundreds of millions (and perhaps billions) of dollars of TPLF undoubtedly will drive up the demand for litigation attorneys, but its ripple effects will also increase the demand for transactional and regulatory attorneys. In short, TPLF will transform the legal profession....

The demand for legal services will inevitably turn to favor attorneys. When that happens, the lack of attorneys in the pipeline will create a substantial shortage of qualified attorneys. For law firms to meet the new demand for legal services, they will have to aggressively recruit the top law graduates. To entice them to join their firms, law firms will have to raise starting salaries to unprecedented heights, creating a market reversal of epic proportions.In fact, the legal services market, which has been a buyer's market for the last several years, will quickly become a seller's market. Those who invest in the legal profession stand to gain handsomely from the reversal.

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• NY Times:  The Corporate Tax Game
• Hastings Business Law Journal Publishes New Issue
• State Inheritance and Estate Tax Rates and Exemptions
• The Enigma of Sales Taxation Through 'Amazon' Laws

Sunday:

• Self-Congratulation and Faculty Scholarship
• Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
• Zelinsky:  The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust Act
• The First Circuit Sides With IRS, Not Tax Court, in Collection Due Process Standard of Review

Self-Congratulation and Faculty Scholarship

Paul Campos (Colorado), Self-Congratulation and Scholarship, 60 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 214 (2013):

Brian Tamanaha’s Failing Law Schools argues that American law schools now cost far too much to attend, given long-term trends in the employment market for people with law degrees. ... Professor Jay Sterling Silver criticizes Tamanaha’s proposals. [The Case Against Tamanaha’s Motel 6 Model of Legal Education, 60 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 52 (2012).] Silver believes the proposals will lead to a stratified hierarchy of law schools, with only a few elite institutions continuing to provide the high-quality pedagogical experience that Silver assumes everyone now enjoys by attending law schools accredited by the ABA. Silver argues that Tamanaha’s reforms would force the vast majority of law schools to provide their students a “cut-rate education,” much to the detriment of the students’ future clients.

Professor Silver’s response contains a number of unsubstantiated assertions. This Essay addresses three of them: the current cost of legal education is an accurate reflection of the real cost of producing adequately trained lawyers, the scholarship produced by tenured law faculty has enormously beneficial effects on the operation of the legal system, and Tamanaha’s reform proposals would stratify legal education. These claims illustrate how, in my view, the crisis of the American law school is in large part a product of the tendency of law school faculty to indulge in platitudinous self-congratulation.

1. Market Failures. ... Silver does not dispute Tamanaha’s diagnosis. Instead he recommends the budgetary equivalent of a couple of aspirin and some bed rest: Law schools must “tighten their belts, reduc[e] the size of incoming classes, cut[] administrative costs, and forgo[] hiring for a while,” rather than the more aggressive treatments Failing Law Schools advocates.

2. Tenured Faculty and Legal Scholarship. ... Silver argues that tenure and low teaching loads are necessary for the production of valuable legal scholarship. ... This argument makes several assumptions: (1) That the production of valuable critiques of the legal system is a common outcome of the current publication requirements for tenure-track faculty at American law schools; (2) That seriously suboptimal amounts of these valuable critiques of the legal system would be generated by law schools if Tamanaha’s reforms were adopted; and (3) That these valuable critiques of the legal system constitute an important practical counterweight to the invidious effect self-interested actors have on the legal system. These three assumptions strike me as, respectively, implausible, incredible, and utterly fantastic. ...

3. Two Tiers of Legal Education and the Socratic Method. Silver then turns from the more general, societal benefits of law review article publication to what he calls “the needs of students and clients.” Tamanaha’s suggested reforms would result, Silver says, in a stratified system of legal education with Ritz-Carlton law schools for a favored few and a Motel 6 education for their less privileged peers. ... [I]n the 1970s teaching loads for law faculty were much higher, salaries were much lower, law reviews were publishing approximately one-sixth as many articles as they do now, and not coincidentally tuition at private law schools was a quarter of what it is today in constant dollars, while resident tuition at almost all public law schools was essentially nominal. If Silver is to be believed, this state of affairs should have produced a generation of Motel 6–quality attorneys, while allowing the wielders of power to operate without facing the various trenchant critiques that otherwise would have been appearing in the nation’s law reviews. Again, does Silver or anyone else have any evidence that either the quality of legal education or the social value of legal scholarship are substantially higher than they were a generation ago?

Conclusion. I have gone to the trouble of critiquing Silver’s attempt to reply to Tama­naha’s criticisms of contemporary legal education because Silver’s essay displays the same characteristic weakness as American legal academic culture: a tendency to make bold assertions about the value of legal scholarship and the effectiveness of law school pedagogy, while at the same time providing no support for these assertions beyond a willingness to repeat self-congratulatory platitudes about who we are and what we do. Self-congratulatory platitudes, however, do not become true merely through constant repetition.

New Online Employment Rate Calculator

Press Release, New Online Employment Rate Calculator Provides Transparent Alternative to Law School Rankings:

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, an initiative of IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, is pleased to announce Law Jobs: By the Numbers™, an interactive online tool that gives prospective law students the most transparent and complete law school employment rate information available. Countless organizations and publications have developed rankings and listings that purport to give prospective students sufficient information to make educated decisions about where to go to law school.

"In some ways, today's prospective law students have access to more information and data about law schools they're considering than any generation before them," said Rebecca Love Kourlis, Executive Director of IAALS. "But too often, they must rely on another's interpretation of the data and do not have the necessary tools to make it relevant to their decisions."

Enter Law Jobs: By the Numbers™, which empowers prospective students to build, analyze, and compare rates among law schools based on 2011 and 2012 data released by the American Bar Association, all with just a few clicks of a mouse.

LexisNexis Law School Publishing Advisory Board

I have spent the past three days at a meeting of the LexisNexis Law School Publishing Advisory Board at the Hotel Del in Coronado, California. It has been a fascinating opportunity to participate in discussions about how a for-profit publisher can help law schools and law students navigate through the current crisis in legal education.  Next month, I will have the opportunity to engage these issues from a non-profit perspective at the 23d Annual Conference for Law School Computing at Chicago-Kent as a member of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) Board of Directors.

ATL Law School Rankings

Above the Law, Most People Attend Law School to Obtain Jobs as Lawyers. (Not Butchers or Bakers, or Candlestick Makers.):

If law school was just a cool place to chill out for a few years without building specific job skills, they'd call it "college." Jobs are important, and we think that law schools should be competing to place students in the best jobs, not the best libraries. And given the cost of obtaining legal education, we want to know which law schools put you in jobs that pay you money, instead of jobs the law school pays for. With that in mind we present our inaugural ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings.

Here are the Top 20 (and their U.S. News ranking):

1. Yale (#1 in U.S. News)
2. Stanford (#2)
3. Harvard (#2)
4. Chicago (#4)
5. Pennsylvania (#4)
6. Duke (#11)
7. Virginia (#7)
8. Columbia (#4)
9. UC-Berkeley (#9)
10. NYU (#6)
11. Cornell (#13)
12. Michigan (#9)
13. Northwestern (#12)
14. Texas (#15)
15. Vanderbilt (#15)
16. Georgetown (#14)
17. UCLA (#17)
18. Notre Dame (#23)
19. Georgia (#33)
20. USC (#18)

Hre are the schools that most outperform their U.S. News ranking:

+55: St. Louis (#47 Above the Law, #102 U.S. News)
+48: Rutgers-Camden (#43, #91)
+38: New Mexico (#26, #64)
+28: Seton Hall (#36, #64)
+27: Miami (#49, #76)
+26: SMU (#22, #48)
+14: Georgia (#19, #33)
+14: Illinois #33, #47)
+13: Houston (#35, #48)
+12: Georgia State (#42, #54)

Here are the schools that most underperform their U.S. News ranking:

-21: Arizona State (#50 Above the Law, #29 U.S. News)
-15: Indiana (#40, #25)
-13: University of Washington (#41, #28)
-13: Minnesota (#32, #19)
-12: Washington & Lee (#38, #26)
-11: Iowa (#37, #26)
-10: George Washington (#31, #21)
-10: Ohio State (#46, #36)
-10: Fordham (#48, #38)
-7: UC-Davis (#45, #38)

Methodology:

• Employment Score (30%) -- full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar passage (excluding solos and school-funded positions)
• Quality Jobs Score (30%) -- We’ve combined placement with the country’s largest and best-paying law firms (using the National Law Journal’s “NLJ 250”) and the percentage of graduates embarking on federal judicial clerkships.
• SCOTUS Clerk & Federal Judgeship Scores (7.5% each) -- We simply looked at a school's graduates as a percentage of (1) all U.S. Supreme Court clerks (since 2008) and (2) currently sitting Article III judges. Both scores are adjusted for the size of the school.
• Education Cost (15%) -- [A]s a proxy for indebtedness, we’ve scored schools based on total cost. For those schools placing a majority of their graduates into the local job market, we’ve adjusted the score for the cost of living in that market.
• Alumni Rating (10%) -- This is the only non-public component of our rankings. For the purposes of the ATL Top 50, we only counted the alumni rating.

Press and blogosphere coverage:

• ABA Journal, Yale Tops Blog’s Alternative Law School Rankings; Focus Is on Schools Delivering Quality Jobs
• Ann Althouse (Wisconsin), Above the Law Produces a "Top 50 Law School Rankings"
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), Yes, Yet Another Ranking of Law Schools
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), New ATL Law School Rankings Do Not Include JD Advantage Jobs...
• Elie Mystal (Above the Law), Everything That Is Wrong With the Above the Law Law School Rankings
• Usha Rodrigues (Georgia), ATL's Law School Ranking
• Dan Rodriguez (Dean, Northwestern), Non-Legal Careers and the Northwestern Advantage
• Eugene Volokh (UCLA), Above The Law’s Employment-Based Law School Rankings

Pepperdine & ASIL Symposium Today on The Rise of Non-State Law

Pepperdine and The American Society of International Law today are co-hosting International Legal Theory Interest Group Symposium: :

Trends in legal philosophy, international law, transnational law, law & religion, and political science all point towards the increasing role played by non-state law in both public and private ordering.  Numerous organizations, institutions, associations and groups have emerged alongside the nation-state, each purporting to provide their members with rules and norms to govern their conduct and organize their affairs. Indeed, questions regarding non-state law have moved to the forefront of recent debates over legal pluralism and transnational justice, forcing scholars and practitioners to consider the new and multifaceted mechanisms ways in which we govern ourselves.  This International Legal Theory Interest Group Symposium will explore this Rise of Non-State Law by bringing together experts on international law, transnational law, legal theory and political philosophy to consider the growing impact of law that derives from outside the nation-state.

Introduction:  Michael Helfand (Pepperdine), John Linarelli (Swansea)

Panel #1—Global Legal Pluralism: Trends and Challenges

• Moderator: John Linarelli (Swansea)
• Panelists: 
  • Paul Schiff Berman (George Washington)
  • Ralf Michaels (Duke)
  • Peer Zumbansen (Osgoode)

Panel #2—Non-State Law and Non-State Institutions

• Moderator: Donald Earl Childress III (Pepperdine)
• Panelists: 
  • Oren Perez (Bar-Ilan)
  • Sally Merry (NYU)
  • Harlan Cohen (Georgia)
  • Helen Quane (Swansea)

Panel #3—The Role of Religion and Culture in Non-State Law

• Moderator: Mortimer Sellers (Baltimore)
• Panelists:
  • Nomi Stolzenberg (USC)
  • Joel Nichols (St. Thomas)
  • Clark Lombardi (Washington)

Tamanaha: The Failure of Leftist Law Professors to Defend Progressive Causes

Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.), The Failure of Crits and Leftist Law Professors to Defend Progressive Causes, 24 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. (2013):

Future generations will look back at the first decade of the twenty-first century as a pivotal time when a huge economic barrier was erected to encumber the path to a legal career. The symbolic announcement of this barrier rang out when annual tuition crossed the $50,000 threshold, now exceeded at a dozen or so law schools. Including fees and living expenses, it costs well in excess of $200,000 to obtain a law degree at most of the nation’s highly regarded law schools and at a number of non-elite ones as well. Law schools thus impose a formidable entry fee on anyone who wishes to follow what, until recently, has long served as a means of upward mobility and access to power in American society.

The pricing structure of legal education has profound class implications. High tuition will inhibit people from middle-class and poor families more than it will deter the offspring of the rich with ample resources. Law school scholarship policies, for reasons I will explain, in effect channel students with financial means to higher ranked law schools, reaping better opportunities, while sending students without money to lower law schools. A growing proportion of elite legal positions will be held by people from wealthy backgrounds as a result. For students who rely on borrowing to finance their legal education, the heavy debt they carry will dictate the types of jobs they seek and constrain the career they go on to have.

Liberal law professors often express concerns about class in American society — championing access to the legal profession and the provision of legal services for underserved communities. Yet as law school tuition rose to its current extraordinary heights, progressive law professors did nothing to resist it. This Article explores what happened and why.

This is offered in the spirit of critical legal studies — as a critical self-examination of the failure of leftist law professors. The Crits were highly critical of complacent liberal academics of their day, arguing that they had a hand in perpetuating an unjust legal system; here I charge liberal legal academia — including the Crits — with perpetuating the profoundly warped and harmful economics of legal education. What follows will offend many of my fellow liberals. It may even lose me some friends. Liberal law professors must see past their anger to reflect on whether there is a core truth to my arguments, to take personal responsibility for what has happened, and to engage in collective action to do something to alter the economics of our operation. If not, the current economic barrier to a legal career may become permanent.

Update:

• ABA Journal, ‘Leftist Law Professors’ Stayed Silent on High Tuition While Enjoying ‘Sweet Ride’, Says Law Prof
• Stephan A. Bainbridge (UCLA), Think Law School Tuition is too High? Blame Liberals
• Stephen F. Diamond (Santa Clara), Do Law School Critics Like Brian Tamanaha Have the Courage of Their Convictions?
• Stephen F. Diamond (Santa Clara), The Future of the American Law School or, How the 'Crits' Led Brian Tamanaha Astray and His Failing Law Schools Fails
• Paul Horwitz (Alabama), Tamanaha on Class and Law School Reform
• Wall Street Journal, Law Professor Hurls Hypocrisy Charge at Colleagues

NLJ: ABA to Toughen Bar Passage Requirement

National Law Journal:  ABA Eyes Tighter Bar-Passage Rule for Law Schools, by Karen Sloan:

The ABA's bar passage-rate requirement for law schools may soon become more straightforward but harder to meet.

The ABA committee revising the law school accreditation standards is poised to endorse a new rule that would require at least 80% percent of a school's graduates to pass the bar within two years of graduation—an increase from 75% within five years. Graduates would have at least five shots at passing the test to help their alma maters meet the 80% requirement.

The details might yet change, but there is widespread support for clarifying and strengthening the standard, said committee chairman Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law. "I think it's fair to say that there is consensus that the current interpretation is meaningless and empty, and thus very misleading," he said. ...

Before 2008, the ABA spelled out no specific bar-passage minimum. Instead, it enforced what was called the "70/10 Rule": At least 70% of a school's first-time bar takers had to pass the exam in the school's home state. Alternatively, the first-time bar-pass rate could be no more than 10% below the average for other ABA-accredited schools in that state.

But the U.S. Department of Education—which authorizes the ABA to accredit law schools—requested a clearer rule. After much discussion, the ABA in 2008 began requiring that at least 75% of a school's graduates pass the bar exam in at least three of the past five years [FAQ]. Schools can meet the standard if their first-time bar-passage rate is no more than 15% below other ABA schools in the same state during three of the past five years. The 15% requirement is intended to level the playing field across states, given that passage rates vary widely, depending on jurisdiction.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Law Schools in Jeopardy of Failing ABA's New Objective Bar Passage Accreditation Standard (Feb. 4, 2008)
• The Impact of Higher Bar Passage Requirements on Law School Diversity (July 18, 2011)
• ABA to Toughen Bar Passage Accreditation Standard (July 17, 2012)

Barros: Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market

Benjamin Barros (Widener), Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom on the Legal Job Market:

Over the past year or so, a conventional wisdom has developed about the status of the legal job market. This conventional wisdom has at least three components: (1) Recent graduates are getting law jobs at distressingly low levels. (2) The legal job market is undergoing a profound structural change. (3) The lousy job market is a reflection of these long-term changes, and is not just a product of a recession and slow recovery.

In this short paper, I push back against certain aspects of this conventional wisdom. I argue that it is highly likely that more recent graduates throughout the country are getting law jobs than the conventional wisdom assumes. My argument is based on data about what graduates from my school actually are doing now. I also briefly discuss the claim that the poor job market is due to structural changes in the legal job market. I explain why I am skeptical that the structural changes in the legal job market are significantly different than those that have occurred in the past, and why I am therefore skeptical that the current anemic state of the legal job market is the result of structural, rather than economic, factors. Finally, I briefly discuss Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the legal job market, and will explain why caution must be used in interpreting this data in discussion of legal employment. ...

This post focuses on the preliminary results of a study of the current employment of Widener‐Harrisburg graduates from the classes of 2010 and 2011. These results are part of an ongoing study I am doing of alumni employment. The study was motivated in part by a mismatch between the experiences of alumni I know personally and the conventional wisdom. I talk a lot with current students and alumni about job issues. In the last several years, a number of graduates had trouble finding jobs right out of school but ultimately landed good jobs. My overall anecdotal impression was that our graduates were doing relatively well, though a small number of graduates were still struggling on the job market. I started working on the study to see if my anecdotal impression was consistent with actual data.

	2010 (9 mo.)	2010 Current	2011 (9 mo.)	2011 Current
Bar Pass Required (Permanent)	58     (47.5%)	99     (80.4%)	58    (46.8%)	92   (74.1%)
Bar Pass Required(Non-Permanent)	11     (9.0%)	0       (0.0%)	2      (1.6%)	2     (1.6%)
JD Advantage	10     (8.2%)	8       (6.5%)	18    (14.5%)	8     (6.5%)
Professional	12     (9.8%)	6       (4.9%)	10    (8.0%)	8     (6.5%)
Non-Professional	1       (0.8%)	0       (0.0%)	6      (4.8%)	2     (1.6%)
Employed (Undeterminable)	1       (0.8%)	0       (0.0%)	1      (0.8%)	0     (0.0%)
Graduate Study	6       (4.9%)	0       (0.0%)	1      (0.8%)	0     (0.0%)
Unemployed	16     (13.1%)	1       (0.8%)	21    (16.9%)	2     (1.6%)
Unknown	7       (5.7%)	9       (7.3%)	7      (5.4%)	10   (8.1%)

Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.) and Ben expand on the post in the comments:

Brian:  'The issue is not only whether law grads are getting jobs, but also whether these jobs pay enough to manage their debt. The average debt for the Widener class of 2012 was $123,000; to this we must add undergraduate debt and interest accrued. A substantial salary is required to manage debt levels this high. Do you have any information about salaries?"

Ben:  "As far as salary data goes, no, I don't have any, though I hope to get that kind of data in the future. I haven't figured out a particularly good methodology for that yet. ...  I appreciate the larger points you are making about student debt, and I welcome further conversation on the topic."

Brian:  "I don't expect you to know their salaries from a survey (although that would be ideal). In place of that, we can estimate salaries based upon firm size (NALP has solid data on this). Do you have information about the size of the firms graduates work in? With this information, we can get a better sense of whether the conventional wisdom is wrong. ... The point remains that debt levels this high require substantial salaries."

Ben:  "I will look at my data tomorrow and see what I can do as far as salary ranges for some of the job types."

Update:  ABA Journal, Is the Legal Job Market Really That Lousy? Conventional Wisdom Ignores the Long Term, Law Prof Says

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Brooklyn Dean Responds to New Standards for Dismissal of Tenured Faculty

Following up on Friday's post, Brooklyn Law School to Permit Dismissal of Tenured Faculty for Lack of Collegiality or Poor Student Evaluations:  Brian Leiter (Chicago) blogged Brooklyn Dean Nicholas Allard's response.  Brian notes:

I view this as welcome news, and will be interested to see the final standards that emerge from the process.  I think this will also be an instructive process for other academic institutions.

NLJ: ABA Debates Elimination of Tenure Requirement for Law Faculty

National Law Journal:  Is Law Faculty Tenure In or Out? ABA Can't Decide, by Karen Sloan:

The committee updating the ABA's law school accreditation standards hopes to wrap up its initial review by the end of 2013, but the group remains nowhere near a consensus regarding job protections for law faculty—perhaps the most controversial item on its agenda. The 14-member Standards Review Committee spent much of its most recent two-day meeting in Washington weighing the merits of three job protection and academic freedom proposals before opting to draft a fourth idea for future consideration.

"It was a very fulsome discussion," said committee chairman Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law. "We want to have a full plate of options in front of us."

Rather than submit just one proposed standard to the ABA's Council of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, the committee likely will recommend one proposal but provide several alternatives so the council can decide whether it wants to maintain, increase or decrease job protections. ...

The first idea essentially would maintain the existing standard—declaring that law schools shall provide for "tenure or a comparable form of security of position for full-time faculty." Clinical faculty would have "a form of security of position reasonably similar to tenure," but not legal-writing teachers. Some clinicians and legal writing instructors have argued that the existing rules have created a caste system.

The second proposal is to move away from any tenure requirement. Schools would afford all full-time faculty some form of security of position, but each would decide what system that would be. ...

The third idea is similar to the second, in that some form of security of position would be required, although tenure would not mandated. However, schools would have to maintain the same system for all full-time faculty, including legal writing and clinical faculty.

In addition to the three existing proposals, Lewis said, the committee may consider a fourth alternative under which law schools would not be required to guarantee any security of position. He said he hopes that the committee would arrive at some sort of consensus during its next meeting in July.

• Paul Horwitz (Alabama), ABA Committee Discusses Tenure Requirements and Law School Accreditation

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Law Deans' Association Fights Tenure Requirement (Apr. 3, 2006)
• More on Law Deans' Tenure Challenge (Apr. 5, 2006)
• The Threat to Law School Tenure (May 4, 2007)
• Straight Talk About Tenure (May 10, 2007)
• Northwestern Battles ABA Over Tenure for Clinical Faculty & Library Director (Mar. 3, 2009)
• Presidents Join Deans in Asking ABA to Remove Faculty Tenure as Accreditation Standard (Jan 27, 2010)
• ABA Considers Dramatic Changes This Weekend in Law School Accreditation Standards, Including Dilution of Tenure (July 25, 2010)
• Law School Tenure in Danger? (July 26, 2010)
• More on the ABA's Proposal to Dilute Law Faculty Tenure (July 28, 2010)
• The 'Lord Voldemort' of Legal Education Takes on Faculty Tenure (Jan. 8, 2011)
• The Coming Showdown Over Law Faculty Tenure (Mar. 4, 2011)
• More on the ABA's Proposed Modification of the Tenure Requirement (Mar. 22, 2011)
• NLJ: ABA Considers Job Protections for Nontraditional Faculty (July 12, 2011)

Tax Prof Moves, 2013-14

VAP Hires

• Sloan Speck (Skadden, Chicago) to NYU

Entry Level Hires

• Pippa Browde (IRS Chief Counsel's Office, New York) to Montana
• Andrew Hayashi (NYU Research Fellow) to Virginia
• Orly Sulami (Haynes and Boone, Dallas) to SMU
• Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (NYU VAP) to North Carolina

Lateral Moves

• Howard Abrams (Emory) to San Diego
• Karen Burke (San Diego) to Florida
• Paul Caron (Cincinnati) to Pepperdine
• Emily Cauble (Michigan State) to DePaul
• Victor Fleischer (Colorado) to San Diego
• Miranda Perry Fleischer (Colorado) to San Diego
• Ruth Mason (Connecticut) to Virginia
• Grayson McCouch (San Diego) to Florida
• Darien Shanske (UC-Hastings) to UC-Davis

Promotions, Tenures, Chairs, and Professorships

• Tom Brennan (Northwestern) to Professor of Law with Tenure
• Heather Field (UC-Hastings) to Bion Gregory Chair in Business Law
• Lori McMillan (Washburn) to Professor of Law with Tenure
• Lisa Milot (Georgia) to Associate Professor of Law with Tenure

Administrative Appointments

• Dorothy Brown (Emory) to Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
• Heather Field (UC-Hastings) to Associate Academic Dean

Visits

• Howard Abrams (San Diego) to Harvard (2013-14)
• Jordan Barry (San Diego) to Michigan (Fall 2013)
• Paul Caron (Pepperdine) to San Diego (Summer 2014)
• Cliff Fleming (BYU) to Vienna University (Oct. 2013)
• William Foster (Washburn) to Arkansas-Fayetteville) (2013-14)
• Victoria Haneman (La Verne) to UNLV (Fall 2013)
• Michael Hatfield (Texas Tech) to Washington (2013-14)
• Tracey Roberts (Louisville) to Seattle (2013-14)
• Stephanie Willbanks (Vermont) to Richmond (Fall 2013)

For prior years' Tax Prof Moves, see:

• 2012-13
  
• 2011-12
• 2010-11
• 2009-10
• 2008-09
• 2007-08
• 2006-07
• 2005-06
• 2004-05

Law Profs Are Like Dorothy and Her Red Shoes: We've Had the Power to Change Legal Education All Along

The Legal Whiteboard:  Is Law School Reform Going to Come Top Down or Bottom Up?, by William Henderson (Indiana):

[W]ill an ABA taskforce, or AALS, LSAC, or some other industry group taskforce produce substantial change?  History suggests that the answer is no and that, instead, meaningful change will come from the bottom up rather than the top down.  Change will occur at the bottom from either the desire to survive or the opportunity to do something great.  Other similarly situated institutions that feel less urgency or inspiration will eventually perish.  It is just that simple

The accreditation system we have created is an anchronism.  But if we think the ABA Standards are holding back the forces of innovation in legal education, we are kidding ourselves. Any law school or law professor who wants a better way can have one -- we are all like Dorothy and her red slippers in the Wizard of Oz: we have had the power all along. ...

Reform in legal education is not a light switch.  It is mindset that affects how we spend our time and who we spend it with. ... If we want reform, well, let's work on it and actually get something done that will inspire others. Eventually it will take hold and take off, with or without changes to the ABA governing standards.

ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education: 'A Meeting of the Executive Officers of the Titanic'

Am Law 100: Signs of a 'Fundamental Recovery' in the Legal Market

Amrican Lawyer:  Am Law 100 2013: Spring Awakening:

The Am Law 100's modest gains hint that a fundamental recovery is taking root.

In fiscal 2012, The Am Law 100 posted modest gains on our key metrics. For gross revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per partners, firms notched low single-digit year-over-year in­creases. But these averages belied the unevenness of the recovery. Only 76 firms reported gross revenue increases last year. And only 66 firms had profit per partner increases—down from 80 firms and 72 firms, respectively, on the previous year's Am Law 100 list.

The Am Law 100 showed small increases in all major metrics in 2012.

METRIC	2012	CHANGE
Total gross revenue	$73,399,503,390	3.40%
Average revenue per lawyer	$844,245	2.60%
Average profits per partner	$1,467,303	4.20%
Average compensation-all partners	$1,058,545	3.00%
Average value per lawyer	$391,136	3.20%
Total head count	86,941	0.80%
Total equity partners	19,216	0.00%
Total nonequity partners	12,909	2.50%
Average leverage	3.52	0.90%
Average profit margin	38	0.00%

Update:  Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), Is BigLaw Reviving?

:

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• Rapoport:  U.S. News Rankings Management, Law Schools Gone Wild, and Enron
• GAO:  IRS Collected $5.5 Billion in 2007-10 From Offshore Bank Cheats, But May be Missing Billions More
• Du Pont:  Make Government Less Taxing
• Why FATCA Will Not Stand

Sunday:

• President Obama and Conan O'Brien at Last Night's White House Correspondents' Dinner
• Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
• Mother (and Father) and Child Reunion
• Radical Reformation and the IRS

President Obama and Conan O'Brien at Last Night's White House Correspondents' Dinner

Mother (and Father) and Child Reunion

My wife and I are spending the weekend with our daughter at her college. It has been absolutely wonderful to spend time with her and her friends and to get a too-brief snapshot into her life here (more than compensating for the 3,000 non-Wi-Fi miles it took to get here -- shame on you, United) :

My wife and I bawled like babies last night at the college's showing of Any Day Now:

 

Rapoport: U.S. News Rankings Management, Law Schools Gone Wild, and Enron

Nancy B. Rapoport (Interim Dean, UNLV), Managing U.S. News & World Report -- The Enron Way, 48 Gonz. L. Rev. 423 (2013):

This essay suggests that lying about the numbers that schools report to US News is no better than the lying that Enron did about its various methods of "earnings management." It also suggests that administrators -- being humans -- can talk themselves into lying about the numbers for all sorts of (very bad) reasons.

There have been a few big law school scandals that are either clear manipulations of data designed to game the U.S. News & World Report rankings or are reactions to the pressure of making the U.S. News “numbers” and filling a class. That yearly March-April collective decanal shudder or sigh of relief is much like how CEOs and CFOs must feel when they find out whether their quarterly earnings met, exceeded, or failed to meet their projected earnings. Make no mistake: the repercussions that accompany a school’s drop in the rankings (or when companies don’t meet their projected earnings) are ugly. That’s why schools spend so much time playing to the rankings and why companies can find themselves in hot—sometimes felonious—water with unsavory “earnings management” decisions that push a company into outright dishonesty. ...

With so many examples of “schools gone wild,” it’s difficult for law deans and law faculties to tell their students that lawyers shouldn’t lie. The law schools that have misstated their stats are sending the message that lawyers shouldn’t lie, unless: (1) lying will make their lives easier; (2) verifying the facts is too much trouble; or (3) the likelihood of getting caught—and punished—is low. That’s not the message that we should be sending. ... “Rankings management” just reminds me too much of the “earnings management” that I followed when I devoured every news article out there about the Enron scandal. ...

When schools focus on chasing the U.S. News rankings, they’re not doing so because they really believe that what U.S. News measures is what law schools should be doing. They’re doing so because higher rankings have positive ripple effects. Higher rankings mean getting applicants with better and better “numbers” each year, which in turn leads to yet even higher rankings. Higher rankings increase the odds that a graduate of that school will have better job opportunities. Higher rankings also increase the odds of a faculty member placing her article in a “better” law review. And, of course, higher rankings make the lives of deans, associate deans, assistant deans, and other administrators much easier. Those effects are nothing to sneeze at, and so people push as hard as they can to move up the ladder. 

But cheating at the rankings also imprints a school’s students and graduates. The same administration that is stressing adherence to an honor code and the importance of professionalism and ethics may be the one “construing” its answers and developing very delicate loopholes. Bad LSATs? Move those students to the part-time program! Part-time program LSATs now being counted in the rankings? Cut the entering class and admit lots of transfers! Placement low? Hire graduates as research assistants, unless they’re not good enough to do that type of work (in which case, hire them to do filing)!

Don’t think that deans aren’t aware of these options. We are. Then we wrestle with our “blush factor”: which decisions are legitimate “lawyering” decisions (what we’re teaching our students to do), and which ones are desperate attempts to keep from sliding a tier down? Everyone reaches a different blush-factor decision. I’ve made my peace with mine.

• Wall Street Journal, Law Schools and the ‘Enron Way’