Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, Four Law Schools Are Back In Compliance With 75% Bar Passage Accreditation Requirement
• ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Notice and Comment: Standards 303 and 508 and Rules 2 and 13
• AccessLex, Law School Scholarship Databank
• Vikram David Amar (Dean, Illinois), What Accounts for the Increase in Law School Applications This Year?
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), J. Goosby Smith Named Vice President For Community Belonging And Chief Diversity Officer At Pepperdine University

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Hosts Inaugural Belonging Awards
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Two-Thirds Of The Way Through The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applications Are Up At 97% Of Law Schools, With Biggest Increases Among The Highest LSAT Bands
• Logan Cornett (Denver) & Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence
• Gregory S. Crespi (SMU), Teaching a Class on Income and Wealth Inequality
• Enjuris, Law School Rankings By Female Enrollment (2020)
• Justin Henry (Law.com), The Pandemic Threatens Summer Associate Programs—Again
• Law360, BigLaw Eyes HBCUs, But Rankings Mindset Still Prevails
• Law.com, 2021 Law School Rankings By Graduates In BigLaw Jobs
• NCBE, California Joins Seven Other Jurisdictions (Thus Far) In Holding Online July 2021 Bar Exam
• Karen Sloan (Law.com), 'A Year Like No Other': Top Law Schools Are Inundated With Strong Applicants
• Supreme Court of California, Administrative Order 2021-02-26
• Mark Tushnet (Harvard) & Louis Michael Seidman (Georgetown), On Being Old Codgers: A Conversation about a Half Century in Legal Education
• Eugene Volokh (UCLA), First Circuit Dismisses Former Miami Law Student's Libel Claim Against Above The Law For Unflattering Blog Post
• Kimberlee G. Weatherall (University of Sydney Law School; Google Scholar) & Rebecca Giblin (University of Melbourne Law School; Google Scholar), Inoculating Law Schools Against Bad Metrics
• Jonathan Zimmerman (Pennsylvania), Higher Ed’s Misguided Purging Of Trump Supporters

Comment: The Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has proposed a change to Standard 303 that would require law schools to provide substantial opportunities for "the development of professional identity."  (here) 

If adopted, this program would be a significant change in the law school curriculum.  Professional identity development is very different from the current legal ethics class.  Ethics is the rules of professional conduct, while professionalism is the ability to act in a professional manner, such as politeness, thoroughness, and getting work done on time. In contrast, professional identity is a lawyer’s personal legal morality, values, decision-making process, and self-consciousness in relation to the practices of the legal profession (legal culture).  The “difference between a lawyer told to be professional who acts in this way, and one who acts this way because of her professional identity, is that the lawyer herself believe that these are the ways she should act."  (Benjamin V. Madison III)  It requires self-reflection and the "nurturing of of a sense of professional self-consciousness."  (Id.)  In sum, professional identity provides the framework that a lawyer uses to make all her decisions.

I strongly support the adoption of this proposal.  You can send comments on the proposal to Fernando.Mariduena@americanbar.org until March 31.