Faculty Diversity Fell During The Great Recession. Will The Pattern Repeat During The Pandemic?

Kwan Woo Kim (Harvard), Alexandra Kalev (Tel Aviv; Google Scholar), Frank Dobbin (Harvard; Google Scholar) & Gal Deutsch (Tel Aviv; Google Scholar), Crisis and Uncertainty: Did the Great Recession Reduce the Diversity of New Faculty?:

The demographic composition of the U.S. professoriate affects student composition and, thus, the pipeline for professional and managerial jobs. Amid concern about the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the labor market, much remains unknown about how economic downturns affect faculty hiring and the demographic makeup of hires. We examine the effects of the Great Recession on faculty hiring. That crisis walloped the U.S. academic labor market. Tenure-track hires in four-year colleges and universities declined by 25 percent between 2007 and 2009, recovering slowly through 2015. Hires of black, Hispanic, and Asian American faculty declined disproportionately. Public institutions and research-oriented institutions, which faced the greatest resource challenges and uncertainty about the future, made the biggest cuts in the hiring of people of color. Our findings suggest that financial uncertainty led to a reversal in progress on faculty diversity. Faculty and administrators making hiring decisions in the years following the COVID-19 crisis should be aware of this pattern.

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Wallace & Lutkenhaus: Measuring Scholarly Impact In Law

Karen L. Wallace (Drake) & Rebecca Lutkenhaus (Drake; Google Scholar), Measuring Scholarly Impact in Law, 28 Widener L. Rev. ___ (2022):

In February 2019, U.S. News & World Report announced a proposal to use HeinOnline data to publish a scholarly impact ranking of law schools. As a result, interest in using scholarly metrics to quantitatively assess legal scholarship soared. Legal scholars debated several issues, including: the concept of evaluating scholarly impact through citation metrics; the ramifications of publishing this information alongside the highly criticized, but undeniably influential, U.S. News law school rankings; the optimal procedures for creating such a ranking; the rationale underlying the decisions involved in establishing a methodology; and HeinOnline’s available content and metrics. The concerns raised ultimately led U.S. News to abandon its planned ranking in summer 2021, two and a half years after its initial announcement. 

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The Unsung Heroes Of The Desegregation Of American Law Schools

Gail S. Stephenson (Southern; Google Scholar), The Unsung Heroes of the Desegregation of American Law Schools, 51 J. of L. & Educ. ___ (2022):

In 1940 seventeen American states prohibited interracial education by force of law. In 1945 the south offered white students sixteen law schools, but African-American students were limited to one segregated law school. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP developed a strategy to desegregate American education by first attacking the inequities in graduate and professional education in the courts. Law schools were the first targets as Marshall hoped to develop a cadre of civil rights advocates who could carry on his work.

These lawsuits required courageous individuals to step forward to serve as test plaintiffs. These individuals were vilified, intimidated, and threatened. Ultimately only two actually graduated from the schools they sued to attend and practiced law, although some graduated from other law schools and went on to highly successful careers.

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Symposium: Is This A Christian Nation?

Symposium, Is This a Christian Nation?, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 237-665 (2021):

• Carl T. Bogus (Roger Williams; Google Scholar), Is This a Christian Nation? An Introduction, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 237 (2021)
• Teresa M. Bejan (Oxford; Google Scholar), In Search of an Established Church, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 284
• Mary Anne Case (Chicago; Google Scholar), Who Conquers with This Sign? The Significance of The Secularization of The Bladensburg Cross, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 336
• Erwin Chemerinsky (Berkeley), No, It Is Not a Christian Nation, and It Never Has Been and Should Not Be One, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 404
• Steven K. Green (Willamette), The Legal Ramifications of Christian Nationalism, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 430
• Marci A. Hamilton (Penn), The Framers, Faith, and Tyranny, 26 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 495

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Jewish Lawyers And The Legal Profession: The End Of The Affair?

Eli Wald (Denver), Jewish Lawyers and the U.S. Legal Profession: The End of the Affair?, 36 Touro L. Rev. 299 (2020):

Scholars of the legal profession have long puzzled over the apparent affinity between Jewish lawyers and the law, in and outside of the United States. This article advances a new explanation to account for the overrepresentation of Jewish lawyers in the U.S. legal profession in the twentieth century: the Confluence of Circumstances theory. The theory shows that a confluence of circumstances including evolving practice realities, changing professional ideologies, increased competition, discrimination, and the cost of legal education coalesced to account for the affinity. Moreover, tracking the same conditions in the twenty-first century the theory predicts the end of the affair explaining why the practice of law no longer represents a particularly attractive proposition for Jews.

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Townsend: Preconditions Of Leadership In Law

Kenneth Townsend (Wake Forest), Preconditions of Leadership in Law, 56 Wake Forest L. Rev. __ (2021):

While lawyers have long been over-represented in various leadership contexts, law schools and legal employers have not always been concerned with teaching and cultivating leadership. This historic reluctance is rooted in many things, including an overconfidence that the study and practice of law somehow automatically prepared one for leadership; a fear that legal education and practice would be compromised by a focus on “soft skills” associated with leadership studies; a belief that leadership capacities are established by the time students arrive at law school; and concerns that a more holistic approach would lead law schools into the fraught business of moral formation.

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True Confessions Of A Legal Writing Professor: I Will Never Surrender To The Sinful Comma Splice

Diana Simon (Arizona; Google Scholar), More True Confessions of a Legal Writing Professor: I Will Never Surrender to the Sinful Comma Splice, __ Ariz. Att'y __ (2021):

This, at times, irreverent and tongue-in-cheek article analyzes the increase in the use of comma splices from a legal writing professor’s perspective and suggests ways to fix the problem. First, it traces the increase of comma splices to the Harry Potter series because, as English professors have suggested, that best-selling series is full of comma splices. Second, it explains exactly what a comma splice is and how historically, the use of comma splices was acceptable. Third, it provides examples of sentences with comma splices and suggests different methods of fixing the sentence to correct the problem. Finally, it addresses exceptions to the ban on comma splices.

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Fordham Symposium: Mental Health And The Legal Profession

Fordham Symposium, Mental Health and the Legal Profession, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2415-2595 (2021):

• Susan A. Bandes (DePaul; Google Scholar), Feeling and Thinking Like a Lawyer: Cognition, Emotion, and the Practice and Progress of Law, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2427 (2021)
• Jenny E. Carroll (Alabama), If Only I Had Known: The Challenges of Representation, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2447 (2021)
• Meera A. Deo (Thomas Jefferson), Investigating Pandemic Effects On Legal Academia, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2467 (2021)
• Hon. Bernice Donald (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit) & Alex Bansford, Widening the Lens, Sharpening the Focus: Mental Health and the Legal Profession, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2497 (2021)
• Tsedale M. Melaku (CUNY; Google Scholar), The Awakening: The Impact of COVID-19, Racial Upheaval, and Political Polarization on Black Women Lawyers, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2519 (2021)
• Gregory S. Parks (Wake Forest; Google Scholar) & Julia Doyle (J.D. Candidate 2024, Wake Forest), The Rage of a Privileged Class, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2541 (2021)
• Deborah L. Rhode (Stanford), Managing Stress, Grief, and Mental Health Challenges in the Legal Profession; Not Your Usual Law Review Article, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 2565 (2021)

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Legal Education In The United States: Moving Toward More Practical Experience

Hon. Sandra R. Klein (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California), Legal Education in the United States: Moving Toward More Practical Experience, 42 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 371 (2019):

More than twenty-five years ago, I had the good fortune to be a Loyola Law School (“Loyola”) student and a member of the Loyola Law School International and Comparative Law Journal (“ILJ”). One of the highlights of my law school career was having my comment published in the ILJ: Legal Education in the United States and England, A Comparative Analysis, 13 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L.J. 601 (1991) [hereinafter Legal Education]. 

Many things have changed since then. The ILJ changed its name to the International and Comparative Law Review. I graduated from Loyola, clerked for two amazing jurists, the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcón, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Honorable Lourdes G. Baird, United States District Court for the Central District of California, worked as a litigation associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and, for more than thirteen years, worked for the United States Department of Justice. For the past eight years, I have had the honor to serve as a United States Bankruptcy Judge in the Central District of California. 

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2021 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews

Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2021 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:

This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of September 29, 2021). ... The ranking table below includes 193 flagship law reviews from ABA accredited law schools. Even if you ignore the “MetaRank,” the table provides access to the updated rankings from US News (peer reputation and overall rankings, averaged over the 10-year period from 2013 edition through the 2022 edition of US News’ rankings) and the current Washington & Lee Rankings (2016-2020; released on June 30, 2021) and Google Scholar (July 2021) rankings. 

prRank = Average 10-year US News Peer Reputation score ranking;
usnRank = Average 10-year overall US News school ranking; 
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking; 
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking; 
wlu(IF)Rank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Impact Factor Ranking (NOT included in meta-rank).

Journal	MetaRank	prRank	usnRank	wluRank	gRank	wlu(IF)Rank
Harvard Law Review	1	1	3	1	1	13
Yale Law Journal	2	2	1	2	2	2
Stanford Law Review	3	3	2	4	5	1
Columbia Law Review	4	4	5	8	3	29
California Law Review	5	7	9	3	7	3
Univ. of Penn. Law Review	6	9	7	6	6	5
Univ. of Chicago Law Review	7	5	4	14	8	15
Georgetown Law Journal	8	14	14	5	4	6
Michigan Law Review	9	8	10	9	11	8
Virginia Law Review	10	9	8	18	10	12
Duke Law Journal	11	11	11	12	14	7
NYU Law Review	12	6	6	22	19	21
Texas Law Review	13	15	15	16	9	16
UCLA Law Review	14	16	16	13	13	4
Cornell Law Review	15	12	13	15	22	8
Northwestern Univ. Law Rev.	15	13	12	23	14	18
Vanderbilt Law Review	17	17	17	20	11	24
Minnesota Law Review	18	20	20	10	16	14
Notre Dame Law Review	19	23	21	7	16	10
Iowa Law Review	20	29	25	11	16	20
Boston University Law Review	21	25	24	21	20	23
Washington Univ. Law Review	22	18	18	30	29	17
George Washington Law Rev.	23	24	23	29	21	36
Emory Law Journal	24	21	22	32	24	21
Southern California Law Rev.	25	19	19	31	32	18
Boston College Law Review	26	29	29	24	22	33
William & Mary Law Review	27	33	35	19	27	11
Fordham Law Review	28	34	39	17	25	43
U.C. Davis Law Review	29	26	37	26	30	27
Washington Law Review	30	35	33	28	28	25
North Carolina Law Review	31	22	36	34	36	31
Indiana Law Journal	32	32	31	35	34	33
Wisconsin Law Review	32	27	32	33	40	26
Univ. of Illinois Law Review	32	39	41	27	25	31
Ohio State Law Journal	35	31	37	37	36	28
Washington & Lee Law Rev.	36	40	34	41	41	49
Alabama Law Review	36	37	26	43	50	39
Florida Law Review	38	37	43	36	41	29
Arizona State Law Journal	39	41	27	51	44	58
Hastings Law Journal	40	42	55	38	30	46
Arizona Law Review	41	44	44	42	36	33
Maryland Law Review	42	48	48	39	33	39
Cardozo Law Review	43	53	59	25	34	41
Wake Forest Law Review	44	45	40	45	45	57
Georgia Law Review	45	35	30	46	70	36
Univ. of Colorado Law Rev.	46	43	45	47	50	51
BYU Law Review	47	49	41	48	48	48
American Univ. Law Review	48	50	75	40	36	43
U.C. Irvine Law Review	49	28	28	84	62	99
Utah Law Review	50	51	47	60	56	62
Connecticut Law Review	51	52	57	49	62	36
Houston Law Review	52	63	56	53	54	54
George Mason Law Review	53	57	46	50	78	51
Univ. of Richmond Law Rev.	54	70	54	56	54	49
Tulane Law Review	55	46	51	72	67	76
Case Western Reserve L. Rev.	56	67	64	58	48	79
SMU Law Review	57	65	50	73	62	84
Temple Law Review	58	58	53	64	78	58
Tennessee Law Review	59	61	60	69	1000	54
Missouri Law Review	60	69	64	70	52	77
Florida State Univ. Law Rev.	61	47	49	82	78	70
Lewis & Clark Law Review	62	83	89	44	43	45
Pepperdine Law Review	63	66	58	68	70	65
Denver Law Review	64	56	73	80	56	79
Chicago-Kent Law Review	64	73	83	57	52	69
Brooklyn Law Review	66	71	85	54	56	65
Univ. of Miami Law Review	67	54	69	81	67	71
Nevada Law Journal	68	80	68	62	67	53
Univ. of Kansas Law Review	69	62	74	83	59	95
Michigan State Law Review	70	92	91	52	45	46
Loyola Univ. Chicago L.J.	71	75	76	75	62	81
Georgia State Univ. Law Rev.	72	68	62	102	59	112
Oklahoma Law Review	73	77	70	71	75	68
Seton Hall Law Review	74	87	61	65	87	75
Nebraska Law Review	74	81	72	77	70	84
Seattle Univ. Law Review	76	91	112	54	47	62
San Diego Law Review	77	59	81	88	78	84
Penn State Law Review	78	93	71	61	85	42
Villanova Law Review	79	88	80	76	70	73
Kentucky Law Journal	80	72	63	93	93	90
DePaul Law Review	81	97	116	58	62	61
Buffalo Law Review	82	99	99	74	70	71
Saint Louis Univ. L.J.	83	98	92	94	59	106
South Carolina Law Review	84	89	95	67	93	62
Univ. of Cincinnati Law Rev.	85	86	77	98	87	115
Hofstra Law Review	86	100	111	63	76	67
Rutgers Univ. Law Review	87	74	84	115	78	129
Indiana Law Review	88	79	104	87	87	99
Marquette Law Review	89	94	103	78	87	77
Santa Clara Law Review	90	76	110	79	102	54
Arkansas Law Review	91	95	87	100	93	109
UMKC Law Review	92	107	120	66	85	81
Oregon Law Review	93	55	88	120	1000	123
Univ. of Pittsburgh Law Rev.	93	60	79	122	116	123
New Mexico Law Review	95	90	82	106	1000	88
Louisiana Law Review	96	103	90	97	100	97
St. John's Law Review	97	104	86	109	93	112
Baylor Law Review	98	85	52	129	1000	119
Loyola of L.A. Law Review	99	63	67	142	128	137
West Virginia Law Review	99	110	101	96	93	97
Howard Law Journal	99	84	115	103	98	95
CUNY Law Review	99	111	119	85	1000	60

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The Impact Of 1L Credentials And Academic Attrition Rates On Bar Exam Success

Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth (PhD Mathematics, Miami), Quantifying the Impact of Matriculant Credentials & Academic Attrition Rates on Bar Exam Success at Individual Schools, 99 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. Online 1 (Oct. 2021):

A scatterplot displaying bar passage rates vs. academic attrition, across all law schools, suggests that bar passage rates and academic attrition rates are not positively correlated, and may even be slightly negatively correlated. This means that according to the data in the scatterplot there appears to be a slight trend where the higher an institution’s academic attrition rate, the lower the bar passage rate. Such global statistical observations obfuscate the true relationship between attrition and bar passage at individual schools.

Academic attrition rates have a significant positive impact on an individual school’s bar passage rate. There are confounding variables which prevent us from seeing the true relationship between academic attrition and bar passage rates in the global scatterplot. This brief article quantifies the impact of academic attrition on bar passage for individual schools. We tangibly demonstrate the impact of academic attrition and matriculant credentials on bar passage at individual schools.

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Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works

Alexa Chew (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Rachel Gurvich (North Carolina), Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works:

Like the law we teach our students, legal education itself isn’t neutral. It is the product of both structural forces and individual decisions. Hierarchy and structural inequality permeate our society, so of course they permeate the institutions within our society, including law schools. But law schools are not only passive recipients of these permeating atoms of injustice. They have some agency in determining which inequities to nurture (or not) in the learning environment. As it stands, though, the environment that students learn the law in can be an incubator of inequality.

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Take Note: Teaching Law Students To Be Responsible Stewards Of Technology

Kristen E. Murray (Temple; Google Scholar), Take Note: Teaching Law Students to Be Responsible Stewards of Technology, 70 Cath. U. L. Rev. 201 (2021):

The modern lawyer cannot practice without some deployment of technology; practical and ethical obligations have made technological proficiency part of what it means to be practice-ready. These obligations complicate the question of what constitutes best practices in law school. Today’s law schools are filled with students who are digital natives but who do not necessarily leverage technology in maximally efficient ways, and faculty who span multiple generations, with varying amounts of skepticism about modern technology. Students are expected to use technology to read, prepare for class, take notes, and study for and take final exams. Professors might use technology to teach or assess student work, but students are often asked to leave technology out of the classroom because of professor expectations about distraction and notetaking. All of this is happening as we attempt to prepare students to enter a profession that is infused with both technological capabilities and obligations, including the rules of professional conduct. These capabilities and obligations will continue to evolve, grow, and change alongside companion changes in technologies.

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Frye: Letter To The Yale Law Journal Forum

Brian Frye (Kentucky; Google Scholar), Letter to the Yale Law Journal Forum:

This essay is a legal scholarship in the form of a letter to the Yale Law Journal Forum, reflecting on the nature of the market for legal scholarships. ...

I want to tell you about my scholarship. Every year I write another article about the same thing, just like everyone else. It’s a drag, but the summer bonus makes it worth the effort, and at this point, the articles almost write themselves. Recycling the literature review sure helps!

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A New Minority? International J.D. Students In U.S. Law Schools

Swethaa Ballakrishnen (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Carole Silver (Northwestern; Google Scholar), A New Minority? International JD Students in US Law Schools, 44 Law & Soc.  Inquiry 647 (2019):

This Article reveals the significance of a new and growing minority group within US law schools - international students in the Juris Doctor (JD) program. While international students have received some attention in legal education scholarship, it mostly has been focused on their participation in the context of programs specially designed for this demographic (e.g. post-graduate programs like the LLM and SJD). Drawing from interview data with fifty-eight international JD students across seventeen graduating US law schools, our research reveals the rising importance of international students as actors within a more mainstream institutional context. Particularly, in examining the ways these students navigate their law school environments, we find that although international status often impacts identity and participation, not all students encounter its impact similarly. While some students use the identity to their advantage, others cannot escape negative implications, even with effort. This is consistent with other scholarship on minority students, and adds to a growing literature that uses their socialization experiences to better understand professional stratification.

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Submission Of Law Student Articles For Publication

Nancy Levit (Google Scholar), Lawrence MacLachlan, Allen Rostron, Drew Greaves & Staci Pratt (UMKC), Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication:

Each year law students collectively write a large number of papers that could become law review articles but that are never published. Most law schools require students at some point during their time in law school to research and write an academic paper of publishable quality or seminar paper. Some of these are law review notes and comments that are not selected for publication. Others of these are papers written for specific substantive classes or to fulfill research and writing requirements.

Most of these student papers — even very worthy ones — will never be published or posted online. The publishing route for law students who want to publish in a venue other than their home law journal is not clearly marked. And many law reviews simply will not accept submissions from students outside their own school. Often, the publishing opportunities for non-law review members in their home school’s law review are also not well known.

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Kennedy: Is It Ever OK To Enunciate A Slur In The Classroom?

Following up on my previous post:  Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond, 49 Cap. U. L. Rev. 1 (2021):  Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Is It Ever OK to Enunciate a Slur in the Classroom?, by Randall Kennedy (Harvard; Author, Say It Loud: On Race, Law, History, and Culture (2021)):

Is it acceptable for pedagogical purposes to enunciate the epithet “[N-word]”?

The question is topical because of a string of incidents in which professors have been condemned, disciplined, even fired for enunciating in full the notorious N-word. Controversies have stemmed from a professor airing the word while discussing language from which courts have withdrawn the protection that the First Amendment typically accords to speech; a teacher mentioning the word while discussing a hate-speech prosecution; a teacher quoting a passage in which the term appears in a Supreme Court opinion; a professor quoting a statement attributed to a founding father who reportedly referred to Blacks as “[N-word]” during debate over the ratification of the Constitution; a teacher reading aloud from James Baldwin.

In my teaching I have done on many occasions the thing that has brought trouble to those and other fellow educators. I do not “use” “[N-word]” in the sense in which “use” is rightly condemned. I do not bandy it about gratuitously, much less to taunt, threaten, demean, or insult anyone. I enunciate “[N-word]” in full, out loud with some purpose in mind. Usually the aim is to drive home to audiences the pervasiveness of anti-Black prejudice and, more specifically, the way in which this troublesome word has been an integral part of the soundtrack of American racism.

Some thoughtful teachers determinedly avoid vocalizing “[N-word].” I think here of the distinguished University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone, an eminent scholar of constitutional law and a stalwart champion of academic freedom. ... Stone’s new stance deferred to the proposition that, in these circumstances, a feeling of hurt upon hearing “[N-word]” is a reaction warranting accommodation. I disagree. I am skeptical of some of the claims of hurt. I suspect that some of them are the product of learned strategic ripostes. It is now well known that in certain settings, particularly those that strive to be socially enlightened (like colleges and universities), you can effectively challenge speech to which you object by claiming not only that it is socially abhorrent (racist, sexist, transphobic, etc., etc., etc.) but that it makes you feel insulted, offended, or endangered. ...

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Podcast: The History Of Female Law Professors With Patricia Cain

I previously blogged the release of the new book, Herma Hill Kay, Paving the Way: The First American Women Law Professors (Patricia A. Cain (Santa Clara), ed. University of California Press 2021). 

Check out the podcast, The History Of Female Law Professors With Patricia Cain (27 minutes)

Kathryn interviews Patricia Cain, one of the authors of Paving the Way, about the twists and turns of her life and career: from going to law school, being part of a circus troupe to starting a career in the legal academia. Patricia highlights her experiences not only as a teacher but also her experiences in law school. She also shared the best lessons she learned, especially for those who want to start a life in legal academia.

Episode Highlights

• Introducing the guest: Patricia Cain. - 0:38
• The reasons why Patricia decided to go to law school. - 1:24
• The twists and turns: How she went from law school, a theater member, to being a teacher. - 4:20
• Patricia’s involvement in the Paving the Way book project. - 9:14
• A shift from being introduced to Herma Hill Kay to continue writing the book. - 12:08
• Linking histories: Knowing the difference of the process back in the ’70s to her experience. - 17:16
• It wasn’t until other women joined the faculty that Ellen Peter’s voice could be heard during faculty meetings. When you’re the one woman in the room, you say something and nobody says anything back then 5 minutes later a man says the same thing and everybody thinks it’s brilliant. I experience that every time. - 18:57
• The adoption process. - 21:17
• The best lessons that people who want to start a life in academia can take away. - 23:46

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Microaggressions: What They Are And Why They Matter

Catharine P. Wells (Boston College; Google Scholar), Microaggressions: What They Are and Why They Matter, 24 Tex. Hisp. J.L. & Pol'y 61 (2017):

In this paper, I will talk specifically about the way in which microaggressions affect our students. Law schools are competitive places, and we need to understand microaggressions in this context. In the first section, I will examine some of the harms that microaggressions cause. In the second, I will discuss two forms of microaggression that are present in the law school environment. In each case, I will offer some brief comments about what law schools and law teachers could do to provide a more favorable environment in which all students — and especially students of color — can flourish.

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Martinez: On Being First, On Being Only, On Being Seen, On Charting A Way Forward At Notre Dame And Beyond

Veronica Root Martinez (Notre Dame), On Being First, on Being Only, on Being Seen, on Charting a Way Forward, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 215 (2021):

This Essay reflects upon my professional experiences as a Black woman both at Notre Dame and beyond. It argues that it is important for students to have demographically diverse professors within their educational environments. It calls for the Notre Dame Law School community to continue to create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

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Hamilton Reviews The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path From Student To Lawyer

Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas; Google Scholar), Book Review, 69 J. Legal Educ. 224 (2019) (reviewing Patrick Emery Longan (Mercer), Daisy Hurst Floyd (Mercer) & Timothy W. Floyd (Mercer), The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path from Student to Lawyer (2020)): 

The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path from Student to Lawyer provides much-needed concise and effective curriculum to address two closely related fundamental challenges for each law student and law school. The fundamental challenge for each law student is how to grow from being an aspiring entrantto-the-profession student to being a lawyer with adequate competency on the full array of capacities and skills that employers and clients want and need. The fundamental and complementary challenge for each law school—and for higher education for the professions generally—is how most effectively to foster each new student’s growth from being an aspiring-entrant student to being a licensed contributing member of the profession.

Starting more than twenty years ago, medical educators realized that emphasis on doctrinal medical knowledge and cognitive analytical skills, even when those skills are being applied in a clinical context, was insufficient to meet patient and population needs. Medical education has been moving toward more emphasis on patient-focused and teamwork centered medical care. 

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Professor Defend Thyself: The Failure Of Universities To Defend And Indemnify Their Faculty

Kevin Oates (Temple), Professor Defend Thyself: The Failure of Universities to Defend and Indemnify Their Faculty, 39 Willamette L. Rev. 1063 (2003):

University professors going about their daily activities of teaching, researching, and writing rarely consider the possibility of being sued. To the extent that the concept of potential liability does cross their minds, educational professionals undoubtedly comfort themselves in the realization that since their activities are job-related, the school that employs them is obligated to provide a defense and indemnity in any suit stemming from those activities.

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Keep Distance Education For Law Schools: Online Education, The Pandemic, And Access To Justice

Lael Daniel Weinberger (Harvard), Keep Distance Education for Law Schools: Online Education, the Pandemic, and Access to Justice, 53 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. __ (2021):

While distance education made inroads throughout higher education, law schools kept their distance—until a global pandemic forced them all online for a time. Then the gatekeepers to the profession at the American Bar Association and state bars temporarily dropped their limits on distance learning. Now as American law schools prepare to return to normalcy, should distance learning remain an option?

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Henderson: Moneyball For Law Firm Associates — A 15-Year Retrospective

Bill Henderson (Indiana), Moneyball For Law Firm Associates: A 15-Year Retrospective:

In April of 2006, more than 15 years ago, I wrote a memo to file that would go on to exert a disproportionately large impact on my thinking and career, albeit many of the lessons took years to come into focus and were far from what I expected.

The topic was Moneyball as applied to law firm associates—in essence, sketching out the data and methodology necessary to identify under and overvalued attributes of law firm associates, akin to the selection methods used by Oakland Athletics in the famous book by Michael Lewis.

This essay tells the story of how I came to write the Moneyball memo and what happened afterward, including what I learned about the market for associate-level talent, how law firms responded, and the status of law firm Moneyball today.  Back in 2006, I naively thought that the counterintuitive insights went one level deep, thus potentially revealing an arbitrage strategy for entry-level talent. In fact, the counterintuitive insights were layered one top of one another several layers deep, revealing much about the nature of law firms, lawyer motivation and psychology, and why the status quo in law is so enduring.

The stories that follow share 15 years of hard-earned wisdom.  Read them if you want to laugh, partially at me, partially at your fellow lawyers, and partially at the growing pains of a wealthy industry that is reluctantly learning to embrace the power and value of data.

Moneyball comes to the legal academy
To a substantial degree, my memo was inspired by an article on Moneyball written by Paul Caron and Rafael Gely. See Caron & Gely, “Book Review Essay: What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics,” 82 Tex L Rev 1483 (2004).  Although nominally a book review, it was in fact a first-pass attempt at applying Moneyball principles to law school faculty hiring.

The Caron-Gely premise was simple:  In the hiring of entry-level professors, law schools may be under and overvaluing certain objective attributes and thus missing out on junior talent that goes on to produce highly cited scholarship.  To test their hypothesis, Caron and Gely assembled a data set for the fifty young scholars identified by Brian Leiter and a control group of fifty other scholars who entered law teaching during this same period, matching them by entering school and year.

After assessing various measures of productivity (citations, number of articles published, the rank of placements, and number of books, etc), which documented the vast difference in output between the two groups, Carol and Gely tested whether the various objective markers were more or less prevalent among the high-performing scholars.

Suffice to say, the results were contrary to the conventional wisdom:  The rank of law school attended had no bearing on productivity, nor did membership on law review, a judicial clerkship, or a second advanced degree—basically every heuristic used by hiring committees in their first-pass review through AALS’s Faculty Appointments Register (FAR).  In contrast, two factors were predictive of future productivity:  publishing a student note while in law school and the number of articles published prior to the scholar’s first tenure-track job. See id. at 1544 at Table 5.

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Bahadur: The U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Racist

Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn; HeinOnline), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism, 53 St. Mary's L.J. ___ (2022):

The U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings invoke ideas about excellence and high achievement in the legal academy, but under the surface, they also operate as a catalyst for systemic racism. They do this by capitalizing on system justification, a palliative evolutionary mechanism that forces all members of society, from privileged high socioeconomic groups to the disenfranchised, to buttress the societal status quo pervasively and unconsciously.

These responsive desires to keep the status quo invoked by the rankings are the same ones responsible for the perpetuation of the caste system in India, and every other division of human societies into dominant and disenfranchised groups. This system justification is not subject to introspection because it operates through powerful unconscious mechanisms. As a result, consciously antiracist people do not experience dissonance when making institutional decisions based on the rankings, even though those decisions perpetuate deeply rooted structural racism.

The only schools enrolling black students at the same level as their representation in the general population are the schools U.S. News ranks so poorly that they are not even assigned a numerical ranking, listed only as Tier 2 schools.

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Deans' Leadership In Legal Education Symposium

16th Deans' Leadership in Legal Education Symposium, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 197-352 (2021):

• Nicholas W. Allard (Former Dean, Brooklyn), Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 197 (2021)
• D. Benjamin Barros (Dean, Toledo) & Cameron M. Morrissey (J.D. 2021, Toledo), A Survey of Law School Deans on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 241 (2021)
• Brian Gallini (Dean, Willamette; Google Scholar), Pandemic Leadership, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 261 (2021)
• Vincent R. Johnson (Former Interim Dean, St. Mary's), The End of the Golden Age of American Legal Education: My Year as Interim Dean, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 289 (2021)
• Michael Waterstone (Dean, Loyola-L.A.), Top Ten Leadership Lessons Learned From Being Dean During COVID-19, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 337 (2021)

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Framing Minimum Technology Standards For Law School Graduates

Iantha M. Haight (BYU), Digital Natives, Techno-Transplants: Framing Minimum Technology Standards for Law School Graduates, 44 J. Legal Prof. 175 (2020):

Adjustments need to be made to legal education for new attorneys to be ready for the technological demands of legal practice. In 2012, the American Bar Association added a duty of technology competence to the standard for general competence in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which has now been adopted by 38 states. The new Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 was an important response to decades of developments in technology that have profoundly affected, and will continue to affect, legal practice. However, like the original duty of competence, the specific elements of the duty of technology competence are rather vague

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The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties

Gregory C. Sisk (St. Thomas) & Nicole Catlin (St. Thomas), Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2021: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third:

This updated 2021 study explores the scholarly impact of law faculties, ranking the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. Refined by Brian Leiter, the “Scholarly Impact Score” for a law faculty is calculated from the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured faculty members. In addition to a school-by-school ranking, we report the mean, median, and weighted score, along with a list of the tenured law faculty members at each school with the ten highest individual citation counts. ...

To rank law faculties by scholarly impact in 2021, we examined the tenured faculties of 99 law schools. Based on the results of our prior studies of scholarly impact, we included all law schools that previously scored in or near the top 70 for Scholarly Impact Ranking.

Rank	School	Most Cited Scholars (* indicates 70 or older in 2021)	U.S. News Peer Rank	U.S. News Overall Rank
1	Yale	*Ackerman, B.; Amar, A.; Ayres, I.; Balkin, J.; *Eskridge, W.; Koh, H.; Macey, J.; *Post, R.; Siegel, R.; Tyler, T.	1	1
2	Chicago	Baude, W.; Ben-Shahar, O.; Bradley, C.; Ginsburg, T.; Hemel, D.; Huq, A.; * Nussbaum, M.; Posner, E.; * Stone, G.; Strauss, D.	5	4
3	Harvard	Bebchuk, L.; Fallon, R.; Goldsmith, J.; Kaplow, L.; Klarman, M.; *Kraakman, R.; Lessig, L.; Manning, J.;  *Shavell, S.; Vermeule, A.;	1	3
4	NYU	Barkow, R.; Choi, S.; *Epstein, R.; Friedman, B.; Issacharoff, S.; *Miller, A.; *Miller, G.; Pildes, R.; Revesz, R.; Waldron, J.	5	6
5	Columbia	Briffault, R.; *Coffee, J.; Crenshaw, K.; Fagan, J.; Gilson, R.; *Gordon, J.; Hamburger, P.; *Merrill, T.; Metzger, G.; Pozen, D.	4	4
6	UC-Berkeley	Chemerinsky, E.; *Cooter, R.; *Farber, D.; Kerr, O.; Menell, P.; Merges, R.; *Samuelson, P.; Schwartz, P.; Solomon, S.; Yoo, J.	7	9
6	Stanford	*Friedman, L.; *Hensler, D.; Lemley, M.; McConnell, M.; O'Connell, A.; Ouellette, L.; Persily, N.; *Polinsky, A.; Sklansky, D.; Sykes, A.	1	2
8	Penn	Baker, T.; *Burbank, S.; Coglianese, C.; Fisch, J.; Hoffman, D.; *Hovenkamp, H.; Parchomovsky, G.; Roberts, D.; *Robinson, P.; Skeel, D.	8	6
9	Virginia	Cahn, N.; Citron, D.; Duffy, J.; Gulati, G.; *Laycock, D.; Nelson, C.; Prakash, S.; * Schauer, F.; Solum, L.; * White, G.	8	8
9	Vanderbilt	Bressman, L.; Guthrie, C.; King, N.; Rossi, J.; *Rubin, E.; Ruhl, J.B.; Sherry, S.; * Slobogin, C.; Thomas, R.; * Viscusi, W.	17	16
11	UCLA	Bainbridge, S.; Carbado, D.; Crenshaw, K.; Eagly, I.; Kang, J.; Korobkin, R.; Motomura, H.; Raustiala, K.; Volokh, E.; Winkler, A.	15	14
12	Duke	Adler, M.; Blocher, J.; *Cox, J.; Garrett, B.; Helfer, L.; Lemos, M.; Rai, A.; *Schwarcz, S.; Siegel, N.; Young, E.	12	10
13	Michigan	Avi-Yonah, R.; Bagenstos, S.; Crane, D.; Eisenberg, R.; Litman, J.; *MacKinnon, C.; Primus, R.; Pritchard, A.; Schlanger, M.; *Schneider, C.	8	10
14	UC-Irvine	Burk, D.; Fleischer, V.; Goodwin, M.; Hasen, R.; Leslie, C.; *Menkel-Meadow, C.; Moran, R.; Reese, R.; Shaffer, G.; Simons, K.	19	35
15	Northwestern	* Allen, R.; Black, B.; Calabresi, S.; Dana, D.; * Diamond, S.; Kang, M.; Koppelman, A.; McGinnis, J.; Pfander, J.; *Redish, M.; Schwartz, D.	12	12
15	Cornell	Blume, J.; *Clermont, K.; Dorf, M.; Grimmelmann, J.; *Hans, V.; Heise, M.; Johnson, S.; Ohlin, J.; Rachlinski, J.; Sherwin, E.; Tebbe, N.	11	13
17	Georgetown	Barnett, R.; Butler, P.; Cohen, J.; *Gostin, L.; Katyal, N.; * Langevoort, D.; Levitin, A.; * Luban, D.; Ohm, P.; * Thompson, R.; West, R.	12	15
18	George Washington	Abramowicz, M.; Braman, D.; Colby, T.; Glicksman, R.; Kovacic, W.; Lee, C.; Murphy, S.; *Pierce, R.; Rosen, J.; Solove, D.	23	27
18	Texas	* Bone, R.; Chesney, R.; Forbath, W.; Golden, J.; * Levinson, S.; *McGarity, T.; * Sager, L.; Spence, D.; Vladeck, S.; Wagner, W.	15	16
18	Minnesota	Carbone, J.; Cotter, T.; Hickman, K.; Hill, C.; Klass, A.; *Kritzer, H.; McDonnell, B.; Painter, R.; Schwarcz, D.; *Tonry, M.	19	22
21	Washington University	*Appleton, S.; Epstein, L.; Inazu, J.; *Joy, P.; Kim, P.; Kuehn, R.; *Levin, R.; Richards, N.; *Seligman, J.; Tamanaha, B.	18	16
22	UC-Davis	Bhagwat, A.; Chin, G.; Dodge, W.; Horton, D.; Joh, E.; Johnson, K.; Joslin, C.; Lee, P.; Pruitt, L.; Shanske, D.	23	35
23	George Mason	Bernstein, D.; Butler, H.; Garoupa, N.; Kobayashi, B.; Kontorovich, E.; Mossoff, A.; *Muris, T.; Somin, I.; Wright, J.; Zywicki, T.	64	41
23	Fordham	*Brudney, J.; Capers, B.; Davidson, N.; Green, B.; Griffith, S.; Huntington, C.; Leib, E.; Pearce, R.; Pfaff, J.; Zipursky, B.	28	35
23	Boston University	*Annas, G.; Beermann, J.; Fleming, J.; Gordon, W.; Hylton, K.; Lawson, G.; Maclin, T.; McClain, L.; Meurer, M.; Onwuachi-Willig, A.;	23	20
23	St. Thomas (MN)	Berg, T.; *Hamilton, N.; *Johnson, L.; Kaal, W.; Nichols, J.; Organ, J.; Osler, M.; Paulsen, M.; Sisk, G.; Vischer, R.	141	126
27	Arizona	Bambauer, D.; Bambauer, J.; Bublick, E.; Coan, A.; Engel, K.; Massaro, T.; Miller, M.; Orbach, B.; Puig, S.; Tsosie, R.; *Williams, R.	40	46
27	William & Mary	Bellin, J.; Bruhl, A.; Criddle, E.; Devins, N.; Gershowitz, A.; Ibrahim, D.; Larsen, A.; *Marcus, P.; Oman, N.; Spencer, A.; Zick, T.	28	35
29	USC	Barnett, J.; Barry, J.; Craig, R.; Estrich, S.; Guzman, A.; Klerman, D.; McCaffery, E.; Rasmussen, R.; Roithmayr, D.; Simkovic, M.; Simon, D.; Sokol, D.	19	19
30	San Diego	*Alexander, L.; Bell, A.; Dripps, D.; Hirsch, A.; Lobel, O.; Ramsey, M.; Rappaport, M.; Schapiro, R.; Sichelman, T.; Smith, S.;	56	86
31	Notre Dame	Alford, R.; Bellia, A.; Bray, S.; Cushman, B.; Garnett, R.; Kozel, R.; Miller, P.; *Newton, N.; O'Connell, M.; Pojanowski, J.; Tidmarsh, J.	23	22
31	Illinois	Amar, V.; *Finkin, M.; Heald, P.; Kesan, J.; Lawless, R.; Mazzone, J.; *Moore, M.; Robbennolt, J.; Thomas, S.; Wilson, R.	40	29
33	Cardozo	Buccafusco, C.; Gilles, M.; Herz, M.; Markowitz, P.; Reinert, A.; *Rosenfeld, M.; *Scheck, B.; Sebok, A.; Sterk, S.; *Zelinsky, E.	52	53
33	Brooklyn	Araiza, W.; Baer, M.; Bernstein, A.; Gold, A.; Janger, E.; *Karmel, R.; Pasquale, F.; Ristroph, A.; *Schneider, E.; Simonson, J.; Solan, L.	64	81
33	Colorado	Anaya, S.; Carpenter, K.; Gerding, E.; Gruber, A.; Huang, P.; Kaminski, M.; Krakoff, S.; *Mueller, C.; Norton, H.; Peppet, S.; Schlag, P.; Schwartz, A.; Surden, H.	40	48
36	Utah	Adler, R.; Anghie, A.; Baughman, S.; Cassell, P.; Contreras, J.; *Francis, L.; Jones, R.; *Keiter, R.; Peterson, C.; Tokson, M.; Warner, E.	48	43
36	Case Western	Adler, J.; Berg, J.; Hill, B.; Hoffman, S.; Korsmo, C.; Ku, R.; Nard, C.; Perzanowski, A.; Robertson, C.; Scharf, M.	73	72
36	North Carolina	Ardia, D.; *Conley, J.; Coyle, J.; Gerhardt, M.; *Hazen, T.; Hessick, C.; Hessick, F.; Jacoby, M.; *Marshall, W.; Nichol, G.; Papandrea, M.	23	24
36	Emory	Dudziak, M.; *Fineman, M.; Freer, R.; Holbrook, T.; Hutchinson, D.; Nash, J.; *Perry, M.; Shepherd, J.; Volokh, A.; Witte, J.	19	29
40	Kansas	Bhala, R.; Drahozal, C.; Harper Ho, V.; Hoeflich, M.; Levy, R.; Mulligan, L.; Outka, U.; Stacy, T.; Torrance, A.; Ware, S.; Yung, C.	64	70
40	UC-Hastings	Depoorter, B.; Dodson, S.; Faigman, D.; Feldman, R.; *Marcus, R.; Mattei, U.; Owen, D.; Price, Z.; Schiller, R.; Williams, J.	40	50
40	Chicago-Kent	Baker, K.; Dinwoodie, G.; Katz, D.; Kim, N.; Krent, H.; Lee, E.; Marder, N.; Reilly, G.; Rosen, M.; Schmidt, C.	73	91
43	Ohio State	Akbar, A.; Berman, D.; Chow, D.; Cole, S.; Colker, R.; Davies, L.; Foley, E.; Hernández, C.; Simmons, R.; Walker, C.	32	40
43	Alabama	Andreen, W.; Carroll, J.; * Delgado, R.; Elliott, H.; Grove, T.; Hamill, S.; Hill, J.; Horwitz, P.; Krotoszynski, R.; * Stefancic, J.; Steinman, A.	32	25
43	Georgia	Barnett, K.; Bruner, C.; Burch, E.; Cade, J.; Chapman, N.; Coenen, D.; Cohen, H.; Leonard, E.; Polsky, G.; Rodrigues, U.; Rutledge, P.; *Wells, M.; West, S.	32	27
46	American	Anderson, J.; Daskal, J.; Davis, A.; Fairfax, R.; Ferguson, A.; Franck, S.; Frost, A.; *Robbins, I.; Roberts, J.; Wiley, L.	48	81
46	Florida State	Abbott, F.; Bayern, S.; Hsu, S.; Landau, D.; Logan, W.; O’Hara O’Connor, E.; Ryan, E.; Seidenfeld, M.; Stern, N.; Ziegler, M.	45	48
46	Maryland	*Colbert, D.; Ertman, M.; Gifford, D.; Goodmark, L.; Graber, M.; Gray, D.; Percival, R.; Pinard, M.; Ram, N.; Stearns, M.; Steinzor, R.; Tu, K.	48	50
49	Temple	Arewa, O.; Burris, S.; Dunoff, J.; Gugliuzza, P.; Hollis, D.; Lin, T.; Lipson, J.; Mandel, G.; Ramji-Nogales, J.; Rogers, B.; Spiro, P.	56	53
49	BYU	Asay, C.; Fee, J.; *Fleming, J.; Gedicks, F.; Hurt, C.; Jensen, E.; Nielson, A.; Scharffs, B.; Smith, D.; Sun, L.	52	29
49	Wake Forest	Aiken, J.; Chavis, K.; *Green, M.; Hall, M.; Knox, J.; Palmiter, A.; Parks, G.; *Shapiro, S.; Taylor, M.; Wright, R.	45	41
52	Florida	Arnow-Richman, R.; Bornstein, S.; Calvert, C.; *Dowd, N.; Fenster, M.; Nance, J.; Noah, L.; *Page, W.; Rhee, R.; Rosenbury, L.; Stinneford, J.; Wolf, M.	32	21
52	Arizona State	Bodansky, D.; Fellmeth, A.; Hodge, J.; Luna, E.; Marchant, G.; Miller, R.; Rule, T.; *Saks, M.; Selmi, M.; Weinstein, J.	32	25
52	Iowa	Bohannan, C.; Estin, A.; Gallanis, T.; Grewal, A.; Muller, D.; Pettys, T.; Rantanen, J.; Steinitz, M.; VanderVelde, L.; Washburn, K.; Wing, A.; Yockey, J.	32	29
52	Indiana-Maurer	Dau-Schmidt, K.; Fischman, R.; Fuentes-Rohwer, L.; Gamage, D.; Geyh, C.; Henderson, W.; Janis, M.; Johnsen, D.; Lederman, L.; Nagy, D.; Widiss, D.	32	43
52	Richmond	Cotropia, C.; Eisen, J.; Erickson, J.; Gibson, J.; Lain, C.; Lash, K.; Osenga, K.; Perdue, W.; *Tobias, C.; Walsh, K.	56	53
57	Missouri	Bowman, F.; Crouch, D.; English, D.; Gely, R.; Lambert, T.; Lidsky, L.; Lietzan, E.; Oliveri, R.; Reuben, R.; Schmitz, A.; Wells, C.	83	60
57	San Francisco	Bazelon, L.; Davis, J.; Freiwald, S.; Green, T.; *Hing, B.; Iglesias, T.; Kaswan, A.; Leo, R.; Ontiveros, M.; Travis, M.	127	147-193
59	Boston College	Bilder, M.; Cassidy, R.; Greenfield, K.; Kanstroom, D.; Liu, J.; Madoff, R.; McCoy, P.; Oei, S.; Olson, D.; Repetti, J.; Ring, D.; Yen, A.	28	29
59	UNLV	Cooper, F.; Griffin, L.; Kagan, M.; Main, T.; McGinley, A.; Orentlicher, D.; Rapoport, N.; Stanchi, K.; Stempel, J.; Sternlight, J.	64	60
59	Wisconsin	Brito, T.; Findley, K.; Huneeus, A.; Klingele, C.; Klug, H.; Rogers, J.; Schwartz, D.; Seifter, M.; Tokaji, D.; Yackee, J.	28	29
59	Pittsburgh	Brake, D.; Brand, R.; Carter, W.; *Chew, P.; Crossley, M.; Harris, D.; Infanti, A.; *Lobel, J.; Madison, M.; Wildermuth, A.	64	67
63	Santa Clara	*Cain, P.; Chien, C.; *Glancy, D.; Goldman, E.; Gulasekaram, P.; Kloppenberg, L.; Love, B.; Oberman, M.; Ochoa, T.; Sloss, D.; Spitko, E.; Yosifon, D.	73	126
63	SMU	Carpenter, D.; Colangelo, A.; Coleman, J.; Cortez, N.; Grossman, J.; Hayden, G.; Ryan, M.; *Steinberg, M.; Taylor, D.; Thornburg, E.; Turner, J.	64	52
63	Hofstra	Baruch Bush, R.; Burke, A.; Colombo, R.; *Dolgin, J.; Freedman, E.; Greenwood, D.; Ku, J.; Manta, I.; Neumann, R.; *Yaroshefsky, E.	107	119
63	Northeastern	* Baker, B.; Davis, M.; Dyal-Chand, R.; Hartzog, W.; * Klare, K.; Medwed, D.; Parmet, W.; Rosenbloom, R.; Waldman, A.; *Williams, P.	73	67
63	Loyola-LA	Aprill, E.; Hayden, P.; Hughes, J.; Levenson, L.; Levitt, J.; Miller, E.; Petherbridge, L.; Romano, C.; Willis, L.; Zimmerman, A.	56	72
63	Pepperdine	Anderson, R.; Caldwell, H.; Caron, P.; Childress, D.; Han, D.; Helfand, M.; McDonald, B.; McNeal, G.; Pushaw, R.; Stipanowich, T.; Weston, M.	64	46

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Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations To High-Risk Faculty During The Pandemic?

Gary J. Simson, Mark L. Jones, Cathren Page & Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne (Mercer), It's Alright, Ma, It's Life and Life Only: Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations to High-Risk Faculty During the Pandemic?, 48 Pepp. L. Rev. 649 (2021):

Even those universities most firmly committed to returning to in-person instruction in fall semester 2020 recognized that for health reasons some exceptions would need to be made. The CDC had identified two groups—people age sixty-five and over, and people with certain medical conditions—as persons “at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19,” and it had spelled out various special precautions they should take to avoid contracting the virus. Given the CDC’s unique stature, universities very reasonably could have been expected to grant exceptions to faculty falling into either group, but that’s not what many universities did.

We argue that, properly understood, four separate legal sources required universities to exempt high-risk faculty in the past academic year from any in-person teaching requirement.

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Journal Of Legal Education Publishes New Issue

The Journal of Legal Education has published Vol. 69, No. 2 (Winter 2020):

General Articles

• Kenneth Oldfield (Illinois), Structural Nepotism: On the Reluctance of Law Schools to Include Social Class Origins among their Faculty Diversity Goals, 69 J. Legal Educ. 239 (2020)
• Amy H. Soled (Rutgers) & Barbara Hoffman (Rutgers; Google Scholar), Building Bridges: How Law Schools Can Better Prepare Students from Historically Underserved Communities to Excel in Law School, 69 J. Legal Educ. 268 (2020)
• Michael T. Colatrella Jr. (McGeorge), What I Learned about Teaching Law by Being an Art Student, 69 J. Legal Educ. 297 (2020)
• Kris Franklin (New York Law School), Method Lawyering, 69 J. Legal Educ. 334 (2020)
• Joe Buffington (Albany), Conditional Answers to Multiple-Choice Questions: Three Linguistic Problems (and Solutions) for “if”, 69 J. Legal Educ. 384 (2020)

LSSSE Articles

• Meera E. Deo (Southwestern), LSSSE at Fifteen: Celebrating Our Success and Planning Our Future, 69 J. Legal Educ. 396 (2020)
• George D. Kuh (Indiana) & Patrick T. O'Day (O'Day Law Office), Whence Did Thee Come, LSSSE?, 69 J. Legal Educ. 402 (2020)

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Increasing Law Professor Tenure Denials By 30% Would Double The Academic Impact Of Tenured Faculty

Adam Chilton (Chicago), Jonathan S. Masur (Chicago) & Kyle Rozema (Washington U.), Rethinking Law School Tenure Standards, 50 J. Legal Stud. 1 (2021):

We study the implications of stricter tenure standards in law schools, an environment in which 95 percent of all tenure-track hires receive tenure. To do so, we construct a novel data set of the articles and citation counts of 1,712 law professors who were granted tenure at top-100 law schools between 1970 and 2007. We first show that pretenure research records are highly predictive of future academic impact. We then simulate the effects of applying stricter tenure standards using predictions of law professors’ future academic impact at the time of their tenure decisions. We find that increasing tenure denial rates to the same level as hard-science departments—which would require increasing denial rates by 30 percentage points—could more than double the median posttenure academic impact of the faculty that law schools initially tenure.

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The Laws Of Public Higher Education Retrenchment

Jeremy Pilaar (Yale; Google Scholar), The Laws of Public Higher Education Retrenchment, 23 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol'y 159 (2021):

American states have underinvested in public higher education for decades, spurring tuition increases that have fueled an unprecedented rise in student debt. Most scholars have looked to ideology and partisanship to help explain this trend. However, existing studies have yet to provide a satisfactory account of why states led by both parties have exhibited the same spending patterns. This Article argues that to understand retrenchment, scholars must scrutinize the laws that shape legislators’ budget choices. Through comparative histories of California and Virginia, interviews with eighteen state policymakers, and quantitative data, this analysis shows that decreased funding for public colleges and universities can be traced to three legal constructs: competing health, K-12 education, and prison expenditure mandates; outdated and inefficient tax systems; and campaign finance and lobbying rules that have allowed wealthy interests to overwhelm college advocates’ voices.

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Does Justice Have A Syntax?

Steven L. Winter (Wayne State), Does Justice Have a Syntax?, 69 J. Legal Educ. 200 (2019):

What would it mean to say that justice has a syntax? No doubt, proper syntax and jargon-free English would enhance the clarity and comprehensibility of legal statements and improve the administration of justice. But there is no necessary relation between clarity and justice. True, a syntactical error in a canonical legal command such as a statute can cause vagueness, create ambiguity, or unjustly enlarge that law’s scope. So, too, a deliberate disregard of syntax can lead to misinterpretation of a constitutional provision, as in District of Columbia v. Heller, discussed below. But no one thinks that a syntactically correct legal pronouncement is more likely to be just.

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Imposter Syndrome: Law Professors

Sara Ochs (Louisville), Imposter Syndrome & The Non-Traditional Law Professor:

As members of the lower ranks of the hierarchical law school caste system, professors of legal skills courses are often branded as “others” in legal academia. This status is reinforced through weaker job security, less respect, and lower pay than received by their doctrinal colleagues. Given this inequality, imposter syndrome plays a pervasive role in the lives and careers of these “non-traditional” law professors. Relying on qualitative and associative data obtained from a survey of teaching faculty and staff at ABA accredited and approved law schools nationwide, this article analyzes how the law school hierarchy manifests as imposter syndrome in professors of legal skills courses and detrimentally impacts their relationships with colleagues; teaching; relationships with students; publication and promotion of scholarship; and personal health and wellbeing.

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Imposter Syndrome: Law Students

David Grenardo (St. Mary's), The Phantom Menace to Professional Identity Formation and Law School Success: Imposter Syndrome, 47 U. Dayton L. Rev. __ (2022):

Professional identity formation, which involves teaching law students to recognize their responsibility to others, particularly clients, and encouraging the students to develop the professional competencies of a practicing lawyer, has gained considerable prominence in the legal academy. Professional identity formation relies on students to identify the professional competencies they excel in currently and the competencies in which they need to improve, and they must work to develop those competencies. Part of that process requires an accurate self-understanding of who law students are. The imposter syndrome serves as a sinister force that threatens a law student’s ability to develop her professional identity and to succeed as a lawyer. 

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A (Better) Measure Of The Top Ten U.S. Law Schools By Faculty Impact: NYU Is #1

J.B. Heaton (JD, MBA & Ph.D., University of Chicago; Google Scholar), Who Fields the Best Team?: A (Better) Measure of the Top Ten U.S. Law Schools by Faculty Impact:

I rank the Top 10 U.S. Law Schools by examining the ability of schools to field their highest-ranked specialist in both a broad set of areas (including, in addition to “core” areas tested in multistate bar exams fields like legal philosophy, antitrust, election law, etc.) and, separately in only the core areas. In both analyses, NYU places first, an improvement over two widely-watched rankings.

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Pandemic Leadership

Brian Gallini (Dean, Willamette; Google Scholar), Pandemic Leadership, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 261 (2021):

This piece tells the story of my cross-country move to take on a first law school deanship amid a global pandemic. There is no shortage of literature about leadership outside the realm of academia. Indeed, there are a number of engaging books about leadership philosophies, styles, and guidance. But those materials are not tailored specifically to leadership roles within legal academia. Moreover, there is little scholarly literature advising deans on how to lead a law school. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there exists even less literature advising deans on how to lead a law school during a global pandemic.

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Teaching And Assessing Metacognition In Law School

Jennifer A. Gundlach (Hofstra) & Jessica R. Santangelo (Hofstra), Teaching and Assessing Metacognition in Law School, 69 J. Legal Educ. 156 (2019):

As law schools in the United States reevaluate the content and teaching methods of legal education, legal educators have begun to rethink not only what to teach, but how to teach it so as to best position students for success in law school, on the bar exam, and in the profession. Law students must also understand themselves as learners and commit to learning about their learning. Metacognitive skills, which involve awareness of one’s learning and the ability to regulate one’s learning, are an essential part of the repertoire of lawyering skills that enhance the learning process for law students and better positions them for practice. This article contributes to growing body of research focused on improving law students’ learning.

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Keep Distance Education For Law Schools: Online Education, The Pandemic, And Access To Justice

Lael Daniel Weinberger (Harvard), Keep Distance Education for Law Schools: Online Education, the Pandemic, and Access to Justice, 53 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. __ (2021):

While distance education made inroads throughout higher education, law schools kept their distance—until a global pandemic forced them all online for a time. Then the gatekeepers to the profession at the American Bar Association and state bars temporarily dropped their limits on distance learning. Now as American law schools prepare to return to normalcy, should distance learning remain an option? 

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#CriticalReading #WickedProblem

Carolyn Williams (Arizona), #CriticalReading #WickedProblem, 44 S. Ill. U. L.J. 179 (2020):

Legal educators can revolutionize our students’ education and careers by collectively addressing critical reading deficiencies in entering law students. Legal education stakeholders must accept that critical reading is a persistent, growing problem for a large swath of incoming law students, and they should recognize that the problem is a wicked one. Wicked problems cannot be definitively described, are seen differently by different stakeholders, have numerous causes, and are improvable but not completely solvable. Additionally, all stakeholders need to be part of the search for acceptable ways to address wicked problems. The deficit of critical reading skills in law students has all the characteristics of a wicked problem that is far too prevalent and nuanced to be solved by one small sector of stakeholders.

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Gerken: Will Legal Education Change Post-2020?

Heather K. Gerken (Dean, Yale), Will Legal Education Change Post-2020?, 119 Mich. L. Rev. 1059 (2021):

The famed book review issue of the Michigan Law Review feels like a reminder of better days. As this issue goes to print, a shocking 554,103 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States alone, the country seems to have begun a long-overdue national reckoning on race,  climate change and economic inequality continue to ravage the country, and our Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists with the encouragement of the president of the United States. In the usual year, a scholar would happily pick up this volume and delight in its contents. This year, one marvels at the scholars who managed to finish their reviews on time.

The editors have asked me to reflect on how 2020, particularly the pandemic, will change legal education. Like most institutions, law schools have undergone a stress test over the past year. During the early days of the pandemic, every school put a centuries-old teaching tradition online, often within the space of a single week. Most thought that the pace of change would slow down in April. It didn’t. For months, COVID generated crisis after crisis.

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Can Continuing Legal Education Pass The Test? Empirical Lessons From The Medical World.

Rima Sirota (Georgetown), Can Continuing Legal Education Pass the Test? Empirical Lessons From the Medical World., 36 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y __ (2022):

Mandatory continuing legal education (CLE) takes millions of hours and hundreds of millions of dollars from American lawyers every year, with the burden landing in disproportionate fashion on new lawyers, public interest lawyers, and solo practitioners. CLE proponents insist that the system protects the public by maintaining lawyer competence. In the forty-five years since the first jurisdictions began requiring CLE, no evidence has emerged in support of this claim.

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Baylor Symposium: Vision For Law School Leadership Training

Symposium, Vision For Law School Leadership Training, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 1-248 (2021) (video):

• Leah Teague (Baylor), Making Progress in Legal Education: Leadership Development Training in Law Schools, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 1 (2021)
• Erwin Chemerinsky (UC-Berkeley), Remembering Deborah Rhode, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 64 (2021)
• Deborah L. Rhode (Stanford), Leadership in Times of Social Upheaval: Lessons for Lawyers, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 67 (2021)
• April Mara Barton (Duquesne), Teaching Lawyers to Think Like Leaders: The Next Big Shift in Legal Education, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 115 (2021)
• Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas-MN; Google Scholar), The Major Transitions in Professional Formation and Development from Being a Student to Being a Lawyer Present Opportunities to Benefit the Students and the Law School, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 139 (2021)
• Patrick Bryan (Systems Planning & Analysis) & Donald J. Polden (Santa Clara), Learning Lawyer Leadership from the Military Profession, 72 Baylor Law Rev. 170 (2021)
• Martin H. Brinkley (North Carolina), Teaching Leadership in American Law Schools: Why the Pushback?, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 194 (2021)
• Lee Fisher (Cleveland-Marshall), Change at the Speed of Leadership, 73 Baylor Law Rev. 211 (2021)

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Hartung Reviews Levit & Rostron's Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning And Making A Difference In Law

Stephanie Roberts Hartung (Northeastern), Book Review, 69 J. Legal Educ. 217 (2019) (reviewing Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC), eds., Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning and Making a Difference in Law, Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2019): 

Scott Turow’s One L, the widely read account of his first year at Harvard Law School in 1975, is said to have “frightened, informed, and inspired a generation of lawyers-to-be”. Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning and Making a Difference in Law, published nearly 45 years later, is billed as a “collection of stories taking a further look at the often dramatic and sometimes traumatic experience of embarking on the study of law”. While One L ostensibly described “universal truths” (xi) about law school in the 1970s, Beyond One L illustrates how dramatically the law school experience has changed since Turow arrived at Harvard as part of a first-year class that was overwhelmingly “male, white, and straight”. At the same time, Beyond One L’s collection of essays, which includes entries from several well-known figures in legal education, reminds us how many aspects of legal education remain the same.

In the face of difficult and polarizing times, when lawyering and the rule of law are frequently perceived as under attack, Beyond One L offers “an antidote to disillusionment with the legal profession” through storytelling.

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Dickerson: Finding The Goldilocks Zone: Negotiating Your First Employment Offer In Legal Academia

Darby Dickerson (Dean, Southwestern), Finding the Goldilocks Zone: Negotiating Your First Employment Offer in Legal Academia, 69 J. Legal Educ. 48 (2019):

This WIP is for individuals, particularly women, who are about to negotiate their first employment offers in legal academia (whether tenure-line or non-tenure-line). The goal is to hit the "Goldilocks Zone" where you negotiate to strike the best balance to meet your needs and your law school's needs.

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Hayashi & Mitchell: Maintaining Scholarly Integrity In The Age Of Bibliometrics

Andrew T. Hayashi (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Gregory Mitchell (Virginia; Google Scholar), Maintaining Scholarly Integrity in the Age of Bibliometrics, 69 J. Legal Educ. 138 (2019):

As quantitative measures of scholarly impact gain prominence in the legal academy, we should expect institutions and scholars to engage in a variety of tactics designed to inflate the apparent influence of their scholarly output. We identify these tactics and identify countermeasures that should be taken to prevent this manipulation. The rise of bibliometrics poses a significant risk to the scholarly endeavor but, with foresight, we can maintain scholarly integrity in the age of bibliometrics.

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Guthrie & Lamm: The Aid Gap

Chris Guthrie (Dean, Vanderbilt; Google Scholar) & Emily Lamm (J.D. 2019, Vanderbilt), The Aid Gap, 69 J. Legal Educ. 123 (2019):

Women lag men in wages and wealth. Women earn 81 percent as much as similarly situated men, and they own only 32 percent of the wealth that men own. Lawyers are no different. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, female lawyers make 77 percent as much as their male peers, and according to the National Association of Women Lawyers, female equity partners make almost $100,000 less each year than their male peers. Because wage gaps lead to wealth gaps, female lawyers accrue less wealth than their male counterparts.

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Journal Of Legal Education Symposium: Gender Inequity Throughout The Legal Academy

Symposium, Gender Inequity Throughout the Legal Academy, 69 J. Legal Educ. 3-122 (2019):

• Kristen K. Tiscione (Georgetown) & Melissa H. Weresh (Drake; Google Scholar), Building Bridges Across Curricular and Status Lines: Gender Inequity Throughout the Legal Academy, 69 J. Legal Educ. 3 (2019)
• Sahar Aziz (Rutgers; Google Scholar), Identity Politics is Failing Women in Legal Academia, 69 J. Legal Educ. 14 (2019)
• Mary Nicol Bowman (Arizona State), Legal Writing as Office Housework?, 69 J. Legal Educ. 22 (2019)
• Leslie Patrice Culver (Utah; Google Scholar), No Matter How Loud I Shout: Legal Writing as Gender Sidelining, 69 J. Legal Educ. 31 (2019)
• Meera E. Deo (Thomas Jefferson), The Paradox of Faculty-Student Interactions, 69 J. Legal Educ. 36 (2019)
• Darby Dickerson (Dean, Southwestern), Finding the Goldilocks Zone: Negotiating Your First Employment Offer in Legal Academia, 69 J. Legal Educ. 48 (2019)
• Susan Hanley Duncan (Mississippi; Google Scholar), Reducing Gender Inequity in the Academy and the Legal Profession, 69 J. Legal Educ. 95 (2019)
• Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State; Google Scholar) & Kyle McEntee (Law School Transparency), Gender Equity in Law School Enrollment: An Elusive Goal, 69 J. Legal Educ. 102 (2019)

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Williams: Law Schools As Gatekeepers Of The Profession

Christopher Williams (Chicago), Gatekeeping the Profession, 26 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 171 (2020):

This article critically examines the structure of U.S. legal education and reveals how the structure of U.S. legal education serves as a racial gatekeeper that prevents black students from entering the legal profession in the United States. In addition, this article also reveals how the exportation of U.S. legal education to India resulted in a similar process, one in which legal education serves as a caste based gatekeeper that prevents dalit students from entering the legal profession in India. This connection is made by introducing and characterizing the model of U.S. legal education as an adaptive prejudice model whereby the model adapts and reproduces the prejudices of the society in which it is situated in. 

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Teaching Lawyers To Think Like Leaders: The Next Big Shift In Legal Education

April M. Barton (Duquesne), Teaching Lawyers to Think Like Leaders: The Next Big Shift in Legal Education, 73 Baylor L. Rev. 115 (2021):

The old saying is that students go to law school to learn to think like lawyers. While thinking like a lawyer is indeed critical to becoming a good lawyer, we must also teach our law students to think like leaders. Countless leaders in politics, government, business, and the non-profit sector are lawyers. While these lawyers are smart, precise, thorough, and honorable professionals, our public and private sectors would be further served by lawyers who are also taught to understand what leadership is (and is not) and who have honed their own leadership awareness and skills.

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