Henderson: The Best Metaphor For Today’s Legal Market Is the Auto Industry Circa 1905

Bill Henderson (Indiana), The Best Metaphor For Today’s Legal Market Is the Auto Industry Circa 1905: A Crowded, Chaotic Landscape in Love With the Future:

[T]the auto industry is a very powerful metaphor to understand the evolution of the legal market, particularly the energy and dynamism of the one-to-many legal ecosystem. ... Yet, on several dimensions, the auto industry is an imperfect metaphor.  Thus, to avoid being led astray, it is worth understanding the metaphor’s boundaries and limitations.  Relatedly, and no less important, many lawyers have a viscerally negative reaction to any suggestion that legal work, or even facets of legal work, can be mechanized or industrialized.  Therefore, in my talks to lawyers—particularly early or late majority audiences, which is most law firms—I tend to steer clear of auto industry comparisons.  Yet, in all candor, I believe this analysis is powerful and important.  ...

This story makes more sense when we start in the middle (present) and then look backward.  This is because our frame of reference on cars is anchored in events that are familiar to most consumers and observers of business.

Section A is about the recent history–the challenges and pathologies of a mature US auto industry and how it was eventually transformed by lean production methods pioneered by Japanese carmakers, with the vast majority of the spoils flowing to consumers.  In some respects, BigLaw’s lucrative one-to-one consultative services model is akin to the privileged market position of the Big Three during the 1960s and ’70s. In short, “Why change?”

Section B looks backward a full century to the brutal competition that winnowed 1,900 companies down to a small handful and ultimately the Big Three. This is a story about standardization, economies of scale, R&D, and picking and executing the right strategy–i.e., one that results in sizable profits, thus enabling management to stay in a game that ultimately ends in consolidation.  It’s also the story that has the greatest parallel with the emerging one-to-many legal landscape–i.e., our future.

The timeline below summarizes the core Part I narrative.

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Law Students And Cell Phone Use: Results Of A Six-School Survey

Robert M. Jarvis (Nova; Google Scholar), Cindy Archer Thomas (UC-Irvine), Linda Galler (Hofstra), Hugh D. Spitzer (Univ. of Washington), Jodi Wilson (Memphis), & Mark E. Wojcik (UIC-John Marshall), Law Students and Cell Phone Use: Results of a Six-School Survey, 89 UMKC L. Rev. 2 (2020):

The sight of a law student using his or her cell phone now is so common that law professors do not give it a second though. But what, exactly, is the student doing? Texting with friends? Shopping? Watching a movie? To try to find out, during the Fall 2019 semester we asked our six diverse law schools to take an online survey consisting of eighteen questions. To our knowledge, this is the first phone survey of law students.

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Are We On The Brink Of A Female ‘Exodus’ From Big Law?

Bloomberg Law, Are We on The Brink of a Female ‘Exodus’ from Big Law?:

Will the pandemic spawn a major female brain drain in law? Or is that just a lot of hooey? ...

According to a new study by the American Bar Association (“Practicing Law in the Pandemic and Moving Forward”), which surveyed 4,200 ABA members (54% men and 43% women) from September 30 to October 11, 2020, the pandemic has been no friend to female lawyers. Though Big Law lawyers have generally worked like dogs during Covid and suffered stress as a result, women have had a far worse time. The ABA study finds that women are going bonkers trying to juggle family and work, so much so that many are thinking of downsizing their careers or dropping out entirely.

“It is clear that the ‘she-cession’ is occurring in the legal industry,” says Katherine Helm, a New York-based partner at Dechert who has three school-age kids. “I have seen both female associates and partners quit outright or downgrade their careers over the past year,” noting the struggles that women with young kids have. She calls the supposed “benefits” of the pandemic “toxic positivity,” that’s “not particularly helpful to boosting morale or encouraging women to stay in legal practice during these trying times.” The reality, she adds, is that “the gender effects in the legal profession appear to be on par with other working class industries.” ...

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Emotion Bites: A Starter Guide To Teaching Emotional Intelligence In The Law School Classroom

Rebecca Sutton (Edinburgh), Emotion Bites: A Starter Guide to Teaching Emotional Intelligence in the Law School Classroom:

This short, practical guide outlines an approach to integrating the theory and practice of emotional intelligence into the law school classroom, based on my experience doing so at the University of Edinburgh.

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Jake Brooks To Leave Georgetown For Fordham

John R. Brooks (Georgetown) has accepted a lateral offer from Fordham to begin in Fall 2022. Jake's recent publications include:

• Tax Now or Tax Never: Political Optionality and the Case for Current-Assessment Tax Reform, 100 N.C. L. Rev. ___ (2021) (with David Gamage (Indiana))
• Why a Wealth Tax Is Definitely Constitutional (with David Gamage (Indiana))
• Redesigning Education Finance: How Student Loans Outgrew the “Debt” Paradigm, 109 Geo. L.J. 5 (2020) (with Adam Levitin (Georgetown))
• Curing the Cost Disease: Legal Education, Legal Services, and the Role of Income-Contingent Loans, 68 J. Legal Educ. 521 (2019)
• Cross-Subsidies: Government's Hidden Pocketbook, 106 Geo. L.J. 1229 (2018) (with Brian Galle (Georgetown) & Brendan Maher (Connecticut))
• The Definitions of Income, 71 Tax L. Rev. 253 (2018)
• The Case for More Debt: Expanding College Affordability by Expanding Income-Driven Repayment, 2018 Utah L. Rev. 847 (reviewed by Ariel Kleiman (Loyola-L.A. here)
• Income-Driven Repayment and the Public Financing of Higher Education, 104 Geo. L.J. 229 (2016)

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Do We Need A Bar Exam ... For Experienced Lawyers?

David Adam Friedman (Willamette), Do We Need a Bar Exam... for Experienced Lawyers?, 12 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. ___ (2022):

The fierce determination to require a bar exam during the COVID-19 pandemic left quite an impression on new lawyers entering the profession. State bars and state supreme courts made their position clear: the bar exam provides a screening function necessary to safeguard the public. Many disagreed.

Even a cursory look at attorney discipline reveals that the lawyers who get into disciplinary trouble are not mostly new lawyers. The lawyers who get into trouble tend to be more experienced lawyers, who have not had any formal or objective tests of their ability to function since their original bar exam pass. The only check on their performance is discipline after harm has been done.

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U.S. News Law School Rankings By Elevation

I was inspired by this item in yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education Daily briefing:

In the status-conscious world of higher ed, rankings — however methodologically flawed — exercise a profound and dubious influence on campus and off. Who’s in, and who’s out? Who’s up, and who’s down? So it was not surprising recently to see a question on Quora about where Emory University stands in the academic pecking order. Is it “on the same level as UChicago, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia, and Northeastern, or is it on the same level as UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, CMU, and USC?”

Several dreary replies indulged the questioner’s horse-race view of higher ed. Then Jeff Erickson, a computer-science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, weighed in. Emory, he wrote, topped Chicago but was below Cornell — in terms of their elevation above mean sea level. He then provided a topographical ranking of all those universities, led by Carnegie Mellon, at 971 feet. At the bottom was Northeastern, at just 13 feet. Erickson’s refreshing view of what really counts in academic stature prompted us to apply it more widely. For example, under his vision, the University of Colorado at Boulder, at over a mile high, might well be the acme of American higher ed, towering over that puny college in Cambridge, Mass., a mere 10 feet above sea level.

Here are the U.S. News Top 50 law schools, re-sorted by their elevation above sea level:

Elevation Rank	School	Elevation (Feet)	Overall Rank
1	Colorado	5,387	48
2	Utah	4,682	43
3	BYU	4,649	29
4	Arizona	2,431	46
5	Arizona State	1,093	25
6	Washington & Lee	1,043	35
7	Wake Forest	935	41
8	Emory	925	29
9	Wisconsin	883	29
10	Michigan	876	10
11	Minnesota	840	22
12	Cornell	817	13
13	Indiana (Maurer)	764	43
14	Notre Dame	735	22
15	Illinois	728	29
16	Ohio State	725	40
17	Iowa	692	29
18	Georgia	659	27
19	Texas	600	16
20	Chicago	591	4
21	Northwestern	587	12
22	Virginia	568	8
23	Vanderbilt	551	16
24	Washington Univ.	541	16
25	North Carolina	469	24
26	George Mason	430	41
27	Pepperdine Caruso	427	46
28	UCLA	397	14
29	Duke	384	10
30	UC-Berkeley	282	9
31	Boston College	213	29
32	Alabama	207	25
33	Maryland	200	50
34	USC	184	19
35	Florida State	174	48
36	Florida	151	21
37	Univ. of Washington	148	45
38	Columbia	128	4
39	Fordham	89	35
40	Yale	79	1
41	Stanford	72	2
41	William & Mary	72	35
43	UC-Irvine	69	35
44	UC-Hastings	62	50
45	George Washington	59	27
46	Penn	56	6
47	UC-Davis	52	35
48	Georgetown	43	15
49	NYU	36	6
50	Harvard	20	3
51	Boston Univ.	16	20

More On The Use Of The 'N-Word' In Law School

Following up on my recent posts:

• Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond, 49 Cap. U. L. Rev. 1 (2021)
• New York Times, Debate Erupts at N.J. Law School After White Student Quotes Racial Slur

• Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), We Reply to Anonymous Above The Law Columnist's Response to Our "The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond"
• Lawprofblawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), In Which I Respond to Professors Kennedy andVolokh (Again)
• Lawprofblawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), My Last Words On Kennedy and Volokh’s Use Of Racial Slurs In The Law School Classroom
• National Jurist, Academic Freedom: More Law Professors Are Treading Lightly in Today’s Classrooms
• Eugene Volokh (UCLA), Recent Developments in Controversies About Quoting Slurs from Court Cases
• Washington Post editorial, The Rutgers Law Student Shouldn’t Have Used the N-word. But We Can Learn From the Controversy.

Northwestern Law Faculty To Vote Today On New Dean Hari Osofsky's Tenure In Controversial Search Process

Update:  Hari M. Osofsky Named Dean of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Update:  Glenn reports that the Northwestern faculty approved Dean Osofsky's tenure.

Glenn Reynolds (Tennessee) reprinted a lengthy anonymous email he received, purportedly from a member of the Northwestern Law faculty, which included this email from the interim dean:  

Sent: Friday, May 7, 2021 9:55 AM
To: TENURE-TRACK@LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU
Subject: Meeting Monday, at 10:00 a.m.: Candidacy of Professor Hari Osofsky

Dear colleagues:
I am calling a tenure-line faculty meeting for next Monday, May 10, at 10:00 a.m., for the purpose of discussing and voting on a recommendation that the Provost’s selection for our new dean, Professor Hari Osofsky, be named to the tenured faculty of the Law School. Professor Osofsky is currently the Dean of both the Law School and the School of International Affairs at Penn State. She was previously on the faculty at Minnesota Law, among other schools. She is an accomplished scholar in several fields, including international and environmental law, and, of course, an experienced administrator.

I attach to this email Professor Osofsky’s CV, and here is her webpage. Members of the search committee will also speak to her background and qualifications at the meeting.

This unusually expedited procedure is necessary, given the continuing nonpublic nature of the search. In that regard, this meeting is being held before any public announcement and before any broader internal announcement. I therefore request (as does the Provost) that you refrain from sharing this information either internally or externally and keep this confidential until the matter is concluded and such public announcements can be made.

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California Bar Violated State Policy In Awarding $3.8 Million To ExamSoft For Online Bar Exam

California State Auditor, The State Bar of California It Is Not Effectively Managing Its System for Investigating and Disciplining Attorneys Who Abuse the Public Trust:  Section 3: The State Bar Appropriately Administered the Bar Exam During the COVID‑19 Pandemic, but Its Procurement of Exam Software Did Not Comply With Its Policy:

Key Points

• At the direction of the Supreme Court, the State Bar developed a provisional licensure program for recent law school graduates who were negatively affected by bar exam delays caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic. In addition, to avoid the risks associated with in‑person contact during the pandemic, the State Bar modified how it administered the bar exam, allowing applicants to take the October 2020 bar exam remotely.
• The State Bar did not follow its contracting policy when it entered into software agreements worth nearly $4 million related to the bar exam. As a result, it did not verify that it was using its resources responsibly. ...

The State Bar Entered Into Multimillion Dollar Agreements Without Adequately Justifying the Vendor It Selected
The State Bar’s procurement policy provides its staff with significant levels of discretion when selecting vendors for the administration of the bar exam. However, the State Bar did not follow its contracting policy when it entered into software agreements related to the bar exam. Although state law requires the State Bar to use formal competitive bidding procedures and obtain at least three competitive bids or proposals for information technology‑related goods and services in excess of $100,000, it provides an exception from competitive bidding for contracts related to licensing or proficiency testing examinations, such as the bar exam (exam exemption). In these instances, the State Bar’s procurement manual gives contract managers the authority to select the vendor to provide the required goods or services, rather than requiring competitive bidding. The State Bar used the exam exemption to approve both the five‑year, $3 million contract with ExamSoft and the $830,000 contract amendment we describe in the previous section.

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February California Bar Exam Pass Rate Rises 10 Percentage Points; It Would Have Hit All-Time Low Of 23.7% Without Change In Cut Score

State Bar of California Releases Results of February 2020 Bar Exam:

Today the State Bar released results of the February 2021 California Bar Exam and announced that 1,151 people (37.2 percent of applicants) passed the General Bar Exam. This pass rate represents an increase of 10.4 percentage points, or nearly 39 percent, from the February 2020 General Bar Exam pass rate of 26.8 percent.  ...

This year’s February exam was the second administered remotely, after the near-record cohort who took the exam in October. It was also the second graded under the reduced cut score of 1390, directed by the California Supreme Court in July 2020. If the cut score had remained at 1440, approximately 734 General Bar Exam takers (23.7 percent) would have passed this examination.

The February exam cohort was smaller than typical for a February exam (approximately 3,100 compared to 4,000–5,000 on average), likely attributable to the increased number of test takers for the October 2020 exam cohort, the availability of the new provisional licensure program, and the higher pass rate on the October exam. As is typical, a majority of the February exam cohort were repeat takers, although at a lower percentage than average (approximately 60 percent compared to the typical 70 percent).

February 2020 General Bar Exam preliminary statistics

• Completed the exam: 3,098 applicants
• First-time applicants: 1,227 (39.6 percent of total)
• Pass rate for first-time applicants: 53.0 percent overall
• Repeat applicants: 1,871 (60.4 percent of total)
• Pass rate for repeat applicants: 27.0 percent overall

Pass rate for the General Bar Exam (rounded to whole numbers) by law school type:

School Type	First-Timers	Repeaters
California ABA	65%	39%
Out-of-State ABA	58%	26%
California Accredited (not ABA)	44%	17%
Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility	0%	0%
Unaccredited: Correspondence	43%	20%
Unaccredited: Distance-Learning	47%	17%
All Others	47%	23%
All Applicants	53%	27%

Cheryl Miller (The Recorder), California February Bar Exam Pass Rate Climbs to 37%:

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ABA Tax Section May Meeting Kicks Off Today With The Emergence Of Analytics For Tax Positions

The ABA Tax Section virtual 2021 May Meeting kicks off today (program). Today's highlight:

Benjamin Alarie (Osler Chair in Business Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law; Co-Founder & CEO, Blue J Legal), The Emergence of Analytics for Tax Positions at 2:30 PM ET:

When defending a client’s position to the IRS or a judge, it can be hard to ensure you are making the strongest possible argument for the client’s position, mitigating the risk of the position being successfully challenged and providing time- and cost-effective service for your client. Join us as we discuss how leading tax professionals are using advanced analytics tools to strengthen client positions and gain an advantage in settlement discussions by:

• Using artificial intelligence to identify the strength of a position with greater than 90% accuracy;
• Testing the effect of various changes to the facts on the strength of the position;
• Gaining a comprehensive view of the law by identifying authorities and guidance that may pose a risk to the position or can be used to support it;
• Providing independent, 3rd party reports to foster favorable resolutions

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Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua Set For October 4, More Than 7 Years After Dan Markel's Murder

WXTL, Magbanua's Re-scheduled Trial Set for October:

Katherine Magbanua is set to stand trial in October for the murder of FSU professor Dan Markel.

On Thursday, the judge set a trial date for October 4, 2021. The trial is scheduled to last two weeks.

Magbanua’s scheduled re-trial comes exactly five years to the day since the warrant for her arrest in the murder was issued.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Billable Hours Are Smothering Associates—And Any Attempts To Help Them
• Bridget Crawford Named University Distinguished Professor At Pace
• Tax Prof Baby: Theo Choi

Sunday:

• What We’ve Lost In Rejecting The Sabbath: 'A World Without The Sabbath Is A World Without Soul'
• Video Of Law Students Thanking Professor In Last Zoom Class Of The Year Goes Viral
• Happy Mother's Day From SNL
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

What We’ve Lost In Rejecting The Sabbath: 'A World Without The Sabbath Is A World Without Soul'

Wall Street Journal Saturday Essay:  What We’ve Lost in Rejecting the Sabbath, by Sohrab Ahmari (Author, The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos (2021)):

Setting aside one day a week for rest and prayer used to be an American tradition. In an age of constant activity, we need it more than ever.

The share of Americans who don’t identify with any religion continues to grow, and even many believers reject the concept of the Sabbath as a divinely ordained day of rest. Instead, we are encouraged to pursue lives of constant action and purpose, and we do. Smart devices allow white-collar professionals to freely mingle work and play. The gig economy and the Covid-19 work-from-home trend have further blurred the line between the two. The Sabbath doesn’t fit into the rhythm of our lives. It feels like an imposition—it is an imposition.

Americans’ turn away from the Sabbath has been going on for a long time. In the mid-20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of America’s foremost Jewish thinkers, wrote about the Sabbath in terms of “the realm of time” and “the realm of space.” Modern life is all about conquering space: winning geopolitical territory, growing and prospering economically. But “the danger begins,” Heschel worried, “when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.” In that realm, “the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”

Many of his American coreligionists in those days saw the ritual as an impediment to freedom: the freedom to shop, work and socialize as much as they wanted. For Heschel, this brand of freedom was missing something profound. It barred entry to an entire dimension of existence: namely, time, whose passage reminds us that everything is contingent, everything passes away—everything, that is, except God. The Sabbath, Heschel thought, is the guarantor of our “inner liberty,” while restless, Sabbath-less societies could easily descend into tyranny and barbarism. ...

The goal of a philosophy of religion, Heschel argued, shouldn’t be to understand “God” as an ancient idea or symbol, still less a disturbance in the ancient mind, but to understand human beings as the living God’s project and as partakers in the divine “pathos.”

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Video Of Law Students Thanking Professor In Last Zoom Class Of The Year Goes Viral

Karen Sloan (Law.com), Saying Thanks:

To say that the 2020/21 academic year was a tough one for students and faculty feels like an understatement. Many classes were moved online. Zoom fatigue set in. The in-person opportunities to socialize and take the edge of the stress of law school were vastly diminished. So it’s nice to see that through all those challenges, standout law professors still found a way to connect with their students in a meaningful way. I was reminded of that when I saw this local news story about students in Loyola University New Orleans School of Law professor Rob Verchick’s class showing their gratitude for his patience and dedication during the year.

When Verchick logged in to the final Zoom class of the semester on April 29, he was surprised to see that all his students had turned their cameras off. He didn’t think too much of it until one student asked all her classmates to flip their videos on. Each one was holding a handmade sign thanking Verchick.

WWLTV.com, Video Goes Viral of Loyola Students Thanking Teacher:

A law class at Loyola University has gone viral on Tik Tok. Almost five million people have seen the video, which delivers a special message to their professor.

The moment meant the world to Verchick. "I just want to thank them and encourage any student who is touched by a teacher to let them know," he said. "These are the moments we live for." It also taught the class a lesson that day, that the smallest 'thank you,' even virtually, can go a long way.

Happy Mother's Day From SNL

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: The Multiple Paths For Loss Deductions
2. New York Times, Debate Erupts At Rutgers Law School After White Student Quotes Racial Slur In Full Version Of Case Assigned In Excerpted Form By Professor
3. Colorado Politics, John Eastman To Sue University Of Colorado For $1.9 Million For Stripping Him Of Duties After Jan. 6 Capitol Speech
4. Karen Sloan (Law.com), ABA Mulls Racism, Bias Training Accreditation Requirement For Law Schools
5. Law.com, Human Rights Watch Fires General Counsel After She Used N-word In Columbia Class
6. Gail Baker (Provost, San Diego), San Diego Provost Rejects Student Demand That Tenured Law Professor Be Fired Over Blog Post
7. Chuck Collins (Institute for Policy Studies), The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions
8. Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond
9. Indiana Lawyer, Notre Dame Law Dean Embraces Admission Practice Others Call ‘Unnecessary, Callous’
10. Steven Bank (UCLA), Book Review: Michael Keen (IMF) & Joel Slemrod (Michigan), Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages (Princeton University Press 2021)

Billable Hours Are Smothering Associates—And Any Attempts To Help Them

Law.com, Billable Hours Are Smothering Associates—and Any Attempts to Help Them:

Associate mental health and wellbeing are deteriorating at an alarming rate, thanks in large part to billable hour requirements compounding the many additional stressors that have been brought about by the pandemic over the past year-plus.

Are alternative fee arrangements and additional time off the cure? It comes down to execution and expectations. But getting those right is easier said than done. ... 

The billable hour model is often held up as a monument to inefficiency, and with good reason. ... During the pandemic, the ever-present pressure on associates to hit their annual billable targets has not been relieved at many firms, exacerbating the mental toll of working remotely, quarantining and worrying about the health impact of COVID-19.

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Bridget Crawford Named University Distinguished Professor At Pace

Pace University Appoints Bridget J. Crawford as University Distinguished Professor:

Bridget J. Crawford, a member of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law faculty, has been named as a Distinguished Professor. The title of Distinguished Professor is the highest honor the University can bestow upon a faculty member.

This honor comes in recognition of a sustained record of extensive, extraordinary research and scholarship, outstanding teaching, and exemplary service to the University, community, and the faculty member’s professional field. Professor Crawford’s pathbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship explores how seemingly neutral legal rules and systems can reflect, exacerbate and sustain inequality. Her work draws on jurisprudence, statutory analysis, behavioral economics, critical tax theory and feminist legal theory to demonstrate how an equitable legal system can better serve human needs by taking gender, race and other identity factors into account.

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Tax Prof Baby: Theo Choi

Jonathan Choi (Minnesota) and Lilai Guo (PwC) welcomed Theo Choi (6 pounds, 10 ounces) into their family on March 18:

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Vikram D. Amar (Dean, Illinois) & Jennifer K. Robbennolt (Illinois; Google Scholar), The Role of Lawyers and Law Schools in Fostering Civil Public Debate
• Gail Baker (Provost, San Diego), San Diego Provost Rejects Student Demand That Tenured Law Professor Be Fired Over Blog Post
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Cognitive Biases, Implicit Biases, and Student Feedback
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Very Troubling Report on ABA Experiential Requirement
• Brandon L. Garrett (Duke), Glinda Cooper (Yeshiva) & Quinn Beckham (Duke), Forensic Science in Legal Education
• George Mason & Cardozo Law Schools, Free Virtual Conference For Aspiring And New Law School Deans

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AALS Cancels In-Person Faculty Hiring Conference For Second Year In A Row Due To COVID-19

For the second year in a row, AALS has cancelled the in-person faculty recruitment conference due to COVID-19. Brian Leiter (Chicago) predicts a robust faculty hiring market, with perhaps 100 faculty openings this cycle:

2021-22 promises to be an excellent year for law school enrollments, and early indicators suggest that the 2022-23 year will be at least as strong. Since enrollments drive hiring at 80-85% of the law schools in the country, this bodes very well for academic job seekers. I expect many more law schools to be in the market for new teachers this coming year, compared to this past year. ...

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The Pandemic’s Sexist Consequences: Academe’s Stark Gender Disparities Are Exacerbated By Covid-19

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  The Pandemic’s Sexist Consequences: Academe’s Stark Gender Disparities Are Exacerbated By Covid-19, by Rose Casey (West Virginia):

Covid-19 has precipitated a caregiving crisis with profoundly gendered effects. The well-documented decrease in women’s journal submissions is an early example of the pandemic’s impact. In coming years, we’ll probably see additional consequences, including widening gender divisions in attaining tenure and an increase in the gender pay gap. These effects will be particularly stark for racially minoritized women.

Covid’s collapsing of work into home life has made clear that what Tithi Bhattarcharya calls “life-giving reproductive labor” frequently falls on female shoulders. With schools closed, child-care provisions reduced, and care for other family members increased, pandemic time has heightened academe’s existing gendered inequalities.

Research across many disciplines — economics, public health, sociology, biology, medicine, gender studies, and more — has documented Covid-19’s detrimental impact on women. Multiple papers have shown that women’s unpaid care work, including child care, home-school supervision, emotional support of household members, and all manner of domestic tasks, has increased more than men’s during the pandemic. ...

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Recognizing Another Black Barrier: The LSAT Contributes To The Diversity Gap In The Legal Profession

Lynee McDuffie, Recognizing Another Black Barrier: The LSAT Contributes to the Diversity Gap in the Legal Profession:

Imagine working your entire life with the purpose of building the house of your dreams. The ability to pursue this “calling” has been granted through your tremendous hard-work and dedication to your craft. In fact, building this dream home has been the final culmination of all that you have worked towards over the past several years. Now imagine, you have successfully built the foundation of the house, and began to lay the pipeline for the plumbing. Just as the plumbing was coming together, there was one exact piece that was missing, a coupling, which would be required to connect the pipes. Since pipelines are the heartbeat of all functionality within a house, without the coupling, the incomplete plumbing may diminish the potential of all that your dream house was meant to become. Thus, hindering the dream.

Similarly to a person that has a dream of becoming a lawyer. The ability to pursue this calling would be directed through the education pipeline. After obtaining an Undergraduate degree through tremendous amount of hard-work and dedication, the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), a coupling to the next education pipeline, is required for applicants to take when applying to law school. But, what if the LSAT is a faulty coupling that presents a major leak in the education pipeline? This standardize test has revealed years of racial bias from the disturbing score gaps between white and minority applicants. The LSAT has shown to have test biases within the questions that appear in the form of language interpretation, which contains culturally stereotypic language, situations, and structural components. As a result of these biases, there has been a disproportionate amount of lower scores by minorities, which hinders the chances of being accepted into law school. Thus, presenting a leak in the education pipeline that disconnects minorities from achieving their dreams of practicing law.

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George Mason-Scalia And Cardozo Host Free Virtual Conference For Aspiring And New Law School Deans

George Mason-Scalia and Cardozo law schools are co-sponsoring a free virtual conference for aspiring and new law deans on June 3-4: the Deans Leadership Academy:

Taking charge of a law school requires specific skills and conquering a series of natural milestones in order to “get it right.” The early months are critical to establishing the tone and substance of your Deanship. The interview process for new deans rarely provides you with real insight about how to lead and what’s expected. The critical to-do list and the timetables for accomplishing them are not necessarily obvious. And retaining consultants for expert guidance may not be economically feasible.

This program offers critical lessons that current deans say they wish they had learned before starting. It is designed to take away some of the mystery of the do-it-yourself approach, while highlighting some of the dangers that come with the territory. Sessions will be led by leading experts in their respective fields, from both in and outside academia.

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Tribute To Valparaiso University Law School (1879-2019)

Symposium, Tribute to Valparaiso University Law School (1879-2019), 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 833-1173 (2019):

Comments

• David R. Cleveland, The Dean's Comments, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 833 (2019).
• Mark A. Heckler, The President's Comments, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 835 (2019).
• Kyle Joseph Farris, Number 108, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 837 (2019).

Essays

• Michael L. Swygert, Celebration and Mourning: The Valparaiso University School of Law, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 843 (2019).
• Rosalie Berger Levinson, Gratitude and Deep Sorrow, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 869 (2019).
• D.A. Jeremy Telman, Experiencing Valparaiso Law's Golden Age, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 877 (2019).
• Ivan Bodensteiner, The Significance of Closing VULS, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 885 (2019).
• Bruce Berner, A Eulogy for VUSL, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 889 (2019).
• Clare K. Nuechterlein, Memories of Valpo Law School's 125th Anniversary Gala: May 1, 2004, Field Museum, Chicago, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 895 (2019).
• Susan Stuart, The Future is in Good Hands, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 897 (2019).
• Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Divergent Paths and Making a Difference: Reflections on a Journey to, in, and from Valparaiso, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 899 (2019).

Greatest Hits of Valparaiso University Law Review

• Sandra Day O'Connor (Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court), Foreword, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 947 (2019).
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court), Women in the Law, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 951 (2019).
• Rosalie B. Levinson (Valparaiso), Introduction to Dean Chemerinsky's Article, "The Lower Federal Courts and the War on Terrorism", 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 967 (2019).
• Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC-Berkeley), The Lower Federal Courts and the War on Terrorism, 53 Val. U. L. Rev. 969 (2019).

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Death Of Jack McNulty (UC-Berkeley)

SFGATE obituary, John McNulty:

John Kent McNulty, professor emeritus at Berkeley Law and a man of letters, music, and the arts, died Saturday, Sept. 26, at his home in Berkeley of an apparent heart attack. He was 85.

Jack, as he was known by many since childhood, was an accomplished legal scholar who specialized in federal income taxation and international tax. He joined the faculty at Berkeley Law (then Boalt Hall School of Law) in 1964 and taught full-time until his retirement in 2002. The law was his true north, and his community of scholars sustained him; he continued to visit his campus office every weekday until the COVID-19 pandemic precluded it.

An invitation to join the Berkeley Law faculty prompted Jack, his wife Linda, and their three young children, Martha, Jennifer, and John Jr., to pack up and head west, arriving just in time for the Free Speech Movement and all the social, political, and personal change that would ensue. Jack and Linda, both born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., welcomed the waves of change, eager for their children to grow up in a more just and democratic society.

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ABA Mulls Racism, Bias Training Accreditation Requirement For Law Schools

Karen Sloan (Law.com), ABA Mulls Racism, Bias Training Accreditation Requirement for Law Schools:

Law schools would be required to train students in bias, racism, and cross-cultural competency under a proposal being considered by the American Bar Association arm that oversees legal education.

That proposed change to the ABA’s law school accreditation standards is part of a larger push to incorporate professional identity formation into the curriculum requirements—that is, mandating that schools devote more time and attention to helping students understand what it means to be a lawyer, not just how to think like one.

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John Eastman To Sue University Of Colorado For $1.9 Million For Stripping Him Of Duties After Jan. 6 Capitol Speech

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Colorado Politics, John Eastman Seeks to Sue CU For $1.9M For Stripping Him of Duties After Capitol Rally Speech:

John Eastman, a University of Colorado Boulder visiting professor, is looking to sue CU for nearly $1.9 million after he was stripped of most of his job duties following his speech at President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., rally on Jan. 6 prior to the Capitol insurrection.

Eastman filed a legal claim Thursday alleging breach of contract and defamation, saying CU Boulder and its leaders have “discriminated against Dr. Eastman on the basis of his political affiliation and political philosophy,” in violation of the university's anti-discrimination policies.

The claim said Eastman will seek $1.85 million for 10 years of future salary he claims he can’t earn due to "reputational harm" and $19,835 leftover in his CU research account. The legal claim is a statutory prerequisite before Eastman can file a lawsuit.

University of Colorado, Statement on Visiting Professor Eastman:

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Trends In Law School Enrollment Since The Great Recession

Goodwin Liu (Associate Justice, California Supreme Court), Miranda Li (J.D. 2019, Yale) & Phillip Yao (J.D. 2019, Yale), Who's Going to Law School? Trends in Law School Enrollment Since the Great Recession, 54 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 613 (2020):

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of recent U.S. law school enrollment trends. With two sets of JD enrollment data from 1999 to 2019, we discuss how the demographic composition of law students has changed since the Great Recession. We examine enrollment data by gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality, with particular attention to Asian Americans, who too often remain an invisible minority in contemporary discourse on diversity. We also undertake a novel analysis of enrollment demographics by law school ranking. Our findings include the following:

• Total enrollment has declined almost 25% since the recession and, despite a recent increase, seems unlikely to rebound to pre-recession levels.
• Women have outnumbered men in law school since 2016; the recent uptick in total enrollment is entirely attributable to more women pursuing law.
• Since the recession, Asian Americans and Whites have comprised a smaller share of enrollment; African Americans and Hispanics have comprised a larger share.

• Women, African American students, and Hispanic students are disproportionately enrolled in lower-ranked schools with lower rates of bar passage and post-graduation employment. It is thus unclear to what extent the changing diversity of law students will translate into greater diversity in the legal profession.

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The Role Of Lawyers And Law Schools In Fostering Civil Public Debate

Vikram D. Amar (Dean, Illinois) & Jennifer K. Robbennolt (Illinois; Google Scholar), The Role of Lawyers and Law Schools in Fostering Civil Public Debate, 52 Conn. L. Rev. 1093 (2021):

Partisanship can make policy discussion and civil debate difficult. Partisan differences in how facts and policies are understood contribute to the escalation of conflict and a lack of cooperation. Lawyers are not immune from these human tendencies. But good lawyers have, and good law schools teach, values, knowledge, and skills that can aid in fostering and modeling more productive debate and resolution of conflict.

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San Diego Provost Rejects Student Demand That Tenured Law Professor Be Fired Over Blog Post

Following up on my previous post, San Diego Law School Launches Investigation Of Tenured Professor's Blog Post; Student Petition Calls For Professor's Termination:

Gail F. Baker (Vice President and Provost, University of San Diego):

Dear USD Community:
We recently received complaints relating to a post by USD Law Professor Tom Smith on his personal blog concerning the causes of COVID-19. The complaints alleged violations of various university and School of Law policies.

As a threshold matter, we sought to determine whether the blog post at issue was protected by our policy on academic freedom. After a thorough legal review, it was determined that the expression was protected by that policy.

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There Are Now 27 Black Women Law School Deans

From Catherine Smith (Denver):

There are now 27 Black Women Law Deans:

1. Dean Michèle Alexandre (Stetson)
2. Dean Patricia Bennett (Mississippi College)
3. Dean Karen Bravo (Indiana University-McKinney)
4. Dean Lolita Buckner Innis (incoming, University of Colorado)
5. Dean Joan Bullock (Texas Southern)
6. Dean Marcilynn Burke (Oregon)
7. Dean Danielle Conway (Penn State-Dickinson)
8. Dean Camille Davidson (Southern Illinois)
9. Dean Felicia Epps (UNT-Dallas)
10. Dean Linda Greene (Michigan State)
11. Dean Cassandra Hill (Northern Illinois)
12. Dean Renee Hutchins (University of the District of Columbia)
13. Dean Danielle Holley-Walker (Howard)
14. Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum (incoming, Detroit Mercy)
15. Dean Diedre Keller (Florida A & M)
16. Dean Tamara Lawson (St. Thomas)
17. Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew (George Washington)
18. Dean Browne Lewis (North Carolina Central)
19. Dean Kim Mutcherson (Rutgers-Camden)
20. Dean Camille Nelson (Hawaii)
21. Dean Eboni Nelson (Connecticut)
22. Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Boston University)
23. Dean Carla Pratt (Washburn)
24. Dean LaVonda Reed (incoming, Georgia State University)
25. Dean Song Richardson (outgoing, UC-Irvine. incoming President of Colorado College)
26. Dean Sean Scott (California Western)
27. Dean Verna Williams (Cincinnati)

Former IRS Chief Counsel Michael Desmond Joins Gibson Dunn

Former IRS Chief Counsel Michael Desmond Joins Gibson Dunn’s Los Angeles and D.C. Offices:

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is pleased to announce that Michael J. Desmond has joined the firm as a partner in the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. offices.  Desmond, who recently served as the Chief Counsel of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Assistant General Counsel in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, will focus on tax controversy matters.

“We are delighted that Michael has joined the firm,” said Barbara Becker, Chair and Managing Partner of Gibson Dunn.  “As a nationally prominent, deeply experienced tax litigator, he adds significant capability to our elite tax and litigation practices.  Our clients will benefit from the invaluable insight that he gained during his tenure at the IRS, where he was involved in the agency’s most important guidance and enforcement actions.”

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Why I No Longer Grade Class Participation

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Should We Stop Grading Class Participation?, by James M. Lang (Assumption University):

I no longer grade class participation. I seem to be in the minority on that, based on my conversations with other faculty members. But I have come to believe that grading student participation is a poor pedagogical choice, and that a better alternative exists. Here I’ll explain why — and how I cultivate participation in my courses, even without hanging a grade-based incentive over my students’ heads.

What drove me away from grading student participation was an uneasy feeling — and it grew each year — that grades were not something that should be fudged based on my hunches and instincts, or influenced in any way by my informal observations and memories. In retrospect, it seems ridiculous to believe that I could accurately measure how much every student participated in all my courses during a 15-week semester.

Such a “system” is subject to every kind of bias imaginable. In addition to whatever unconscious biases I might be carrying toward students based on their identities, I might find myself looking more favorably on a student whose comments or demeanor remind me a little of myself — or unfavorably on a student who reminds me of someone I dislike.

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CSI: Law School. Forensic Science In Legal Education

Brandon L. Garrett (Duke), Glinda Cooper (Yeshiva) & Quinn Beckham (Duke), Forensic Science in Legal Education:

In criminal cases, forensic science reports and expert testimony play an increasingly important role in adjudication. More states now follow a federal reliability standard, following Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals and Rule 702, which call upon judges to assess the reliability and validity of such scientific evidence. Little is known about what education law schools provide regarding forensic and scientific evidence, or what types of specialized training they receive on scientific methods or evidence. Whether law schools have added forensic science courses to their curricula in recent years was not known. In order to better understand the answers to those questions, in late 2019 and Spring 2020, we conducted searches to identify course offerings in forensic sciences at U.S. law schools and then surveyed their instructors, asking for syllabi and information concerning how the courses are offered, how regularly, and with what coverage.

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University Of Illinois Symposium: President Biden’s First 100 Days

Symposium, President Biden’s First 100 Days, 2021 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 1-219:

• Jason Mazzone (Illinois), President Biden’s First 100 Days: A Symposium, 2021 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 1
• Richard L. Kaplan (Illinois), The Era of Low Taxes Is Over, 2021 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 14
• Michelle D. Layser (Illinois), An Opportunity for Reform: Taxation, Inequality, and Opportunity Zones, 2021 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 20

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Graduating Law School In The Time of COVID? Be Patient And Persistent.

Law.com, Graduating Law School in the Time of COVID? Be Patient and Persistent.:

Are you about to graduate law school into a, well, interesting economy? I’ve been there. I graduated from law school during the Great Recession. In my experience, there was nothing great about it. When I graduated, the employment rate for new lawyers was at an all-time low. The chance of making the income you once expected had vanished. Suddenly, you were willing to do work for free just to get experience. It was a horrible time to be a law school graduate, but, as is commonly said, you grow from each challenge.

For you 3L students and recent graduates, I am sorry that you are in a similar boat. But, there is a bright side.

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Zero Economic Value Humans?

Hilary G. Escajeda (Denver), Zero Economic Value Humans?, 10 Wake Forest J.L. & Pol'y 129 (2020):

The decades ahead will bring forth a convergence of increasingly capable technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, that will fundamentally reshape and transform work environments by replacing average humans with ordinary job skills. Klaus Schwab, Founder of the World Economic Forum and author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, perceptively identifies this impending paradigm shift and argues these technologies will challenge policymakers to “think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future.”

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NCBE Sets The Record Straight On Future Bar Exams And Online Proctoring

Hulett H. Askew, Judith A. Gundersen, Suzanne K. Richards & Hon. Cynthia L. Martin (NCBE), Future Bar Exams and Online Proctoring—Setting the Record Straight:

In response to a recent Insight, we want to clarify how future bar exams will be administered. As widely publicized earlier this year, and as reported by Bloomberg Law, the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ (NCBE) testing task force has made clear that the next generation of the bar exam will be administered in-person on computers and monitored live by on-site proctors.

For reference, “remote” and “online” testing both refer to a method of test administration in which applicants take an exam on their own computers at home (or in another private location, such as a law school or office). Remote testing, as NCBE uses the term, requires an internet connection only at certain times—for example, to enter the exam password and take an identity verification photograph at the beginning of the exam, or to upload exam answer files and monitoring videos at the end of the exam—while online testing requires internet connectivity throughout an exam.

“Computer-based” testing means only that the exam itself can be taken on a computer instead of with paper and pencil. The next generation of the bar exam will be a computer-based test administered either at computer testing centers managed by a suitable vendor or on candidates’ laptops at jurisdiction-managed test sites. ...

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NY Times: Debate Erupts At Rutgers Law School After White Student Quotes Racial Slur In Full Version Of Case Assigned In Excerpted Form By Professor

New York Times, Debate Erupts at N.J. Law School After White Student Quotes Racial Slur:

The controversy over the use of a racial slur that has embroiled a public law school in New Jersey began with a student quoting from case law during a professor’s virtual office hours.

The first-year student at Rutgers Law School in Newark, who is white, repeated a line from a 1993 legal opinion, including the epithet, when discussing a case.

What followed has jolted the state institution, unleashing a polarizing debate over the constitutional right to free speech on campus and the power of a hateful word at a moment of intense national introspection over race, equity and systemic bias.

The tension comes at a time of heightened sensitivity to offensive words on college and law school campuses, where recent uses of slurs by professors during lessons have resulted in discipline and dismissal.

In early April, in response to the incident, a group of Black first-year students at Rutgers Law began circulating a petition calling for the creation of a policy on racial slurs and formal, public apologies from the student and the professor, Vera Bergelson.

“At the height of a ‘racial reckoning,’ a responsible adult should know not to use a racial slur regardless of its use in a 1993 opinion,” states the petition, which has been signed by law school students and campus organizations across the country.

“We vehemently condemn the use of the N-word by the student and the acquiescence of its usage,” the petition says. ...

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Early Signs Portend A Continued Law School Admissions Boom In Fall 2022

Following up on last week's post on the booming Fall 2021 law school admissions season:  Mike Spivey (Spivey Consulting), Brief Application Volume/LSAT Update and a Glimpse at Next Cycle:

We also have our first glimpse of the 2021-2022 application cycle. Or rather, our first solid data-based glimpse. June 2021 LSAT registrations closed as of midnight yesterday. 42,321 people are signed up to take the test. That's a heck of a lot [a 300% increase over the final June 2020 registrants]. Now obviously many of them will drop out, and that number will go down — potentially a good deal. Still, even if one in three registrants drop out, June 2021 will be the largest June LSAT since 2010. . . .  [S]uch a large number of potential June takers could be an ominous sign for 2021-2022 applicants, and an encouraging one for law schools hopeful that this wasn't a one year blip in applicant volume.

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Kennedy & Volokh: The New Taboo — Quoting Epithets In The Classroom And Beyond

Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond, 49 Cap. U. L. Rev. 1 (2021):

Is it wrong for professors to quote epithets in class or in other educational settings? In law schools, this question has arisen as to [the n-word] when a [Wake Forest] professor quoted the defendants’ speech from a leading First Amendment case in a First Amendment class; a [UCLA] professor (one of us) quoted the facts in a rare example of a hate speech prosecution, also in a First Amendment class; a [UC-Irvine] professor teaching a class on legal problem-solving quoted the word in a discussion of Facebook’s implementation of its “hate speech” policy; a [Emory] professor teaching a torts class quoted the facts of a case involving emotional distress and wrongful discharge claims; a [Stanford] professor teaching a class about legal history quoted a statement attributed to Patrick Henry; a [DePaul] professor posed a hypothetical about provocation and self-defense in a criminal law class; a guest [Stanford] lecturer in a class on tobacco regulation displayed and quoted copies of racist advertising; and a professor at Emory University, in discussing discrimination against Native Americans, mentioned that ... had been used as slurs against them. ...

Moved by a recognition that the prevalence of the slurs in American life is an indication of how common hatred of blacks and gays has been and continues to be, and apprehensive about the slurs’ toxicity even in the classroom, some students, professors, and administrators maintain that any enunciation of them is wrongful no matter the context or the intention of the speaker. They maintain that giving voice to those epithets is so hurtful to some that no pedagogical aim is worth the pain inflicted. Thus, some teachers never vocalize the terms, either talking around them or substituting a euphemism such as “the n-word.” ...

There are, however, other words with toxic associations: KKK. Lynching. Nazi. Auschwitz. Genocide. Rape. They are not epithets, but much in life is worse than epithets. Indeed, one reason sometimes given for eschewing any vocalizing of epithets is precisely their association with bigoted violence. The words we just mentioned are at least as clearly associated with the cruelest forms of violence. Yet they are routinely discussed without expurgation or euphemism, especially in the university (and in our own department, law).

We believe the same should be true for epithets. The academy, we believe, should be a place where people discuss the facts—whether of a controversy, a historical document, or a precedent—as they have actually occurred.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Human Rights Watch Fires General Counsel After She Used N-word In Columbia Class
• Morse: Important Developments In Federal Income Taxation (2020)
• Why Has My University Thrived During COVID-19? We Have A Long-Serving Dean And Provost

Sunday:

• Notre Dame Law School Dean Defends Exploding Deposit Deadline For Incoming 1Ls
• Renewal: Anticipating The New Thing God Is Doing
• 48 Cardozo Law Professors Urge Parent Yeshiva University To Reverse Its 'Wrong And Unlawful' Ban On LGBTQ+ Student Group
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Notre Dame Law School Dean Defends Exploding Deposit Deadline For Incoming 1Ls

Following up on my previous post, A ‘Bank Run’ At Notre Dame Law School:  Indiana Lawyer, Notre Dame Law Dean Embraces Admission Practice Others Call ‘Unnecessary, Callous’:

In response to criticism about its 2021 admission process, which has been dubbed by one social media user as the “seat deposit scandal,” Notre Dame Law School Dean G. Marcus Cole is calling the approach a success and praising the process as yielding an incoming class that is strongly committed to the institution.

“This was so successful and worked so well, we’re going to maintain this exact same approach to our admissions from now on,” Cole told Indiana Lawyer.

According to the dean, the class of 2024 will be the most diverse in the law school’s history with about a third being students of color. Also, the class has a median LSAT score of 168, which is three points higher than the median 165 recorded just two years ago.

Describing the admission process as a “roaring success,” Cole said, “We are very pleased with the composition of the incoming class.”

However, the approach created a stir on social media. Applicants vented their dismay when they discovered the deadline for submitting their deposits had passed and despite having been admitted with scholarship offers, they found themselves on the wait list.

In turn, Kyle McEntee, executive direct of Law School Transparency, wrote about the situation for Above the Law in an article entitled “Chaos Reigns.”  Other articles followed in Inside Higher Ed and on Law.com.

Cole asserted the articles are “completely inaccurate.”

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Renewal: Anticipating The New Thing God Is Doing

TaxProf Blog op-ed:  Renewal Series: Anticipating the New Thing God is Doing, by Chalak Richards (Pepperdine) (originally published in Pepperdine Spiritual Life Blogcast):

"If you say you are grateful one more time, I'm going to reach through this screen and grab you!"

I couldn't believe I said those words to one of my dearest friends, but I did. I knew things hadn't gone the way she wanted: a year into a pandemic that kept us separated from family and friends, another celebration through a screen. I wanted us to be real — to acknowledge that this year has felt like exile and captivity.

In the middle of these feelings, I've felt more empathy towards the ancient, exiled Israelites than ever before. I've come to understand in a different way the feelings of loneliness and desperation that come with being so far away from the people we love, the places that bring comfort, and even more, the visions we have for our lives. I've been told that deliverance is coming, but it seems slow.

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48 Cardozo Law Professors Urge Parent Yeshiva University To Reverse Its 'Wrong And Unlawful' Ban On LGBTQ+ Student Group

Letter From 48 Cardozo Law Professors To Yeshiva University President (Apr. 27, 2021):

As members of the Yeshiva University community, the forty-eight undersigned faculty members of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law write to express our dismay at the University’s continued refusal not to allow undergraduate students to form a group devoted to building community and support for LGBTQ+ students. We appreciate your expressions of empathy and, as described in a fall 2020 memo “Fostering an Inclusive Community,” the establishment of measures to address issues of diversity and inclusion. But the continued refusal to recognize the student organization is hurtful to our students and other community members and will seriously damage the reputation of the University’s graduate and undergraduate programs. It is also wrong and unlawful.

Discrimination against a student organization solely because of its focus on LGBTQ+ issues has no place in a University that holds itself out as a community committed to the flourishing and equal dignity of all its members. We have a collective obligation to ensure that each student is supported and given the opportunity to thrive, and refusing to extend access to University facilities to this student group on the same terms all other student groups enjoy will prevent LGBTQ+ students, together with their allies, from creating the space to find that support. Particularly as our students grapple already with the effects of a catastrophic public health crisis and deepening racial divide, insisting that LGBTQ+ students bear this avoidable additional insult is hard to fathom. Indeed, at Cardozo, where LGBTQ+ students are a vital part of our community, with an active and engaged student group, no such discrimination is practiced or tolerated. We find it unacceptable that our parent University would adopt such a hurtful policy towards the undergraduate student body.

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Beth Brennan (Montana), Explicit Instruction In Legal Education: Boon Or Spoon?
2. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Ultimate Bar Passage Rates
3. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Abatement Of Assessment Brings No Relief From Liability
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 85% Of The Way Through The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applications Are Up At 96% Of Law Schools, With Biggest Increases Among The Highest LSAT Bands
5. Stacy Leeds (Arizona State), Challenge To Oklahoma's Taxation Of My Tribal Income
6. Karen Sloan (Texas Lawyer), Texas House Of Representatives Approves Two New Law Schools
7. Yahoo News, Law School Diversity And Inclusion Award To White Conservative Law Professor Sparks Backlash Among Students
8. Njeri Mathis Rutledge (South Texas), Walking the Tightrope: Reflections of a Black Female Law Professor
9. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
10. Texas Lawyer, White Law Professor Claims Black School Paid Him Less Because of His Race

Human Rights Watch Fires General Counsel After She Used N-word In Columbia Class

Law.com, Human Rights Watch GC Loses Her Job After Using the N-Word Repeatedly in a Lecture:

It’s happened again. Another in-house lawyer has lost her job after using the N-word during an academic hate speech discussion.

This time it was Dinah PoKempner, a prominent human rights lawyer and the now-former general counsel for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based international research and advocacy agency.

While serving as an adjunct professor at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, PoKempner, who is white, repeatedly used the N-word while discussing “comparative legal treatment of hate speech” during a Zoom lecture. ...

The incident occurred April 1, and Human Rights Watch terminated PoKempner on April 11. ...

Asked if Berman would continue teaching at Columbia, a university representative noted that adjunct professors do not have continued employment when a semester ends. The semester ended last week.

“A student complaint filed with our Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action is under review. We are very clear that classroom discussions must be conducted with civility, tolerance and respect,” stated the representative, who did not provide additional comment. ...

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