Push For Greater Diversity At Law School With Only Four Black Students And One Black Professor

Vancouver Sun, Black Law Students Push For Increased Diversity at UBC Law School:

Rebecca Barclay Nguinambaye always had a keen interest in social justice — and she was lucky enough to have the family support and mentorship that made a career in law seem possible.

“It’s not the reality for many students,” Nguinambaye said at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law.

Nguinambaye, one of a handful of Black law scholars among approximately 600 students in Allard’s program, wants to ensure other Black students have access, opportunity and support to pursue careers in law.

The 27-year-old is the co-president (with Dinah Holliday) of the Black Law Students’ Association at Allard, and this year the duo — who make up half of Allard’s four Black law undergrads — is organizing the first Black Pre-Law Conference to invite Black undergraduate students to consider law school.

The BLSA, a national organization founded in 1991, provides community, networking opportunities and advocacy. ...

Allard has one Black tenure-track faculty member, said Nguinambaye.

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Halfway Through The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Up 22%, With Biggest Increases Among The Highest LSAT Bands

We are now 50% of the way through Fall 2021 law school admissions season. The number of law school applicants reported by LSAC is up 21.8% compared to last year at this time (a 9.3 percentage point drop since December 31, 2020 and a 16.4 percentage point drop since December 20, 2020).

Applicants are up the most in New England (31.5%), Midwest (29.2%), and Far West (24.5%); and up the least in the Great Lakes (17.5%), Northwest (18.0%), and Midsouth (20.2%):

Applicants' LSAT scores are up 59.6% in the 170-180 band, 23.2% in the 160-169 band, 10.6% in the 150-159 band, and 8.2% in the 120-149 band:

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Lin Wood Wants His $1 Million Donation Back If Mercer Law School Removes His Name From Courtroom

Lin Wood Makes $1 Million Commitment To Mercer University School of Law (Feb. 5, 2016):

Mercer University School of Law Dean Daisy Hurst Floyd today announced a $1 million commitment from L. Lin Wood, ’74 CLA and ’77 LAW, which will result in the creation of the L. Lin Wood Fund for the Enhancement of Mercer Law School.

“Lin Wood is a loyal alum who never forgot the role Mercer played in helping him lay a foundation for his future success as a lawyer,” said Mercer President William D. Underwood. “I am grateful for his investment in the Law School and in the students who will benefit from a Mercer legal education.”

The L. Lin Wood Fund will support and enhance the programs and activities of the Law School. The Law School’s trial courtroom will be named in honor of Wood at a ceremony on Friday, Feb. 26, at 10 a.m.

“Lin has used his legal talent and skills to make a meaningful difference in the lives of his clients and to seek justice, representing the best of the legal profession. His commitment recognizes the importance of a Mercer Law School education and our mission to prepare our students for lives of service and fulfillment as lawyers,” said Floyd.

See William A. Drennan (Southern Illinois), Charitable Naming Rights Transactions: Gifts or Contracts?, 2016 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1267

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• NY Times: Biden Wants To Raise Taxes, Yet Many Trump Tax Cuts Are Here To Stay
• Fostering And Teaching Creativity In The Law School Curriculum
• David Kamin (NYU), Other Law Profs Answer President Biden's Call To Public Service

Sunday:

• Ted Lasso, Law School Deaning, And The Power Of Forgiveness
• Snow In Malibu!
• God At The Inauguration
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Ted Lasso, Law School Deaning, And The Power Of Forgiveness

During the pandemic, my wife Courtney and I have been watching some feel-good, positive comedies like The Good Place, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Schitt's Creek, and The Unicorn. Our latest is Ted Lasso, which has gotten rave reviews (including Rotten Tomatoes, The New York Times, and The Ringer). 

Jason Sudeikis plays the title character, who after coaching the Wichita State football team to the Division II NCAA championship is hired to manage AFC Richmond, an English Premier League soccer team. Ted knows absolutely nothing about soccer; unbeknownst to Ted, the owner is trying to ruin the team as an act of vengeance against her estranged husband (who left her for a younger woman).

Ted's calling cards are his cheerfulness, honesty, kindness, optimism, sincerity, and compassion for everyone he meets. Unlike Schitt's Creek and similar shows, where mean people move in among nice people and are changed by the experience, Ted Lasso changes the skeptical and downright hostile fans, players, media, and team management through the power of his simple goodness.

When I was a faculty member with zero interest in becoming a dean, I wrote about why then-Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (of Moneyball fame) would make a great law school dean (What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, 82 Texas L. Rev. 1483 (2004) (with Rafael Gely (Missouri)). Now, after a unorthodox journey led me to become dean of Pepperdine Caruso Law School nearly four years ago, I think Lasso's relational approach is more important to deaning than Beane's analytics-fueled Moneyball approach. Indeed, at my first AALS dean's conference, Mark Horstman (Co-Founder, Manager Tools) gave the keynote address and emphasized  that of the three sources of a leader's power  — authority, expertise, and relationships — the importance of building relationships is more important than authority and expertise combined.

There is a burgeoning genre of leadership lessons from Ted Lasso (see links at the end of this post). Here are ten lessons for law school deans from Ted Lasso:

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Snow In Malibu!

Los Angeles Times, Rare Snowfall in Malibu Results in Flurry of Excitement:

A rare dusting of snow in Malibu on Saturday surprised locals, with some drivers so delighted they pulled over to frolic in the foreign whiteness.

Officer Stephan Brandt of the California Highway Patrol said shortly after 5 p.m. his department received a report of multiple drivers stopping and parking near the Malibu Canyon Tunnel.

“They were playing in the snow,” said Brandt, who advised such activities were “dangerous” and unwise.

On social media, the CHP’s West Valley Division posted messages urging motorists to “stop driving like it’s not raining,” while a later post showed snow along Malibu Canyon Road.

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God At The Inauguration

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  God at the Inauguration, by Tevi Troy (presidential historian) & Stuart Halpern (Yeshiva University):

Presidential inaugural addresses are unpredictable, but it’s a good bet that they will refer to the Bible. President Biden did, quoting Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” This is part of a welcome, long-running trend toward more religious language in public life.

Mr. Biden has cited Psalm 30 in speeches before, and it seems particularly apt in these dark times. Mr. Biden also encouraged his fellow Americans to “open our souls instead of hardening our hearts,” an allusion to God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, beginning with Exodus 7:13.

With these references, 27 out of 45 presidents have cited the Bible in their inaugural addresses, making a total of 64 biblical references. Forty-four came from the Hebrew Bible and 20 from the New Testament. John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic president before Mr. Biden, made the most allusions in one speech, with five. ...

The tradition of biblical allusions in inaugural addresses dates back to the beginning of the Republic, when George Washington made an argument for them. In his first inaugural, Washington referred to Psalm 82. “It would be peculiarly improper,” he said, “to omit in this official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of the nations.” ...

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Brian Leiter (Chicago), Controversy At UIC John Marshall Law School Over Use Of 'N_____ And B_____ (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)' On Fall Civ Pro Exam
2. Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern), Is This Law Professor Really A Homicidal Threat?
3. Harvard Crimson, Harvard Law Students Petition Administration To Denounce Professor Adrian Vermeule's 'Highly Offensive Online Rhetoric'
4. Press Release, Tax Analysts Makes Federal Tax Library (Code, Regs, Cases, Rulings, Legislative Materials) Available For Free
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Acceptance Rate
6. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: UGPA
7. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: LSAT
8. Princeton Review, 2021 Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking
9. Michael Conklin (Angelo State University), Political Ideology And The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus
10. New York Times, Biden May Eliminate Step-Up In Basis At Death, Hurting Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, And Efforts To Close The Black Wealth Gap

Fostering And Teaching Creativity In The Law School Curriculum

Jason Dykstra (Idaho), Teasing the Arc of Electric Spark: Fostering and Teaching Creativity in the Law School Curriculum, 20 Wyo. L. Rev. 1 (2020):

Amidst an era of tumultuous disruption, the legal profession remains needlessly static, reflecting an ingrained tendency to preserve the status quo. Rather than turning to creative non-lawyers for help upending a business model largely unchanged since the days of Charles Dickens, lawyers can initiate innovative solutions that allow the legal profession to grow and strategically change. This Article explores the nature of creativity, crafting a broad working definition of creativity and addressing why the demographic bubble of baby boom era attorneys may prove an unlikely creative catalyst for law firm innovation. For law firms faced with an era of ongoing, tumultuous disruption, this seems acutely problematic given that eighty-five percent of the managing partners at the top 100 law firms hail from the baby boom generation. Compounded by the ingrained law firm culture that tends to quash creativity and resist innovation, the demographic bubble of baby boom partners appear unlikely to be the creative catalysts needed for law firm innovation. Thus, newly minted attorneys need creativity to both address the on-going disruption of the legal services industry and for the everyday creative expression and problem-solving skills needed for effective lawyering.

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David Kamin (NYU), Other Law Profs Answer President Biden's Call To Public Service

Karen Sloan (Law.com), From Campus to DC: These Law Profs Are Answering Biden's Call:

The Biden administration is still in its infancy, but a number of law professors have already joined the new team in Washington, D.C., with more likely on the way. ... Here are some of the professors who have been appointed to posts within the Biden Administration: ...

David Kamin, New York University School of Law—Kamin is taking a public service leave from NYU’s law faculty to become deputy director of the National Economic Council in the White House. Kamin is an expert budget and tax policy and worked in the Obama administration before joining the law school in 2012.

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• William J. Carney (Emory), Organizing a Business Law Department Within a Law School
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), One-Third Of Law Schools Now Accept The GRE For Admissions
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Acceptance Rate
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: UGPA
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: LSAT
• CBC News, Major Donor Loses Fight to Have His Name on All UBC Law School Degrees

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Next Week's Virtual Tax Workshops

Monday, January 25:  Jonathan Choi (Minnesota) will present Beyond Purposivism in Tax Law virtually in California as part of the San Diego-Davis-Hastings Tax Law Speaker Series. If you would like to attend, please contact San Diego Law Events.

Wednesday, January 27: Ari Glogower (Ohio State) will present Taxes By Omission virtually at Toronto as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Angeliki Zacharakis.

Friday, January 29:  David Gamage (Indiana) will present On The Why And How Of Wealth Tax And Accrual Income Tax Reforms virtually at Minnesota today as part of its Perspectives on Taxation Lecture Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Kristin Hickman.

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Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: LSAT

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's median LSAT and GRE scores count 12.5% in the overall ranking. Because the ABA only reports GRE scores for law schools with 10 or more admitted students with GRE scores, the ranking below are based solely on median LSAT scores: 

Rank	School	2020 LSAT	2019 LSAT
1	Harvard	173	173 (1)
1	Yale	173	173 (2)
3	Columbia	172	172 (3)
4	Chicago	171	170 (5)
4	Stanford	171	171 (4)
6	NYU	170	170 (5)
6	Pennsylvania	170	170 (5)
6	Virginia	170	170 (5)
9	Duke	169	169 (9)
9	Michigan	169	169 (9)
9	Northwestern	169	169 (9)
9	UCLA	169	168 (13)
9	Washington Univ.	169	169 (9)
14	Cornell	168	168 (13)
14	Georgetown	168	168 (13)
14	Texas	168	168 (13)
14	UC-Berkeley	168	168 (13)
18	Boston Univ.	167	166 (19)
18	Notre Dame	167	165 (22)
18	USC	167	166 (19)
18	Vanderbilt	167	167 (18)
22	BYU	166	164 (26)
22	Emory	166	165 (22)
22	George Washington	166	166 (19)
22	UC-Irvine	166	165 (22)
26	Arizona State	165	164 (26)
26	Florida	165	164 (26)
26	Georgia	165	164 (26)
26	Minnesota	165	165 (22)
30	Alabama	164	164 (26)
30	Boston College	164	164 (26)
30	Fordham	164	164 (26)
30	George Mason	164	164 (26)
34	Arizona	163	162 (37)
34	Colorado	163	163 (34)
34	North Carolina	163	161 (46)
34	UC-Davis	163	162 (37)
34	Wake Forest	163	162 (37)
34	Washington & Lee	163	163 (34)
34	William & Mary	163	163 (34)
34	Wisconsin	163	162 (37)
42	Cardozo	162	162 (37)
42	Illinois	162	162 (37)
42	Indiana-Bloom.	162	162 (37)
42	Northeastern	162	162 (37)
42	Pepperdine	162	161 (46)
42	SMU	162	161 (46)
42	Washington	162	162 (37)
49	Florida State	161	160 (54)
49	Iowa	161	161 (46)
49	Ohio State	161	161 (46)
49	Richmond	161	161 (46)
49	Temple	161	161 (46)
49	Utah	161	160 (54)

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Morgan Lewis Seeks To Cut Tax Ties With Trump

Daily Report, Morgan Lewis Seeking to Cut Ties With Trump:

While a growing number of law firms and businesses have cut ties with former President Donald Trump’s businesses in the wake of the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, the experience of other firms—most notably Morgan, Lewis & Bockius—suggests that attorney-client relationships cannot be undone with the snap of a finger.

A spokesperson for Morgan Lewis indicated Tuesday that it is working to wrap up its long-running tax work for the former president and his companies. ...

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How Deans Can Find Fulfillment Back On The Faculty After Getting Fired By Their Provost

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  After Administration: The Search for a Professional Niche, by George Justice (Former Dean of Humanities, Arizona State):

The resentment I felt three years ago [What It Felt Like to Lose My Deanship] has morphed, at least somewhat, to bemusement. And what I’ve discovered in the past couple of years — what I want to emphasize to faculty members who have returned (willingly or not) from administrative offices to faculty departments — is that my greatest professional pleasure, and my usefulness, has come from looking in the nooks and crannies of academic life rather than in the major areas of my institution. Taking initiative in my career at Arizona State, on campus and off, has required relinquishing aspiration to formal leadership roles. ...

My advice for others out there making the often-awkward adjustment [Can You Really Restart Your Research After Years in Administration?] to postadministrative [Back to the Classroom After 11 Years in Administration] life: Find particular places — outside of the administrative track you were on — where your previous work experience is relevant and can make a difference. In my own career, I may not be on the university’s Graduate Council, but I can still share my knowledge with graduate students as a guest lecturer in the Graduate College’s “Preparing Future Faculty” course. ...

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Are Colleges Superspreaders?

Inside Higher Ed, Are Colleges Superspreaders?:

Since colleges and universities announced last summer that they would be opening their doors to students, critics have argued that doing so was irresponsible and would lead to infections and deaths in nearby communities.

New peer-reviewed analysis released today in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering [Are College Campuses Superspreaders? A Data-Driven Modeling Study] suggests that, for some colleges, the link was indeed present.

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Death Of David Shakow (Penn) From COVID-19

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Remembering Emeritus Professor of Law David Shakow:

The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is mourning the death of Emeritus Professor David Shakow, who passed away last weekend.

Shakow joined the Law School faculty in 1982 and took emeritus status in 2000; he taught tax law and related subjects. Shakow collaborated with Alvin L. Snowiss Professor of Law Reed Shuldiner on his most research and scholarship, which examines the viability and effects of the federal estate tax.

“David was an integral part of our faculty for many years,” said Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law Theodore Ruger. “We mourn his passing, and our thoughts go out to his loved ones.”

Shakow was a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School, and he received an LLM in taxation from NYU. He served as a clerk to the Honorable William B. Hastie of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, after which he joined the New York law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell.

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Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: UGPA

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's median undergraduate GPA counts 10% in the overall ranking. Here are the rankings by median UGPA from ABA data:

Rank	School	2020 UGPA	2019 UGPA
1	Alabama	3.94	3.91 (2)
1	Yale	3.94	3.93 (1)
3	Virginia	3.90	3.90 (4)
4	Chicago	3.89	3.90 (4)
4	Pennsylvania	3.89	3.89 (6)
4	Stanford	3.89	3.91 (2)
7	Harvard	3.88	3.89 (6)
7	Washington Univ.	3.88	3.83 (9)
9	Cornell	3.86	3.81 (11)
10	Northwestern	3.85	3.85 (8)
11	Florida	3.84	3.80 (15)
12	Arizona State	3.83	3.81 (11)
12	USC	3.83	3.80 (15)
14	BYU	3.82	3.82 (10)
14	Columbia	3.82	3.80 (15)
14	NYU	3.82	3.80 (15)
14	Vanderbilt	3.82	3.80 (15)
18	UC-Berkeley	3.81	3.81 (11)
19	Boston Univ.	3.80	3.78 (23)
19	Duke	3.80	3.78 (23)
19	Emory	3.80	3.80 (15)
22	Ohio State	3.79	3.76 (26)
22	UCLA	3.79	3.79 (21)
24	Georgetown	3.78	3.78 (23)
24	Georgia	3.78	3.73 (31)
24	Indiana-Bloom.	3.78	3.79 (22)
27	George Mason	3.77	3.75 (28)
27	Minnesota	3.77	3.75 (28)
27	Utah	3.77	3.60 (67)
30	George Washington	3.76	3.73 (31)
30	Michigan	3.76	3.81 (11)
30	Texas A&M	3.76	3.62 (60)
30	Texas	3.76	3.72 (35)
34	Notre Dame	3.75	3.74 (30)
34	SMU	3.73	3.70 (36)
34	Wake Forest	3.73	3.68 (39)
37	Florida State	3.72	3.73 (31)
37	Penn State-Univ. Park	3.72	3.65 (43)
37	UC-Davis	3.72	3.61 (63)
40	Boston College	3.69	3.64 (48)
41	North Carolina	3.68	3.63 (54)
41	Pepperdine	3.68	3.66 (41)
41	Washington	3.68	3.68 (39)
44	UNLV	3.67	3.69 (38)
45	Kansas	3.66	3.65 (43)
45	Maryland	3.66	3.66 (41)
45	Missouri-Columbia	3.66	3.64 (48)
48	Cardozo	3.65	3.60 (67)
48	Cincinnati	3.65	3.64 (48)
48	Colorado	3.65	3.61 (63)
48	Florida Int'l	3.65	3.61 (63)
48	Northeastern	3.65	3.63 (54)
48	San Diego	3.65	3.57 (74)
48	Wayne State	3.65	3.56 (76)

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These Law Profs Backed Trump—And Some Got Burned

Karen Sloan (Law.com), These Law Profs Backed Trump—and Some Got Burned:

It’s fair to say that the legal academy as a whole didn’t have many good things to say about Donald Trump’s presidency. Law professors spent the past four years denouncing Trump’s immigration policies, highlighting his ethical lapses, and making the case that he eroded democratic norms. Legal academics were even front and center during Trump’s first impeachment trial, testifying that he had violated the law.

Yet there were a handful of law professors who took a different tack, either publicly backing the former president, offering more quiet support behind the scenes or from their social media accounts, or questioning the legitimacy of the election results.

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Is This Law Professor Really A Homicidal Threat?

Following up on my previous post, Controversy At UIC John Marshall Law School Over Use Of 'N_____ And B_____ (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)' On Fall Civ Pro Exam:  Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Is This Law Professor Really a Homicidal Threat?, by Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern):

You would expect, given the sanctions that the University of Illinois at Chicago’s John Marshall Law School piled onto Professor Jason Kilborn, that he had done something horribly disgraceful. Disgrace there is in abundance, but it belongs to the school’s administration. Indeed, in this story, Kilborn is the only one who looks good. ...

[See here for a full description of the facts, including (1) Kilborn's use of the phrase “'n____' and 'b____' (profane expressions for African Americans and women)” on his fall Civil Procedure II exam and the uproar it caused among some students; and (2) Kilborn being placed on administrative leave and barred from campus following a determination by the university's threat assessment team and law school dean that he was a "homicidal threat" based on a comment he made in a 4 hour Zoom meeting with a BLSA member.]

Policies of mandatory investigation are warranted when students report threats. But there needs to be an available mechanism of summary dismissal when such reports turn out to be frivolous. John Marshall Law School has two such mechanisms: First, the Behavioral Threat Assessment Teams are charged with determining whether threats are genuine, and, second, the dean has discretion to accept or reject their recommendations. It is hard to believe that Dean Dickerson would have reacted the same way if Kilborn’s exam had not already provoked controversy. The complaints about the exam were apparently not sufficient to trigger the sanctions that might mollify the complaining students. The purported threat, however, offered that opportunity.

Given that this whole incident was occasioned by a “Civil Procedure” exam, it is hard not to remark upon the denial of due process. Kilborn has been given no opportunity to defend himself. When students make unreasonable demands, a school has an obligation to protect its faculty. The law school’s behavior is reminiscent of indiscriminate blacklisting during the McCarthy era.

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Harvard Law Students Petition Administration To Denounce Professor Adrian Vermeule's 'Highly Offensive Online Rhetoric'

Following upon my previous post, Four Student Groups Demand That Harvard Discipline Law Prof Adrian Vermeule For Tweets Mocking Leftists:  Harvard Crimson, Harvard Law School Organizations Petition to Denounce Professor Adrian Vermeule’s ‘Highly Offensive’ Online Rhetoric:

Eleven Harvard Law School student organizations have signed a statement calling for administrators to denounce what they characterize as “highly offensive, discriminatory, and violent statements in online posts” by Law School professor Adrian C. Vermeule ’90.

Addressed to five Law School deans, the statement — signed by organizations including the Harvard Parity Project, the Equal Democracy Project, and the Black Law Students Association, among others — describes Vermeule’s digital rhetoric as “harmful to democracy” and “unbelievably divisive,” with a particular emphasis on his recent allegations of election fraud. ...

Nicole M. Rubin, who co-wrote the statement, said she felt motivated to take action after realizing several students felt uncomfortable with what Vermeule posted online. She said many students documented Vermeule’s rhetoric by taking screenshots of his tweets.

From the statement:

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Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Acceptance Rate

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's acceptance rate counts 2.5% in the overall ranking. Here are the rankings by acceptance rate from ABA data:

Rank	School	2020 Acceptance Rate	2019 Acceptance Rate
1	Yale	7.40	8.22 (1)
2	Stanford	10.48	9.72 (2)
3	Harvard	13.00	12.49 (3)
4	Virginia	14.05	14.69 (5)
5	Pennsylvania	14.30	14.51 (4)
6	Michigan	16.36	16.63 (7)
7	Columbia	16.69	15.86 (6)
8	USC	17.18	17.69 (9)
9	Chicago	17.86	18.61 (11)
10	Wake Forest	17.99	40.45 (70)
11	Texas	18.43	17.53 (8)
12	Cornell	19.03	21.33 (19)
13	Northwestern	19.20	18.01 (10)
14	Georgia	19.35	20.77 (16)
15	Florida	19.77	20.65 (15)
16	Georgetown	20.10	19.54 (13)
17	Notre Dame	20.28	24.05 (24)
18	UC-Irvine	20.30	20.81 (17)
19	Washington Univ.	20.31	24.82 (25)
20	UC-Berkeley	21.53	19.68 (14)
21	NYU	21.58	21.60 (20)
22	North Carolina	21.62	33.87 (45)
23	Duke	22.34	18.91 (12)
24	Texas A&M	22.43	28.73 (32)
25	Vanderbilt	22.57	21.91 (21)
26	UCLA	22.75	22.41 (22)
27	George Mason	22.80	20.85 (18)
28	Boston Univ.	24.93	23.14 (23)
29	Arizona State	26.19	29.41 (34)
30	Florida Int'l	27.33	28.59 (31)
31	Fordham	27.37	27.25 (28)
32	Arizona	27.74	26.29 (26)
33	Pepperdine	28.20	29.81 (35)
34	Georgia State	28.57	29.30 (33)
35	Florida State	29.70	32.67 (41)
36	Villanova	29.75	34.18 (47)
37	Texas Southern	30.43	28.17 (30)
38	UNLV	31.07	27.24 (27)
39	Boston College	31.84	31.31 (40)
40	Emory	32.21	31.00 (37)
41	Chapman	32.55	33.96 (46)
42	District of Columbia	32.63	35.78 (54)
43	UC-Davis	33.06	31.03 (38)
44	Tennessee	33.33	34.36 (49)
45	Utah	33.45	40.87 (74)
46	Houston	33.59	35.05 (51)
47	Florida A&M	33.82	50.17 (112)
48	Baylor	34.02	35.45 (52)
49	George Washington	34.15	31.03 (38)
50	Howard	34.22	38.19 (61)

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Political Ideology And The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus

Michael Conklin (Angelo State University), Political Ideology and Law School Rankings: Measuring the Conservative Penalty and Liberal Bonus:

U.S. News & World Report conducts overall rankings and peer rankings of law schools. This Article reports the findings of a first-of-its-kind study designed to measure whether peer rankings are affected by a law school’s ideological reputation. The extreme disparity uncovered — combined with consistent findings in studies that measure other forms of ideological bias in legal academia — make a strong case for the existence of a conservative penalty and liberal bonus in law school rankings. This Article concludes by proposing a simple solution to circumvent this particular manifestation of ideological bias.

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NAACP Receives $40 Million Gift To Pay Tuition For 50 Law Students Who Agree To Do Civil Rights Work In The South For 8 Years After Graduation

Karen Sloan (Law.com), NAACP Legal Defense Fund Will Spend $40 Million to Put Racial Justice-Minded Attorneys Through Law School:

A new scholarship program from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund aims to help establish the next generation of civil rights attorneys by covering the entire cost of law school for 50 law students over the next decade.

Under the Marshall-Motley Scholars Program, announced Monday, recipients will have their full law school tuition covered along with funds for room and board and incidentals. They will also complete summer internships with civil rights lawyers and do a two-year fellowship at a regional or national civil rights organization in the South upon graduation. In return, recipients will commit to spending at least eight years practicing civil rights and racial justice law in the South. The Legal Defense Fund will select up to 10 recipients a year for the next five years, at an estimated cost of $40 million. An anonymous donor has committed to funding the program, according to Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel for the LDF.

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One-Third Of Law Schools Now Accept The GRE For Admissions

These ABA-accredited law schools accept the GRE for admissions:

1. Akron
2. Alabama
3. Albany
4. American
5. Arizona
6. Arizona State 
7. Baltimore
8. Boston College
9. Boston University
10. Brooklyn
11. SUNY-Buffalo
12. BYU
13. California-Western
14. Cardozo
15. Case Western
16. Chicago
17. Chicago-Kent
18. Cleveland-Marshall
19. Columbia
20. Cornell
21. Dayton
22. Duke
23. Florida International
24. Florida State
25. George Mason
26. Georgetown
27. Georgia (students enrolled in another graduate program)
28. Harvard
29. Hawaii
30. Hofstra
31. Indiana-Bloomington
32. Loyola-L.A.
33. Maryland
34. Massachusetts
35. Mercer
36. Montana
37. New England
38. New Hampshire
39. Northwestern
40. Notre Dame
41. NYU
42. Oklahoma
43. Pace
44. Pennsylvania
45. Penn State-Dickinson
46. Penn State-University Park
47. Pepperdine
48. Seattle
49. Seton Hall
50. SMU
51. South Carolina
52. St. John's
53. Suffolk
54. Syracuse
55. Texas
56. Texas A&M
57. UC-Berkeley (students enrolled in another graduate program)
58. UC-Davis
59. UC-Hastings
60. UC-Irvine
61. UCLA
62. UIC-John Marshall
63. USC
64. Virginia
65. Wake Forest
66. Washington University
67. Willamette
68. Yale 

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2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. Last week, I highlighted the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Yesterday, I blogged the Top 50 law school professor rankings, equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings.

Today, in my concluding post, I blog the Princeton Review's overall law school rankings, giving equal weight (20%) to each of the Admissions Selectivity, Academic Experience, Professors: Teaching, Professors: Accessibility, and Career Rating rankings:

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TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Organizing A Business Law Department Within A Law School
• Controversy At UIC John Marshall Law School Over Use Of 'N_____ And B_____ (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)' On Fall Civ Pro Exam
• Cui: China’s Tax Policy Response To The Global Financial Crisis

Sunday:

• Donor Who Made $40 Million Naming Gift Loses Court Battle To Force Law School To Include His Name On All Degrees
• The Gospel In A Democracy Under Christian Assault
• Notre Dame Dean Marcus Cole's Statement On The U.S. Capitol Attack
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)
• MLK's Legacy: Push Past Tweetable Quotes To True Christlike Love
• NY Times: Biden May Eliminate Step-Up In Basis At Death, Hurting Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, And Efforts To Close The Black Wealth Gap
• How Not To Lie About Law School Affirmative Action

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. Last week, I highlighted the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Here are the Top 50 law school professor rankings, giving equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings:

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MLK's Legacy: Push Past Tweetable Quotes To True Christlike Love

Christianity Today op-ed:  It’s Not Enough to Preach Racial Justice. We Have to Champion Policy Change., by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton; author, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (2020)):

The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us to push past tweetable quotes and big talk to true Christlike love.

For a black boy growing up in Alabama trying to make sense of himself in a hostile world, Martin Luther King Jr. was my hero. Alongside a startingly pale Jesus, a picture of Martin hung beside photographs of my family. I knew Martin by sight. I could recognize the tenor of his voice.

The mental architecture of my young black imagination was formed by grainy videos of mass church meetings and marches and by the hymns and spirituals that threatened to shake the United States to its foundations. I knew about Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery before I could find them on a map of my state. I do not remember not remembering Martin.

By contrast, the King that I see online on Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a stranger to me. This beloved figure is in part the construction of a society that never fully loved him or the cause he represented. King died an unpopular man. In 1968, the year of his death, 75 percent of Americans disapproved of his views and activities. That was up from 50 percent in 1963.

Today, his approval rating nears 90 percent. Some might suggest that with hindsight, Americans have come to appreciate King in a way that was impossible during the racist era in which he lived. But things are not that simple. If social media is any indication, a large portion of America still hasn’t wrestled with the King of 1968. ...

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How Not To Lie About Law School Affirmative Action

Sherod Thaxton (UCLA), How Not to Lie About Affirmative Action, 67 UCLA L. Rev. 834 (2020):

As challenges to race-conscious admissions policies are, once again, advancing through the federal courts, research proclaiming to identify the wide ranging effects of affirmative action across a variety of educational settings is influencing this litigation through amici and expert testimony. It is crucial, then, that empirical research used to support claims by parties on either side of the affirmative action debate adhere to the fundamental precepts of causal inference. Yet the literature on causal inference is both vast and dense, and as a result, many judges, lawyers, legislators, and laypersons interested in understanding both the intended and unintended consequences of affirmative action are ill-equipped to understand the debate—especially when quantitative social scientists on both sides of the issue appear to draw conflicting (though not necessarily equally credible) inferences from the same data. The purpose of this Article is to lay bare the core requirements of credible causal inference to the uninitiated, highlighting how inattention to (and sometimes outright disregard for) these rules has muddied the debate over the effect of affirmative action in law schools and in college admissions more generally.

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The Gospel In A Democracy Under Christian Assault

Russell Moore (President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention), The Gospel in a Democracy Under Assault:

How can this be our country?

As I watched on television images of angry mobs pouring into the United States Capitol, my hands were trembling with rage. A friend who has served for many years in government texted, “This looks like the fall of Rome to me.”

Indeed, it does—including the reality that, years before anyone scaled the walls of the Eternal City, Rome was captivated with bread and circuses. What can Americans—especially followers of Jesus Christ—do in a time when it seems that our very republic is more fragile than ever before?

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Notre Dame Dean Marcus Cole's Statement On The U.S. Capitol Attack

Marcus Cole (Dean, Notre Dame), Statement on the U.S. Capitol Attack:

Yesterday, I watched in horror as a mob made a terrorist assault on the United States Capitol. As the images unfolded, my son asked me whether I had ever seen anything like this before. I immediately recalled that twenty years ago, 37 Americans on United flight 93 gave their lives to protect that very building — the United States Capitol — from a terrorist attack. I never imagined that the President of the United States would incite a mob to accomplish what those hijackers could not.

In general, I do not think it appropriate for the Dean of a law school to comment on political events. But what happened yesterday was not political; it was a shameful crime. A mob was incited to attack the very thing to which we in this community have devoted our lives, namely, the rule of law. I have resisted commenting on the President’s posture over the last two months, since I fully trusted in our institutions and the rule of law. In the end, I believed, as I still do, that the will of the American people — expressed at the ballot box last November 3rd — will prevail.

I still believe in our American institutions. I still believe in the rule of law. But more than either, I believe in God, and our need for His divine guidance at this moment. Toward that end, I would like to ask each of us to join in prayer. I would like each of us to call upon God in the words of Saint Francis of Assisi:

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. 157 Law School Deans, Joint Statement On The 2020 Election And Events At The Capitol
2. State Bar of California, Bar Exam Pass Rate Is Highest In 12 Years, Due To Lower Cut Score; Supreme Court May Grant Licenses To 2,000 Applicants Who Failed Exams Since July 2015 And Scored 1390 Or Higher
3. Elise Westhoff (Wall Street Journal op-ed), The Left Wants A Philanthropy Of The Few
4. Los Angeles Times, Law Prof John Eastman Retires From Chapman 'Effective Immediately' Amidst Uproar Over Speaking At Trump Rally Last Wednesday
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Too Much Control Over IRA Distribution Makes It Income
6. The Princeton Review, 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience
7. The Princeton Review, 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity
8. The Princeton Review, 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating
9. The Princeton Review, 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)
10. The Princeton Review, 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

Organizing A Business Law Department Within A Law School

William J. Carney (Emory), Organizing a Business Law Department Within a Law School:

This article argues that legal education needs to get its act together by getting organized. Unlike the rest of the university, law schools are over a century behind in recognizing the need for the greater organization that departments can provide. Specialization, which did not exist many years ago, has become so universal that some members of any faculty either cannot understand or care about, much less govern wisely, what goes on around them. Ignorance is compounded by non-professional agendas driven by ideologies and interdisciplinary interests. One probable result of disorganization in legal education has been a decline in bar passage rates and enrollments. This article provides a road map to a cure.

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Controversy At UIC John Marshall Law School Over Use Of 'N_____ And B_____ (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)' On Fall Civ Pro Exam

Following up on my previous post, AALS President Darby Dickerson: It's Time To Eliminate Legal Education's Caste System:  Brian Leiter (Chicago), Violation of Academic Freedom at UIC John Marshall Law School:

IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW: PROFESSOR KILBORN WAS NOT SUSPENDED BECAUSE OF THE EXAM QUESTION

Last month, we noted UIC John Marshall Dean Darby Dickerson's suggestion "that law schools should be 'transformed' into 'anti-racist institutions' [as distinct from being non-racist ones that comply with equal opportunity laws]," observing that it "would portend a massive violation of the academic freedom of all faculty (for example)."   Alas, this proved more prophetic than we realized.

Professor Jason Kilborn gave a civil procedure exam last month involving an employment discrimination hypothetical, in which one worker used racist and sexist epithets.   As the petition denouncing Professor Kilborn reports:

The question at-issue contained a racial pejorative summarized as follows: “‘n____’and ‘b____’ (profane expressions for African Americans and women).” The fact pattern involved an employment discrimination case where the call of the question was whether or not the information found was work product.

Just to be clear:   the exam neither used nor mentioned the actual offending words, just the first letters of those words followed by the underline, as quoted above.  Professor Kilborn has actually used variations on this hypothetical, with the n- and b-words (as above), for a decade without any incident! ...

UPDATE (1/15/21):   Professor Kilborn has written to me a bit before 4:30 pm CST as follows:

I’ve just learned my suspension has been a huge failure of communication from the university to me.  While the battle over the exam language continues, it turns out I was actively misled into believing my suspension was related to that language.

On Thursday, January 7, I voluntarily agreed to talk to one of the Black Law Students Association members who had advanced this petition against me.  Around hour 1 or 1.5 of a 4-hour Zoom call that I endured from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm with this young man, he asked me to speculate as to why the dean had not sent me BLSA’s attack letter, and I flippantly responded, “I suspect she’s afraid if I saw the horrible things said about me in that letter I would become homicidal.”  Conversation continued without a hitch for 2.5 or 3 more hours, and we concluded amicably with a promise to talk more later.

He apparently turned around and reported that I was a homicidal threat.  Our university’s Behavioral Threat Assessment Team convened, with no evidence of who I am at all, and recommended to my dean that I be placed on administrative leave and barred from campus.

Kathryn Rubino (Above the Law), Law School N-Word Controversy Is More Complicated Than It Appears At First Glance:

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Stanford law prof remembered as leading legal ethics scholar and advocate for access to justice
• ABA Journal, Will Paper Bar Exams Become a Thing of the Past?
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog),  Cognitive Biases, Learning Styles, and the Bahadur/Zhang Article
• Neil Fulton (Dean, South Dakota), Ten Questions For Unconventional Dean Candidates
• Los Angeles Times, Chapman Professor Will Retire After Uproar Over His Speaking at Trump Rally

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Biggest Issues Facing College Presidents Due To COVID-19: Student, Staff, And Faculty Mental Health Trumps Enrollment/Financial Concerns

American Council on Education, College and University Presidents Respond to COVID-19: 2020 Fall Term Survey, Part 2 (Part 1 here):

In September 2020, ACE surveyed college and university presidents in order to capture how they are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19, as well as to better understand both the immediate and long-term effects of the pandemic on higher education more broadly. In this second survey of the fall 2020 term, 268 presidents responded to share their most pressing concerns, how the pandemic has affected their fall enrollment and financial health, plans for the spring 2021 term, efforts to support student, faculty, and staff mental health, and strategies for internationalization. The survey also captures college and university efforts to promote civic engagement and student voting in the last election, as well as presidents’ thoughts on the level of priority the incoming Biden administration should place on some key higher education-related policy topics. What follows is a summary of our key findings.

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2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Career Rating:  This rating measures the confidence students have in their school's ability to lead them to fruitful employment opportunities, as well as the school's own record of having done so. This rating takes into account both student survey responses and school-reported statistical data. We ask students about how much the law program encourages practical experience; the opportunities for externships, internships, and clerkships; and how prepared to practice law they expect to feel after graduating. We ask law schools for the median starting salaries of graduating students; the percentage employed in a job that requires bar passage (and not employed by the school); and the percentage of these students who pass the bar exam the first time they take it. This rating is on a scale of 60–99.

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Death Of Rennard Strickland, Native American Law Pioneer And Dean Of Four Law Schools

University of Virginia School of Law Press Release, In Memoriam: Native American Law Pioneer Rennard Strickland:

Rennard Strickland, a pioneer in the movement for Native rights and a legal historian who received two law degrees from the University of Virginia School of Law, died Jan. 5 at the age of 80.

Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Strickland was of Osage and Cherokee heritage. In a career that spanned teaching and leading numerous law schools, he served as dean of four: the University of Tulsa, Southern Illinois University, Oklahoma City University and the University of Oregon. He was most recently senior scholar in residence at the University of Oklahoma Law Center, where he helped introduce Indian Law into the University’s legal curriculum. The author, editor or co-editor of 47 books and 208 essays, book chapters and articles, he was frequently cited by courts and scholars for his work as revision editor-in-chief of “Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law,” considered the authoritative text on the subject.

Obituary: Rennard Strickland (September 16, 1940 - January 5, 2021)

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Ten Questions For Unconventional Dean Candidates

Neil Fulton (Dean, South Dakota), Ten Questions for Unconventional Dean Candidates, 46 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 71 (2020):

Thinking back on my experience as an unconventional decanal candidate, there are questions that I believe candidates must ask before tossing their hat into the decanal search ring. Conveniently, those questions fit into a top ten list.

1. Are You Sure? ...
2. Why? ...
3. Do You Know Who We Are? ...

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Big Law Firms Use AI To Combat Bias In Recruiting Lawyers

American Lawyer, Big Law Firms to Test New Recruiting Tool, Using Tech to Combat Bias:

Suited, an artificial intelligence-powered recruiting platform with the promise of expanding recruiting pools and eliminating unconscious bias in law firm hiring practices, is set to begin a pilot program that includes Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton; Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders; Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

“We are building a network of top law firms that utilize a single, common assessment tool, providing candidates an efficient way to access this highly competitive industry and show their true potential,” Matt Spencer, Suited co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We could not be more proud to partner with such an incredible group of firms and to be part of their continued commitments to diversity hiring and efforts to create a positive candidate experience.” ...

In addition to saving time and increasing the number of schools to recruit from, Suited looks to address another element that has stymied law firms for some time: bias in recruiting.

It’s not that law firms actively seek to deliberately limit the diversity of their workforce. But going back to the same schools each year with the same criteria in mind leads to what most firms deal with now: a homogeneity of mostly white males.

 

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Accessible:  This rating is based on how law students rate the accessibility of law faculty members at their school. The rating is on a scale of 60 to 99. 

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97% Of Students Rated In-Person Fall Semester Classes Good To Excellent, As Did 94% Of Students In Online Classes

Inside Higher Ed, Fall Semester Was Not a Wash For All:

Students who learned entirely online during the fall semester said they received a slightly poorer quality of education than those who had in-person instruction, according to a new poll released Tuesday by Gallup, the polling company, and the Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for equity in postsecondary education.

The poll found that about three-quarters of students over all rated the quality of their education “excellent” or “very good” amid the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic this fall, but this largely positive outcome dropped off somewhat when surveyed students were separated by learning modality. Eighty-five percent of students whose curriculum was “completely” in person said their education quality was “excellent” or “very good,” while 71 percent of those learning “completely” online said the same, a report about the findings said.

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Law Prof John Eastman Retires From Chapman 'Effective Immediately' Amidst Uproar Over Speaking At Trump Rally Last Wednesday

Los Angeles Times, Chapman Professor Will Retire After Uproar Over His Speaking at Trump Rally:

Capping days of growing uproar, Chapman University announced Wednesday that a professor who participated in the pro-Trump rally the same day that a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol would retire immediately.

John Eastman, an endowed professor and constitutional law scholar at Chapman, spoke alongside Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani at the “Save America” rally Jan. 6, making the unsubstantiated claim that “secret folders” inside ballot-counting machines skewed both the presidential and Georgia Senate race results in Democrats’ favor.

Chapman President Daniele Struppa said in a statement that the university and Eastman had reached an agreement and Eastman would retire immediately. Both parties agreed not to take any kind of legal action, including over claims of defamation, which Eastman had alleged.

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Is A Pandemic The Right Time To Make Bold Faculty Hiring Moves — At Yale And Elsewhere?

Inside Higher Education, Carpe Diem on Faculty Hiring?:

Yale University says it is doing more hiring this academic year than it planned during the pandemic. But that falls short of the hiring activity that faculty members want to see: in a months-long campaign, they’ve argued that hiring freezes during COVID-19 are not just damaging to Yale but also unnecessary.

Indeed, Yale’s budget has fared relatively well since the university announced a yearlong hiring freeze at the pandemic’s onset. In a financial update this fall, Scott Strobel, provost, and Jack Callahan, a senior vice president, said that results for the fiscal year that ended in June were “better than expected, thanks to the work of faculty and staff across campus who restrained spending” and other factors.

How much better than expected? The pandemic cost Yale more than $250 million in lost revenue and other expenses. Yet the university still ended the fiscal year with an operating budget surplus of $125 million. Yale’s endowment, which contributes to the annual budget, also saw a 6.8 percent investment return.

Universities continue to be loath to tap into their endowments for extra pandemic relief. But a $125 million budget surplus is significant.

Strobel and Callahan said that 89 percent of the surplus is tied up in reserve balances in individual campus accounts, and anything remaining is a “buffer” for the rest of this year. Still, they announced that Yale was “partially lifting” the freeze on faculty recruitment, to the tune of at least 60 new and continuing faculty searches across the professional schools and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

This was good news to many faculty members who vocally opposed any freeze on hiring. Even so, it wasn’t enough: Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Senate wants the university to be bold, not so cautious.

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Polarizing Election Work, Discrimination Suits May Dent Jones Day's Appeal To Young Lawyers

American Lawyer, Polarizing Election Work, Discrimination Suits May Dent Jones Day's Appeal to Young Lawyers:

Jones Day’s links to Donald Trump’s presidency had been clear well before the firm was enlisted in the weeks prior to the November election in a fight over the fate of mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day.

After a backlash emerged over willingness to take the litigation, the firm was quick to clarify that its engagement was not with the Trump campaign nor the Republican National Committee, but rather the Pennsylvania Republican Party. It also argued that its work was not an effort to contest the results of the general election, and contended that its legal efforts did not touch on the question of voter fraud. ...

Jones Day’s controversial election work has bubbled up after several years during which the firm’s personnel policies have been the subject of attention thanks to three high-profile lawsuits alleging multiple instances of gender bias at the firm. Jones Day has largely succeeded in the courts—the first accuser dropped her case after the firm returned her capital contributions, and the second set of plaintiffs just abandoned ambitious class action claims Monday—but the reputational impact of the salacious details revealed in litigation documents could be lingering.

Th effect of the election work and lawsuits against the firm may be particularly pronounced with younger lawyers, as they make choices about where to build their careers. Partners may be a different story. ...

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2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Interesting:  This rating is based on how students rate the quality of teaching at their law school. This rating is on a scale of 60-99.

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John Marshall (Atlanta) Law School Converts To 501(c)(3) Status

Following up on my previous post, ABA Takes John Marshall (Atlanta) Off Probation After 70% Enrollment Reduction Increases LSAT Scores Of 1L Class; School To Convert From For-Profit To Non-Profit Status:  Press Release, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School Enters 2021 as a 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Law School:

Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School (AJMLS) is delighted to start the New Year as a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt Law School following its conversion effective January 1, 2021.

The Law School was founded as a nonprofit in 1933, and its recent conversion is a welcome new beginning and homecoming to its original roots. The change in status will not impact its students and will be a seamless transition for its employees. “The process of converting to 501(c)(3) status has been a long time in the making and we see nothing but positive outcomes as a result of our new status. I am extremely excited for the future of the Law School and the enormous potential benefits to our students under the new status change,” said AJMLS’s Dean Jace C. Gatewood.

The Law School will now be operated by Atlanta Law Center, Inc., a Georgia nonprofit corporation doing business as Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.

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Anonymous Professor Makes Largest Gift In Rutgers Law School History: $3.5 Million For Public Interest Scholars Named For Former Dean

Press Release, Faculty Member's Gift Will Help High-Achieving Students Attend Law School:

A $3.5 million gift — the largest ever received by Rutgers University–Camden — is launching a new program to attract students to Rutgers Law School in Camden who have distinguished themselves academically and demonstrated a commitment to public service.

The donor of this significant gift is a Rutgers–Camden faculty member who otherwise wishes to remain anonymous. At the donor’s request, the gift creates the Rayman L. Solomon Scholars program at the Camden location of Rutgers Law School in honor of the school’s former dean.

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157 Law Deans Publish Rare Joint Statement On The 2020 Election And Events At The Capitol

I was proud to join 156 of my fellow deans in a rare joint statement. From the press release:

Today, 157 Law School Deans from schools across the country published a statement addressing the 2020 election and the events that took place in the United States Capitol last week. The statement marks a rare occasion. It is unusual for such a diverse group of law deans to come together to speak as one on an issue that falls outside the ambit of legal education.

“The violent attack on the Capitol was an assault on our democracy and the rule of law,” reads the statement. “The effort to disrupt the certification of a free and fair election was a betrayal of the core values that undergird our Constitution. Lives were lost, the seat of our democracy was desecrated, and our country was shamed.”

The joint statement goes on to reflect upon the roles that lawyers played in recent events and affirm the deans’ commitment to working together to repair the damage to democratic institutions and rebuild faith in the rule of law.

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