Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• 2024 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
• ABA Journal, Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT to Teach Legal Research and Writing
• John Bliss (Denver) & David Sandomierski (Western), Learning without Grade Anxiety: Lessons from the Pass/Fail Experiment in North American J.D. Programs
• ETS Press Release, ETS Reduces GRE From 4 Hours to 2 Hours (LSAT Is 3 Hours)
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), A Companion to Torts: Learning to Think Like a Torts Lawyer by Doing Exercises: Chapter Three

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings:

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking:

	School	Specialty Rank	Overall Rank	Difference
1	Santa Clara	77	158	+81
2	Brooklyn*	46	111	+65
3	Illinois-Chicago	97	159	+62
3	Suffolk	71	133	+62
5	American*	28	89	+61
6	Howard	66	125	+59
7	Hofstra	82	140	+58
8	Widener (DE)	119	175	+56
9	Denver	25	80	+55
10	Rutgers*	57	109	+52
11	CUNY	104	154	+50
11	Mitchell | Hamline*	117	167	+50
13	Syracuse*	75	122	+47
14	Pacific	95	141	+46
15	UC-San Francisco*	18	60	+42
15	UNLV	47	89	+42
17	Baltimore	96	135	+39
18	UC-Davis*	22	60	+38
19	Nova	134	171	+37
20	Missouri-Kansas City	99	135	+36
21	Golden Gate	145	180	+35
22	Pace	98	131	+33
23	Loyola-Chicago*	53	84	+31
23	Willamette	124	155	+31
25	Hawaii	105	135	+30
25	San Diego	48	78	+30
25	San Francisco*	135	165	+30
28	Chicago-Kent	70	99	+29
28	South Texas*	133	162	+29
30	Seattle*	83	111	+28
31	DePaul	108	135	+27
31	Houston	33	60	+27
31	Michigan State	84	111	+27
31	Vermont	137	164	+27
35	Creighton*	130	155	+25
36	Cal-Western*	151	175	+24
36	Case Western	56	80	+24
36	Temple	30	54	+24
36	UC-Irvine*	11	35	+24
40	District of Columbia	158	180	+22
40	George Washington	13	35	+22
42	Catholic	101	122	+21
43	Miami	51	71	+20
44	Indiana (McKinney)	80	99	+19
45	University of Arizona	36	54	+18
45	Widener (PA)	141	159	+18
47	Fordham	12	29	+17
47	Maryland*	34	51	+17
49	Loyola-L.A.	44	60	+16
49	North Dakota	164	180	+16

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most trails their overall U.S. News Ranking:

Continue reading

Bridging The Gap Between Law Knowledge And Legal Practice

Law.com, Bridging the Gap Between Law Knowledge and Legal Practice: How Lean Adviser Can Help Students:

We’ve all heard the criticism that a law school education doesn’t prepare future attorneys for the realities of practicing law.

Despite many recent efforts by law schools to combat this stigma, there remains a gap between learning to think like a lawyer and actually understanding how to work as one.

Law.com recently interviewed Alex Geisler, London-based litigation partner with Duane Morris and creator of Lean Adviser—a structured program that helps lawyers efficiently and consistently deliver high value to clients resulting in repeat business and long-term profitable relationships for all parties—to discuss how Lean Adviser could supplement traditional legal education. ...

Law.com: What would you want law deans to know about Lean Adviser?

Continue reading

Learning Without Grade Anxiety: Lessons From The Pass/Fail Experiment In North American J.D. Programs

John Bliss (Denver) & David Sandomierski (Western), Learning without Grade Anxiety: Lessons from the Pass/Fail Experiment in North American J.D. Programs, 42 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 555 (2022):

One of the core goals of legal education is to help students learn. A conventional assumption is that hierarchical grading, as a motivator for student effort, is a key factor that promotes learning. This assumption should be rigorously assessed rather than taken for granted. Our findings, in the unique Spring 2020 context of Pass/Fail grading in North American J.D. programs, only weakly support the notion that grades incentivize effort. And, to the extent that grades do somewhat incentivize effort, our findings do not support the conclusion that extra effort is necessarily supportive of learning. Moreover, we find that grades may negatively impact student anxiety to an extent that is detrimental to learning. In sum, our analysis provides little support for the notion that hierarchical grades support learning in legal education.

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 196 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings:

1. Business/Corporate Law
2. Clinical Law
3. Constitutional Law
4. Contracts/Commercial Law
5. Criminal Law
6. Dispute Resolution
7. Environmental Law
8. Health Care Law
9. Intellectual Property Law
10. International Law
11. Legal Writing
12. Tax Law
13. Trial Advocacy

	School	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Avg.
1	Georgetown*	12	1	15	14	4	21	12	6	7	5	8	3	22	10.0
2	Harvard*	1	13	1	3	2	1	9	6	19	3	121	13	37	17.6
3	Northwestern*	14	6	15	11	15	7	44	41	22	18	21	4	31	19.2
4	Michigan*	9	9	9	8	12	34	37	17	14	10	8	10	74	19.3
5	Stanford*	4	19	3	3	2	11	9	5	1	10	104	13	68	19.4
6	UC-Berkeley*	4	13	5	5	7	29	3	39	1	7	122	24	15	21.1
7	UCLA*	9	25	12	8	12	34	4	19	9	15	115	7	6	21.2
8	NYU*	4	5	5	5	1	29	4	52	3	1	104	1	68	21.7
9	Duke*	15	25	12	14	4	34	15	29	9	18	84	10	80	26.8
10	Virginia*	8	69	5	8	7	21	26	46	22	10	46	5	80	27.2
11	UC-Irvine*	47	6	24	35	25	43	32	35	9	25	8	6	80	28.8
12	Fordham	19	9	35	19	17	15	61	79	22	18	52	24	6	28.9
13	Columbia*	1	25	8	2	4	26	7	52	19	2	118	7	108	29.2
13	George Washington	32	34	35	54	30	34	12	20	4	7	46	24	47	29.2
13	Texas	19	34	9	14	22	16	39	46	18	25	84	16	37	29.2
16	Yale*	9	4	2	11	12	34	26	15	46	3	115	22	96	30.4
17	Penn*	4	25	12	5	7	34	42	20	14	18	110	18	96	31.2
18	UC-San Francisco*	36	22	29	29	36	11	18	11	31	25	122	18	24	31.7
19	Arizona State	44	45	35	38	36	14	19	14	46	25	4	36	74	33.1
20	Washington University	22	9	21	19	22	18	71	26	36	25	122	40	24	35.0
21	Cornell*	15	51	9	14	22	29	55	52	28	15	68	36	80	36.5
22	Ohio State	44	78	24	35	15	2	42	15	51	58	32	50	40	37.4
22	UC-Davis*	22	59	17	38	17	32	17	39	22	23	122	31	47	37.4
24	North Carolina	29	34	21	18	17	68	32	35	60	58	13	24	80	37.6
25	Denver	68	9	57	64	30	43	19	61	51	35	13	46	6	38.6
26	Vanderbilt*	12	45	17	13	7	34	7	46	28	18	122	62	96	39.0
27	Boston University	19	59	24	29	36	60	61	1	9	25	98	13	80	39.5
28	American*	60	1	57	64	30	64	44	20	7	5	104	50	15	40.1
29	Minnesota	22	25	24	19	30	68	32	26	42	23	68	22	126	40.5
30	Florida	25	69	29	38	45	18	19	46	67	58	68	2	59	41.8
30	Temple	60	59	57	38	61	68	71	17	46	10	25	29	2	41.8
32	Chicago	1	34	3	1	7	68	71	67	36	9	118	7	126	42.2
33	Houston	47	69	86	47	50	68	26	9	6	53	21	44	24	42.3
34	Maryland*	60	13	48	72	36	9	19	6	46	47	98	68	40	43.2
35	Emory	25	89	29	23	36	50	58	29	31	38	42	81	35	43.5
36	University of Arizona	36	45	35	59	45	34	39	29	67	38	8	62	80	44.4
37	Georgia	29	34	42	29	61	50	71	41	74	15	77	50	13	45.1
38	Boston College	25	34	35	25	61	60	44	41	42	38	52	16	139	47.1
39	University of Washington*	54	34	65	54	25	43	19	52	28	47	16	44	139	47.7
40	William & Mary	29	89	17	25	20	68	44	94	46	25	52	68	47	48.0
41	Wake Forest	47	89	48	38	36	68	55	20	74	67	5	62	40	49.9
42	USC	17	89	35	19	36	64	19	61	42	75	113	24	64	50.6
43	Indiana (Maurer)	36	89	42	47	45	68	32	46	36	25	52	18	126	50.9
44	Loyola-L.A.	54	69	65	59	30	60	125	52	51	67	32	10	5	52.2
45	Notre Dame	32	69	17	29	50	68	61	94	60	25	84	46	47	52.5
46	Brooklyn*	32	34	42	38	20	68	131	83	92	47	16	40	47	53.1
47	UNLV	66	34	65	45	50	9	80	41	60	90	2	46	108	53.5
48	San Diego	36	106	21	47	30	68	71	52	22	58	122	18	47	53.7
49	Colorado	47	78	53	54	25	68	15	79	36	58	68	50	80	54.7
49	Texas A&M	68	51	79	47	119	7	32	67	9	58	32	62	80	54.7
51	Miami	54	25	53	54	84	50	39	67	67	25	98	40	68	55.7
51	Wisconsin*	44	59	29	25	36	68	44	67	81	42	90	31	108	55.7
53	Loyola-Chicago*	74	59	57	95	73	43	88	4	74	58	46	50	13	56.5
54	Georgia State	78	19	42	72	50	67	103	1	42	67	122	50	24	56.7
55	SMU	47	51	79	64	36	50	80	29	60	42	104	50	47	56.8
56	Case Western	66	59	57	72	84	68	44	11	60	10	46	119	47	57.2
57	Rutgers*	92	19	57	64	50	68	80	41	81	53	16	68	68	58.2
58	Florida State	47	106	29	29	50	68	19	52	60	75	122	36	74	59.0
59	Tulane*	32	45	74	47	45	43	26	94	60	35	122	50	108	60.1
60	Washington & Lee	36	45	53	45	50	68	80	61	74	42	77	40	126	61.3
61	Utah	54	89	42	72	25	68	12	25	31	35	122	68	166	62.2
62	Alabama	47	51	24	35	50	68	101	67	105	90	90	36	47	62.4
63	Pepperdine Caruso	54	34	53	59	84	2	113	103	88	53	110	29	59	64.7
64	Villanova	68	51	65	64	73	68	101	61	67	84	68	31	47	65.2
65	Iowa	25	59	48	23	61	68	88	67	51	58	110	50	158	66.6
66	Howard	92	34	74	47	45	68	125	103	51	50	52	109	40	68.5
67	Illinois	36	89	29	25	61	43	80	83	51	67	122	68	139	68.7
68	Cardozo	60	83	48	54	25	5	131	118	14	84	122	46	108	69.1
69	Seton Hall	92	89	65	59	68	68	71	11	74	80	122	50	64	70.2
70	Chicago-Kent	92	114	86	72	68	68	103	67	14	90	32	99	9	70.3
71	Suffolk	125	17	140	95	84	26	103	52	31	90	5	119	31	70.6
72	Northeastern*	140	22	86	144	61	68	94	9	36	67	21	91	80	70.7
73	BYU	17	133	48	38	68	50	71	118	74	58	122	31	96	71.1
74	Oregon	60	114	74	80	84	11	9	118	92	67	1	68	166	72.6
75	Syracuse*	100	106	79	95	61	68	80	67	67	90	42	81	15	73.2
76	Pittsburgh*	78	89	65	80	73	68	80	29	51	50	122	31	139	73.5
77	Santa Clara	74	89	107	80	84	68	94	113	4	42	52	74	96	75.2
78	South Carolina	60	25	97	80	73	68	71	79	123	127	122	50	15	76.2
79	Richmond	74	89	35	95	50	68	58	118	31	75	122	50	126	76.2
80	Indiana (McKinney)	92	106	97	87	84	68	103	20	92	67	16	74	108	78.0
81	Tennessee	36	22	57	47	94	68	103	61	117	175	46	81	108	78.1
82	Hofstra	78	89	86	109	73	50	138	83	81	103	42	74	22	79.1
83	Seattle*	92	25	107	95	50	68	61	103	92	75	8	91	166	79.5
84	George Mason	36	133	42	29	94	68	125	135	22	90	122	74	64	79.5
84	Michigan State	68	83	74	64	108	21	94	135	67	67	90	99	64	79.5
86	Drexel	92	51	97	121	94	68	157	29	92	84	25	119	15	80.3
87	Stetson	125	89	107	80	94	18	88	94	130	127	3	91	1	80.5
88	Lewis & Clark	125	51	79	109	73	68	2	135	88	75	16	119	108	80.6
89	St. John's*	87	106	65	64	84	50	131	113	92	90	25	109	37	81.0
90	New Mexico	100	17	86	87	94	68	26	83	130	116	52	90	126	82.7
91	Wayne State	100	69	97	80	73	68	94	46	130	53	122	81	80	84.1
92	Connecticut*	68	89	57	87	73	68	88	79	105	53	90	81	166	84.9
93	Kansas	78	106	65	72	108	26	44	135	105	84	68	91	139	86.2
94	St. Louis	125	69	79	72	94	68	145	1	81	119	68	74	139	87.2
95	Pacific	100	114	120	121	108	34	94	135	130	38	32	119	9	88.8
96	Baltimore	140	6	107	144	68	60	61	103	88	90	77	81	139	89.5
97	Illinois-Chicago	116	78	140	95	149	68	131	118	51	103	25	99	24	92.1
98	Pace	116	106	131	144	94	68	1	94	130	103	122	74	24	92.8
99	Missouri-Kansas City	87	114	120	95	94	68	118	94	105	127	13	119	59	93.3
100	Penn State-Dickinson*	87	78	115	87	108	68	61	52	92	80	122	109	158	93.6

If anyone at a law school outside the Top 100 would like the data for their school's rank, email me.

Continue reading

ETS Reduces GRE From 4 Hours to 2 Hours (LSAT Is 3 Hours)

ETS Press Release, Shortened GRE Test Coming September 2023:

Today, ETS announced that beginning this September, the GRE General Test will take less than 2 hours to complete — roughly half the time of the current test. This makes the GRE General Test the shortest and most efficient test among top professional, business and law school admissions test options. The shorter GRE test will continue to provide test takers and institutions with the same valid and reliable scores they have always counted on from ETS. Registration for the shorter test is now open for test dates beginning September 22, 2023.

Changes to the test include:

Continue reading

Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT To Teach Legal Research And Writing

ABA Journal, Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT to Teach Legal Research and Writing:

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that can speak and write like humans, can be weak on facts. But it may already be a better wordsmith than some attorneys, says David Kemp, an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School.

“If you’re asking it to organize several concepts or are struggling to explain something in a way that’s really understandable, it can help,” says Kemp, who also is the managing editor of Oyez, a multimedia website focused on U.S. Supreme Court opinions.

The technology seems to prefer active voice, as does Kemp. He introduced ChatGPT in an advanced legal writing class and plans to include it in a summer course about emerging technology.

Various law schools are following suit. Legal writing faculty interviewed by the ABA Journal agree that ChatGPT writing can model good sentence and paragraph structure. But some fear that it could detract from students learning good writing skills.

Continue reading

Re-Evaluating GPT-4's Bar Exam Performance

Following up on my previous post, GPT-4 Beats 90% Of Aspiring Lawyers On The Bar Exam:  Eric Martínez (MIT; Google Scholar), Re-Evaluating GPT-4's Bar Exam Performance:

Perhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4's at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam, with its reported 80-percentile-points boost over its predecessor, GPT-3.5, far exceeding that for any other exam. This paper investigates the methodological challenges in documenting and verifying the 90th-percentile claim, presenting four sets of findings that suggest that OpenAI's estimates of GPT-4's UBE percentile, though clearly an impressive leap over those of GPT-3.5, appear to be overinflated, particularly if taken as a “conservative” estimate representing “the lower range of percentiles,” and moreso if meant to reflect the actual capabilities of a practicing lawyer.

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	Stetson
2	4.3	Temple
3	4.2	Baylor
4	3.9	Samford
5	3.8	Loyola-L.A.
6	3.7	Denver
6	3.7	Fordham
6	3.7	UCLA*
9	3.6	Chicago-Kent
9	3.6	Pacific
9	3.6	South Texas*
12	3.5	St. Mary's
13	3.3	Georgia
13	3.3	Loyola-Chicago*
15	3.2	American*
15	3.2	Campbell*
15	3.2	Drexel
15	3.2	Mercer
15	3.2	South Carolina
15	3.2	Syracuse*
15	3.2	UC-Berkeley*
22	3.1	Georgetown*
22	3.1	Hofstra
24	3.0	Akron
24	3.0	Georgia State
24	3.0	Houston
24	3.0	Illinois-Chicago
24	3.0	Pace
24	3.0	UC-San Francisco*
24	3.0	Washington University
31	2.9	Northwestern*
31	2.9	Nova
31	2.9	Quinnipiac*
31	2.9	Suffolk
35	2.8	Emory
35	2.8	Louisiana State
37	2.7	Harvard*
37	2.7	St. John's*
37	2.7	Texas
40	2.6	Catholic
40	2.6	Howard
40	2.6	Inter-American (PR)*
40	2.6	Maryland*
40	2.6	Ohio State
40	2.6	Texas Tech
40	2.6	Wake Forest
47	2.5	Alabama
47	2.5	Brooklyn*
47	2.5	Case Western
47	2.5	George Washington
47	2.5	Notre Dame
47	2.5	Ohio Northern
47	2.5	San Diego
47	2.5	SMU
47	2.5	South Dakota
47	2.5	UC-Davis*
47	2.5	Villanova
47	2.5	William & Mary

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Gorsuch’s Title 42 Statement Is ‘A Remarkable Jeremiad Against Covid Mitigation Policies,’ Law Prof Says
• ABA Journal, Law School Clinics Tackle Challenging Issue of Heirs’ Property Rights
• ABA Journal, Proposal For Bar Exam Bypass Should Be Pursued Further, California Bar Trustees Say
• ABC News, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Tells Law Students 'Survivor' Offers Helpful Lessons
• Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Notre Dame Law Dean G. Marcus Cole Receives 2023 Legal Service Award
• CBS News, A Former Sanitation Worker Just Graduated From Harvard, But Doesn't Forget Where He Came From
• Delaware Law Weekly, Second Delaware Law School Set to Open This Fall
• Good Morning America, From Trials to Triumph: Rehan Staton's Journey From Sanitation Worker to Harvard Law Grad

Continue reading

NY Times: Here’s What Happens When A Lawyer Uses ChatGPT

New York Times, Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT:

The lawsuit began like so many others: A man named Roberto Mata sued the airline Avianca, saying he was injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee during a flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York.

When Avianca asked a Manhattan federal judge to toss out the case, Mr. Mata’s lawyers vehemently objected, submitting a 10-page brief that cited more than half a dozen relevant court decisions. There was Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and, of course, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, with its learned discussion of federal law and “the tolling effect of the automatic stay on a statute of limitations.”

There was just one hitch: No one — not the airline’s lawyers, not even the judge himself — could find the decisions or the quotations cited and summarized in the brief.

That was because ChatGPT had invented everything.

The lawyer who created the brief, Steven A. Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, threw himself on the mercy of the court on Thursday, saying in an affidavit that he had used the artificial intelligence program to do his legal research — “a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.”

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 121 law schools (the faculty survey had a 63% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Oregon
2	4.2	UNLV
3	4.1	Stetson
4	4.0	Arizona State
5	3.9	Suffolk
5	3.9	Wake Forest
7	3.8	Nova
8	3.7	Georgetown*
8	3.7	Michigan*
8	3.7	Seattle*
8	3.7	UC-Irvine*
8	3.7	University of Arizona
13	3.6	Denver
13	3.6	Missouri-Kansas City
13	3.6	North Carolina
16	3.5	Brooklyn*
16	3.5	Indiana (McKinney)
16	3.5	Lewis & Clark
16	3.5	Rutgers*
16	3.5	University of Washington*
21	3.4	Houston
21	3.4	Mercer
21	3.4	Northeastern*
21	3.4	Northwestern*
25	3.3	Drake
25	3.3	Drexel
25	3.3	Illinois-Chicago
25	3.3	St. John's*
25	3.3	Temple
25	3.3	Washburn
25	3.3	Wyoming
32	3.2	Arkansas-Fayetteville
32	3.2	Chicago-Kent
32	3.2	Duquesne
32	3.2	Hawaii
32	3.2	Loyola-L.A.
32	3.2	Marquette
32	3.2	Ohio State
32	3.2	Pacific
32	3.2	Texas A&M
32	3.2	Texas Tech
42	3.1	Elon
42	3.1	Emory
42	3.1	Hofstra
42	3.1	Syracuse*
46	3.0	Case Western
46	3.0	George Washington
46	3.0	Loyola-Chicago*
46	3.0	Tennessee
46	3.0	Virginia*
46	3.0	Willamette

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Duquesne, FIU, Kansas, Oklahoma, And Texas A&M Are Among The Biggest U.S. News Law School Rankings Winners
• Innovation Funding And The Valley Of Death
• Applying Universal Design In The Legal Academy

Sunday:

• More On The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
• NY Times Op-Ed: Pro-Trump Christians, Never-Trump Christians, And Tim Keller
• NY Times: A Christian University Fired Two Employees For Including Pronouns In Their Email Signatures
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Memorial Day:

• Brooks Reviews Cui's Administrative Foundations Of The Chinese Fiscal State
• 17 Universities And Law Schools Have Full Satellite Campuses In Washington, D.C.
• Brunson: Tax Entity Status And Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
• Assessing Heinonline As A Source Of Scholarly Impact Metrics

17 Universities And Law Schools Have Full Satellite Campuses In Washington, D.C.

Inside Higher Ed, A Growing Corps of ‘Capital Campuses’:

Satellite campuses are proliferating and expanding in Washington, D.C. Not only do they enhance the student experience, but they also give institutions access to policy makers and grant-writing organizations. ...

Over 40 U.S. colleges and universities have a physical presence in the nation’s capital, ranging from Johns Hopkins University [555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW]—which lies just an hour north in Baltimore—to Pepperdine University [2011 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW], a small Christian institution across the continent in Malibu, Calif.

According to the D.C.-based real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle, 17 of those institutions have full satellite campuses in D.C., complete with classrooms and dorms as well as office space and conference rooms for meetings with policy makers and researchers. In total, nonlocal colleges and universities own about a million square feet of real estate in the city, a little more than one-third of the total aboveground exhibit space occupied by the Smithsonian museums.

Much of this real estate is used to house or provide meeting spaces for student interns, who flock to the city in droves every semester to gain experience in politics, policy making, research and journalism. But higher ed leaders told Inside Higher Ed that they are increasingly looking to establish or fortify bases for developing relationships with policy makers and grant-writing government offices. ...

Students see major benefits of their institutions establishing satellite campuses in D.C.—especially if they include residential space. For some, living and studying in a community of their peers in D.C. is just as important as getting an internship on Capitol Hill or at a federal agency. ...

Mary Caulfield just finished a “semester abroad” at Pepperdine’s D.C. center, an eight-story building with both residential and class space located on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks from the White House. She had an internship at a magazine but said that having housing resources, night classes and community in one place helped make her experience more comfortable and kept her tied to her institution on the other side of the country.

Continue reading

Assessing Heinonline As A Source Of Scholarly Impact Metrics

Karen L. Wallace (Drake; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lutkenhaus (Drake; Google Scholar) & David B. Hanson (Drake), Assessing Heinonline as a Source of Scholarly Impact Metrics, 114 Law Libr. J. 395 (2022):

After the February 2019 U.S. News & World Report announcement of a planned law school scholarly impact ranking based on HeinOnline data, law schools accelerated efforts to ensure that HeinOnline captured their faculty’s work product and citations to these publications as accurately and completely as possible. In summer 2021, U.S. News abandoned its plans, but the endeavors undertaken by law schools during the two and a half years the proposal was live, reveal much about the scope and accuracy of HeinOnline ScholarCheck metrics, as well as the power U.S. News exerts over law schools. This article notes some of the actions law libraries pursued during that period, specifically detailing an extensive citation analysis project conducted by the Drake Law Library. 

Continue reading

More On The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller

Following up on last Sunday's post, The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller: 

New York Times Op-Ed:  Tim Keller Taught Me About Joy, by David Brooks:

American evangelicalism suffers from an intellectual inferiority complex that sometimes turns into straight anti-intellectualism. But Tim could draw on a vast array of intellectual sources to argue for the existence of God, to draw piercing psychological insights from the troubling parts of Scripture or to help people through moments of suffering. His voice was warm, his observations crystal clear. We all tried to act cool around Tim, but we knew we had a giant in our midst. ...

On the cross, Tim wrote, Jesus was “putting himself into our lives — our misery, our mortality, so we could be brought into his life, his joy and immortality.” He enjoyed repeating the saying “Cheer up! You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope.” ...

His focus was not on politics but on “our own disordered hearts, wracked by inordinate desires for things that control us, that lead us to feel superior and exclude those without them, that fail to satisfy us even when we get them.” ...

He offered a radically different way. He pointed people to Jesus, and through Jesus’ example to a life of self-sacrificial service. That may seem unrealistic; doesn’t the world run on self-interest? But Tim and his wife, Kathy, wrote a wonderful book, “The Meaning of Marriage,” which in effect argued that self-sacrificial love is actually the only practical way to get what you really hunger for.

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  The Many Paradoxes of Timothy J. Keller, by Kate Bachelder Odell:

Ask anyone to name a story from the Bible, and you’ll likely get the answer David and Goliath. Most Americans know it as a tale about facing your fears, steeling yourself and prevailing against long odds. “I’m here to say that’s a shallow understanding, even a deceptive understanding, of how to read the text,” Tim Keller, minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, told his congregation one Sunday morning in 2015.

Keller, who died May 19 at age 72, then indicted what he called “counterfeit courage”—the modern idea that the way to overcome fear is to “visualize success.” Stoicism works only in “short-term bursts, mainly on adrenaline,” and most “of the acts of courage we most admire don’t come from self-assertion and self-confidence.”

Continue reading

NY Times Op-Ed: Pro-Trump Christians, Never-Trump Christians, And Tim Keller

Following up on last Sunday's post, The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller:  New York Times Op-Ed:  What Has Trump Cost American Christianity?, by Ross Douthat:

When religious conservatism made its peace with Donald Trump in 2016, the fundamental calculation was that the benefits of political power — or, alternatively, of keeping cultural liberalism out of full political power — outweighed the costs to Christian credibility inherent in accepting a heathen figure as a political champion and leader.

The contrary calculation, made by the Christian wing of Never Trump, was that accepting Trump required moral compromises that American Christianity would ultimately suffer for, whatever Supreme Court seats or policy victories religious conservatives might gain. ...

[T]he votes of religious conservatives may determine whether we get another Trump nomination in 2024. Figures as various as Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott and Mike Pence are betting that there’s a path to the nomination that involves peeling away religious voters from Trump’s coalition, beginning in Iowa, where evangelical Christians often hold the key to the caucuses. “Has Trump hurt or helped Christianity?” probably isn’t going to be the framing that the non-Trump politicians choose, but some version of that question will hang around the political battle.

Continue reading

NY Times: A Christian University Fired Two Employees For Including Pronouns In Their Email Signatures

New York Times, A University Fired 2 Employees for Including Their Pronouns in Emails:

When Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot decided to include their pronouns at the end of their work emails, they thought they were doing a good thing: following what they viewed as an emerging professional standard, and also sending a message of inclusivity at the Christian university where they worked.

But their bosses at Houghton University, in upstate New York, saw the matter very differently.

Administrators at Houghton, which was founded and is now owned by a conservative denomination that branched off from the Methodist Church, asked Ms. Zelaya and Mr. Wilmot, two residence hall directors, to remove the words “she/her” and “he/him” from their email signatures, saying they violated a new policy. When they refused to do so, both employees were fired, just weeks before the end of the semester.

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. Law.com, Tenured Law Professor Pulled From His Classroom Faces Termination. He Wants To Know Why?
2. Derek Muller (Iowa), How Law Faculty Succeeded In Diminishing Their Importance In The U.S. News Rankings
3. Markus Funk (Colorado), Andrew Boutros (Chicago) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), Time For Law Schools To Rethink Unsung Role Of Adjuncts
4. Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati), What Law Schools Must Change To Train Transactional Lawyers
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions
6. Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (Jay Mitchell, Alabama Supreme Court), The New Bar Exam Puts DEI Over Competence
7. Donald Tobin (Maryland), A Preliminary Analysis of the New 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings
8. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Projected 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings: The Biggest Winners And Losers
9. Prentiss Cox (Minnesota), 1L Curricula in the United States: 2023 Data and Historical Comparison
10. U.S. News & World Report 2024 Specialty Rankings:

• Dispute Resolution Rankings
• Environmental Law Rankings
• Health Care Law Rankings
• Intellectual Property Law Rankings
• International Law Rankings

Tax:

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: On Time Is Late
2. The Legal Watchdog, How The Accounting Profession Wrecked Itself And Made A Legal Career Preferable To A CPA
3. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Allocating Between Excludable Child Support and Includable Interest
4. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan) & Yoseph Edrey (Haifa University), Constitutional Review Of Federal Tax Legislation
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Exclusion Rules For Disability Payments
6. U.S. News & World Report, 2024 Tax Rankings
7. San Diego Conference, Tax Profs Tenured 1-15 Years 
8. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
9. Sloan Speck (Colorado), Review Of A Critical Evaluation Of The Qualified Small Business Stock Exclusion, By Gregg Polsky (Georgia) & Ethan Yale (Virginia)
10. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

Faith: 

1. The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
2. Tim Keller: Growing My Faith In The Face Of Death

Duquesne, FIU, Kansas, Oklahoma, And Texas A&M Are Among The Biggest U.S. News Law School Rankings Winners

Following up on my previous post, The Law Schools Most Impacted By The Methodology Changes In The 2024 U.S. News Rankings:  Law.com, Ahead of the Curve: Some Law Schools Are Happy About the US News Rankings:

In last week’s column, I questioned whether the 63 schools that boycotted the Best Law Schools list, along with the massive amount of unflattering press those moves garnered for U.S. News, would put a dent in the rankings’ reputation.

This week, though, I want to look at some of the institutions that performed particularly well in the rankings, which were finally released on May 11, and show that not every law school is unhappy with U.S. News.

Texas A&M University School of Law, for example, now ranks 29th nationally—tied with Boston College Law School and Fordham Law School—one of the fastest and furthest increases in U.S. News law school rankings history, according to an announcement put out by the school. The school rose 17 spots from No. 46 last year. The previous year, it had been tied for No. 53.

This year, 15 law schools increased by 20 or more spots as compared to last year’s rankings. and among the top 50, the University of Kansas School of Law rose to tied at 40th up from tied at 67th last year.

Continue reading

Applying Universal Design In The Legal Academy

Matthew L. Timko (Northern Illinois), Applying Universal Design in the Legal Academy, 114 Law Libr. J. 343 (2022):

Too often barriers to access in the form of physical, technological, and cognitive environments play a large role in keeping many people out of law school. While federal and state laws address these barriers, universal design provides the clearest policy change for law schools to remedy these issues.

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• 2024 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News International Law Rankings
• Prentiss Cox (Minnesota), 1L Curricula in the United States: 2023 Data and Historical Comparison
• Daniel Judge (Notre Dame), Catholic Legal Education and the Formation of Conscience
• Law360 Op-Ed (Markus Funk (Partner, Perkins Coie; Adjunct Professor, Colorado), Andrew Boutros (Dechert; Lecturer, Chicago) & Eugene Volokh (Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA)), Time For Law Schools To Rethink Unsung Role Of Adjuncts
• Law.com, Ohio Northern U Is Seeking the Dismissal of a Tenured Law Professor. He Alleges It's Because of His Views on DEI

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News International Law Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 174 law schools (the faculty survey had a 53% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.6	NYU*
2	4.4	Columbia*
3	4.3	Harvard*
3	4.3	Yale*
5	4.2	American*
5	4.2	Georgetown*
7	4.1	George Washington
7	4.1	UC-Berkeley*
9	4.0	Chicago
10	3.9	Case Western
10	3.9	Michigan*
10	3.9	Stanford*
10	3.9	Temple
10	3.9	Virginia*
15	3.8	Cornell*
15	3.8	Georgia
15	3.8	UCLA*
18	3.6	Duke*
18	3.6	Fordham
18	3.6	Northwestern*
18	3.6	Penn*
18	3.6	Vanderbilt*
23	3.5	Minnesota
23	3.5	UC-Davis*
25	3.4	Arizona State
25	3.4	Boston University
25	3.4	Indiana (Maurer)
25	3.4	Miami
25	3.4	Notre Dame
25	3.4	Texas
25	3.4	UC-Irvine*
25	3.4	UC-San Francisco*
25	3.4	Washington University
25	3.4	William & Mary
35	3.3	Denver
35	3.3	Tulane*
35	3.3	Utah
38	3.2	Boston College
38	3.2	Emory
38	3.2	Pacific
38	3.2	University of Arizona
42	3.1	Florida Int'l
42	3.1	Santa Clara
42	3.1	SMU
42	3.1	Washington & Lee
42	3.1	Wisconsin*
47	3.0	Brooklyn*
47	3.0	Maryland*
47	3.0	University of Washington*
50	2.9	Hawaii
50	2.9	Howard
50	2.9	Pittsburgh*

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News International Law Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

NCBE Publishes Content Scope For NextGen Bar Exam

NCBE Publishes Content Scope for NextGen Bar Exam:

The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), which develops bar exam content for 54 US jurisdictions, has published the content scope for the NextGen bar exam, which is set to launch in 2026. The content scope document outlines the breadth of material to be covered on the new exam in eight areas of legal knowledge and seven categories of practical skills and abilities.

The publication of the content scope marks the latest milestone in the development of the new bar exam, which will be focused on testing a wider array of foundational lawyering skills in the context of substantive legal knowledge currently tested on the bar exam. In addition to traditional multiple-choice questions and longer written analyses, the exam is expected to include new integrated sets of questions—combinations of short-answer and multiple-choice questions in scenarios involving complex legal issues, drawn from multiple subject areas, that require applicants to demonstrate both in-depth knowledge of the law and skill in a range of essential attorney functions. ...

Continue reading

GPT-4’s Law School Grades: Con Law C, Crim C-, Law & Econ C, Partnership Tax B, Property B-, Tax B

Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland; Google Scholar), Anne-Marie Carstens (Maryland), Daniel S. Goldberg (Maryland), Mark Graber (Maryland), David C. Gray (Maryland) & Maxwell L. Stearns (Maryland; Google Scholar), GPT-4’s Law School Grades: Con Law C, Crim C-, Law & Econ C, Partnership Tax B, Property B-, Tax B:

GPT-4 performs vastly better than ChatGPT or GPT-3.5 on legal tasks like the bar exam and statutory reasoning. To test GPT-4’s abilities, we ran it on our final exams this semester and graded its output alongside students’ exams. We found that it produced smoothly written answers that failed to spot many important issues, much like a bright student who had neither attended class often, nor thought deeply about the material. It uniformly performed below average—in every course. We provide observations that may help law professors detect students who cheat on exams using GPT-4.

Continue reading

Tenured Law Professor Pulled From His Classroom Faces Termination. He Wants To Know Why?

Following up on my previous post, WSJ Op-Ed: DEI Brings Kafka To My Law School:  Law.com, Ohio Northern U Is Seeking the Dismissal of a Tenured Law Professor. He Alleges It's Because of His Views on DEI.:

Scott Gerber, a law professor at the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law, was pulled from his classroom last month, banned from campus and allegedly forced to sign a separation agreement—and he says he doesn’t know why. Now the school is seeking his dismissal.

“Ohio Northern University is trying to banish me for lack of ‘collegiality’ but won’t say what I’ve done,” Gerber wrote in an op-ed published on May 9 in the Wall Street Journal.

Gerber, who has taught at ONU Law since 2001, said he suspects the school’s investigation into him is related to his public opinions regarding the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, he said in the op-ed piece. ...

“We are following our faculty-driven process for the dismissal of a tenured faculty member for cause,” Dave Kielmeyer, executive director of communications and marketing at the school, told Law.com in an email Wednesday.

Continue reading

SSRN Tax Professor Rankings

SSRN has updated its monthly ranking of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database.  Here is the new list (through May 1, 2023) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months):

		All-Time			Recent
1	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	220,463	1	Jonathan Choi (Minnesota)	13,150
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	129,887	2	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	11,859
3	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	126,539	3	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	10,601
4	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	126,365	4	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	9,666
5	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	124,060	5	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,465
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	117,196	6	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,090
7	David Kamin (NYU)	113,586	7	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,333
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	107,956	8	Margaret Ryznar (Indiana-McKinney)	3,073
9	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-San Francisco)	104,514	9	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,034
10	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	103,801	10	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,014
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	103,614	11	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	2,892
12	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	50,137	12	Kyle Rozema (Washington University)	2,870
13	Michael Simkovic (USC)	47,611	13	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	2,545
14	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	40,941	14	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	2,544
15	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	39,839	15	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	2,441
16	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	37,513	16	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	2,427
17	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	35,907	17	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	2,266
18	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	31,977	18	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	2,260
19	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	30,229	19	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	2,065
20	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	29,751	20	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	2,044
21	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	29,608	21	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	2,017
22	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	29,359	22	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	1,887
23	Jim Hines (Michigan)	27,844	23	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	1,780
24	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	27,059	24	Victoria Haneman (Creighton)	1,727
25	Katie Pratt (Loyola-L.A.)	26,221	25	David Kamin (NYU)	1,670

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 57% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	Stanford*
1	4.8	UC-Berkeley*
3	4.4	NYU*
4	4.1	George Washington
4	4.1	Santa Clara
6	3.8	Houston
7	3.7	American*
7	3.7	Georgetown*
9	3.6	Boston University
9	3.6	Duke*
9	3.6	Texas A&M
9	3.6	UC-Irvine*
9	3.6	UCLA*
14	3.5	Cardozo
14	3.5	Chicago-Kent
14	3.5	Michigan*
14	3.5	Penn*
18	3.4	Texas
19	3.3	Columbia*
19	3.3	Harvard*
19	3.3	New Hampshire*
22	3.2	Fordham
22	3.2	George Mason
22	3.2	Northwestern*
22	3.2	San Diego
22	3.2	UC-Davis*
22	3.2	Virginia*
28	3.1	Cornell*
28	3.1	University of Washington*
28	3.1	Vanderbilt*
31	3.0	Emory
31	3.0	Richmond
31	3.0	Suffolk
31	3.0	UC-San Francisco*
31	3.0	Utah
36	2.9	Chicago
36	2.9	Colorado
36	2.9	DePaul
36	2.9	Indiana (Maurer)
36	2.9	Northeastern*
36	2.9	Washington University
42	2.8	Boston College
42	2.8	Georgia State
42	2.8	Minnesota
42	2.8	USC
46	2.7	Arizona State
46	2.7	Maryland*
46	2.7	Temple
46	2.7	William & Mary
46	2.7	Yale*

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

1L Curricula In The United States: 2023 Data And Historical Comparison

Prentiss Cox (Minnesota; Google Scholar), 1L Curricula in the United States: 2023 Data and Historical Comparison:

This article reports on a survey of the first year (1L) curricula at U. S. law schools. We were able to obtain data on the 1L course requirements, including credits for each course, at 191 of 196 ABA-accredited law schools. We compared this data to six other surveys of 1L curricula from 1919 to 2010. Important findings include the following: [1] credits for four almost universally required “Big 4” 1L courses (contracts, torts, property and civil procedure) continue a fifty year decline; [2] credits for legal research and writing continue to increase, so that legal writing is now the highest- credit course across 1L curricula 

Continue reading

Tax Papers At Junior Faculty Forum At Richmond

Tax presentations at this week's Junior Faculty Forum at Richmond (program):

Assaf Harpaz (Drexel; Google Scholar), International Tax Reform: Challenges to Multilateral Cooperation, 44 U. Pa. J. Int'l L. __ (2023):

In 2021, the OECD proposed new rules for the cross-border taxation of multinational corporations. The proposed rules set forth the most significant reform to international tax rules in several decades. They follow approximately a decade of multilateral negotiation led by the OECD and drafted by a broader Inclusive Framework of over 140 countries. The goal of this Article is to highlight the importance of multilateral cooperation and illuminate the obstacles to implementing international tax reform. It argues that the new international tax framework requires unprecedented multilateral cooperation to reallocate taxing rights and limit profit shifting. But such ambitious cooperation may be more than countries can accomplish. The new rules are largely an outcome of political compromises rather than a principled approach to tax policy. They infringe on tax sovereignty, limit tax competition, and undermine the economic interests of the world’s developing countries.

Continue reading

WSJ Op-Ed: The New NextGen Bar Exam Puts DEI Over Competence

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  The New Bar Exam Puts DEI Over Competence, by Jay Mitchell (Justice, Alabama Supreme Court):

The bar exam is about to get a nationwide overhaul. The National Conference of Bar Examiners, or NCBE, which creates and administers the uniform bar exam, plans to roll out a revamped version of the bar exam, which it calls the “NextGen” exam, in 2026. After attending the NCBE’s annual meeting this month, I have serious concerns about how this test will affect law students, law schools and the legal profession. ...

[P]erhaps the biggest concern is the NCBE’s use of the NextGen exam to advance its “diversity, fairness and inclusion” agenda. Two of the organization’s stated aims are to “work toward greater equity” by “eliminat[ing] any aspects of our exams that could contribute to performance disparities” and to “promote greater diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.” The NCBE reinforces this message by touting its “organization-wide efforts to ensure that diversity, fairness, and inclusion pervade its test products and services.”

What does all this mean—and how does it have any relation to the law? Based on the diversity workshop at the NCBE conference, it means putting considerable emphasis on examinees’ race, sex, gender identity, nationality and other identity-based characteristics. The idea seems to be that any differences in group outcomes must be eliminated—even if the only way to achieve this goal is to water down the test. On top of all that, an American Civil Liberties Union representative provided conference attendees with a lecture on criminal-justice reform in which he argued that states should minimize or overlook would-be lawyers’ convictions for various criminal offenses in deciding whether to admit them to the bar.

None of this is encouraging. It shouldn’t matter who you are or where you come from—if you can demonstrate minimal competency on the bar exam and meet a state’s character-and-fitness requirements, you should be allowed to practice law. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be given a license to handle the legal affairs of others. The bar exam should test the law straight—without respect to ideology and on a race- and sex-blind basis.

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 189 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Boston University
1	4.3	Georgia State
1	4.3	St. Louis
4	4.1	Loyola-Chicago*
5	4.0	Stanford*
6	3.9	Georgetown*
6	3.9	Harvard*
6	3.9	Maryland*
9	3.8	Houston
9	3.8	Northeastern*
11	3.7	Case Western
11	3.7	Seton Hall
11	3.7	UC-San Francisco*
14	3.6	Arizona State
15	3.5	Ohio State
15	3.5	Yale*
17	3.3	Michigan*
17	3.3	Temple
19	3.2	UCLA*
20	3.1	American*
20	3.1	George Washington
20	3.1	Indiana (McKinney)
20	3.1	Penn*
20	3.1	Wake Forest
25	3.0	Utah
26	2.9	Minnesota
26	2.9	Mitchell | Hamline*
26	2.9	Washington University
29	2.8	Drexel
29	2.8	Duke*
29	2.8	Emory
29	2.8	Pittsburgh*
29	2.8	SMU
29	2.8	University of Arizona
35	2.7	DePaul
35	2.7	North Carolina
35	2.7	Nova
35	2.7	UC-Irvine*
39	2.6	UC-Berkeley*
39	2.6	UC-Davis*
41	2.5	Boston College
41	2.5	Georgia
41	2.5	Northwestern*
41	2.5	Rutgers*
41	2.5	UNLV
46	2.4	Florida
46	2.4	Indiana (Maurer)
46	2.4	Texas
46	2.4	Vanderbilt*
46	2.4	Virginia*
46	2.4	Wayne State

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

What Law Schools Must Change To Train Transactional Lawyers

Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati), What Law Schools Must Change to Train Transactional Lawyers, 43 Pace L. Rev. 106 (2022):

Not all lawyers litigate, but you would not know that from the first-year curriculum at most law schools. Despite 50% of lawyers working in transactional practices, schools do not incorporate its legal doctrines or skills in the foundational first year. That the Progressives pushed through antitrust laws and the New Dealers founded the modern administrative state reframed how people use the law, particularly in transactional practices, and should be given equal weight as the appellate-based common law in any legal introduction. Nevertheless, the law school model created by Christopher Columbus Langdell in the 1870s remains dominant. As this review of fifty-four law schools’ required curricula shows, law schools have largely retained Langdell’s curriculum. This negatively affects young transactional lawyers because their critical first year does not show them the law as a preventative, problem-solving practice. 

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.6	Pace
2	4.5	Lewis & Clark
3	4.4	UC-Berkeley*
4	4.3	NYU*
4	4.3	UCLA*
4	4.3	Vermont
7	4.1	Columbia*
7	4.1	Vanderbilt*
9	4.0	Harvard*
9	4.0	Oregon
9	4.0	Stanford*
12	3.9	George Washington
12	3.9	Georgetown*
12	3.9	Utah
15	3.8	Colorado
15	3.8	Duke*
17	3.7	UC-Davis*
18	3.6	UC-San Francisco*
19	3.5	Arizona State
19	3.5	Denver
19	3.5	Florida
19	3.5	Florida State
19	3.5	Maryland*
19	3.5	University of Washington*
19	3.5	USC
26	3.4	Hawaii
26	3.4	Houston
26	3.4	New Mexico
26	3.4	Tulane*
26	3.4	Virginia*
26	3.4	Yale*
32	3.3	Indiana (Maurer)
32	3.3	Minnesota
32	3.3	North Carolina
32	3.3	Texas A&M
32	3.3	UC-Irvine*
37	3.2	Michigan*
37	3.2	Montana
39	3.1	Miami
39	3.1	Texas
39	3.1	University of Arizona
42	3.0	Ohio State
42	3.0	Penn*
44	2.9	American*
44	2.9	Boston College
44	2.9	Case Western
44	2.9	CUNY
44	2.9	Kansas
44	2.9	Loyola-New Orleans*
44	2.9	Northwestern*
44	2.9	Widener (DE)
44	2.9	William & Mary
44	2.9	Wisconsin*
44	2.9	Wyoming

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

Law School Entry-Level Faculty Hiring Is Flat; FAR Applicants Are Down 17% (68% From 2011)

Sarah Lawsky (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Lawsky Entry Level Hiring Report 2023:

Continue reading

Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Breyer Shares Views On Treatment Of Female Classmates At Harvard During Law School Talk
• ABA Journal, Gender, Race And Finances For Law School Admittees Examined In New Report
• ABA Journal, Law School Introduces Hologram Witnesses In Mock Trial
• ABA Journal, Law Schools Should Take On Students’ Mental Health And Substance Use From Day One
• ABA  Journal, Program Rolls Out Next Generation Of Civil Rights Attorneys
• ABA Journal, Retired State Supreme Court Justice Tapped To Lead Law School
• BC Law, Law Student Runs for Mayor
• Concord Monitor, UNH Law School Said ‘No Thanks’ to US News Rankings but the Magazine Ranked Them Anyway

Continue reading

How The Accounting Profession Wrecked Itself And Made A Legal Career Preferable To A CPA

The Legal Watchdog, Accounting: How to Wreck (and Rescue) a Profession:

In my earlier life, becoming a CPA was, in a sense, easy.  To be sure, the two-day exam itself was very tough.  Unlike state bar exams which sometimes have an 80% first-time pass rate, the November 1996 CPA exam, for example, had a 17% pass rate for first-time test takers.  But the process of becoming a CPA was very simple.  Just get a B.S. or B.B.A. in accounting, sign up for and pass the CPA exam, and then wait for your certificate to arrive in the U.S. mail. ...

Today, there are many articles about the declining number of CPAs and, especially, of accounting majors in the CPA pipeline.  The latest such article is here, in today’s WSJ (subscription required).  That article’s title indicates its proposed solution to the problem: How can we make accounting cool?  And there are many articles like this one, angsting about how to replenish the numbers within the profession.  But I doubt people are now avoiding accounting because it’s un-cool.  It has always been un-cool (which, in some circles, can be cool).

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings include the dispute resolution programs at 67 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	Harvard*
2	4.4	Ohio State
2	4.4	Pepperdine Caruso
4	4.3	Missouri (Columbia)
5	4.2	Cardozo
5	4.2	Mitchell | Hamline*
7	4.0	Northwestern*
7	4.0	Texas A&M
9	3.9	Maryland*
9	3.9	UNLV
11	3.8	Oregon
11	3.8	Stanford*
11	3.8	UC-San Francisco*
14	3.7	Arizona State
15	3.6	Fordham
16	3.5	Creighton*
16	3.5	Texas
18	3.4	Florida
18	3.4	Stetson
18	3.4	Washington University
21	3.3	Georgetown*
21	3.3	Michigan State
21	3.3	Quinnipiac*
21	3.3	South Texas*
21	3.3	Virginia*
26	3.2	Columbia*
26	3.2	Kansas
26	3.2	Suffolk
29	3.1	Cornell*
29	3.1	NYU*
29	3.1	UC-Berkeley*
32	3.0	Marquette
32	3.0	UC-Davis*
34	2.9	Duke*
34	2.9	George Washington
34	2.9	Michigan*
34	2.9	Pacific
34	2.9	Penn*
34	2.9	UCLA*
34	2.9	University of Arizona
34	2.9	Vanderbilt*
34	2.9	Yale*
43	2.8	Denver
43	2.8	Illinois
43	2.8	Loyola-Chicago*
43	2.8	Nebraska*
43	2.8	Tulane*
43	2.8	UC-Irvine*
43	2.8	University of Washington*
50	2.7	Arkansas-Little Rock
50	2.7	BYU
50	2.7	Emory
50	2.7	Georgia
50	2.7	Hofstra
50	2.7	Miami
50	2.7	SMU
50	2.7	Southwestern*
50	2.7	St. John's*
50	2.7	Texas Tech

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

Law School Rankings: The Good News, The Bad News And The Ultimate Proof That It Is Flawed

National Law Journal Op-Ed:  Law School Rankings: The Good News, the Bad News and the Ultimate Proof That It Is Flawed, by Alan B. Morrison (Associate Dean, George Washington):

Finally, after two false starts, the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are out, and one clear positive is that the authors have now told us more clearly what counts and for how much. The newest version has some sensible changes, as well as some problematic elements, but the bottom line is that the dramatic shifts in methodology for the overall rankings prove beyond a doubt that the premise of the endeavor—that these are objective measures—is fatally flawed. ...

These huge changes [in methodology] —in one year—are neither right nor wrong. What they show is how subjective the rankings are. In other words, they are entirely dependent on the personal whims of the U.S. News staff, who are not practicing lawyers, law professors, or law students. This arbitrariness applies not simply to the categories—why are these and only these categories relevant—but why are these the right percentages? The accompanying press release advises students that the rankings are only “one consideration” among many, including cost. But the overall message that the rankings convey is that students should go to the highest-ranked school because one size fits all—why else would they pick the title “Best Law Schools.”

Continue reading

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Muller: How Law Faculty Succeeded In Diminishing Their Importance In The U.S. News Rankings
• The Borrower's Dilemma And A Tax-Based Solution To The Student Debt Problem
• It's Time For Law Schools To Rethink The Role Of Adjunct Faculty

Sunday:

• The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
• WSJ Book Review: Martin Luther King, Christian Radical
• Catholic Education And The Formation Of Conscience
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller

Update:

• Pro-Trump Christians, Never-Trump Christians, And Tim Keller (May 28, 2023)
• More On The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller (May 28, 2023)

• The Atlantic, Tim Keller’s Critique of Liberal Secularism
• Christianity Today, Died: Tim Keller, New York City Pastor Who Modeled Winsome Witness
• Christianity Today, Tim Keller Practiced the Grace He Preached
• Digital Liturgies, He Made Me Want to Be More Like Jesus
• The Federalist, Gospel Giant Tim Keller Leaves A Profound Legacy Worthy Of High Praise And Fair Critique
• New York Times, The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72
• The New Yorker, The Far-Seeing Faith of Tim Keller

The Atlantic:  Growing My Faith in the Face of Death, by Tim Keller (Founding Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City):

I have spent a good part of my life talking with people about the role of faith in the face of imminent death. Since I became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1975, I have sat at countless bedsides, and occasionally even watched someone take their final breath. I recently wrote a small book, On Death, relating a lot of what I say to people in such times. But when, a little more than a month after that book was published, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was still caught unprepared. ...

My wife, Kathy, and I spent much time in tears and disbelief. We were both turning 70, but felt strong, clear-minded, and capable of nearly all the things we have done for the past 50 years. “I thought we’d feel a lot older when we got to this age,” Kathy said. We had plenty of plans and lots of comforts, especially our children and grandchildren. We expected some illness to come and take us when we felt really old. But not now, not yet. This couldn’t be; what was God doing to us? The Bible, and especially the Psalms, gave voice to our feelings: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” “Wake up, O Lord. Why are you sleeping?” “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”

A significant number of believers in God find their faith shaken or destroyed when they learn that they will die at a time and in a way that seems unfair to them. Before my diagnosis, I had seen this in people of many faiths. One woman with cancer told me years ago, “I’m not a believer anymore—that doesn’t work for me. I can’t believe in a personal God who would do something like this to me.” Cancer killed her God.

What would happen to me? I felt like a surgeon who was suddenly on the operating table. Would I be able to take my own advice?

Continue reading

WSJ Book Review: Martin Luther King, Christian Radical

Wall Street Journal, Martin Luther King, Christian Radical, by Jonathan Eig (Author, King: A Life (2023)):

Today, almost 1,000 cities and towns in the U.S. have streets named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., and more than 100 public schools bear his name. In Washington, D.C., a 30-foot-tall MLK memorial stands within sight of the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. And each year, in January, we celebrate Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday.

But in hallowing King we have hollowed out his legacy. We remember his dream of unity and justice without deeper consideration of the radical Christianity upon which that dream was built. King’s Christianity presents a challenge to liberals, who are often uncomfortable with religion in the public square, as well as to conservatives, who are more likely to embrace religion in politics but don’t align themselves with the implications of many of King’s core beliefs.

The popular version of King’s life story holds that he grew more radical in his later years—more like Malcolm X, more antagonistic to the American government in general and to materialism and militarism in particular. But that’s an oversimplification that leads us to downplay his most challenging ideas.

King adhered to the same Christian beliefs all of his adult life, views shaped by his upbringing in the Black Baptist church and the violently racist American South. If many Americans failed to notice King’s early radicalism, it was probably because they didn’t wish to see it, or were distracted by his readiness to engage respectfully with political opponents, or because his battle against Southern segregationists presented, to many observers, a clear-cut struggle between good and evil.

Continue reading

Catholic Legal Education And The Formation Of Conscience

Daniel T. Judge (Notre Dame), Catholic Education and the Formation of Conscience, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. Reflection 248 (2021):

Before all else, Catholic schools are “a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. This relationship elicits a desire to grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ and his teaching.” Accordingly, Catholic schools are called to assist in the formation and development of their students’ moral conscience. This, in turn, necessitates an inclusive environment; one that emphasizes human dignity in all its forms.

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. ABA Journal, ABA Pauses Move To Eliminate LSAT Requirement For Admission To Law School
2. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Projected 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings: The Biggest Winners And Losers
3. Donald Tobin (Maryland), A Preliminary Analysis of the New 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2024 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)
5. ABA Journal, ABA Increases Law School Online Course Cap From 33% To 50%
6. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), More Commentary On The 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings
7. Stephen Embry (TechLaw Crossroads), Should ChatGPT Be In Law School?
8. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Law Schools Most Impacted By The Methodology Changes In The 2024 U.S. News Rankings
9. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Impact Of The U.S. News Law School Rankings Boycott On Peer Reputation
10. U.S. News & World Report Specialty Rankings:

• Business/Corporate Law Rankings
• Clinical Training Rankings
• Constitutional Law Rankings
• Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings
• Criminal Law Rankings

Tax:

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Allocating Between Excludable Child Support and Includable Interest
2. Wall Street Journal, IRS Weighs Creating A Government-Run Tax-Prep Option; Americans Don't Want It
3. U.S. News & World Report, 2024 Tax Rankings
4. NYU Law News, Over 50+ Years, The NYU Tax VAP Program Has Launched Dozens Of Tax Prof Careers
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Exclusion Rules For Disability Payments
6. Jay Soled (Rutgers) & Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina), AI, Taxation, and Valuation
7. Ruth Mason (Virginia), Legal Problems With Digital Taxes In The United States And Europe
8. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
9. Blaine Saito (Northeastern), Review Of Automated Agencies, By Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina)
10. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

Faith: 

1. Tim Keller: Growing My Faith In The Face Of Death

Muller: How Law Faculty Succeeded In Diminishing Their Importance In The U.S. News Rankings

Derek Muller (Iowa; Google Scholar), Law School Faculty Have Aggressively and Successfully Lobbied to Diminish the Importance of Law School Faculty in the USNWR Rankings:

In many contexts, there is a concern of “regulatory capture,” the notion that the regulated industry will lobby the regulator and ensure that the regulator sets forth rules most beneficial to the interests of the regulated industry.

In the context of the USNWR law rankings, the exact opposite has happened when it comes to the interests of law school faculty. Whether it has been intentional or inadvertent it hard to say.

It is in the self-interest of law school faculty to ensure that the USNWR law school rankings maximize the importance and influence of law school faculty. The more that faculty matter in the rankings, the better life is for law faculty—higher compensation, more competition for faculty, more hiring, more recognition for work, more earmarking for fundraising, the list goes on.

But in the last few years, law school faculty (sometimes administrators, sometimes not) have pressed for three specific rules that affirmatively diminish the importance of law faculty in the rankings.

Continue reading

It's Time For Law Schools To Rethink The Role Of Adjunct Faculty

Law360 Op-Ed:  Time For Law Schools To Rethink Unsung Role Of Adjuncts, by T. Markus Funk (Partner, Perkins Coie; Adjunct Professor, Colorado), Andrew S. Boutros (Dechert; Lecturer, Chicago) & Eugene Volokh (Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA):

Like clockwork, every August and December thousands of practicing lawyers ready themselves for the fall or spring classes they will be teaching at any one of the country's 199 American Bar Association-approved law schools.

Whether in their first or 30th year of teaching, and regardless of whether they do so at a national, regional, or local law school, these dedicated professionals volunteer to return to the classroom to share their insights, expertise and real-world experiences with the next generation of lawyer leaders.

The adjuncts' presence on campus is largely accepted as a given. Notwithstanding that, surprisingly little thought, scholarly or otherwise, has been given to: (1) what motivates them to take on these positions with little to no remuneration, (2) the exceptional positive economic impact this team of short-term instructors has on their institutions, (3) what makes for a positive adjunct experience, and (4) how institutions can more fully integrate adjuncts into the law school community with the attendant benefits to both from doing so.

In short, we live in a world where virtually every aspect of the contemporary law school experience is meticulously recorded and analyzed. Yet little to nothing has been written about adjuncts and the important — indeed, as the numbers might suggest, even business-sustaining — role that this sometimes almost invisible group plays at today's law schools.

Our institutions of legal learning have this summer to prepare for the fall 2023 semester. We, therefore, believe there is no better time to take a clear-eyed look at the adjuncts' role in today's law schools.

Following our more macro analysis, we propose 16 concrete actions law school administrators should consider taking to improve the adjuncts' teaching experience, overall happiness and feeling of belonging.

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• 2024 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings
• 2024 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings
• ABA, Winners Of The 22nd Annual Law Student Tax Challenge
• ABA Journal, Law schools should take on students' mental health and substance use from day one
• AccessLex Institute, 2023 Legal Education Data Deck
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine),  ABA Pauses Move To Eliminate LSAT Requirement For Admission To Law School
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), More Commentary On The 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings
• Natalie Fortner (J.D. 2023, Arkansas), Comment, Mental Health, Law School, and Bar Admissions: Eliminating Stigma and Fostering a Healthier Profession

Continue reading

2024 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

The new 2024 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 46% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	NYU*
2	4.2	Harvard*
2	4.2	Stanford*
4	4.1	Columbia*
4	4.1	Duke*
4	4.1	Georgetown*
7	3.9	Chicago
7	3.9	Penn*
7	3.9	UC-Berkeley*
7	3.9	Vanderbilt*
7	3.9	Virginia*
12	3.8	Michigan*
12	3.8	UCLA*
12	3.8	Yale*
15	3.7	Northwestern*
15	3.7	Ohio State
17	3.6	Fordham
17	3.6	North Carolina
17	3.6	UC-Davis*
20	3.5	Brooklyn*
20	3.5	William & Mary
22	3.4	Cornell*
22	3.4	Texas
22	3.4	Washington University
25	3.3	Cardozo
25	3.3	Colorado
25	3.3	UC-Irvine*
25	3.3	University of Washington*
25	3.3	Utah
30	3.2	American*
30	3.2	Denver
30	3.2	George Washington
30	3.2	Loyola-L.A.
30	3.2	Minnesota
30	3.2	San Diego
36	3.1	Arizona State
36	3.1	Boston University
36	3.1	Emory
36	3.1	Maryland*
36	3.1	SMU
36	3.1	UC-San Francisco*
36	3.1	USC
36	3.1	Wake Forest
36	3.1	Wisconsin*
45	3.0	Florida
45	3.0	Howard
45	3.0	Indiana (Maurer)
45	3.0	Tulane*
45	3.0	University of Arizona
50	2.9	Alabama
50	2.9	CUNY
50	2.9	Florida State
50	2.9	Georgia State
50	2.9	Houston
50	2.9	Notre Dame
50	2.9	Richmond
50	2.9	Rutgers*
50	2.9	Seattle*
50	2.9	UNLV
50	2.9	Washington & Lee

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

Winners Of The 22nd Annual Law Student Tax Challenge

ABA Tax Section, Winners Of The 22nd Annual Law Student Tax Challenge:

J.D. Division 

1st Place: 

Tracy Costanzo and Amanda Hepinger
Syracuse University College of Law

2nd Place and Best Written: 

Ivan Rudd and Isaac Fuhrman Borgman
University of Miami School of Law

3rd Place: 

Justin Sung and Judd Baguioro 
University of California College of the Law, San Francisco

Continue reading

Putting The Bar Exam On Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, And The Public Good

Scott Johns (Denver), Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good, 45 Seattle U. L. Rev. 853 (2022): 

Nothing to see here. Season in and season out, bar examiners, experts, supreme courts, and bar associations seem nonplussed, trapped by what they see as the facts, namely, that the bar exam has no possible weaknesses, at least when it comes to alternative licensure mechanisms, that the bar exam is not to blame for disparate racial impacts that spring from administration of this ritualistic process, and that there are no viable alternatives in the harsh cold world of determining minimal competency for the noble purpose of protecting the public from legal harms. All a lie, of course.

But rather than challenging our assumptions, state bar associations and bar examiners keep going as business as usual. We might even say that it’s just the cost of doing business. Yes, some bar applicants will pay the price, they admit, by not passing bar exams, but protecting the public good demands that we be demanding, that we not yield to temptation to soften our approach. We can never be too cautious when it comes to protecting the public. After all, the public good is at risk. Or is it?

Continue reading