Howard Law School, Race, And Peer Rankings: The Increasing Correlation Between Racial Salience And Preferential Rankings

Michael Conklin (Angelo State; Google Scholar), Howard Law School, Race, and Peer Rankings: The Increasing Correlation Between Racial Salience and Preferential Rankings, 59 Willamette L. Rev. 189 (2023):

In 2020, novel research was conducted to measure disparities between the U.S. News & World Report overall rankings and the peer rankings of law schools. The research uncovered a stark outlier in Howard University School of Law, whose peer rank was consistently twenty to forty spots higher than its overall rank. This Article updates the research, adding the most recent 2022 and 2023 rankings data. The updated results show that this disparity has not only persisted but has increased in severity. This pronounced result strengthens one of the potential explanations posited in the original research regarding the role of race in the peer rankings, namely, as racial salience increases in society, so does the unique treatment of Howard, the only ranked HBCU law school. This Article analyzes other potential explanations such as an exceptional law review, effective use of promotional materials, law school location, political ideology preference, notable alumni, professor quality, and unwillingness to game the system, which may contribute to the disparity but fall far short of being able to explain its magnitude.

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WaPo: Behind The Scenes Of The U.S. News Law School Rankings Boycott

Washington Post, Law Schools Love to Hate U.S. News Rankings. But Some Can’t Let Go.:

The decision late last year by Yale Law School to stop cooperating with U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings drew giddy applause from some deans, who cheered the prospect of a larger uprising. After years of misgivings about the rankings’ influence, school leaders hoped that a public stand by Yale – the publication’s perennial No. 1 law program – might finally loosen U.S. News’s grip.

“The revolution has begun!!” Richard Moberly, dean of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln law school, wrote in an email shortly after the announcement to his then-counterpart at the University of Minnesota. “I have been wanting to do this for years but my guess is that people will follow Yale more than they would have followed Nebraska …” (At the time, Nebraska was No. 78.)

Law school deans have long complained that the U.S. News metrics value students with high test scores at the expense of those with other worthy attributes. On the other hand, many deans say that even small bumps in the rankings can help them raise money and recruit stronger students and faculty.

Interviews with administrators and internal communications obtained by The Washington Post through public records requests provide new detail about how Yale’s announcement on Nov. 16, 2022 – and, on the same day, Harvard’s – reverberated across higher education. Behind the scenes, administrators debated whether taking a moral stand against U.S. News was worth the risk of either plummeting in the rankings or, as some initially believed might happen, not being ranked at all. Across the country, the moment created a pressing quandary for legal educators, who weighed their concerns about the rankings against the reality of U.S. News’s importance in shaping a school’s national reputation. ...

A year later, the full effect of the revolt remains tricky to parse. U.S. News defended its rankings but made changes in the wake of the boycott. The publication placed greater emphasis on student outcomes, including bar-passage rates, rather than applicants’ grades and test scores. It now relies mostly on public data, lessening its dependence on law schools to provide information.

But a thorny relationship between U.S. News and the schools it ranks persists, fueling a broader debate about who gets to define quality in education. ...

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Harvard Law Review Spikes Commissioned Article On Genocide In Gaza

The Intercept, Harvard Law Review Editors Vote to Kill Article About Genocide in Gaza:

The article on the Gaza war and the Nakba was commissioned, edited, fact-checked, and prepared for publication — but was then blocked amid a climate of fear.

A week after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, by which time Israel’s all-out assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had killed thousands of civilians, the online editors of the prestigious Harvard Law Review reached out to Rabea Eghbariah.

The two online chairs, as they are called, had decided to solicit an essay from a Palestinian scholar for the journal’s website. Eghbariah was an obvious choice: A Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School and human rights lawyer, he has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court.

Eghbariah submitted a draft of a 2,000-word essay by early November. He argued that Israel’s assault on Gaza should be evaluated within and beyond the “legal framework” of “genocide.”

In line with the Law Review’s standard procedures, the piece was solicited, commissioned, contracted, submitted, edited, fact checked, copy edited, and approved by the relevant editors. Yet it will never be published with the Harvard Law Review.

Following an intervention to delay the publication of Eghbariah’s article by the Harvard Law Review president, the piece went through several committee processes before it was finally killed by an emergency meeting of editors. The essay, “The Ongoing Nakba,” would have been the first from a Palestinian scholar published by the journal. ...

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Pepperdine Caruso Law At The Supreme Court

I had the honor yesterday morning of moving the admission of eleven Pepperdine Caruso Law alumni and friends into the U.S. Supreme Court Bar:

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McGinnis: Addressing The Rot In Our Universities

John O. McGinnis (Northwestern), Addressing the Rot in Our Universities:

The reactions at universities to Hamas’ October 7 massacre have finally awakened many alumni, forcing them to recognize the woke takeover of their alma maters. Many university presidents who had issued statements deploring racial incidents in the United States and events around the world were initially silent about the greatest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Others issued vague platitudes of concern about violence. Some elite university students, who during the George Floyd riots cried out that silence was violence, welcomed actual violence, celebrating the massacre as part of Palestinian resistance.

Not surprisingly, there was a backlash from many donors who suggested they would withhold their gifts. As a result of the threat to their bottom line, the universities then put out some more muscular statements condemning Hamas. They created task forces against antisemitism on campus. Some expressed concern about student slogans that favored a Free Palestine spanning from the Red Sea to the Jordan River, leaving no space for Israel and the Jews who lived there. 

Unfortunately, these actions treat the symptoms rather than the causes of the ideological miasma that has enveloped our universities. Indeed, by buying into the paradigm of the politically active university and further empowering it, political statements by universities and their appointment of task forces based on identity will make things worse in the long run. ...

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BLT: Can Large Language Models Handle Basic Legal Text?

Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland; Google Scholar), Nils Holzenberger (Institut Polytechnique de Paris) & Benjamin Van Durme (Johns Hopkins; Google Scholar), BLT: Can Large Language Models Handle Basic Legal Text?:

We find that the best publicly available LLMs like GPT-4 and PaLM 2 currently perform poorly at basic text handling required of lawyers or paralegals, such as looking up the text at a line of a witness deposition or at a subsection of a contract. We introduce a benchmark to quantify this poor performance, which casts into doubt LLMs' current reliability as-is for legal practice. Finetuning for these tasks brings an older LLM to near-perfect performance on our test set and also raises performance on a related legal task. This stark result highlights the need for more domain expertise in LLM training.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, ABA Legal Ed Council Rejects Golden Gate University’s Plan To End Its JD Program
• ABA Journal, Anti-Zionist Policies By Student Groups At UC Berkeley Law Fostered Harassment And Hatred, Suit Alleges
• ABA Journal, Campus Politics Playing Bigger Role In Prelaw Students’ Law School Considerations, Survey Says
• ABA Journal, Debt Management: ABA Advocates For Student Loan Reforms In A Changing Landscape
• ABA Journal, DePaul University College Of Law Dean Will Lead ABA Legal Education Starting Next Summer
• ABA Journal, Judicial Task Force Will Take Deep Look At Legal Ed, Bar Admissions
• ABA Journal, Minority Law School Applicants Lean On Personal Statements Post-Harvard Decision
• Daily Report Online, Duke Law School to Benefit From $100M Award to Entire University

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NY Times: Why Tax Prof Neil Buchanan And Other Liberal Tenured Professors Are Leaving Florida's Public Universities

New York Times, In Florida’s Hot Political Climate, Some Faculty Have Had Enough:

Liberal-leaning professors are leaving coveted jobs with tenure. And there are signs that recruiting scholars has become harder.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had just taken office in 2019 when the University of Florida lured Neil H. Buchanan, a prominent economist and tax law scholar, from George Washington University.

Now, just four years after he started at the university, Dr. Buchanan has given up his tenured job and headed north to teach in Toronto. In a recent column on a legal commentary website, he accused Florida of “open hostility to professors and to higher education more generally.”

He is not the only liberal-leaning professor to leave one of Florida’s highly regarded public universities. Many are giving up coveted tenured positions and blaming their departures on Governor DeSantis and his effort to reshape the higher education system to fit his conservative principles.

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Foley & Lardner Is Third Law Firm To Rescind Offer To Incoming Associate Due To Anti-Israel Comments

Law360, Foley & Lardner Axes Associate Job Offer Over Israel Remarks:

Foley & Lardner has rescinded a job offer to a former summer associate and recent Georgetown University Law Center graduate over her public comments about Hamas' attack on Israel, the law firm said Thursday.

Foley & Lardner pulled back its job offer to recent Georgetown Law graduate Jinan Chehade, who was slated to start in October, after it learned she had made public statements about Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel "that were inconsistent with our core values," the firm told Law360.

"In the face of rising anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and acts of hatred towards Israelis and Palestinians, Foley & Lardner's foremost commitment is — and has been — to our people," a firm spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. "Led by our core values, there is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry at the firm. ...

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts 
• ABA Rejects Golden Gate Law School's Plan To Terminate Its JD Program
• STEAM: Should Accounting Be Added To STEM To Reinvigorate And Diversify The Profession?
• Charlie Adelson Spent 35 Hours On Prison Phone With His Mother Donna In The Week Between His Conviction And Her Arrest In Dan Markel's Murder

Sunday:

• The Liberal Arts: Truth U, Social Justice U, Or Jesus U?
• NY Times Op-Ed: Conservative Church Critics Of Pope Francis Get Fired, While Progressive Critics Get Sternly Worded Letters
• BYU, Catholic, Cumberland, Liberty, Notre Dame, And Pepperdine Deans Support ABA's Proposed Free Speech Accreditation Standard, But Object To Extra Burden Placed On Faith-Based Law Schools
• The Case For And Against Keeping Donna Adelson In Jail Before Her Trial In Dan Markel's Murder
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

The Liberal Arts: Truth U, Social Justice U, Or Jesus U?

Christianity Today Op-Ed: The Christian Liberal Arts Tradition Can Appeal to Christians and Non-Christians Alike, by Joseph Claire (Dean, College of Humanities, George Fox University) (adapted from his chapter in The Liberating Arts: Why We Need Liberal Arts Education (2023)):

College and university professors in the liberal arts (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) are almost entirely left-leaning, liberal, or progressive, and this is especially true among faculty in the humanities and social sciences. The trend is even more pronounced in certain selective schools.

Students who attend liberal arts colleges or universities often adopt more liberal or progressive points of view as a result of their education. ...

Is this phenomenon accidentally related to the demography of the professoriate or somehow intrinsically related to the craft and content of the liberal arts themselves and the culture and atmosphere of the campus? ­

The terms “liberal” and “progressive” represent different political traditions in the West, and, when applied to the liberal arts, represent different approaches to education.

“Liberal” liberal arts education represents a modern vision of an Enlightenment-style view of objective truth pursued by rational and empirical methods. The “progressive” model, on the other hand, is often associated with postmodern visions of education, ones suspicious of privileged categories such as knowledge, truth, and understanding. It aims at dismantling systems of illegitimate power, ensuring equal outcomes, and achieving other goals connected to the mission of social justice.

New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that these visions of the liberal arts are ultimately incompatible and that universities should choose between the aims of objective truth and social justice. He calls the “liberal” approach “Truth U” and the progressive approach “Social Justice U.” He notes that most major liberal arts institutions in America today have become Social Justice Us by default, owing simply to the makeup of their faculties.

Haidt notes that some religious colleges present themselves as pursuing an entirely different telos, or guiding purpose. As an example, he points to the evangelical Wheaton College, whose mission statement mentions “serv[ing] Jesus Christ and advanc[ing] His Kingdom.” Haidt calls this exceptional case “Jesus U,” but he doesn’t seem to take it seriously, given his commitment to an Enlightenment-style vision of the liberal arts.

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NY Times Op-Ed: Conservative Church Critics Of Pope Francis Get Fired, While Progressive Critics Get Sternly Worded Letters

New York Times Op-Ed:  Pope Francis Tries to Settle Accounts, by Ross Douthat:

For years now, Pope Francis’ governance of the Roman Catholic Church has been seemingly designed to drive the church’s conservative and liberal wings ever further apart. Thus the persistent question hanging over his pontificate: How will he hold this thing together?

By opening debate on a wide array of hot-button subjects without delivering explicit changes, he has encouraged the church’s progressives to push the envelope as far as possible, even toward real doctrinal rebellion, in the hopes of dragging him along. At the same time, by favoring the progressives in his personnel decisions and making institutional war on the legacy of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, he has pushed conservatives toward crisis, paranoia and revolt.

On both fronts it’s unclear whether the papacy’s weakening authority can pull either group of rebels back. But in the last few weeks we’ve seen a clear attempt to use that authority, a real test of the pope’s ability to keep the church together.

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BYU, Catholic, Cumberland, Liberty, Notre Dame, And Pepperdine Deans Support ABA's Proposed Free Speech Accreditation Standard, But Object To Extra Burden Placed On Faith-Based Law Schools

Following up on my previous post, ABA Council Unanimously Votes To Send Law School Free Speech Accreditation Standard To House Of Delegates For Final Approval In February:  Law.com, ABA Council Sends 'Academic Freedom' Proposal to Hpuse of Delegates:

The Council of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted to send Standard 208 to the ABA House of Delegates for concurrence at the ABA Midyear Meeting in February 2024:

Standard 208. ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

(a) A law school shall adopt, publish, and adhere to written policies that protect academic freedom. A law school’s academic freedom policies shall:
(1) Apply to all full and part-time faculty, as well as to all others teaching law school courses;
(2) Apply to conducting research, publishing scholarship, engaging in law school governance, participating in law related public service activities, and exercising teaching responsibilities, including those related to client representation in clinical programs; and
(3) Afford due process, such as notice, hearing, and appeal rights, to assess any claim of a violation of the academic freedom policies.

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The Case For And Against Keeping Donna Adelson In Jail Before Her Trial In Dan Markel's Murder

Tallahassee Democrat Op-Ed:  Former Florida Lawmaker Makes Case That Donna Adelson Should Be Released From Jail, by Benjamin Graber, M.D. ("Editor's Note: — The author of this op-ed is a 40-year friend of Donna Adelson."):

Charlie Adelson, Katherine Magbanua, and Sigfredo Garcia: A toxic love triangle. ... The love triangle where Katherine is the love focus of two competing macho men where she controls the information to both because they do not talk to each other. She plays one against the other using jealousy and competition to get what she needs. From Sigfredo, she wants love and devotion for herself and children. From Charlie, she wants love and devotion, security and gifts, and possibly marriage or a way out of her predicament in life. This is common in toxic love triangles. ...

Dan Markel murder: An alternative theory of the case. ... Katherine was eventually convicted as the organizer and Charlie as the plotter. But would Charlie, an educated, meticulous person who dots every I, staple his money together, make such an absurd and clumsy plan to kill someone then tell them he would pay them later? I don’t think so. ...

Charlie may be a risk taker, but he is not a killer or criminal at all and never has been. The evening of Dan Markel’s killing Katherine went to his house. He was afraid for his own safety, even carrying an open pistol for protection. Sigfredo, on the other hand, is a natural born killer. Katherine is a manipulative woman with motives for these actions in a toxic love triangle that motivates her behavior. And Rivera has a criminal history and societal complexities.

Donna Adelson is neither a sociopath nor vindictive. Donna Adelson is a 73-year-old grandmother who raised her children to be model citizens, students, humanitarians and respectful. I’ve known Donna for 40 years.

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. New York Law Journal, Fall Out From Antisemitism At NYU And UC-Berkeley Law Schools
2. CBC, Former Law School Dean Faces Disbarment For Allegedly Misspending $500,000 From Endowment Intended For Students
3. David Brooks (New York Times Op-Ed), Universities (And Law Schools) Are Failing At Inclusion
4. Reuters, Straight White Male NYU 1L May Proceed Anonymously In Law Review Discrimination Case
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), BigLaw Associate Compensation Soars To $240k for 1st Years, $550k For 8th Years 1300
6. The Messenger, 25 Year Old Law Student, Presumed To Be A Hostage Since October 7, Found Dead Under Ambulance
7. Golden Gate University Newsroom, Law School Will Terminate Its JD Program In May 2024; 1Ls And 2Ls Can Complete Their Degrees At Other Law Schools
8. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), One-Third Through Fall 2024 Law School Admissions Season: Black (+3%), Hispanic (+2%) & Asian (+1%) Applicants Are Up; White (-3%) & 170-180 LSAT (-8%) Applicants Are Down
9. Scott Rempell (South Texas), A Blueprint to Reclaim Legal Education from U.S. News
10. Law.com, 58% Of Prospective Law Students Want To Attend A School With Classmates Of The Same Political Views

Tax:

1. Wall Street Journal, Does The IRS Have Authority To Circumvent Congressional Tax Policy With Tax Cuts By Administrative Fiat?
2. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Taxpayers Cannot Invoke The 'Augusta Rule' With Unplayable Lie
3. The Messenger, Jeff Bezos Will Save Billions In Taxes By Moving To Miami
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Kristin Hickman Will Not Join The Texas Faculty In January 2024 And Will Remain At Minnesota
5. Edward Fox (Michigan), Presentation Of Who Benefits From Corporate Tax Cuts?: Evidence From Banks And Credit Unions Around The TCJA At Columbia And NYU
6. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Two New International Tax Papers On SSRN
7. Ariel Jurow Kleiman (Loyola-L.A.), Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis) & Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown), Presentation Of Towards an Understanding of Nannies' Tax Experiences and Preferences At Loyola-L.A.
8. SSRN, Tax Professor Rankings
9. Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo), Review Of The Mirage Of Mobile Capital, By Wei Cui (British Columbia)
10. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers

Faith: 

1. Anne Lamott (Washington Post Op-Ed), At 33, I Knew Everything. At 69, I Know Something Much More Important.
2. Russell Moore (Editor in Chief, Christianity Today), What Does It Profit A Christian To Protect An Institution But Lose Their Soul?
3. Washington Post, Why Thomas Jefferson Hated Thanksgiving
4. Robert Tracy McKenzie (Wheaton College), Was Abraham Lincoln A Christian?
5. John Inazu (Washington University), The Lack Of Clarity And Courage In Higher Education On Hamas And Israel

ABA Rejects Golden Gate Law School's Plan To Terminate Its JD Program

Following up on yesterday's post, Golden Gate Will Terminate Its JD Program In May 2024; 1Ls And 2Ls Can Complete Their Degrees At Other Law Schools:  Council and Executive Committee Decision (ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar), Golden Gate University School of Law Teach-Out Plan (Nov. 2023):

At a meeting on November 16-17, 2023, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association (the “Council”) considered the Teach-Out Plan submitted by Golden Gate University School of Law (the “Law School”).

After careful review of the Law School’s submission, the Council rejected the Teach-Out Plan as filed because the plan did not include sufficient detail relating to the operation of a teach-out.

As provided by Rule 29(k)(2), the Executive Committee of the Council directed the Law School to revise and resubmit the Teach-Out Plan on or before January 12, 2024. The revised Teach-Out Plan will be considered by the Executive Committee of the Council at a date to be determined.

ABA Journal, ABA Legal Ed Council Rejects Golden Gate University's Plan to End its JD Program:

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Charlie Adelson Spent 35 Hours On Prison Phone With His Mother Donna In The Week Between His Conviction And Her Arrest In Dan Markel's Murder

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Charlie Adelson Spent 35 Hours on Phone With Mom in Week of Her Arrest:

A locked-up Charlie Adelson spent an astonishing amount of time on the phone with his mom — and perhaps others using her cell — in the roughly week-long span between his conviction and her arrest in the murder of their former in-law, Dan Markel.

Adelson, a Fort Lauderdale periodontist, was found guilty Nov. 6 after an eight-day trial in Leon Circuit Court for first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in Markel's 2014 death. His mom, Donna Adelson, was arrested Nov. 13 on the same charges after she and her husband tried to board a flight out of Miami with one-way tickets to Vietnam, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Charlie Adelson’s call log from the Leon County Detention Facility, obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat through a public records request, shows he racked up 2,118 minutes — more than 35 hours — in jail calls during that fateful week. He made a total of 86 phone calls, though some were not completed, all to the same phone number, which according to court records belongs to Donna Adelson.

The sheer volume of calls — which are monitored and recorded and fair game for prosecutors to use against defendants — was breathtaking for a case with so much evidence involving wire taps and incriminating conversations between members of the Adelson family and others.

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BigLaw Associate Compensation Soars To $240k for 1st Years, $550k For 8th Years

Here is the latest associate compensation at Cravath and at least 27 other law firms:

Year	Salary	Bonus	Total
1st	225,000	15,000	240,000
2nd	235,000	20,000	255,000
3rd	260,000	30,000	290,000
4th	310,000	57,500	367,500
5th	365,000	75,000	440,000
6th	390,000	90,000	480,000
7th	420,000	105,000	525,000
8th	435,000	115,000	550,000

According to Law.com and Above the Law, Akin Gump, Baker Botts, Baker McKenzie, Cleary Gottlieb, Covington & Burling, Davis Polk, Debevoise, Dechert, Fried Frank, Gibson Dunn, Hogan Lovells, Holwell Shuster, Kirkland, Mayer Brown, McDermott, Will & Emery, Norton Rose Fulbright, O’Melveny, Paul Hastings, Paul Weiss, Proskauer, Simpson Thacher, Skadden, Sidley Austin, Wachtell, Vinson & Elkins, Willkie Farr, and Yetter Coleman have matched Cravath.

Bloomberg Law, Cravath Salary Raises Pressure Rivals Who Can’t Afford Match:

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Bloomberg Law, UC Berkeley, Law School Sued Over ‘Unchecked’ Antisemitism
• David Brooks (New York Times Op-Ed), Universities Are Failing at Inclusion
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), BigLaw Associate Compensation Soars To $240k for 1st Years, $550k For 8th Years
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Kristin Hickman Will Not Join The Texas Faculty In January 2024 And Will Remain At Minnesota
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), One-Third Through Fall 2024 Law School Admissions Season: Black (+3%), Hispanic (+2%) & Asian (+1%) Applicants Are Up; White (-3%) & 170-180 LSAT (-8%) Applicants Are Down
• CBC, Former Manitoba Law School Dean Can't Be Trusted as Lawyer and Should Be Disbarred, Law Society Lawyer Says

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Next Week’s Tax Workshop

Thursday, December 7: Andrew Hayashi (Virginia; Google Scholar) will present The Federal Architecture of Income Inequality as part of the Columbia Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Michael Love.

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Golden Gate Will Terminate Its JD Program In May 2024; 1Ls And 2Ls Can Complete Their Degrees At Other Law Schools

Update: ABA Rejects Golden Gate Law School's Plan To Terminate Its JD Program

Golden Gate University Newsroom, Update on Golden Gate University JD Program:

After months of discussions with numerous stakeholders and a thorough review of data, the Golden Gate University Board of Trustees voted to discontinue the University’s American Bar Association-accredited Juris Doctor degree and offer a teach-out option to current JD students. We will not admit additional students to the JD program.

To be clear, this decision applies to one program in the Law School. While the JD program will sunset, the Law School will continue serving students with standout legal education, as it has since its founding in 1901. GGU Law will continue to offer degrees at the graduate [Master of Law Studies (MLS), Master of Laws in Environmental Law (LLM), Master of Laws in Estate Planning (LLM), Master of Laws in Intellectual Property Law (LLM), Master of Laws in International Legal Studies (LLM), Master of Laws in Taxation Law (LLM), Master of Laws in US Legal Studies (LLM), SJD in International Legal Studies (LLM)] and undergraduate [BA in Law] levels.

The University is committed to ensuring that our current GGU Law students in the JD program will be able to complete their ABA-accredited degrees through arrangements with partnering institutions. Current JD students who choose to continue their education with these partnering institutions will earn an ABA-accredited degree from GGU and will pay the same tuition rate they currently pay. ...

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A Blueprint To Reclaim Legal Education From U.S. News

Scott Rempell (South Texas), A Blueprint to Reclaim Legal Education from U.S. News:

The U.S. News & World Report (“U.S. News”) law school rankings impact the perceptions and behaviors of everyone in the rankings ecosystem, from law school administrators and law professors to prospective students and legal employers. Despite decades of near universal condemnation, these ordinal rankings continue to significantly influence the legal education market, often in highly detrimental ways.

This Article presents a blueprint for how the law school community can reclaim legal education from U.S. News. The blueprint concerns the features of an alternative product that would deliver substantial value in an efficient manner. Regulators like the ABA would have to play a role because they can mandate the types and forms of data that law schools produce. The alternative product should include data categories that consumers would find helpful based on the reasons why various constituencies assess information about law schools to begin with. A comprehensive set of relevant data points is necessary, but not sufficient. The relevant information must be presented through an easy-to-navigate interface that allows consumers to efficiently acquire, arrange, and internalize the data to meet their objectives.

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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 November 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)	226,070	1	Jonathan Choi (USC)	23,226
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	131,630	2	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	14,591
3	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	127,622	3	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	13,483
4	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	127,324	4	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	11,588
5	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	126,793	5	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	4,336
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	118,839	6	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,225
7	David Kamin (NYU)	114,326	7	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,021
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	108,470	8	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,777
9	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-SF)	104,876	9	Kyle Rozema (Northwestern)	3,765
10	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	104,363	10	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	3,470
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	103,932	11	Steve Black (Texas Tech)	3,435
12	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	51,828	12	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	3,307
13	Michael Simkovic (USC)	48,652	13	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,305
14	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	41,632	14	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	3,263
15	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	41,584	15	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,085
16	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	38,832	16	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	2,987
17	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	37,867	17	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	2,907
18	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	33,292	18	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	2,873
19	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	31,702	19	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	2,490
20	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	30,891	20	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	2,446
21	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	30,312	21	Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.)	2,361
22	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	29,821	22	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	2,280
23	Jim Hines (Michigan)	28,559	23	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	2,134
24	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	27,939	24	John R. Brooks (Fordham)	2,094
25	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	27,476	25	David Weisbach (Chicago)	2,071

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ABA Selects DePaul Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea As New Managing Director Of Legal Education

Press Release, ABA Selects DePaul Law Dean as New Managing Director of Legal Education:

Jennifer Rosato Perea, who has served as dean of DePaul University College of Law since 2015, will be the new managing director of accreditation and legal education for the American Bar Association effective June 1, 2024.

Rosato Perea, a nationally recognized leader in legal education, is in her second term at DePaul and 16th year as a law dean. A longtime advocate of student engagement and professionalism, Rosato Perea is one of only a small number of Latina law school deans in the nation, and she would become the first Latina to serve as head of ABA legal education, which includes the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, its governing council and an ABA program that approves paralegal programs.

She will replace Bill Adams, who has served as managing director for accreditation and legal education since spring 2020 and who managed through the pandemic, which forced most law schools to adopt online coursework among other changes.

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Kristin Hickman Will Not Join The Texas Faculty In January 2024 And Will Remain At Minnesota

Following up on my previous post, Kristin Hickman Leaves Minnesota For Texas (Effective January 2024):  Brian Leiter (Chicago) reports that Kristin Hickman will not be leaving Minnesota for Texas in January 2024, as previously announced by Texas. Kristin is #9 in the 2023 Google Scholar Tax Prof Rankings (H-Index Since 2018)  and #16 in the 2023 Google Scholar Tax Prof Rankings (H-Index All.

58% Of Prospective Law Students Want To Attend A School With Classmates Of The Same Political Views

Law.com, Prospective Law Students Want to Attend School With 'Like-Minded Individuals,' Study Finds:

A majority of pre-law students reported that they would prefer attending a law school where classmates hold similar political views, according to a recent survey.

Kaplan recently reported that 58% of pre-law students say that “it’s important for them to attend a law school where their fellow students generally hold the same political/social views as they do.” ...

The last time Kaplan released a survey on this issue in January 2020, only 46% said this issue was important.

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Fall Out From Antisemitism At NYU And UC-Berkeley Law Schools

New York Law Journal, 60% of 1,176 NYU Law Students Vote to Oust Ryna Workman From Student Bar:

Ryna Workman has officially been ousted from their position as president of the Student Bar Association at New York University School of Law amid controversy over comments made about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

A voting link was sent to 2,070 students and 1,176 votes were received with 707 students (60%) voting that Workman should not remain in office, according to an X (formerly Twitter) post showing an image of an email sent from Student Affairs. ...

On Oct. 10, Workman posted an emailed message, saying that Israel’s “regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” in Workman’s capacity as NYU Law SBA president.

Along with being ousted from the SBA, Winston & Strawn rescinded its job offer to Workman, who had previously worked for the firm as a summer associate.

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Straight White Male NYU 1L May Proceed Anonymously In Law Review Discrimination Case

Following up on my previous post, Lawsuit Claims NYU Law Review Discriminates Against Straight White Men In Selection Of Student Editors:  Reuters, Plaintiff in NYU Law Review Discrimination Case May Remain Anonymous:

A white, heterosexual, male law student who sued New York University claiming that its law school's flagship law review gives preference to women and minorities in violation of U.S. law may proceed with his case anonymously, at least for now, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero did not explain his reasoning in his Tuesday order, but noted that NYU may seek to disclose the plaintiff's identity once the case is assigned to a judge.

The plaintiff — listed as John Doe in court papers — is in his first year at the NYU School of Law and intends to apply for a spot on the NYU Law Review in the summer of 2024, according to his October lawsuit. ...

Doe’s suit is the first legal challenge to law review diversity policies following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision that prohibited race-conscious college and university admissions.

Eugene Volokh (UCLA; Google Scholar), Challenge to NYU Law Review's Race and Sex Preferences May Proceed Pseudonymously, at Least for Now:

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NY Times Op-Ed: Universities (And Law Schools) Are Failing At Inclusion

New York Times Op-Ed:  Universities Are Failing at Inclusion, by David Brooks:

Universities are supposed to be centers of inquiry and curiosity — places where people are tolerant of difference and learn about other points of view. Instead, too many have become brutalizing ideological war zones, so today the most hostile place to be an American Jew is not at some formerly restricted country club but on a college campus.

How on earth did this happen? I’ve been teaching on college campuses off and on for 25 years. It’s become increasingly evident to me that American adolescence and young adulthood — especially for those who wind up at elite schools — now happen within a specific kind of ideological atmosphere.

It centers on a hard-edged ideological framework that has been spreading in high school and college, on social media, in diversity training seminars and in popular culture. The framework doesn’t have a good name yet. It draws on the thinking of intellectuals ranging from the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the critical race theorist Derrick Bell. (For a good intellectual history, I recommend Yascha Mounk’s recent book, “The Identity Trap.”)

The common ideas associated with this ideology are by now pretty familiar:

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UC-San Francisco Law Prof Sues City After His Service Dog Was Denied Entry Into Library

San Francisco Standard, San Francisco Man Sues City After Dog Denied Entry Into Library:

A San Francisco law professor said his service dog was denied entry to a city library, putting him at risk of injury due to his unique medical condition, a lawsuit alleges.

The complaint, which was filed in federal court against the city Monday, alleges violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act and California Disabled Persons Act and is seeking damages for emotional distress and payment of attorney fees.

Clark Freshman, who filed the lawsuit, said he has a heart condition called an aortic aneurysm, which can cause his aorta to rupture if his blood pressure gets too high. Freshman says his service dog can detect if his blood pressure gets too high so he can take medication to lower his blood pressure quickly.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Travels Shaped New Bowen Law School Dean’s Career
• Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Law School Takes Stand Against Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Other Forms of Hate
• Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Law School's New Era: Dean Meyer on Leadership and Legal Education
• Chronicle of Higher Education, Tobacco-Settlement Lawyer Joe Rice Gives $30 Million for Law School Scholarships
• Gonzaga Bulletin, Third-year, Gonzaga University Law School Student Dies Unexpectedly
• Jacksonville Daily Record, Workscapes Moving to the Rail Yard District to Make Way For Law School
• Jax Today, JU Law School Will Move to Permanent Home Downtown
• Law.com, 'If You Cry, It's OK': How to Pick Yourself Up and Try Again After Failing the Bar Exam
• Minnesota Daily, New Law School Study Says Students Who Use Generative AI Finish Work Quicker
• National Review, How a Law School Could Begin Restoring Its Reputation for Integrity

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One-Third Through Fall 2024 Law School Admissions Season: Black (+3%), Hispanic (+2%) & Asian (+1%) Applicants Are Up; White (-3%) & 170-180 LSAT (-8%) Applicants Are Down

We are now 33% of the way through Fall 2024 law school admissions season. The number of law school applicants reported by LSAC is down -0.1% compared to last year at this time:

119 of the 196 law schools are experiencing a decrease in applications. Applications are down -10% or more at 78 law schools:

Applicants are down the most in Northeast (-5.3%), New England (-5.0%), and Midwest (-4.6%); and are up in Other (+15.2%), Mountain West (+4.6%), and Midsouth (+0.8%):

Applicants' LSAT scores are down -8.0% in the 170-180 band, -0.7% in the 160-169 band, -3.5% in the 150-159 band, and -0.5% in the 120-149 band:

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Former Law School Dean Faces Disbarment For Allegedly Misspending $500,000 From Endowment Intended For Students

CBC, Former Manitoba Law School Dean Can't Be Trusted as Lawyer and Should Be Disbarred, Law Society Lawyer Says:

A lawyer representing the Law Society of Manitoba argues the former head of the University of Manitoba's law school can't be trusted as a lawyer and should be disbarred based on numerous allegations he misspent or misused hundreds of thousands of dollars from the university.

In his closing arguments to a law society disciplinary panel on Thursday, Rocky Kravetsky, a lawyer representing the society, broke down the list of accusations against the former dean, Jonathan Black-Branch — including nearly $500,000 he allegedly misspent on professional development from a U of M endowment meant for students.

"These are serious, serious breaches," Kravetsky told the panel of the law society at Black-Branch's professional misconduct hearing in Winnipeg.

"The likelihood is we would be seeking disbarment.… Jonathan Black-Branch is simply not a person that can be trusted to be a lawyer.… He does not demonstrate the integrity that lawyers are required to."

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TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

Thanksgiving:

• WaPo: Why Thomas Jefferson Hated Thanksgiving
• WSJ: This Thanksgiving, Cook The Turkey. Not Your Home.
• WKRP In Cincinnati Thanksgiving Turkey Drop
• A Wall Street Journal Thanksgiving

Friday:

• Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews Hanna's Moore, The 16th Amendment, And The TCJA’s Deemed Repatriation Provision
• Weekly Legal Education Roundup
• Tax Policy In The Biden Administration
• Next Week’s Tax Workshops
• Judge Orders Ex-Mother-in-Law Of Slain FSU Professor Held Without Bond; A Look Inside The Adelson Family Dynamics
• Law Schools: Want To Help Bend The Arc Of The Moral Universe Toward Justice? Hire Law Professors With Public Service Experience.

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Steve Lubet's Final Class After 48 Years At Northwestern: Mic Marker Drop
• Calabresi: Amar Brothers' Moore Amicus Brief Ignores Constitution's Plain Meaning To Justify Taxing Unrealized Gains
• 25 Year Old Law Student, Presumed To Be A Hostage Since October 7, Found Dead Under Ambulance

Sunday:

• WaPo Op-Ed: At 33, I Knew Everything. At 69, I Know Something Much More Important.
• What Does It Profit A Christian To Protect An Institution But Lose Their Soul?
• Christians Can’t Fix The Israel-Hamas War
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

WaPo Op-Ed: At 33, I Knew Everything. At 69, I Know Something Much More Important

Washington Post Op-Ed:    At 33, I Knew Everything. At 69, I Know Something Much More Important., by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

Today I woke up old and awful in every way. I simultaneously cannot bear the news and cannot turn it off: It’s cobra hypnosis — Gaza, Israel, the shootings in Maine. The world is as dark as a scarab. I have two memorial services on my calendar this week. ...

My body hurt quite a lot when I got out of bed this morning, and I limped around like Granny Clampett for the first hour, until it unseized. Worse, my mind hurt, my heart hurt and I hated almost everyone, except my husband, my grandson and one of the dogs.

I don’t think I could have borne up under all this 20 years ago when I thought I knew so much about life. That was not nearly as much as I knew at 33, which is when we know more than we ever will again. But age has given me the ability to hang out without predicting how things will sort out this time (mostly — depending on how I’ve slept). ...

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What Does It Profit A Christian To Protect An Institution But Lose Their Soul?

Russell Moore (Editor in Chief, Christianity Today), What Does It Profit a Christian to Protect an Institution but Lose Their Soul? (adapted from Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (2023)):

The late pastor Eugene Peterson, in a letter to his son, also a pastor, wrote that the primary problem for the Christian leader is to take responsibility not just for the ends but also for the “ways and means” by which we guide people to pursue those ends. “The devil’s three temptations of Jesus all had to do with ways and means,” he wrote. “Every one of the devil’s goals was excellent. The devil had an unsurpassed vision statement. But the ways and means were incompatible with the ends.”

As Peterson put it, the discipleship that Jesus calls us to is one “both personally and corporately conducted in which the insides and outsides are continuous. A life in which we are as careful and attentive to the how as to the what.”

This is because, Peterson counseled, “if we are going to live the Jesus life, we simply have to do it the Jesus way—he is, after all, the Way as well as the Truth and Life.” There are no emergency escape clauses from the way of the Cross.

What seems to be popular in this moment is not so much a prosperity gospel as a depravity gospel. In this depravity gospel, appeals to character or moral norms are met not with appeals of “Not guilty!” but with dismissals of “Get real!”

Yet this depravity gospel tries to lure us in. It doesn’t matter if you get to it by adopting it outright, with glee at cruelty and vulgarity, or if it drives you to the kind of cynicism that doesn’t ever expect anything better.

That way lies nihilism. You will find yourself in situations, and you may be in one of those situations already, where you have a responsibility for holding an institution accountable. Maybe it’s simply as a voter. You can just shrug and give your assent to anyone your party tells you to support. That will change you, over time. Maybe it’s as a church member or a part of some denomination or Christian ministry.

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Christians Can’t Fix The Israel-Hamas War

Christianity Today, Christians Can’t Fix the Israel-Hamas War:

Jesus could end this crisis. His followers almost certainly can’t. ...

We cannot fix this crisis, no matter how faithful, factual, and fervent we are.

This bears saying, I think, for two reasons. One is our modern habit of “awareness,” as in, I am posting this article on Facebook because I want to raise awareness.

On many issues of great import, the reality is most of us can do very little to effect significant change. Sometimes we can give money to a relevant cause. Always we can pray (1 Thess. 5:17) and take care we do not sin in our hearts or our speech as we react to the news (Matt. 5:21–30). But most of us are not scientists who can find a cure for cancer, or politicians who can rewrite American immigration law, or generals who can decide on whom bombs will fall. Our duties to God and neighbor are usually more imminent and mundane, and if God answers our prayers, that is far more God’s work than ours. ...

The other reason is that, as Christians, we rightly have a high opinion of faithfulness and its effects. By faith, God’s people have “administered justice,” “shut the mouths of lions,” and “received back their dead, raised to life again” (Heb. 11). We can be “co-workers in God’s service,” as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, whose faith rests “on God’s power” (1 Cor. 3:9, 2:5). The “prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective,” James taught, reminding us of the story of Elijah—“a human being, even as we are”—whose earnest prayer led to both famine and plenty (5:16­­–18).

[F]aith is not magic, nor is it a guarantee of a happy ending on this side of eternity. It does not always succeed in protecting us or turning others away from evil. ...

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. Wall Street Journal, Why Are We So Obsessed With Sam Bankman-Fried’s Stanford Law Prof Parents?
2. Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), Anti-Israel Protesters Overrun Columbia Law School And Disrupt Classes
3. Washington Post, Oregon’s New Bar Exam Alternative Is The First Of Its Kind 
4. David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Will Donna Adelson Plead Guilty In Dan Markel's Murder To Save Wendi From Prosecution?
5. Tallahassee Democrat, Adelson Family Had 'Piles' Of Cash And Millions In The Bank When Dan Markel Was Murdered
6. ABC News & Court TV, Judge Orders Ex-Mother-in-Law Of Slain FSU Professor Held Without Bond; A Look Inside The Adelson Family Dynamics
7. Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar, Fully Online Law School Accreditation Standard
8. Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar, Free Speech Accreditation Standard
9. Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar, Law Library Collection Accreditation Standard
10. Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar, Experiential Credits Accreditation Standard

Tax:

1. Laura Snyder (President, Stop Extraterritorial American Taxation; Board of Directors, Association of Americans Resident Overseas), Discriminatory Taxes And Congress: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
2. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: A Lesson In Pathfinding
3. David Weisbach (Chicago) & Sam Kortum (Yale), Climate Change Policy in the International Context: Solving the Carbon Leakage Problem 
4. Michael Graetz (Columbia), To Avoid The Moore Morass, The Court Should DIG It (Dismiss As Improvidently Granted) 
5. Sarah Lawsky (Northwestern), Presentation Of Picturing Capital Gains And Losses At Boston College
6. Wall Street Journal Opinion Pieces, Tax Cuts, Tax Loopholes, And Carbon Taxes
7. Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama), Review Of Moore, The 16th Amendment, And The TCJA’s Deemed Repatriation Provision, By Christopher Hanna (SMU)
8. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
9. Roundup, Next Week's Tax Workshops
10. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

Faith: 

1. Wall Street Journal, Department Of Education Imposes Largest Fine In History On America's Largest Christian College; Was It Targeted By Biden Administration?
2. John Inazu (Washington University), The Lack Of Clarity And Courage In Higher Education On Hamas And Israel
3. Christianity Today, Was Abraham Lincoln A Christian?
4. Christianity Today, American Christians And The Anti-American Temptation
5. New York Times Op-Ed (Ross Douthat), Atheism, Western Liberalism, UFOs, And Christianity

Steve Lubet's Final Class After 48 Years At Northwestern: Mic Marker Drop

Steve Lubet (Northwestern), Marker Drop: 

Lubet out. My final class at Northwestern.

25 Year Old Law Student, Presumed To Be A Hostage Since October 7, Found Dead Under Ambulance

The Messenger, Body of Shani Gabay, 25, Missing Since Oct. 7, Found Under Ambulance Set on Fire by Hamas:

Israeli authorities said they had identified the body of Shani Gabay, a 25-year-old law student who was thought to have been abducted by Hamas terrorists during their October 7 attack on villages and a music festival in southern Israel.

Her remains were reportedly discovered beneath an ambulance that had been set on fire by Hamas at some point during the initial assault.

Gabay had been working at the Supernova music festival at Kibbutz Re'im, where some 300 people were killed by Hamas, but reportedly left before the attack began.

A last picture of Gabay being treated at a police command post, with blood flowing down her left leg, was posted to social media [right].

The Times of Israel:

Nearly seven weeks after the massacre at the Supernova rave near Gaza on October 7, authorities say they have identified the body of Shani Gabay, a 25-year-old who had been missing since Hamas’s attack on Israel, and who had thus far been presumed a hostage. ...

She called her mother at 6:40 a.m., telling her about the stream of rockets and asking what she should do, according to her older brother, Aviel Gabay, in a lengthy video posted on social media. She was in her car at the time, and her mother told her to pull over and find a secure place. She found a field shelter near Kibbutz Alumim and went there, not yet knowing at the time there were terrorists gunning down partygoers in addition to the rockets.

Terrorists threw grenades into the shelter, according to Gabay’s two friends who stayed in the shelter and survived, each one losing a leg. Gabay was pulled out of the shelter and appeared to have returned to her car, where she was shot. She made her way to a paramedic who took her to the police command post. ...

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, ABA Council Votes To Nix Accreditation Requirement That Law Libraries Have A Physical Collection
• ABA Journal, Legal Ed Council Votes to Send Academic Freedom Proposal to ABA House of Delegates
• ABA Tax Lawyer, Exclusive Article Submission Window
• Rachel Kincaid (Baylor), Law Schools: Want To Help Bend The Arc Of The Moral Universe Toward Justice? Hire Law Professors With Public Service Experience.
• David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Judicial Notice (11.18.23): Will Donna Adelson Plead Guilty In Dan Markel's Murder To Save Wendi From Prosecution?
• Law.com, Proposal to Allow Fully Online Schools to Apply for ABA Accreditation Sent to Notice and Comment
• Reuters, Law School Free Speech Proposal Moves Forward After ABA Vote

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Next Week’s Tax Workshops

Monday, November 27: Ariel Jurow Kleiman (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar), Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis; Google Scholar) & Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar) will present Towards an Understanding of Nannies' Tax Experiences and Preferences as part of the Loyola-L.A. Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please RSVP here. 

Tuesday, November 28: Edward Fox (Michigan; Google Scholar) will present Who Benefits from Corporate Tax Cuts?: Evidence from Banks and Credit Unions around the TCJA (with Benjamin Pyle (Boston University; Google Scholar)) as part of the NYU Tax Policy and Public Finance Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Daniel Shaviro.  

Thursday, November 30: Edward Fox (Michigan; Google Scholar) will present Who Benefits from Corporate Tax Cuts?: Evidence from Banks and Credit Unions Around the TCJA (with Benjamin Pyle (Boston University; Google Scholar)) as part of the Columbia Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Michael Love. 

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Judge Orders Ex-Mother-in-Law Of Slain FSU Professor Held Without Bond; A Look Inside The Adelson Family Dynamics

ABC News, Judge Orders Ex-Mother-in-Law of Slain FSU Professor Held Without Bond:

Court TV, A Look Inside the Adelson Family Dynamics:

Tallahassee Democrat, No Bond: Donna Adelson Has First Hearing in Leon County in Dan Markel Murder Case:

Donna Adelson sat silently in the Leon County jail as she learned she would remain behind bars after being charged in the 2014 murder of her former son-in-law Dan Markel.

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Law Schools: Want To Help Bend The Arc Of The Moral Universe Toward Justice? Hire Law Professors With Public Service Experience.

Rachel Kincaid (Baylor), Law Schools: Want to Help Bend the Arc of the Moral Universe Toward Justice? Hire Law Professors with Public Service Experience, 58 U. Rich. L. Rev. __ (2024):

We are living in momentous times. Social justice and the legitimacy of our political systems are at the forefront of many people’s minds. Demands for change — sometimes revolutionary change — abound, based on myriad crises: the murders of Tyre Nichols, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor; mass incarceration and the criminalization of poverty; the bungled response to COVID-19 and resulting economic precarity of many across the globe; threats to our democratic institutions and educational institutions at home and abroad; the erosion of reproductive rights, the environment, and tribal sovereignty; attacks on LGBTQIA+ people and their rights; and persistent and devastating levels of gun violence, to name a few. During momentous times like these, law schools can and should make a difference. But how we do that is a more complex question. Is it only through career services offices that encourage students to pursue careers fighting for social justice? 

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WaPo: Why Thomas Jefferson Hated Thanksgiving

Washington Post, Did Thomas Jefferson hate Thanksgiving?:

Thanksgiving didn’t become an annual national holiday until the days of Abraham Lincoln, but at the time of the nation’s founding, religious feasts (and fasts) of thanksgiving were a regular thing. Both the Continental Congress and Gen. George Washington declared days of public thanksgiving during the Revolutionary War after big victories. And in 1779, Virginia’s wartime governor, Thomas Jefferson, signed a proclamation declaring Thursday, Dec. 9, “a day of publick and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.”

But decades later, when Jefferson was president, he had turned against thanksgiving proclamations — privately complaining about them before publicly condemning them toward the end of his term. ...

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WSJ: This Thanksgiving, Cook The Turkey. Not Your Home.

Wall Street Journal, It’s Thanksgiving. Beware the Deep-Fried Turkey.:

Frying is faster and results in a delicious, juicy bird—but do it wrong and your house could burn down.

As some ambitious home cooks ready their deep fryers for Thanksgiving, fire officials are bracing for the worst.

An unthawed turkey can effectively turn into a bomb in a deep fryer, sending flames everywhere. Firefighters and federal officials are sounding the alarm over these avian tinder boxes.

“Cook the turkey, not your home,” the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission wrote alongside a social-media video of turkeys exploding in deep fryers.

Cook the turkey, not your home. pic.twitter.com/XQS0BkVshR

— US Consumer Product Safety Commission (@USCPSC) November 16, 2023

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WKRP In Cincinnati Thanksgiving Turkey Drop

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A Wall Street Journal Thanksgiving

Wall Street Journal editorial, The Desolate Wilderness:

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love. ...

This editorial has appeared annually since 1961.

Wall Street Journal editorial, And the Fair Land:

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

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ABA Is Working On A Proposal To Increase Number Of Experiential Credits Required Of Law School Graduates

Following up on my previous posts on Friday's meeting of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar:

• ABA Council Proposes To Allow Accreditation Of Fully Online Law Schools Like Purdue (Nov. 18, 2023)
• ABA Council Unanimously Votes To Send Law School Free Speech Accreditation Standard To House Of Delegates For Final Approval In February (Nov. 20, 2023)
• ABA Council Votes To Nix Accreditation Requirement That Law Libraries Have A Physical Collection (Nov. 21, 2023)

Reuters, ABA Eyes Increasing Hands-On Learning Requirement For Law Schools:

Legal education may soon get more practical, thanks to a forthcoming proposal that is winning early support inside the American Bar Association.

The arm of the ABA that oversees law schools is developing a proposal to increase the number of so-called experiential credits students must take in order to graduate. The credits may include clinics, externships, and simulation courses that involve hypothetical legal tasks — intended to give students experience handling real-world matters.

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Adelson Family Had 'Piles' Of Cash And Millions In The Bank When Dan Markel Was Murdered

Tallahassee Democrat, Adelson Family Had 'Piles' of Cash and Millions in the Bank When Dan Markel Was Murdered:

Donna Adelson, who was nabbed by the FBI trying to board a one-way flight to Vietnam before charges were filed against her in the murder of Dan Markel, had plenty of money to start a new life in a non-extradition country.

She and her husband, Harvey Adelson, a retired dentist with a once lucrative practice in Tamarac, their son, Charlie Adelson, a well-to-do traveling periodontist, and their daughter, Wendi Adelson, an attorney, had millions of dollars between them in checking, savings and investment accounts.

That doesn’t include the “piles” of cash that Donna and Harvey Adelson kept in a safe or the $100,000-plus dollars in stapled bills that Charlie Adelson forked over to his ex-girlfriend and two hit men. ...

Adelson family had more than $8 million combined at the time of the murder nine-plus years ago

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