Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, After Repeat Failures to Meet Bar Pass Standard, ABA Gives Cooley Law School Extension
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Celebrates The Class Of 2022
• Katie Eyer (Rutgers), Am I Disabled? Disability Identity and Law Faculty
• Letter From Ilya Shapiro to William Treanor (Dean, Georgetown), 'Dumb Tweets For Me, But Not For Thee' 
• Roundup, Legal Ed News Roundup
• Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), Size Matters: Why Harvard Law Is Less Woke Than Yale Law
• Carole Silver (Northwestern) & Swethaa Ballakrishnen (UC-Irvine), Where Do We Go From Here? International Students, Post-Pandemic Law Schools, and the Possibilities of Universal Design
• Brian Soucek (UC-Davis), How to Protect DEI Requirements From Legal Peril

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AccessLex Institute & Gallup, Law School Pandemic Year 2: Student Perspectives On Distance Learning
• Bloomberg, Kim Clausing Leaves Treasury Department To Return To UCLA Law School
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Journey Continues ...
• CBN News, 'The Christian Faith Is Flourishing At Harvard Law School'
• Bobby Chesney (Dean-Designate, Texas), Susan Morse Named Associate Dean For Academic Affairs At Texas
• Marc Edelman (Baruch-Zicklin), The City Must Stop CUNY Law Using Taxpayer Funds to Target Jewish Students
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), How Law Professors Can Help Their Students Overcome Pandemic Learning Damage
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), New Law School Pedagogy Journal

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Christopher Birdsall (Boise State) & Seth Gershenson (American), The Pro Bono Penalty: Extracurricular Activities and Demographic Disparities in Bar Exam Success
• Andrele Brutus St. Val (Pittsburgh), Survey Says—How to Engage Law Students in the Online Learning Environment
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Legally Blonde Dean
• David Faigman (Dean, UC-Hastings), Law School To Change Its Name In July Due To Founder's Role In Native American Genocide 
• Florida Politics, Markel Murder Trial Day 4: Luis Rivera Flips On Katie And Sigfredo Garcia
• Florida Politics, Markel Murder Trial Day 5: Will The Jury Convict Katie Magbanua? Why Did Charlie Adelson Change Lawyers?
• Florida Politics, Markel Murder Trial Day 6: Hit Man Sigfredo Garcia Mistakenly Left Nasty Voice Mail For Harvey Adelson, Charlie's Dad

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Are More Law Schools Needed in Areas Where InfiLaw Campuses Closed?
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Bibles For The Class Of 2022
• Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  What Is the Real Cost of Academe’s Fixation on Productivity?
• David Frakt (Independent), Law Schools Miss the Mark on Bar Passage - Will the ABA Act?
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Learning How to Distinguish Cases: A Basic Skill for Lawyers and Law Students
• Inc., How Law Schools Are Becoming the New Business Schools for Future Leaders
• John McGinnis (Northwestern), Lawyers for Radical Change
• Miami Herald, UM Hires Cornell Law Grad as its Law School Dean, Following Tumult After Varona Demotion
• Evan Parker, Leading Courageously With Data To Diversify The Legal Profession

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Are more law schools needed in areas where InfiLaw campuses closed?
• Claudia Angelos (NYU), Mary Lu Bilek (Former Dean, CUNY, Massachusetts) & Joan Howarth (UNLV; Dean Emerita, Michigan State), The Deborah Jones Merritt Center for the Advancement of Justice
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 8th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law School
• Robert Kuehn (Washington University), The Economic Value Of Law Clinic Legal Assistance
• Law.com, 'Arbitrary and Unfair': Dispute Over Limited Seating, Preferential Treatment for DC Bar Exam Continues—But Court Isn't Budging
• Lynn M. LoPucki (UCLA), The PowerPoint Channel
• New York Times, American Bar Association May Eliminate Standardized Tests for Admissions

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AccessLex Institute, 2022 Legal Education Data Deck
• Alliance Defending Freedom, Idaho Law Students File Suit After University Punishes Them For Their Religious Beliefs
• Kevin Brown (Indiana) & Ken Dau-Schmidt (Indiana), Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of the Nation’s Black Law Students: An Analysis of Data From The LSSSE Survey
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine Caruso Law), The Chosen At Pepperdine Caruso Law
• Cyra Akila Choudhury (Florida Int'l) & Shruti Rana (Indiana), Addressing Asian (In)Visibility in the Academy
• Federalist Society 10th Annual Executive Branch Review Conference, ABA Accreditation of Law Schools
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), "Teaching" Professional Identity: A New Book for Administrators and Professors (For more on this book, see after the fold)

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), The Top 15 Law Schools For Jobs Contain Some Surprises
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service
• Carol Chomsky (Minnesota), Andrea Anne Curcio (Georgia State) & Eileen Kaufman (Touro), A Merritt-Orious Path for Lawyer Licensing
• Michael Conklin (Angelo State), Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus With Updated 2023 U.S. News Rankings Data
• Anahid Gharakhanian (Southwestern), Natalie Rodriguez (Southwestern) & Elizabeth Anderson (Embraced Wisdom Resource Group), 'More than the Numbers': Empirical Evidence of an Innovative Approach to Admissions
• Job Notice, Pepperdine Seeks To Hire An Assistant Dean For Professional Formation

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, Legal Education Section Releases Employment Data for Graduating Law Class of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 90% Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 11.0%, The Most Among Whites And The Highest LSAT Bands
• Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget, Recent Law Grads Have Had $30,000 Of Their Student Loan Debt Cancelled
• Kris Franklin (New York Law School) & Rory Bahadur (Washburn), Directed Questions a Non-Socratic Dialogue about Non-Socratic Teaching
• Paul Heald (Illinois), The Law Review Scam: Humanely Ending Law School Exceptionalism
• Inside Higher Ed, Study Says Women Aren't Publishing Less During the Pandemic

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• David Bernstein, A Remarkable Outbreak of Antisemitism at NYU Law School
• Bloomberg Law, Experiential Legal Education: An Antidote to Law Student Stress
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2023 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2023 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Harvard Journal Of Sports And Entertainment Law Honors The Memory Of Cedric Weston Halloran (2000-2021)
• Chronicle of Higher Education, Do the ‘U.S. News’ Rankings Rely on Dubious Data?
• Chronicle of Higher Education, What’s Going On at Yale Law School? A Lot of Drama

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Here's what could have been behind the shake-ups in US News rankings, say some deans
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine’s Place In The 2023 U.S. News Law School Rankings
• Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC-Berkeley) & Howard Gillman (Chancellor, UC-Irvine), Free Speech Doesn’t Mean Hecklers Get to Shut Down Campus Debate
• David Frakt, 2021 Admissions and Bar Pass Update
• David Frakt, Why Law Schools Fail
• David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Yale Law Dean Heather Gerken Speaks Out About The March 10 Protest
• Law.com, Every Black Law Dean in the US Signs Letter to Senate Supporting Jackson's SCOTUS Nomination
• Law.com, NCBE Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Bar Exam Changes
• Press Release, Pepperdine to Launch Center for Faith and the Common Good on April 1

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Claudia Angelos (NYU), Mary Lu Bilek (Dean, CUNY), & Joan Howarth (UNLV), The Deborah Jones Merritt Center for the Advancement of Justice
• Inside Higher Ed, Law Students Shout Down Controversial Speakers at UC-Hastings and Yale
• Inside Higher Ed, Student Interest in Law School Rose During The Pandemic
• David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Free Speech At Yale Law School: One Progressive's Perspective
• Law.com, Federal Appeals Judge Suggests Yale Law Protesters 'Should Be Disqualified for Potential Clerkships'
• Law.com, Harvard Law 2L Who Gave Up Summer Associate Job Launches New Effort Urging Law Firms to Cut Ties With Russian Clients
• Derek Muller (Iowa), Federal Judges Have Already Begun to Drift Away From Hiring Yale Law Clerks

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Alumnus gives law school $15M for full-tuition scholarships
• Patrick Barry (Michigan), Good with Words: Speaking and Presenting
• Boston Globe, Black 3L Says White Deputy Mistook Her For A Criminal Defendant When She Tried To Enter Courtroom To Represent Client Of Law School's Clinic
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), March Madness Law School Bracket: Duke, Michigan, USC, Yale in Final Four
• Chronicle of Higher Education, The Essay That Prompted an Editorial Revolt
• Indiana-McKinney Law School Special Event, Law vs. Antisemitism: Inaugural Conference
• David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Is Free Speech In American Law Schools A Lost Cause?

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Is interest in law school waning? 'This year is not going to be as red-hot off the charts'
• Megan Bess (UIC), Transitions Unexplored: A Proposal for Professional Identity Formation Following the First Year
• Bloomberg Law, Location Tops the List for Law School Decision Factors
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Death Of Two Villanova Tax Legends: Don Llewellyn And Michael Mulroney
• Florida Politics, Florida Grandparents Score Major Win, With Assist From Johnston & Stewart
• The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, Is Graduate School Worth It? A Comprehensive Return on Investment Analysis
• Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas) & Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), Learning Outcomes that Law Schools Have Adopted: Seizing the Opportunity to Help Students, Legal Employers, Clients, and the Law School

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Law school recently dinged for bar passage rate comes into compliance
• Sarah Boonin (Suffolk) & Luz Herrera (Texas A&M), From Pandemic to Pedagogy: Teaching the Technology of Lawyering in Law Clinics
• David Case (Mississippi), A Pedagogical Rationale for the Law Professor as Moot Court Coach
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 75% Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 10% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-15%) And 160-169 (-14%))
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), South Texas And Vermont Are The 14th & 15th Law Schools To Offer Hybrid Online JDs
• Chronicle of Higher Education, To Stem The Great Resignation Of Staff At Your University Or Law School, Stop Mission-Based Gaslighting

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, ABA Legal Ed Section Plans to Send Another Diversity Standard, Revisions For Remote Learning Requirements to HOD
• ABA Journal, Former Chapman Law Prof John Eastman Resists House Jan. 6 Committee's Subpoena, Says Former Dean Knew Of His Work For Trump
• Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), Citation Counts By Field: Is Con Law 5 Times More Important Than Tax?
• Paul Butler (Georgetown) & David Cole (Georgetown), Georgetown Law Faculty And Students Debate Ilya Shapiro's Fate
• Call For Papers, Stanford|Yale|Harvard Junior Faculty Forum
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2023 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), A Book for Teaching Professional Identity

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Loan Counseling and Cross-Cultural Competency Programing Will Be Required From ABA-accredited Law Schools
• Jonathan Adler (Case Western), SSRN Removes Academic Paper Due to Defamation Claim
• Jonathan Adler (Case Western), SSRN Restores Paper By Ann Lipton (Tulane) Previously Removed Due To Defamation Claim; Law Review Has Not Withdrawn Its Publication Offer
• Benjamin Alarie (Toronto) & Arthur Cockfield (Queen's), Will Machines Replace Us? Machine-Authored Texts and the Future of Scholarship
• Brooklyn Law School, Trailblazing Judge Mary Johnson Lowe '54 Honored with Named Scholarship to Promote Student Diversity and Inclusion
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Two-Thirds Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 9.2% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-15.4%) And 160-169 (-12.7%))

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AALS, Journal Of Legal Education Call For Papers: Scholars At Risk
• ABA Journal, Subpoena For Trump Lawyer John Eastman's Documents On Chapman's Server Highlights Risk Of Faculty Use Of Law School Accounts For Personal Email
• ABA Legal Rebels, Acing the Exam: Kellye Testy Made Sure the Pandemic Wouldn’t Disrupt Law School Admissions Process
• Megan Bess (UIC), Transitions Unexplored: A Proposal for Professional Identity Formation Following the First Year
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Death In Paradise
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), London Study Abroad Opportunity For 2Ls And 3Ls In Fall 2022
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Announces New $5 Million Brenden Mann Chair In Law & Religion; Michael Helfand Named Inaugural Chairholder
• Court TV, Law Professor Murder For Hire

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Rory Bahadur (Washburn) & Catherine Bramble (BYU), Actively Achieving Greater Racial Equity in the Law School Classroom
• William Carney (Emory), Curricular Change In Legal Education
• Christine Charnosky (Law.com), Ilya Shapiro, On Heels Of Georgetown Law Hiring, Faces Uproar Over Tweeting That Biden's SCOTUS Pick Will Be A 'Lesser Black Woman'
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Pixie Dust
• College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, Women in the Leadership Pipeline in Higher Education Have Better Representation and Pay in Institutions With Female Presidents and Provosts
• Belinda Dantley (Saint Louis) & Lisa Sonia Taylor (American), The Bottom Line: Law Schools Need To Get Serious About the Work Of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, As the Pandemic Drags On, Law Professors Are Making Changes
• Bloomberg Law, Law School Ethics Becomes ‘Real,’ Tackles Covid, Social Justice
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), What Standup Comedy And Deaning Have In Common
• Christine Charnosky (Law.com), Ilya Shapiro, On Heels Of Georgetown Law Hiring, Faces Uproar Over Tweeting That Biden's SCOTUS Pick Will Be A 'Lesser Black Woman'
• Cleveland.com,  Cleveland City Council Urges CSU Law School to Remove Name of John Marshall
• Heather Field (UC-Hastings), How the Pandemic Flipped My Perspective on Flipping the Tax Law Classroom
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Tenured Professor Suspended For Using Redacted Slurs In Law School Exam Sues University of Illinois-Chicago

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Penn Law dean will seek university sanctions against law prof for her 'derogatory public statements'
• Teneille Brown (Utah), Stereotypes, Sexism and Superhuman Faculty
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Deaning And Tsunamis
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Legal Ed News
• Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern), What Yale Law School Teaches — Inadvertently — About The Appropriate Role Of Diversity Officials

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Renee Nicole Allen (St. John's), From Academic Freedom to Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women in the Legal Academy
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Professor Affirmed
• David Bernstein (George Mason), The ABA's Problematic Proposed 'Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion' Rules For Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Law Professors Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Halfway Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 5.4% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-14.8%) And 160-169 (-9.2%))
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings:    
• Academic Experience
• Admissions Selectivity
• Career Rating,
• Professors: Accessibility
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility and Teaching
• Overall

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, Proposed Changes To Distance Learning Accreditation Standard
• ABA, Proposed Changes To Diversity And Inclusion Accreditation Standard
• Tiffany Atkins (Elon), #Fortheculture: Generation Z and the Future of Legal Education
• I. Bennett Capers (Fordham), The Law School as a White Space
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Top 10 Legal Education Posts Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup: The Year-In-Review

Quote of the Year: "Whether or not we act responsibly sometimes crucially depends on whether we believe responsibly and, thereby, shows the relevance of responsible belief." Rik Peels

Here is my annual list of the best legal education articles of the year.

Best Legal Education Articles of 2021

• Edward Cantu (UMKC) & Lee Jussim (Rutgers), Microaggressions, Questionable Science, and Free Speech
• Larry Cunningham (Dean, Charleston), Cross Cultural Competency as a Learning Outcome
• Mary Walsh Fitzpatrick (Albany) & Rosemary Queenan (Albany), Professional Identity Formation, Leadership and Exploration of Self
• Jennifer Gundlach (Hofstra) & Jessica Santangelo (Hofstra), Teaching and Assessing Metacognition in Law School
• Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas), The Major Transitions in Professional Formation and Development from Being a Student to Being a Lawyer Present Opportunities to Benefit the Students and the Law School
• Lucy Jewell (Tennessee), Comparative Legal Rhetoric
• Robert Kuehn (Washington University), Implementation of the ABA's New Experiential Training Requirement: More Whimper Than Bang
• Jaime Alison Lee (Baltimore), From Socrates to Selfies: Legal Education and the Metacognitive Revolution

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, Golden Gate And Western New England Law Schools Are Out Of Compliance With Bar Passage Accreditation Standard
• ABA Journal, The Top 10 Legal News Stories Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Fall 2021 Acceptance Rate
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), University Of Illinois-Chicago Law School Reassigns Jason Kilborn's Spring Classes While He Undergoes Mandatory Diversity Training
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), The Gulag University of Illinois-Chicago
• Law.com, 'Murkiness' of ABA Data Could Slow Law Schools' Adoption of the GRE
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), Univ of Illinois-Chicago Has Gone Crazy: The Latest on the Kilborn Case
• Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), The 2021 Law School Transfer Market

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, 509 Report Data On Law School Admissions And Tuition
• ABA Journal, Exam Question Wasn’t Only Offensive Behavior of UIC Law Professor, According to Internal Investigation
• ABA Journal, Overall, Law Schools See Increase in 1Ls and Decrease in Non-JD Students
• ABA Journal, Which law school has best quality of life? Best career prospects? Princeton Review releases rankings
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), July 2021 California Bar Exam Results
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), July 2021 California Bar Exam Results For Out-Of-State Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Fall 2021 Median LSAT Scores
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Fall 2021 Median UGPAs

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Exam question wasn’t only offensive behavior of UIC law professor, according to internal investigation
• Jamie Abrams (Louisville), Legal Education's Curricular Tipping Point Toward Inclusive Socratic Teaching
• Bloomberg Law, Big Law’s Talent Shortage Raises Vexing Questions on ‘Quality’
• Noah Chauvin, The Banality of Law Journal Rejections
• Michael Conklin (Angelo State), Letterhead Bias and Blind Review: An Analysis of Prevalence and Mitigation Efforts

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Jamie Abrams (Louisville), Legal Education's Curricular Tipping Point Toward Inclusive Socratic Teaching
• Academic Freedom Alliance & Brian Leiter (Chicago), The University Of Illinois-Chicago's Response to Student Complaints Against A Tenured Law Professor
• Deborah Archer (NYU), Caitlin Barry (Villanova), Lisa Bliss (Georgia State), G.S. Hans (Vanderbilt), Vida Johnson (Georgetown), Wilkes Kaas (Quinnipiac), Lynnise Pantin (Columbia), Kele Stewart (Miami), Priya Baskaran (American), Jennifer Fernandez (Penn), Crystal Grant (Duke), Anjum Gupta (Rutgers), Julia Hernandez (CUNY), Alexis Karteron (Rutgers) & Shobha Mahadev (Northwestern), Clinicians Reflect on COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Looking Beyond
• Brooklyn Law School, Professor Steven Dean Named Co-Director of Block Center for International Studies

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Some law schools outside T14 still send many grads to the nation's top-grossing firms
• The American Bazaar, Indian American Yale law professor blasts school over ‘trap house’ Incident
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), In Response To Criticism, ABA Releases Revised Proposed Diversity Accreditation Standard For Notice And Comment
• Chronicle of Higher Education, The Review: Interview with Andrew Koppelman
• Chronicle of Higher Education, This Professor Investigated a Presidential Search at His University. It Said He Was Out of Line
• Dan Rodriguez (Former Dean, Northwestern), Legal Education as a Key Stakeholder in Legal Services Reform
• J. Goosby Smith (Pepperdine), Happy Thanksgiving, Pepperdine

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Above the Law, Yale Law School Sued For Jerking Around Students In Amy Chua Dust-Up
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Lawyerly Letter
• Jeff Baker (Pepperdine), Clinics In The Age Of Covid And Beyond
• Josh Blackman (South Texas), Conservative and Libertarian Law Students At Yale Law School Should Transfer Out En Masse
• California Bar, Bar Exam Pass Rate Falls As Bar Adjusts Scores Of 31% Of Examinees Impacted By ExamSoft Tech Issues
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 25% Of The Way Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Up 2.3%, But Down In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-11.2%)), Except 150-159 (+11.4%)
• Benjamin Carpenter (St. Thomas), A Letter to Students on the Meaning of Work and Professional Formation

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, More law school applicants with high LSAT scores are getting rejected, admissions officers say
• Katherine Benson (UBC), In Favour of Universal Design: The Argument for Continued Hybrid Online/In-Person Courses in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic with a Focus on Students with Disabilities
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine),  Rick Cupp Receives Pepperdine University's Highest Teaching Honor
• Katherene Conner (Elon), Experiential Learning During COVID A Perspective and A Proposal
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), The ABA, AALS, LWI, CLEA, and All Law Schools Should Adopt the University of Chicago Principles of Free Expression
• Inside Higher Ed, When Suspending a Professor Isn't Enough

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Ty Alper (UC-Berkeley), Third-Party Sexual Harassment: The Challenge of Title IX Obligations for Law School Clinics
• Peter Berkowitz (J.D. 1990, Yale; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution), An Open Letter to Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken
• Charleston Regional Business Journal, Reinvestment Brings Charleston School of Law Back From the Brink
• Laura Graham (Wake Forest), 'Safe Spaces' and 'Brave Spaces': The Case for Creating Law School Classrooms that Are Both
• Hofstra Symposium, Leading Differently Across Difference Conference
• Brendan Johnson (Minnesota) & Francis Shen (Minnesota), Teaching Law and Artificial Intelligence
• David Lat, The Newest Insanity Out Of Yale Law School
• Marc James Léger, Sam Kerson Lawyers Will Appeal Court Decision

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Jurisdictions Are Switching Back To In-Person Bar Exam Starting in February
• ABA Journal, Moot Court Teacher Claims Her Law School Position Was Terminated Following Complaints to the ABA
• Above the Law, Yale Law School Students Ask ‘What The Actual F***!’ And It’s A Very Good Question
• The Atlantic, A Worrisome Peek Inside Yale Law’s Diversity Bureaucracy
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine),  Admissions Data At 90% Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment
• Trent Colbert (Yale 2L), Why I Didn’t Apologize For That Yale Law School Email
• Dayton Law School, Flyer Legal Promise Provides Full Law School Tuition, $15,000 Stipend, Job After Graduation
• Phil Lord (Lakehead), Black Lives Matter: On Challenging the Soul of Legal Education

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• 15th Deans' Leadership in Legal Education Symposium
• Bloomberg Law, Vermont Law School Thwarts Claim It Can’t Hide Slavery Murals
• David Brooks (New York Times), What Does a University Owe Democracy?
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Tax Prof Twitter Census (2021-22 Edition)
• Florida Politics, Ron DeSantis Says Three Years of Law School Is a ‘Waste’
• Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern), Yale Law’s Bullying, Coercive Diversity Leaders: How Not To Do Equity Work

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Douglas E. Abrams (Missouri), Eleven Observations About Legal Writing
• AccessLex, Leading Nonprofit AccessLex Institute Launches New Bar Review With Donation of $5 Million in Free Courses
• American University Law Review, My Favorite Law Review Article Video Series
• Peter D. Burdon (Adelaide), 'Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste': The Impact of COVID-19 on Legal Education
• Law & Society Association, Statement on Recent Rejection of “Scholarly Impact” Metric
• Liberty Justice Center, UMass Law Professor Sues to End Massachusetts Law Giving Unions 'Exclusive Representation

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 9% Of The Way Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Up 11.5%, With Biggest Increase (21.6%) Among The 150-159 LSAT Band
• Benjamin Carpenter (St. Thomas), A Letter to Students on the Meaning of Work and Professional Formation
• Daily Montanan, Montana Law School Dean, Associate Dean Resign Following Student Walkout Over Mishandling Of Sexual Misconduct Allegations; Provost Temporarily Takes Control
• Forbes, Judge Revokes Bankrupt Ex-Lawyer’s $220,000 Student Loan Discharge; Lender Chided His Decision To Work As Outdoor Adventure Guide
• The Hill, Law Schools Pressured to Cut Ties With Research Firms Over ICE, CBP
• Inside Higher Ed, Author Discusses Robert’s Rules of Order and Why It Matters for Colleges and Universities Today

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Consultant’s Evaluation of ETS’s 2018 Report on the Validity of the GRE
• Rory Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth (PhD Mathematics, Miami), Quantifying the Impact of Matriculant Credentials & Academic Attrition Rates on Bar Exam Success at Individual Schools
• Bill Henderson (Indiana), Turf, Hierarchy, and Evolving Professional Norms
• Law.com, How St. Mary's Law School Convinced the ABA to Approve First-Ever Remote JD Program
• Leandra Lederman (Indiana) & Jeremy Bearer-Friend (George Washington), Lederman & Bearer-Friend: Break Into Legal Academia
• Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2021 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), July 2021 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 7th Year In A Row
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), How a CRT Adherent Gaslighted a Scholarly Organization: A Lesson for Legal Education
• Harvard Law School, Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies
• Law.com, The Results Are in: FIU Tops Bar Exam Among First-Time Candidates
• Karen Sloan (Reuters), Ominous Early Signs Emerge For July 2021 Bar Exam Pass Rates
• Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Judge OKs Delay in Magbanua Trial Until February 2022

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal,  At some law schools, why are those who teach called 'instructor' rather than 'professor'?
• Swethaa Ballakrishnen (UC-Irvine) & Carole Silver (Northwestern), A New Minority? International JD Students in US Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Admissions Data At 75% Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment
• Alexa Chew (North Carolina) & Rachel Gurvich (North Carolina), Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE’s New Defense Fund Is Here to Save College Faculty Jobs. And We Just Closed Our First Case
• David Frakt (Independent), InfiLaw - The End of An Era (and good riddance)

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Council Decision, Notice of Finding of Significant Noncompliance With Standards 202(a), (c), and (d) Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Aug. 31, 2021)
• AALS, New Deans Starting in the 2021-22 Academic Year
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Beat Goes On
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Season Was One For The Ages: Applicants Were Up 12.6%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism: A Short Critique
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog),  Synthesizing Rules

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Rory Bahadur (Washburn), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism
• D. Benjamin Barros (Dean, Toledo) & Cameron Morrissey (J.D. 2021, Toledo), A Survey of Law School Deans on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), How Much Is A Law School Dean Worth? $500?
• Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Summary of actions of the section’s Council at its public meeting Aug. 20, 2021
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), The Targeting of Scholars for Ideological Reasons from 2015 to Present
• Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas), Book Review, 69 J. Legal Educ. 224 (2019) (reviewing Patrick Longan (Mercer), Daisy Hurst Floyd (Mercer) & Timothy Floyd (Mercer), The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path from Student to Lawyer (2020)

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AALS, Journal Of Legal Education Publishes New Issue
• ABA Journal, ABA Requires Law Schools To Disclose Student Loan And Diversity Data
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), U.S. News Abandons Plan To Issue Citations Ranking Of Law Faculty
  
• Adam Chilton (Chicago), Jonathan Masur (Chicago) & Kyle Rozema (Washington U.), Rethinking Law School Tenure Standards
• Trent England (Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs), Is CRT coming to Oklahoma law schools?
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), ABA Council Approves Addition of Bias, Cross-Cultural Competency and Racism Training Requirement to Law School Accreditation Standards

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Law Prof's Federal Discrimination Suit Against University of Idaho Allowed To Go Forward
• ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Standards Committee Approves Anti-Racism, Bias Training As New Accreditation Standards For Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Early Returns On The Law School Class Of 2024: Higher LSAT Scores, UGPAs, And Enrollment
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Prayer For Pepperdine Caruso Law 1Ls
• David Grenardo (St. Mary's), The Phantom Menace to Professional Identity Formation and Law School Success: Imposter Syndrome
• J.B. Heaton (JD, MBA & Ph.D., University of Chicago), Who Fields the Best Team?: A (Better) Measure of the Top Ten U.S. Law Schools by Faculty Impact

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AccessLex Institute, 2021 Legal Education Data Deck
• Ashley Arrington (Houston), RIPS-SIS Legal Research Text Review: How to Teach Lawyers, Judges, and Law Students Critical Thinking by E. Scott Fruehwald (2020)
• Boston Globe, Former Senator Scott Brown Resigns As Dean Of New England Law School To 'Re-engage In The Political Arena'
• California Western School of Law Adopts Unitary Tenure Track Policy
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Welcome, Pepperdine Caruso Law School Class Of 2024
• Brian Gallini (Dean, Willamette), Pandemic Leadership

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AALS, Banning Critical Race Theory Is Censorship
• Vikram Amar (Dean, Illinois), Resuming In-person Law School Instruction in the Face of the Delta COVID-19 Variant
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 69 Law Schools Now Accept The GRE For Admissions
• Cornell Chronicle, Cornell Professor Donates A Kidney To His Colleague
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), The Best Way to End Disparities in Bar Exam Results: Better Teaching Methods
• Heather Gerken (Dean, Yale), Will Legal Education Change Post-2020?

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• April M. Barton (Duquesne), Teaching Lawyers to Think Like Leaders: The Next Big Shift in Legal Education
• Baylor Symposium, Vision For Law School Leadership Training
• Catherine Martin Christopher (Texas Tech), Normalizing Struggle
• Darby Dickerson (Dean, Southwestern), Finding the Goldilocks Zone: Negotiating Your First Employment Offer in Legal Academia
• Neil Hamilton (St. Thomas), The Major Transitions in Professional Formation and Development from Being a Student to Being a Lawyer Present Opportunities to Benefit the Students and the Law School
• Stephanie Roberts Hartung (Northeastern), Book Review, 69 J. Legal Educ. 217 (2019) (reviewing Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC), eds., Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning and Making a Difference in Law 2019)

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Roger Alford (Notre Dame), The Professor As Institutional Entrepreneur
• Bitcoin Magazine, The Next Generation of Attorneys: Three Reasons Why Law Schools Should Be Teaching Bitcoin to Students
• Boston Herald, Boston College Denies Catholic Students Religious Exemption To COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 98% Of The Way Through The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Up 14%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band
• Jennifer Gundlach (Hofstra) & Jessica Santangelo (Hofstra), Understanding the Metacognitive "Space" and Its Implications for Law Students' Learning
• Inside Higher Ed, Rethinking The Physical Campus After COVID-19: Akron Sheds One Million Square Feet Of Space; One University, Two Law Schools

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AccessLex, Approaching the Bar: An Analysis of Post-Graduation Bar Exam Study Habits
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, All in the Name
• Laurel Fletcher (UC-Berkeley), Let's Talk about the Boteros: Law, Memory, and the Torture Memos at Berkeley Law
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), A Guide to Help Lawyers, Law Students, and Business Professionals Develop Cross-Cultural Competence (2021)
• Malcolm Gladwell, Lord of the Rankings and Project Dillard (Revisionist History Season 6)
• Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC), Fall 2021 Law Review Article Submission Guide

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Clarifying a Clarification
• Bloomberg, Law School Application Surge Means ‘Nightmare’ Contest for Slots
• Cynthia D. Bond (UIC), Using Skills Pedagogy to Enrich the Family Law Classroom
• I. Bennett Capers (Fordham), The Law School as a White Space
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Tax Prof Adam Chodorow Named Co-Interim Dean At Arizona State
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine),  Tax Prof Wedding (Video)

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

The big legal education news for the past few months is that the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has proposed significant modifications of and additions to Standards 205, 206, 303, 507, and 508.  The second round of comments on these proposals closed earlier this week.  You can find the comments here.  Some of the more interesting comments were by Adam Lamparello, Scott Fruehwald, Yale Law School, CLEA, Various Law Professors.  (Note: the fact that I call them interesting does not mean that I agree with all of them.)  Everyone in legal education should be aware of these proposals because they could produce major changes in legal education.  The Council should next consider these matters in August.

• Above the Law, Student Staff Resign After Duke Law School Faculty Try To Force Anti-Trans Article Into Journal
• Vikram D. Amar (Dean, Illinois) & Jennifer K. Robbennolt (Illinois), The Role of Lawyers and Law Schools in Fostering Civil Public Debate
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Flap Over 'Clinton' Change
• Bloomberg Law, On Amy Chua, Yale Law and the Cauldron of Nonsense
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Monday Is The Last Day To Submit Comments On ABA's Proposal To Mandate Racism And Bias Training At All Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Tax Prof Wedding

Continue reading

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA, Section of Legal Education Releases First-Time Report on Bar Passage Data
• Tiffany Atkins (Elon), #Fortheculture: Generation Z and the Future of Legal Education
• Susan Bandes (DePaul), Feeling And Thinking Like A Lawyer: Cognition, Emotion, And The Practice And Progress Of Law
• Susan Brooks (Drexel), Marjorie Silver (Touro), Sarah Fishel (Drexel) & Kellie Wiltsie (Drexel), Moving Toward a Competency-Based Model for Fostering Law Students' Relational Skills
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Getting To Know 0Ls
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Is There Age Bias In Lateral Tax Faculty Hiring?

Continue reading