Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Nice presentation on the U.S. News ranking methodology...

...from Pitt Dean William Carter, who had the unhappy task of dealing with a big drop in Pitt's overall rank in U.S. News.  As with all such movements, it has nothing to do with the real world, and everything to do with artifacts of the ranking method.  I commend Dean Carter's approach to the matter as a sensible one.  (As you will see if you watch Dean Carter's analysis, there have been some minor and largely cosmetic changes in the U.S. News methodology since I wrote the "Guide for the Perplexed" ten years ago.)

In Memoriam: Daniel Schaffer

Professor Daniel Schaffer of the Northeastern University School of Law passed away on May 8.  He was 74.  Schaffer, a tax expert, joined the Northeastern faculty in 1970. 

Geu Named Dean of South Dakota

Professor Thomas Geu of the University of South Dakota School of Law has been named the school's new dean.  Geu holds a JD from the University of Nebraska and joined the school's faculty in 1990.

Lateral hires with tenure, 2012-13

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGIINALLY POSTED AUGUST 27, 2012--UPDATED

These faculty haved accepted appointments with tenure that will begin in 2013: 

Howard Abrams (tax) from Emory University to the University of San Diego (in 2014).

Margaret Barry(clinical legal education; domestic violence; family law) from Catholic University Columbus School of Law to Vermont Law School  (as Associate Dean for Clinical and Experiential Programs)

Teri Dobbins Baxter (commercial Law, privacy law) from Saint Louis University to the University of Tennessee.

Curtis Bridgeman (contracts, commercial law, law & philosophy) from Florida State University to Wilamette University (as Dean).

Richard Brooks (contracts, law & economics) from Yale University to Columbia University.

Lan Cao (international business and trade) from the College of William and Mary to Chapman University.

June Carbone (family law, bioethics) from the University of Missouri, Kansas City to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

David Caron (international law) from the University of California, Berkeley to King's College, London (as Dean of the law faculty).

Paul Caron (tax) from the University of Cincinnati to Pepperdine University.

Eric A. Chiappinelli (corporate law) from Creighton Universitiy to an endowed Chair at Texas Tech University.

Jim Chen (administrative, constitutional, environmental, and natural resources law; legislation; economic regulation) from the University of Louisville to Michigan State University.

Christine Cimini (clinical legal education; immigration law) from University of Denver Sturm College of Law to Vermont Law School.

Evan Criddle (international law, human rights, administrative law) from Syracuse University to the College of William & Mary.

Jason Czarnezki (domestic and comparative environmental law) from Vermont Law School to Pace University.

Richard Delgado (critical race theory, civil rights, constitutional law) from Seattle University to the University of Alabama.

Miranda Perry Fleischer (tax) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of San Diego.

Victor Fleischer (tax) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of San Diego.

Jeanne Fromer (intellectual property) from Fordham University to New York University.

James Grimmelman (intellectual property, Cyberlaw) from New York Law School to the University of Maryland.

Julie A. Hill (secured transactions, payment systems, banking law) from the University of Houston to the University of Alabama.

Adam Hirsch (trusts & estate) from Florida State University to University of San Diego.

Darren Hutchinson (constitutional law, remedies, critical legal theory) from American University to the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Lucy Jewel (legal writing) from John Marshall Law School (Atlanta) to the University of Tennessee.

Emily Kadens (European legal history) from the University of Texas at Austin to Northwestern University.

Stefanie Lindquist (empirical legal studies, public law, law & politics) from the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Georgia (as Dean of the School of Public & Internatinal Affairs).

Alberto Lopez (trusts & estates, property, legal history) from the University of Richmond to the University of Alabama.

Judge Bruce Markell from the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Nevada to Florida State University.

Ruth Mason (tax) from the University of Connecticut to the University of Virginia.

Lesley McAllister (environmental, natural resources, energy and comparative
law) from the University of San Diego to the University of California, Davis.

Mathew McCubbins (positive political theory, law & politics) from the University of Southern California to Duke University (joint with the Law School and Political Science).

Bernadette Meyler (constitutional law, law & literature, legal history, law & religion) from Cornell University to Stanford University.

Darrell Miller (civil rights, constitutional law, legal history, civil procedure) from the University of Cincinnati to Duke University.

Trevor Morrison (constitutional law) from Columbia University to New York University (as Dean).

Douglas NeJaime (family law, law & sexuality, legal ethics) from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles to the University of California, Irvine.

James Park (corporate law, securities regulation) from Brooklyn Law School to the University of California, Los Angeles.

Frank Pasquale (intellectual property, cyberlaw, health law, privacy law) from Seton Hall University to the University of Maryland.

Eduardo Penalver (property, land use, law & religion) from Cornell University to the University of Chicago (beginning January 2013).

Nathaniel Persily (election law, constitutional law) from Columbia University to Stanford University.

Ellen Smith Pryor (torts) from Southern Methodist University to the University of North Texas.

Cristina Rodriguez (administrative, immigration, and constitutional law) from New York University to Yale University (beginning January 2013).

Christopher Serkin (property, land use) from Brooklyn Law School to Vanderbilt University.

Darien Shanske (local government law, tax, jurisprudence) from the University of California, Hastings to the University of California, Davis.

Matthew Spitzer (telecommunications law, administrative law, law & economics) from the University of Texas at Austin to Northwestern University.

Jean Stefancic (critical race theory, legal profession) from Seattle University to the University of Alabama. 

Peter Swire (privacy, law & technology) from Ohio State University to Georgia Institute of Technology (with appointments in Business, Public Policy, and Computing).  

Benjamin van Rooij (Chinese law and regulation, comparative law) from the University of Amsterdam to the University of California, Irvine.

Robin Fretwell Wilson (health law, family law, bioethics) from Washington & Lee University to the University of Illinois.

A list of last year's lateral moves with tenure is here.  And a list of visiting faculty at the very top law schools is here.  This post will be updated and moved to the front at various intervals during this academic year.

"Why Tolerate Religion?" at the Center for Inquiry in Washington, DC

The video.

In Memoriam: Richard Coulson

Richard Coulson, professor emeritus at Oklahoma City University School of Law, passed away last week.  He was 70.  Coulson joined the OCU faculty in 1969 and served as the school's dean from 1973-76.

Congratulations to the Chicago Alumni (and Bigelows and other Fellows) Who Accepted Tenure-Track Teaching Positions during 2012-13

This was a phenomenally difficult year on the teaching market, with 20% fewer schools interviewing, and, anecdotally at least, even fewer slots.  (It was the most difficult year on the teaching market in the last twenty years!) Still, it was gratifying that Chicago graduates were extremely successful in securing tenure-track positions; indeed, almost all those below had more than one offer.  They are:

Karen Bradshaw Shulz '10, who will join the faculty at Arizona State University.  She was Comment Editor of the Law Review and clerked for Judge Jolly on the 5th Circuit, before taking up a Fellowship at NYU.  She also earned an MBA prior to Law School.  Her areas include environmental law, property, land use, natural resources, energy law, and real estate transactions.

Justin (Gus) Hurwitz '07, who will join the faculty at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  He has an M.A. in Economics from George Mason, and held the Olin Law & Economics Fellowship at the Law School.   He was a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for several years, before taking up a Fellowship at Penn.  His areas include intellectual property (including patents), telecommunications law, regulated industries, payment systems, law & technology , contracts and property.

Rhett B. Larson '05, who will join the faculty at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.   He earned an M.Sc. from Oxford University in water  science, policy and management, and practiced with Perkins Coie and Gallagher & Kennedy in Phoenix.  He was also a VAP at Arizona State.  His areas include administrative and environmental law, property, water law, energy and natural resources law, and trusts & estates. 

Anne E. Mullins '04, who will join the faculty at the University of North Dakota.  She graduated with Honors from the Law School and was a member of the Law Review.  She clerked for Chief Judge Vance on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and for Judge Wiener on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then was a litigator with Susman Godfrey for five years.  Most recently, she was a VAP at the University of Oregon, where she has taught legal research and writing.  Her areas include trial advocacy, lawyering skills, and judicial writing.

Sherod Thaxton '08, who will join the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.  At the Law School, he was a member of the Law Review and an Olin Fellow.  He also earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University under the direction of leading criminologist Robert Agnew.   His scholarly work on the criminal justice system (esp. capital punishment) is complemented by five years of experience as a principal investigator for the Public Defender in Atlanta prior to law school, and then three years as an attorney for the Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District of California, where he was a member of the Capital Habeas Unit.  Most recently, he was a Dickerson Fellow at Chicago.  His areas include  criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal justice administration, juvenile law, evidence, and law and social science.

Stephen C. Yelderman'10, who will join the faculty at the University of Notre Dame.  He graduated with High Honors and was a member of the Law Review and held an Olin Fellowship while at the Law School.  He also earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and worked as a patent analyst and patent agent prior to Law School.  He clerked for Judge Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and is presently an Honor Attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  His areas include intellectual property (including patents), property, antitrust, bankruptcy, trusts & estates, and local government law.

Angela Zhang '08, who will join the faculty at King's College, University of London. She also earned a law degree from the University of Peking (as well as a JD here), and an SJD from Chicago, under the supervision of Judge Posner, in 2011.  She practiced bankruptcy, antitrust and trade competition law with Debevoise and Cleary Gottlieb in New York, and with Herbert Smith in London.  Her areas include bankruptcy, international business transactions, corporate and commercial law, antitrust, and law and economics.

Once again, all our Bigelow Fellows on the teaching market secured tenure-track positions; they are:

Anya Bernstein, who will join the faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo.  She earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2007 and a J.D. from Yale in 2010.  She clerked for Judge Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before coming to Chicago as a Bigelow Fellow.  Her areas include administrative law, federal courts, immigration, legislation, civil procedure, law and society, and comparative law

Alexander Boni-Saenz, who will join the faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology/Chicago-Kent College of Law.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2008, and clerked for Judge Wood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  He was then a Skadden Fellow at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, where he created the Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors, and also represented low-income clients in immigration, consumer, family law, and other matters.  Prior to law school, he earned an M.Sc. in Social Policy & Planning at the London School of Economics and was a Research Associate at the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at Northwestern University.  His areas include family law, property, trusts & estates, health law, and elder law.   

Victoria Schwartz, who will join the faculty at Pepperdine University.   She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2007, clerked for Judge Bybee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was a commercial litigator with O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles for three years before coming to Chicago as a Bigelow Fellow.  Her areas include contracts, employment law and employment discrimination, corporate law and governance, intellectual property, and privacy law. 

One other Fellow is presently weighing several offers; I will update this post when her situation is resolved.

In addition, the following alumni accepted VAPs or Fellowships this year (these individuals were not on the broader teaching market this year):

Timothy D. Greene '11 has accepted a Fellowship with the Fair Use Project at the Center for Internet & Society at Stanford Law School.  He graduated cum laude from Cihcago, and has been an intellectual property lawyer in the Technology Transactions Group with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco since graduating.  His areas include all aspects of intellectual property, with a particular scholarly focus on trademarks.

William B. Ortman '06 has accepted a Climenko Fellowship at Harvard Law School.  He graduated summa cum laude from Chicago, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as Articles Editor of the Law Review.  He clerked for Judge Tatel on the D.C. Circuit, and practiced law in Iowa, where he was a partner, most recently, at Weinhardt & Logan in Des Moines.  His areas include legislation, administrative law, and civil procedure.

Finally, if you're curious, you can read about some of our recent placements in law teaching here and here, and see a more comprehensive listing here.  You can also see a list of past Bigelows and where they now teach here.

Trasviña Named Dean of USF

John Trasviña, the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has been appointed dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law.  He holds a JD from Stanford and previously headed up the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Brooks from Yale to Columbia

Richard Brooks, a leading contracts and law & economics scholar at Yale Law School, has accepted a senior offer from Columbia.  He's the second senior faculty member to move from Yale to Columbia in recent years (the other being tax scholar Michael Graetz).

UPDATE:  Jonathan Adler (Case Western) points out that technically Brooks is the third, since Thomas Merrill moved from Columbia to Yale a few years ago, but then moved back to Columbia about a year later.

Mother's day thoughts

I found interesting this set of reflections by Rick Hills (NYU).

Corporate Practice Commentator's "Top 10" Articles for 2012

The full list is here; the authors of the 11 articles are:  (1) John Armour (Oxford), Bernard Black (Northwestern), and Brian Cheffins (Cambridge); (2) Oren Bar-Gill & Ryan Bubb (both NYU); (3) Robert Bartlett (Berkeley); (4) Michal Barzuza (Virginia); (5) William Bratton & Michael Wachter (both Penn); (6) Matthew Cain (Notre Dame, Business) & Steven Davidoff (Ohio State); (7) Cheffins (Cambridge), Armour (Oxford), & Black (Northwestern) again, for a different piece; (8) Jill Fisch (Penn); (9) Edward Rock (Penn); (10) Richard Squire (Forhdam); and (11) Randall Thomas (Vanderbilt) & Robert Thompson (Georgetown).

Richard Epstein on Harper's "The Lawyer Bubble"

From the conclusion of what is a quite measured review of a lazy and careless book:  "Mr. Harper's blunderbuss condemnation of most large firms and most law schools is off-target. By and large, they have proved resilient in a competitive legal climate."

Another law school adopts a 2-year accelerated JD program

The first in the New York area.

"Unsubstantiated assertion" and "platitudinous self-congratulation"

This is funny:

Professor Silver’s response [to Tamanaha] contains a number of unsubstantiated assertions.  This Essay addresses three of them....These claims illustrate how, in my view, the crisis of the American law school is in large part a product of the tendency of law school faculty to indulge in platitudinous self-congratulation...

when juxtaposed in the very same piece with this bit of unsubstantiated self-congratulation:

These facts [about the bad job market for new lawyers and the high cost of law school], which are central to Tamanaha’s argument that the economics of American legal education are broken, did not become generally known through a perfect storm of market correction but rather via the efforts of a committed cadre of reformers....

I guess those who fancy themselves part of a "cadre" can't be expected to substantiate their self-congratulation.

Law faculty salaries 2012-13

Blog Emperor Caron breaks out the latest SALT data.

Decline in lateral hiring of faculty

The evidence.  Not surprising.

Is law school tuition going up or down?

No one really knows, but given the data from private universities and colleges, the answer is very likely "down."

MEANWHILE an uptick in employment for new lawyers.

Another Employment-Outcome Rankings

From the University of Denver--it depends on self-reported data by the schools, of course, but it does provide a simple way to see the import of that data.

Columbia's Jane Ginsburg Elected to the American Philosophical Society

More here and here.

The Pro-Business Roberts Court

A new study by Lee Epstein (Southern California) and my colleagues Bill Landes and Dick Posner is discussed in the New York Times.

Controversial Saint Louis University President to Step Down

Story here.  Earlier controversies involving Biondi and the law school are noted here.

AALS Executive Susan Prager Becoming Dean at Southwestern

Susan Westerberg Prager, the former dean of UCLA Law and current Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the AALS, will become Southwestern Law School's new Dean and Chief Executive Officer effective this fall.  Needless to say, this is a major hire.

New ATL Law School Rankings Do Not Include JD Advantage Jobs...

...which is probably a mistake for reasons noted by Northwestern Dean Dan Rodriguez.

Faculty Quality Based on Membership in the American Academy

Updated for 2013.

Yes, yet another ranking of law schools

Although unlike the recent National Jurist fiasco, this one is not nuts and contains some useful information.  More detail about response rates from the student and alumni surveys would be welcome.  And the weighting of the different factors is, of course, inexplicable.   It is, I think, useful for prospective students to see that some more regional schools in fact have very good employment outcomes.

(Thanks to Rick Hasen for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  More thoughts here.

Is the job market for new lawyers, even from lower-ranked schools, really that bad?

Some interesting contrarian evidence from Ben Barros (Widener).

Law schools with JD Alumni on the Teaching Market

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 13, 2012--AS HIRING SEASON NEARS ITS END, AND PRAWFS COMPILES HIRING DATA, THIS INFO IS TIMELY AGAIN (candidates who accepted offers, please submit your info at the Prawfs site--I knnow the information there is not complete as it presently stands)

UPDATED AND CORRECTED

This is from the first FAR distribution, which is the most important one, and typically includes the most viable candidates (meaning also the candidates the school knew about!).  The school name is followed by the number of graduates on the market this year, the average recent class size, and then two ranks:  how the school ranks over a long period of time in per capita placement in law teaching; and how the school ranks more recently in placement of graduates at leading law schools.

1.  Harvard (57 candidates; average class size circa 550) (#2, #2)

2.  Yale (37 candidates; average class size circa 200) (#1, #1)

3.  NYU (31 candidates; average class size circa 450) (#9, #9)

4.  UC Berkeley (20 candidates; average class size circa 250) (#7, #5)

5.  Columbia (18 candidates; average class size circa 400) (#5, #6)

5.  Georgetown (18 candidates; average class size circa 600) (#14, #14) 

7.  Cornell (14 candidates; average class size circa 200) (#10, outside top 15)

7.  Northwestern (14 candidates; average class size circa 250) (#10, #11)

9.  Duke (13 candidates; average class size circa 250) (#10, #9)

9.  Michigan (13 candidates; average class size circa 350) (#5, #6)

9.  Stanford (13 candidates; average class size circa 200) (#4, #3)

12. Chicago (12 candidates; average class size circa 200) (#3, #4)

13. Texas (11 candidates; average class size circa 425) (#14, outside top 15)

Among the elite law schools, others had smaller number of alumni in the first FAR this year:  for example, there were eight from UCLA, seven from Virginia, four from Southern California, and three each from Penn and Vanderbilt.  Other major law schools with comparable numbers include George Washington (7) and Wisconsin (5).

ADDENDUM:  It is striking how weak the correlation is between the total numbers on the teaching market compared to past success in placement.

Brooklyn Law's Dean Allard Replies to Concerns about Academic Freedom

On Friday, Dean Nicholas Allard at Brooklyn Law School, sent me a constructive reply to the concerns raised on Thursday about the proposed definition of "adequate cause" (and, in particular, "demonstrated incompetence") for termination of tenured faculty.  Dean Allard also kindly gave me permission to share his response with the academic community.  I post it below in its entirety:

I appreciate your acknowledgment of Brooklyn Law School as a school of long-standing and good reputation.  I also share, and applaud, your commitment to academic freedom, and I welcome a vigorous discussion about how best to achieve it.  It is a critical issue and a core value at Brooklyn Law School.

The recent change to our faculty regulations that you wrote about added the concept of “demonstrated incompetence,” which, as I understand it, is a long-recognized and widely accepted regulatory term supported by the AAUP and others.  Our regulations did not previously include any reference to “demonstrated incompetence.”

The definition of the term “demonstrated incompetence” that was also included in the new regulations was not meant to expand its scope, but quite the opposite: the intent was to offer additional language to clarify a term that seemed potentially vague without further explication.  The
particular language of the definition obviously has raised concerns and will be addressed.  To that end, I welcome further input from the faculty — and from other sources, like the AAUP, as referenced by the post on your blog — and that is exactly why the matter has been referred to our Faculty Hearing Committee for its review and guidance.

Last week I asked the Hearing Committee, which is the panel of BLS professors that applies internal regulations to tenured faculty, to review the definition for “adequate cause.”  Under our regulations, this committee assures that peers are responsible for performance review — an important safeguard of both due process and academic freedom.  I await their suggestions, concerns, and improvements, which I will take to our Board of Trustees to address. 

I have full confidence that faculty peers will apply the standard fairly and in alignment with Brooklyn Law School’s tradition of outstanding scholarship. 

I view this as welcome news, and will be interested to see the final standards that emerge from the process.  I think this will also be an instructive process for other academic institutions.

"Why Tolerate Religion?" in DC Tomorrow

I look forward to meeting a number of longtime readers there.

Academic freedom (and due process) under threat at Brooklyn Law School?

Details here.

Recent Passings: George Bunn and John Sutton Jr.

In recent days, two significant senior colleagues have passed away.  George Bunn, former law dean at the University of Wisconsin, died last Sunday.  He was 87.  In addition to his 17 years on the faculty at Wisconsin, which included leading the school from 1972-75, he was the first general counsel for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1961-69.  John Sutton Jr. passed away last Friday at the age of 95.  He served on the University of Texas law faculty from 1957-2003, and was the school's dean from 1979-84.

Six law faculty elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They are:  T. Alexander Aleinikoff (Georgetown; currently on leave at the U.N. High Commission for Refugees); Tom Ginsburg (Chicago); Christine Jolls (Yale); Dan Kahan (Yale); John Manning (Harvard), and Pamela Samuelson (Berkeley).

ADDENDUM:  As we have had occasion to note before, there are sometimes surprising errors of omission in who is and is not elected to the AAAS, usually explicable in terms of institutional affiliations or intellectual (sometimes personal) animosities (as in the case of the non-election of most of the major American Legal Realists a half-century ago--Harvard dominated in the Academy then, and Harvar was the bastion of anti-Realist reaction).   While faculty are usually elected later in their careers, it really is quite astonishing at this point not to find all of these fairly senior faculty (60 or older) already elected (this is off the top of my head, and is hardly an exhaustive list; some of the prior omissions were rectified in the interim):   Bernard Black (Northwestern), R.A. Duff (Minnesota), Michael Moore (Illinois), Stephen Perry (Penn), Paul Robinson (Penn), and Larry Sager (Texas), among others.

Kerr & Lessig on the Need to Reform CFAA

Read this and then send it to your elected representatives!

Dean Search List Updated

I've posted an update of my annual law school dean search list here.  There isn't any new news, for readers who watch these matters regularly, but I've compiled all the hires - and the new openings - for those who don't.