Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

New Blog on "National Security Law"

Here.  This is certainly an important and timely topic, though I'm afraid I don't know anything about the contributors, so have no idea whether this blog will meet the need for incisive and critical commentary on these issues.  Hopefully, it will.

Dershowitz's Obsession with Chomsky

Chomsky's plausible explanation for Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz's obsession is here:

Dershowitz readers will be aware that whenever his sensitive antennae pick up a phrase that might be critical of Israeli government policies, if my name is even remotely associated, it quickly becomes the “hard left gang of Israel bashers” led by the evil demon Chomsky. Why the consistent fabrications over the past 36 years – which, of course, merit no response? Dershowitz and I know very well, but others may be intrigued, so I might as well make the reason public for the first time. His pathetic behavior traces back to what was probably our first contact. In April 1973, Dershowitz wrote a scurrilous attack in the Boston Globe against Israel’s leading human rights activist, Dr. Israel Shahak, the chairman of Israel’s League for Human and Civil Rights, in which he even went so far as to support a government effort to destroy the League by methods so outrageous that they were at once declared illegal by the Israeli courts. I responded, correcting his slanders and fabrications – that is, every single substantive statement. He then tried to lie his way out of it, even descending to falsification of Israeli court records. I responded again, citing the actual court records and responding to his new lies and deceit. 

The incident demonstrated conclusively that Dershowitz is not only a remarkable liar and slanderer, but also an extreme opponent of elementary civil rights....Dershowitz flew into a fury over the exposure, and ever since has produced a series of hysterical tirades and lies concerning some entity in his fantasy world named “Chomsky,” who lives on “planet Chomsky.” That is his standard style when he is exposed, reaching truly grotesque levels in his efforts to discredit Norman Finkelstein (and even his mother, probably a new low in depravity) after Finkelstein’s meticulous documentation of Dershowitz’s astonishing lies in his vulgar apologetics for Israeli crimes (Beyond Chutzpah).

"Future of Legal Scholarship" in the Era of the Internet and Blogs

A symposium in the Yale Law Journal's "Pocket Part."  The skeptical view is coming soon...

Around the Law Blogs

Feminist Law Profs critiques sexist legal humor, while Ann Althouse (Wisconsin) defends it.

UPDATE:  A reader points out that Professor Althouse (who, accordingly to the AALS Directory, is 55 years old) has responded to my merely calling attention to this debate by calling me a "nerd."  Oh goodness.  My 5th-grader was also called a "nerd" at school the other day.  This will help us bond. 

(As members of the Caron Blog Empire know, we get paid by the number of visits, so this Update is admittedly a cynical attempt on my part to get Professor Althouse to link here again.)

AND A FINAL ONE:  Thanks to one of my students for pointing out that in the comments Professor Althouse has gone a step further, and called me a "jackass."  Oh goodness, again!  A surprising choice of language from someone who, in the past, was quite prissy about the use of such words.

Placement in Law Teaching: Slightly Revised Data

MOVING TO FRONT from July 31 for those who missed it during the summer

A slightly revised version of the study on placement in "top" teaching jobs is now on-line.  There are no changes in the overall groupings, but I decided to substitute the most current ABA data on class size for purposes of calculating the "per capita" rate (it isn't, strictly, per capita, of course, but it at least permits some comparison of success rates between schools of differeing sizes).

Forget Manure, Try Federal Reporters

Details here.

Top 20 Law Schools by Size of Endowement (based on data from 2000)

Someone recently supplied me this slightly dated information (from the year 2000) about law school endowments.  The numbers would no doubt be higher today in most instances, though the relative ranking might not be that changed (an exception would be UVA, which would be higher in most instances now I suspect).

Three sets of figures are given. Gross endowment is important, since larger schools have economies of scale. Per-student endowment is self-explanatory. Per-student endowment adjusted for regional differences in cost-of-living is significant since at least some of the things that endowment income is spent on--e.g., faculty salary and perks (e.g., housing subsidies)--are sensitive to cost-of-living. Of course, other factors are not: e.g., schools like Notre Dame and UVA in relatively low cost-of-living areas have to spend more money to bring in speakers, host conferences, and put on other events that are part of a thriving academic life (and which are often supported by endowment funds).

Endowment, of course, is only one source of revenue.  State schools also earn revenue from tuition and state support; private schools have only tuition as the other major source of revenue, though their tuitions tend to be significantly higher.  Many law schools also generate some revenue from post-JD programs (e.g., LLM degrees) and Continuing Legal Education programs.

TOP 20 LAW SCHOOLS BASED ON GROSS VALUE OF ENDOWMENT (rounded, in millions)

1.  Harvard University (926)

2.  Yale University (350)

3.  Columbia University (280)

3.  Stanford University (280)

5.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (248)

6.  New York University (211)

7.  University of Chicago (209)

8.  University of California, Berkeley (198)

9.  University of Texas, Austin (168)

10. University of Virginia (165)

11. Northwestern University (151)

12. University of Southern California (145)

13. University of Notre Dame (130)

14. Washington University, St. Louis (121)

15. Georgetown University (117)

16. Mercer University (91)

17. Cornell University (90)

17. University of Pennsylvania (90)

19. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (84)

20. Vanderbilt University (78)

TOP 20 LAW SCHOOLS BASED ON PER-STUDENT VALUE OF ENDOWMENT (rounded, in thousands)

1.  Yale University (590)

2.  Harvard University (559)

3.  Stanford University (518)

4.  University of Chicago (374)

5.  Columbia University (248)

6.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (241)

6.  University of Notre Dame (241)

8.  University of California, Berkeley (235)

9.  Northwestern University (234)

10. University of Southern California (233)

11. Mercer University (224)

12. Washington University, St. Louis (195)

13. Cornell University (167)

14. New York University (156)

15. University of Virginia (150)

16. Vanderbilt University (143)

17. Duke University (124)

18. University of Texas, Austin (122)

19. University of Pennsylvania (117)

20. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (113)

TOP 20 LAW SCHOOLS BASED ON PER-STUDENTE VALUE OF THE ENDOWMENT (rounded, in thousands) AS ADJUSTED FOR COST-OF-LIVING (using Boston as the baseline)

1.  Yale University (900)

2.  Harvard University (559)

3.  University of Notre Dame (526)

4.  Mercer University (494)

5.  Washington University, St. Louis (390)

6.  University of Chicago (386)

7.  Stanford University (360)

8.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (314)

9.  University of Virginia (289)

10. Cornell University (285)

11. Vanderbilt University (276)

12. Northwestern University (242)

13. Duke University (226)

14. Washington & Lee University (214)

15. University of Texas, Austin (208)

16. University of Southern California (200)

17. Case Western Reserve University (196)

18. University of Pennsylvania (181)

19. University of California, Berkeley (178)

20. Columbia University (167)