Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Proposed UC Irvine Law School Fails to Get California Education Agency Approval

A new report from the California Postsecondary Education Commission recommends against creating a fifth University of California law school at the Irvine campus, a recommendation that may well be a decisive blow.  There is only one UC law school in Southern California, at UCLA; the other three UC law schools are in Northern California (at Berkeley, Davis, and San Francisco [i.e., Hastings]).  Meanwhile, a San Diego paper editorializes against a fifth UC law school (no doubt thinking, in part, about its likely deleterious effects on its three local, private schools:  University of San Diego, California Western, and Thomas Jefferson).

Fellowships for Aspiring Law Teachers

Blog Emperor Caron has updated his invaluable listing.

List of All Lateral Moves for 2007

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 22, SINCE IT HAS ALREADY BEEN UPDATED WITH A NUMBER OF NEW HIRES.

Dan Filler (Drexel) is compiling such a list here (based, in part, on news posted here, but also other sources).

Review of Two Books: One on, One by Dworkin

This may interest students of jurisprudence:  the penultimate draft of the review (which will appear in the Times Literary Supplement) is here.  The books discussed are Dworkin's recent collection Justice in Robes (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Scott Hershovitz (ed.), Exploring Law's Empire (Oxford University Press, 2006).  I was operating, needless to say, under a word limit!

UPDATE:  One can't include acknowledgments in these short review essays, but I can include them here:  so let me thank Leslie Green, Adam Samaha, Scott Shapiro, Galen Strawson, and Cass Sunstein for being kind enough to give me quick and quite helpful feedback on an earlier draft.

New Corporate Law/Securities Reg Blog...

...here, featuring J. Robert Brown (Denver) and, interestingly (perhaps uniquely), students of his at the law school.

Twerski to Step Down as Hofstra Dean at End of Academic Year

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEB 10--SEE UPDATE

Aaron Twerski, a leading torts and products liability scholar, will resign as Dean of the law school at Hofstra University at the end of the academic year, citing health reasons.  Story here.

Twerski only became Dean at Hofstra in 2005, moving there from Brooklyn Law School.

(Thanks to Adam Steiner for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Professor Twerski will rejoin the faculty at Brooklyn Law School starting next academic year.

Ava Maria Law School Relocating from Michigan to Florida

Blog Emperor Caron has the details and links.  This will no doubt be a relief to the University of Michigan Law School, whose graduates have sometimes passed the Michigan Bar exam at lower rates than graduates of Ava Maria!  (Now if we could only get rid of Baylor here in Texas....)

"Naturalism in Legal Philosophy"

A revised and updated version of this essay is now on-line here at the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy, for those who might be interested.  A much fuller treatment of these issues, including my replies to a variety of critics (including Michael Moore, Jules Coleman, John Finnis, Julie Dickson, and others), will be forthcoming (simultaneously in cloth and paper, happily) later this Spring from OUP.

Four Finalists for USC Law Deanship

Here (search "Law Dean Candidate Forum").  The finalists are Edward McCaffery (USC, and current Interim Dean, who is a tax scholar); Robert Rasmussen (Vanderbilt, who works on the law and economics of bankruptcy and commercial law); Emerson Tiller (Northwestern, positive political theory); and Marcus Cole (Stanford, bankruptcy and commercial law).

Smolla Named Dean at Washington & Lee

Rodney Smolla, a leading First Amendment scholar and current Dean of the law school at the University of Richmond, has been appointed Dean of the law school at Washington & Lee University.  The Washington & Lee press release is here.