Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Why Don't More Elite Law Schools Teach Consumer Law?

So asks the Consumer Law & Policy Blog; comments are open there for those who have ideas.

Slate Looks Back at Liberal Lawyers Who Supported Nomination of C.J. Roberts

Interesting piece here.  It turns out that an obscure philosopher was closer to the mark on Roberts!

Meanwhile, Brian Tamanaha (St. John's) has provocative remarks on the Supreme Court Term just concluded, as does Geoffrey Stone (Chicago). 

Howrey Law Firm to Pay Associates Based on "Merit" Rather than Seniority

Story here.  This could have huge, and not necessarily welcome, ramifications if it becomes widely adopted.  My guess is that, in the short-term, Howrey is going to have real trouble recruiting new associates, and that will discourage other firms from following suit.  On the other hand, if the Howrey partners find their profits-per-partner going up as opaque "merit" evaluations result in lower associate salaries (or higher salaries pegged entirely to much higher hours billed), other firms may well follow suit.

Some Interesting Commentary on Today's School Segregation Case

Lior Strahilevitz (Chicago)

Jack Balkin (Yale)

Mark Graber (Maryland)

Eric Muller (North Carolina)

Law Schools Unlikely to Follow Lead of Liberal Arts College and Boycott US News

So reports The National Law Journal.  Nothing is to be gained from such a strategy, in my view, since U.S. News has shown its willingness in the past to simply "fill in the blanks" with their best guess for data schools won't provide (this is what the magazine has done for years with Reed College, which has boycotted for many years the college rankings).  The real solution to the U.S. News problem is for other rankings to proliferate.  It would help, in particular, if other commercial publications would enter the fray.

Faculty Hiring/Appointments Chairs for 2007-08: Make Yourselves Known!

Here.

Wall Street Journal Article on Law School Rankings Besides US News

Here.  Two interesting excerpts.  One:

Before deciding which law school to attend this fall, Eric Singer flipped through the latest U.S. News & World Report law-school rankings. He eventually chose the University of Chicago over New York University, even though NYU is ranked higher overall.

Instead of relying on U.S. News, Mr. Singer scanned independent online sites and research papers and concluded that Chicago has "better clerkship placement, better placement into academia, better national-firm placement, and a stronger faculty," says the 25-year-old teacher in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Law school is a large purchase; you have to be a more informed consumer," he adds.

It is scary to think that anyone would choose NYU over Chicago (or any school over any other) because of a two-place difference in U.S. News.  But the anecdote involving Mr. Singer--who clearly made use of my ranking site for data on such things as clerkship placement, placement in law teaching, and faculty quality--is consistent with my impression that the better students are, in fact, savvy consumers of the U.S. News rankings.

Another:

Some students say it's a mistake to rely too much on U.S. News. Keyan Rahimi-Keshari last year chose to attend Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tenn., ranked 16th in U.S. News, over 36th-ranked California-Hastings in large part because of the rank differential. But he couldn't get a summer-job interview from any of the 40 firms he applied to in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he wants to work after graduation. The magazine's rankings, he has concluded, doesn't account for the fact that schools below the top 10 may not carry as much weight with employers outside their region. He's considering transferring to a California school.

"Below the top 10" is probably not the right cut-off with regard to Mr. Rahimi-Keshari's point, but it is clearly correct that almost all law schools place most of their graduates regionally, a fact prospective students should consider.  As I've said before, the best indicator as to the "national" market value of the degree is to find out which law firms from outside the immediate market area actually interview on campus. 

ABA/LSAC Makes 2008 Data Available in Spreadsheet Formats

The Empirical Legal Studies blog has details.

3rd Annual On-Line Junior Scholars Workshop Hosted by Conglomerate Blog

Here.

Brian Leiter Links Page

Your (nearly) complete Brian Leiter links page, which some readers may want to switch out for their current links to this or my other pages.  (I've got another Brian Leiter links page as well, which I may fill out further, though the Naymz site was a bit easier to use I thought.)