Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Jason Solomon (Georgia) is Gunning for Yale...

...on grounds that their faculty may be outstanding, but the education ain't great.  I don't know how much credence we ought to put in the Princeton Review 'student satisfaction' data, but he's probably right that everyone should score Yale Law School a '3' in the next US News surveys, but for a somewhat different reason:  it would be better for the legal academy if Harvard or Stanford were #1 now and then in the US News roulette wheel.  Among other things, it might lead those self-selecting for careers in legal academia to pick YLS less often.  The disproportionate number of YLS grads entering law teaching is clearly having a deleterious effect on scholarship and the academy.

A 3-Year JD/MBA?

Lawrence Cunningham (George Washington) comments.

Congratulations to my colleague Martha Nussbaum...

...who is the only American legal academic to be elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy this year.  She joins three other Chicago Law faculty to share that honor:  Professor R.H. Helmholz and Senior Lecturer (and, of course, Judge) Richard Posner, as well as emeritus professor Ronald Coase.  Other American law faculty who are Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy are Judge Guido Calabresi (emeritus, Yale) and Sanford Kadish (emeritus, Berkeley).

Also elected as an "Ordinary Fellow" this year is Christopher McCrudden of Oxford University, who is a regular visiting professor of law at the University of Michigan.

Law and Philosophy Workshop at Chicago Addendum

Two incoming students e-mailed about the Law and Philosophy Workshop (mentioned here).  This is not, I'm afraid, open to 1Ls to take for credit, but students are welcome to sit in on the sessions.  I hope that the Jurisprudence II course will be available as a Spring Quarter elective, and so open to 1Ls.  Please feel free to e-mail with additional questions or stop by my office in September.

The "Cravath System" and Lawyer Salaries

More insightful stuff from Bill Henderson (Indiana/Bloomington).

My Teaching at Chicago Next Year

A couple of folks have asked about my law & philosophy offerings, so here's what's on the agenda at this point:

I'll be doing the "Law and Philosophy Workshop" all year on the topic "Toleration and Religious Liberty."  This is cross-listed between the Law School and Philosophy Department, and is open to students in either unit, as well as others at the university; all students will need to submit a statement of interest and other information to be considered for admission (there are details at the link, above).  Speakers at the workshop will include Joseph Raz, Simon Blackburn, Susan Mendus, Leslie Green, and Martha Nussbaum, as well as various legal scholars and legal theorists.

In the fall quarter, I'll be offering in the Law School the basic Jurisprudence I course (scroll down) covering the nature of law and the theory of adjudication.  In the Spring quarter, I'll offer Jurisprudence II (again, scroll down), which will cover "topics in moral, political, and legal theory."  I haven't fixed the precise topics yet, but Juris I won't be a prerequisite.  JD students get priority for these, though MA and PhD students from other units can take them as cognates.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

Chang from Loyola/LA to Seattle

Robert Chang (immigration law, Asian-Americans and the law) at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles has accepted a tenured offer from Seattle University.

"Quite a few students have been shunted into part-time progrms so a school could drive up its US News numbers"

That seems clear.

Interim Dean Janet Levit Named Dean at Tulsa

The University of Tulsa press release is here.

7 New Academic Faculty at Chicago for 08-09

Here, which will give Chicago its largest full-time faculty in its history.