Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Updated Law School Faculty Moves. And About Those Entry Level Hires...

The law school lateral faculty moves list is now updated here.

Tim Zinnecker over at the Faculty Lounge has updated his analysis of entry level hiring data here and based on these statistics, we can only conclude one of two things: this is a terrible year for entry level hiring (which is possible) or a bunch of you aren't reporting your entry level hiring news (which is probable). 

Come on folks.  Everyone wants to know the state of law faculty hiring this year.  So if you're holding out on us, please march right on over here to Prawfs to provide your news. 

All right.  I'm done with the lecture.  Please talk among yourselves.

Penn's Wolff on the LGBT Community and Labor Issues

Here.

McChesney from Northwestern to Miami

Law and economics scholar Fred McChesney, who teaches and writes primarily in the areas of antitrust and corporate law and who is Haddad Professor of Law at Northwestern University, has accepted a Chair at the University of Miami Law School.  That's a major pick-up for Miami, and comes on the heels of other strong senior hires, including Susan Bandes (from DePaul) and Scott Sundby from Washington & Lee.

Duffy from George Washington to UVA

George Washington's John Duffy, a leading scholar in the areas of patents and intellectual property more generally, has accepted a senior offer from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Mazza Named Dean at Kansas

Kansas University announced that Stephen Mazza, currently the interim dean of the law school, would become the school's permanent dean.  Mazza, a graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law (with an LLM from NYU), is a tax scholar.  He has been at KU since 1998.

Douglas Laycock on Randy Barnett

This was funny:

Randy Barnett is a smart guy, but his argument [against the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the health law] strikes most constitutional lawyers as ridiculous.  The justices of the Supreme Court will fully bear the responsibility, and I don’t think they mean to revert to understandings of the Commerce Clause from well before the New Deal.

Best April Fool's Joke: "Yale Ludicrous School"

Mike Dorf (Cornell) is the winner.

UPDATE:  But Larry Solum (Illinois) is surely a close runner-up for this gem.

US News to Adopt Leiter Methodology for Ranking Law Schools

So here's a surprising development:  as long time readers know, I've been a longstanding critic of the U.S. News ranking charade, even having posted (and re-posted) an open letter to Bob Morse about the now notorious defects with their methodology.   Earlier this week, I received the following surprising e-mail from Mr. Morse, which read in pertinent part:

After considerable soul-searching, I've come to the conclusion that we have no good response to the concerns you have raised and that the current rankings really are a fraud on the consumers of legal education.  I do apologize to you, and to the countless students who have been misled by this misinformation over the years. 

That was, needless to say, a remarkable admission.  After further back-and-forth, we have agreed, in principle, that U.S. News will start employing non-manipulable and meaningful measures of faculty and student quality, as well as employment success, similar to those I have used for many years.   I hope to be able to announce the details of the new methodology by August at the latest.