Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Steinbock Named Dean at Toledo

The University of Toledo College of Law has announced the appointment of Dan Steinbock as the school's new permanent dean.  He has been serving as interim dean for the past year.  Steinbock joined the Toledo faculty in 1985 after a career in public interest practice.  He received his J.D. from Yale.

"Naturalized Jurisprudence and American Legal Realism Revisited"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 20:  SEE 2ND UPDATE

This is my reply to critics for a forthcoming symposium issue of Law & Philosophy on my 2007 book Naturalizing Jurisprudence.  The critics are:  Julie Dickson (Oxford), Michael Steven Green (William & Mary), and Mark Greenberg (UCLA).

UPDATE:  I put up the wrong version, my apologies!  The correct, penultimate copy-edited draft is now on-line. 

2ND UPDATE:  The papers to which I reply by Green and Greenberg are now available on-line.  Unfortunately, it does not yet appear Dickson's is available on-line.

Denying College Students the Right to Carry Guns on Campus...

...is like racial segregation.   Finely tuned moral sensibilities here!

Another Advantage Aspiring Law Teachers on the Right Have Over Others

It's programs like this, which employ ideological criteria for eligibility.  The American legal academy is already quite far to the right on a range of economic and policy issues by comparison to both the rest of the U.S. academy and the legal academies in other common law jurisdictions; programs like this, which provide special opportunities to those who would push it even further to the right, really do make it absurd to then turn around and complain that "conservatives" are at any kind of disadvantage in securing academic jobs.  (I would like to add that this is not a knock on these programs, and I would absolutely encourage students who meet the ideological criteria to apply for these opportunities.) 

For some of my earlier thoughts on these issues, in dialogue, as it were, with Professor Bainbridge see this old post of mine, as well as my discussion with Peter Schuck (Yale).

ADDENDUM:  From last year's post, linked above:

[T]he real story...is about the massive advantage job seekers on the political right have in virtue of the coordinated activities of the Federalist Society, which funds multi-day academic "boot camps" to educate those on the right seeking teaching jobs in all aspects of the process, including job talks, interviews, and self-presentation, both in person and in writing.   There is simply nothing like this available to a "liberal" academic job seeker who doesn't happen to graduate from a law school (like Chicago) that provides similar support to its alumni on the teaching market. 

And then, of course, once Federalist academics are in teaching, they benefit from a continuous stream of invitations to speak at Federalist Society events at law schools across the country, which gives them an exposure not available to young legal academics not on the right.  (Federalist Society events, to their credit, generally involve speakers with opposing views, but the 'opposition' is usually drawn from the local faculty, not outsiders.)  Watching this parade of events at Chicago and before that at Texas, I am struck by the fact that the majority of conservative academics brought through would probably not be invited to a workshop at the school on the intellectual or scholarly merits, in any case, certainly not with the frequency with which they get brought through courtesy of the Federalist Society.  So the Federalist Society network is a powerful leg up in terms of visibility for young legal academics on the right.

ANOTHER:   A pseudonymous commenter named "Flipper" at a right-wing blog responds to the preceding as follows:

As someone who is a conservative and has been on the market for a number of years, I find Leiter’s position absurd. Anyone who is paying attention knows that conservatives have a very hard time on the market (and if you’re a social conservative, forget about it). I know of several candidates who possess PhD’s and multiple publications (one guy has 5 law review articles) who have not secured jobs on the market. Now, you tell me what liberal candidate with those credentials could not obtain a law faculty position anywhere in the country after multiple attempts? It’s just ludicrous to assert that there isn’t a substantial bias.

Now if blog comments were indicative of dialectical skills, another explanation for Flipper's difficulties on the job market would suggest itself.  For it does not establish "substantial bias" that Flipper hasn't gotten a job or that Flipper claims to know of "several candidates who possess PhD's and multiple publications" who have not secured teaching jobs.  The sample is too small, and the testimonial evidence is too obviously tainted by bias and too free of pertinent details (PhDs in what?  articles on what, published where?), to support any conclusions at all.  And off the top of my head, I can immediately name three "candidates who possess PhDs and multiple publications" whose intellectual profiles are either apolitical or liberal, and who have not secured academic jobs in the last couple of years.  That quite suffices to wholly undermine the force of the anecdotal 'evidence' on offer here.

Ferruolo Named New San Diego Dean

The University of San Diego School of Law announced the appointment of its new dean, Stephen Ferruolo.  Ferruolo is a partner in the San Diego office of Goodwin Proctor.  Although he comes from practice, he sports impressive academic credentials.  He was a Rhodes Scholar, earned his JD from Stanford in 1990 and his Ph.D in history from Princeton in 1979.  He was a member of the Stanford history faculty from 1979-87.

Unemployed/Underemployed Thomas Jefferson Law Grad Sues School

The ramifications of such a suit, were it successful, would obviously be substantial.

Philip Weiser Named Dean of Colorado Law

The University of Colorado School of Law has named Colorado Professor Philip Weiser as its new dean.  He will take over July 1.  Weiser, who is presently on leave serving as the senior advisor for technology and innovation to the National Economic Council at the White House, is a 1994 graduate of NYU Law and a former clerk to Senior Justice Bryon White.  He joined the Colorado faculty in 1999.