Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

American legal education in global perspective

An optimistic take from NYU's Rob Howse.

Total number of law schools and law students, 1964 to the present

Useful data here.

"Downsizing" legal education

Dean Yellen (Loyola-Chicago) makes several very good points.

NY Times covers decline in law school applications

Probably no need to flag a front-page Times story on this subject, but for the sake of completeness I note it.  There's not really anything new for those who are regular readers of this blog.  One irony, I expect, of a high-profile story like this is that it may actually push the number of applicants up a bit, since at least some prospective students will conclude, probably correctly, that they will get into a better law school, and at a better price, this year than they would have in the past and perhaps also the future.  But we will see how the rest of this admissions cycle plays out.

UPDATE:  This item makes the correct point, one somewhat obscured in stories like the one linked, above, namely that the "crisis" in the legal marketplace and law schools is not evenly distributed, as it were.

It would be fair to say that the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan is finished...

...when the D.C. Circuit officially gives up on it.  Let us hope a successor emerges.

Law school applications likely to hit an all-time low this year since records were kept (going back to 1983)

Details here. 

This essentially guarantees that next year's job market for law teachers will be even more difficult than this year's.  Until enrollments stabilize (or increase), the majority of schools have to put off or limit full-time faculty hiring.

Diamond on Tamanaha

A different take on Failing Law Schools.  (My own, briefer view.)

First the architects, now the lawyers?

A cautionary tale.

ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education...

...is soliciting comments.  You can read the comments received so far here.  I haven't read them all, but of those I did read, the comments from Frank Wu, Dean at Hastings, sounds the right themes, while the one from Scott Fruehwald, formerly a legal writing instructor at Hofstra, is notable for its infatuation with gimmicky educational theories, and will presumably be ignored.   I trust readers of this blog will submit comments; I plan to do so shortly.

 

Greater diversity in institutions offering legal education...

...a subject we've touched on before is, it seems to me, compatible with tenure and academic freedom, contrary to Stephen Diamond (Santa Clara).  I think he is also mistaken in his characterization of Brian Tamanaha's critique--Tamanaha is correct, in my view, to view access to education, including legal education, as an issue of social justice, and correct to note that the high cost of legal education has major ramifications for what kind of legal work graduates perform.

UPDATE:  Professor Diamond tells me that Tamanaha argues against tenure as part of accreditation standards, which is a mistake.   Tenure and academic freedom should be decopuled from issues about the length of law school and the teaching vs. research models of higher education.

ANOTHER UPDATE (1/22/13):  Professor Diamond has temporarily disabled his blog, due to an influx of threatening and inappropriate comments.  The "scam" blogs are increasingly coming to resemble Autoadmit.