Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Post-graduation employment minus school-funded jobs

Interesting list here, though as we noted before, school-funded jobs are often the crucial route into public sector positions for many graduates, and schools with big investments in getting graduates into public interest will necessarily have a good number of these.  On the other hand, it is certainly true that in many other cases, school-funded jobs are make-work position meant to boost employment statistics, not help launch careers.

Which areas of law deserve more attention/investment from law schools...

...in the form of more full-time faculty doing research in the area.  It's our topic du jour, so perhaps a poll of readers will prove informative.  No lobbying for votes by blogs in particular areas!  The poll only includes areas about which one hears with some regluarity concern that they are under-treated by law schools (so no constitutional law, corporate law, tax, criminal law, which almost all law schools are well-represented in or try to be).

When the results are in, I'll open them for discussion next week.

UPDATE:  Unfortunately, the Workplace Law blog linked to the poll, which resulted in a surge for employment law.  I've asked  them to remove the link, otherwise we will have to drop employment law from the results, which would be unfortunate.

Is hiring of labor and employment law professors disproportionately down?

I'm skeptical.

Job Placement

Blog Emperor Caron has a useful set of links to the NLJ compilation of recent data about which schools had the best long-term employment rates, big firm placement, federal clerkship placement, and so on.

U of Arizona Law Cuts Official Tuition Rate

Story here.  The reality, of course, is that actual tuition is being cut across the country, as I have heard repeatedly from Deans at a wide variety of law schools, all of which are spending more on financial aid to attract the students they want.  (I am surprised in the linked article by the comment attributed to Brian Tamanaha [Wash U/St. Louis], who is quoted as pronouncing that U of Arizon's tuition has to be even lower.)

Ideological diversity in law schools...

...the non-issue that just won't die.  For my earlier take, see this exchange with Yale's Peter Schuck.  (I should disclose that I was invited to the Federalist Society event, but was already committed to a conference during those days; I would have declined in any case, since I don't think the topic is intellectually substantial.)

April Fool's Day at Legal Theory Blog

Larry Solum always has some very funny parodies.  This is my favorite from yesterday's batch.  Several years ago, Solum published such a good April Fool's parody of me that for two years afterwards I would get e-mails from overseas asking for copies of the paper!

Disclosing material/economic interests in scholarship

More law reviews should adopt this policy.

Currier Named Managing Director of Legal Education and Accreditation at ABA

The American Bar Association has announced that the current interim Consultant on Legal Education, Barry Currier, will permanently take on the job of Managing Director of Legal Education and Accreditation.  This is a new title for the position of Consultant.   Currier served as the Deputy Consultant from 2000-04.

Judge Denies Widener Motion To Dismiss In Consumer Fraud Suit

Last week, Federal Judge William Walls (District of N.J.) denied Widener University School of  Law's motion to dismiss in a case alleging that the law school provided misleading and incomplete graduate employment rates in violation of New Jersey and Delaware Consumer Fraud Acts.  The opinion is here.

H/T ABA Journal