Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Guernsey Named Dean of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Guernsey, the former dean of Albany Law School and Southern Illinois University School of Law, and a current member of the Albany Law faculty, has been named the new dean and president of Thomas Jefferson Law School. 

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.

Clark Named Dean of Seattle

Annette Clark, who served an abbreviated term as dean of Saint Louis University School of Law and was interim dean of Seattle University School of Law from 2009-10, has been named the new dean of Seattle. 

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

Standen Named Dean of Northern Kentucky

Professor Jeffrey Standen, who currently serves as a professor and associate dean of faculty at Willamette Law, has been named the new dean at Northern Kentucky University law school.  

Hamilton Named Dean of UNLV

Professor Daniel Hamilton, the associate dean for faculty development at the University of Illinois College of Law, has been named the new dean of the University of Nevada Las Vegas law school.  Hamilton has a JD from George Washington and a Ph.D in history from Harvard.  As Al Brophy notes over at the Faculty Lounge, Hamilton joins Bill Treanor, Dave Douglas, Bruce Smith,  Ray Solomon, and Greg Mark as legal historians turned law school deans.

Updated Study of Per Capita Faculty Productivity

Lucinda Harrison-Cox, Raquel Ortiz, and Michael Yelnosky of Roger Williams Law have updated their annual study of per capita faculty scholarly productivity in top journals, now from 1993 to 2012.  The results are here.  

Their research focuses on schools outside the US News Top 50, and uses a modified version of the methodology Brian employs in this ranking.  

As Brian pointed out previously, this list gives some insight into which regional schools have more of a scholarly culture.  

I hope nobody will blame me for noting that in Drexel's debut year in the study, our faculty cracked the Top 40. That's not bad, given that the majority of our faculty members weren't scholars during most of the relevant time period (which began in 1993); most were hired into their first tenure track job in 2006 or later.