Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

UCLA Law Dean Jennifer Mnookin to become the new Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison

Wisconsin got very lucky!  I feel for my friends at UCLA, who know they are losing an excellent Dean.  And I'm very happy for my friends in Madison.

Lateral hires with tenure or on tenure-track, 2021-22

These are non-clinical appointments that will take effect in 2022 (except where noted); I will move the list to the front at various intervals as new additions come in.   (Recent additions will be put in bold.)  Last year's list is here.

 

*Michelle Adams (civil rights, constitutional law, law & race) from Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University to the University of Michigan.

 

*Aziza Ahmed (health law,  constitutional law, law & gender, law & race) from the University of California, Irvine to Boston University.

 

*Lisa Alexander (corporate, contracts, housing & urban development law) from Texas A&M University to Boston College.

 

*Michele Alexandre (civil rights, constitutional law, law & gender, critical race theory) from Stetson University (where she is Dean) to Loyola University, Chicago (to become Dean).

 

*Jonas Anderson (intellectual property [esp. patents], property) from American University to the University of Utah.

 

*Julian Arato (international law, international trade) from Brooklyn Law School to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

 

*Mario Barnes (constitutional law, criminal law, national security law, race & the law) from the University of Washington, Seattle (where he is Dean) back to the University of California, Irvine (effective January 2022).

 

*Jeannine Bell (criminal law and procedure, law & society) from Indiana University, Bloomington to Loyola University, Chicago.

 

*Matthew Bodie (labor & employment law, corporate law) from Saint Louis University to the University of Minnesota.

 

*Kristen Boon (international law) from Seton Hall University to the University of Ottawa (to become Dean).

 

*John R. Brooks (tax law & policy) from Georgetown University to Fordham University.

 

*Dorothy Brown (tax) from Emory University to Georgetown University.

 

*Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. (legal ethics) from the University of Georgia to the University of Tennessee (to become Dean).

 

*Kara Bruce (bankruptcy, commercial law) from the University of Toledo to the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

 

*Christopher Buccafusco (intellectual property) from Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University to Duke University.

 

*Sarah Burstein (patents, copyright) from the University of Oklahoma, Norman to Suffolk University.

 

*Courtney Cahill (constitutional law, law & sexuality) from Florida State University to the University of California, Irvine.

 

*Emily Cauble (tax) from DePaul University to the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 

*Kami Chavis (criminal law & procedure) from Wake Forest University to the College of William & Mary.

 

*Ming Hsu Chen (administrative, immigiration, and constitutional law; law & society) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of California, Hastings.

 

*Miriam Cherry (employment law, contracts) from Saint Louis University to St. John's University.

 

*Blanche Bong Cook (criminal law and procedure) from the University of Kentucky to Loyola University, Chicago.

 

*Geoffrey Corn (criminal law & procedure, military law) from South Texas College of Law to Texas Tech University.

 

*Diane Lourdes Dick (bankruptcy, tax) from Seattle University to the University of Iowa.

 

*Ryan Doerfler (statutory interpretation, judicial review, law & philosophy) from the University of Chicago to Harvard University.

 

*Raff Donelson (criminal law & procedure, jurisprudence) from Pennsylvania  State University-Dickinson School of Law to Chicago-Kent College of Law/Illinois Institute of Technology.

 

*Doron Dorfman (health & disability law, employment discrimination, empirical legal studies) from Syracuse University to Seton Hall University.

 

*Michael C. Duff (labor & employment law) from the University of Wyoming to Saint Louis University.

 

*Tabrez Y. Ebrahim (law & technology, patent law, property) from California Western School of Law to Lewis & Clark (untenured lateral).

 

*Taleed El-Sabawi (health law & policy) from Elon University to Florida International University (untenured lateral).

 

*Seth Endo (civil procedure, professional responsibility) from the University of Florida, Gainesville to Seattle University (untenured lateral).

 

*Lee Epstein (empircal legal studies, law & social science) from Washington University, St. Louis to the University of Southern California.

 

*Sam Erman (legal history, constitutional law, citizenship & nationality) from the University of Southern California to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

 

*Brenner Fissell (criminal law, local government law, military law) from Hofstra University to Villanova University (untenured lateral).

 

*Dallan Flake (civil procedure, employment discrimination) from Ohio Northern University to Gonzaga University (untenured lateral).

 

*Matthew L.M. Fletcher (Federal Indian law) from Michigan State University to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

 

*Amanda Frost (immigration law, constitutional law) from American University to the University of Virginia.

 

*Charlotte Garden (labor & employment law, constitutional law) from Seattle University to the University of Minnesota.

 

*Jacob Goldin (tax, empirical legal studies, law & economics) from Stanford University to the University of Chicago.

 

*David Grenardo (sports law, legal profession) from St. Mary’s University to University of St. Thomas (Minnesota).

 

*Leah Chan Grinvald (intellectual property) from Suffolk University to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (to become Dean).

 

*Tara Leigh Grove (federal courts, civil procedure, constitutional law) from the University of Alabama to the University of Texas, Austin.

 

*Woodrow Hartzog (law & technology) from Northeastern University to Boston University.

 

*Richard Hasen (election law, voting rights) from the University of California, Irvine to the University of California, Los Angeles.

 

*Daniel Hemel (tax, intellectual property) from the University of Chicago to New York University.

 

*Margaret Hu (national security law, immigration law, civil rights, law & technology) from Pennsylvania State University-University Park to the College of William & Mary.

 

*Blake Hudson (natural resources law, land use, environmental law) from the University of Florida, Gainseville to Cumberland School of Law, Samford University (to become Dean).

 

*Christine Hurt (corporate law, securities regulation) from Brigham Young University to Southern Methodist University.

 

*Tonja Jacobi (empirical legal studies, criminal procedure, judicial behavior) from Northwestern University to Emory University.

 

*Marissa Jackson Sow (property, contracts, law & race) from St. Johns University to the University of Richmond (untenured lateral).

 

*Sharon Jacobs (environmental law, energy law) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of California, Berkeley.

 

*Jalila Jefferson-Bullock (criminal law & procedure) from Duquesne University to Wayne State University.

 

*Linda Jellum (administrative law, legislation, tax) from Mercer University to the University of Idaho.

 

*Courtney Joslin (constitutional law law & sexuality, employment discrimination) from the University of California, Davis to George Washington University (effective fall 2023).

 

*Christine Kim (tax) from the University of Utah to Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University.

 

*Shani King (family law, education law) from the University of Florida, Gainseville to Rutgers University.

 

*Alexandra Klass (energy law, environmental law) from the University of Minnesota to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

 

*Steven Koh (international & comparative criminal law) from Boston College to Boston University (untenured lateral).

 

*Stacey Lantagne (intellectual property, entertainment law) from the University of Mississippi to Western New England College of Law.

 

*Michelle Layser (tax) from the University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign to the University of San Diego (untenured lateral).

 

*Daryl Lim (intellectual property, antitrust) from the University of Illinois, Chicago John Marshall Law School to Pennsylvania State University-Dickinson School of Law.

 

*Odette Lienau (international law, law & economics, bankruptcy) from Cornell University to Boston College (to become Dean).

 

*Shirley Lin (employment law, antidiscrimination law, law & gender, law & race) from Pace University to Brooklyn Law School (untenured lateral).

 

*Lynn LoPucki (commercial law, corporate law) from the University of California, Los Angeles (where he will take emeritus status) to the University of Florida, Gainesville.

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Professor Lawsky's Entry-Level Hiring Report for 2021-22

The report is now available here.  Professor Lawsky recorded 106 hires, the most in a good number of years, although nothing like the numbers before 2010, when 150 or more was the norm.  Inevitably some rookie hires are missed:  Chicago had three grads on the market, all three of whom received tenure-track offers, but it looks like one did not report to Professor Lawsky.  Some misses are inevitable, but I'm confident her overall picture is quite informative.

As Professor Lawsky also notes, we don't have data on how many graduates of each school were on the market.   You can see past "success rate" data from some prior years here and here.

UPDATE:  Professor Lawsky very kindly updated her report to include the missing Chicago candidate. Thank you, Professor Lawsky!

Per student value of law school endowments

A colleague elsewhere sent me data on law school endowments in 2019 (most probably went up in 2021, although they're probably back down now).   We divided the total endowment by the total JD and non-JD student enrollment based on the 2021 ABA disclosures to determine the per student value of the endowments.  Endowments, of course, are not the only source of income beyond tuition:  public law schools, for example, get substantial amounts of money from the state, while some law schools get substantial annual gifts (for more than a decade, for example, Chicago has benefitted from renewable three-year gifts supporting the Rubenstein Scholarships in an amount that would be equivalent, by my estimate, to another $125,000,000 in endowment!).  There is, of course, a striking if hardly perfect correlation between per student value of endowments and US News.com rankings, in part because per capita expenditures account for all the differences between otherwise comparable schools.

Interestingly, several of the very wealthy law schools (e.g., Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Notre Dame) actually have lower per student endowments than their parent universities as a whole; while others (like Virginia and Michigan) have far more.

In any case, here are the top 20 law schools by the per student value of their endowments (schools with an *asterisk outside the top 10 have a gross endowment greater than $100 million; all the schools in the top ten have gross endowments greater than $100 million).

1.  Yale University ($2,033,106)

2.  Stanford University ($1,422,512)

3.  Harvard University ($1,060,304)

4.  University of Notre Dame ($670,157)

5.  University of Chicago ($623,318)

5.  University of Virginia ($623,923)

7.  Columbia University ($496,710)

8.  University of Michigan ($480,237)

9.  University of Pennsylvania ($403,714)

10. Duke University ($352,594)

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ABA Committee recommends dropping the requirement of standardized testing (e.g., the LSAT) for law school admission

Here.  While the ABA has some power, the real power rests with USNews.com:  if they still want LSAT scores, law schools will still use them.  If USNews.com drops the LSAT scores, then the race to get the highest median GPA, regardless of the difficulty of the undergraduate course of study, will accelerate, since that will be the only numerical measure left for student admissions.  That would be a disaster.  Comments are open for thoughts from readers on this development and what it portends; submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

On growing up outside the gender binary

A nicely written essay by lawprof Katherine Franke (Columbia).

If you've accepted a tenure-track law teaching job...

...submit your information to Professor Lawsky's annual report on entry-level hiring.

In Memoriam: Joseph Raz (1939-2022)

Professor Raz, who was emeritus at both Oxford and Columbia Law School, died this morning in London.  There is more about Raz at my philosophy blog.

Bankruptcy Scholar Troy McKenzie to Lead NYU (Michael Simkovic)

Troy McKenzie, a highly regarded bankruptcy and civil procedure scholar, was recently appointed as the new Dean of NYU School of Law.  Dean McKenzie will be the second bankruptcy scholar to lead a top-5 law school (Douglas Baird at Chicago was the first).  McKenzie is unusual among law school deans because of his undergraduate background in chemical engineering. 

McKenzie has written about aggregate litigation in bankruptcy, the independence of bankruptcy judges, bankruptcy jurisdiction, mass torts in bankruptcy, forum shopping, and the governance of complex litigation.

McKenzie, who was born in Jamaica, will be the second Black dean of a top law school, after Chris Edley at Berkeley.

The full announcement from NYU is available here.

Seven law professors elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They are:  Richard Brooks (NYU), Guy-Uriel Charles (Harvard), Justin Driver (Yale), Lauren Edelman (Berkeley), Martha Fineman (Emory), Robert W. Gordon (emeritus, Yale and Stanford), and Dorothy Roberts (Penn).

(I'll add as a point of personal privilege that I was pleased to see two Chicago alumni among the honorees:  Professor Brooks graduated from the Law School in 1998, and Professor Fineman in 1975.)

A change to the USNews.com ranking formula that would actually be salutary

The arbitrary adjustments to weightings and the like to one side, here's a change that would improve legal education and law school admissions:   drop the median GPA as a factor.  Not all GPAs are equal.  A 3.9 in communications or education is inferior to a 3.5 in engineering or chemistry or philosophy or economics.  Some majors are harder than others.   But US news generates massive pressure to ignore field of study in favor of GPA.  It's a disaster.  Drop median GPA as a factor.

What are standard law school teaching loads these days?

Professor Jeff Sovern (St. John's) writes:

I wonder whether schools that perform better on lists like the citation lists posted on this blog from time to time have lower requirements for the amount of teaching professors do and if so, how much. I am also curious to know what standard law school teaching expectations are these days, something others may also wonder about.  Could those of you who read this please post the teaching requirements at your law school in the comments? At my school, St. John’s, the default teaching load is twelve credit hours per year. Professors with chairs are expected to teach ten hours per year while early-career professors get a course reduction of about one course a year and in one semester in their first few years teach no courses. Professors may seek a research leave every seventh year consisting of a semester at full pay or a year at half-pay.  

Comments are open; submit your comment only once, they are moderated and may take awhile to appear.  Include a valid university email address, which will not appear.   It would be preferable for posters to name the school in question, which is why I need to know the email address, even if you choose not to post your full name.

In Memoriam: Michael A. Olivas (1951-2022)

A longtime member of the University of Houston law faculty, where he was emeritus, Professor Olivas was a leading expert on higher education law and immigration law, and served in many public capacities, including as General Counsel of the AAUP, as President of the AALS, and as Interim President of the University of Houston-Downtown.  A UHD announcement is here, and a memorial notice from the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund is here.

Dan Markel's brother-in-law Charlie Adelson finally arrested and charged with his murder

Story here.

The case against student-edited law reviews, an ongoing saga

The latest shot fired by Professor Paul Heald (Illinois).  He is, of course, right, but I don't expect anything to change.

Yale Law School melodrama, part 325

This time in CHE; an excerpt:

Some professors lay the blame at Gerken’s feet. “I have the sinking feeling that the values of the school are being eroded under this deanship,” one faculty member told me. Another said Gerken is a “genuinely nice person who doesn’t like telling people hard truths to their face.” The critics, who sought anonymity, basically accused the dean of repeatedly caving in to progressive students.

 

Gerken’s defenders were likewise reluctant to have their names printed. Several I spoke with argued that those taking shots at the dean are the law school’s old guard, and what they’re really upset about is Gerken’s emphasis on diversity and on punishing sexual harassment. One faculty member told me he thought the dean’s critics were setting a poor example for students.

 

The fact that no one will talk frankly on the record speaks to an overall loss of trust between certain factions of professors. More than one of them mentioned to me that they feared their comments in faculty meetings would be recorded and leaked.

I hope this doesn't need saying, but:  secretly recording a faculty meeting and leaking the recording is not protected by academic freedom, and a tenured faculty member could be severely sanctioned for such misconduct.  

In addition, as the recent scholarly impact studies show, Yale needs its "old guard"!