Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

New Nevada Law Dean: J.V. White from Louisiana State

The UNLV press release is here.

Filler's Updated List of Faculty Moves

The new URL for the list is here.  Note that this list does not distinguish between or among genuinely "lateral" moves (e.g., from one tenured position to another tenured position, or from one tenure-track position to another tenure-track position) as against other moves (e.g., from a clinical position to a tenure-track academic position, or froma  tenure-track position to a tenured position, etc.).

US News Reputation Scores for 2007

Lots of folks have e-mailed me the new U.S. News rankings, and the underlying numbers check out.   There aren't a lot of significant changes from last year in the reputational scores, the one part of the ranking that can't be gamed.  (This doesn't mean they have a lot of validity, but at least their problems are not related to actions by the schools being evaluated.)  I list, below, the top 30 in academic reputation, followed by the reputation score (on a 5 point scale) and then the overall rank; the list that follows does the same for lawyer/judge reputation, but minus the overall rank.  Most of the discrepancies between reputation score and overall rank are due to the factors discussed here.

Academic Reputation

1.  Yale University (4.9) (1)

2.  Harvard University (4.8) (2)

3.  Stanford University (4.7) (2)

4.  Columbia University (4.6) (5)

4.  New York University (4.6) (4)

4.  University of Chicago (4.6) (6)

7.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.5) (8)

8.  University of California, Berkeley (4.4) (8)

8.  University of Virginia (4.4) (10)

10. University of Pennsylvania (4.3) (6)

11. Cornell University (4.1) (13)

11. Duke University (4.1) (10)

11. Georgetown University (4.1) (14)

14. Northwestern University (4.0) (12)

14. University of California, Los Angeles (4.0) (15)

14. University of Texas, Austin (4.0) (18)

17.  University of Southern California (3.7) (16)

17.  Vanderbilt University (3.7) (16)

19.  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (3.5) (20)

19.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (3.5) (36)

19.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (3.5) (31)

19.  Washington University, St. Louis (3.5) (19)

23.  Boston University (3.4) (20)

23.  Emory University (3.4) (22)

23.  George Washington University (3.4) (22)

23.  University of California, Davis (3.4) (34)

23.  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (3.4) (25)

23.  University of Iowa (3.4) (24)

23.  Washington & Lee University (3.4) (25)

30.  Boston College (3.3) (28)

30.  Ohio State University (3.3) (31)

30.  University of Notre Dame (3.3) (28)

As usual, the academic reputation results look more like the world law professors know, though even here there are some very odd results that indicate this isn't a good measure of faculty quality and, as Professor Stake has shown, the reputation score tends to be an "echo chamber."  (An especially egregious case is Hastings, which had a reputation score of 3.2, and overall rank of 36th, presumably because of a disastrous overall rank for a couple of years.  I assume its score didn't go down because, e.g., Geoffrey Hazard has taken up a half-time post on the faculty!)  One notable change in academic reputation this year is that NYU's reputation rank (4th) is, I am fairly certain, its highest ever in U.S. News.  That result is rather overdue (even if Chicago still has a better faculty!).

Lawyer/Judge Reputation
Note:  these scores tend to fluctuate more year to year, probably because the response rate is so low (always under one-third of those surveyed respond--this year only 29%).

1.  Harvard University (4.8)

1.  Stanford University (4.8)

1.  Yale University (4.8)

4.  Columbia University (4.7)

4.  University of Chicago (4.7)

6.  New York University (4.6)

6.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.6)

6.  University of Virginia (4.6)

9.  University of California, Berkeley (4.5)

9.  University of Pennsylvania (4.5)

11.  Cornell University (4.4)

11.  Duke University (4.4)

11.  Northwestern University (4.4)

14.  Georgetown University (4.3)

14.  University of Texas, Austin (4.3)

14.  Vanderbilt University (4.3)

17.  University of California, Los Angeles (4.0)

17.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4.0)

19.  Emory University (3.9)

20.  George Washington University (3.8)

20.  University of California, Hastings (3.8)

20.  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (3.8)

20.  University of Notre Dame (3.8)

20.  Washington & Lee University (3.8)

20.  Washington University, St. Louis (3.8)

26.  Boston College (3.7)

26.  College of William & Mary (3.7)

26.  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (3.7)

26.  University of Iowa (3.7)

26.  University of Southern California (3.7)

26.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (3.7)

The other underlying data (except, ironically, the per capita expenditure data, which plays a very significant role in the overall rank) will be avaliable to subscribers on Friday, as I understand it.  Others have listed the full ordinal list of the top 100 according to U.S. News, for reasons that may be known only to them; the "overall" rank is a sheer nonsense number, most dramatically so outside the top 20-25 or so.  There is more on that subject, of course, here and, more recently, here.

I have quite a bit to do, including travel, the next few days, but I may have more on U.S. News later in the week.  In the interim, good luck to all students deciding on law school the next few weeks!

UPDATE:  Here is the rest of the top 50 in academic reputation; frankly, the further down one goes, the weirder (and sometimes inexplicable) the results get, presumably because evaluators know less and less about the schools and their faculties.  With that caveat, here is the rest of the top 50 in academic reputation (with overall rank following the raw score):

33.  College of William & Mary (3.2) (31)

33.  Fordham University (3.2) (25)

33.  Indiana University, Bloomington (3.2) (36)

33.  University of California, Hastings (3.2) (36)

37.  University of Arizona (3.1) (44)

37.  University of Florida, Gainesville (3.1) (47)

37.  University of Washington, Seattle (3.1) (28)

40.  Tulane University (3.0) (47)

40.  University of Colorado, Boulder (3.0) (36)

40.  University of Georgia (3.0) (36)

40.  Wake Forest University (3.0) (36)

44.  American University (2.9) (47)

44.  Arizona State University (2.9) (51)

44.  University of Connecticut (2.9) (47)

44.  University of Maryland (2.9) (36)

48.  Brigham Young University (2.8) (44)

48.  Florida State University (2.8) (53)

48.  University of Alabama (2.8) (36)

48.  University of Miami (2.8) (70)

48.  University of Oregon (2.8) (82)

48.  University of Pittsburgh (2.8) (57)

48.  University of San Diego (2.8) (85)

I take it as a modest sign that my ranking site has had some constructive influence that deserving schools like San Diego and Florida State are now in the top 50 for academic reputation, but it is, alas, still surprising that schools like George Mason (2.7 in academic reputation), Chicago-Kent (2.6), and Houston (2.6), among others, are not.

For Whom (Tom) Bell Tolls: Schools Gaming the Reporting of US News Employment Data

Professor Bell presents the details here.  Schools whose employment data reporting appears suspicious include Georgetown, UCLA, Cardozo, Washington/Seattle, and Illinois, among others. But as Professor Bell notes, there may be other explanations for the disrepancies he identifies.

Persily from Penn to Columbia

Nathaniel Persily, a leading young expert on election law and voting rights at the University of Pennsylvania Law school, has accepted a tenured offer from Columbia Law School.

Paulsen from Minnesota to St. Thomas

Michael Stokes Paulsen, a prolific and influential constitutional law scholar at the University of Minnesota Law School (who currently holds one of the University's distinguished McKnight professorships), has accepted a senior offer from the University of St. Thomas, also in Minneapolis.  That's a big coup for St. Thomas, which under the leadership of Dean Thomas Mengler (formerly Dean of the University of Illinois College of Law) seems to be flourishing.

UPDATE:  More on St. Thomas hiring here.

"International Association of Penal Law" has...

...a blog!

US News Formula for Calculating 9-Month Employment Differs from ABA Method

Tom Bell (Chapman) has the details.  The question is how many schools failed to notice the difference this year (I'm checking right now on Texas!); since U.S. News rankings come out later this week, we'll see soon enough.

25 "Underrated" Law Schools According to Vault

The list is here.  It was based, it appears, on a survey of attorneys charged with recruitment.   It isn't quite clear what the base-line is for ratings, such that a school is "underrated."  Among the other oddities, it is clear from the comments that Vault permitted those surveyed to rate the law school from which they graduated.

Bill Henderson (Indiana) has more detailed remarks on the Vault study.

Movsesian from Hofstra to St. John's

Mark Movsesian (contracts, international law) at Hofstra University will take up a Chair at the law school at St. John's University (in Queens, New York) this fall.