Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Major Retention Coup for Notre Dame: The Bellias Turn Down Virginia

Anthony Bellia (Federal Courts) and Tricia Bellia (Constitutional Law, Cyberlaw) have declined tenured offers from the law school at the University of Virginia and will remain at the Notre Dame Law School.  Notre Dame has long had a strong reputation among practitioners (Notre Dame alums are famously loyal, which also doesn't hurt), but the school has also noticeably strengthened its faculty from a scholarly point of view in the last decade.

Hall of Shame: Schools Publicizing Their Meaningless US News Ranking

Blog Emperor Caron collects a list of the offenders.  Amazing.  Someone else will no doubt figure out how many of these Deans, or their predecessors, signed the letter urging students to ignore the U.S. News rankings.  While I have some slight sympathy with lesser-known schools trying to publicize an unusually good result on the U.S. News "roulette" wheel (even though it is quite likely to come back to haunt them in another year), it's a bit harder to understand what schools like Vanderbilt think they are doing.  (Note that some of the press releases Caron links to are products of university-wide public affairs offices, which, if they are anything like UT's, have no idea what they are doing.  But many of these, including Vanderbilt's, are news releases from the Law School itself!)

Yudof from Chancellor at Texas to President at California

Mark Yudof (constitutional law, education law), currently Chancellor of the University of Texas System, and previously President of the University of Minnesota, Provost of the University of Texas at Austin, and Dean of the Law School at Texas, has accepted appointment as President of the University of California System.  He will also hold an appointment as professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley.  Given the troubles in the UC system, they are fortunate, indeed, to have attracted someone of Yudof's caliber!

Klick from Florida State to Penn

Jonathan Klick (empirical law and economics) at Florida State University has accepted a tenured offer from the University of Pennsylvania.

Zick from St. John's to William & Mary

Timothy Zick (constitutional law) at St. John's University has accepted a senior offer from the College of William & Mary.

The US News 'echo chamber'

Still timely, sad to say.  (Note that the link is to an item from three years ago.)

Mootz from Penn State to Nevada

Francis Jay Mootz (commercial law, critical legal theory) at Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University has accepted a senior offer from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Reputation Scores in 2008 US News Surveys (from fall 2007)

Based on the copies of the US News rankings that have been circulating in Cyberspace for a couple of days (thanks to the many readers who sent me copies), here are the results of the reputational surveys conducted by U.S. News early last fall.  Every year there tend to be some inexplicable fluctuations in scores (.1 in either direction), and this year was no different, but, overall, relative stability in the top 30 was the most noticeable feature of the academic reputation results (a bit less so with the lawyer/judge reputation results, but the response rate is much lower to that survey--a mere 26% responded, compared to 70% of the academics).

Academic Reputation (raw score) (rank in 2007)

1.  Harvard University (4.8) (2)

1.  Yale University (4.8) (1)

3.  Columbia University (4.7) (4)

3.  Stanford University (4.7) (3)

5.  University of Chicago (4.6) (4)

6.  New York University (4.5) (4)

6.  University of California, Berkeley (4.5) (8)

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

9.  University of Virginia (4.4) (8)

10. University of Pennsylvania (4.3) (10)

11. Cornell University (4.2) (11)

11. Duke University (4.2) (11)

11. Georgetown University (4.2) (11)

14. Northwestern University (4.1) (14)

14. University of Texas, Austin (4.1) (14)

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

17.  Vanderbilt University (3.8)  (17)

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

19.  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (3.6) (19)

19.  Washington University, St. Louis (3.6) (19)

21. George Washington University (3.5) (23)

21.  University of Iowa (3.5) (23)

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

24.  Boston University (3.4) (23)

24.  Emory University (3.4) (23)

24.  Ohio State University (3.4) (30)

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

24.  University of California, Hastings (3.4) (33)

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

24.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (3.4) (19)

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

Lawyer/Judge Reputation (raw score) (rank in 2007)

1.  Harvard University (4.8) (1)

1.  Stanford University (4.8) (1)

1.  Yale University (4.8) (1)

4.  Columbia University (4.7) (4)

5.  University of Chicago (4.6) (4)

5.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4.6) (6)

5.  University of Virginia (4.6) (6)

8.  New York University (4.5)  (6)

8.  University of California, Berkeley (4.5) (9)

10. Cornell University (4.4) (11)

10. Duke University (4.4) (11)

10. Georgetown University (4.4) (14)

10. University of Pennsylvania (4.4) (9)

14. Northwestern University (4.3) (11)

15. University of Texas, Austin (4.2) (14)

16. Vanderbilt University (4.1) (14)

17. Washington & Lee University (3.9) (20)

17. Washington University, St. Louis (3.9) (20)

19.  Emory University (3.8) (19)

19.  George Washington University (3.8) (20)

19.  University of California, Los Angeles (3.8) (17)

19.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (3.8) (17)

19.  University of Notre Dame (3.8) (20)

24.  Boston College (3.7) (26)

24.  University of California, Hastings (3.7) (20)

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

24.  University of Iowa (3.7) (26)

28.  Boston University (3.6) (31)

28.  College of William & Mary (3.6) (26)

28.  Indiana University, Bloomington (3.6) (31)

28.  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (3.6) (20)

28.  University of Southern California (3.6) (26)

28.  University of Wisconsin, Madison (3.6) (26)

Law schools lying to US News?

Pretty shocking, if true!  Of course, it may just be, as Professor Lindgren says, an 'unwitting' error.

Merrill from Columbia to Yale

Thomas Merrill, a very distinguished scholar in the fields of property, environmental, and administrative law, who moved a few years ago from Northwestern University to Columbia University, has now accepted a senior offer from Yale Law School.  As several folks have remarked to me, this is an unusual hire for Yale because Merrill actually knows a lot about law!  (I can also not resist noting that Merrill is the third University of Chicago Law School graduate that Yale has hired in the last few years, the others being Richard Brooks and Tracey Meares.)