Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Hunter from Melbourne to New York Law School

Dan Hunter (intellectual property, Cyberlaw) at the University of Melbourne Law School has accepted a tenured offer from New York Law School, where he has been visiting.

Monahan from Missouri to Minnesota

Amy Monahan (tax, employee benefits, health care), Associate Professor of Law at the University of Missouri, Columbia, has accepted a tenured offer from the University of Minnesota Law School, where she is currently visiting.

Solum's Entry-Level Hiring Reports for 2008-09...

...begins!  Larry has created a new on-line reporting system, which will save him (hopefully) a lot of work and also result in more information being available in the end.  If you are a candidate, or a hiring chair, or a placement director for your school, please do report your results!

Gallanis from Minnesota to Iowa

Thomas Gallanis (trusts & estates, legal history) at the University of Minnesota has accepted a chair at the University of Iowa.

Where are the women?

Ann Bartow (South Carolina) notes that the list of the "ten most cited faculty" during 2005-08 included no women.  Of course, there were many women who were among the "ten most cited" members of the most highly cited  faculties.  Here, per Professor Bartow's request, are the ten most cited female law professors (with the caveat that there might be some scholars whose schools were not included in this sample who might have made the list:  e.g., Carol Rose at the University of Arizona): 

1.  Kathleen Sullivan (Stanford University), 900 citations

2.  Martha Minow (Harvard University), 820 citations

3.  Deborah Rhode (Stanford University), 800 citations

4.  Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago), 740 citations

5.  Reva Siegel (Yale University), 730 citations

6.  Margaret Jane Radin (University of Michigan), 690 citations

7.  Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard University), 640 citations

8.  Judith Resnik (Yale University), 630 citations

9.  Catharine MacKinnon (University of Michigan), 620 citations

9.  Roberta Romano (Yale University), 620 citations

Dutch TV Looks at the Current Crisis of Capitalism...

...through the lens of discussions with University of Chicago faculty and students.  (To see the picture, you may need to "x" out the box to the right of the screen, depending on your browser.)  Much of the program is in English, with Dutch subtitles.   25-30 minutes in, Douglas Baird calls for the firing squad for former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, while I lock horns with my esteemed colleague and able apologist for capitalism Todd Henderson; and in the 37-47 minute range Martha Nussbaum and Eric Posner, along with students, debate competing moral perspectives on the financial crisis.  The Chicago law and philosophy students do a great job throughout, and bring some compelling personal stories to the discussion.

Two More Senior Hires for UC Irvine: Leslie from Chicago-Kent, Reese from Texas

Christopher Leslie (antitrust) at Chicago-Kent College of Law and R. Anthony Reese (intellectual property, copyright) at the University of Texas School of Law have accepted senior offers from the new law school at the University of California at Irvine, to begin July 1.  Reese is turning down in the process offers from NYU and Stanford.  Reese will join Dan Burk at Irvine in establishing UCI as a powerhouse in the intellectual property area.  (Prospective students will also be pleased to know that Leslie and Reese, who both taught at Texas while I was there, are outstanding classroom teachers.)

Note that the new scholarly impact study released earlier today did not include Leslie and Reese for Irvine (since the information came in too late), but their addition to the UCI faculty is wholly consistent with the assumptions made in the impact study for purposes of ranking Irvine.

"Top Ten" Law Faculties with the Most Scholarly Impact During the Last Four Years

New study here.  It was prompted by some of the moves since the 2007 study of highly cited law faculties (Sunstein's move from Chicago to Harvard, and now to the Obama Administration; Chemerinsky's move from Duke to UC Irvine; Lessig's move from Stanford to Harvard; Epstein's decision to formally split his time between Chicago and NYU; among others), which has led various folks to wonder whether that would change the profile of faculties with the most scholarly impact.  There are, indeed, some notable changes, though a fair degree of stability as well.

Credit Crisis Affecting Law Students?

One worrisome indicator here.

Chicago's Dean Levmore to Step Down by Summer 2010

Now that the "word is out" in Cyberspace, I might as well confirm it here:  Saul Levmore, who has been Dean of the University of Chicago Law School since 2001, will step down from the Deanship by summer 2010, perhaps sooner if a successor is found before then.  (The number of top law schools searching for deans is a central reason Saul wanted us to begin our search sooner rather than later.)  As I noted at the time I accepted the Chicago offer, he was instrumental in my decision to come here, and he has been a great colleague and friend.  He has been unusual among deans in remaining fully engaged in the scholarly and intellectual life of the school, and it will be wonderful for the faculty and the students to have even more of him in workshops and in the classroom.  He oversaw an acclaimed renovation of the Law School's facilities, which are now wonderful, and has increased the full-time academic faculty to its largest size in the Law School's history.  He successfully retained faculty in the face of offers from Yale and Harvard, and led the recruitment of at least a half-dozen senior faculty from Michigan, Virginia, Illinois, and elsewhere, as well as a dozen junior faculty members during his tenure.

But having done what Saul wouldn't do in his own announcement of his decision, let me conclude with his words:

It is all too common in these announcements to list the buildings renovated, the capital campaigns completed, the faculty hired, and the programs launched. We should be proud of such things, but I prefer to associate myself with the terrific and important work done by faculty colleagues and with the great students who have blossomed here during my time as dean. Ours is a Law School that cannot possibly be accused of simply giving its stamp of approval to talented inputs, and we should take special pride in the value we have added as a community to the people and ideas that pass through here.