Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

In Memoriam: Angus McSwain

Baylor University School of Law reports that Angus McSwain, an emeritus faculty member who served as law school dean for 19 years (from 1965-84) passed away this weekend.  He was 87.  McSwain was surely one of the longest-serving law faculty members in America.  He was a full-time member of the faculty from 1949 until his formal retirement in 1994, but he continued teaching until 2008 - for a total of 59 years in the classroom.

Darby Dickerson Named Dean at Texas Tech

After a long search, Texas Tech University School of Law has found its next dean.  She is Dean Darby Dickerson of Stetson University College of Law.  Dickerson, who holds a JD from Vanderbilt Law, has been at Stetson since 1995 and has been dean since 2004.  Among many other things, she is the author of the Association of Legal Writing Directors' ALWD Citation Manual. 

In Memoriam: Laura Chisolm

Case Western Reserve School of Law reports the sad news that Professor Laura Chisolm has died of metastatic breast cancer.  She was 63.  Chisolm's primary area of scholarly focus was nonprofit organizations.  She joined the Case faculty twenty seven years ago.

A two-tier associate track?

This is new, and not necessarily a bad thing for the reasons some of those interviewed report.

The Changing Cost of Legal Education

Some useful historical perspective here and here.

Corporate Practice Commentator's "Top 10" Corporate & Securities Articles for 2010

Here it is:

The Corporate Practice Commentator is pleased to announce the results of its seventeenth annual poll to select the ten best corporate and securities articles.  Teachers in corporate and securities law were asked to select the best corporate and securities articles from a list of articles published and indexed in legal journals during 2010.   More than 440 articles were on this year’s list.  Because of the vagaries of publication, indexing, and mailing, some articles published in 2010 have a 2009 date, and not all articles containing a 2010 date were published and indexed in time to be included in this year’s list. Because of ties, there are eleven on this year’s list.

The articles, listed in alphabetical order of the initial author, are:

Ayotte, Kenneth and David A. Skeel, Jr. Bankruptcy or bailouts? 35 J. Corp. L. 469-498 (2010).

Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Ehud Kamar. Bundling and entrenchment. 123 Harv. L. Rev. 1549-1595 (2010).

Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Holger Spamann.  Regulating bankers’ pay.  98 Geo. L.J. 247-287 (2010).

Bratton, William W. and Michael L. Wachter.  The case against shareholder empowerment.  158 U. Pa. L. Rev. 653-728 (2010).

Choi, Albert and George Triantis.  Strategic vagueness in contract design:  The case of corporate acquisitions.  119 Yale L.J. 848-924 (2010).

Choi, Stephen, Jill Fisch and Marcel Kahan. The power of proxy advisors: Myth or reality? 59 Emory L.J. 869-918 (2010).

Kahan, Marcel and Edward Rock. Embattled CEOs. 88 Tex. L. Rev. 987-1051 (2010).

Roe, Mark J.  Delaware’s shrinking half-life.  62 Stan. L. Rev. 125-154 (2009).

Squire, Richard.  Shareholder opportunism in a world of risky debt.  123 Harv. L. Rev. 1151-1213 (2010).

Strine, Leo E., Lawrence A. Hamermesh, R. Franklin Balotti, and Jeffrey M. Gorris. Loyalty's core demand: The defining role of good faith in corporation law. 98 Geo. L.J. 629-696 (2010).

Subramanian, Guhan, Steven Herscovici and Brian Barbetta. Is Delaware's antitakeover statute unconstitutional? Evidence from 1988-2008. 65 Bus. Law. 685-752 (2010).

Harvard (Bebchuk, Spamann, Triantis, Roe, Subramanian), NYU (S. Choi, Kahan), and Penn faculty (Skeel, Bratton, Wachter, Fisch, Rock) dominate the list.

Not the Kind of Attention One Wants a New Faculty Appointment to Attract

It is a bit surprising that a law school like Georgia with a strong tradition in international law would hire someone with this disgraceful incident in his background.

Iowa's Margaret Raymond Named Dean at Wisconsin

Details here.

UPDATE:   Dean-to-be Raymond's husband, Mark Sidel--a specialist in comparative and international law, as well as legal issues related to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector--will also leave the Iowa faculty to take up a tenured post at Wisconsin.

Weather forecast for Judgment Day

Good to know.

ADDENDUM:  Useful pre-Rapture tips.

On-Line Book Reviews from the Texas Law Review

A welcome development!