Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

The "Top Ten" Lateral Moves for 2013-14

Here they are, based on a scientific analysis (i.e., my best judgment) as to the significance of the hire for the hiring school and/or the loss for the losing school (the full list of moves are here); I've left out any moves connected to my school, Chicago:

*Oren Bar-Gill (contracts, law & economics) from New York University to Harvard University.  Perhaps the leading contracts scholar of his generation.

 

*Mitchell Berman (criminal law, constitutional law, jurisprudence) from the University of Texas, Austin to the University of Pennsylvania.   If there were doubts as to whether Penn already had the best crim law faculty in the country, there can't be after this move; also strengthens an already excellent law & philosophy group at Penn.  Berman is probably the leading criminal law theorist of his generation in the U.S..

 

*Sujit Choudhry (comparative constitutional law) from New York University to the University of California, Berkeley, to become Dean.  Berkeley took several lateral losses this year, but one piece of good news was the recruitment of Choudhry, a prominent comparative constitutional law scholar, from NYU.

 

*Lee Epstein (empirical legal studies, law &  politics, judicial behavior) from the University of Southern California to Washington University, St. Louis.  One of the country's leading scholars of judicial behavior, her return after not quite a decade away (first at Northwestern, then at USC), is a major boost for Wash U, both the Law School and the Political Science Department.

 

*Michele B. Goodwin (law & technology, bioethics, constitutional law) and Gregory Shaffer (international law, international trade), both from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities to the University of California, Irvine.  Irvine had a busy hiring year, but this high-profile scholarly couple may be the stand-out recruitment coup for UCI this season.

 

*Gillian Lester (employment law) and Eric Talley (corporate law, law & economics), both from the University of California, Berkeley to Columbia University (in 2015).  Another high-power scholarly couple, Lester will become Dean and Talley will join the faculty. 

 

*Andrew Morriss (law & economics, labor & employment law, energy law, environmental law, business regulation) from the University of Alabama to Texas A&M University [formerly Texas Wesleyan Law], to become the Dean.  A prolific and well-known scholar, Morriss previously held tenured posts at the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University.  

 

*David Sklansky (criminal law & procedure) from the University of California, Berkeley to Stanford University.  Stanford had a busy year of lateral hiring, but perhaps the biggest coup was Sklansky, who also had offers from Yale and Harvard.

More attacks on the academic freedom of law professors: Gene Nichol at UNC-Chapel Hill

This one is far more ominous than the Laycock harassment noted the other day.

My legal philosophy blog...

...is coming back to life.

U Arizona cuts non-resident tuition

Blog Emperor Caron has the details.  I suspect that part of the plan is to make up lost revenue with the new B.A. in which law faculty will teach.  All-in-all, some interesting strategic moves by U of Arizona that will be watched closely by schools nationwide.

Law professors as university presidents

This is just off the top of my head, but it seems like a lot:  Kent Syverud at Syracuse University; Michael Fitts at Tulane University; Joel Seligman at University of Rochester; John Sexton at New York University; Lee Bollinger at Columbia University; Bill Powers at the University of Texas at Austin; Frederick Lawrence at Brandeis University; Nicholas Zeppos at Vanderbilt University; David Leebron at Rice University; Ronald Daniels at Johns Hopkins University. Other current ones?

Dear UVA students: in prying into Prof. Laycock's e-mails you are attacking his academic freedom

Douglas Laycock (Virginia) is, I would agree, on the wrong side of a number of recent religious liberty issues in both his advocacy and in his scholarship, but students requesting his e-mails are engaged in harassment and intimidation that infringe upon his academic freedom.  Cut it out, kids!  No good will come of this kind of mischief.  (You also won't succeed in stifling Prof. Laycock, so you're also wasting your time.  Try talking to him!  He's not that scary.)

On the right to be forgotten

A sensible commentary from my colleague Eric Posner.  It's one of the many travesties that is modern First Amendment law that it would prohibit the recognition of such a right here.

LSAC settles ADA lawsuits

Good news for students with disabilities considering law school.

More thoughts on legal education

This time from Chapman's Richard Redding.

The cost of higher education

Blog Emperor Caron links to two recent items, the first of which makes clear what adults already knew, namely, that the cost of legal education is only a small part of the bigger picture.