Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Will the SCOTUS conservative super-majority side with Trump on Presidential power?

An analysis from my colleague Aziz Huq.

UC San Diego (which does not have a law school) is suspending all faculty and staff hiring for the indefinite future...

...because of financial concerns related to the loss of NIH funding.  This will happen elsewhere before too long I suspect, especially at schools that get a lot of NIH dollars.  Many of these schools have law schools as well.  In light of this, I think those with offers in hand should inquire about whether there is a risk to the offer being rescinded, and perhaps consider accepting sooner rather than later.  Funding models of law schools differ, so law schools at universities that receive large amounts of NIH money may still be able to follow through on their appointments.

Law professor letter: "We are in a constitutional crisis"

Here.

Law professors suing Trump

Law professors Mark Lemley, Mark McKenna, and Christopher Sprigman are among the lawyers representing plaintiffs in the latest legal action against the lawless Trump.

"Citation rings"?

A colleague elsewhere reports that "a younger scholar this morning...told me that mid-level people are forming these rings to cite one another where they kind of cross-commit to do it to boost their citation count."  I don't know if this hearsay within hearsay is reliable or misleading, but permit me to observe that it would scholarly malpractice to use citations this way, and someone who did it would not be protected by academic freedom.   The purpose of citations are to offer support for an argument, acknowledge the work of others relevant to your argument, and to direct readers to relevant scholarship related to your argument.  There is no scholarly purpose served by "citation rings."  There are ways to detect such pattersn in citations, although I hope it won't be necessary to use them.  But if they are identified, then Deans should be encouraged to impose disciplinary measures on faculty found guilty of this kind of scholarly malpractice.

If I get further confirmation of this hearsay within hearsay then that will be a reason to cease producing lists of highly cited individual scholars in particular specialties.

More on Trump's lawlessness, this time the attack on NIH funding

Here and here.  Relatively few law professors get NIH funding, but if the funds are illegally withheld then almost every university (and certainly every one with a medical school) will be thrown into financial turmoil, and the effects will be felt everywhere.  (For more on Trump's lawlessness, see Professor Bagenstos's analysis.)

Trump is the Holmesian "Bad Man" on steroids

Here.

More on the LSU law academic freedom case

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 30--VARIOUS UPDATES ON THE CASE AT THE LINK, BELOW

Here.