Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Covington & Perkins Coie should now be the top choices for the best law students...

...in light of Trump's abuse of executive power to target those firms.

AI and legal practice

From the abstract:

While AI models like GPT-4 improve the efficiency with which legal work can be completed, they can at times make up cases and “hallucinate” facts, thereby undermining legal judgment, particularly in complex tasks handled by skilled lawyers. This article examines two emerging AI innovations that may mitigate these lingering issues: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), which grounds AI-powered analysis in legal sources, and AI reasoning models, which structure complex reasoning before generating output. We conducted the first randomized controlled trial assessing these technologies, assigning upper-level law students to complete six legal tasks using a RAG-powered legal AI tool (Vincent AI), an AI reasoning model (OpenAI’s o1-preview), or no AI. We find that both AI tools significantly enhanced legal work quality, a marked contrast with previous research examining older large language models like GPT-4. Moreover, we find that these models maintain the efficiency benefits associated with use of older AI technologies. Our findings show that AI assistance significantly boosts productivity in five out of six tested legal tasks, with Vincent yielding statistically significant gains of approximately 38% to 115% and o1-preview increasing productivity by 34% to 140%, with particularly strong effects in complex tasks like drafting persuasive letters and analyzing complaints. Notably, o1-preview improved the analytical depth of participants’ work product but resulted in some hallucinations, whereas Vincent AI-aided participants produced roughly the same amount of hallucinations as participants who did not use AI at all. These findings suggest that integrating domain-specific RAG capabilities with reasoning models could yield synergistic improvements, shaping the next generation of AI-powered legal tools and the future of lawyering more generally.

Decline in Black and Hispanic students at elite law schools in the wake of SCOTUS decision

Some details here.  Corporate America's commitment to "diversity" still seems to be strong, which leads me to think that insofar as clients demand "diverse" teams of attorneys from law firms, law firms will recruit more aggressively at schools outside the top ranks to find suitable candidates.  (I was amused the reporter used the even more meaningless than before "top 14" designation!)

Total law school applicants up 25% this year (and applications are up 35%)!

A "Trump bump" no doubt!  This is good news for those who expect to be looking for law teaching jobs next year:  since most schools are tuition-dependent, a significant increase in applicants means schools can plan to hire.

What's going on at St. Thomas in Miami?

This account comes from a lawyer for the plaintiff, but the allegations recounted are rather concerning!  (Earlier coverage.)

(Thanks to Paul Caron for calling this to my attention.)

Jones v. Vladeck

Apparently things got a little heated at a panel on judicial independence at the Federalist Society national meeting last week.  Judge Edith Jones of the 5th Circuit took exception to Professor Steve Vladeck's criticisms of judge-shopping, especially vis-a-vis "the Supreme Court of Amarillo," as it's known on Twitter/X in lawprof circles.  Judge Jones did not cover herself in glory in my opinion.  Professor Vladeck comments here (which also includes a link to a video of the panel), although I disagree with the idea that non-conservatives should not participate in Federalist Society events.  This one was instructive, and not in the way Judge Jones intended it to be.

 

UC San Francisco (formerly Hastings) sees huge increase in applications...

...thanks, it appears, to its most famous alumna.  Now I wonder whether Trump had a similar effect on Wharton applications?

More on the ABA's proposed revisions to its former "diversity" standard

Following up on last week's post, Dan Rodriguez, the former Dean at Northwestern, offers some thoughts of his own, and sheds interesting light on how the ABA "diversity" standard worked in practice.

Opposition to ABA's proposal to revamp its "diversity and inclusion" standards in the wake of SCOTUS decision in SFFA

As Karen Sloan reports for Reuters:

The proposed new standard—renamed the “access to legal education and the profession” standard—eliminates references to race, ethnicity and gender and instead requires law schools to provide access to “persons including those with identities that historically have been disadvantaged or excluded from the legal profession.”

A letter from 44 Deans can be seen here.  They argue that, "Nothing in the Court's ruling [in SFFA] precludes schools from continuing to pursue diversity as an objective. Rather, the Court limited the means that may be used. The Court did not prohibit schools -- or the American Bar Association -- from pursuing the goal of a diverse student body and a diverse faculty."  This is a plausible, but it seems to me optimistic, reading of the import of the SFFA decision.  Given the current composition of SCOTUS, I will be surprised if, when asked to clarify this import, this reading will be vindicated.  The ABA is obviously trying to "play it safe," lest momentum grow in a second Trump Administration (gasp) to disempower it as an accreditor.

Interesting initiative to increase legal services in rural areas...

...from the University of Georgia. Other flagships in states with under-served rural communities may want to take a look at this.