Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

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.

Federal judges (most in Texas) now threaten to boycott Columbia University graduates

This routine is getting tiresome.

UPDATE:  Professor Stephen Burbank (Penn) writes (with permission to quote from Professor Geyh's forthcoming piece):

It is not only tiresome but may violate the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. In a forthcoming article in Law and Contemporary Problems, in response to an earlier, smaller, boycott of clerkship applicants from Yale, Professor Charles Geyh proposes that the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Codes of Conduct[1] … issue an advisory opinion on the ethics of a judge’s hiring practices. It should admonish judges that the duty to appoint clerks “on the basis of merit,”[2] coupled with the proscription on lending the prestige of judicial office to advance their personal interests,[3] forbids blackballing qualified clerkship applicants who graduated from law schools with which the judge has an ideological beef.”

 

[1] The Committee on Codes of Conduct is a Subcommittee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. https://ballotpedia.org/Committee_on_Codes_of_Conduct_of_the_Judicial_Conference_of_the_United_States#:~:

2 Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, Canon 3(B)(3).

3 Id.,Canon 2(B).

Elite law firms are now recruiting 1Ls in spring, bypassing the traditional on-campus recuirtment process

On FB, Mark Lemley and Kate Litvak brought to my attention this Bloomberg story; an excerpt:

Top law firms are rushing to target new recruits, often before students have finished their first year.

On-campus interviews, long the chief recruiting method for major firms and controlled by law schools and the National Association for Law Placement, now take a back seat to direct hiring by firms who want first crack at talent. The coveted summer associate roles are the most common path to Big Law careers, serving as a tryout for full-time positions after graduation.

 

“This direct hire process will likely be filling about 50% of our class, at least,” said Nicole Wanzer, director of attorney recruiting at Morrison Foerster. “Were we to wait for traditional OCI and lean only on traditional OCI, we feel like we would be missing out on some of the talent that’s getting picked up earlier in the process.”

 

The shift has had a snowball effect. Weil Gotshal & Manges has already opened applications for its 2025 summer program, allowing first-year law students to apply directly—a process dubbed “pre-OCI”. Other prominent players such as Jones Day, Milbank LLP, Paul Hastings, and Davis Polk & Wardwell open up their direct applications as early as mid-April for jobs that start the summer after the second year of school is completed. MoFo is launching its own advanced consideration application system for first-year students this year, which opens May 1.