Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

ABA House of Delegates rejects proposal to eliminate LSAT (or other admissions test) requirement for law school admissions

Here.  The proposal was driven by a desire to promote "diversity," but as critics point out, it might not have that effect.  (See for example.)

ChatGPT goes to law school at the University of Minnesota

Oy veh:

How well can AI models write law school exams without human assistance? To find out, we used the widely publicized AI model ChatGPT to generate answers on four real exams at the University of Minnesota Law School. We then blindly graded these exams as part of our regular grading processes for each class. Over 95 multiple choice questions and 12 essay questions, ChatGPT performed on average at the level of a C+ student, achieving a low but passing grade in all four courses.

Thoughts from readers?  Submit comments only once, they may take awhile to appear.

UPDATE:  See esp. Derek Muller's comments, below.

Penn State-University Park law faculty are, quite understandably, opposed to any "merger" that would relocate all operations to Carlisle

They are quite correct that it will destroy any possibility of Penn State's law school maintaining a national and international presence, and will negatively affect the recruitment of faculty and students.  The flagship campus of a major state research university should have its law school on that campus.

Penn State may reunify its two law schools--one in Carlisle, one on the main campus at University Park--with Carlisle being the main site for the law school

This is pretty dramatic, and faculty in University Park cannot be pleased, especially by this:  "Whether any law school programming would remain at University Park or what would happen with the imposing, $60 million Lewis Katz Building, erected in 2009 as a home for the school, is uncertain."

The end of the LSAT is coming

It seems like the writing is on the wall.  The real driving force, that we're seeing across multiple fields, is concern that standardized testing hurts "diversity."  If in fact the LSAT becomes optional, the next question will be what the masters of legal education at USNews.com decide to do.  If they decide to just increase the weight on GPA, then expect a boom in communications and education majors among prospective law students seeking the highest possible GPA!

Yale Law Dean Gerken shares "message to alumni" on free expression at the law school

Here.   This seems a victory for Judge Ho, despite the controversy about his threatened boycott.

UPDATE:  Correspondence with a colleague at Yale makes me realize an ambiguity in the preceding:  what I thought was a "victory" for Judge Ho's proposed boycott was that Dean Gerken shared this message in public.  Past criticisms from prominent YLS alumni make it clear why the Dean would have been concerned with these issues and would have written to alumni prior to the current brouhaha.

Which judges are participating in the Yale law boycott?

A couple of readers have asked whether there is a list of the boycotters.  The only two that appear to be public are Judge Ho of the 5th Circuit and Judge Branch of the 11th Circuit.  One law professor who inquried about this explained:

Since your blog is read by many law profs, I think you should publish the names of judges who have publicly stated they will not hire Yale clerks so that faculty at other places can decide whether they will recommend students to those judges.   One of the advantages of a clerkship is exposure to someone of experience who can model good decision-making and convey an appropriate sense of how a judge comports him/herself and takes on hard questions in our system.  A faculty member could well come to the view that a particular judge would not provide a good life-learning experience for a would-be clerk and a boycotting announcement could well figure in such a determination.

I guess I would be disinclined to encourage a boycott of the boycotting judges, as it were.   Still, it ought to be a matter of public record (if only for the benefit of Yale students) which federal judges are joining this boycott.  If anyone knows of a list of the other judges participating in this boycott, please post a link in the comments.  Submit the comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

14 federal judges are now saying they will not hire Yale Law graduates

The Blog Emperor has details.  I think Professor Kerr is correct that this is not appropriate, and I might add that it smacks of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, insofar as the judges are promising to punish students who choose Yale because they reject these judges' view of the free speech issues.

The irony, of course, is that there are federal judges who don't hire Yale Law graduates because of the perception that Yale doesn't do a good job teaching the students law.   Judge Posner, who did hire Yale (and Chicago and Harvard) graduates, once recommended one of his former clerks to me as follows:  "He was a very good clerk despite going to Yale."  That was funny, but the implication was obvious, and I've talked to other judges over the years whose skepticism goes farther.  Not hiringg Yale Law grads for this reason is, of course, permissible.

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Judge Ho of the 5th Circuit calls on other judges to not hire Yale Law graduates...

...given the school's problems with free expression (that we have noted previously).  Professor Kerr (Berkeley) makes the case against  such a move.

Changes in federal clerkship placement at 8 leading law schools, 2013-2020

I only recently came across this interesting data via Derek Muller (Iowa).