Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Syracuse admits first class of (mostly) on-line JD students

Interesting development.

SEALS decides to screw over academic job seekers...

...by creating a competitor hiring conference (the Blog Emperor reprints the self-serving announcement in its entirety, although at least Professor Weaver dropped some of his earlier false claims about its purpose).  I'm not aware of any other academic field where there are competing hiring conferences.  Their absence is easy to explain:  it's costly enough--in time and money--to seek an academic job, without having to think about going to two different conferences.  In other fields, the main professional organization runs a hiring conference, which simplifes things for job seekers.  I will be advising all Chicago candidates to ignore Professor Weaver's vanity project, and I would urge all hiring schools, including those that are part of SEALS, to boycott this process.  More importantly, I urge all the placement directors at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Stanford, NYU, Virginia, Berkeley, Penn etc. to steer their candidates AWAY from this destructive undertaking.  One hiring conference is enough.

(I asked Professor Weaver how many candidates actually participated in the SEALS workshop for prospective law teachers.  The answer:  18.)

ADDENDUM:  Professor Weaver is correct that AALS rips off both schools and candidates for participation in its process, so perhaps the AALS will seize this opportunity to reduce costs.  And if the AALS does, then Professor Weaver will have accomplished something worthwhile.

ANOTHER:  Brad Areheart (Tennessee), whom I had the privilege of working with when I taught at the University of Texas, writes:  "As you may or may not know for the last several years I have run the Prospective Law Teachers Workshop at SEALS. It’s a pretty streamlined enterprise (mock job talks, mock interviews, and CV review sessions + a panel and networking with others on the market) but I think it’s a nice enough service for future law profs. We get dozens of applications each year and limit our workshop to just 12 people. We also usually have approximately 100 faculty who volunteer their time at SEALS to make this workshop run.  I am writing you just to clarify that my workshop will continue to operate the same way that it has each year to this point. I have no involvement with the new hiring initiative."  I'm sure Professor Areheart does an excellent job with this, and I commend him for his efforts in helping law teaching candidates.

Yale Law School may be failing democracy, but others beg to disagree

Blog Emperor Caron collects some responses to the piece Professor Simkovic noted the other day.  I'll have my own response to Professor Moyn's melodramatic piece, but probably not until the New Year.

Another way in which USNews.com runs American legal education

The market for transfers:  by taking large numbers of transfers, schools can admit a smaller and more selective 1L class, which is the only set of credentials (LSAT and GPA) that USNews.com counts.  The school makes up the lost tuition revenue from the smaller class with the transfers.

More on the Kesan case at Illinois

This time in CHE, with additional details about the complainants and Professor Kesan's creepy behavior.   The title of the article suggest something "went wrong," but I confess that's not obvious beyond the fact that it took far too long for the investigation to conclude.   His behavior, which is damning in its own right, doesn't appear rise to the level of "hostile climate" sexual harassment (at least not on the record that is public), as the investigation concluded.   The University could adjust its sexual harassment rules to cover cases like this, but as it is, he was found to have violated other university rules and sanctioned.   Did he reform his behavior subsequently?  That we don't know.

Nevada's Boyd School of Law celebrates 20 years

Alaska remains the only state without a law school.

ABA approves Illinois/Chicago acquisition of John Marshall Law School

Details.  Assuming tuition is set at more typical levels for public law schools in Illinois, that, together with the University of Illinois brand, will change the legal education marketplace in Chicago, especially for the Chicago private schools like DePaul, Chicago-Kent, and Loyola/Chicago.

$33 million gift to U of Michigan Law School

The Michigan press release here.

Thomas Jefferson Law School on the brink

An account of the school's troubles from a local San Diego paper.

AAUP investigation of Vermont Law School for "eviscerating tenure" could jeopardize Vermont's reaccreditation (Michael Simkovic)

The American Association of University Professors recently authorized an investigation of Vermont Law School following a restructuring that stripped most of Vermont's tenured faculty members of tenure and slashed their pay.  The restructuring was reportedly undertaken without sufficient evidence of financial exigency and did not follow proper procedures.  I've previously noted that if allegations prove true, this restructuring could present challenges for Vermont when it seeks to renew its ABA accreditation because the restructuring may violate ABA standard 405.  A negative report from the AAUP could influence the ABA site visit team and the Section on Legal Education.  Vermont's next site visit is scheduled for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Even without regulatory action, a negative report could severely damage Vermont's academic reputation.  Vermont remains home to well-respected legal scholars, such as Jennifer Taub, but since the restructuring the overwhelming majority of its classes are taught by adjuncts and lecturers.

AAUP's announcement of the investigation appears below:

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