Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

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).

Should the ABA eliminate a required admissions test (like the LSAT) for law school admission?

Dean Kevin Washburn (Iowa) makes an interesting case for keeping the test.

Canadian judges covering for other Canadian judge excorciated

Leslie Green (emeritus, Queen's & Oxford) comments.  (Earlier coverage here and here.)

Enrollments and LSAT scores, 2010-2021

Jerry Organ (St. Thomas) collects the data.  2021 applications and matriculations are still only 80% of what they were in 2010.

ABA Committee recommends dropping the requirement of standardized testing (e.g., the LSAT) for law school admission

Here.  While the ABA has some power, the real power rests with USNews.com:  if they still want LSAT scores, law schools will still use them.  If USNews.com drops the LSAT scores, then the race to get the highest median GPA, regardless of the difficulty of the undergraduate course of study, will accelerate, since that will be the only numerical measure left for student admissions.  That would be a disaster.  Comments are open for thoughts from readers on this development and what it portends; submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

Applications and applicants are down a bit this year

From the ABA Journal:

As of March 7, 50,375 applicants had submitted 363,581 applications to law schools for the 2022 school year, Law.com reported. Last year at this point in time, 55,680 applicants submitted 395,870 applications to law schools.

That’s a 9.5% decline in applicants since last year and an 8.2% decline in applications.

The applicants and applications are higher than two years ago, however.