Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Another penetrating critique of the ABA proposal to double the number of experiential credit hours required

This one from Notre Dame lawprof Derek Muller, which is worth reading in its entirety.  If the Council does not withdraw this ill-considered and inadequately justified proposal, then it really will be time to seek alternative accreditation agencies for law schools, ones that respect both law students and the academic freedom of law faculties to plan different courses of study.

Excellent letter by Marquette Law Dean Kearney in opposition to the terrible ABA proposal to double the required number of experiential hours

The full letter is here (earlier coverage).  As Dean Kearney writes:

[T]he Council’s proposal would mandate a startling redirection of resources. Given the integrated nature of a program of legal education, the proposal would constitute an unprecedented invasion into the upper-level curricula of law schools, diminish substantially the schools’ appropriate autonomy, and impair their ability to innovate and to adapt their programs to local needs and institutional missions—all at a time of other extraordinary pressures on legal education. More succinctly and concretely: The proposal ignores the curricular tradeoffs that will necessarily result for schools and students and dismisses the likely financial costs of the new requirements.

 

The proposal’s apparent general animating philosophy—which has scant regard for the precept that accreditation standards are intended to establish minimum requirements for “adequate” education while protecting each school’s leading role in defining its own educational program—is regrettable enough. More specifically objectionable is that the proposal to double the current minimum requirement of experiential-learning credits lacks adequate evidentiary support. Valuable though experiential education is, a “more is better” approach to its requirement is not adequately supported in the proposal—notwithstanding the observation that other, very different professions, with different educational pathways, have more experiential education. Given the weak evidentiary basis for increasing the number of mandatory experiential-learning credits, the absence of a rigorous (or really any) cost-benefit analysis should prompt the proposal’s withdrawal.

Other comments on the proposal are here, and they are overwhelmingly opposed, with the rather revealing exception of a letter from the Clinical Legal Education Association.  If the ABA does not withdraw this intrusive proposal, that will disrupt the legal education of thousands of students, then massive defiance will be the only appropriate response of law schools.

 

If this report is correct, then everyone should boycott the Harvard Law Review

Is this for real? 

[Harvard Law Review] Editors complained that a piece had cited "A LOT of old white men," attempted to guess whether a scholar was "Latina," complained that an author was "not from an underrepresented background," and praised an article for citing "predominantly Black singers, rappers, and members of Twitter."

Another article was recommended, in part, because "it cites a Kendrick song in the Conclusion!"....

While some editors recommended pieces on the grounds that the author was a minority, others paid more attention to the article’s footnotes, combing through the citations to see how many sources were white, black, or transgender.

"The author cited 20 men by name," Leah Smith, who graduated Harvard Law School in May, wrote of one article, but only "9 women and 1 non-binary scholar."

Everyone knows student editors don't know what they're doing (which is why it's good they consult more now with faculty*), but this is really a new low.

*Some student-edited law reviews can't even do faculty-consultations in a professional way.  In one case (involving a very prominent law review, not Harvard or Chicago), I was given the usual 48 hours to give my opinion.  I did:  the article, I noted, was "sophomoric" and "not publishable," and I gave some explanation.  The journal accepted the article for publication.  The author was a faculty member at that school.  My assessment was, in fact, correct.

 

Faculty hiring freezes?

At my philosophy blog, I'm collecting information, please contribute there.

What are the Title VI obligations of universities with regard to speech critical of Zionism?

Everyone knows that the Trump Administration has failed to follow Title VI procedures, but what about the substantive requirements of Title VI?  Law professor Ben Eidelson (Harvard) and Deborah Hellman (Virginia) examine the issue.

Law schools should oppose an ABA proposal to double the experiential learning credits from 6 to 12

The ABA is up to mischief again, which needs to be opposed for the sake of law students.  Here's what I wrote the last time this awful idea was being floated:

 

Law schools differ, in their student bodies, in their employment outcomes.  Law students differ, in their personal and professional goals, and in their intellectual interests.  There should be a very strong presumption against any proposal of the form that, "200 law schools, and 40,000 law students all must do X."  I have written letters of recommendation for and advised many students have gone on to the most competitive federal appellate court clerkships in the United States, both when I was at Texas and since moving to Chicago in 2008.  The judges often tell the students they hire in their second year what they expect them to do during their remaining time in law school.  Not once have I heard of a circuit court judge who demanded that the student take more "experiential learning" courses.  To the contrary, they want their clerks to take Federal Courts, Administrative Law, sometimes Criminal Procedure, sometimes Securities Regulation (it often depends on the circuit):  in other words, they want their students to have deeper and broader knowledge of legal doctrine.

 

So, too, with the former students who have gone on to the leading private law firms, both the Cravaths and Skaddens, as well as the Bartlit Becks and Susman Godfreys of the world.  What these employers want to know is:  how smart is this student?  how good is her writing?  In twenty years, no hiring partner ever asked me, "How many experiential courses did this student take?"

 

I have taught fabulous students over the last twenty years, and there is no reason legal education should be designed around them and their employers.  But there is also no reason legal education should be designed without regard for them.   Forcing most of these students to do fifteen [or twelve] hours of experiential classes would not have made any of them, I venture, worse, but it would not have given most of them any real benefit.  Some of them would have been forced to drop some of the advanced commercial law classes, or the advanced procedure classes they might have taken.  Those doing JD/PhDs--and, yes, they are students too!--would have had to take classes that would have contributed nothing to their academic work and careers.

 

And then there is the reality that no law school in the United States that I am aware of is actually equipped to offering "experiential" learning adequate to the full range of careers lawyers actually pursue.    Suppose a student wants to pursue a career in corporate and partnership tax.  How many law schools offer meaningful "experiential" learning for that?  Suppose some do; how many could realistically?  Suppose a student wants to go into high-stakes M&A litigation.  Which law schools offer meaningful experiential litigation to that end?  How many could outside those in a few major cities?  I have a relative who went to a top law school and works in a thriving field, health law, with a focus on regulatory compliance.  Her most valuable "experiential" course in law school was contract drafting, and there was no clinical offering that would have been of any use to her; I've yet to see a law school that was different....

 

I am utterly unmoved by what schools for dentists, animal doctors, nurses, etc. require.  The comparison betrays a profound misunderstanding of the law.  Oxford's H.L.A. Hart, the greatest legal philosopher of the last century, noted that you can not understand law and legal systems unless you realize that they centrally involve  rules.  His critics, like the late legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin, drew attention to the fact that how lawyers reason and argue about rules is just as important.  Both Hart and Dworkin highlight the crucial fact about lawyering that distinguishes it from dentistry:  law is fundamentally a discursive discipline, dealing in norms, arguments, and reasons.  That is why legal education, in both the United States and Europe and every other democracy I am aware of, emphasizes learning legal rules and legal reasoning.  One needs a lot of knowledge to be a good dentist, to be sure, but a lot of good dentistry is not a matter of knowing rules and how to reason about them.

 

As Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller aptly remarked on Twitter:

The Section of Legal Education & Admissions has been captured by a small interest group relentless in its demands for a particular, & more expensive, form of legal education. It now demands: -12 (not 6) experiential units -at least 3 in field or clinic -1L doesn't count.

This is not about quality legal education, this is about armchair judgments about legal education combined with self-serving proposals by those who teach experiential courses.

UPDATE: A reader calls my attention to this apt observation in a letter from dozens of law school Deans concerning another bit of unwarranted ABA meddling:

We believe that these proposals are part of a recent trend of the ABA Council to try and exercise greater regulatory control over law schools. As deans, we urge greater restraint in this regard and urge that there be new regulation only if needed to solve a demonstrated problem supported by evidence and only if it is clear that any changes would not have adverse consequences on legal education.

If this continues--and the proposed doubling of experiential credits will be the straw that breaks the camel's back--then law schools will, en masse, have to pressure the federal government to allow other accreditors for U.S. law schools.

ANOTHER:  See the comments by Dan Rodriguez, former Dean at Northwestern (and San Diego).

We have a new Dean: Adam Chilton

I'm delighted with this outcome.  I should note we had three remarkable finalists, all outstanding, so we were very fortunate indeed.  (A public "thank you" to my colleague Jonathan Masur who led the Dean Search Committee, and did a great job!) 

As Professor Chilton comments in the preceding news release:  "I strongly believe that the University of Chicago Law School is the world’s most academically outstanding and rigorous law school, and it is an extraordinary honor to lead it."  Just yesterday, President Trump wrote about a judicial nominee that she went to "the University of Chicago, one of the best Law Schools in the World."   I assume, with the choice of Professor Chilton, President Trump's future social media messages will drop the "one of" part!

775 law professors file amici brief in support of Susman Godfrey's battle with federal tyranny

Here.

Advice to law firms in dealing with Trump: do not negotiate!

Sensible advice from Sheila Heen, a professor of practice and negotiation expert at Harvard Law School:   Download Negotiation Strategy Notes for Law Firms Heen April 12 2025.  Good advice for universities too!  

(Thanks to Richard Bales for the pointer.)

It looks like the "Skadden Fellow" brand is now tarnished after the firm's capitulation to Trump...

...in the opinion of hundreds of former Skadden Fellows.