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.

Samuel Moyn (Yale): Law schools are too focused on public law to serve the public interest (Michael Simkovic)

In a thought provoking essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor Samuel Moyn argues that law schools' focus on judge made law in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, is counterproductive especially when justified on ostensibly progressive grounds.  Offline, Professor Moyn suggested that, to better help students understand how the legal system influences the distribution of economic and political power, progressives should focus more on teaching business law subjects like taxation and anti-trust.

Samuel Moyn, Law Schools Are Bad for Democracy: They whitewash the grubby scramble for power, Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 16, 2018.

The continued rise of non-JD enrollment in law schools

Usefully documented here.  The explanation for the rise is simple:  non-JD students (e.g., LLM students, but also, as in the case of Arizona, undergraduates taking courses taught by law faculty for an undergraduate law-related degree) generate tuition revenue, but are invisible to the masters of American legal education at USNews.com:  their numerical credentials don't show up, so it's all $$$ and no risk to ranking.   We're still waiting for the creative state AG who finds a way to nail US News.com for its role in consumer fraud.

McKinsey responds to New York Times hit piece (Michael Simkovic)

The consulting firm McKinsey is a leading employer of graduates of elite law schools, business schools, medical schools, and other professional programs.  The New York Times recently ran a piece attempting to link McKinsey to regimes that abuse human rights.  McKinsey's response appears below.

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with how uneven in quality New York Times coverage can be in the higher education context.  I would encourage readers not to jump to conclusions about McKinsey based on N.Y. Times coverage. 

Note: I worked as consultant at McKinsey in New York approximately 10 years ago.  I have published in the N.Y. Times within the last 3 years.

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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.

Taking the LSAT will soon become more convenient (Michael Simkovic)

LSAC is rolling out several initiatives to make the LSAT more accessible, including a tablet-based version of the test that will increase the number and type of facilities that can serve as test administration centers, and will pave the way for more frequent test administration.  LSAT takers will also be able to take the essay portion of the exam from home through "remote proctoring."

LSAC is also offering free online LSAT test preparation and practice questions.

A competing standardized test that is less universally accepted for law school admission, the GRE, is available at administration centers on an almost continuous basis.

Bar examiners might want to consider investing in technology to increase the frequency with which the bar is administered and reduce the amount of time it takes to grade.  

 

$33 million gift to U of Michigan Law School

The Michigan press release here.