August 12, 2022
Japanese "comfort women" and the North Korean connection
The discussion continues. The long abstract gives a good overview of the argument. (Earlier coverage here and here.)
August 12, 2022 in Of Academic Interest | Permalink
July 19, 2022
Law schools hiring in 2022-23 can announce their plans/needs...
...at the annual Prawfs thread, courtesy of Professor Lawsky.
July 19, 2022 in Advice for Academic Job Seekers, Of Academic Interest, Professional Advice | Permalink
July 01, 2022
"Constitutional Law, Moral Judgment, and the Supreme Court as Super-Legislature" (2015)
Recent events are making this assessment ever more relevant, sad to say.
July 1, 2022 in Jurisprudence, Of Academic Interest | Permalink
June 13, 2022
The Bluebook is awful as everyone knows...
...but it apparently rakes in millions of dollars for the law reviews at Columbia, Harvard, Penn and Yale!
June 13, 2022 in Of Academic Interest | Permalink
June 02, 2022
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.
June 2, 2022 in Legal Profession, Of Academic Interest | Permalink
May 31, 2022
New "Journal of Law Teaching and Learning"
Lawprof Emily Grand (Washburn) asked me to share the following announcement:
The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning is thrilled to be launching a new scholarly journal. The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning will publish scholarly articles about pedagogy and will provide authors with rigorous peer review. We hope to publish our first issue in Fall 2023.
If you have a scholarly article that might fit the needs of The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning, please consider submitting it directly to us via email at mcolatrella@pacific.edu or through the Scholastica platform.
May 31, 2022 in Of Academic Interest | Permalink
May 23, 2022
Kilborn v. UIC John Marshall redux
UIC John Marshall, of course, moved to dismiss Professor Kilborn's lawsuit over its misconduct. Professor Kilborn's reply brief is here: Download Kilborn_Opposition to motion to dismiss wExhibit A
May 23, 2022 in Faculty News, Of Academic Interest | Permalink
May 12, 2022
Professor Lawsky's Entry-Level Hiring Report for 2021-22
The report is now available here. Professor Lawsky recorded 106 hires, the most in a good number of years, although nothing like the numbers before 2010, when 150 or more was the norm. Inevitably some rookie hires are missed: Chicago had three grads on the market, all three of whom received tenure-track offers, but it looks like one did not report to Professor Lawsky. Some misses are inevitable, but I'm confident her overall picture is quite informative.
As Professor Lawsky also notes, we don't have data on how many graduates of each school were on the market. You can see past "success rate" data from some prior years here and here.
UPDATE: Professor Lawsky very kindly updated her report to include the missing Chicago candidate. Thank you, Professor Lawsky!
May 12, 2022 in Advice for Academic Job Seekers, Faculty News, Of Academic Interest, Rankings | Permalink
May 09, 2022
Per student value of law school endowments
A colleague elsewhere sent me data on law school endowments in 2019 (most probably went up in 2021, although they're probably back down now). We divided the total endowment by the total JD and non-JD student enrollment based on the 2021 ABA disclosures to determine the per student value of the endowments. Endowments, of course, are not the only source of income beyond tuition: public law schools, for example, get substantial amounts of money from the state, while some law schools get substantial annual gifts (for more than a decade, for example, Chicago has benefitted from renewable three-year gifts supporting the Rubenstein Scholarships in an amount that would be equivalent, by my estimate, to another $125,000,000 in endowment!). There is, of course, a striking if hardly perfect correlation between per student value of endowments and US News.com rankings, in part because per capita expenditures account for all the differences between otherwise comparable schools.
Interestingly, several of the very wealthy law schools (e.g., Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Notre Dame) actually have lower per student endowments than their parent universities as a whole; while others (like Virginia and Michigan) have far more.
In any case, here are the top 20 law schools by the per student value of their endowments (schools with an *asterisk outside the top 10 have a gross endowment greater than $100 million; all the schools in the top ten have gross endowments greater than $100 million).
1. Yale University ($2,033,106)
2. Stanford University ($1,422,512)
3. Harvard University ($1,060,304)
4. University of Notre Dame ($670,157)
5. University of Chicago ($623,318)
5. University of Virginia ($623,923)
7. Columbia University ($496,710)
8. University of Michigan ($480,237)
9. University of Pennsylvania ($403,714)
10. Duke University ($352,594)
May 9, 2022 in Of Academic Interest, Rankings | Permalink