- Universities’ prestige game: will “zombie law schools” drag down the rest? [Gerard Magliocca]
- Law as undergraduate degree works in advanced countries like Germany and Britain, could work here too [Bainbridge]
- It’s a capitalist plot! Steve Diamond of Santa Clara assails Brian Tamanaha’s critique of law schools as too redolent of Hayek, Cato [SSRN, background, more]
- “That’s pretty good reason to speak up: Thomas Breaks 5-year Silence During #SCOTUS Arguments to Mock Yale” [@DavidMastio]
- Dean who took huge pay packet for dismal results is also immediate past president of ABA law school panel [Campos]
- Does the California experience undercut arguments for relaxing accreditation? [Matt Bodie]
- “What Do Law Professors Think About the Critiques of the Law Schools?” [Orin Kerr]
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Here’s the video of our Wednesday event at which author Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.) discussed his book Failing Law Schools. Neal McCluskey (Cato) and Paul Campos (Colorado) commented, and I moderated. We’ve had lots of appreciative comments from those who’ve watched, and I wholeheartedly endorse the book, which is persuasive in both its analysis and its recommendations.
More: After the panel, Megan McArdle of Newsweek/Daily Beast interviewed Prof. Campos on the latest bad numbers for law schools. Other comments include Paul Caron/TaxProf, Stephen Diamond of Santa Clara University (disapproving of Cato and the panelists) and Constitutional Daily here, here and here (differing sharply with Diamond).
And: Cato Daily Podcast (audio) with Prof. Tamanaha.
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- In Washington next week? Be sure to register for Brian Tamanaha’s speech at Cato Jan. 16 on his book Failing Law Schools (more). I’ll be moderating and Paul Campos and Neal McCluskey will comment. Or watch live;
- Lawsuit claims man was defamed by portrayal in law review article [Caron]
- “How law schools evade market competition” [George Leef, Minding the Campus; Lawrence Velvel, Minding the Campus] Paul Campos, “The Crisis of the American Law School” [SSRN, U. Mich. JLR, PDF] “Law Dean Takes to the NYT Op-Ed Page to Blame Media for Declining Law School Applications” [Above the Law]
- Terms used to describe NYU School of Law in a Washington Examiner column [Althouse]
- St. Louis U.: “Trial Lawyer Does Double Duty as SLU Law Dean While Winning $25M in Settlements” [ABA Journal]
- Law reviews criticized, defended [Inside Higher Ed: John Browning, Brian Farkas]
- Law schools’ faculty “poaching” ban would attract antitrust notice were ordinary businesses to try it [Thom Lambert]
Mark your calendar! On January 16 at noon in Washington, D.C., Prof. Brian Tamanaha of Washington University will speak at a Cato Book Forum on his much-acclaimed new book, Failing Law Schools. Commenting will be Neal McCluskey, who directs Cato’s program on education policy, and University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, like Tamanaha a celebrated critic of the American law school scene. I’ll be moderating. The event in Washington, D.C. is free and open to the public; details on how to register here.
From the event description:
For decades, American law schools enjoyed one of the world’s great winning streaks. Amid swelling enrollments and what seemed an insatiable demand for new lawyers, they went on a spree of expansion; even as tuitions soared, the schools basked in an air of public-interest rectitude symbolized by Yale law dean Harold Koh’s description of his institution as a “Republic of Conscience.” Then came the Great Recession—and a great reckoning. New graduates were unable to find decently paying legal jobs even as they staggered under enormous debt burdens; it became impossible to ignore long-standing complaints from the world of legal practice that the law curriculum does not train students well in much of what lawyers do; and creative efforts to reduce the cost of law school were stymied by an accreditation process that closely constrains the format of legal education. In Failing Law Schools, one of the most talked-of books in years about higher education, Brian Tamanaha of Washington University has written a devastating critique of what went wrong with the American law school and what can be done to fix it. None of the key contributors to the problem—faculty self-interest, university administrators’ myopia, cartel-like accreditation—escape unscathed in his analysis.
We’ve often cited the work of Profs. Tamanaha and Campos in this space and linked to reviews and discussions of Failing Law Schools here, here, here, here, here, and here. National Jurist just named Prof. Tamanaha as #1 on its list of the year’s most five most influential people in legal education. See you there on Jan. 16!
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- Conservative-turned-away case: “Jurors say they saw hiring bias at U. of Iowa” [Des Moines Register, Caron, Adler/Volokh] Wagner will seek retrial [Daily Iowan]
- David Lat on the GMU Law conference on law school and lawyer markets [Above the Law, earlier]
- ABA accreditors defend, but tinker with, standards for minimum law school libraries [Caron]
- “Comparative notes on German legal education” [Darryl Brown, Prawfs]
- Spinoff of Miller-Jenkins case: Janet Jenkins sues Liberty U. School of Law charging assistance to custody-nappers, dean calls suit frivolous [ABA Journal]
- “Law Schools Now 5-0 in Placement Data Fraud Lawsuits by Alums” [Caron] Charles E. Rounds, Jr. reviews Brian Tamanaha book [Pope Center]
- Does Peoria, Ill. need a new law school? Surely you jest [Campos]
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- U. Miami: “Law School Email Draws Fire Amid Hotly Contested Retention Election for 3 Top Florida Judges” [ABA Journal, earlier on election]
- Janet Jenkins sues Liberty U. School of Law, charging assistance to custody-nappers; school describes suit as baseless [ABA Journal, earlier on Miller-Jenkins custody case]
- “Maybe a lawprof is not what you want in a politician. And yet, Bill Clinton was a lawprof. So was Hillary Clinton. And there are different types of lawprofs. They don’t all listen, give ground, and offer complex caveats!” [Ann Althouse]
- “Former law student became a chronic litigant” [Boston Globe]
- Andrew Morriss on Tamanaha’s Failing Law Schools [Liberty Law]
- “Institute for Humane Studies Webcast on the Pros and Cons of Law School” [Ilya Somin]
- Fred Rodell knew: reasons not to write law review articles [Matthew Salzwedel, Lawyerist] What a rising law professor should put in a book review [Pierre Schlag via Prof. Bainbridge]
- Bradley C.S. Watson on law school progressivism [National Review, pay site, mentions Schools for Misrule]
- Leaked editorial discussions at Harvard Human Rights Journal furnish potential pocket part for my book Schools For Misrule [Above the Law]
- ABA accreditation standards stand in way of law school reform [McEntee/Caron; see also pp. 38-39 of Schools for Misrule] Brian Tamanaha interview on that and other subjects [IHE; reviews of his book]
- More from Tamanaha on topics including broken law school rankings [Bloomberg Law video] Tamanaha v. Erwin Chemerinsky on public service and prestige-chasing at Irvine Law [Caron, Balkinization]
- Paul Horwitz paper-in-progress uses books critical of law schools, including SfM, as jumping-off point [SSRN, Prawfs and big discussion]
- “Arguing over answers in Scattergories is the closest thing on the planet to the experience of a law school class.” [Replevin for a Cow]
- “A comment called it an ad hominem attack on @walterolson, but it was nothing personal. I am just everything he abhors.” [Raja Raghunath, background]
- “Barrister’s Ball” results in dramshop action against law school [AtL]
- The Chart of Death: “Law School Tuition Over the Last 40 Years” [Orin Kerr summarizing Paul Campos, PDF] Staggering debt projections (often $200K+) for law students, broken down by school (in more than one sense) [Law School Transparency]
- Schools For Misrule dept.: “Some things that are big in the legal academy are considered irrelevant or crackpot by judges” [Yale's Fred Shapiro via Ann Althouse] But as we’ve noted, the influence in legal academia of Critical Theory and suchlike coteries has waned [Tony Mauro, NLJ] In defense of the faculty lounge [Stephen Carter, Bloomberg]
- “I don’t know why law professors get such large advances for their mystery novels, just like I don’t know why Americans like to name motel chains after numbers.” [Kyle Graham]
- Jim Chen and others review Brian Tamanaha’s new book Failing Law Schools [Paul Caron, TaxProf; earlier including my Liberty and Law symposium entry with Chen and Tamanaha] “After law school deregulation” [Dave Hoffman, ConcurOp] “Five Ways To Mitigate the Crisis In Legal Education” [bring in more practitioner/adjuncts, dump the library requirements; Andrew Trask, Class Strategist]
- Since Prof. Leiter’s views will never prevail in the United States, Rep. Paul Ryan is free to go on speaking all he pleases [SSRN; more on Jeremy Waldron]
- George Will on Elizabeth Warren race-box furor [WaPo, earlier]
- Obsession with law schools’ prestige levels: is there any way out? [William Henderson and Rachel Zahorsky, ABA Journal; Henderson, Legal Whiteboard]
- Yale lawprof Peter Schuck reviews Schools for Misrule [American Lawyer last November, alas behind subscription paywall]
- Look at bright side: Prof. Warren “did not list herself with the AALS as the rightful Empress of France” [Popehat; Seth Mandel, Commentary]
- Jeffrey O’Connell, greatly admired and influential torts scholar at the University of Virginia, retires from teaching [via Robinette]
- New Brian Tamanaha book on law schools stirs wide interest [Orin Kerr, Scott Greenfield, Chron of Higher Ed via TaxProf, Bill Henderson]
- In recent criminal law and procedure cases, high-level academic opinion did sway Supreme Court [Jack Chin, Prawfs]
- “75 Years of Law Professors as Pundits” [Kyle Graham; and thanks for Schools For Misrule reference)
- Kindle version of Charles Reich's "Greening of America" omits super-embarrassing stuff. It's 80% shorter [Ann Althouse]
Walter Russell Mead weighs in ["First, Let’s Indenture All The Lawyers," The American Interest] Federal student loan program serves as enabler of insane law student debt burdens [Brian Tamanaha, "The Quickly Exploding Law Student Debt Disaster," Balkinization via Caron] Related: “Judge Tosses Lawsuit against Law School over Employment Stats” [WSJ Law Blog, WLF "Legal Pulse", earlier] “Remedies for Unreasonably Defective Law Schools” [Frances Zacher, Abnormal Use, more] And: A. Benjamin Spencer (Washington & Lee), “The Law School Critique in Historical Perspective” [SSRN via Caron]
Also, another review of Schools for Misrule is out, this one from Bradley Watson in the Claremont Review.
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Many links that tend to harmonize with arguments made in Schools for Misrule, along with a few others:
- Judges criticize law reviews: “The high bench vs. the ivory tower” [Richard Brust, ABA Journal]
- “The fervor of the sixties penetrated law schools quite passionately” [Ann Althouse quoting an introduction to clinical legal education]
- More on forthcoming Brian Tamanaha book, Failing Law Schools [ABA Journal]
- “The Coming Crash in Legal Education: How We Got Here, and Where We Go Now” [Richard W. Bourne, SSRN via Kenneth Anderson/Volokh] How law, medicine and architectural schools joined the academy [Richard Neumann, Jr./SSRN via Caron]
- How lucrative are the sidelines a lawprof can develop, such as expert witness work? It varies greatly, but one star’s NYC condo is for sale for $15.9M [Julie Zeveloff, Business Insider]
- “Lawsuits against law schools weak: experts” [Reuters]
- “Obama hugging Derrick Bell” video: neither newsy nor likely to damage the President’s image, and why again is Prof. Bell supposed to be a more alarming connection than Prof. Ogletree himself? [Breitbart, Hinderaker, Cooke/NRO, and an HLS reminiscence from David French at NRO]
- Blog feature at National Law Journal on future of law schools stirs discussion with contributions by William Henderson, Brian Tamanaha and more, James Moliterno, followups here and here, plus a profile of renegade lawprof Paul Campos;
- Richard Fallon: when should scholars sign amicus “scholars’ briefs”? [via Kenneth Anderson]
- “If law school isn’t miserable, you aren’t doing it right.” [@Popehat]
- “Chicago’s View on the Future of Law and Economics” [Josh Wright] Vanderbilt Law Review publishes tributes to Prof. Richard Nagareda [ConcurOp]
- White House awards ceremony for Legal Left broadcast to >100 law schools [BLT]
- “U of Illinois Law School Admits To Six Years of False LSAT/GPA Data” [ABA Journal]
- Life in legal academia: 10/22 Temple confab on “Aging in the US: The Next Civil Rights Movement?” [via Post, Volokh]
- “All law is public law.” No, not really [Solum on 10/21 HLS conference]
- Thanks to Northwestern’s Federalist Society for inviting me to speak on Schools for Misrule this week as part of my Chicago visit. And thanks to Declan McCullagh for saying “all prospective law school students should” listen to the related Cato podcast. Why not book me for the spring semester to speak at your institution?
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An opinion roundtable at the New York Times’ “Room for Debate.”
Related: “How law schools are helping the elite” [Brian Tamanaha, Balkinization] And it rather missed the point for the underlying NYT report to call law schools “singular creature of American capitalism” [Larry Ribstein] Earlier: Theodore Seto via Taxprof, Stephen Bainbridge,
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- ABA proposes retreat from use of accreditation as leverage for faculty tenure, AALS practically passes out on floor [Caron/TaxProf, Dave Hoffman/ConcurOp and more]
- “Law professor calls for ban on Koran burning” [Volokh; Liaquat Ali Khan]
- “Are Law Profs ‘Selfless’ Teachers and Scholars Engaged in ‘Public Service’?” [Tamanaha, Balkinization]
- Behavioral law-and-econ has vanquished neoclassical economics? Not so fast, buster [Josh Wright, TotM]
- Left-tilting legal academy? Perish the thought: conference simply aims to combat “spread of laissez-faire ideology” [ClassCrits]
- Concurring Opinions symposium examines forthcoming Yale Law Journal study questioning whether clinic representation makes a difference in client outcomes [LEF, earlier] Hey, watch out, you’re giving ammunition to critics of legal services [Udell]
- Schools for Misrule has spent a lot of time in recent weeks as #1 in the Amazon category of “One-L – Legal Profession.” Thanks for your support!
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- Yale Law School “a cult of the 14th Amendment… that happens to have a registrar’s office.” [Elizabeth Wurtzel, Above the Law]
- Admitted applicants up, near-term job prospects down: “The irresponsibility of law schools” [Brian Tamanaha, Balkinization; Annie Lowrey, Slate] Not new, but relevant to debate over unaffordable nature of law education: George Washington University law school trims night program so as to improve its U.S. News rankings [WSJ Law Blog]
- While serving as chief Congressional scold publicly blasting the banking industry, Harvard lawprof Elizabeth Warren also had a $90,000 consulting contract with class-action lawyers suing banks; with the notable exception of Richard Painter, few in the Washington conflict-of-interest industry or legal ethics community seem much bothered [Business Week, Examiner, Wash. Times] Should academics publicly disclose their consulting relationships? [Lawrence Cunningham, ConcurOp]
- Other protections for client confidentiality remain intact, of course: “N.J. Court Says Public Law-School Clinics Aren’t Immune From Open-Records Law” [Chronicle of Higher Education] “Federal employees volunteering for law clinics: What could go wrong?” [Wood, PoL]
- Egalitarian trappings aside, modern academia essentially embodies an older aristocratic ethos [Nate Oman, ConcurOp]
- Great news: several of the highest-profile names in public debates about our legal system have indicated their interest in providing blurbs for Schools for Misrule, now nearing publication.
