Law schools roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Legal education cannot continue on the current trajectory. As members of a profession committed to serving the public good, we must find ways to alter the economics of legal education. Possible changes include reducing the undergraduate education required for admission to three years; awarding the basic professional degree after two years, while leaving the third year as a elective or an internship; providing some training through apprenticeship; reducing expensive accreditation requirements to allow greater diversity among law schools; building on the burgeoning promises of internet-distance education; changing the economic relationship between law schools and universities; altering the influence of current ranking formulas; and modifying the federal student loan program. As legal educators, it is our responsibility to grapple with these issues before our institutions are reshaped in ways beyond our control.

67 leading law profs: time to reform legal education is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Bainbridge on clinical legal education is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Law schools roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

One sentence misses the mark slightly in conveying my views. As I should have taken pains to make clear, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, as a decision, is by no means sacrosanct in legal academia; law professors both right and left, young and old, criticize it often for its reasoning, as a political blunder, and on other grounds. What is a good bit less common — and especially rare among younger academics aiming for tenure offers at law schools with no religious affiliation — is a passionate stand against abortion in itself, like Ms. Wagner’s.

The university, for its part, disclaims political bias and apparently intends to argue that Ms. Wagner did not perform as well at the interview stage as her lawyers contend. As I told the AP, while I have no doubt that political bias is rife — in 2007, Iowa’s law faculty is recorded as having had 46 registered Democrats and only one registered Republican — I have severe doubts that the courts will improve matters by peering over the hiring committees’ shoulders. (& TaxProf with links; Des Moines Register “Juice”; Prof. Bainbridge)

Bias against conservative lawprofs: Wagner case heads toward trial is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

AALS letting its biases show is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

…were competing approaches to diversity permitted, newcomers would be more likely to find an institution that suits their own desired experience: some would seek a pledge that advancement would be race- and sex-blind, others an assurance of encountering colleagues from backgrounds very different from their own.

Of course that’s not the world we live in. In our actual world, all law schools must conform to a prescribed format. Accreditation officials will haul up any institution that tries to be race-blind, and HLS will scramble to claim hiring credit for Prof. Warren’s vague family lore of Cherokee ancestry.

Should outsiders care? One reason to care might be if the prevalence of identity politics tends to reinforce the problem (assuming it is a problem) of ideological imbalance in the legal academy. In Schools for Misrule I conclude that it does, though only as one of many contributing factors….

Diversity hiring on law school faculties, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Debate on law school faculty diversity is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Law schools roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

U.N. enlists U.S. lawprof to scold U.S. on Indian land rights is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system