Law School

Child of Moneyball

Posted on May 19, 2009
See here.

U.S. News to Correct Data, Not Rankings, of Brooklyn, Hawaii, and Nebraska

Posted on May 08, 2009
See here.

Did 23 Law Schools Commit Rankings Malpractice?

Posted on May 04, 2009
See here.

2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings

Posted on April 27, 2009
Academic Peer ReputationLawyer/Judge Reputation

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Law Schools on Steroids

Posted on April 26, 2009
The annual USN&WR rankings and the inevitable controversy that follows, steroid use by baseball players, and a recent article in the New Yorker ("Brain Gain," April 27, 2009) have made me realize that I am not sure what it means to cheat. It's not that I do not regard lying as cheating but things get very blurry after that...

The SSRN blog

Posted on April 25, 2009
Not every coblogger at MoneyLaw necessarily agrees, but I do appreciate SSRN. And now we can follow the SSRN blog.

Get a "Gift Certificate"

Posted on April 23, 2009
My goodness! It is rating season already. This year the students at my School find that they are not at the tied-for-46th rated school but at the 51st. And since we are reducing the class size, next year's will likely find they are back in the 40s. In the meantime, the teaching is the same, the scholarship the same and, I suspect, job placement will not change...

Early Release of 2010 U.S. Law School Rankings

Posted on April 20, 2009
Although the 2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings are scheduled for release on Thursday, April 23, the Internet is abuzz with early copies -- these scans of the Top 100 (via The Faculty Lounge) appear legitimate. TaxProf Blog lists the biggest moves among the Top 50 and 51-100.

Wilkins Micawber, dean and professor of law

Posted on April 11, 2009
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.— Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dickens, David CopperfieldI've held the title "dean and professor of law" for nearly a thousand days, long enough to make me chuckle whenever I'm introduced as "the University of Louisville's new law school dean...

That don't impress me much

Posted on April 09, 2009
Chatting with a friend elsewhere in legal academia reminded me: Shania Twain, That Don't Impress Me Much, Come on Over (1997), is an anthem for all seasons. Enjoy!

The University of Louisville's law alumni magazine

Posted on March 19, 2009
The vast majority of MoneyLaw's readers will never see the University of Louisville's law alumni magazine. I don't believe in law porn. Even if I did, I don't have the money to transmit any substantial amount of law porn in interstate commerce. But I am proud of the magazine and invite you to download the 2008-09 edition.

Sun deviled

Posted on March 17, 2009
Arizona State University Research ParkArizona State University, under president Michael Crow, aspired to become the New American University. ASU would enroll 100,000 students by 2020. It would eliminate disciplinary boundaries, spur research, fuel the economy, and serve the deserving and the underserved...

"The best and the brightest"

Posted on March 15, 2009
AIG has gotten more than $170 billion in bailout money from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. And now AIG has paid about $165 million in bonuses to the executives who brought the company to its knees.A more politically foolish use of 0.1 percent of available cash can scarcely be imagined...

Testing the complete lawyer

Posted on March 12, 2009
Being a lawyer is more than "thinking like a lawyer." So much more.The LSAT at best tests certain aspects of "thinking like a lawyer."So why not devise a test to assess the rest of what it means to think and act like a lawyer, what it really means to be a lawyer?Sheldon Zedeck and Marjorie M...

Breaking away

Posted on March 08, 2009
It's the thirtieth anniversary of one of my all-time favorite movies, Breaking Away. As this musical tribute suggests, it's an extremely sentimental movie about growing up, intergenerational conflict, class warfare, and an underdog who (in the parlance of European pop music) ultimately gets everything but the girl — and doesn't crash and burn over that outcome...

Is There Any Dog There?

Posted on March 07, 2009
The tail wagging the dog idea -- getting your ends and means reversed -- has made it into Moneylaw on a number of occasions. I am beginning to wonder what the dog is. USN&WR rankings determine what law schools do ranging from admitting transfer students, lowering class size, and employing their students, at least temporarily...

Steady stroke

Posted on March 04, 2009

Quiet man on campus

Posted on February 26, 2009
It's almost time for the NCAA men's basketball tournament, an event I've often milked for MoneyLaw material. I usually cheer against the Ivy League representative, because of and not in spite of my Harvard degree. This year, though, I might make an exception if Cornell makes the field...

The Caroline Kennedy rule

Posted on February 21, 2009
An otherwise obscure political confession forms the basis of a bedrock principle of academic governance. Witness this February 20, 2009, revelation by David A. Paterson, governor of New York:For the first time, Gov. David A. Paterson acknowledged Friday that he personally ordered his staff to contest Caroline Kennedy?s version of events in the hours after she withdrew from consideration to be United States senator...

Unexceptional

Posted on February 17, 2009
In what has become a de facto series, MoneyLaw has spotlighted some recent posts by Stanley Fish on academic freedom and the tendency of some professors to stretch that concept. Fish now helps us to think more clearly about academic freedom by offering this simple reminder: academics, far from being unique, much less entitled to unique legal protection, are simply unexceptional...

Rocket man

Posted on February 15, 2009
One of MoneyLaw's recurring themes is the search for gritty, unglamorous faculty members who elevate an entire school's performance. In the context of teaching, we laud the utility law teacher. In the never-ending quest to neutralize destructive faculty members — Arschlöcher habt Ihr immer bei Euch — we've also turned to plus-minus, a crude but revealing hockey statistic...

But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

Posted on February 13, 2009
This is rightly a comment but Jim's post below was so thought provoking that I used my Moneylaw hall pass to elevate it to a post. But you should read Jim's first.I think the possible tension between what the humanities professor wrote, what I wrote, and possibly Jim is thinking is actually pretty thin...

You like me

Posted on February 13, 2009
You like me! You really, really like me!Jeff Harrison's recent post, Ready, set, punt, has all the hallmarks of a MoneyLaw classic. It exposes one of the abiding pitfalls in academic governance: the tendency to approach faculty hiring with criteria better suited to choosing a partner for a drink after school hours...

Rankings and discipline: A two-part MoneyLaw series

Posted on February 12, 2009
The road to hell is paved with good intentionsDo the U.S. News & World Report rankings hurt law schools? Yes, according to Michael Sauder and Wendy Nelson Espeland, The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change, American Sociological Review (February 2009):Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have permeated law schools so extensively and why these organizations have been unable to buffer these institutional pressures...

Ready, Set, Punt

Posted on February 10, 2009
From time to time a law professor at another school writes to me rather than comment on a post. Here is part of an email from what I assumed to be a first or second year law professor. He or she had just come from an appointments meeting at which a number of candidates were discussed...

Moneyball: The Movie

Posted on February 10, 2009
Details here.

Better to reign in academia than serve in business

Posted on February 10, 2009
Hell . . . Hell is for studentsStanley Fish is on a roll, and MoneyLaw is making the most of it. Having just posted Fish's observations on a new book on academic freedom, I now have occasion to reprint the brilliant opening to Fish's latest column on this subject, The Two Languages of Academic Freedom:Last week we came to the section on academic freedom in my course on the law of higher education and I posed this hypothetical to the students: Suppose you were a member of a law firm or a mid-level executive in a corporation and you skipped meetings or came late, blew off assignments or altered them according to your whims, abused your colleagues and were habitually rude to clients...

Defining academic freedom

Posted on February 09, 2009
Although this item first appeared in the New York Times nearly three months ago, it warrants notice here and now. Stanley Fish praises a new book about academic freedom, Matthew W. Finkin & Robert C. Post, For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (2009):The authors? most important conclusion is presented early on in their introduction: ?We argue that the concept of Academic freedom ...

The University of Louisville seeks visitors

Posted on February 05, 2009
The University of Louisville School of Law anticipates hiring visiting professors, both entry-level and experienced, for the 2009-10 academic year. Our curricular needs may include (but are not limited to) civil procedure, torts, trusts and estates, property, legal writing, and other subjects...

Are Law Schools Part of the University?

Posted on January 28, 2009
Long ago Jim promised a series on law schools as public utilities. It's a great idea and current budget crunches make the parallel even clearer. One basic comparison is that in regulated industries, regulators are not that interested in how much a utility spends...

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