Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Lateral hires with tenure, 2012-13

MOVING TO FRONT--ORIGIINALLY POSTED AUGUST 27, 2012--UPDATED

These faculty haved accepted appointments with tenure that will begin in 2013: 

Howard Abrams (tax) from Emory University to the University of San Diego (in 2014).

Kenneth Ayotte (bankruptcy, corporate finance, law & economics) from Northwestern University to the University of California, Berkeley.

Margaret Barry(clinical legal education; domestic violence; family law) from Catholic University Columbus School of Law to Vermont Law School  (as Associate Dean for Clinical and Experiential Programs)

Teri Dobbins Baxter (commercial Law, privacy law) from Saint Louis University to the University of Tennessee.

Andrea K. Bjorklund (international trade, litigation and arbitration) from the University of California, Davis to McGill University.

Curtis Bridgeman (contracts, commercial law, law & philosophy) from Florida State University to Wilamette University (as Dean).

Richard Brooks (contracts, law & economics) from Yale University to Columbia University.

Lan Cao (international business and trade) from the College of William and Mary to Chapman University.

June Carbone (family law, bioethics) from the University of Missouri, Kansas City to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

David Caron (international law) from the University of California, Berkeley to King's College, London (as Dean of the law faculty).

Paul Caron (tax) from the University of Cincinnati to Pepperdine University.

Eric A. Chiappinelli (corporate law) from Creighton Universitiy to an endowed Chair at Texas Tech University.

Jim Chen (administrative, constitutional, environmental, and natural resources law; legislation; economic regulation) from the University of Louisville to Michigan State University.

Christine Cimini (clinical legal education; immigration law) from University of Denver Sturm College of Law to Vermont Law School.

Evan Criddle (international law, human rights, administrative law) from Syracuse University to the College of William & Mary.

Jason Czarnezki (domestic and comparative environmental law) from Vermont Law School to Pace University.

Steven Davidoff (corporate law) from Ohio State University to the University of California, Berkeley.

Richard Delgado (critical race theory, civil rights, constitutional law) from Seattle University to the University of Alabama.

Miranda Perry Fleischer (tax) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of San Diego.

Victor Fleischer (tax) from the University of Colorado, Boulder to the University of San Diego.

Jeanne Fromer (intellectual property) from Fordham University to New York University.

James Grimmelman (intellectual property, Cyberlaw) from New York Law School to the University of Maryland.

Julie A. Hill (secured transactions, payment systems, banking law) from the University of Houston to the University of Alabama.

Adam Hirsch (trusts & estate) from Florida State University to University of San Diego.

Darren Hutchinson (constitutional law, remedies, critical legal theory) from American University to the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Lucy Jewel (legal writing) from John Marshall Law School (Atlanta) to the University of Tennessee.

Emily Kadens (European legal history) from the University of Texas at Austin to Northwestern University.

Stefanie Lindquist (empirical legal studies, public law, law & politics) from the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Georgia (as Dean of the School of Public & Internatinal Affairs).

Alberto Lopez (trusts & estates, property, legal history) from the University of Richmond to the University of Alabama.

Judge Bruce Markell from the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Nevada to Florida State University.

Ruth Mason (tax) from the University of Connecticut to the University of Virginia.

Lesley McAllister (environmental, natural resources, energy and comparative
law) from the University of San Diego to the University of California, Davis.

Mathew McCubbins (positive political theory, law & politics) from the University of Southern California to Duke University (joint with the Law School and Political Science).

Bernadette Meyler (constitutional law, law & literature, legal history, law & religion) from Cornell University to Stanford University.

Darrell Miller (civil rights, constitutional law, legal history, civil procedure) from the University of Cincinnati to Duke University.

Trevor Morrison (constitutional law) from Columbia University to New York University (as Dean).

Susan Morse (tax) from the University of California, Hastings to the University of Texas at Austin.

Douglas NeJaime (family law, law & sexuality, legal ethics) from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles to the University of California, Irvine.

James Park (corporate law, securities regulation) from Brooklyn Law School to the University of California, Los Angeles.

Frank Pasquale (intellectual property, cyberlaw, health law, privacy law) from Seton Hall University to the University of Maryland.

Eduardo Penalver (property, land use, law & religion) from Cornell University to the University of Chicago (beginning January 2013).

Nathaniel Persily (election law, constitutional law) from Columbia University to Stanford University.

Ellen Smith Pryor (torts) from Southern Methodist University to the University of North Texas.

Cristina Rodriguez (administrative, immigration, and constitutional law) from New York University to Yale University (beginning January 2013).

James Ryan (education law, constitutional law) from the University of Virginia to Harvard University (as Dean of the Graduate School of Education).

Christopher Serkin (property, land use) from Brooklyn Law School to Vanderbilt University.

Darien Shanske (local government law, tax, jurisprudence) from the University of California, Hastings to the University of California, Davis.

Matthew Spitzer (telecommunications law, administrative law, law & economics) from the University of Texas at Austin to Northwestern University.

Jean Stefancic (critical race theory, legal profession) from Seattle University to the University of Alabama. 

Peter Swire (privacy, law & technology) from Ohio State University to Georgia Institute of Technology (with appointments in Business, Public Policy, and Computing).  

Benjamin van Rooij (Chinese law and regulation, comparative law) from the University of Amsterdam to the University of California, Irvine.

Robin Fretwell Wilson (health law, family law, bioethics) from Washington & Lee University to the University of Illinois.

A list of last year's lateral moves with tenure is here.  And a list of visiting faculty at the very top law schools is here.  This post will be updated and moved to the front at various intervals during this academic year.

Light blogging for a bit...

...I'll be at a conference next week, so probably won't have much new until the week of June 24.  Dan Filler may have some items for the blog during this time.

The MOOCs are coming...

...and it doesn't bode well for law schools.  Bar review courses have long been done via what were essentially "MOOCs," it would not be surprising were many law schools to start to incorporate them into core classes.  Of course, the so-called "Socratic" method of instruction is not feasible with a MOOC.

NYU Law's Real Estate Deals for Faculty

Some details revealed here.  Not surprising.

Meyer Tapped For Federal Judgeship

Quinnipiac Professor Jeffrey Meyer has been nominated for a seat on the Federal District Court for Connecticut.  Meyer has recently been a visiting professor at Yale.

Tenured Phoenix Law Professors Sue Over Termination

Two tenured law professors at Phoenix School of Law, Celia Rumann and Michael O'Connor, are suing the law school and its owner, InfiLaw Corporation, arguing that they were fired because they opposed proposed curricular changes and student transfer policies.  The complaint, fascinating reading for those who wonder how for-profit law schools navigate not-necessarily-profitable faculty governance, is here.

Congratulations to the Chicago Alumni (and Bigelows and other Fellows) Who Accepted Tenure-Track Teaching Positions during 2012-13

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 14--UPDATED

This was a phenomenally difficult year on the teaching market, with 20% fewer schools interviewing, and, anecdotally at least, even fewer slots.  (It was the most difficult year on the teaching market in the last twenty years!) Still, it was gratifying that Chicago graduates were extremely successful in securing tenure-track positions; indeed, almost all those below had more than one offer.  They are:

Karen Bradshaw Shulz '10, who will join the faculty at Arizona State University.  She was Comment Editor of the Law Review and clerked for Judge Jolly on the 5th Circuit, before taking up a Fellowship at NYU.  She also earned an MBA prior to Law School.  Her areas include environmental law, property, land use, natural resources, energy law, and real estate transactions.

Justin (Gus) Hurwitz '07, who will join the faculty at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  He has an M.A. in Economics from George Mason, and held the Olin Law & Economics Fellowship at the Law School.   He was a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for several years, before taking up a Fellowship at Penn.  His areas include intellectual property (including patents), telecommunications law, regulated industries, payment systems, law & technology , contracts and property.

Rhett B. Larson '05, who will join the faculty at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.   He earned an M.Sc. from Oxford University in water  science, policy and management, and practiced with Perkins Coie and Gallagher & Kennedy in Phoenix.  He was also a VAP at Arizona State.  His areas include administrative and environmental law, property, water law, energy and natural resources law, and trusts & estates. 

Anne E. Mullins '04, who will join the faculty at the University of North Dakota.  She graduated with Honors from the Law School and was a member of the Law Review.  She clerked for Chief Judge Vance on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and for Judge Wiener on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then was a litigator with Susman Godfrey for five years.  Most recently, she was a VAP at the University of Oregon, where she has taught legal research and writing.  Her areas include trial advocacy, lawyering skills, and judicial writing.

Sherod Thaxton '08, who will join the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.  At the Law School, he was a member of the Law Review and an Olin Fellow.  He also earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University under the direction of leading criminologist Robert Agnew.   His scholarly work on the criminal justice system (esp. capital punishment) is complemented by five years of experience as a principal investigator for the Public Defender in Atlanta prior to law school, and then three years as an attorney for the Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District of California, where he was a member of the Capital Habeas Unit.  Most recently, he was a Dickerson Fellow at Chicago.  His areas include  criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal justice administration, juvenile law, evidence, and law and social science.

Stephen C. Yelderman'10, who will join the faculty at the University of Notre Dame.  He graduated with High Honors and was a member of the Law Review and held an Olin Fellowship while at the Law School.  He also earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and worked as a patent analyst and patent agent prior to Law School.  He clerked for Judge Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and is presently an Honor Attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  His areas include intellectual property (including patents), property, antitrust, bankruptcy, trusts & estates, and local government law.

Angela Zhang '08, who will join the faculty at King's College, University of London. She also earned a law degree from the University of Peking (as well as a JD here), and an SJD from Chicago, under the supervision of Judge Posner, in 2011.  She practiced bankruptcy, antitrust and trade competition law with Debevoise and Cleary Gottlieb in New York, and with Herbert Smith in London.  Her areas include bankruptcy, international business transactions, corporate and commercial law, antitrust, and law and economics.

Once again, all our Bigelow Fellows on the teaching market secured tenure-track positions; they are:

Anya Bernstein, who will join the faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo.  She earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2007 and a J.D. from Yale in 2010.  She clerked for Judge Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before coming to Chicago as a Bigelow Fellow.  Her areas include administrative law, federal courts, immigration, legislation, civil procedure, law and society, and comparative law

Alexander Boni-Saenz, who will join the faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology/Chicago-Kent College of Law.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2008, and clerked for Judge Wood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  He was then a Skadden Fellow at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, where he created the Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors, and also represented low-income clients in immigration, consumer, family law, and other matters.  Prior to law school, he earned an M.Sc. in Social Policy & Planning at the London School of Economics and was a Research Associate at the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at Northwestern University.  His areas include family law, property, trusts & estates, health law, and elder law.   

Victoria Schwartz, who will join the faculty at Pepperdine University.   She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2007, clerked for Judge Bybee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was a commercial litigator with O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles for three years before coming to Chicago as a Bigelow Fellow.  Her areas include contracts, employment law and employment discrimination, corporate law and governance, intellectual property, and privacy law. 

One other Fellow is presently weighing several offers; I will update this post when her situation is resolved.

In addition, the following alumni accepted VAPs or Fellowships this year (these individuals were not on the broader teaching market this year):

Timothy D. Greene '11 has accepted a Fellowship with the Fair Use Project at the Center for Internet & Society at Stanford Law School.  He graduated cum laude from Cihcago, and has been an intellectual property lawyer in the Technology Transactions Group with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco since graduating.  His areas include all aspects of intellectual property, with a particular scholarly focus on trademarks.

Laura A. Napoli '10 has accepted a VAP at Arizona State University for 2013-15.  She graduated cum laude from Chicago, where she was a member of the Law Review.  She was a Legal Fellow at the Student Press Law Center and then a corporate and bankruptcy associate at Weil Gotshal in New York.  Her areas include bankruptcy, contracts, corporations, and securities regulation.

William B. Ortman '06 has accepted a Climenko Fellowship at Harvard Law School.  He graduated summa cum laude from Chicago, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as Articles Editor of the Law Review.  He clerked for Judge Tatel on the D.C. Circuit, and practiced law in Iowa, where he was a partner, most recently, at Weinhardt & Logan in Des Moines.  His areas include legislation, administrative law, and civil procedure.

Finally, if you're curious, you can read about some of our recent placements in law teaching here and here, and see a more comprehensive listing here.  You can also see a list of past Bigelows and where they now teach here.

UPDATE:  I am very pleased to report that Jennifer Nou, our Public Law Fellow, who had offers all over the country, happily decided to accept our tenure-track offer, and will become a permanent member of the Chicago faculty.

Visiting Professors at the Top Six Law Schools, 2013-14, 1st draft

UPDATED, JUNE 4, 2013

As I've done in the past, I'm posting a list of the visiting professors (who hold university appointments elsewhere) at the top six law schools, the schools that are "top six" by almost all measures of faculty quality--which are also the schools that also typically have the most visiting professors on a regular basis. While many visiting stints are made with an eye to possible permanent appointment, not all are; some are so-called "podium" visits, which aim to fill an immediate teaching need at the school. By my calculation, for example, muc less than 10% of the visits last year resulted in (or are in process of resulting in) offers of permanent employment--perhaps a slightly higher percentage of the non-podium visits resulted in such offers. Often visitors from local schools in the area are invited for podium visit purposes--though some "locals" may also be "look-see" visitors, i.e., under consideration for appointment. NYU also has a fair number of "enrichment" and "global" visitors, well-known senior folks who are keen to spend some time in New York, but who aren't necessarily interested in, or being considered for, lateral moves. (Columbia gets some of these folks too.) From the outside, of course, it's very hard to tell all these apart, so here, without further comment, are the visiting professors for 2013-14; please e-mail me about omissions or corrections (this is an incomplete first draft), and I will update the list at various intervals over the next couple of months and move it to the front.

Please note that not every visit, below, is for the entire academic year; indeed, my guess is at least half are not, meaning students can expect many of these faculty to *also* be teaching at their home institution. In the case of HLS, many of the visitors come in the Winter Term, i.e., just the month of January.

Please also note that this is supposed to be a list of visiting faculty who have gone through some kind of appointments process at the school at which they are visiting, whether a process for look-see visitors, "enrichment" visitors, or podium visitors. These are supposed to be faculty who are teaching at the host school and who are being paid by the host school to teach.

Columbia Law School

Thomas Brennan (Northwestern University)

Bernard Harcourt (University of Chicago)

Sudhir Krishnaswamy (Azim Premji University)

Jennifer Laurin (University of Texas, Austin)

Niamh Moloney (London School of Economics)

Cristoforo Osti (University of Salento)

Michele Papa (University of Florence)

H. Jefferson Powell (Duke University)

Anthea Roberts (London School of Economics)

Richard Squire (Fordham University)

Doron Teichman (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

Edouard Treppos (University of Lyon)

Antoine Vauchez (University of Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne)

Harvard Law School

Howard Abrams (Emory University/University of San Diego)

Hidetaka Aizawa (Hitotsubashi University)

William Burke-White (University of Pennsylvania)

Scott Cummings (University of California, Los Angeles)

Justin Driver (University of Texas, Austin)

Stavros Gadinis (University of California, Berkeley)

Vik Khanna (University of Michigan)

Katerina Linos (University of California, Berkeley)

Christopher Robertson (University of Arizona)

Michael Stein (College of William & Mary)

New York University School of Law

Alan Auerbach (University of California, Berkeley)

Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich)

Charles Cameron (Princeton University)

Simon Chesterman (National University of Singapore)

David Dyzenhaus (University of Toronto)

Lech Garlicki (University of Warsaw)

Michael Klausner (Stanford University)

Mike Joseph Kobetsky (University of Melbourne)

Robert L. Rabin (Stanford University)

Woljciech Sadurski (University of Sydney)

David A. Skeel (University of Pennsylvania)

Stefan Vogenauer (Oxford University)

Stanford Law School

Justin Driver (University of Texas, Austin)

University of Chicago Law School

Dhammika Dharmapala (University of Illinois)

Kimberly Ferzan (Rutgers University, Camden)

Ariel Porat (Tel-Aviv University)

Mila Versteeg (University of Virginia)

Yale Law School

Jonathan Klick (University of Pennsylvania)

Jon Michaels (University of California, Los Angeles)

Angela Onwuachi-Willig (University of Iowa)

Deborah Rhode (Stanford University)

Noah Zatz (University of California, Los Angeles)

Miller Named Dean at Arizona

University of Arizona law school interim dean Marc Miller has been named the law school's permanent dean. 

U of Kansas Law to Reduce Entering Class Size

This is likely the wave of the future:  Kansas will enroll about 120 this fall compared to 140 in the two classes ahead (and 175 in this year's graduating class).  Kansas has had good employment outcomes for its students, and this move will likely benefit future graduating classes.

Bodie on Henderson's increasingly cataclysmic prophecies

We have often linked and commented approvingly and with appreciation to Bill Henderson's analyses of changes and trends in the legal market, but I have also begun to wonder about some of Professor Henderson's prognostications of late.

UPDATE:  Professor Henderson replies here.

Career paths: from teaching law to acupuncture

Has there been a more unusual career trajectory for an academic?

UPDATE:  A reader writes:  "I'm a long-time reader of your blogs, and a first-time correspondent. In light of your link to the story of Clare Dalton's transition into acupuncture, I thought you might like to read about Ken Klee's alternative healing ministry. I don't know of any other law professors interested in the mysterious arts of 'energy healing,' but I am willing to bet that Professor Klee is the only court-appointed bankruptcy examiner with a thriving side practice."

Rookie hiring summary courtesy of UCI's Sarah Lawsky...

...here.  As a percentage of candidates on the market, here's how the schools fared in terms of tenure-track placement of their alumni (Lawsky's numbers are a bit different, at least in part due to a failure to count tenure-stream jobs in non-US law schools; I list only schools that had at least five candidates on the market):

1.  University of Chicago (58%)

2.  University of Virginia (57%)

3.  Yale University (49%)

4.  Duke University (39%)

4.  New York University (39%)

6.  University of Michigan (31%)

7.  Harvard University (30%)

8.  University of California, Los Angeles (25%)

9.  Cornell University (21%)

9.  Northwestern University (21%)

11. University of Texas, Austin (18%)

12. Georgetown University (17%)

13. Stanford University (15%)

13. University of California, Berkeley (15%)

15. Columbia University (11%)

The Stanford and Columbia performances seem anomalously low--maybe due to underreporting, and maybe due to a fluke this year.

Professor Lawsky's numbers, even allowing for the limits of self-reporting, also clearly show the steep drop-off in hiring this year, on the order of almost one-third fewer hires than in recent years.

UPDATE:  Professor Lawsky's percentage chart, but just for US tenure-track hires.

Nice presentation on the U.S. News ranking methodology...

...from Pitt Dean William Carter, who had the unhappy task of dealing with a big drop in Pitt's overall rank in U.S. News.  As with all such movements, it has nothing to do with the real world, and everything to do with artifacts of the ranking method.  I commend Dean Carter's approach to the matter as a sensible one.  (As you will see if you watch Dean Carter's analysis, there have been some minor and largely cosmetic changes in the U.S. News methodology since I wrote the "Guide for the Perplexed" ten years ago.)

In Memoriam: Daniel Schaffer

Professor Daniel Schaffer of the Northeastern University School of Law passed away on May 8.  He was 74.  Schaffer, a tax expert, joined the Northeastern faculty in 1970. 

Geu Named Dean of South Dakota

Professor Thomas Geu of the University of South Dakota School of Law has been named the school's new dean.  Geu holds a JD from the University of Nebraska and joined the school's faculty in 1990.