Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

In Memoriam: Fred C. Zacharias (1953-2009)

I am very sorry to report that my friend and former colleague at the University of San Diego School of Law, Fred Zacharias, passed away after battling cancer over the last year.  Fred was a leading scholar in the field of legal ethics, and played an important institutional role in upholding academic excellence at San Diego.  There are some very nice memorials and recollections from current and former colleagues and friends, including Larry Solum, Bruce Green, Orly Lobel, and Mike Rappaport.

Law and Philosophy Fellowship at University of Chicago Law School, 2010-11

The ad has now appeared; I repost it here:

The University of Chicago Law School seeks to appoint a Law and Philosophy Fellow for the academic year 2010-11. A Ph.D. in philosophy by time of appointment is expected, though in unusual cases a Ph.D. in a related discipline, or a J.D. accompanied by strong training in philosophy, will be considered. Applications also welcome from post-2003 doctorates. Law degree (J.D. or foreign equivalent) is helpful, but not required. The Fellow’s research should intersect with issues of interest to legal scholars. Examples would include work on normative concepts such as equality and punishment; investigation of the philosophical dimensions of a substantive area of law, such as criminal law, constitutional law, sex equality, or property; research that bears on the legal dimensions of intention, proof, or agency; and work in jurisprudence. The Fellow will be expected to contribute to the intellectual life of the Law School, pursue his or her research, and participate in teaching the Law and Philosophy Workshop or a seminar. Teaching duties are modest and will contribute to the Fellow’s research. Salary $50K + benefits + superb research environment. To be considered a candidate for this position you must apply on-line through the University website by February 28, 2010, at . Resume, cover letter, writing sample, reference contact information and research statement should be submitted electronically on the web site at the time of application. Three confidential letters of recommendation should be mailed to Joe Pellettiere at The University of Chicago Law School, 1111 E. 60th St., Chicago IL 60637 by February 28, 2010. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer.

Our current Law and Philosophy Fellow is Adam Hosein, who is co-teaching the Law & Philosophy Workshop with Martha Nussbuam this year (the general topic is, "Utilitarianism and the Law").  The Fellow typically either co-teaches the Workshop with me or Martha, or offers a seminar on his or her research in one quarter.  (Next year, I am slated to run the Law & Philosophy Workshop; the 'theme' will likely be either 'current topics in legal philosophy' [with perhaps a slight tilt towards core general jurisprudence] or 'disagreement and skepticism' in legal philosophy [e.g., the problem of theoretical disagreements] and in ethics.  Again, applications are certainly very welcome from those not working on either of those topics, since the Fellow has the option of simply teaching a one-quarter seminar of his or her own.)  Please e-mail me if you have any questions.

How Long After the "Meat Market" Before Teaching Candidates Can Expect to Hear From Schools?

A post on this subject two years ago is timely again.

What the Republican Party Can Learn from Pakistan

Robert Hockett (Cornell) comments.

An Interesting New On-Line Law Review Feature: Scholarly Discussion of Pending Supreme Court Cases

Courtesy of the new "Roundtable" feature from the Vanderbilt Law Review.  

You know you shouldn't look...

...but you won't be able to resist.

Good luck to those interviewing at the 'meat market'!

There are a few paragraphs here about these interviews you might want to review.  It's clearly a tighter year than usual on the academic job market, though the situation is clearly better in academic law than in other fields.

Melbourne Law Faculty in Turmoil

Its Dean, James Hathaway (who is on leave from Michigan), has resigned after only 18 months, and the faculty is in an uproar over a proposed reorganization of the faculty (part of broader financial and administrative adjustments at Melbourne, that have also proved  controversial in philosophy).

Should an Aspiring Legal Philosopher Get Only the PhD, or a JD as Well?

A philosophy student posed the question, which I take up on the philosophy blog.  It's perhaps worth adding here that every credible candidate with a jurisprudence specialization on the law teaching market now has done some graduate work in philosophy, either the MA or PhD.

Too many law reviews, too many articles to possibly read...

...so Michael Froomkin (Miami) and colleagues will help.

Law school drop-out makes good...

...in economics.

The "Regional" Law Schools With an Unusually Good Eye for Faculty Talent

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCT. 20 IN LIGHT OF UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS (originally posted Oct. 16)

Which of the more "regional" law schools (those whose graduates mostly practice in the region where the school is located) have a particularly good eye for faculty talent?   As a measure of "faculty talent," we looked at faculty at the school over the last decade-and-a-half (roughly) who ended up being hired by top 20ish law schools.  The results conform reasonably well to the "common wisdom."   Here are the regional schools with really notable eyes for faculty talent; the school where the faculty member ended up being recruited is listed in parentheses after his or her name:

Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University:  Barton Beebe (NYU); Daniel Crane (Michigan); Susan Crawford (Michigan); Lawrence Cunningham (George Washington); John Duffy (George Washington); David Golove (NYU); John McGinnis (Northwestern); Scott Shapiro (Yale), Kevin Stack (Vanderbilt).

Case Western Reserve University:  Olufunmilayo Arewa (Northwestern); Rebecca Dresser (Wash U/St. Louis); Michael Heise (Cornell); Andrew Morriss (Illinois); Ann Southworth (UC Irvine); Wendy Wagner (Texas).

Chicago-Kent College of Law:  Randy Barnett (Georgetown); Graeme Dinwoodie (Oxford); Daniel Hamilton (Illinois); Cheryl Harris (UCLA); Christopher Leslie (UC Irvine); James Lindgren (Northwestern); Richard McAdams (Chicago).

Florida State University:  Amitai Aviram (Illinois); Steven Bank (UCLA); Jonathan Klick (Penn); Gregory Mitchell (Virginia). 

University of Arizona:  David Adelman (Texas); Mark Ascher (Texas); Lynn Baker (Texas); Katherine Franke (Columbia); David Golove (NYU); Bernard Harcourt (Chicago); Dalia Tsuk (George Washington).

University of San Diego:  Stuart Benjamin (Duke); David Law (Wash U/St. Louis); Cynthia Lee (George Washington); Brian Leiter (Chicago); Arti Rai (Duke); Sai Prakash (Virginia); Emily Sherwin (Cornell); Steven Walt (Virginia).

Of course, one data point unavailable from the AALS directories is offers from top 20ish schools turned down; this would help Florida State and San Diego, I know, and might put schools like Wake Forest into the mix as well.

UPDATE:  A reader points out that St. Louis University, while not having as many as some of these other schools relative to its size, still has an impressive faculty alumni group for the time period in question, including two legal historians (Barry Cushman, now at Virginia; and Daniel Hulsebosch, now at NYU) and the international law scholar Derek Jinks, now at Texas.  St. Louis may have a special eye for legal historians, since, as it happens, Lawrence Friedman (Stanford) began his career there in the 1950s!

ANOTHER:  A couple of readers called my attention to the University of California at Davis, whose recent faculty alumni include Jennifer Chacon (UC Irvine), Holly Doremus (Berkeley), Rob Mikos (Vanderbilt), Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Iowa), Spencer Overton (George Washington), and Tobias Wolff (Penn) (and that does not include a number of current faculty who have declined offers from similar schools).  I had not listed Davis becuase I did not really think of it as a "regional" school (though I am told most graduates do stay in Northern California) and because it is, itself, fairly close in faculty quality to some of the top 20ish schools I've been using as benchmarks.

SIMILAR TO THE UC DAVIS situation is George Mason University whose faculty alumni since 1993 include Michael Abramowicz (George Washington), Barry Adler (NYU), Margaret Brinig (Iowa, now at Notre Dame), Claire Hill (Minnesota), Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern), William Kovacic (George Washington), Erin O'Hara (Vanderbilt), Francesco Parisi (Minnesota), and Larry Ribstein (Illinois).

AND MAYBE ONE MORE?  Loyola Law School, Los Angeles is perhaps just a notch below those on the original list, buts its roster of faculty alumni include Catherine Fisk (USC, Duke, and now UC Irvine), Larry Helfer (Duke), Robin Kar (Illinois), Kurt Lash (Illinois), and Larry Solum (Illinois).

THIS ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE LIST TOO:  American University has sent on Jamie Boyle (Duke), Adrienne Davis (Wash U/St. Louis), James Salzman (Duke), and Leti Volpp (Berkeley)--and that's just since 2000.

I should note that we did not look at moves to Emory (just an omission), which would have added a few more names to these lists.

Congratulations...

...to my esteemed colleague M. Todd Henderson, recipient of this year's Paul Bator Award from the Federalist Society.  A list of past winners is here.

The Questions Job Seekers Would *Really* Like to Ask at the Meat Market

This is funny.

The tail wags the dog, again

This time it's the General Accounting Office bearing the news:  competition for higher rankings in U.S. News is identified as one of the two major factors driving the rapid increase in law school tuition over the past dozen years or so.  Not surprising, since per capita expenditures is what drives the U.S. News results--not faculty quality, student success, bar passage, but how much cash-per-student is being spent, regardless on what or with what outcomes.

UPDATE:  My Dean, Saul Levmore, correctly observes that the GAO Report's attempt to exonerate ABA regulations as a cause of rising costs doesn't work:  "On the margin, ABA regulations might raise costs; evidence that something else, like rankings or competition, matters more, is a bit beside the point."

Lash from Loyola/LA to Illinois

Kurt Lash, who holds a Chair in constitutional law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, will move to the University of Illinois College of Law next year, where he will also serve as co-director of a new Program in Constitutional Theory, History and Law with Larry Solum.

Massive Tuition Hike at UC Hastings College of Law

Given earlier budgetary troubles, this development (Download UC Hastings Law School Tuition Increase)--a 20% hike in the cost of a legal education--is not really surprising, though it is no doubt very painful for the students, especially in this job market.

UPDATE:  Judging from this, it looks like UC Davis has raised its fees even more than Hastings, and of course all the UC law schools are way up.

Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer: Dangerously Stupid Journalists of the Month

Many people will get sick and some may even die because these two are too stupid to be able to analyze and evaluate the relevance of evidence.   Share the preceding link with your friends who read The Atlantic. This useful demolition of these two irresponsible hacks is also worth reading.

Many people will get sick and some may even die because these two are too stupid to be able to analyze and evaluate the relevance of evidence.   Share the preceding link with your friends who read The Atlantic. This useful demolition of these two irresponsible hacks is also worth reading.

Larry Laudan at Chicago on Monday at 4 pm

The Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values will sponsor a talk by Larry Laudan (National Autonomous University of Mexico) from 4-6 pm in Room D of the Law School on Monday, October 26.  The title:  "The Rules of Trial, Political Morality and the Costs of Error:  Or, Is Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Doing More Harm than Good?"  Chicago-area faculty or U of C law (or philosophy) students interested in attending should e-mail me for a copy of the paper, which should be read in advance.  Laudan, as evidence scholars will know, is doing the most interesting work in the field, and turning lots of conventional wisdom on its head--in this case, the Blackstone ratio, which you'll never think of the same way again after this paper.

Workshops in Which Students Enroll for Credit: Approaches

I presented two different papers at back-to-back law & philosophy workshops/seminars this week, at Columbia (run by Joseph Raz) and at Michigan (run by Scott Hershovitz and Don Herzog).  (I don't generally like to discuss the details of academic events on the blog, so suffice it to say that both sessions were very rewarding, and I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss my work with the faculty and students in attendance.)  In both cases, students were taking the workshop for credit, and in both cases the students discussed my paper with the instructor the prior week.  That seems to be fairly typical in these kinds of workshops, in which outside speakers present work on a particular topic or theme.   But at Columbia, after discussing the paper with the students the week before, Raz prepared a set of questions (about 4-5 pages) based on that discussion, which were then sent to me prior to my visit.   At Michigan, the students prepared short (3-4 page) "reaction" papers, which were also sent to me prior to the visit.  At Chicago, the students typically send the instructor(s) questions based on the speaker's paper, and then the instructor(s) help the students reformulate some of the questions for the session with the speaker.

Are there other approaches to involving students in the discussion and examination of papers by visiting speakers?  Do readers, faculty or students, have views about which approaches work best?  Signed comments will be strongly preferred, but only comments with at least a valid e-mail address stand any chance of being approved.

Sorry for the dearth of postings...

...but I've been on the road much of the last week.  More soon!

Lawsuit Against Autoadmit Harassers Settles

A reporter from a Connecticut newspaper left me a message today that the two women who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against their harassers on the Autoadmit cyber-cesspool have settled their claims.  I haven't yet seen an account of the settlement, though will post a link to a news story when someone sends me one.   Meanwhile, the Autoadmit site is apparently long moribund as a place with even the pretense of law school discussion, partly due to the lawsuit and partly because, I am told, a hacker took control of the site some time back and is now able to monitor the identities of posters--a kind of cyber-justice, as it were. 

UPDATE:  The Connecticut news item.  Since I wasn't asked about the "possible impact" of the suit or the settlement, I'm not quite sure how I "declined" to discuss it (as the story claims)!  Ah, journalism.  Of course, I hope that Section 230 of the C.D.A. will be repealed or modified, but that hardly separates me from the rest of the civilized world.

UT's Sage Elected to the Institute of Medicine (UPDATE: And Minnesota's Wolf too!)

William Sage, a leading health law scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences.  There are not many law faculty elected to any branch of the NAS, so this is especially notable.

UPDATE:  Susan Wolf (Minnesota) was also elected this year (I'd missed that).

"Swine flu" on campus

Here's a useful overview of how things look in different parts of the nation (and follow the links to the American College Health Association data).  The injectable version of the vaccine just became available in Chicago yesterday (for high-risk groups, including children--mine all got it [by luck, we had a doctor's appointment yesterday]).  Probably in the next few weeks it will become widely available on college campuses.  Since law students are probably less likely to live in dormitory settings, law schools may not prove quite the same breeding ground for this as other parts of campus.  And for those interested in sober and intelligent analysis of issues related to influenza and vaccines (among other topics), I strongly recommend this blog written by public health professionals.  

A Summary of the Results of our "Best Faculties" Polls

Here is a summary of the results from the "best faculties" polls we conducted over the last couple of weeks.  Bear in mind, of course, that schools differ in faculty size, which may affect the ability to effectively cover different areas.  So, at one extreme, we have Harvard and NYU will around 90 full-time academic faculty (depending on how precisely one counts them); at the other extreme is Chicago with under 35.  Stanford is in the 40s, while most of the top law schools are in the 50-60 range.  Recall that an * indicates a vote tally close to the school ranked ahead (so *#2 means the #2 school was quite close in overall vote tally to the #1 school).  A rank in brackets means a result outside the top ten, so less reliable in the sense that there may have been schools not included in the survey that might have done as well or better.  I continue to think that the rough results (top five, top ten, not top ten etc.) are more informative than the ordinal order, so bear that in mind as you review the summary:

Yale University

*#2 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#3 in Law & Economics

#2 in Law & Philosophy

[Not in Top 20] in Intellectual Property/Cyberlaw

Harvard University

# 1 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#1 in Law & Economics

[#14] in Law & Philosophy

#2 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Stanford University

*#6 in Constitutional Law & Theory

*#7 in Law & Economics

[#15] in Law & Philosophy

#3 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Chicago

#4 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#2 in Law & Economics

#3 in Law & Philosophy

[#14] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Columbia University

*#5 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#6 in Law & Economics

#4 in Law & Philosophy

*#4 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

New York University

#3 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#4 in Law & Economics

#1 in Law & Philosophy

#5 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of California, Berkeley

#8 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#5 in Law & Economics

*#8 in Law & Philosophy

#1 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

#10 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#16] in Law & Economics

*#10 in Law & Philosophy

#6 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Pennsylvania

[#15] in Constitutional Law & Theory

#7 in Law & Economics

*#6 in Law & Philosophy

[#12] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Virginia

[#11] in Constitutional Law & Theory

#9 in Law & Economics

[*#11] in Law & Philosophy

[#11] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of California, Los Angeles

[#13] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#13] in Law & Economics

#5 in Law & Philosophy

#9 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Georgetown University

*#7 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[#14] in Law & Economics

[*#16] in Law & Philosophy

#8 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Texas, Austin

*#9 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#18] in Law & Economics

[*#13] in Law & Philosophy

[#21] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Northwestern University

[#11] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#11] in Law & Economics

[Not in top 20] in Law & Philosophy

[#22] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Duke University

[#14] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[not in top 20] in Law & Economics

[not in top 20] in Law & Philosophy

#10 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Top 40 Student Bodies in Terms of *Numerical* Credentials

Here.  A slight change this year in the methodology for capturing significant differences in average GPAs, but otherwise the same as prior years.