Coming on top of news of the sharp declines in law school applications, the Wall Street Journal reports today on new law schools opening. The headline captures it: “A Crop of New Law Schools Opens Amid a Lawyer Glut.” Jennifer Smith reports that thought law school applications are at “their lowest in a decade,” a […]
Archive | Law Schools
Law School Applicant “Capitulation”
By David Bernstein on December 14, 2012 8:43 am in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
Back in 2008 or so, a VC reader told me that because of my blogging about the housing bubble in 2004-05, he put off buying a house and was very glad he did. Now, he said, he was wondering when would be the best time to buy a house from a capital gains perspective. I […]
Video of University of Iowa Ideological Bias Case
A University of Iowa law student alerted me that video of Wagner v. Jones, the lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school alleging ideological discrimination against a conservative legal writing instructor, is available here. The student also writes: “While I do not know Ms. Wagner, I know, and have taken classes from, a number […]
Jurors in Bias Case Believe University of Iowa Engaged in Ideological Discrimination
The Des Moines Register ha an interesting article following up on the lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school alleging ideological discrimination in hiring. The judge declared a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked. According to interviews with jurors, however, there was genuine agreement that Teresa Wagner was denied a position because of her […]
Are Law Schools Violating Antitrust Law?
Thom Lambert at Truth on the Market thinks U.S. law schools may be engaged in anticompetitive (and illegal) practices with regard to lateral recruiting. Apart from harming individual employees, non-poaching agreements occasion a societal harm: They preclude labor resources from being channeled to their highest and best uses. To poach a competitor’s star employee, you […]
Presidential Preferences of George Mason Law Students
As co-blogger David Bernstein notes, the two of us conducted anonymous online presidential polls of our Constitutional Law I classes. Here are my results, for a poll conducted over the weekend just before election day: Barack Obama (Democrat): 29 Mitt Romney (Republican): 18 Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party): 2 Jill Stein (Green Party): 1 Other: 0 […]
Judge Declares Mistrial in “Liberal Bias” Lawsuit
A lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school alleging ideological discrimination in faculty hiring has ended in a mistrial. The jury sided for the University on one charge, but deadlocked on the other. The AP reports: During a weeklong trial watched closely in higher education, Wagner claimed that the overwhelmingly liberal faculty refused to […]
Morriss on Tamanaha
Many commentators have praised Brian Tamanaha’s Failing Law Schools for its unflinching (and much needed) look at the state of legal education. Without question, Tamanaha was among the first to sound the alarm about legal education, and Failing Law Schools is an important book. But does Tamanaha go far enough? My former colleague Andrew Morriss […]
Ward Farnsworth’s ‘The Legal Analyst’, and a Note on the Hegemony of Economics in Academic Law
When I came back to posting here at Volokh after a summer away with family duties, I mentioned that I had found more time for reading than posting, and that I wanted to share a few books with readers. In this post, I want to raise one I believe particularly useful for my introductory course […]
Do Law Schools Consider Applicants “Holistically”?
By David Bernstein on August 24, 2012 9:05 am in Academia, Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Law Schools
Prof. Mike Dorf has a post at Dorf on Law describing the brief he coauthored on behalf of the Association of American Law School in Fisher v. University of Texas. The gist of the brief is that if the Supreme Court reasons that Texas may not engage in affirmative action preferences because its race-neutral ten-percent […]
“Beer + Pizza = Success.” The key formula for law students.
During Constitutional Law I at Denver University last Spring, I diagrammed for the students one of the most important study tips for law students: “Beer + Pizza = Success”. No matter how relentlessly a student raises his hand during class, the maximum amount of speaking practice that can come from classroom participation is a few […]
Brian Tamanaha’s “Failing Law Schools”
Last week I had the pleasure of reading a pre-publication draft of Brian Tamanaha’s new book, Failing Law Schools, which has not yet been released but can be pre-ordered now. I found the book engrossing and its argument powerful. I read it in 2 days after receiving a copy, and I think it should be […]
NLJ on Misreporting Law School Costs
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 6, 2012 10:38 am in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
The National Law Journal reports on the under-reporting of estimated cost-of-living expenses at many law schools. The story begins: The news just keeps getting worse — at least as far as financing a legal education goes. Law School Transparency has recalculated its estimates of the debt that law students stand to incur after discovering that […]
Misreporting the Costs of Going to (Some) Law Schools
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 3, 2012 11:29 pm in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
In an effort to educate potential law students about the real costs of attending law school, Law School Transparency has launched a “Data Clearinghouse”, a database of “consumer information” on law schools, including much information law schools have been reluctant to disclose. The latest addition to the database are projections of the full cost of […]
Texas Taps Mahoney
The University of Texas at Austin has retained Latham & Watkins to defend its affirmative action policy before the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas. The team of attorneys on the case includes former Solicitor General Greg Garre and former Deputy Solicitor General Maureen Mahoney. It’s hard to think of a legal team […]