Top 10 -- "Law School" search
Top 10 -- "College of Law" search:
Top 10 -- "School of Law" search:
The students are handing out “diversity report cards” to the big law firms, ranking them by how many female, minority and gay lawyers they have.
“Many of the firms have atrocious, appalling records on diversity,” said Michele Landis Dauber, a law professor at Stanford and the adviser for the project, called Building a Better Legal Profession. The rankings are athttp://www.betterlegalprofession.org/.
In Washington, no firm got an A. But seven scored in the D range, including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Kelley Drye Collier Shannon; Baker Botts; and Mayer Brown.
The numbers were provided to a central clearinghouse by the firms themselves. “Our process is simple,” the student group said in explaining its methodology. “Cut, paste and rank.”
Firms in the top fifth received A’s, in the second fifth B’s, and so on. Overall grades were arrived at by averaging grades for partners and associates in five categories: women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and gay people.
The students have ambitious plans, including asking elite schools to restrict recruiting by firms at the bottom of their rankings. They also plan to send the rankings to the general counsels of the Fortune 500 companies with the suggestion that they be used in selecting lawyers.
“Firms that want the best students will be forced to respond to the market pressures that we’re creating,” said Andrew Bruck, a law student at Stanford and a leader of the project.
Vikram Amar, a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, added that law firms might well be violating employment discrimination laws in the process of trying to improve their rankings.
“As bad as their numbers are,” Professor Amar said of the firms, “the relevant applicant pool of law students with top grades is more white and Asian still.”
Whatever their consequences, the numbers the students have collected offer a fascinating snapshot of the profession.
I will spend November 1 and 2 at the University of Arkansas School of Law. At the invitation of Dean Cyndi Nance, I will make a variety of presentations on subjects ranging from agricultural law to the current state of legal scholarship. I will discuss Beyond Food and Evil with students in food law and policy and Around the World in 80 Centiliters with students in agricultural finance and credit. If I can convince anyone to give me comments on a working paper of mine, Modeling Law Review Impact Factors as an Exponential Distribution, so much the better.
Law 2.0 refers transparently to Web 2.0, a term expressing the far-from-universal sentiment that a second generation of Internet-based communities and services, all designed to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users, has transformed the social meaning and impact of the World Wide Web. I freely admit that my allusion to Web 2.0 is very loose. I am less interested in specific components of Web 2.0 such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies — I originally posted this item, after all, on the rare blog that does not allow comments and offers little beyond a raw RSS feed 
and a subscription page to facilitate downstream collaboration, sharing, and modification of its content — than in the broad concept of law, legal education, and legally mediated social change in a world of democratized technology.answered questions from voters at a town hall at the opera house here, which was her second stop on a two-day swing through the state.Source: MSNBC.com: Clinton Questioned on Estate Tax, October 10, 2007
The first question from the audience after Clinton's speech came from a woman who challenged her plan to pay for universal retirement accounts by freezing the estate tax at 2009 levels. The woman said the money from inheritance had already been taxed when it was earned and she felt taxing it again was the wrong way to fund Clinton's plan.
"People disagree about this, but the estate tax, which came into being by Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and others, and has been part of our tax system for a very long time is there for a real simple reason: In America, we've never liked the idea of massive inherited wealth," Clinton replied. "Part of the reason why America has always remained a meritocracy where you have to work for what you get, where you have to get out there, make your case to people, come up with a good idea, is that we never had a class of people sitting on generation after generation after generation of huge inherited wealth."
Clinton said people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were against doing away with the estate tax, because they made it on their own. She went on to explain, to applause, that a married couple could have an estate worth up to $7 million before getting taxed, and said she considered that a "pretty healthy estate to leave to your children."
Voted NO on raising estate tax exemption to $5 million.Source: On the Issues: Hillary Clinton on Tax Reform
An amendment to raise the death tax exemption to $5 million; reducing the maximum death tax rate to 35%; and to promote economic growth by extending the lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains.
(Proponents recommend voting YES because:
It is disappointing to many family businesses and farm owners to set the death tax rate at what I believe is a confiscatory 45% and set the exemption at only $3.5 million, which most of us believe is too low. This leaves more than 22,000 families subject to the estate tax each year.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
You can extend all the tax breaks that have been described in this amendment if you pay for them. The problem with the amendment is that over $70 billion is not paid for. It goes on the deficit, which will drive the budget right out of balance. We will be going right back into the deficit ditch. Let us resist this amendment. People could support it if it was paid for, but it is not. However well intended the amendment is, it spends $72.5 billion with no offset. This amendment blows the budget. This amendment takes us from a balance in 2012 right back into deficit. My colleagues can extend those tax cuts if they pay for them, if they offset them. This amendment does not pay for them; it does not offset them; it takes us back into deficit. It ought to be defeated.
Reference: Kyl Amendment; Bill S.Amdt.507 on S.Con.Res.21 ; vote number 2007-083 on Mar 21, 2007);
Voted NO on supporting permanence of estate tax cuts.
Increases the estate tax exclusion to $5,000,000, effective 2015, and repeals the sunset provision for the estate and generation-skipping taxes. Lowers the estate tax rate to equal the current long-term capital gains tax rate (i.e., 15% through 2010) for taxable estates up to $25 million. Repeals after 2009 the estate tax deduction paid to states.
(Proponents recommend voting YES because:
The permanent solution to the death tax challenge that we have today is a compromise. It is a compromise that prevents the death rate from escalating to 55% and the exclusion dropping to $1 million in 2011. It also includes a minimum wage increase, 40% over the next 3 years. Voting YES is a vote for that permanent death tax relief. Voting YES is for that extension of tax relief. Voting YES is for that 40% minimum wage increase. This gives us the opportunity to address an issue that will affect the typical American family, farmers, & small business owners.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
Family businesses and family farms should not be broken up to pay taxes. With the booming economy of the 1990s, many more Americans joined the ranks of those who could face estate taxes. Raising the exemption level and lowering the rate in past legislation made sense. Under current law, in my State of Delaware, fewer than 50 families will face any estate tax in 2009. I oppose this legislation's complete repeal of the estate tax because it will cost us $750 billion. Given the world we live in today, with clear domestic needs unmet, full repeal is a luxury that we cannot afford.
To add insult to this injury, the first pay raise for minimum wage workers in 10 years is now hostage to this estate tax cut. We are told that to get those folks on minimum wage a raise, we have to go into debt, so that the sons and daughters of the 7,000 most fortunate families among us will be spared the estate tax. We must say no to this transparent gimmick.
Reference: Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act; Bill H.R. 5970 ; vote number 2006-229 on Aug 3, 2006);
Voted NO on permanently repealing the "death tax".
A cloture motion ends debate and forces a vote on the issue. In this case, voting YES implies support for permanently repealing the death tax. Voting against cloture would allow further amendments. A cloture motion requires a 3/5th majority to pass. This cloture motion failed, and there was therefore no vote on repealing the death tax.
(Proponents of the motion say:
We already pay enough taxes over our lifetimes We are taxed from that first cup of coffee in the morning to the time we flip off the lights at bedtime. If you are an enterprising entrepreneur who has worked hard to grow a family business or to keep and maintain that family farm, your spouse and children can expect to hear the knock of the tax man right after the Grim Reaper.
In the past, when Congress enacted a death tax, it was at an extraordinary time of war, and the purpose was to raise temporary funds. But after the war was over the death tax was repealed. But that changed in the last century. The death tax was imposed and has never been lifted.
The death tax tells people it is better to consume today than to invest for the future. That doesn't make sense.
Opponents of the motion say:
Small businesses and farms rarely--if ever--are forced to sell off assets or close up shop to pay the tax. Under the current exemption, roughly 99% of estates owe nothing in estate taxes. By 2011, with a $3.5 million exemption, only two of every 100,000 people who die that year would be subject to the estate tax.
Today's vote is on a motion to proceed to a bill to repeal the estate tax. Not to proceed to a compromise or any other deal--but to full repeal. I oppose full repeal of the estate tax. Our Nation can no longer afford this tax break for the very well off. Permanently repealing the estate tax would add about $1 trillion to our national debt from 2011 to 2021.
Reference: Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act; Bill HR 8 ; vote number 2006-164 on Jun 8, 2006).
 | I am pleased to unveil the University of Louisville Law Faculty Blog. For details, visit my story at The Cardinal Lawyer. |
The acceptance ratios at any given law review are so law that the process has a significant dart-throwing quality about it already. On the long view, student-editor irrationality is only a serious problem if it keeps things from being published that ought to be published. It's our job as faculty to read scholarship seriously no matter where it comes out. Once the question becomes merely one of publication location, we can only complain about poor student editorial judgment to the extent that we're using it as a proxy for our own.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Path of the Law, 10 Harvard L. Rev. 457, 457 (1897).When we study law we are not studying a mystery but a well-known profession. We are studying what we shall want in order to appear before judges, or to advise people in such a way as to keep them out of court. The reason why it is a profession, why people will pay lawyers to argue for them or to advise them, is that in societies like ours the command of the public force is intrusted to the judges in certain cases, and the whole power of the state will be put forth, if necessary, to carry out their judgments and decrees. People want to know under what circumstances and how far they will run the risk of coming against what is so much stronger than themselves, and hence it becomes a business to find out when this danger is to be feared. The object of our study, then, is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts.
I find much to cheer and to lament in this descriptively accurate assessment of the contemporary academy's approach to faculty hiring. Here's what I like:So what exactly do law schools look for in an entry-level professor? A quarter century ago, the answer was clear. Historically, law schools looked to the traditional indicia of academic achievement: high grades, membership on the law review, and prestigious clerkships. However, this has long since ceased to be true. As law schools discovered that high grades were not good predictors of whether a candidate would produce good scholarship, and as the forms of scholarship valued by the legal academy shifted, the qualifications for candidates changed. Even practical legal experience is not a good predictor of scholarly ability, and, Levinson noted, "is pretty nearly disqualifying." Levinson pointed out that today's younger professors have no significant practical experience, and that if they tried to become involved in the world, "the world would probably recoil in horror."
Instead of fancy grades, clerkships, and practical experience, the modern credential of choice for law school hiring committees is a graduate degree in an allied field such as economics, political science, and even English or psychology. Approximately twenty-five percent of entry-level professors hired last year had Ph.D.'s, and a large number had Master's degrees. While this is the biggest credential a candidate can have, don't despair if you haven't found the spare five to ten years to earn a terminal degree in molecular biophysics to help you compete for that intellectual property professorship you have your eye on. Levinson reassured the attendees that fewer than half of last year's hires had any graduate training. Law schools value Ph.D.'s because they indicate that candidates have certain qualities. If a candidate lacks the credential, he or she can still present those qualities independently.
Significant expertise in a field, coupled with interdisciplinary methodologies, is highly valued. Expertise gives an aspiring professor a research agenda, and lets the school know what area the candidate will focus on in future scholarship. While law schools look for professors who are "competent lawyers," often simply graduating from a school like Harvard satisfies this criteria, and schools tend to focus more on whether a candidate has made some substantial progress towards becoming a professor. Levinson emphasized the importance of knowing what field you intend to work in, familiarity with scholarly work in that field, the ability to critique current work, and a sense of what you are going to contribute to the field.
"More than anything else," Levinson concluded, "law schools are looking for promising writing." In order to get a job, a candidate must have written one or two publishable pieces of scholarship. During the interview process, aspiring professors will have a "job talk," where they present a work in progress to the faculty who are evaluating them. This functions as the primary basis for the school's evaluation of a candidate. In comparison to the written work a candidate has produced, all other criteria are irrelevant, since they are only meant to be predictors of the candidate's writing. Good scholarship is both necessary and sufficient: if you have it, you don't need to rely on other credentials, but if your scholarship looks unpromising, your other good credentials won't save you.
"'More than anything else, . . .law schools are looking for promising writing.' In order to get a job, a candidate must have written one or two publishable pieces of scholarship. . . . In comparison to the written work a candidate has produced, all other criteria are irrelevant, since they are only meant to be predictors of the candidate's writing. Good scholarship is both necessary and sufficient: if you have it, you don't need to rely on other credentials, but if your scholarship looks unpromising, your other good credentials won't save you." To the extent that the hiring process is (or at least hinges on) an evaluation of scholarly accomplishment and potential, this strikes me as a sound methodological foundation.
"While law schools look for professors who are 'competent lawyers,' often simply graduating from a school like Harvard satisfies this criteri[on] . . . ." Ye gods. In the question-and-answer section of this story, Daryl Levinson reinforced what he perceived (or at least what his audience wanted to hear) as the value of the Harvard or the Harvardesque credential: "out of [1,000 applications a year] you can automatically throw out about half because they didn't go to a top 20 law school (that's just how the academic world works)."Q: What do you most dislike about being a professor?Mine, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, sayeth no more.
A: It's a bad job for people who don't like a lack of structure. It's also bad for people who like to make a difference in the real world. Increasingly, this is an ivory tower profession [emphasis added].
"A New York Family Court judge has issued an unusually blunt rebuke to two parents -- one a former doctor and the other a lawyer -- engaged in a 'vitriolic and venomous' dispute over child custody and visitation.
(Cross-posted at Legal Profession Blog)
Colleague Andy Perlman has posted over at Legal Ethics Forum on his rationalizations, I mean reasons, for not wearing a tie when he is teaching, and the most persuasive one reminded me of a movie line that had me laughing out loud a few days ago. (I sat in on his class last Friday to learn pedagogy at the feet of a master, and it was a brilliantly conceived and executed class, even if Andy had the beginnings of the flu. But, indeed, he had no tie.)
The movie is Wonder Boys, one of my favorites. Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, an English professor in Pittsburgh (1) who won the PEN Award for his first novel many years ago and has never published again; (2) whose wife walked out on him that morning; (3) who is having an affair with the chancellor (Frances McDormand) whose husband is the chair of the English Department, and (4) whose strange student James Leer (Tobey Maguire) has just shot the chancellor's dog in the upstairs hallway of her house while the faculty is gathered downstairs.
Indeed, in even more precise biological terms, law schools' practice of shipping law porn manifests a human variant of koinophilia. Organisms exhibiting koinophilia prefer mates who do not have unusual, peculiar, or deviant features. In other words, sexual creatures prefer mates with common or average features. Peacock courtship is often cited as the classic instance of koinophilia. If peacocks are any guide (and I am strenuously arguing that they are), law porn will not only be persistent. Over time, it will converge toward a stylistic sameness that becomes rigidly obligatory. Woe be unto the law school that attempts to opt out, or to deviate in its porn-shipping strategies.
I just got an Ipod. I'm a little late to arrive at personal digital nirvana (the Buddist concept not the band) . But that's another story. As I browse the ever expanding universe of downloadable music, I replay scenes from my life that are always set to particular music: show tunes wafting from a huge turntable my parents could hardly afford; The Partridge Family; Boston and REO Speedwagon booming through the water during swim workouts, subwoofer face down on the concrete pool deck; Hendrix, the Dead and the Stones in places where parents weren't; Color My World where they were. And that just covers through high school. My new Ipod is a blank slate as daunting as any I've faced. The music I load isn't just entertainment. It's me-- who I've been and who I am now. It's my very personal soundtrack of rebellion, peace, regret, love, loss and triumph, with a lot of outstanding party action thrown in.When a law school distributes law porn, I assume the logic goes like this. Advertising leads to a better ranking that leads to more revenue that leads to a better experience for the students that leads to a higher payoff on the public investment made by the state. Think of how tenuous the connections are. Has any school moved by virtue of better advertising or lost ground due to its absence? Has the movement of a slot or two increased donations? Have those donations been put to good use in order to increase the return to the public investment in legal education – whatever that is? I challenge any public school dean to prove he or she has gone through the analysis in even a semi rigorous way. In a rational and non shirking world all of them would have before pissing away the money.
The problem is that public law school deans and their faculties get to spend the money of others. Thus, it is doubtful they go through the calculations that they would go through with their own money. And it means spending the money of others to preserve their own positions and status whether or not the law school stakeholders are better off. Of course, the spending the money of others problem extends way beyond the law porn. I wonder how many of these free spenders when it comes to the money of others then turn around and buy a car only after consulting Consumer Reports, make sure no frequent flier mile goes unused, select their credits cards on the basis of the best rebate, and check several places before buying anything that costs over $100.
PS. Just got back from my mailbox and today's tally:
1. The University of San Francisco "A New Generation of Scholars" ( I got two of these because there are at least two people in the new generation)
2. Penn State School of Law welcomes a new prof.
3. University of Washington, "High Tech Summit"
4. Valparaiso School of Law welcomes a new prof. (big lettering on this one indicating a Princeton/Yale background, wow!)
5. Roger Williams Law School, Ranked second in scholarship among 3d and 4th tier schools (is it a good idea to say this?)
6. Southwestern Law School, Visiting Speakers (can I get a flight into Hobby for this?)
7. UMKC "Hot Topics in IP"
8. University of Akron, "40th Anniversity of the Law Review"
ARM seems to have popped up out of nowhere, I don’t know anything about the organization or its intent, nevertheless the gentleman on the video seems well spoken and educated to the current state of affairs. That being said, this video is being posted for educational purposes.
Two weeks ago, I blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in eleven categories posted on Princeton Review's web site in connection with its publication of the 2008 edition of Best 170 Law Schools. The rankings are the result of Princeton Review's survey of 18,000 students at the 170 law schools, along with school statistics provided by administrators.
Last week, with the help of my assistant, I extracted from the individual profiles of the 170 law schools all of the available data and blogged the Top 25 and Bottom 25 schools in each of six categories:
To conclude the series, I posted on TaxProf Blog Princeton Review's Top 50 Law Schools, determined by (1) focusing on those five categories with reported scores in the 60-99 range (thus excluding the study hours category), (2) combining the Professors: Accessible and Professors: Interesting categories into a single category, and (3) adding the scores in the resulting four categories:
