Shameless self-promotion, part n.

See here.  Our book came out in print today.

U.S. News: Less Transparency = More Fairness

Robert Morse today announced that, in response to evidence that law schools had been gaming its rankings, U.S. News would change the way it estimates the "Employment at 9 Months" measure for schools that decline to report that figure. Paul Caron offers some background here. Said Morse: "U.S. News is planning to significantly change its estimate for the at-graduation rate employment for nonresponding schools in order to create an incentive for more law schools to report their actual at-graduation employment rate data. This new estimating procedure will not be released publicly before we publish the rankings."

I understand that U.S. News generated the formula it formerly used to estimate the Emp9 figure for non-reporting schools by running a regression comparing the Emp0 and Emp9 data from reporting schools. It used to puzzle me that U.S. News did not evidently re-run the regression each year, but rather stuck with the original estimate. In retrospect, though, I see that sticking to the same formula might have partially helped U.S. News offset the gaming it so dislikes. After all, as more and more schools with low numbers refused to report Emp9 data, opting to rely instead on the publicized formula, the correlation between Emp0 and Emp9 scores would change so as to favor non-reporting schools. Better to stick with the old formula, dated though it might be, than to increase the incentive to opt out of reporting.

U.S. News thus avoided a vicious cycle, but only at the cost of signaling to schools exactly when hiding Emp9 data would help their rankings. Will its new reticence work? Schools can now only guess at how U.S. News will turn Emp0 numbers into Emp9 estimates, and will rightly worry that they might misjudge the new cutoff. Even if big-E ethics does not counsel reporting Emp9 numbers, therefore, small-c conservatism will. Granted, a school might reason, "U.S. News will still try to find a reasonably accurate way to turn Emp0 data into Emp9 estimates, and it has always helped us to not report in the past, so it remains a gamble worth taking." But such schools should also rightly worry that U.S. News might throw a punitive little kick into its new formula, to encourage schools to worry more about accuracy than about rankings.

[Crossposted at Agoraphilia and MoneyLaw.]

Over 100 Law School Commencement Speakers

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Avenel Wills and Power of Attorney Seminar May 27, 2010 12-12:30 Golden Circle of Avenel

Avenel Wills and Power of Attorney Seminar

May 27, 2010 12-12:30
Golden Circle of Avenel
Held at St. Andrews, 244 Avenel St. Avenel, NJ 07001
Speaker: Kenneth Vercammen, Esq. of Edison
(Co-Author- NJ Elder Law & Probate)
For additional information and registration, call Dolores 732-750-2822

COMPLIMENTARY MATERIAL: Brochures on Wills, “Probate and Administration of an Estate”, Power of Attorney, Living Wills, Real Estate Sales for Seniors, and Trusts.

You don’t have to be wealthy or near death to do some thinking about a will. Here is your opportunity to listen to an experienced attorney who will discuss how to distribute your property as you wish and avoid many rigid provisions of the state law. Topics covered by author of “Answer to questions about Probate” will include: Wills, Power of Attorney, Living Wills, Inheritance taxes, making estate administration easier, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, plus the opportunity to ask questions.

Here is your opportunity to listen to an experienced attorney who will answer questions how to distribute your property and avoid many rigid provisions of state law. For more information on Wills, Probate and Elder law, visit the Website www.CentralJerseyElderLaw.com. You can also subscribe to the free email Elder Law newsletter by visiting the website, or sending an email to Kenvnjlaws@verizon.net

http://www.kennethvercammen.com/Avenel-Wills.html

Did 16 Law Schools Commit Rankings Malpractice?

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CEOs rank California 51st for Business Environment

More than 600 CEOs rated states on a wide range of criteria from taxation and regulation to workforce quality and living environment, in our sixth annual special report.

In Chief Executive’s annual survey of best and worst states for business, conducted in late January of this year, 651 CEOs across the U.S. again gave Texas top honors, closely followed by North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. They gave the booby prize for worst state to California, with New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts filling out the bottom five-a line-up virtually unchanged from last year. Florida and Georgia each dropped three places in the ranking, but remain in the top 10. Utah jumped six positions this year to sneak into the top 10 at No. 9.

The business leaders were asked to draw upon their direct experience to rate each state in three general categories: taxation and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment.

Best and Worst States for Business 2010, chiefexecutive.net, 29 April 2010

See also Of 50 States, California ranks 51st, Orange County Register editorial, 5 May 2010:

As the magazine noted, Californians pay among the nation's highest income and sales taxes. Unemployment exceeds the national average, and, contrary to the national trend, "union density is climbing, from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002."

Indeed, according to the magazine's critique, "organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states." The magazine zeroes in on perhaps the crux of the problem: "When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government."

That helps to explain why unfunded pension and health care promises for state workers "top $500 billion, and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade," as the magazine noted.

It doesn't take a national survey to reveal California's failing business climate. Seven California metro areas were among the 15 national leaders in commercial bankruptcy filings in 2009, according to Equifax Inc. Not coincidentally, California had twice as many personal bankruptcies as any other state in 2009 when it ranked 11th in bankruptcies per capita.

It also doesn't take a CEO to notice the differences between California and top-rated Texas. Texas, with nearly as many residents and the world's 12th largest economy, "is where 70 percent of all new U.S. jobs have been created since 2008," the magazine reported. Also unsurprisingly, Texas gained more than 848,000 net residents based on migration in and out of the state in the past decade, while California lost 1.5 million, according to the Census.

"You feel like [Texas] state government understands the value of business and industry to create jobs and growth," one CEO said in the magazine.

U.S. News Law School Rankings: Judicial Clerkships

Here.