MoneyLaw

New school

Published on 2010-08-26 16:53:00

The double entendre is very much intended, because the New School's new president is anything but old school.The New York Times article announcing the appointment of Northwestern Law School dean David Van Zandt as president of the New School offers this delicious observation from soon-to-be President Van Zandt:People want to know what the facts are, and through a lot of discussion, people can understand why change may be good. . . . [A]cademics tend to be the most liberal politic

The Soccer Plan for Law Professors

Published on 2010-08-22 13:52:00

The best soccer book I have read is Joe McGinniss' The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. Tim Parks' A Season with Verona is also good as is Hornsby's Fever Pitch. As soccer fans know, in the leagues within countries there are multiple levels. When a team finishes low in their level they are "relegated" to a lower level and teams who did well at the lower level are raised to play in a higher level. This all depends on rankings (Fellow readers of Castel di Sangro will have an appreciation of some unsav

Public Law School Faculty Salaries

Published on 2010-07-12 11:18:00

See here for a list of law faculty salaries at Arizona State, Florida, George Mason, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri (Columbia), North Carolina, Ohio State, Rutgers (Camden & Newark), SUNY (Buffalo), Texas, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, UCLA, Virginia, William & Mary, and Wisconsin.

Making the Grades

Published on 2010-06-22 13:22:00

The New York Times reports that at least ten law schools have raised their grade curves in the last two years. The new rationale for this timeworn response is that students need a competitive edge in a tight job market and higher gpa, however contrived, is just the thing. Ironically, by outing the culprit law schools, the New York Times has probably reversed any advantage their students might have reaped from the sudden lift in gpas. The premise that a law school can give its graduates the edg

Do Law Schools Golf?

Published on 2010-06-10 11:19:00

I used to ask my students whether they would be golfers or football players when they graduated. The distinction I was trying to make was between golf, a sport in which players observe the rules and actually report themselves with they violate them, and football, where there are also rules but the idea is to bend them and disregard them and hope not to be caught. So, a lineman holds a charging defensive end and it's a great play as long as he is not caught. In golf it is a matter of observing

Collateral Damage

Published on 2010-06-01 10:42:00

Law schools have now engaged in the USN&WR battle for several years and the collateral damages is mounting. I used to rail against my law school's participation in the war but now wish the Dean would go nuclear, whatever that means.Most of the collateral damage is known to most of us. The biggest is huge publicity machines that turn out glossy magazine as schools fight for something comparable to economic rents. As best I can tell the biggest beneficiaries of these efforts are administratio

Shameless self-promotion, part n.

Published on 2010-05-26 23:21:00

See here.  Our book came out in print today.

U.S. News: Less Transparency = More Fairness

Published on 2010-05-20 16:28:00

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-graduat

Over 100 Law School Commencement Speakers

Published on 2010-05-19 21:02:00

Here.

Did 16 Law Schools Commit Rankings Malpractice?

Published on 2010-05-11 08:59:00

Here.

U.S. News Law School Rankings: Judicial Clerkships

Published on 2010-05-07 07:21:00

Here.

The Hand Rule

Published on 2010-04-27 13:12:00

Judge Learned Hand famously opined that if the burdens of preventing an accident outweigh its cost multiplied by its probability, it does not constitute carelessness to avoid those burdens. Doesn't that little gem make you want to break out in song? I've got just the thing: The Hand Rule, a little ditty I recently composed and played for some students at Chapman Law School. Though I've yet to record The Hand Rule, I can offer you a .pdf of the lyrics and chords as well as a PowerPoint, compl

2011 U.S News Peer Reputation Rankings & Overall Rankings

Published on 2010-04-16 07:52:00

Full list here.

Chapman Dean Search--No Kidding!

Published on 2010-04-01 14:58:00

We here in the sober and serious groves of academe have no time for foolishness, April 1st or not. So while you may think I jest in claiming that some very lucky person will soon get to become the new Dean of Chapman University School of Law, I assure you that I jest not. This good news comes straight from Chapman's Dean Search Committee (on which I happen to serve).Please consider this call for applications yourself, or share it with someone else you think might be ready a life in paradise, h

Size doesn't matter. Really.

Published on 2010-03-16 00:49:00

Once again it's tournament time. The NCAA men's basketball tournament always seems to bring MoneyLaw themes to the fore. This year is no exception.Consider this statistical study (.pdf download) by Scout.com of the factors that let talented players elude the major college teams of the six power conferences and slip down, so to speak, to the midmajors:Perhaps the most telling analysis in the study comes from how to judge a player’s frame. Midmajor big men are often viewed a tick off by powerh

Just Go to This Cite

Published on 2010-03-15 10:19:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLC7Q3DTzi4

Well orchestrated

Published on 2010-02-28 15:12:00

From a former student's touching tribute to her violin teacher:Mr. K. pushed us harder than our parents, harder than our other teachers, and through sheer force of will made us better than we had any right to be. He scared the daylight out of us.I doubt any of us realized how much we loved him for it.

Power and Entitlement

Published on 2010-01-28 22:43:00

Nearly 5 years ago I wrote an article, "Law Faculty Ethics: Shirking, Capture and “The Matrix,”" 82 DETROIT MERCY LAW REVIEW 397 (2005), in which I identified the many ways I felt law professors were shirkers. I analogized it to regulatory capture in the sense that faculty who were supposed to govern law schools for the benefit of shareholders -- students, taxpayers, donors -- actually governed to benefit themselves. The range of questionable activities ran from teaching specialized low enr

My Favorite Motions

Published on 2010-01-05 23:15:00

Faculty meetings may have their charms, but efficiency does not rank among them. Many a time I have looked around a room full of my colleagues, long minutes into a winding discussion of what was supposed to take only a few moments to resolve, considered the full agenda still stretching before us, and bemoaned the deadweight social costs of law school governance. Allow me, then, to share a couple of partial cures—one an old favorite and the other a new find—from Robert's Rules of Order.I've

Moneyball, Volleyball, and Faculty Productivity

Published on 2009-12-09 08:26:00

Here.

"Exploding Offers"

Published on 2009-12-09 07:55:00

Complaints about offers with deadlines perceived as short often ignore the realities facing non-top-tier schools and candidates.Early in the hiring season, top-tier candidates begin getting offers from mid- to upper-level schools. Often, such schools have a ranked list of candidates to whom their deans are authorized to make offers. If a school's faculty has authorized the dean to make offers to, say, eight candidates to fill two slots, two offers will generally go out -- three if the dean has s

Hey Harvard

Published on 2009-12-04 07:59:00

I read that Harvard has abandoned its program that waived tuition in the third year for students committing to five years of public interest work.I appears that economic hardship required the change but the Harvard President is also quoted as saying they did not know how easy it would be to get Harvard students to go into public interest work.On the other hand the Harvard Crimson reports:"This year, 58 third-year students signed up for the initiative, which has a budget of $3 million per year fo

Big Law in Los Angeles

Published on 2009-12-02 13:26:00

Top 20 Suppliers of Partners to theTen Largest Law Firms in Los AngelesOver the Most Recent 25 and 10 Year Periods Most Recent 25 Years Most Recent 10 Years Loyola-L.A. 51 9UCLA 51 7Harvard 48 8USC 38 6Boalt 31

Paging Billy Beane: Scholarly Productivity Lowers Reputation But Raises Salary

Published on 2009-11-30 13:58:00

Details here.

Bill Belichick, Moneyball Savant?

Published on 2009-11-18 21:14:00

Here.