Legal Commentary

For another stint of guest-blogging at PrawfsBlawg, having just returned from a long weekend in Seattle, where we visited the the Olympic Sculpture Park for the first time. It's a really wonderful combination of outdoor art display, urban park, and beach, all within walking distance of fun areas of Seattle. Highly recommended.

Today it's time to return to work, however, as my faculty today holds our annual re-admission meeting, where we vote on academically dismissed students' petitions to return to school. I struggle with this assignment just about every year. We of course have specific criteria by which these petitions are judged, and most petitions are pretty straightforward. But invariably one or more petitions require us to revisit the purpose behind our criteria: What should the goals of a law school be when reviewing petitions for readmission? To ensure the greatest opportunity for students to complete the legal education on which we started them, even if some percentage of these returned students will fail yet again? To weed out stragglers to maintain or enhance the prestige of the legal profession, or our school, even at the expense of some dismissed students who, with another chance, could graduate and develop into good lawyers? Some other purpose?