Academic

US News Scores by Tiers, Quick Takes

Posted on May 02, 2009
The last couple of years, I've looked a little at the aggregate data for peer and lawyer/judge assessments for each of the US News tiers. This time I'm interested in changes by tier over the last couple of years, so...

Justice Souter to Retire?

Posted on May 01, 2009
Let the speculation over President Obama's first Supreme Court nomination begin. MSNBC has the story here.

History Month(s) and the Law

Posted on May 01, 2009
In February, there were a spate of suggestions that with the election of President Obama, there was no longer a need for Black History Month. In the following month, some wondered whether Women's History Month was losing its luster. I...

US News Weighs In On...US News Rankings

Posted on May 01, 2009
In his blog, Morse Code, Bob Morse - the US News Ranking Czar - addressed the swirling conversations in the blogosphere regarding the magazine's law rankings. He tossed roses to ATL and Paul Caron ("some of the best coverage") and...

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Leah Ward Sears: A Values Nominee For The Supreme Court?

Posted on May 01, 2009
In the next few days, I suspect we'll come to hear a great deal about retiring Georgia Chief Justice, Leah Ward Sears. Sears, who turns 54 this summer, was the first woman to be named to the Georgia Supreme Court,...

More History of the Book in the News

Posted on April 30, 2009
Ok--I'm resurfacing briefly from grading trusts and estates exams. Been quiet of late because I've been busy. However, there are a series of history of the book posts that I'm combining into one. First, the most recent issue of NYROB...

Paul Caron Brews Up His Own (Modified) US News Rankings

Posted on April 29, 2009
Over at TaxProf Blog, Paul Caron has taken the two components of US News that most folks think have some merit - the peer assessment survey number (reputation among academics) and the lawyer/judge assessment number. He notes that the overall...

Concordia University Delays New Boise Law School

Posted on April 29, 2009
Who knew? Apparently Portland, Oregon's Concordia University had been planning on opening a new law school in Boise next year, and now it's putting that plan off to a later date. According to this story: Andrea Bruno, vice president for...

Senator Specter's Unbalanced Powers

Posted on April 29, 2009
When Senator Arlen Specter decided yesterday to abandon the Republican Party to join the Democratic Party, he stated that ?I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.? In light of the legislative agenda he articulated...

I See England, I See France, I See Nino's Underpants

Posted on April 29, 2009
This is a kerfuffle really worth watching. At a conference recently, Justice Scalia made comments suggesting that he has limited passion for the notion of privacy protection in an Internet world. "Every single datum about my life is private? That's...

Mentoring New Faculty

Posted on April 29, 2009
Despite the hiring freezes this past year, many law schools, including my own, will be welcoming new tenure track faculty and perhaps some new visitors as well over coming months. So now might be a good time to think about...

Pity Poor Basketball Town: Litigation Reform Trailers Invade The Multiplex

Posted on April 28, 2009
The WSJ Law Blog tells us that there are new previews coming to the local Regal Cinema (at least the local cinema in D.C.) and they're not going to be all laughs and explosions. Instead, they'll be litigation reform promos...

S#%&!: Supreme Court Upholds FCC's 'Fleeting Expletives' Rule

Posted on April 28, 2009
In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court today upheld an FCC policy that prohibits the airing of one-time, unscripted expletives - you know, the kind of stuff we expect celebrities to say at awards shows. (see...

Specter's Switch

Posted on April 28, 2009
Holy crap! Handing the Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate if Franken hold the lead in Minnesota. -Kathleen Bergin

Criminal Law Issue Spotter: Bueller? . . . Bueller?

Posted on April 28, 2009
What crimes did Ferris Bueller commit on his day off? Comprehensive analysis here.

Adventures in Extreme Publishing

Posted on April 27, 2009
Our friends over at HUP blog are talking about Judge Posner's forthcoming book A Failure of Capitalism on the crash of 08. It's due out in May and it's a non-technical explanation of the crash. Publishing in real time, so...

US News Rankings and the Data Disclosure Dance

Posted on April 27, 2009
US News rankings week always leads to a major use of Internet band width. And The Faculty Lounge is no exception. As Dan Filler has already noted, some of the most thoughtful comments in this cycle come from Judge Pollak...

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Posted on April 27, 2009
Ben Franklin once remarked, ?Fish and visitors stink after three days.? My stint as a guest blogger started with my first post back on February 23, so I?m waaaaaaay past my expiration date. Today is our last day of class...

California County Stops Prosecuting Minor Crimes. Supposedly.

Posted on April 27, 2009
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Contra Costa County, located outside of San Francisco, is going to severly cut back on prosecution of smaller criminal offenses: Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra...

Summer Reading

Posted on April 26, 2009
Supposing that some of us are actually going to attempt to read some books for fun over the summer [not, of course, implying that reading law review articles and recent judgments isn't fun], I thought it might be worth getting...

Tillman on Stone on the Nature of the Founders' Christianity

Posted on April 25, 2009
Last fall I blogged a little bit about Geoffrey Stone's "The World of the Framers: A Christian Nation?", which appeared in the UCLA Law Review (thanks to a pointer from our friends at co-op). At that point I wrote that...

First Amendment Challenge Tests Animal Cruelty Law

Posted on April 24, 2009
Earlier this week the US Supreme Court granted cert in US v. Stevens, to decide whether depictions of animal cruelty merit constitutional protection. The statute, 18 U.S.C. § 48, makes it a crime to create, possess or sell images of...

Art Law: Illustrated Essays by Maira Kalman

Posted on April 24, 2009
From NYT: A delightful illustrated essay on women, injustice, and the Supreme Court in the NYT by Maira Kalman.

Alternatives to US News' Law School Rankings Keep Proliferating

Posted on April 24, 2009
Well, the alternatives to US News keep proliferating. Yesterday we had Dan Filler's post on Judge Pollak's most recent rankings in the Drexel Law Review. Some years ago J. Gordon Hylton assembled the "US News without the Clutter" rankings (and...

Do Placement Incentives Modify Behavior?

Posted on April 24, 2009
We held our last faculty meeting of the semester this week. One agenda item that generated robust debate was the idea of offering a ?bounty? for scholarship placement. For example, an article placed in a ?top ten? journal might trigger...

US News History Department Rankings

Posted on April 24, 2009
Amidst all the talk of US News' law school rankings, we might forget that US News ranks other programs--including, this year, history departments. Here's a link to them. The history rankings rely exclusively on peer assessment scores. There's a four....

Judge Louis Pollak Slams US News Rankings, Offers An Alternative List

Posted on April 23, 2009
Yesterday I noted the release of the first issue of the Drexel Law Review. What I didn't mention was that Judge Pollak, the Inaugural Chair of Drexel Law's Visiting Committee and former Dean of both Yale Law School and Penn...

On the Path of Walker Evans

Posted on April 23, 2009
It isn't every day that the New York Times puts Greensboro Alabama on the front page! Here's a charming story on Walker Evans' photographs of rural Alabama, which he made for the WPA. Some made their way into illustrations for...

Grading Strategies: Any Ideas?

Posted on April 23, 2009
The time is coming upon us to earn our keep: the grading of exams. Faced with stacks of bluebooks and Examsoft printouts, many us us vow each and every semester to pace ourselves in grading. "Ten exams a day for...

Judge Bybee's Memo and Abu Zubaydah's Illegal Interrogation

Posted on April 23, 2009
Does Jay Bybee's August 1, 2002 memo provide legal authorization for the August 2002 waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah? There is good reason to conclude that it does not. Kevin Heller at Opinio Juris argues that the CIA failed to follow...

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