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Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law

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  • Paul Caron

    Preview Of The 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings: First-Time Bar Passage

    Following up on last week’s post, Law School Rankings By First-Time Bar Passage Rate (2024): this post projects next year’s 2026-27 U.S. News first-time bar passage ranking using the current methodology: 

    Bar passage rate for first-time test-takers (18%): U.S. News used its treatment of bar passage rates to incorporate all graduates who took the bar for the first time, and not just those from the state with the most test-takers. This de-emphasized the impact of geography on law schools’ relative performance.

    As was done with the 10-months-after-graduation indicator, this bar passage indicator was newly calculated as a two-year, non-weighted average pertaining to the 2022 and 2023 graduating classes.

    Specifically, the bar passage rate indicator scored schools on their average 2022 and 2023 first-time test-takers’ weighted bar passage rates among all jurisdictions, or states, then added or subtracted the average percentage point difference between those rates and the weighted state average among ABA accredited schools’ first-time test-takers in the corresponding jurisdictions in 2022 and 2023. This meant schools that performed best on this ranking factor graduated students whose bar passage rates were both higher than most schools overall and higher compared with what was typical among graduates who took the bar in corresponding jurisdictions.

    or example, if a fictional law school in upstate New York graduated 100 students who first took the bar exam – and 79 took the New York exam, 18 the Massachusetts exam and three the Vermont exam – the school’s weighted average rate would use pass rate results that were weighted 79% for New York, 18% for Massachusetts and 3% for Vermont. This computation would then be compared with an index of these jurisdictions’ average pass rates – also weighted 79-18-3. (For privacy, school profiles on usnews.com display bar passage data only for jurisdictions with at least 10 test-takers.) Both weighted averages included any graduates who passed the bar with alternative pathways such as diploma privilege. Alternative pathways is a method for J.D. graduates to be admitted to a state bar and allowed to practice law in that state without taking that state’s actual bar examination. Alternative pathways is generally based on attending and graduating from a law school in that state with the diploma privilege.

    Below is next year’s projected 2026-27 U.S. News ranking of the average first-time bar passage for calendar years 2023 and 2024. For comparison, the current 2025-26 U.S. News ranking of the average first-time bar passage for calendar years 2022 and 2023 are also included.

    Rank School 2026-2027 First-Time Bar Passage 2025-2026 First-Time Bar Passage 2025-2026 First-Time Bar Passage Rank
    1 Chicago 114.14% 113.25% 6
    2 Stanford 114.02% 114.70% 3
    3 Michigan 113.69% 115.15% 2
    4 Belmont 112.43% 107.70% 15
    5 Harvard 112.29% 115.22% 1
    6 Vanderbilt 112.03% 111.68% 7
    7 Penn 111.63% 110.87% 9
    8 Yale 111.52% 113.38% 5
    9 Duke 110.79% 110.57% 10
    10 Virginia 110.37% 113.49% 4
    11 NYU 110.04% 110.22% 11
    12 Texas 109.39% 107.02% 21
    13 Texas A&M 108.82% 105.18% 24
    14 Boston College 108.18% 107.76% 14
    15 Cornell 108.12% 104.12% 26
    16 Columbia 108.02% 107.70% 15
    17 UCLA 106.82% 107.87% 13
    18 North Carolina 106.73% 111.66% 8
    19 Baylor 106.30% 106.42% 22
    20 Villanova 105.10% 97.98% 44
    21 Notre Dame 104.96% 107.18% 18
    22 Washington Univ. 104.80% 105.76% 23
    23 Florida Int’l 104.45% 100.70% 36
    24 Kansas 104.33% 98.19% 43
    25 Alabama 103.93% 103.28% 27
    26 Ohio State 103.87% 102.89% 29
    27 Northwestern 103.62% 107.12% 20
    28 Wake Forest 103.27% 107.54% 17
    29 Georgia 103.24% 103.05% 28
    30 University of Washington 103.23% 102.40% 30
    31 Louisiana State 102.91% 102.38% 31
    32 Utah 102.33% 101.14% 35
    33 UC-Berkeley 102.18% 107.12% 19
    34 BYU 101.92% 105.09% 25
    35 Minnesota 101.85% 101.40% 34
    36 Georgetown 101.54% 102.28% 32
    37 USC 100.28% 97.81% 46
    38 Oklahoma 100.24% 102.05% 33
    39 Wisconsin 100.15% 99.85% 39
    40 Tennessee 99.33% 98.85% 41
    41 Florida State 99.29% 93.93% 59
    42 Arizona State 99.22% 97.86% 45
    43 Marquette 99.18% 99.58% 40
    44 Maine 98.78% 92.29% 62
    45 Boston Univ. 98.61% 100.25% 37
    46 Temple 98.16% 94.30% 57
    47 Texas Tech 98.14% 94.36% 56
    48 Florida 97.85% 90.34% 69
    49 William & Mary 97.74% 109.80% 12
    50 Iowa 97.56% 92.12% 64

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  • Paul Caron

    Thuronyi: A Simpler Approach To Taxing Tips

    Victor Thuronyi (Former Lead Tax Counsel, IMF), A Simpler Approach to Taxing Tips, 187 Tax Notes Fed. 305 (Apr. 14, 2025):

    Tax-notes-federalIn this article, Thuronyi explains why exempting tips from taxation is problematic, and he proposes a different solution that would relieve tipped workers of the burden of monthly reporting, thus simplifying compliance and reducing tax on tipped workers without encouraging the expansion of tipping.

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  • Paul Caron

    Thuronyi: A Simpler Approach To Taxing Tips

    Victor Thuronyi (Former Lead Tax Counsel, IMF), A Simpler Approach to Taxing Tips, 187 Tax Notes Fed. 305 (Apr. 14, 2025):

    Tax-notes-federalIn this article, Thuronyi explains why exempting tips from taxation is problematic, and he proposes a different solution that would relieve tipped workers of the burden of monthly reporting, thus simplifying compliance and reducing tax on tipped workers without encouraging the expansion of tipping.

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  • Paul Caron

    Andrew Appleby Leaves Stetson For Tennessee

    Andrew D. Appleby (Stetson; Google Scholar) has accepted a lateral offer from Tennessee effective Fall 2025:

    Appleby2025Professor Andrew Appleby focuses his teaching and scholarship on tax and business law. He has particular expertise in state and local taxation, taxation of the digital economy, sports taxation, and applied tax policy. Professor Appleby has published in many prominent law journals, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation, Arizona State Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, and Maryland Law Review.

    He has been featured extensively in the media, including The New York Times, Bloomberg, Law360, and Tax Notes. Professor Appleby also co-authors the leading treatise on state taxation, Hellerstein’s State Taxation (3d. ed) (with Jerome Hellerstein & Walter Hellerstein), which is cited regularly by the United States Supreme Court and many other courts across the nation.

    Professor Appleby practiced tax and corporate law at leading law firms for nearly a decade. Most recently, he was special counsel in the tax group in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP's New York office. Professor Appleby was a partner in the tax group in Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP's New York office, and an associate in the corporate group in Alston & Bird LLP's Atlanta office. Prior to his legal career, Professor Appleby was an information technology and business consultant.

    His recent publications include:

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  • Paul Caron

    Andrew Appleby Leaves Stetson For Tennessee

    Andrew D. Appleby (Stetson; Google Scholar) has accepted a lateral offer from Tennessee effective Fall 2025:

    Appleby2025Professor Andrew Appleby focuses his teaching and scholarship on tax and business law. He has particular expertise in state and local taxation, taxation of the digital economy, sports taxation, and applied tax policy. Professor Appleby has published in many prominent law journals, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation, Arizona State Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, and Maryland Law Review.

    He has been featured extensively in the media, including The New York Times, Bloomberg, Law360, and Tax Notes. Professor Appleby also co-authors the leading treatise on state taxation, Hellerstein’s State Taxation (3d. ed) (with Jerome Hellerstein & Walter Hellerstein), which is cited regularly by the United States Supreme Court and many other courts across the nation.

    Professor Appleby practiced tax and corporate law at leading law firms for nearly a decade. Most recently, he was special counsel in the tax group in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP's New York office. Professor Appleby was a partner in the tax group in Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP's New York office, and an associate in the corporate group in Alston & Bird LLP's Atlanta office. Prior to his legal career, Professor Appleby was an information technology and business consultant.

    His recent publications include:

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  • Paul Caron

    Legal Ed News Roundup

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  • Paul Caron

    Legal Ed News Roundup

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  • Paul Caron

    NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests Or Be Barred From Final Exams

    Update:  NYU About-Face: Law Students Can Take Exams Without Renouncing Protests

    The Intercept, NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams:

    NYU Law (2024)New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed “personae non grata,” or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.

    “You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,” says the so-called “Use of Space Agreement” sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s “exam period.”

    The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean. (NYU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) …

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  • Paul Caron

    NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests Or Be Barred From Final Exams

    Update:  NYU About-Face: Law Students Can Take Exams Without Renouncing Protests

    The Intercept, NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams:

    NYU Law (2024)New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed “personae non grata,” or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.

    “You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,” says the so-called “Use of Space Agreement” sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s “exam period.”

    The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean. (NYU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) …

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  • Sloan Speck

    Lesson From The Tax Court: No Equitable Tolling For Brain Farts

    Lessons From The Tax Court (2024)Tax practice is like comedy: timing is critical.  In tax, however, messing up timing is no laughing matter.  As the sainted Justice Holmes once wrote (in a tax case, nach): “Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.” Rock Island R.R. v. United States, 254 U.S. 141, 143 (1920).  That is especially true with deadlines.  Of all the corners in all the laws governing citizen interaction with government, the timing requirements in the Internal Revenue Code contain some of the squarest and sharpest, including the timing requirements for petitioning the Tax Court.

    Some folks might think the Supreme Court’s decision in Boechler v. Commissioner, 596 U.S. ___, 142 S.Ct. 1493 (2022), would sand down some of those sharp timing corners.  In Boechler the Supreme Court held that the 30-day period in §6330(d)(1) for taxpayers to petition the Tax Court to review a Collection Due Process decision was subject to equitable tolling.  I think otherwise.  I have not yet seen anyone yet convince the Tax Court to apply equitable tolling to excuse a late CDP petition.  Few have even tried. See Reed v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2025-4; Shaw v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-48;  Stephens v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-40.  I’m happy to be corrected on that.

    Today we learn another lesson on what does not trigger equitable tolling: your attorney’s ordinary negligence. In Belagio Fine Jewelry Inc. v. Commissioner, 164 T.C. No. 7 (Apr. 15, 2025) (Judge Greaves), the taxpayer’s attorney’s staff sent the taxpayer’s petition using a FedEx service that guaranteed the petition would be delivered … one day late!  Brain fart! (trigger warning—link is to a pretty funny collection of them).  Desperately seeking relief, the taxpayer argued for application of the timely-mailed-timely-filed rule, codified in §7502 and, failing that, asked for equitable tolling.  Judge Greaves finds that the FedEx mailing did not turn the very square corners of the statutory timely mailing rule and that brain farts are no basis to apply equitable tolling. 

    Details below the fold.

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