Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Law School
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Top University Presidents Are Top Scholars
Interesting new paper by Amanda H. Goodall (Warwick Business School, University of Warwick), Should Top Universities be Led by Top Researchers and Are They? A Citations Analysis, 62 Journal of Documentation ___ (forthcoming 2006). Here is the abstract: This study documents a positive correlation between the lifetime citations of a university’s president and the position
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Deductibility of J.D. and M.B.A. Expenses
Burgess J.W. Raby & William L. Raby have published Education Deductions for the Employed Professional, also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc 2005-21201, 2005 TNT 202-28. The article discusses several important cases, including: Costs of Part-Time MBA Deductible (Allemeier v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2005-207) [blogged here and here] Costs of Full-Time MBA
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In Defense of Law Porn
Our post yesterday on the U.S. News Silly Season discussed "law porn," colorfully defined this morning by Dan Markel (PrawfsBlawg) as "the phantasmagoria otherwise experienced as the onslaught of glossy brochures sent by various law schools to every faculty member in the country." Read Dan’s defense of law porn in the conext of NYU’s latest
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The Changing Paradigm in Public Legal Education
Denis Binder (Chapman) has graciously allowed me to share his very provocative paper, The Changing Paradigm in Public Legal Education, with the readers of this blog. The paper chronicles the increase in public law school tuition from 1983/1984 to 1999-2000 and 2004-2005 and computes tuition growth rates in these five- and twenty-year periods: Median Resident
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The U.S. News Silly Season
The U.S. News silly season is upon us, with faculty mailboxes stuffed with glossy law school brochures (dubbed "law porn" by an anonymous Stanford professor, outed in our forthcoming article Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. ___ (2005) (Symposium on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings)) as faculty
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Tax Planning of a Visiting Professorship
Here is a very timely paper for many of the readers of this blog: Tax Planning of a Visiting Professorship, by Myron Hulen (College of Business, Colorado State University) & William Kenny (School of Business Administration, Portland State University). Here is the abstract: A sabbatical leave and a visiting position at another university offers professors
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Paying Faculty for Student Performance
Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by Daniel Henninger, How One School Found a Way To Spell Success: I came to visit the Meadowcliff Elementary School [in Little Rock, Arkansas]…. About 80% of Meadowcliff’s students in the K-to-5 school are black, the rest Hispanic or white. It sits in a neighborhood of neat, very
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Study Finds Democrats Outnumber Republicans 8:1 in Elite Law School Faculties
Conservative gadfly David Horowitz has published a study (Representation of Political Perspectives in Law and Journalism Faculties) (with Joseph Light at the Center for the Student of Popular Culture) showing that Democrats outnumber Republicans 8:1 on the faculties of 10 elite law schools (and 9 journalism schools). The study examined the political party registrations of
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Opting Out of the U.S. News Rankings
Interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly by Colin Diver, former Dean at Penn and currently President of Reed College, on his college’s decision to refuse participate in the U.S. News college rankings. (Hat Tip: our sister Leiter’s Law School Reports, which notes that "Penn, of course, has taken the art of gaming the rankings, across
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BU Graduate Tax Program Newsletter
The new edition of the Boston University School of Law Graduate Tax Program Newsletter is out, with information on 2005 Graduates Law School Rankings LL.M. Student Body Profile Visiting Scholar Faculty Additions Alumni/ae in Academics (definitely worth checking out!)
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NY Times on Blogging
Inteersting article (here and here) on blogging in this morning’s New York Times, featuring, among others, Cincinnati 1L Neil Wehneman, who is making podcasts of his first year experience available on his blog at www.lifeofalawstudent.com.
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Making Law School Optional
Interesting article in this morning’s Legal Times: Law School: Make It Optional? Why is a Mercedes Education Necessary for a Lawyer Seeking a Corolla Legal Practice?: Why are law schools everywhere in the United States basically the same? Why do they all require three years, rather than one or two? Why do they all have
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Princeton Review’s Law School Rankings
The Princeton Review yesterday released its ranking of the Best 159 Law Schools: We surveyed more than 15,000 students at 159 law schools and used the information that they reported to us, along with school statistics provided by administrators, to create 11 ranking lists. None of these lists purports to rank the schools in terms
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Sound Like Anyone You Know?
Mikita Brottman, Nutty Professors, Chronicle of Higher Education: Ask anybody what adjective goes best with the word "professor," and the answer will almost certainly be "absent-minded," or possibly "nutty."… It has often been observed that the more prodigious the intellect, the more it can compromise other aspects of the personality, such as self-awareness and social
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Do Law Schools Hire Too Many Ph.Ds?
Dean Stephen Friedman (Pace) has an interesting op-ed in today’s Legal Times, A Practical Manifesto for Legal Education. He argues that "legal education must be brought into closer alignment with the need of law students to hit the ground running when they begin to practice law." Tax Prof Jim Maule (Villanova) goes further, in Legal
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New Blog: Law Student Spouses
Welcome to the blogosphere: Law Spouses — A Blog Community for Those Who Love a Law Student: This blog is meant to not only relate my experiences as a law school widow — what works and doesn’t, fears and victories — but to act as a venting place for other law school spouses who sometimes
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CLEA Publishes Revised Draft of Best Practices for Legal Education
The Clinical Legal Education Association has published a revised draft of its Best Practices for Legal Education. Here is the opening of the Executive Summary and Key Recommendations: There is a compelling need for significant change in legal education in the United States. Law schools do some things well, some things poorly, and some things
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AALS Moves Annual Meeting from New Orleans to Washington, D.C.
The AALS announced today that its annual meeting scheduled for New Orleans will be moved to Washington, D.C. and held January 3-7, 2006: Katrina’s tragic devastation of New Orleans has necessitated the relocation of the 2006 Annual Meeting and requires moving the meeting one day earlier. On behalf of a unanimously supportive AALS Executive Committee,
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Franken Delivers Dean’s Lecture Today at Yale
Al Franken, liberal talk show host on the Air America radio network, author, and former writer for Saturday Night Live, delivers a Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School today at 5:30 p.m. in the Levinson Auditorium. According to the Yale press release: While continuing to find the humor in American politics, his show regularly features
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Tax Issues Faced by Bar/Bri Student Reps
Donald Tobin (Ohio State), co-author of the acclaimed student tax hornbook Principles of Federal Income Taxation Law (West, 7th ed. 2005) (with Daniel Posin), sparked an extended discussion in the TaxProf Discussion Group on the lurking tax issue faced by law students who work as representatives for Bar/Bri and other bar exam prep courses (and
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Briefs Filed in Case Challenging Constitutionality of Solomon Amendment
Following up on yesterday’s post about Harvard’s decision to reverse its position and allow the military to recruit at the law school after the Pentagon threatened to withhold federal grants under the Solomon Amendment: Doug Lederman has a wonderful article in today’s Inside Higher Ed summarizing the arguments in the briefs filed by yesterday’s deadline
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Tulane to Force Students Ousted by Katrina to Return Spring Semester
Tulane announced yesterday that it will force its 1,000 law students displaced by Hurricane Katrina to return for classes in the Spring Semetser beginning January 9, 2006: I want to explain to everyone the decision we have made not to allow students to visit at another law school next spring absent the usual compelling circumstances
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Harvard Reverses Course, Gives Access to Military Recruiters After Pentagon Threatens to Invoke Solomon Amendment
Last week, we blogged the U.S. Defense Department’s decision barring New York, Vermont, and William Mitchell law schools from receiving federal grants for violating the Solomon Amendment by denying access to military recruiters. An Inside Higher Ed story questioned the Defense Department’s decision to go after "the little guys" while "Harvard’s law school, which last
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Caron & Gely on Dead Poets and Law School Rankings
Rafael Gely and I have posted our Introduction to the Indiana rankings symposium, Dead Poets and Academic Progenitors: The Next Generation of Law School Rankings, on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Symposium is an outgrowth of our article, What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, 82 Tex. L. Rev.
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The Faculty Salary Game
Mark Fenster (Florida) at PrawfsBlawg discusses an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed, The Faculty Salary Game, by John Lombardi (Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts). The article notes that faculty who feel they are underpaid can demonstate their market value by obtaining a competing offer from another school. If faculty are unable to obtain