Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Ed News
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Arkansas Official Accused of Tampering with Bar Exam Results
Nancie Givens, the former executive director of the Arkansas Office of Professional Programs, faces 65 counts of tampering with a public record. Givens allegedly altered examination results and destroyed records.
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Bar Pass Rates Drop Across the Nation
The ABA Journal and others have the details: Overall passage rates for the July 2026 bar exam fell in 37 states compared with a year earlier, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners. As of Tuesday, the NCBE’s tally shows only four of the 31 jurisdictions that used the legacy Uniform Bar Exam and have…
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Another Law School in El Paso?
As reported recently: “The University of Texas at El Paso inched closer to launching a law school after the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation pledged a $5 million matching grant.” See Julianne Hill, $5M Matching Grant Moves University of Texas at El Paso Closer to Opening Law School, ABA Journal, November 2, 2026; Christine…
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Stanford Launches a “Legal Engineering Academy”
Legal education today is about much more than degrees for practitioners. Stanford Law School has launched an Executive Education program focused on “legal engineering.” From the program website: What is legal engineering? Legal engineering is one of the fastest growing areas of hiring and investment across the legal and technology sectors, yet it remains an…
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NY Times Admits Double Standard for ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’ Law Professors
New York Times Sound Off: A Double Standard for ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’ Labels?, by Patrick Healy: Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, reached out after he was described as “conservative” in two Times articles within 24 hours. He said the label was accurate, but argued that The Times applied such…
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Hottest Law Job: Times do Change
Sarah Kessler for the NYTimes writes in Dealbook about the rising demand from organizations across many domains for what they are calling “legal engineers.” These are trained professionals (not necessarily lawyers) who have both legal skills and knowledge of contemporary technology. Goal is to permit organizations to maximize use of all sorts of computer services,…
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LSAT Format to Change in August 2027
As announced from LSAC earlier this week. From the National Jurist: Prelaw students preparing for the LSAT should know that a significant format change is coming in August 2027. However, according to the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the skills tested, question types, scoring scale and meaning of scores will remain unchanged. The biggest takeaway…
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AccessLex Submits Comment Urging IRS to Withdraw Proposed Rule
Earlier this week, AccessLex Institute submitted a formal letter urging the IRS to withdraw its proposed rule impacting private school tax exemption (proposed regulations – REG-119986-25). From the letter: The following comments reflect AccessLex Institute’s view that the proposed rule expands existing law beyond what Supreme Court precedent requires, and fails to adequately account for…
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Three Challenges for Legal Education
Returning to this blog after a busy few weeks, here are links to material that might give law professors – and deans, and provosts – pause. These come in three clusters: budget (cuts), Generative AI (of course), and whether the world respects what higher education is producing, or will. I share these not because they…
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Hofstra Says It Had No Duty to Help Student in Cardiac Arrest During Bar Exam
Inside Higher Ed, Hofstra Says It Had No ‘Duty to Protect’ Student Who Collapsed During Bar Exam: Hofstra University claims it had no responsibility to help a person who went into cardiac arrest while taking the bar exam on its campus in July 2025, court filings show. “While Hofstra sympathizes with the Plaintiff for the…
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SCOTUS Declines Case re University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge by descendants of Serranus Hastings, allowing the law school to officially keep its name as the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. From the ABA Journal and others. The University of California College of the Law at San Francisco can retain its new name,…
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As ABA Awaits DOE Decision, Concerns Over Law Degree Portability, Standardization
From a piece in Law.com: “Experts say the pending DOE decision regarding ABA Council accreditation poses no immediate crisis, but they warn that states abandoning the council’s accreditation could disrupt legal education oversight and portability of degrees.” Christine Charnosky, Legal Educators Raise Concerns Over Law Degree Portability, Standardization as ABA Awaits DOE Decision, Law.Com, October…
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Muller: Are Law Schools Building the Wrong Kind of ‘Practice Ready’ Lawyers?
Derek Muller (Notre Dame), Are Law Schools Building the Wrong Kind of “Practice Ready” Lawyers?: For at least half a century, there has been considerable discussion about making law school graduates “practice ready.” But what does that mean? What are schools trying to achieve, and how would we know whether their methods are effective? Over…
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Anthropic Releases Law Student Plugin, Offers 4-Month Fellowship (Jan. 12-May 8) for Law Professors and Lawyers ($100,000–$167,000)
Paul Weitzel (Nebraska): Justin Curl (Anthropic):
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World Premiere: ‘The Best Justice System In The World’
The Best Justice System In The World, a documentary film by Suja A. Thomas (Illinois), will have its world premiere at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, on November 15 and 16 (in person) and November 16-29 (online). Tickets are available here.
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Tang Prize Goes to Bruce Ackerman
The Tang Prize Foundation has awarded this year’s Rule of Law prize to Yale Law School’s Sterling Professor of Law Bruce Ackerman for his “intellectual leadership in developing new conceptions of constitution-making …to defend the rule of law amid the crises facing modern republics.”. You can review the many reasons why this award is so…
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Misericordia University Plans to Open New Law School
Following on the heels of several others, an announcement of another new planned law school: Northeast Pennsylvania may soon have its own law school. Misericordia University intends to establish the Misericordia University School of Law, a program designed to expand access to legal education, address workforce needs and prepare future attorneys committed to service, leadership…
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Justice Department Threatens Probe of ABA on Law School Rules
From the Wall Street Journal: The Justice Department has warned the American Bar Association it may face an antitrust investigation if it fails to change rules that limit the role part-time professors play in teaching law students. The department delivered the message in a new letter to the ABA’s accreditation council, whose quality standards cover…
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Scholastica and the Broken Law Review Submission Process
LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), Scholastica, Law Reviews, And Gatekeepers Of Academic Prestige: Once upon a time, professors had to use the U.S. Postal Service to submit articles, cover letters, and resumes to as many journals as they wished. This was a lengthy, inefficient, and costly process. Eventually a digital platform called Express-O came…
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Law School or Political Power Base?
This powerful story by Benjamin Wofford in the New Yorker tells a harrowing tale of imposed student student discipline and the alleged false resignation of a faculty member following comments made after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. The New Yorker has a pay wall, but I encourage everyone to find a way to read the…
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Grand Canyon University Names Inaugural Dean for the College of Law
James L. Williams has been named the inaugural dean of GCU’s new College of Law. Williams, a graduate of the Baylor University School of Law, is an attorney and shareholder with Phoenix law firm Schmitt Schneck Even & Williams and President of the Phoenix chapter of the Christian Legal Society, for which he has also…
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AAU Legal Action Over ICE’s New CPT Interpretation
On Monday, the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, and others filed a lawsuit challenging ICE’s changes to curricular practical training (CPT) for international students. The changes have significant impact on international students. You can find prior coverage on TaxProfBlog (noting “new rules restricting curricular practical training, new H1-B fee…
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Tennessee Reduces Reliance on ABA Accreditation
The Tennessee Supreme Court entered an order on Friday “to further reduce reliance on ABA accreditation,” noting that the state will “consider adding additional or alternative accreditors to the list of Approved Accreditors in the future, including other state supreme courts.” The Court also announced it will “establish taskforces to further explore the following issues:…
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West Virginia College of Law Names Four Law Dean Finalists
The search committee, led by John Chambers College of Business and Economics Milan Puskar Dean Joshua Hall and search firm Greenwood Asher & Associates, selected four candidates to visit campus: Mary Leary (Catholic), Alan Romero (Wyoming), Oren Griffin (Tulsa), and Nadelle Grossman (Marquette).
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Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law School Celebrates 57 Years of Greater Purpose at Annual Law Dinner
Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law Celebrates 57 Years of Greater Purpose at Annual Law Dinner: Framed by Pepperdine’s “For Greater Purpose” theme, the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law hosted its annual law dinner, one of its most prestigious convenings. On September 26, 2026, Caruso law faculty, administrators, alumni, students, and distinguished guests came…