Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Ed Scholarship
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Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias
Jason Chin (Australian National; Google Scholar), Alexander Holcombe (Sydney; Google Scholar), Kathryn Zeiler (Boston University; Google Scholar), Patrick Forscher (Busara Center; Google Scholar) & Ann Guo (Melbourne), Metaresearch, Psychology, and Law: A Case Study on Implicit Bias, 45 J. Legal Prof. 229 (2021): When can scientific findings from experimental psychology be confidently applied to legal…
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The Flaws of Implicit Bias — And The Need For Empirical Research In Legal Scholarship And Legal Education
Adam Lamparello (Georgia College & State University; Google Scholar), The Flaws of Implicit Bias — and the Need for Empirical Research in Legal Scholarship and in Legal Education, 45 J. Legal Prof. 229 (2021): Nowhere is the necessity of using empirical research methods and statistics in formulating legal arguments more obvious than in recent legal…
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Teaching Leadership In Law Schools
Doris Del Tosto Brogan (Villanova), Stories of Leadership, Good and Bad: Another Modest Proposal for Teaching Leadership in Law Schools, 45 J. Legal Prof. 183 (2021): Dangerous leaders. That’s how Anthony Thompson describes lawyers — leaders who are dangerously unprepared for the demands of that role. He argues, and in this article I agree, that…
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Building Belonging: Proven Methods To Decrease Attrition And Best Serve Law Students
Leila Lawlor (Georgia State; Google Scholar), Building Belonging: Proven Methods to Decrease Attrition and Best Serve Law Students, 91 Tenn. L. Rev. __ (2024): A crucial task for legal educators is to determine how to retain our students, especially those who may be most vulnerable to attrition — first-generation students and students of color. This…
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Chat GPT-4 Understands Academic Attrition’s Impact On Bar Passage But Does Anyone Else?
Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth (PhD Mathematics, Miami), Chat Gpt-4 Understands Academic Attrition's Impact on Bar Passage But Does Anyone Else?, 63 Washburn L.J. Online __ (2023): Artificial Intelligence allows us to understand the relationship between bar passage and academic attrition. This relationship is often obscured by the continued conflation of the concepts…
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Learning Without Grade Anxiety: Lessons From The Pass/Fail Experiment In North American J.D. Programs
John Bliss (Denver) & David Sandomierski (Western), Learning without Grade Anxiety: Lessons from the Pass/Fail Experiment in North American J.D. Programs, 42 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 555 (2022): One of the core goals of legal education is to help students learn. A conventional assumption is that hierarchical grading, as a motivator for student effort, is…
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Re-Evaluating GPT-4’s Bar Exam Performance
Following up on my previous post, GPT-4 Beats 90% Of Aspiring Lawyers On The Bar Exam: Eric Martínez (MIT; Google Scholar), Re-Evaluating GPT-4's Bar Exam Performance: Perhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4's at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam, with its reported 80-percentile-points boost over its predecessor,…
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Assessing Heinonline As A Source Of Scholarly Impact Metrics
Karen L. Wallace (Drake; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lutkenhaus (Drake; Google Scholar) & David B. Hanson (Drake), Assessing Heinonline as a Source of Scholarly Impact Metrics, 114 Law Libr. J. 395 (2022): After the February 2019 U.S. News & World Report announcement of a planned law school scholarly impact ranking based on HeinOnline data, law schools…
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Applying Universal Design In The Legal Academy
Matthew L. Timko (Northern Illinois), Applying Universal Design in the Legal Academy, 114 Law Libr. J. 343 (2022): Too often barriers to access in the form of physical, technological, and cognitive environments play a large role in keeping many people out of law school. While federal and state laws address these barriers, universal design provides…
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GPT-4’s Law School Grades: Con Law C, Crim C-, Law & Econ C, Partnership Tax B, Property B-, Tax B
Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland; Google Scholar), Anne-Marie Carstens (Maryland), Daniel S. Goldberg (Maryland), Mark Graber (Maryland), David C. Gray (Maryland) & Maxwell L. Stearns (Maryland; Google Scholar), GPT-4’s Law School Grades: Con Law C, Crim C-, Law & Econ C, Partnership Tax B, Property B-, Tax B: GPT-4 performs vastly better than ChatGPT or GPT-3.5 on…
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1L Curricula In The United States: 2023 Data And Historical Comparison
Prentiss Cox (Minnesota; Google Scholar), 1L Curricula in the United States: 2023 Data and Historical Comparison: This article reports on a survey of the first year (1L) curricula at U. S. law schools. We were able to obtain data on the 1L course requirements, including credits for each course, at 191 of 196 ABA-accredited law…
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What Law Schools Must Change To Train Transactional Lawyers
Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati), What Law Schools Must Change to Train Transactional Lawyers, 43 Pace L. Rev. 106 (2022): Not all lawyers litigate, but you would not know that from the first-year curriculum at most law schools. Despite 50% of lawyers working in transactional practices, schools do not incorporate its legal doctrines or skills in…
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Catholic Legal Education And The Formation Of Conscience
Daniel T. Judge (Notre Dame), Catholic Education and the Formation of Conscience, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. Reflection 248 (2021): Before all else, Catholic schools are “a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. This relationship elicits a desire to grow in the knowledge and understanding…
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Putting The Bar Exam On Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, And The Public Good
Scott Johns (Denver), Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good, 45 Seattle U. L. Rev. 853 (2022): Nothing to see here. Season in and season out, bar examiners, experts, supreme courts, and bar associations seem nonplussed, trapped by what they see as the facts, namely, that…
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Mental Health, Law School, And Bar Admissions: Eliminating Stigma And Fostering A Healthier Profession
Natalie C. Fortner (J.D. 2023, Arkansas), Comment, Mental Health, Law School, and Bar Admissions: Eliminating Stigma and Fostering a Healthier Profession, 75 Ark. L. Rev. 689 (2022): In October 2018, Gabe MacConaill, a junior partner at Sidley Austin, died by suicide in the firm’s parking garage. Gabe and his wife, Joanna, had been planning a…
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The U.S. News Law School Academic Reputation Scores, 1998-2022
Robert L. Jones (Northern Illinois), After Twenty-Five Years, Academic Reputation Scores for Law Schools Remain Below Their 1998 Levels: This Article summarizes the results of the U.S. News & World Report rankings published in 2021 and 2022 with respect to the academic reputation scores of law schools. In addition to analyzing the most recent results…
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NY Times Op-Ed: In Defense Of Merit And Rigor In Academic Journals
New York Times Op-Ed: Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals. You Can’t Make This Up., by Pamela Paul: [The belief] that science is somehow subjective and should be practiced and judged accordingly has recently taken hold in academic, governmental and medical settings. A paper published last week, “In Defense of Merit in Science,” documents the…
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Dividing Law School Faculties Into Academic Departments: A Potential Solution To The Gendered Doctrinal/Skills Hierarchy In Legal Education
Larry Cunningham (Dean, Charleston; Google Scholar), Dividing Law School Faculties into Academic Departments: A Potential Solution to the Gendered Doctrinal/Skills Hierarchy in Legal Education, 67 Vill. L. Rev. 679 (2022): Most law school faculties in the United States are organized in internal hierarchies. At a given school, those professors who teach doctrinal subjects have the…
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An Empirical Study Of The Bar Examination’s Disparate Impact On Applicants From Communities Of Color
Following up on yesterday's post, An Empirical Analysis Of Racial Bias In The UBE: A Law School’s First-Time Bar Pass Rate Decreases As Its Percentage Of Students Of Color Increases: Scott Devito (Ave Maria; Google Scholar), Kelsey Hample (Furman; Google Scholar) & Erin Lain (Drake; Google Scholar), Onerous Disabilities and Burdens: An Empirical Study of the Bar Examination’s…
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Let’s Talk About Grading, Maybe: Using Transparency About The Grading Process To Aid In Student Learning
DeShun Harris (Memphis), Let’s Talk About Grading, Maybe: Using Transparency About the Grading Process to Aid in Student Learning, 45 Seattle U. L. Rev. 805 (2022): Talking about grades and grading in law school can feel as taboo, if not more, than talking about sex. Among law faculty, there is often no training and no…
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An Empirical Analysis Of Racial Bias In The UBE: A Law School’s First-Time Bar Pass Rate Decreases As Its Percentage Of Students Of Color Increases
Scott Devito (Ave Maria; Google Scholar), Kelsey Hample (Furman; Google Scholar) & Erin Lain (Drake; Google Scholar), Examining the Bar Exam: An Empirical Analysis of Racial Bias in the Uniform Bar Examination, 55 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 597 (2022): The legal profession is among the least diverse in the United States. Given continuing issues of systemic racism, the central…
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Can You Be A Legal Ethics Scholar And Have Guts?
Cynthia Godsoe (Brooklyn), Abbe Smith (Georgetown) & Ellen Yaroshefsky (Hofstra; Google Scholar), Can You Be a Legal Ethics Scholar and Have Guts?, 35 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 429 (2022): Recent efforts to hold lawyers accountable for their actions—including lawyers who sought to overturn the 2020 Presidential election based on false evidence, and New York City…
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Leadership Evolution: The Rise Of Lawyers In The C-Suite
Garry Jenkins (Dean, Minnesota; Google Scholar) & Jon J. Lee (Oklahoma), Leadership Evolution: The Rise of Lawyers in the C-Suite, 96 Tul. L. Rev. 695 (2022): The traditional thinking about the path to the top corporate executive leadership posts, reaching the so-called C-suite, is that it begins with earning an MBA degree. By contrast, the…
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Professional Discipline And The Labor Market: Evidence From Lawyers
ABA Journal, Using Data, Law Prof Finds Many Disciplined Lawyers Represent Consumers—With No Oversight: A new working paper claims that for attorneys with records of public discipline, many are sole practitioners who opened firms following lawyer regulation decisions. Titled “Professional Discipline and the Labor Market: Evidence from Lawyers” and written March 7, the working paper was…
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Leading Law Schools: Relationships, Influence, And Negotiation
Michael T. Colatrella Jr. (Pacific), Leading Law Schools: Relationships, Influence, and Negotiation, 91 U. Cin. L. Rev. 82 (2022): Quality relationships with one’s constituents, especially faculty, lie at the heart of effective law school leadership. Achieving meaningful institutional goals is a group endeavor, and a law school leader must have the skills and abilities to…