Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Education
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: What If Your Students Ask Too Many Questions? Be Transparent
In response to my call for topics you would like me to address in these “Teaching Tidbits,” I heard from a thoughtful and very student-centered colleague who teaches at a law school in the Midwest. This colleague shared that she very much appreciated student questions, but she was concerned that the questions were using up…
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Four-Year Visa Cap Blocked
Of note to law schools (particularly with SJD programs, joint degree programs or part-time options), earlier this week a federal district judge issued an injunction halting a Department of Homeland Security regulation related to “duration of status.” The DHS regulation sought to eliminate the traditional “duration of status” policy—which allows students to stay until they complete…
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Tax Workshop Clearinghouse: A Reminder and a Renewed Invitation
Earlier this year, TaxProf Blog announced a Tax Workshop Clearinghouse, a resource designed to make it easier for workshop and conference organizers to identify scholars with current works in progress, while also giving tax scholars a simple way to indicate that they have projects that would benefit from presentation and feedback. The initial response was…
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Scholars at Risk: Free to Think 2026 Report
The Free to Think 2026 report published by Scholars at Risk on September 15, 2026, documents 382 attacks on higher education communities across 59 countries and territories between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. The report discusses escalating pressures on higher education in the United States. From the report’s section on the United States:…
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Call for Participants: Half-Day Symposium Program
Here’s an open call for a Half-Day Symposium entitled, “Meeting the Moment: Reclaiming Academic Freedom, Democratic Governance, and the Values of Higher Education,” scheduled for Thursday, January 7, 2:35-5:25pm at the 2027 AALS Annual Meeting. I am pleased to be participating, the organizers have some terrific speakers already lined up, and they are looking to…
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Legal Education Podcasts
Most of my podcast listening and podcast producing has little to do with law or legal education (I am a long-standing GFOP, and IYKYK). Once in a while, however, I come across a legal education episode that is simply too good not to share. So: at the podcast “How to Navigate Law School,” produced by…
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Law Firm Leadership Training
David Lat, at Bloomberg Law, reported recently on a law firm “leadership development” program that both cuts against my recent observations about employer-side professional development (me: little of it remains) and also aligns pretty well with my own brand of “leadership education” (me: not anchored in professional responsibility or legal ethics or imagined models of…
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GWU Law Financial Challenges
From the campus newspaper at George Washington University: “GW Law lays off personnel amid financial challenges, dean confirms” GW Law laid off personnel to tackle the school’s financial challenges, its dean confirmed Wednesday, marking the third school to publicly confirm layoffs this fiscal year. Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew confirmed in an email to The Hatchet…
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UCLA chancellor rebukes law school event with 9/11 ‘mastermind’ attorney; organizers push back
From the left coast? The Los Angeles Times reports on an interesting turn of events in these turbulent times. On September 11, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk in a statement distanced the university from a law school symposium about the 9/11 (here is the webpage for the event) “that faced criticism for including a lawyer for…
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Correction – President Hoffer
My post last Friday congratulating Melissa Hoffer on her new leadership position at Vermont Law and Graduate School misstated her title and, in one of three places, misspelled her name. Melissa Hoffer is the incoming president of Vermont Law and Graduate School. The school’s announcement of the good news should be here, although I cannot…
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How Often Are Articles in T14 Law Reviews Written In Part By AI?
Julian Nyarko (Stanford), How Often Are Articles in Top Law Reviews Written In Part By AI?: Over the last few weeks, there has been some interesting discussion around the use of AI in the writing of law review articles, with views among legal scholars varying quite widely. To me, the question of whether AI use…
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Trump Administration Blocks Iranian Students From Taking the LSAT
ABA Journal, LSAC Notifies Iranian Students that US Sanctions Prohibit Them from Taking LSAT: The Law School Admission Council has notified Iranian students that they are prohibited from taking the LSAT after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed the suspension of several general licenses in its Iran Sanctions program.…
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Law School Student Loan Programs: A Good Idea?
Rebecca Carballo for Politico report on how some universities and law schools are responding to limits on federal student loans. Some law school, including the University of Kansas and Washington University in St. Louis are now lending directly to their students. Is this a good idea?
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Quinnipiac Launches Three-Year Evening JD
Quinnipiac School of Law has relaunched its evening J.D. program as a new three-year curriculum, rather than the conventional four (or more) years. The innovative redesign “combines evening on-campus instruction, strategically placed online semesters and integrated bar preparation”—a holistic rethinking that differentiates this program from other accelerated part-time programs. Directing the program is taxprof Jenny…
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LSA 2027: Submissions Now Open!
Submissions are now open for the 2027 Global Meeting on Law and Society, which will be from June 22 through June 25 in Hong Kong, with a day of virtual sessions on June 26. The deadline for submissions is October 27, 2026, at 12 pm ET. The full call, including options for virtual participation, below…
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DEI refuses to die?
Food for thought. Kenin M. Spivak for The Blaze writes that “[a]lthough the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and civil rights laws dating back to 1866 prohibit nearly all racial preferences, most Americans oppose these preferences, and Donald Trump was elected vowing to eliminate DEI — progressives won’t give up. Their race-obsessed thinking reduces…
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Best Law Schools for Hot Dogs
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Microsoft Copilot generated the following response to “Best Law Schools for Hot Dogs”: “If you’re looking for a law school with a `hot dog’ theme or a tradition tied to one, the George Washington University Law School (GW Law) is the standout choice. GW Law has a well‑known alumni‑driven tradition called From Hot…
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Best Law School Curriculum
Microsoft Copilot generated this response to my question about the best law school curriculums: “If by `best overall curriculum’ you mean the law school that offers the broadest, most flexible, and most comprehensive legal education, many legal academics and practitioners would point to Harvard Law School. Harvard offers more than 400 courses, extensive clinical programs,…
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Book of the Week
Julie C. Suki, Leonard F. Manning Professor of Law at Fordham University in her new book The Shadow Court offers a novel approach to the U.S. Supreme Court’s current monopoly on constitutional interpretation. Prof. Suk suggests Congress create an additional constitutional court, what she calls a Shadow Court, that would rule on contested constitutional questions…
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Holding Law Enfocement Accountable
When federal officers break the law, how can state prosecutors hold them accountable for criminal conduct? Since this past spring, a team of law students, led by Professor Emerita Deborah Ramirez, has been building the answer through the Roadmap Project, an initiative of the Criminal Justice Task Force at Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR). The goal…
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Melissa Hoffer Named President at Vermont Law and Graduate School
Vermont Law and Graduate School’s press release announcing President Hoffer’s appointment is here. As the first ever climate chief in Massachusetts and former Acting General Counsel of the EPA under President Biden, President Hoffer is the perfect choice to lead Vermont Law School which has long earned a place as one of the top law…
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Study: “When Demands Equal Distress: An Updated Understanding of Lawyer Mental Health and Well-being”
From an ABA Press release: “The American Bar Association, through its Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP), and Krill Strategies, a Pittsburgh-based legal advisory firm, released a new nationwide study on lawyer mental health and burnout that updates a 10-year old benchmark and reveals substantial distress, burnout and risky alcohol use within the legal sector. . . . Approximately one-fifth…
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Justice and Education Departments Alleged That Admissions Practices at UC Berkeley School of Law Unlawfully Favored African American Applicants and Discriminated Against White and Asian Candidates
Reuters reports that the U.S. Justice and Education Departments alleged that admissions practices at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law unlawfully favored African American applicants and discriminated against white and Asian candidates. The U.S. Department of Justice press release on the investigation state that “The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division (DOJ) and…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: How to Build a Good Working Relationship with Your Students
The more you invest in your students, the more likely your students are to invest themselves in your class. We saw this principle play out repeatedly in student and alumni comments when we conducted the school visits for What the Best Law Teachers Do. Having witnessed these benefits myself, I have adopted two practices I first…
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National Jurist: Top law schools for human rights law
The National Jurist has listed law schools that have “earned a place on [its] Human Rights Law Honor Roll, recognized for the strength of their programs. Following the list, you’ll find the latest developments and news from human rights law programs at these various law schools.” Click the link above to get the low down.