Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Education
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Chronicle: Affirmative Action in Admissions: Right in Theory, Wrong in Practice
In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education: Affirmative-Action Programs for Minority Students: Right in Theory, Wrong in Practice, by Camille Z. Charles (University of Pennsylvania), Mary J. Fischer (University of Connecticut), Margarita A. Mooney (University of North Carolina) & Douglas S. Massey (Princeton University): The use of race-sensitive criteria in admissions continues to be controversial, and critics have leveled…
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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup
Saturday: Law Profs: Courts Unlikely to Overturn AIG Tax Bi-coastal Tax Chutzpah: CA & NY Congressmen Say They Live in Maryland to Claim Property Tax Break on Million Dollar Vacation Homes BNA Tax Management Advisory Board Meets on Estate, Gifts and Trusts Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Germain: The Bigger Problem Underlying the AIG…
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Faculty Speed Dating
Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Speed Dating: For all of their big ideas, sometimes faculty are a bit like wallflowers at a high school dance; they need a little push to make the first move. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the University of Southern California is using “speed dating” techniques to encourage professors to work…
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Breaking NCAA Basketball News
NCAA Expands March Madness To Include 4,096 Teams (Hat Tip: Lou Bilionis.)
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WSJ: Law School Applications Surge During Recession
Today's Wall Street Journal: Best Defense? Seeking a Haven in Law School: The job market for lawyers, hit hard by the recession, seems to reach new lows every day. But that has not done much to discourage the thousands who are lining up to become the next generation of attorneys. In seeming defiance of logic,…
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Final 2008-09 Moot Court Rankings
Here are the final 2008-09 Top 50 law school appellate advocacy rankings from Brian Koppen's Law School Advocacy site: 1. South Texas 2. UC-Hastings 3. Georgetown 4. Washington University 5. Mississippi College 6. Loyola-Chicago 7. Seton Hall 8. Brooklyn 9. Detroit-Mercy 10. Chicago-Kent 11. Southwestern 12. Mercer 13. Denver 14. Texas-Wesleyan 15. Georgia 16. Regent…
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More Research = More Uninspired Students
Today's Inside Higher Ed: Unread Monographs, Uninspired Undergrads, by Elizabeth Redden: Scholarly output rises; undergraduates are disengaged. “This is the real calamity of the research mandate — 10,000 harried professors forced to labor on disregarded print, and 100,000 unwitting students missing out on rigorous face-to-face learning,” Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University,…
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The Law Professor Social Network
Brian Leiter (Chicago) flagged this fascinating paper on SSRN, Reproduction of Hierarchy? A Social Network Analysis of the American Law Professoriate, which uses network science in examining the social structure of the 7,200 tenure-track and tenured law professors at the 184 ABA-approved law schools. For each professor, the authors compared the U.S. News rank of the…
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Will Public Law Schools “Face Cuts in Ambitions”?
New York Times: State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions, by Tamar Lewin: When Michael Crow became president of Arizona State University seven years ago, he promised to make it “The New American University,” with 100,000 students by 2020. It would break down the musty old boundaries between disciplines, encourage advanced research and entrepreneurship to…
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Another Law Prof Dying of ALS
Folowing up on Sunday's post on Steven Gey (Florida State): Today's Faculty Lounge has a moving post about Michael Goldsmith (BYU), who also is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS – Lou Gehrig's disease). Michael wrote about his plight in Newsweek last November, and the New York Times picked up the story, as well as other media…
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Probation Condition: No Law School For You!
National Law Journal: Ex-Top Aide to Detroit's Fallen Mayor Is Out of Jail, But Won't Return to Law School Any Time Soon: The former top aide and mistress of Detroit's fallen mayor has completed her jail sentence for lying under oath, but she won't be going back to [Wayne State] law school anytime soon. Under…
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Law Student Chart of Economic Gloom
The Shark has assembled announcements of associate layoffs and summer program reductions in this one chart (which currently lists the cutbacks at 29 law firm and government agencies).
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More on Laptops in the Classroom
Following up on my latest laptops in the classroom post: Tax Prof Scott Taylor (University of St. Thomas asks: Banning Laptops: A Good Idea?: Law professors are currently debating whether to ban student use of laptops in the law school classroom. The overriding concern is that in-class use of laptops is distracting, diminishes student engagement,…
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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup
Saturday: Illinois Gov. to Propose 50% Increase in State Income Tax CTJ Applauds Obama's Tax Proposals Smith: Let the Poor Sue for Refund Without Full Payment Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Update on Steven Gey's Condition IRS Releases 2008 IRS Data Book NYSBA Releases Tax Reports
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Update on Steven Gey’s Condition
I previously have blogged (here, here, and here) the tragic news that one of the true giants and nicest people in our business, Steven G. Gey, David and Deborah Fonvielle and Donald and Janet Hinkle Professor of Law at Florida State, is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Please…
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Will the Economy Kill School Laptop Requirements?
Inside Higher Ed: Is the Laptop Love-In Over?: More than a decade ago, the trend of colleges buying laptops for their students or partially subsidizing the cost was all the rage. Now, with the economy in shambles and students bringing more of their own technology to campus, some institutions are reevaluating their laptop programs.
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More on Grade Inflation
Following up on my prior post, Lake Wobegon Michigan: 50 Years of Grade Inflation: Inside Higher Ed: Grade Inflation Seen Rising: A professor who has crusaded against grade inflation by gathering and publicizing data has released his largest analysis to date — and it suggests that grade inflation continues to be a broad problem…
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Students Learn Better Via Podcast Than Live Lecture
eSchool News: Podcast Trumps Lecture in One College Study; Researcher: Students Who Listened to a Lecture Via iTunes U Outperformed Those Who Attended in Person — Pause Button a Factor, by Dennis Carter: The ability to pause and rewind podcast lectures gave the upper hand to college students in a recent study that compared the…
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Study: Decline in Lawyer IQs
A British study reports that the average IQ of lawyers has declined over the past 12 years, moving closer to the "average" range. The Lawyer.com Legal Blog Watch Legal Writing Prof Blog
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Tax Animations
I previously have praised the 690 wonderful tax charts (in 33 categories, including the cases and transactions featured in the Tax Stories (here) and Business Tax Stories (here) books) available free of charge on Andrew Mitchel's web site. Andrew has now made available three animations dealing with § 351 exchanges
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Whither the 13-Week Semester?
Like many law schools, Cincinnati adopted the 13-week semester soon after the ABA changed Standard 304(a) ("A law school shall have an academic year of not fewer than 130 days on which classes are regularly scheduled in the law school, extending into not fewer than eight calendar months."). There was widespread support among students and…
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Faculty Pay Up 3.7% in 2008-09
In today's Inside Higher Ed: Tightening Picture for Faculty Pay, by Scott Jaschik: The rate of increase in faculty salaries is down this year – and that is evident even in data collected before many colleges started to announce furloughs and, in some cases, salary cuts. The median increase for faculty members at four-year colleges…
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Please Repeat the Question
The NYU Law Revue offers this hilarious take on the laptops in the classroom debate: Please Repeat the Question from Amanda Bakale on Vimeo. (Hat Tip: Volokh Conspiracy, Donald Clarke.)
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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup
Saturday: IRS Loses Major Virgin Islands Tax Shelter Case Shanske: The Original Property Tax Revolutionaries Leviner: A New Era of Tax Enforcement Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads SOI Releases Winter 2009 SOI Bulletin Zelinsky: The False Modesty of Davis Bertrand & Morse: What Do High-Interest Borrowers Do With Their Tax Rebate?
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Will Sabbaticals Fall Victim to the Economic Downturn?
Inside Higher Ed: Sabbaticals on Leave, by Jack Stripling: It is perhaps no surprise that something that sounds as good as a sabbatical is now viewed in some quarters as a luxury these troubled times cannot abide. Several college leaders have announced in recent months that they will curtail or suspend sabbaticals altogether next year,…