Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Education
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Frazier on AI for non-tech students
Kevin Frazier (University of Texas) posted this to LinkedIn, and with his permission I am copying it over here. I invited Kevin to draft a short intro. Here is his text. The LI post follows. There’s a shortage of scholars–junior and senior–studying AI governance. Many of the leading minds in the academy–both in law and…
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Levy: “A Lawyer’s Guide to the Era of AI”
Colin Levy (Malbek (in-house) and Albany Law) has announced the forthcoming publication of “Code Switched: A Lawyer’s Guide to the Era of AI,” from Amplify Publishing. The (somewhat breathless) description of the book is: What if the tasks that used to define your workweek–reviewing contracts, researching case law, drafting routine agreements–could be done in minutes…
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Dating in Law School: Dating Tips for the Tinder Etc. Generation
The National Jurist has an article (“Dating in law school: 8 lessons on love, balance and healthy relationships“) that was intriguing. It also reminded me that I was very old fashioned as well as out of touch. “Law school has a way of making everything feel high stakes. Every class matters. Every exam matters. Every…
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Is Your University or Law School in Financial Trouble?
Illinois Institute of Technology and its law school are letting faculty go. Joe Patrice for Above the Law highlights a review of law schools that suggests that many are on the financial ropes. “Professor Paul Campos has spent years chronicling law school financial shenanigans. In his new paper (which he flagged over at Lawyers, Guns & Money . .…
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Prior Positions Deans Held Before Their Current Deanship
I previously posted about data (here, here, here, here, and here) in AALS Rosenblatt’s Deans Database. The database includes a list of Prior Positions Before Deanship. No surprise but many current deans were previously deans elsewhere or associate deans. As Afra Afsharipour has written, the associate dean position is the primary pipeline for future deans.,
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Legendary Professors Inspire the Next Generation of Catholic Academics
National Catholic Register, The Professor Pipeline: Legendary Teachers Continue to Inspire the Next Generation of Catholic Academics: [There is a] long legacy of legendary Christian scholars mentoring their students and inspiring them to follow in their footsteps. Examples from history include St. Albert the Great’s mentorship of St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Ambrose’s of St.…
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Pepperdine’s 2026-27 Theme: Courage
In an email sent to faculty and staff on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, Pepperdine University President Jim Gash (JD ’93) announced “Courage” as the University’s annual theme for the 2026–2027 academic year. Each year of my presidency, I have had the honor of selecting a theme to guide our reflections as we learn and grow…
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NY Times: Why So Many CEOs (and Deans) Are Getting a Chief of Staff
New York Times, Why So Many C.E.O.s Are Getting a Chief of Staff: Since early 2020, postings for [a chief of staff] role have increased 85 percent, according to Indeed, the job posting site. That’s a faster clip than for executive assistants and secretaries, whose jobs are also tied to helping business leaders manage their…
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LSAT Score Inflation Continued in 2023-2026
Following up on my previous post, LSAT Score Inflation: with LSAC’s release of LSAT Percentile Table: 2023-2026 Testing Years, Derek Muller (Notre Dame) notes the continued rise in LSAT scores and questions whether law schools are continuing to chase LSAT medians despite the increased compression among high-end LSAT scores.
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DeStefano: How Lawyers Can Add Value in the Age of AI
Michele DeStefano (Miami; visiting at Harvard Law School), How Lawyers Can Add Value in the Age of AI, The Practice (July/Aug. 2026):
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Book of the Day: Firsts Abroad: First-Generation Students’ Journeys Outward and Upward by Jeremy Townley
Firsts Abroad: First-Generation Students’ Journeys Outward and Upward by Jeremy Townley Law schools have increasingly focused on first generation students. Should schools be promoting study abroad for first gen students? Rutgers University Press (2026) The publisher’s description of the book: Across the country, flagship universities and liberal arts colleges, regional state campuses and Ivy League institutions…
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How Law Schools Welcome the Incoming Class
A new law school year is coming upon us. I began wondering about the traditions at different law schools for welcoming the entering class. Here is what I received when I asked my trust Microsoft Copilot: “Traditions of Incoming Law School Classes Incoming law school classes often develop unique traditions that reflect their diversity, backgrounds,…
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Madhavi Sunder — U.S. News: Measuring What Matters in Legal Education?
Madhavi Sunder looks critically at the U.S. News and Review law school rankings in this piece. Here is an abstract: “The most influential ranking system for law schools — the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings report — does not consistently measure what matters most in legal education: excellent and impactful scholarship and teaching focused on…
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Student Activism Causes UC San Diego to Cut ties with the Border Patrol
Is your university working with the U.S. government in immigration enforcement? UC San Diego, which is near the U.S./Mexico border no longer is. Phoebe Huss for CalMatters reports on what appears to be successful student activism. Students and faculty at UC San Diego protested in response to campus police collaboration with the Border Patrol through a federal grant…
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Book of the Week
Oxford University Press announces the publication of the second volume of Constitutional Democracy in Crisis edited by our colleagues, Mark Graber (Maryland), Mark Tushnet (Harvard), Sanford Levinson (Texas), and Antonia Barragia (University of Milan). You can find the table of contents here. It’s a star-studded line-up addressing the crucial issues of our time. A must…
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Worst of the Worst????
The International Academy of Trial Lawyers has condemned statements by James Percival, Department of Homeland Security General Counsel, which single out for criticism federal district judges who have ruled against the Administration. He has a posted “worst of the worst” list of judges, parodying lists already created to vilify violent criminals. Such flagrant attacks on…
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Justice Department Accuses Duke Law School of Racial Discrimination in Admissions
Christine Charonsky for Law.com (subscription required) reports that “The DOJ alleges Duke Law deliberately used race in admissions for its 2023–2025 entering classes.Investigators claim Duke Law used diversity-focused essays and application `tags’ to produce admissions advantages for Black and Hispanic applicants.The DOJ is seeking a voluntary compliance agreement, while Duke says it is reviewing the…
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Moot Court Rankings
The National Jurist has published a ranking of the moot court programs at various law schools. You can find it here.
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Never Too Late for Law School
This story about Libby Downey, an 88 year-old woman who is enrolled in law school at Monterey College of Law was just too heartwarming to ignore. She’s starting with a master’s in legal studies but then …. ? Ms. Downey, you are an inspiration to us all.
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Changes at the Top
Long time Harvard Law School, Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin, who now leads the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, is leaving Cambridge for the sunny confines of Palo Alto, where she will become Dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. Story is here. Also this week, Brown University’s 19th President, Christina Paxson announced that the 2026-27 year, her 15th,…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Hopes and Dreams for Our Fall 2026 Classes
As some of you know, in this semester, I return full time to the classroom after serving as a dean for twelve years, eight at my current home, McGeorge, and four at the Bowen Law School in Arkansas. I am as excited as I am nervous, and, to implement a recommendation from a dear friend,…
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An Interesting Approach to Solving the AI Misuse Conundrum Regarding Take-Home Projects
Jasper Roe (Durham University), Mike Perkins (British University Vietnam), & Louie Giray (Mapua University), Assessment twins: An approach for strengthening assessment validity in the age of generative AI (6-4-26). This article is worth a read and some consideration. For those of us who teach legal writing and upper-division writing seminars worry equally about learning and…
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Wendel, Should Law Schools Teach Responsible Use of AI?
Brad Wendel, Edwin H. Woodruff Professor of Law (Cornell Law School), Should Law Schools Teach Responsible Use of AI? (August 2, 2026). Wendel begins his substack with one word, “No.” I will mostly leave it to you to enjoy Wendel’s very readable prose, but I will excerpt one quote to give you a flavor: I…
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Podcast: Tech problems foiled the Washington July 2026 bar exam. What’s next for law grads?
As has been reported in many places, the July bar examination in Washington was a debacle of epic proportions. In this podcast, Seattle U Law Dean Anthony E. Varona talked about the incident and various concerns with the proposed solutions by the Washington State Bar Association and the Washington Supreme Court. UPDATE (Aug. 7): See…
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More on Recent ABA House of Delegates Actions
In addition to several resolutions related to the ABA Council and law school accreditation, the ABA House of Delegates adopted a range of resolutions this week. From an ABA announcement: The American Bar Association House of Delegates adopted more than 40 policy matters on a wide variety of issues including the independence of the legal…