Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Education
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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…
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Law Deans Win Primaries for Governorships
David Yellen on X: “It is interesting and cool that the Democratic nominees for Governor in Colorado and Michigan are both former law school deans: @pweiser (University of Colorado) and @JocelynBenson (Wayne State). Both were successful deans, and are outstanding public servants and nice people.” / X After victories in their respective, former law deans…
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An expanding approach to bar admissions? New Mexico creates an alternative to bar admission
News on bar admissions. The New Mexico Supreme Court yesterday announced approval of a skill-based pathway for law-school graduates to become licensed lawyers. Justices previewed the program for state legislators in June, saying it could help address the state’s shortage of lawyers. A news release Tuesday noted that New Mexico officially qualifies as a “legal desert”…
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Law Schools Are Asking the Wrong Question About AI
In an article last week from Inside Higher Ed, James Finkelstein comments on how some law schools are responding to AI. “The more interesting is not about academic integrity. It’s about what it means to assess professional competence in a fast-changing field.” From the article: The discussion has been framed largely as a choice between…
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Breaking News! ABA Law School Diversity Standard Survives—For Now
Christine Charnosky at Law.com (registration required) reports that the American Bar Association House of Delegates voted today to send the proposed repeal of Standard 206 back to council to reconsider. “The council had argued that repeal was necessary to protect its federal recognition and preserve state courts’ confidence in ABA accreditation. Opponents maintain that diversity…
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Luedeman on AI and Accommodations
Richard Luedeman (University of Baltimore) reached out to me following my recent post on law faculty innovating with AI policies and shared this forthcoming article: “The AI-Accommodation Dilemma in Legal Education” (forthcoming 33 Michigan Technology Law Review (2027)). The abstract: Two major trends are forcing American law schools to rethink their approach to learning assessments, and they…
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Michael Simkovic: The War for Talent — Law Professors Who Publish in the Three Most Selective Finance Journals
Michael Simkovic‘s new paper “The War for Talent” may be of interest to readers. Here is the abstract: Law professors who publish in the three most selective finance journals are rare, and law schools compete for them. Since 1990, thirty-nine professors at fourteen U.S. law schools have published fifty-seven such articles. Pairing three decades of…
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Leadership Education in Law Schools
As orientations loom for incoming JD students, Deans and others welcoming new cohorts are thinking of how to echo what they said to graduates last May and June: Lawyers are leaders. As almost all of us in legal education know, however, we talk the leadership talk but all too often fail to walk the leadership…
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The Dean Controversy at the University of Kentucky School of Law Continues
Controversy continues over the appointment of a dean of the University of Kentucky law school. Eugene Volokh on the Volokh Conspiracy (Court Expresses Doubt About Lawprof’s Attempt to Block Appointment of Federal Judge as U Kentucky Law School Dean) provides an update on the court challenge by a faculty member to the new dean. As…
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No- and Low-Cost Law School Casebooks
It may be too late in the game for law professors to choose a new casebook for this Fall’s courses, but that has not stopped our colleagues from distributing recently what I can only call a deluge of announcements of new editions of old texts, and in some instances, new texts altogether. In almost every…
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Chicago Kent Cuts Faculty
The Illinois Institute of Technology has laid off approximately 160 faculty and staff just before the start of the fall semester according to a university spokesperson. The university’s faculty senate issued a vote of no confidence in the president and provost prior to faculty and staff receiving layoff notices. https://www.wbez.org/education/2026/07/31/illinois-institute-of-technology-cuts-160-faculty-and-staff-just-before-fall-semester
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U Conn Hiring for Three Positions
The University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Law seeks candidates for an open-rank clinical faculty position in its Legal Practice Program (“LP Program”), an open-rank clinical faculty position as Director of Academic Success and Bar Preparation, and a lateral position for the Thomas F. Gallivan, Jr. Chair of Real Property Law. All positions begin in…
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How Many Former (Recovering) Law Deans?
I previously posted about data (here, here, here, and here) from AALS Rosenblatt’s Deans Database. The database lists 564 former law deans and lists their times of service (which is especially interesting in light of the dip in law dean tenure to less than three years).
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The 48 ABA-Approved Religiously Affiliated Law Schools
ABA, Council-Approved Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: Another religious affiliated law school not on the ABA’s list:
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Tax Lawyers Must Adapt to AI Now. It’s Already Changed the Game.
Bloomberg Law, Tax Lawyers Must Adapt to AI Now. It’s Already Changed the Game.: Artificial intelligence is no longer a future issue for tax lawyers. It is already changing how research is done, how large volumes of documents are reviewed, how contracts and motions are prepared, how audit responses are built, and how clients measure…
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Should Law Professors Charge For Their Substacks?
Josh Blackman (South Texas), Some Tentative Thoughts on Substack: Many readers frequently ask if I would set up a Substack. My usual response is that all of my posts are freely available on the Volokh Conspiracy. They reply that Substack makes it easier to read content in newsletter form, delivered right to their inboxes. That…
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After Raising Associate Salaries, Milbank Announces Summer Bonuses
In June, BigLaw firm Milbank LLP announced an increase in its lockstep associate salary scale. In July, Milbank announced further compensation news: it will pay 2026 summer bonuses to associates on the same schedule as in 2024 and 2025. This compensation news meshes well with this spring’s Am Law 100 analysis, which found broad increases…
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Book of the Day: Research Handbook on Global Legal Education
Research Handbook on Global Legal Education (Elgar 2026) Research Handbooks in Legal Education and the Legal Profession Edited by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, University of California Irvine School of Law and Bryant G. Garth, American Bar Foundation, USA Publication Date: August 2026 This Research Handbook examines legal training and its impact on law and society. Leading experts…
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The Most Stressful Law Schools
Chat GPT generated the following response to “what are the most stressful law schools?”: “There’s no universally accepted ranking of the “most stressful” law schools, because stress depends on grading policies, academic culture, cost of attendance, job placement pressure, and student support. However, schools with highly competitive environments, demanding workloads, or intense recruiting cultures are…
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Article: Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power of Small-Group Instruction by Michael I. Meyerson
This law review article caught my eye. I have always enjoyed teaching medium to large classes. But seminars were often the best learning experiences for all involved. Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power of Small-Group Instruction by Michael I. Meyerson Abstract Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school…