ABA task force calls for sweeping changes in legal education system

The ABA should create a task force or a commission to undertake an in-depth examination of law school price and funding issues, an ABA task force says. The ABA should also establish a mechanism to institutionalize the process of assessing and improving the legal education system, the Task Force on…

Jan 24, 2014 1:58 PM CST

University of Kansas School of Law censured, fined for ‘willful’ accrediting violations

The University of Kansas School of Law has been publicly censured and fined $50,000 for admitting two students into a new LLM degree program without the ABA’s prior approval and for withholding that information from accreditors while they were considering the matter. The sanctions were announced Thursday in a press…

Dec 19, 2013 7:15 PM CST

Northwestern University School of Law receives $15 million gift

Northwestern University School of Law has received a $15 million gift from university trustee and law school alumnus Neil Bluhm and his family’s charitable foundation. The gift, the biggest ever given to the law school, is part of a $25 million gift to the university, according to this press release.…

Dec 17, 2013 11:30 PM CST

Law school enrollment down 11 percent this year over last year, 24 percent over 3 years, data shows

Law school enrollments nationwide are down 11 percent this year from last year and 24 percent from 2010, new figures show. The nation’s 202 ABA-accredited schools reported that 39,675 full- and part-time students were enrolled in a first-year J.D. program this fall, according to figures released Tuesday by the ABA…

Dec 17, 2013 2:30 PM CST

Rutgers School of Law-Camden is fined $25K and censured for accrediting violations

Rutgers School of Law-Camden has been publicly censured and fined $25,000 for violating an accrediting standard that requires law schools to use a valid and reliable admissions test to evaluate an applicant’s prospects of graduating. The sanction was announced Wednesday in a press release by the accreditation committee of the…

Dec 4, 2013 6:33 PM CST

No class certification in job stats suit against Thomas Jefferson Law School, judge rules

A judge has denied a motion for class certification by a group of Thomas Jefferson School of Law graduates who claimed they were tricked into attending the school by misleading post-graduate job statistics. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Joel M. Pressman, in an order (PDF) Monday, said the predominance…

Oct 23, 2013 7:58 PM CDT

500 law profs urge ABA legal ed council to keep faculty tenure as an accreditation requirement

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar hasn’t received much in the way of a response to its latest proposed changes in the law school accreditation standards. Only one person showed up to speak at a pair of hearings on the proposed changes in three chapters…

Oct 22, 2013 6:41 PM CDT

Link rot in SCOTUS decisions documented; half don’t go to original material

The U.S. Supreme Court has cited Internet materials 555 times since 1996, but tracking down the information isn’t always easy. According to a new study by co-authored by Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain, half of the hyperlinks in Supreme Court opinions no longer link to the information originally cited. The…

Sep 24, 2013 10:45 AM CDT

Can John Mayer make law textbooks a thing of the past? ‘It’s fun pushing the envelope,’ he says

Law Lessons Online

Sep 10, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Legal ed task force urged to address faculty salaries, federal role and core competencies

The Task Force on the Future of Legal Education got an earful of reaction Saturday to the findings of the working paper (PDF) it issued earlier this month. Much of the response was favorable. But all eight of the people who spoke at the task force’s last scheduled public hearing…

Aug 11, 2013 1:11 AM CDT

Law school financing system in need of ‘serious re-engineering,’ task force says

The current system for financing a law school education, which drives up tuition costs and student debt, is “deeply flawed” and in need of a “serious re-engineering,” an ABA task force says. And the law school accreditation standards, which impose more standardization of legal education than may be necessary, should…

Aug 1, 2013 8:20 PM CDT

Law prof stumbles upon story of early black Cornell law grad, the topic of his new book

Taking a break from proofreading his new book on civil procedure in 2004 proved fortuitous for a Cornell University law professor. Looking through the school’s digital card catalog, Kevin M. Clermont discovered a law school thesis written in 1890 by a man he had never before heard of, who would…

Jul 2, 2013 3:24 PM CDT

Letters: Blocking Access

Jul 1, 2013 9:49 AM CDT

TaxProf blogger is now sole owner of Law Professor Blogs Network

The law professor who writes TaxProf Blog is also an entrepreneur who is now sole owner of the Law Professor Blogs Network. Paul Caron, a visiting professor at Pepperdine law school, launched the network with Joe Hodnicki about nine years ago. Caron has now purchased Hodnicki’s 50 percent interest, according…

May 29, 2013 1:12 PM CDT

Are digitization and budget cuts compromising history?

“When people say everything’s online,” says Jerry Dupont of the Law Library Microform Consortium, “they’re woefully uninformed.” Dupont, founder of the LLMC, a nonprofit law library cooperative, estimates that of the 2 million unique volumes contained in America’s law libraries, only about 15 percent are available in digital form. That…

May 1, 2013 10:30 AM CDT