Law Professors

Retired Harvard Law Prof Pleads Guilty to Vehicular Homicide

A retired Harvard law professor avoided jail time when he pleaded guilty on Monday to vehicular homicide. Retired international law professor Detlev Vagts, 82, was sentenced to three years of probation and six months of house arrest for the accident last year that killed a woman on a scooter, report…

Sep 20, 2011 1:41 PM CDT

Fordham Shuts Down 3L’s Farm Program, Makes ‘Catch-22’ Demand for Catering Permit

Fordham University has shut down a third-year law student’s farm-share program that benefited a local soup kitchen as well as students and faculty hungering for fresh produce. The university claimed the Farm to Fordham program needed a catering permit, the New York Times reports. Buyers had paid about $150 a…

Sep 19, 2011 11:56 AM CDT

Hofstra Gets $20M Gift from Top Grad Who Earned Legal Degree After Age 50, Renames Law School

An unusual law student who earned his legal degree from Hofstra University after age 50 has gifted the school with a record $20 million. The law school is now changing its name to honor Maurice A. Deane, who already had donated generously on numerous fronts, along with his wife, Barbara,…

Sep 14, 2011 6:59 PM CDT

Group Hits Affirmative Action at UW Law School; Protesters Storm News Conference

More protests erupted in Wisconsin on Tuesday, this time over a study (PDF) that saw reverse discrimination at work in admissions at the University of Wisconsin’s law school and undergraduate college. The Center for Equal Opportunity released the study results at a press conference on Tuesday interrupted by about 100…

Sep 14, 2011 3:39 PM CDT

Stanford Law Prof’s New Book Argues Black Women Should Consider Husbands of Other Races

A Stanford University law professor argues in a controversial new book that black women should consider marrying men of a different race. The book is titled Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. The author, Ralph Richard Banks, is a black law professor who…

Sep 13, 2011 10:30 AM CDT

Senator Reportedly Blocked Law Dean for 10th Circuit Because of International Law Background

An Oklahoma senator reportedly blocked the University of Tulsa’s law dean for a federal appellate nomination because she has a background in international law. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has been an outspoken opponent of using international law to decide cases, NewsOK reports. His objections effectively killed the nomination of University…

Sep 12, 2011 11:53 AM CDT

Hastings Dean Invites Law Students to Walk with Him, After They Execute a Release

The dean of a California law school is taking the concept of office hours to an entirely new environment, by inviting students to join him on his morning walk to work. But there are a couple of advance requirements, explains Frank H. Wu, who serves as chancellor and dean of…

Sep 7, 2011 12:36 AM CDT

Need an Excel Spreadsheet to Track Sperm Donor Children? Law Prof Sees Need for Regulations

Some sperm donors have fathered as many as 150 children, a statistic that is leading to calls for more regulation of artificial insemination. The numbers can be tracked through a website where families list children born through artificial insemination and the identifying number given their sperm donor fathers, the New…

Sep 6, 2011 1:51 PM CDT

Chinese Law Prof, Fired and Fined for Violating One-Child Policy, Tried Selling Himself

A law professor who was fired and charged a $37,000 “social upbringing fee” for violating China’s one-child policy tried putting himself up for sale to raise the money. Yang Zhizhu lost his job at Beijing’s China Youth University for Political Sciences after he refused to pay the fine, levied after…

Sep 2, 2011 1:13 PM CDT

If You Had a Do-Over, Which Classes Would You Spend More Time on or Take in Law School?

Last week, we noted a survey conducted by George Washington University Law School that asked about 13,500 alumni to list which elective courses they considered the most useful and which classes they wish they had taken. Those results? Alums who had took an evidence class were glad they did, and…

Aug 31, 2011 8:00 PM CDT

New Initiative Promotes Legal Ed Innovation and ‘Practice-Ready Lawyers’

A new initiative called Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers is encouraging law schools to experiment with interactive classes with the goal of producing more “practice-ready lawyers.” Launched last week, Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers promotes innovative teaching with a new website to help educators learn from each other. The project is also planning conferences…

Aug 29, 2011 10:30 AM CDT

Around the Blawgosphere: Law Prof Bloggers See Initial Anonymity of ‘LawProf’ as Strategic

The word got out last weekend that University of Colorado Law School professor Paul Campos is the author of the Inside the Law School Scam, a blog that offers his take on the cost of legal education and questions the quality of law professors’ teaching and the value of their…

Aug 26, 2011 1:30 PM CDT

Law Profs Worry That Plan to Pulp Millions of Federal Court Files Will Destroy Historical Goldmine

In the digital age, there’s less of a need to keep paper records on hand, and federal officials are in the process of destroying millions of court files in an effort to cut storage costs. But law professors and historians say seemingly mundane material can be a treasure trove of…

Aug 26, 2011 12:18 AM CDT

Longtime Law Prof Sues U of Pittsburgh for Age Discrimination

After 30 years at the University of Pittsburgh, longtime tenured tax law professor William Brown moved to Duquesne University in 2000, where he served as director of the business school’s graduate tax program. Then, in 2006, he was recruited back to Pittsburgh and won the law school’s Excellence in Teaching…

Aug 24, 2011 7:45 PM CDT

Law Prof Blogging on ‘Law School Scam’ Is No Longer Anonymous

The law professor who accused his colleagues throughout legal education of scamming law students has revealed his identity: He’s Paul Campos of the University of Colorado Law School. When Campos began blogging this month at Inside the Law School Scam, he identified himself as an anonymous tenured law professor “located…

Aug 22, 2011 1:06 PM CDT