Law Professors

Brooklyn Law Scholar to Head ACLU

For the first time in 17 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has a new public face. On Saturday, the group elected constitutional law scholar Susan Herman as president. Herman, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, told the Associated Press that she intended to reach out to communities where the…

Oct 20, 2008 5:24 PM CDT

Students Rate Law Schools: Texas No. 1 for Classrooms, Va. for Quality of Life

The University of Texas School of Law has the best classroom experience and the University of Virginia School of Law has the best quality of life, according to the Princeton Review’s new rankings. The review’s publication Best 174 Law Schools is based on surveys of 18,000 law students and school-reported…

Oct 20, 2008 4:48 PM CDT

Law Students Pursue Securities Cases for Small Investors

With an expected surge in civil and criminal fraud cases on the horizon over questions about the conduct of those involved in making mortgage loans blamed for a worldwide credit crisis, several law schools will soon be graduating a new crop of students who already have trial experience in the…

Oct 13, 2008 7:04 PM CDT

U of Utah Gets $2.5M US Grant to Promote Independent Iraq Judiciary

The law school at the University of Utah has been awarded a $2.5 million one-year grant from the U.S. State Department to help forge an independent judiciary in Iraq, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. “We can’t reform the Iraqi system, but we can inform the reformers of the system. We’re…

Oct 9, 2008 11:54 PM CDT

Prof Tells Court There is No ‘Barney Fife’ Defense to Search Violations

A Stanford University law professor who urged the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to suppress evidence of a police search alluded to the deputy in The Andy Griffith Show to make her point. At issue was whether drug and gun evidence should be tossed because police found it while searching a…

Oct 8, 2008 1:44 PM CDT

Judge, Two Law Profs Decide Mental Illness Should not Be a Secret

Two law professors and a judge whose lives have been touched by mental illness are joining to fight the stigma surrounding psychiatric diagnoses. One of the law professors, Elyn Saks of the University of Southern California, has written a book about her struggle with schizophrenia, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. The…

Oct 7, 2008 12:40 PM CDT

Tax Law Profs Create Political Issue: Did Sarah Palin Pay All Tax Due?

Tax law professors are taking center stage in the latest political issue concerning Sarah Palin’s candidacy for vice president on the Republican ticket. Among the questions they are raising about her recently released 2006 and 2007 tax returns is whether she reported all the taxable income she received for her…

Oct 6, 2008 10:41 PM CDT

Companies Prefer Litigation in Business, but not Consumer, Contracts

Companies that tout the virtues of arbitration appear to prefer litigation for disputes involving contracts with other companies, according to a study by three law professors. More than three quarters of contracts by companies studied required mandatory arbitration of consumer disputes. But fewer than 10 percent of their contracts outside…

Oct 6, 2008 12:57 PM CDT

Yale Law Students Gagged in Protest

For the second straight year, Yale Law School students protested the presence of military recruiters at the school’s career fair because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians. About 40 students dressed in interview attire and gags stood on the school’s steps on Wednesday, then…

Oct 3, 2008 2:08 PM CDT

Chemerinsky Recalls Hiring, Firing, Rehiring at UC Irvine

Constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, who last year was recruited, hired, then publicly fired and run through the ringer before being hired again, describes the experience as “the most difficult of my life.” But Chemerinsky says that the ordeal that led to his installation as the first dean of the…

Sep 26, 2008 9:55 AM CDT

Greta Van Susteren Gave Mostly A’s as a Georgetown Law Prof

Georgetown students who didn’t get an A from law professor Greta Van Susteren, now a Fox News commentator, have some explaining to do. In a YouTube video posted on TaxProf Blog, Van Susteren calls law school grading a “fraud” and says she gave A’s to almost everybody. Above the Law…

Sep 25, 2008 2:14 PM CDT

Tulane Law Dean Apologizes to La. Justices for Errors in Study of Donor Influence

The dean of Tulane law school is apologizing to the Louisiana Supreme Court for errors in a professor’s study that had found campaign contributions appear to influence the justices’ votes. Dean Lawrence Ponoroff said “miscalculation in the underlying data” had called into question the reliability of some or all of…

Sep 18, 2008 2:41 PM CDT

Junior Bankruptcy Judge is Assigned Lehman Case

The second-most junior bankruptcy judge in Manhattan will be handling the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t handle the job, says a lawyer who will be appearing before him. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck was randomly assigned to the $613 billion bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reports. Before…

Sep 16, 2008 2:50 PM CDT

‘Unrealistic Goal’ Helped Ex-Inmate Journey from Prison Cell to Yale Law

Andres Idarraga’s future didn’t look promising when his drug-dealing caught up with him and he was sentenced to a 14-year term in a Rhode Island prison. He was about 20 years old and had never graduated from high school. But he began spending all his free time in the prison…

Sep 11, 2008 11:46 PM CDT

More Law Schools Hiring Professor Power Couples

For several law schools, the hiring of law professors has become a package deal. As the number of law professor couples increases and the competition for top faculty becomes more intense, several law schools are hiring both spouses, the National Law Journal reports. The legal newspaper says these law school…

Sep 11, 2008 1:32 PM CDT