Law Professor Tampers with Student Evaluations
From InsideHigherEd: “This much is undisputed: One evening three years ago, a then-professor at the University of Iowa’s College of Law tampered with anonymous student evaluations that rate teaching effectiveness. Kenneth Kress admits to replacing three unfavorable student-completed questionnaires with…
Marquette Law Ranked #97 in 2007 US News Rankings
Marquette Law is back in the second tier of law school rankings after having dropped to the third tier last year. I’m shocked (massive sarcasm). See my prediction of this development from last April. Note my next prediction that Marquette…
Bar/Bri Settlement Preliminarily Approved
Judge Real preliminarily approved the settlement in the Bar/Bri antitrust case.
Legislative Audiences for Law Review Articles
Cardozo Law School held an event entitled “Trends in Federal Judicial Citations and Law Review Articles” where 7 appellate judges and several law professors discussed the general decline in court citations to law review articles. The New York Lawyer writeup…
Communicating with Students
The Washington Post runs a story on one of the most vexing problems I face in my administrative capacity–how to communicate programmatic or administrative announcements to students. The article explains that proliferation of communication technologies has reduced the likelihood that…
Gifts for Incoming First Year Law Students
A friend recently asked for gift suggestions to give to a new incoming law student. This request had a certain irony, as those who know me well know that I am completely gift-challenged (and doubly ironic, as another friend had…
Merritt on Teaching Evaluations
I’ve previously blogged on problems with student evaluations of teaching. First, I’ve expressed concern about the anonymous nature of the feedback, which means that the evaluators have reduced accountability for what they say. Second, there’s evidence that superficial things like…
The Destruction of Young Lawyers
Douglas Litowitz is issuing a second edition of the book The Destruction of Young Lawyers. I haven’t read the book, but this interview with him lays out his basic thesis. He argues that 5 key attributes of the legal profession…
West/Kaplan Propose to Settle Bar/Bri Class Action
From Law.com: West and Kaplan are proposing to settling the antitrust lawsuit over Bar/Bri for a total of $49M, of which $37M would go to class members (the rest goes to attorneys), or about $125/class member. If class members really…
NLJ on Law Professor Moonlighting
NY Lawyer (free registration req’d) republishes an NLJ article about law professors establishing “of counsel” relationships with law firms, giving the examples of Laurence Tribe at Akin Gump and Kathleen Sullivan at Quinn Emanuel. According to a Quinn Emanuel partner,…