Law School Innovation

Yale Law School Information Society Project Fellowships

Having worked with the ISP for the last few years, I encourage applicants for this program that combines interest in law and information policy. A law degree is not required, though of course lawyers are welcome into the program.  -- Anupam Chander

Yale Information Society Project Fellowships for 2009-2010

The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School is seeking applicants for 2009-2010 postdoctoral fellowships.  The ISP resident fellowships are designed for recent graduates of law or Ph.D. programs who are interested in careers in teaching and public service in any of the following areas:  law and innovation; Internet and telecommunications law and policy; intellectual property law; access to knowledge; first amendment law; media studies; privacy; civil liberties online; cybercrime and cybersecurity; social software; standards and technology policy; bioethics, biotechnology, and law and genomics; and law, technology, and culture generally.

Information about applying is available at the ISP web site at:http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/6523.htm. Applications for 2009-10 ISP fellowships must be postmarked no later than Feb. 1, 2009.

Throwing bombs

Like Doug, I have been reflecting on the number of law professors involved in the Obama transition, and wondering what that will mean.  I don't think many of them will bring radical change, for good or bad, despite the fact that we might expect or even hope for that from those in the academy.

As I read legal scholarship these days, I see many pieces analyzing doctrines, tracing historical developments, seeking adjustments to parts of rules or laws, and suggesting new "perspectives," but very few that broadly attack a law or practice as fundamentally unjust.  We have many exceptional analysts and commentators, but few bomb-throwers, and those that exist often are outside the core of elite institutions.

It could be that we are fortunate enough to live in a nation without unjust laws, but I doubt that many of us would truly agree with that statement.  Given that most of us would agree that there are unjust laws, why are we not more focused on attacking them?  I suspect that at least two factors dampen the excitement for overarching reform within legal scholarship.

First, we do live in a society where the laws are the product of a democratic process.  Thus, if we identify a law as unjust, we are suggesting either a flaw in the process or that the majority of people in our nation are not only wrong about something, but at some level that they are fundamentally, morally wrong.  Understandably, we are reluctant to attack our democracy or our fellow citizens.

Second, to call a law unjust requires a position from which to determine justice as a moral position.  Legal philosophers discuss this in depth, but generally not in connection to a live issue, while the rest of us are often uncomfortable with the ideas of positivism or natural law, and certainly loath to connect a contemporary debate to either.

Still... if we don't throw the bombs, who will?

-- Mark Osler

Interesting (and important?) legal development for online law grad

A helpful reader pointed me to this news of a seemingly important ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.  Here are the basics:

The state supreme court has ordered that a graduate of an online law school be allowed to take the bar exam. Ross Mitchell of West Newton sued the Board of Bar Examiners for preventing him from taking the exam because he does not have a degree from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association.

Mitchell, a computer systems and management consultant who has lived in Massachusetts since 1981, took his classes through Concord Law School, which is part of the Kaplan online university. He is licensed to practice law in California, the only state that has accepted candidates from online schools, and in March he was among the first four Concord graduates admitted to argue before the Supreme Court.

In a 6-1 decision released Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court opened the door to Mitchell and other graduates of online law schools, but noted that the exception is limited to those with strong records in competitive programs. The court cited Mitchell's "exemplary degree of success" and his acceptance to the California bar.

The full ruling in Mitchell v. Board of Bar Examiners (Mass. Nov. 20, 2008), is available at this link, and it is a very interesting read. 

Because the SJC stressed the "the particular circumstances of this case" in its ruling, it would be hyperbole to suggest that Mitchell v. Board might be viewed as comparable in some way to Brown v. Board.  However, I suspect that the the petitioner in this case, Ross Mitchell, can (and should) be viewed as a poster-child for the great potential and accomplishments of students who get law degrees from online and/or non-ABA accredited schools.  At the very least, I suspect Mitchell v. Board will be cited by lots of "innovative" law school graduates looking to gain the right to sit for a state bar exam.

Posted by DAB

What should we make of all the law profs involved in the Obama transition?

Professor Nan Hunter has this helpful post compiling information on all the law professors who are playing formal roles in the Obama transition.  As of this writing, the post is headlined "Law professors in the Obama administration: 35 and counting."

To my knowledge, there has never been a formal head-count of how many law professors were involved in prior presidential transitions.  Still, the number already involved in the Obama transition seems high, though I suppose not surprisingly high given that both the President-Elect and the Vice-President-Elect are law profs themselves.

Of course, as a personal friend and fan of many law profs (including some on this growing list assembled by Nan Hunter), I am inclined to say "the more, the merrier" when thinking about law profs in the new administration.  But maybe others have different views.

Posted by DAB

"Law school dean trying to break into Top 10 rankings"

The title of this post might be the title of a mission statement for just about every law school ranked somewhere in the top 50.  But, in fact, it is the headline of this interesting local article discussing the goals and plans of the University of Texas School of Law's dean, Lawrence Sager. The lengthy article is a great read, and here is how it begins and a few especially notable passage:

Lawrence Sager knows he will be measured by his ability to raise the $200 million he has promised to add to the University of Texas School of Law's endowment.

If he can raise the money by the university's 2014 deadline, he will nearly double the current $202 million endowment and exceed by fivefold the most money ever raised in a single drive for the law school. Despite recent economic woes, Sager, the law school's dean, said only one of his potential major donors has backed away....

At his core, Sager considers himself a teacher and a scholar; he's one of the nation's foremost constitutional scholars. "What a good law school does," Sager said, "is it incubates a habit of mind that says when making judgments about the right course of action, you are driven not by passion but by reason."

It does that, he said, by creating an environment where "discourse and exchange" can thrive. "I think in a specific way this is what drew me to law school," he said, "this sense of seriousness about language and ideas."...

Hitting his $200 million target, Sager says, is crucial to attracting top faculty and the best students, essential ingredients in his drive to elevate the school from 16th in annual U.S. News and World Report rankings to the Top 10, alongside law schools such as Yale, Harvard and Stanford. For the past 20 years, UT School of Law has maintained a ranking in the Top 20 but never cracked the Top 10.

Sager said he would like the law school first to be able to compete for the best students with higher-ranked public law schools at the University of Michigan, with its $250 million endowment, and the University of California-Berkeley and its $215 million endowment.

"You find yourself worrying about the rankings much too much, but you can't not care about these rankings," Sager said. "They affect your ability to attract the best students and faculty. One of the key ways to affect those rankings is to spend more money."

Posts of note around the blogosphere

Would-be law school innovators might want to check out these recent posts of notes from various law prof bloggers:

• Top Public Interest Law Schools

• Gaming in the Law School Classroom

• Another Cheer for Clicker Technology

A Senior Lecturer Becomes President

Among the many other things he represents, Barack Obama's victory in the presidential race makes him the second among the last three presidents whose occupation outside of politics was teaching in law school. 

As laid out in the New York TImes, President-elect Obama was an outstanding teacher for twelve years at the University of Chicago's law school.  He was good enough, in fact, to have been offered tenure without having published (an offer he declined).  He was also an anamoly on the faculty; a liberal amongst a largely conservative faculty.

But, importantly, he was a lecturer.  I would like to think that his election sends an important message about non-tenure track faculty; about what they have to offer and the relevance of their thoughts.  They often are more political than us tenured profs, or more "practical," and that is sometimes thought of as a bad thing.  This lecturer, though, is now about to author the most relevant scholarship any of us will ever see, in the form of his presidency.  Perhaps, behind everything else that his Barack Obama means to different people, his election will open our eyes in this way, too.

-- Mark Osler

The panicky finals-taker

It's a scene we teachers are all familiar with:  You are in your office, while your students are downstairs taking the final.  A student arrives at your door, panic-stricken.  There is a term used in the exam with which he or she is not familiar, or worries is ambiguous.

Do you give advice?  I rarely do, but it is hard to resist.  I wish I could say that I have been absolutely consistent, but that's not true.  I would imagine it would be an easier issue if the term used on the test really was improperly used, and several students had the same concern.  I struggle to write good finals, but I haven't had that kind of justifiable anxiety yet.  Still, I am pulled in separate directions-- on the one hand by helping a student who seems emotional, and on the other by the need to be fair. 

How much injustice is wrought by just answering the question?

-- Mark Osler