Law Libraries

SCOTUS decisions are works in progress; revisions are sometimes made years later, study finds

Recent flubs by Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia resulted in quickly made changes to U.S. Supreme Court opinions. But not all changes to Supreme Court opinions are as fast or as well-publicized. A new study by Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus has found that the Supreme Court sometimes revises…

May 27, 2014 12:51 PM CDT

ABA committee reaffirms proposal to remove ban on academic credit for paid externships

An ABA committee has wrapped up its comprehensive review of the law school accreditation standards after deciding not to make any changes in the last of its pending proposals to amend the standards. The Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar’s standards review committee, which met Friday in…

Apr 28, 2014 10:08 PM CDT

Blog offers immigration help to Nigella Lawson | Celeb podcaster fights patent troll

It was reported by The Daily Mail and other news outlets this week that celebrity chef Nigella Lawson was turned away from boarding a Los Angeles-bound flight from London. A U.S. embassy spokeswoman would not tell CNN why Lawson had been stopped. At Lifted Lamp, the law firm Benach Ragland…

Apr 4, 2014 1:30 PM CDT

Legal Ed Section’s council deadlocks over tenure requirement in law school accreditation standards

The governing council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved a lot of changes in the law school accreditation standards at its meeting last weekend in San Diego. But the meeting may be remembered more for the one proposed change in the standards it…

Mar 17, 2014 10:20 PM CDT

ABA committee throws in the towel on new bar pass standard

After several years and as many false starts, an ABA committee has for the time being given up trying to improve upon the existing bar exam requirements in the law school accreditation standards. The Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s standards review committee, which met Friday in…

Feb 9, 2014 4:51 PM CST

ABA legal ed section gets an earful on tenure, other proposals

The governing council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar got an earful of feedback this week on its latest proposed changes to the law school accreditation standards. Much of the feedback came in response to the council’s tentative decision to eliminate the so-called tenure…

Feb 6, 2014 9:40 PM CST

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