Law Professors

After physical confrontation with campus protesters, adjunct law prof loses teaching duties

Following a confrontation between an adjunct law professor at the University of Oregon and campus demonstrators his name has been removed from the school’s website directory. “The University of Oregon School of Law has reassigned the teaching responsibilities of adjunct instructor James Olmsted to Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Adell…

Mar 15, 2013 8:45 PM CDT

Is ‘No Child Left Behind’ creating subpar law students?

A culture of “teaching to the test” fostered by the No Child Left Behind law may be creating a generation of law students who lack skills for critical thinking and good writing, according to University of Minnesota law professor Michele Goodwin. Goodwin makes her case in an opinion column for…

Mar 14, 2013 2:53 PM CDT

Law prof sees ‘huge uptick’ in Supreme Court opinions mentioning floods of litigation

The U.S. Supreme Court appears increasingly worried about opening the litigation floodgates, judging by an analysis of the metaphor in its decisions. Duke University law professor Marin Levy found about 60 cases using the term “floodgates” or similar words, the first in 1908, the New York Times reports. Almost half,…

Mar 6, 2013 11:30 AM CST

A day after interim law dean resigns, SLU names longtime faculty member as new dean

Saint Louis University on Tuesday announced the appointment of a new law school dean, after the sudden resignation Monday of a practicing lawyer who had been serving as interim dean. Michael Wolff, a longtime law professor at SLU who also formerly served as chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court…

Mar 5, 2013 11:50 PM CST

Illinois pol who was one of the nation’s first female law professors dies at the age of 86

A ground-breaking Illinois politician who was one of the nation’s first female law professors has died at the age of 86. Dawn Clark Netsch died Tuesday as a result of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Netsch was the first female…

Mar 5, 2013 2:00 PM CST

Interim SLU law dean says he resigned because of his big mouth; new dean is named

Updated: The interim dean of Saint Louis University School of Law says he wasn’t cut out for the job. Tom Keefe Jr. announced his resignation from the post on Monday. “I’m a plain-spoken, ambulance chasing plaintiffs lawyer,” he told the St. Louis Business Journal, and that fact alone caused consternation…

Mar 5, 2013 1:11 PM CST

Want a smoke-free generation? Ban tobacco sales to anyone born this century, law prof says

If you want to cut tobacco deaths, you need look no further than federal legislation signed into law in 2009, according to a law professor. The Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act paves the way for two aggressive approaches, according to a New York Times op-ed by Northeastern University law…

Mar 5, 2013 11:30 AM CST

‘Inside the Law School Scam’ blogger signs off; Should appellate briefs have corporate sponsors?

‘I’ve said what I have to say, at least in this format.’ University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos says he has filed his last post at Inside the Law School Scam. Campos started his blog (anoymously, but revealed his identity within a couple of weeks) in August of 2011,…

Mar 1, 2013 2:29 PM CST

Law prof who fell from platform at awards ceremony sues school

A George Washington University law professor claims in a lawsuit that she broke her heel after falling from a lecture platform that was “unreasonably small in width and depth.” International law professor Dinah Shelton says she fell while delivering a 2011 lecture at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of…

Feb 28, 2013 2:35 PM CST

Senator sticks to his accusation: Communists outnumbered Republicans at Harvard Law School

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz isn’t denying the reports. In fact, his spokeswoman is repeating the accusation: Harvard Law School was home to numerous Marxist professors when Cruz attended in the early 1990s. The New Yorker reported on Cruz’s Harvard remarks, made in a July 4, 2010 speech. The magazine noted…

Feb 26, 2013 12:00 PM CST

New law-review rankings put Yale behind Michigan, Penn, Texas and UCLA

Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School and Columbia Law School top a new list ranking law reviews. Yale Law Journal is in the No. 8 spot on the list, behind the law reviews of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of California-Los Angeles and the University…

Feb 25, 2013 7:03 PM CST

Law prof mulls ethics complaints against school officials who publish misleading stats

A University of Missouri law professor says he’s tempted to file ethics complaints against lawyers at law schools who have lied about student data. Associate law professor Ben Trachtenberg tells Bloomberg Law that such deceit could be an ethics violation under state rules patterned after Rule 8.4 of the ABA…

Feb 25, 2013 12:15 PM CST

Left-out U of Chicago now 5th in new National Jurist rankings, but law profs remain critical

Due to a data entry mistake, the University of Chicago was initially left out of a list of the top 50 law schools published in the February issue of National Jurist. But that mistake, as well as some questionable data, has now been corrected, putting the U of C in…

Feb 21, 2013 10:51 PM CST

Want to read the latest Sentencing Commission report? Law prof blogger is tapped to get the news out

If you want to read a report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission on the impact of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision, you will have to rely on the blogosphere. The commission is relying on back channels—or more specifically, an Ohio State University law professor—to release its new report, the…

Feb 15, 2013 1:29 PM CST

Legal theorist Ronald Dworkin dies at age 81

Legal theorist Ronald Dworkin has died at the age of 81. The cause of death was leukemia, report the Associated Press, the New York Times and the New York University School of Law, where Dworkin was a faculty member. He was also emeritus professor at University College London. The Times…

Feb 14, 2013 4:56 PM CST