GAO Report: Higher Education – Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access

The U.S. Government Accounting Office recently released a report to Congressional Committees that examines issues relating to law school cost and access.  For a full-text copy of the report, go here.

Topics: Legal Education

Uniform Bar Exam Drawing Closer to Reality

For more details, read this National Law Journal article from October 12, 2009.

Topics: Legal Education

AALS Annual Meeting – Call for Papers

For more information about submitting a paper for one of the AALS programs in New Orleans, from January 6 – 10, 2010,  go here.  Deadlines vary, but many are coming up at the end of August/ beginning of September.

Topics: Legal Education, Calls for Papers

Fellowship Opportunities for Law Professors

A Reference Librarian at Drake Law Library recently put together this list of fellowship opportunities for law professors to pursue while on sabbatical:

American Council of Learned Societies

ASIL

Bellagio Center by the Rockefeller Foundation

Berkeley Law Social Justice, Senior Visiting Scholars

Columbia law visiting scholars

The Community of Science database (subscription-based), a searchable database of fellowships and grants.

Cornell Visiting Scholars

Flinders University (Australia)

Fulbright Distinguished chairs program

Fulbright traditional scholars

Georgetown Law visiting scholar (fee waivers are often granted.)

Guggenheim

Law and Public Affairs at Princeton

Melbourne Law School Visiting Scholar Program

Northwestern Law Visiting Scholars

SPIN from InfoEd, subscription-based grant search program.

SSRN often publishes this kind of information in their weekly professional announcements newsletters.

Swiss institute of Comparative Law, Van Calker Fellow

U of SC Law and Liberal Arts Visiting Scholar

Topics: Legal Education

New Harvard Law Dean Announced

Martha Minow, the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, will become Harvard’s new dean on July 1, 2009.  For more details, go here.

Topics: Legal Education

Sweeping Accreditation Review May Prompt ‘Sea Change’ in Law School Evals

It appears that soon the Standards for Approval of Law Schools are likely to move away from a criteria that measures “input”—such as faculty size, budget and physical plant, and will instead focus on “outcome” measures — like what students actually take away from their educational experience at a particular law school.  For more details, read this ABA Journal article from June 3, 2009.

Topics: Legal Education

New Legal Scholarship Website

The Legal Workshop provides a single online forum for cutting-edge legal scholarship from the top law journals in the country.  For more details, go here and here.

Topics: Legal Education

Massachusetts Law Firm Layoffs

For more details about the recent layoffs that have effected many local firms check out the following articles:

Goodwin/Proctor

McDermott Will & Emery

Nixon Peabody

Ropes and Gray

For a running tally of Massachusetts law firm layoffs check out Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s news blog.

Topics: Legal Education; News & Events

Wanted: law school deans. Lots of them.

Take a look at this article that ran in the National Law Journal on Feb 2nd.

Topics: Legal Education

Laptops in the Classroom

The 2008 Law School Survey of Student Engagement, released on January 7, 2009, suggests that “laptops can actually enhance student engagement.” The survey also found that “class-related laptop use correlates highly with reported gains in several areas, including critical and analytical thinking.”

For more details read this Chronicle of Higher Education article that ran on January 7, 2009: Survey Gets Law-School Students’ Thoughts on Laptops, Writing, and Ethics.   For another good article on this topic that ran in the Chronicle a few months back, see Law Professors Rule Laptops Out of Order in Class.

Topics: Legal Education