Northwestern will be the first top ranked law school to offer both 2 and 3 year programs.  See what Northwestern Law School and a number of news outlets have to say about it here.  Also, read this Wall Street Journal blog entry  & Brian Leiter’s blog entry.

Topics: Legal Education

SCOTUSblog recently published its ”Super StatPack” compilation.  This report includes statistics with charts, lists, and observations about the OT 07 Supreme Court Term.  To read the complete report, go here.

Topics: Constitutional Law

The Policy Archives is a new comprehensive digital library of public policy research.  It contains over 12,000 documents from over 220 think tanks and other research organizations.  Read the press release here.

Topics: Technology Trends

For more details, read the Choi (NYU), Gulati (Duke) & Posner (UChicago) article that was recently posted to SSRN: Which States Have the Best and Worst High Courts?

Topics: News & Events

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reported this week that the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination will now apply the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act to both men and women. 

MLW explained that “in what the employment bar is calling a “bombshell decision,” the MCAD has quietly announced it will apply the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act to both women and men.  The revelation came at a recent Foley Hoag client event at which the guest speaker, MCAD Commissioner Martin B. Ebel, told the crowd of about 200 surprised lawyers and corporate officials that, effective immediately, his office plans to prosecute MMLA cases in a gender-neutral fashion.”

For more details, read the full MLW article here.

Topics: News & Events; Family Law

The Law School Admission Council Research Grant Program funds empirical research on legal training and legal practice. Topics include the study of precursors to legal training (including demographic variables), all varieties of legal training itself, and the work that lawyers, judges, law teachers, and other legal professionals do after they complete their training.  Although the program welcomes research on a variety of topics, three requests for proposals have been issued in the following areas:

* Research on Pipeline Issues and Access to Law Schools for Minority Populations
* Research on Access to Law School for Students With Disabilities
* Research on Law School Academic Assistance Programs

There are two reviewing cycles each year, with deadlines of Sept. 1 and Feb. 1.  For more details, go here & here.

Topics: Legal Education

The Third Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor & Employment Law will held in San Diego from October 23 to October 25, 2008. This year’s colloquium will be co-hosted by California Western School of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and the University of San Diego School of Law. This annual colloquium is a forum for American labor and employment law scholars to present and obtain feedback on works-in-progress. The call for papers deadline is July 31, 2008.  For more information, go here.

Topics: Labor Law; Calls for Papers

The University of Washington School of Law is hosting a small conference, from September 5-7, 2008 entitled, Legal Education at the Crossroads — Ideas to Accomplishments: Sharing New Ideas for an Integrated Curriculum.  The conference is intended to respond to suggestions from a Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law.  The deadline for submitting proposals is May 15, 2008.  For more details, go here.

Topics: Legal Education

Dean Saul Levmore of the University of Chicago Law School has blocked student “access to the Internet in classrooms last month to help them concentrate on course instruction.” Apparently, Dean Levmore has received “inquiries from about 10 other law schools interested in possibly following suit on the move.”  For more details, go here & here.

Topics: Legal Education

Washington & Lee University School of Law plans to reinvent its third year curriculum by making it a year of “professional development through simulated and actual practice experiences”.  For more details, go here.

Topics: Legal Education