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Stanford Law Names Mary Elizabeth Magill Dean

August 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Stanford Law Dean

“She is an expert in the field of administrative and constitutional law.”

On Tuesday, Mary Elizabeth Magill, the vice dean of the UVA School of Law, was named dean of the Stanford Law school.

Magill is described as creative, insightful and engaging as a lawyer, scholar, and admissions leader. She is an expert in the field of administrative and constitutional law. She has served on the faculty at UVA since 1997 and served as a fellow in Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs. She holds a B.A. in History from Yale and a J.D. from UVA.

Magill will be succeeding Larry Kramer, Stanford Law’s dean since 2004.

In a Stanford news release, Kramer says:

Liz will bring to her deanship an enthusiasm that inspires students and colleagues and a capacity to help everyone around her realize their academic and professional ambitions, whatever those may be. On top of that, she perfectly fits Stanford Law School’s unique commitment to interdisciplinary work and its embrace of innovative change in legal education.

Magill will assume her position as dean on September 1st.

For more on Magill’s new appointment, please see AboveTheLaw.com’s article, “Stanford Law School Has A New Dean.”

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Law School Admissions News Roundup

January 10, 2012 by
  • New Law School in Savannah- The ABA has approved the opening of Savannah Law School next fall, a branch of Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, The National Law Journal reports. The nearest law schools from this new campus are over 90 minutes away by car, and there are more than 20 colleges and universities nearby. The school aims to admit 60 full-time and 35 part-time students next year, with a total of 96 students. Plus, “administrators are touting a ‘noncompetitive’ environment intended to encourage teamwork.” Despite the approval from the ABA, Savannah Law will still need provisional accreditation.
  • Top Schools for Public Service- The National Jurist has listed the best law schools in preparing its students for public service in five categories: public interest, prosecutor/public defender, Federal clerks, state judicial clerks, and government. There are 15 law schools in each category besides government—which has 20—and they are unranked. For clerkships, the magazine just used employment placement data; whereas, for the other three categories, curricula, employment data, and standard of living were considered. The only law school in three out of five lists is Penn State University. A number of schools made two categories, including Brooklyn Law, Northeastern, University of Arizona, and Yale. The complete lists are not published yet, but check here for some of the categories.
  • UC Irvine Edges Out Harvard- Another solid contender when it comes to public service is the new UC Irvine School of Law. As Above the Law reports, the school continues to impress, now with one of the “highest federal clerkship placement rates in the country.” Nearly a fifth of UC Irvine’s 2012 class has been placed with district and circuit court judges, a rate which would place the school just behind Yale and Stanford, and ahead of Harvard, in clerkship placement. Unfortunately, the school isn’t even ranked yet, since it’s still waiting on the ABA for full accreditation. Reuters attributes Irvine’s success to “money and influence”—the majority of the school’s funding comes from high-profile donors, which has also allowed the school to “attract top-notch students.” And with all this, its inaugural class hasn’t even graduated yet.
  • February LSAT is Just Like All Other LSATs- Contrary to what you may have heard, the February LSAT is not any tougher than the other LSATs. As Most Strongly Supported points out, fewer people tend to take the February LSAT, besides retakers who are trying to get off waitlists. Others more likely to take it in February are either procrastinating and sending in their applications for that year, or “over-achiev[ing]” and starting their application process for the next year super early. The main aspect that sets the February LSAT apart is that it’s undisclosed. You only get to see your score, without the opportunity to review the test and your mistakes. Perhaps for this reason people assume the February test is somehow tougher than the others, but these tests are standardized, and all have the same level of difficulty.
  • A Law School Alternative- Although not very popular, ‘reading the law’ is still an option for those who can’t or don’t want to attend law school. According to The National Law Journal, some states still allow this alternative: Virginia, California, Washington, and Vermont allow people to learn the law in an experienced attorney’s office for three or four years—instead of going to law school—before taking the bar. Those in New York, Maine, or Wyoming can attend one or two years of law school and then do a legal apprenticeship to supplement the missing years. Avoiding exorbitant tuition may seem tempting, but not many people have taken this route. To be specific, only 59 people across the country (0.08 percent of all test takers) took a 2010 state bar exam after finishing a law office study program instead of law school. And of those 59 people, only 17 percent passed, versus the 74 percent of grads from ABA-approved law schools. This low passage rate can contribute to the small number of participants in these programs. Plus, they’d have to contend with the lack of mobility, since generally “the only state that recognizes the law license is the state in which it was obtained.” And while each program’s specifics vary depending on the state, they are usually very demanding and require a lot of discipline—only for the real Lincolns and Marshalls among us.

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Yale Law May Have the Toughest Admissions, But Baylor is Most Competitive

November 8, 2011 by

As reported by the National Jurist, The Princeton Review’s new law school rankings are in, and while some listed are generally found at the top, other names might surprise you. The rankings mostly draw from student surveys from 167 law schools, with a few also stemming from statistical data, and result in 11 top 10 lists in different categories.

Here are the law school winners in each category:

  • Best Professors – Boston University
  • Best Career Prospects – Northwestern University
  • Best Classroom Experience – Stanford University
  • Most Competitive Students – Baylor University
  • Toughest to Get Into – Yale University
  • Best Quality of Life – Duke University
  • Most Chosen by Older Students – University of New Mexico
  • Most Diverse Faculty – Southern University
  • Best Environment for Minority Students – University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • Most Conservative Students – Ave Maria University
  • Most Liberal Students – Northeastern University

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Law School News Round Up

May 20, 2011 by

  • The Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program, now a nonprofit with student chapters at nine schools, began in 2008 by some devoted Yale Law students, New York Lawyer reports. This project “appears to be the only organization in the United States devoted to assisting Iraqis seeking to resettle in other countries.” Chapters have been established at Duke Law, Penn Law, Columbia Law, UC Irvine Law, Berkeley Law, Stanford Law, NYU Law, and the University of Jordan, and three more chapters are expected to form at Northeastern Law, USC Law, and Harvard Law. As of now, the project is a pro bono course at the schools, other than at Yale, where it’s offered as a seminar course, and the University of Jordan, where it’s offered as a clinic. The group is funded through grants, fellowships, and private donations.
  • As reported by New York Lawyer, Fordham University School of Law has promoted interim dean Michael Martin to dean. Martin has taught at the law school since 1972, served three times as associate dean, and headed the law school since last summer. He has also been the “lead faculty member of the committee planning the construction of a $250 million, 22-story building to house the law school and an undergraduate student residence at the Lincoln Center campus.” Projected completion of the building is by fall 2014.
  • For all those planning to go to law school, Most Strongly Supported urges you to consider how much time you should take off beforehand. Taking a break between college and law school is crucial, but the amount of time you take off should correlate to how you spend that time. For instance, taking off a year or more can help prevent school burnout, but it is still important to “keep your mind sharp” in the interim. Plus, doing something productive or valuable can reveal a “certain maturity that many admission committees [find] attractive.” If you’re taking off several months, make sure to relax and take advantage of that time, perhaps by traveling, which can only be conducive to your mental health before starting law school. Finally, if you only have a summer off between college and law school, MSS advises to “do something spontaneous” and ideally outdoors, in preparation for your imminent long, structured hours “under fluorescent lights.”
  • Paul Schiff Berman will be the new dean of George Washington University Law School, New York Lawyer reports. Berman has served as dean of Arizona State University Sandra Day O’ Connor College of Law since 2008, where he made news when he “unveiled a preliminary plan to eliminate the school’s dependence on state funding, which has been shrinking for some time.” Berman hopes to implement similar curriculum changes that he had made at ASU, which allow students more flexibility to specialize and take hands-on courses.
  • It looks like a congressional clerkship program may finally be in the works, according to New York Lawyer. Through the potential program, “young lawyers would spend a year researching and drafting laws before moving on to other legal endeavors.” The plan is to start out small, with a pilot program consisting of 12 clerks—six to the House and six to the Senate, and split between the parties. Then, “legislators and committee would compete for the clerks by offering the most attractive type of work. The clerks would choose where they want to spend their year.” If all goes well, the program will expand eventually, but keeping it small initially will create competition and potential prestige similar to federal court clerkships. However, it may be difficult to get the bill passed now while Congress is in “budget-cutting mode.” Meanwhile, Georgetown Law has taken matters into its own hands and will “independently finance two year-long congressional clerk positions for recent graduates at a cost of about $100,000.” Dean Treanor encourages other schools to follow his lead and fund congressional clerkships to bolster the objective of a more formalized program. 

 

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Filed Under: Columbia Law, Duke Law, Harvard Law HLS, Law School Admissions, NYU Law, Penn Law, Stanford Law, UC Berkeley Boalt Law, Yale Law YLS Tagged With: , ,

Law School News Round Up

March 14, 2011 by

  • At least some law schools are looking out for their cash-strapped students. The University of Maryland School of Law, Ave Maria School of Law, and University of New Hampshire School of Law are all freezing tuition rates for the next academic year, New York Lawyer reports. The University of Miami School of Law will keep tuition at the same frozen rate as this past year for all current students, with incoming students paying an extra $1,500. One can only hope that these few schools start a trend, but chances are slim, since Stanford Law, BYU Law, and Cornell Law have already upped their tuition rates for next year.
  • Wading through law school offers and not sure what to do? Most Strongly Supported can help you strategize. While some of you will go to the best school you get into, particularly if it’s ranked in the top 20, others may have to reject some of these tempting offers for whatever reason. Nevertheless, you can still use these acceptances to your advantage. Contact the lower-ranked schools you got into and let them know that you were also accepted to a specific higher-ranked school, but the cost may be too prohibitive. You’re essentially telling the lower-ranked school to offer you money and you’ll more likely attend their school. This tactic works to the school’s benefit as well, since you can make them look good and help their ranking.
  • As reported by The National Law Journal, Yale Law School launched a professional ethics law clinic in January. Perhaps the first law clinic of its kind, the Ethics Bureau is spearheaded by Lawrence Fox, who has been “teaching a professional responsibility course at Yale, and saw the clinic as a natural outgrowth that would give students some real-world experience with ethics problems.”
  • Tom Campbell has been named the new dean of Chapman University School of Law, replacing John Eastman, who stepped down to run for California attorney general, according to New York Lawyer. Campbell has a wealth of experience, having served as a U.S. congressman, Stanford Law professor, and as dean of the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, among other achievements. He appreciates Chapman’s “more entrepreneurial, outside-the-box approach,” and hopes to “retain the top-rate educational experience for students.”

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Law School News Round Up

February 18, 2011 by

  • It seems that your LSAT score may still be of significance even once you’re attending law school. As Above the Law reports, law firm K&L Gates requests an applicant’s LSAT score along with the rest of the job application. Perhaps underlying this move is the constant grade reform going on at law schools. As Elie Mystal writes, “it seems like law schools having been going out of their way to make their grading systems completely unintelligible.” While it’s still important for an employer to base decisions on interviews, recommendations, etc., the need for a somewhat objective factor is crucial as well, and that seems to be where the LSAT comes in.
  • Law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has set up a five-year training program at Harvard Law School for its mid-level associates, the WSJ law blog reports. Every associate, inside and outside the U.S., will participate from the end of their third year through their seventh year. The program will train the associates in business issues as well as legal issues, such as finance, negotiation, economics, and accounting.
  • Federal Judge Deanell Reece Tacha will be the new Dean of Pepperdine University School of Law starting in June, as reported by Above the Law. Tacha has served on the Tenth Circuit for over 25 years and served as Chief Judge from 2001 through 2007. She also held various positions in the faculty and administration of the University of Kansas School of Law, including Associate Dean. Judge Tacha will replace former Dean and D.C. Circuit Judge Kenneth Starr, who now serves as President of Baylor University.
  • UCLA Today recently highlighted its Street Law Program, a law clinic in which third-year law students teach law to high school students. The law students not only become role models to the teenagers, but the program benefits them as teachers as well, since “by the end of the semester, the law students have hands-on experience working with unfamiliar communities and explaining complex legal rules to people who aren’t lawyers—vital skills for dealing with future clients.”
  • Loyola University Chicago School of Law will offer an LL.M. degree in the rule of law in Rome next fall through a program called Prolaw, as reported by New York Lawyer. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will help with funding for the program, which will train mostly non-U.S. attorneys “to address legal and judicial matters in developing countries.” Expected enrollment will be from 15 to 20 students in the first year, eventually expanding to 30 students over time.
  • According to Above the Law, Stanford Law School is significantly raising its tuition just because it can. While the rest of the university will undergo a 3.5% tuition hike for the next academic year, Stanford Law is raising its tuition by 5.75%. The school isn’t basing this decision on the value of a law degree, but instead is taking into account how much its competitors are charging. And as the school is well aware, “Stanford can still promise high-paying jobs and prestigious clerkships to just about every graduate who wants one. And other schools that can’t say those things are charging more money. So Stanford can charge more, because the business of legal education is business.” 

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Filed Under: Harvard Law HLS, Law School Admissions, LLM, LSAT, Stanford Law, UCLA Law Tagged With: , ,

Law School News Round Up

January 10, 2011 by

  • As reported by Inside Higher Ed, the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, an annual survey, focused this year on “professionalism.” The report discovered that while 59 percent of law students of any class year were satisfied with career-counseling services, 57 percent of third-years were unsatisfied with the help they received in seeking employment. Another interesting finding is that students who “interacted more often with faculty showed strong increases in six kinds of professional development,” an opportunity, as evident from the data, that students have not taken enough advantage of.
  • Michael Moffitt will be the new dean of the University of Oregon School of Law, New York Lawyer reports. Moffitt has taught at the school since 2001 and is the current associate dean for academic affairs. He will replace Margie Paris, who has lead the school since 2006 and will now rejoin the law faculty. Moffitt wants to “continue to take the law school in an entrepreneurial and creative direction with unique programs,” such as its “transactional labs” and probate mediation clinic.
  • In the latest survey of the Robert Half Legal Hiring Index, 31% of respondents said that they plan to add jobs in the first quarter of 2011, a seven point increase from last year, according to American Lawyer. Only one percent anticipate a decrease in legal staff, but 58% do not plan on any additional hiring in the first quarter. Plus, legal recruiters “point to an increase in calls from law firms looking to hire associates and an increased number of active searches now as compared to earlier in the year and in late 2010.” So things seem to be looking up. However, law firms that have openings are mostly interested in those who are currently employed and with recent experience.
  • Stanford Law School has embarked on a multi-year study on changes in the legal industry, as reported by New York Lawyer. The study is largely funded by the Sidley Austin Foundation and Sidley alumni of Stanford, and will be conducted by the school’s Center on the Legal Profession. The study is “designed to pull together the varying perspectives and information on the changes in legal industry for an accurate and complete picture of the state of the profession and where it is headed.” As the study progresses, its findings will be posted on the school’s Web site.
  • At least one law school is aware of the financial constraints placed on its students in this economy. According to Above the Law, the University of Maryland School of Law, lead by Dean Phoebe Haddon, will not be increasing its tuition next year, and will instead use its fund balance to pay the equivalent 4% tuition increase required of the entire campus. As Haddon wrote to her students, “The impact of the economic downturn on the legal employment market, combined with the large amount of debt many of you carry, has caused the faculty and administrators of the Law School great concern…. Many of us also believe that this downturn is resulting in a fundamental restructuring of law practice that will require careful financial planning for all of us going forward.”
  • According to New York Lawyer, a new study has found that 76% of tenured law professors surveyed said the process is fair. Yet, compared to white males, a lower percentage of women and minorities agreed with this statement. In fact, “Men were almost twice as likely as women to strongly agree that the tenure process is fair,” and a similar trend continued when asked if the tenure process is easy. Only 30% of women and 29% of minorities said it was easy, compared to 54% of men. The lowest numbers were in response to the question if the professors found the tenure process rewarding, with only 27% of men and 21% of women finding it rewarding. 

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Law School News Round Up

September 14, 2010 by
  • Liberty University School of Law was recently awarded full accreditation approval by the ABA. The law school will now continue with its plans to offer other degrees besides the JD both on campus and online, including an LL.M., a Ph.D. in law, and a master’s in Public Policy. The school also aims to create study abroad programs in locations such as Europe, Israel, and Asia, and an accelerated degree program allowing qualifying students to complete both an undergrad and law degree in six years. Plus, the law school and Liberty University will offer a dual degree program this fall, in which students can obtain a master’s and law degree in less time when combined together.
  • As mentioned in Above the Law, Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer is hoping to boost Stanford’s ranking to overtake Yale as the top law school in the country. Stanford has already adopted grade reform, like Yale, and now Kramer is actively recruiting professors from both Yale and Harvard. Yet despite its current #3 ranking, Stanford jumping to #1 seems like a long shot. Professor Bill Henderson went so far as to crunch the numbers and discovered that even if Stanford had perfect scores in its GPAs, LSATs, and academic and judicial reputation, it still wouldn’t supersede Yale. Yale’s top spot is secure for the time being, due to its spending of more than $100 thousand per student annually (as compared to Stanford’s ‘mere’ $80 thousand). Looks like it all comes down to dollars and cents. 
  • The Franklin Pierce Law Center has been formally renamed the University of New Hampshire School of Law, now functioning as a public institution, New York Lawyer reports. The only law school in New Hampshire, its campus will remain in Concord, about 40 miles away from the main University campus in Durham. The law school is known for its strong intellectual property program. 
  • According to The GW Hatchet, the incoming first-year class at GW Law School has the highest mean GPA in the history of the school. While the mean LSAT score of 167 has stayed the same, the mean GPA has risen .02 points to 3.79 this year. In April, the school had jumped up eight spots in the U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of the country’s best law schools, reclaiming its No. 20 spot. The law school is now on a search for a new dean, as Dean Frederick Lawrence will serve as the new President of Brandeis University.

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Filed Under: Harvard Law HLS, Law School Admissions, Stanford Law, Yale Law YLS Tagged With: , , ,

Law Schools Adopting New Grading Policies

March 11, 2009 by

In order to fairly depict student achievement, law schools across the country are reviewing their grading systems and implementing changes. For example, Harvard and Stanford Law Schools are switching from the letter grade system to a pass/fail system. Stanford Law School Dean, Larry Kramer explains the benefits of the new system:

One, the new system conveys more accurate information to employers without diminishing student incentive to work; two, it reduces needless grading anxiety; and three, it encourages faculty to experiment more with evaluative things they do in their classes.

Columbia which combines the letter grade system with a credit/fail standard is reviewing its grading policies as well. NYU has already implemented changes, allowing professors to give more A’s. Some schools, such as Chicago, Northwestern, Penn and Berkeley have no intentions of changing their grading systems.

Although the grading systems vary greatly, ranging from pass/fail to traditional letter grades to a combination of the two, University of Pennsylvania Law School Dean Michael A. Fitts emphasizes that whatever system law schools choose, it must be useful to potential employers. “When you have a less refined grading system, people who are employing your graduates are going to make distinctions, but they’ll make them on their grounds.”

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Filed Under: Harvard Law HLS, Law School Admissions, Stanford Law, UC Berkeley Boalt Law, Yale Law YLS Tagged With:

Best Public Interest Law Schools

December 4, 2008 by

In its latest edition, The National Jurist releases its rankings of the Best Law Schools for Public Interest Law. The National Jurist bases its rankings on three equally weighted categories: student involvement, curriculum, and financial factors. The top ten are:

  1. Northeastern University School of Law
  2. Loyola Law School in Los Angeles
  3. Lewis and Clark College of Law
  4. American University Washington College of Law
  5. Stanford Law School
  6. Mercer University School of Law
  7. University of Maryland School of Law
  8. University of Washington School of Law
  9. University of North Carolina School of Law
  10. City University of New York School of Law

Over the last fifteen years students have become increasingly more interested in pursuing careers in public interest law, as opposed to private practice. Students are seeking a balanced, fulfilling profession that will enable them to “make a difference.” The stereotype of someone working in public interest law because he “can’t make it in a big firm” is no longer true, and instead competition for such positions is fierce.

One critical drawback for those students seeking legal careers in the public sector is the high cost of law school. Dean Emily Spieler of Northwestern School of Law (#1 in this ranking) explains that public sector salaries simply cannot compete with those of the private sector. “That’s really a core challenge at this point…When I went to law school you could graduate with debt and work it off, and not it’s difficult for students to do.” Therefore, Spieler says that student financial support in the form of scholarships, stipends and loan repayment are essential to the future success of public interest law programs.  

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