Artificially Intelligent Legal Research
At least three law firms have now adopted ROSS, an artificial legal intelligence system based on IBM’s pathbreaking Watson technology. The firms include two legal giants, Latham & Watkins and...
View ArticleDoctors, Lawyers & Software Developers
I wrote earlier this week about employment trends for doctors and lawyers. There is a third occupation that now vies with these professions for the affections of talented college graduates: software...
View ArticleLessons for Online Legal Education
An increasing number of law schools are creating online courses, certificate offerings, and degree programs. As newcomers to online education, we should look to existing programs for inspiration. One...
View Article$180,000
BigLaw firms gave 2016 graduates a sweet gift earlier this month: new associates at many of those firms will earn $180,000 (rather than $160,000) when they start work in the fall. That’s the first...
View ArticleOnline Education at Law Schools
Today’s New York Times includes a column by Elizabeth Olson discussing online initiatives by law schools. Elizabeth was kind enough to quote some of my thoughts on this issue. If you’d like to read...
View ArticleThe Seventeen Percent
In a recent column, Professor Stephen Davidoff Solomon observes that the legal job market “is a world of haves and have-nots.” With BigLaw firms raising entry-level salaries from $160,000 to $180,000,...
View ArticleA Conversation with Dave Hoffman
Dave Hoffman has posted a thoughtful piece about the future of legal education, in which he wonders whether legal educators, law graduates, potential students, and others can have a conversation about...
View ArticleThe View from Minnesota: A Profession on Edge
Wood R. Foster, Jr., a Minneapolis lawyer and former president of the Minnesota State Bar Association, has written a striking review of recent changes in the legal profession. Foster spent his career...
View ArticleSay What?
I just finished reading a transcript of the meeting during which the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity recommended that the Department of Education suspend the ABA’s...
View ArticleAccreditation
Earlier this summer, a federal panel recommended suspending the ABA’s power to accredit new law schools for one year. The transcript for that meeting has now been published, so we can examine in detail...
View ArticleSurprise: MBE Scores Rise in 2016
Erica Moeser, President of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, sent a memo to law school deans today. The memo reported the welcome, but surprising, news that the national mean score on the MBE...
View ArticleThe Latest Change in the MBE
In the memo announcing results from the July 2016 MBE, Erica Moeser also notified law school deans about an upcoming change in the test. For many years the 200-question exam has included 190 scored...
View ArticleCan We Increase Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession?
Yes, we can. I offer some ideas in this column posted at Bloomberg’s Big Law Business.
View ArticleCouncil Approves New Bar Passage Standard
The Council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has approved a hotly debated proposal to tighten the accreditation standard governing bar passage rates. When the new...
View ArticleBlawg 100
We’re honored to appear once again in the ABA’s list of “Top 100 Blawgs.” Many thanks to our readers.
View ArticleWomen In the Law
Law School Transparency continues its excellent series of podcasts, Women In the Law. Recent episodes discuss the portrayal of women lawyers in the media, the leaky pipeline in law school admissions,...
View ArticleA Milestone for Legal Education
For the first time ever, women constitute a majority of JD students at ABA-accredited law schools. 50.32% of JD students studying for fall exams are women.* It’s a milestone to celebrate–but also one...
View ArticleThe Long Road
Women now make up a (slight) majority of JD students and that’s a milestone to celebrate. But why did it take us so long to reach this milestone? And will we be able to maintain women’s success...
View ArticleNew Semester, Old Classes
The optimistically named “spring” semester has begun at most law schools. One-L’s nervously await their fall-semester grades while climbing a mountain of new reading. Two-L’s focus on their...
View ArticleThinking and Writing Like a Lawyer
If law school classes teach students to think like lawyers, then why are so many final exams poorly written? It’s not that students “can’t write,” it’s that we haven’t really taught them to think like...
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