ALMResearchBlog

Law School Hiring Stats

As part of its annual NLJ 250 survey, the National Law Journal surveyed the firms—including the ones that didn’t make the top 250 firms list—about their hiring: which law schools they hired from and how many were hired from each law school. That information is now available from ALM Research Online in the Lists & Rankings section as the 2007 Law School Hiring Survey. As a bonus, firms also contributed information about how many associates were elevated to partnership in 2007.

Law Schools: Most Cited Law Professors

Brian Leiter, the other law school ranking entity, has just published Brian Leiter’s Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty, 2000-2007. There are 18 legal specialties covered, and each lists the “ten most cited” faculty, or the “twenty most cited” in the event that the area is quite large. Leiter notes that it is “not an exhaustive list of legal specialties. I have concentrated on those that are well-defined or especially important/prominent, and sometimes both.

A Lawyer Walks into a Bar ...

We heard about this one on AboveTheLaw.com, and no, it's not a new, or even an old, lawyer joke. It's a critically acclaimed, independent documentary film about lawyers and the legal profession, according to ATL. Their posting about the movie, A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, provides a synopsis, as well as links to the trailer and official web site. The documentary is about is a celebration of the law and triumph over adversity that follows six future lawyers of all ages and backgrounds as they undertake the rigorous and excruciating California Bar Exam, while also dealing thematically with certain hot button issues in our profession.

You can't order it through NetFlix yet (I tried), and it doesn't seem to be playing anywhere but film festivals. However, if you just can't wait, you can order it through the official web site for $22.

The Other Law School Rankings

Texas law professor has published his 2007 Brian Leiter’s Law Schools Rankings, the Top 35 Law Faculties Based on Scholarly Impact for 2007. What that mouthful means, according to Leitner is “This is a ranking of the top 35 law faculties based on a standard ‘objective’ measure of scholarly impact:  per capita citations to faculty scholarship.  The top five are Yale, University of Chicago, Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia, in that order. The full rankings can be viewed on the link above.

Lawyers Without Borders Seeks Book Donations

Sabrina Pacifici sent out this announcement on her blog Be Spacific: Lawyers Without Borders is seeking donations of law books for courts and lawyers in Albania and Liberia. The law library of the Supreme Court of Albania in the capital of Tirana, which is accessed by judges, practitioners, and law students, is seeking English-language major treatises, hornbooks, and other publications focusing on American law and legal institutions. Donations to Albania should be sent to Paramount Stamping and Welding, 1200 West 58th Street, Cleveland, OH 44102, with a marking that reads, Attention: Peter Kole–LAW BOOKS. Another donor has underwritten the costs of shipping to Albania from that address.

The organization is also seeking donations for the University of Liberia Louis Arthur Grimes Law School, as well as for judges, students, and lawyers in Liberia. In particular, complete sets of the AmJur series are requested. These include any edition of AmJur, AmJur Forms, and AmJur Trials. These donations should be sent to Mr. Ray Fallon, Fallon Moving and Storage, 800 Marshall Phelps Road, Building 3, Unit A, Windsor, CT 06095, with a marking that reads, Attention: Lawyers Without Borders, Book Donation Project, Liberia.

Legal Writing: Survey, Web Site, Politics

The Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute have just made the results of the 2007 Survey available online. Over 92 % of all ABA accredited law schools responded to the survey.  In addition to salaries and other terms of employment for legal writing professors, the survey results include information on staffing models for first-year legal writing programs, curricular choices, upper-level writing courses, technology use, non-lawyer writing specialists, and teaching assistants.  Data from the past three years are reported next to this year's data, so trends are easily discernible.  Survey results going back to 1999 are also available.

On related notes, the Legal Writing Institute has just launched a Web site for the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. And Joe Hodnicki of Law Librarian Blog wrote recently about the Politics of Legal Writing, the title of a July conference for legal research and writing program directors, and provides a link to the edited proceedings of that conference.

Summer Associates Challenged to Use (Gasp!) Print Resources

This item appeared earlier this month on the Wall St. Journal Law Blog and we were just as shocked, I'm sure, as you will be. Summer associates at Pillsbury Winthrop took part in the firm's sixth annual Summer Associates Research Challenge. Three teams had to answer 40 legal questions the fastest and most accurately in 90 minutes or less - using only print resources! No Google, no Westlaw, no computers allowed.

The WSJ reporter covering the story, Peter Lattman, tried his best to get the law students to admit that Pillsbury was "stuck in the dark ages." But they refused to comply. Originator of the context, partner Bill Atkins, explained to Lattman that he was no Luddite. He came up with the idea after seeing some summer associates with computer printouts of some two-dozen cases. "I'd look at them and say, 'For the love of all that's holy, those cases are right down the hall in a book!'" Most shocking of all - the summer associates love the experience!

Law School Rankings: Now Bloggers Are Doing It

Are you among the disgruntled many who aren't happy with U.S News & World Report Law School Rankings? If so, you may be interested in the blogs that are now ranking law schools. The story was published in the Wall St. Journal, but we read about it on Kevin O'Keefe's Lexblog. O'Keefe writes that last year, a blogger and Notre Dame Law School graduate who goes by the name 'law firm addict' began trolling message boards frequented by law students. The blogger invited students to share figures on school representation in law firms' summer-associate, as well as where federal appeals clerks went to school. From there, the alternative rankings were forged. See lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com and lawclerkaddict.blogspot.com for more information.

Law School Enrollment Dropping

According to a report in The National Law Journal ("Where Are All the Wannabees?"), the number of people applying to law school for the upcoming fall semester declined by 4.6%, marking the third year of decreases. The information was based on preliminary statistics from the Law School Admission Council. This year's decline, however, is smaller than in 2006, when 7.4% fewer people applied to law school. Applicant totals for the fall 2005 signaled the first drop in the number of people trying to get into law schools since 1998. For fall 2005, the number of applicants declined by 4.8%. For the upcoming semester, 80,732 people applied to the nation's 195 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association. The number of applications made by individuals trying to get into law schools also declined for the third straight year.

Bar Exam Results: Pennsylvania

Results of the Pennsylvania bar examination given on February 27 and 28 of this year are now available. The Legal Intelligencer published a full list of names for the 402 candidates (out of 724) who passed the exam.