We have reported on the proposed merger of Southern New England School of Law with the University of Massachusetts, which would bring the first public law school to the state. At the time, I wrote:

I mean no offense by this, but isn’t the Southern New England School of Law not a very good law school? There’s a reason the school isn’t accredited, right? I just don’t see how raising the profile of bad law schools is the right way to go.

Apparently, Southern New England School of Law took offense. The Boston Globe reports:

“My students and faculty have been maligned,” the school’s dean, Robert Ward, said during a recent tour of campus, a 75,000-square-foot three-story building next to an outlet mall in North Dartmouth.

Ward acknowledged his school has a way to go to meet national accreditation standards, but said it is far from the crumbling, financially destitute failure critics portray it to be.

He noted a retired appeals court judge — a Harvard Law graduate, no less — among his 13-member faculty.

Putting aside the question of whether or not Southern New England is a good school, can we get back to the question of whether Massachusetts needs a public law school?

* Somebody call up the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and get them to teach their people how travelers actually use computers. [Drug and Device Law]

* Police can search your email without telling you. Bring it on coppers, bring it on. [True/Slant]

* If your Biglaw career has stalled, maybe you should become a CPA. [Going Concern]

* An Indiana law school dean is getting pushed out because he is too old. Peyton Manning, welcome to your future. [Law Librarian Blog]

* Is a globally integrated law firm that provides one-stop shopping still a viable business model? I don’t know, Wal-Mart seems to be doing just fine. [Ideoblog]

* I didn’t know water intoxication existed. It doesn’t sound nearly as fun as regular intoxication. [ABA Journal]

* Don’t forget to come down and poke me with sticks meet me in Atlanta on Monday. [Georgia Association for Women Lawyers]

The Government Accountability Office has released a new report on the rising cost of legal education. Who is to blame? Not the ABA. Not university presidents using their law schools as cash cows.

According to the GAO, the U.S. News law school rankings put law school deans in a “resource intensive” competition to rise up the U.S. News list. The two key slides from the 44-page GAO report (PDF) are below:

The GAO makes a provocative argument. Let’s discuss it after the jump.

Earlier this summer, we wrote about the University of Illinois College of Law admissions scandal. Former Illinois governor (and soon to be ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ star) Rod Blagojevich pressured University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman and Heidi Hurd, former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, to admit underqualified students who were politically connected.

In the eyes of some, it wasn’t all bad. Hurd was reluctant to accept under-performers. In exchange for her willingness to admit TTT students, university officials attempted to obtain jobs for struggling law school grads and offered scholarship money to recruit better students. The admission of one underqualified student meant jobs for five offer-less law grads.

Herman’s severance package isn’t too bad either:

Herman will continue to receive his current salary in a new position: special assistant to the interim president, Hardy said. But he will forgo a $300,000 retention bonus that was due in June.

In June, when his chancellor contract would have been up, he will take a one-year paid sabbatical at a new faculty salary of $244,444. The following year, he will be required to teach two courses a year as a tenured mathematics professor, fewer than his original contract that called for teaching four courses a year.

U. of I. President B. Joseph White and six university trustees have already been replaced. Asked why it took him so long to step down, Herman basically said he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. He told the press that he believed he “‘was serving the greater good’ of the university by not alienating powerful people who wanted favors.”

Earlier: University of Illinois College of Law Scandal: Now With Emails

U. of I. Chancellor Herman resigns, will join faculty [Chicago Breaking News]

Law professors generally don’t earn as much as Biglaw partners. Legal academic salaries, while generally in the low six-figures, rarely go over, say, $400,000.

But some law profs own very, very nice homes. See, e.g. (in descending order by value):

• Columbia professor Hans Smit ($30 million mansion — yup, that’s seven zeros);

• Yale professor James Whitman ($5.7 million co-op);

• NYU professor Cathy Sharkey ($5.2 million apartment);

• “Feldsuk,” aka Harvard professors Jeannie Suk, who has a new book out that looks quite interesting, and Noah Feldman ($2.8 million mansion);

• Columbia professor Edward Morrison ($2.6 million townhouse); and

• Columbia professor Sarah Cleveland ($2.5 million townhouse).

  Sometimes the professors get financial assistance for these purchases from the schools that employ them. But sometimes the professors buy them on their own, without any university help.

  For example, as reported in the New York Observer, Daniel Fischel, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, just picked up an $8.45 million Manhattan pied-à-terre. As breathlessly described by writer Max Abelson, the apartment features “custom electric shades, a steam shower, and a Sub-Zero wine refrigerator.”

  Sounds fabulous! Maybe Professor Fischel can donate a weekend in this apartment to the CLF public interest auction?

  Fischel’s famous neighbors, plus the story of how he got this rich — being a law school dean pays well, but not that well — after the jump.

UCLA School of Law will lose its dean at the end of the year. Dean Michael Schill will leave the law school at the end of the year to assume the deanship of the University of Chicago Law School. Dean Schill just informed his students over email:

Dear Members of the Classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012,

A little over five years ago I came to UCLA School of Law from the east coast to become dean of one of the greatest educational institutions in the world. From the moment I arrived I appreciated the strength and depth of our student culture. Indeed, you are part of the reason my five years as the dean of this school have been the happiest and most fulfilling years of my life. Thus, it is with mixed emotions that I announce today that I will be leaving the deanship at the end of the calendar year for a new challenge as dean of the University of Chicago Law School.

Why is he leaving so suddenly? Why was this decision made now instead of over the summer? University of Chicago Dean Saul Levmore announced he was stepping down back in February. Why the late trigger at UofC?

Dean Schill offers some additional information about his decision process — and the University of Chicago touts its new dean — after the jump.

From two distinguished commentators: lawyer and law firm consultant Bruce MacEwen, of Adam Smith Esq., and Professor Daniel Filler, over at the Faculty Lounge.

Above the Law reader sentiment generally supported Fordham Law School and Dean William Michael Treanor. Interestingly enough, both MacEwen and Filler side with Reed Smith. MacEwen confesses to being mystified by Dean Treanor’s handling of the situation; Filler argues that Reed Smith’s late withdrawal from OCI was a minor infraction, and that Fordham’s “punishment” of the firm will only hurt students.

Check out their analyses via the links below.

In This Corner, AmLaw #16… [Adam Smith, Esq.]
Fordham Law v. Reed Smith, Or, How To Scare Away Firms From OCI [The Faculty Lounge]

Earlier: Fordham Law v. Big Law: Reed Smith’s Response
Fordham Law Lashes Out at Reed Smith Rudeness

We’ve heard from many frustrated law students who bid on a particular law firm for on-campus interviewing only to learn, after using up a bid or an interview slot, that the firm in question wouldn’t be coming to OCI after all. We’ve even heard from students who were told, mid-interview, that the office they were supposedly interviewing for wouldn’t be having a summer program (but more on that later).

Law firms are certainly entitled to pick which schools they want to interview at. But, as a matter of basic professional courtesy and respect, they should make those decisions as early in the process as possible. When a law firm withdraws from the fall recruiting process at a given school at the eleventh hour, it causes great inconvenience to law students and schools.

What do most law schools do when firms pull out from OCI at the last minute? As far as we know, nothing. In this economy, law firms are in the driver’s seat. They’re the people with jobs to dole out.

But at least one law school has decided to take a stand against rudeness. After Reed Smith announced its late withdrawal from the recruiting process at Fordham Law, the school struck back, banning the firm from recruiting at Fordham for the next five years.

Dean William Treanor announced the move to the law school in a saucy email that truly puts the “F.U.” in Fordham University. The Fordham law folks are located at Lincoln Center rather than Rose Hill, but this message suggests they can brawl like their Bronx brethren.

Update (8/13/09): The firm’s response to the situation appears here.

Read the dean’s complete email message, and vote in our reader poll — yes, another one, we can’t help ourselves (we love to get your opinion on such matters) — after the jump.

Something very strange is happening at the UNLV Boyd School of Law. One of the school’s professors has randomly gone missing, and she left before she turned in the students’ grades. In response, UNLV Law Dean John Valery White just decided to give all of the students a “pass.” Literally.

The Nevada law blog, Wild Wild Law, picks up the story and its impact on one UNLV Law Student:

Sally Student is a “rising 2L” at Boyd School of Law, a state-run facility located in the state of Nevada. Sally studied for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week during her 1L year, and put up with a variety of pointless hypotheticals posed to her by various professors.

Sally had good grades and was hopeful that she would obtain a position on Boyd’s “law review” so that she could obtain her dream job - corporate document review monkey at a large insurance defense firm.

But after getting a mere pass, “Sally Student” feels more like “Sexually Assualted Sandra.”

Sally reasonably expected to receive an “A” in Con Law. Now that she will be graded on a pass/fail basis, however, her class ranking, journal status, scholarship and job prospects are all likely to be affected. Sally has come to you seeking advice as to her rights and the possibility of filing suit against Boyd for losing her law professor.

Section 90 folks, I’m counting on you to come up with something truly fantastic. Bonus points will be given for working in references to John Ensign and CSI. Have at it.

Click on the link below to see the full memo from Dean White about the situation.

The Case of the Missing Professor [Wild Wild Law]
Law Students Lost In Vegas [WSJ Law Blog]

We sometimes like to think of the figures we write about in these pages as characters in a novel. Viewed in this way, Dr. Li-ann Thio, the visiting NYU law professor who apparently isn’t a fan of gay rights, is one of the most compelling we’ve come across recently.

We have a weakness for strong, outspoken Asian women — hi Mom! — and this description fits Dr. Thio to a T. Our only disappointment: Dr. Thio was whiny when attacked. (We agree with Professor Brian Leiter — playing the victim card was weak, Dr. Thio.)

Now, meet an even more compelling character — one who wouldn’t have responded to a random IT guy by playing victim, but by treating him like Obama treated that fly. She’s the original Dr. Thio: Li-ann Thio’s mother, Dr. Su Mien Thio (pictured), who taught Thio the Younger everything she knows (e.g., that gay sex is evil).

From a tipster:

It looks like Dr. Thio’s mother — a former judge who inspired Li-ann Thio’s own rise in politics — was involved in some serious anti-gay drama this year, after battling what she saw as a conspiracy to generate a “generation of lesbians.”

It all started with unrest over a screening of Spider Lilies, a lusty Taiwanese movie about an Internet cam girl [Ed. note: A cam girl? Like SexyLexus?] falling in love with another girl. The elder Dr. Thio, filled with the same heroic indignation as her daughter, filled with the same heroic indignation as her daughter, ended up locked out of a building after a failed takeover of a feminist organization.

And the trailer for the movie is totally hot!

Update: Not surprisingly, given her staunch opposition to homosexuality, Dr. Thio Su Mien is also against abortion. A headline from Roll on Friday: “Leading Singaporean lawyer blames abortion for SARS.”

More about the Spider Lilies controversy and Dr. Su Mien Thio’s impressive résumé, after the jump.

When last we checked in on the saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio, the incoming NYU Law visiting professor who equated anal sex to drinking by shoving a straw up your nose, Dean Richard Revesz was defending the invitation extended to her.

But over the weekend, an information technology professional who works for NYU law (and who is also an NYU student) asked the dean to reconsider. Here’s part of the letter from Malik Graves-Pryor:

While I can understand your position and reasoning in displaying solidarity to the larger NYU School of Law community regarding Hauser Global’s decision to bring in Professor Li-Ann Thio … I must state my strong objection to her appointment and the official NYU Law defense of said appointment.

As an African-American man working in the LawITS department, and simultaneously a student at NYU, I could never imagine the day would come when NYU would allow the appointment of a legal scholar who held the opinion that African-Americans practice acts of “gross indecency”, that African-Americans who strive for diversity should be rebuffed because “diversity is not a license for perversity”, describing the private intimate acts between African-Americans as trying to “shove a straw up your nose to drink”, among other intellectually and morally shallow absurdities.

In response, Dr. Thio unleashed an 18-point defense that she sent to the entire NYU Law faculty. Apparently, she feels unfairly maligned:

1. I am a little tired of the torrent of abuse and defamation that I have been receiving, and blatant emotive misrepresentations of my position. I was going to stay above the fray but given this insidious attack on my academic reputation (aside from many ad hominem insults), I feel I must cast some clarity on certain issues.

More fighting after the jump.

Last week, professors from the University of Illinois College of Law launched a spirited defense of their law school against the against allegations of improper admissions policies reported in the Chicago Tribune. Part of the professors’ argument was that the kind of influence connected people put on public law schools happens all of the time.

But today the Illinois College of Law Dean, Bruce Smith, announced a new policy aimed at taking political influence out of the admissions process. The National Law Journal reports:

In a letter to staff, faculty, students and alumni, Smith said the new policy will also require the college to respond only to inquiries on the status of an application if the inquiry is made by the applicant. In addition, the school will now accept only formal letters of recommendation that are made to the admissions office and placed in the applicant’s file.

“Under my deanship, the college will give no ‘special’ consideration, treatment, or procedure to any application,” Smith said in the letter. “All applicants will be treated equally.”

So, is that a tacit admission of guilt? More details after the jump.

NYU Law gays, consider yourselves warned: Dr. Li-ann Thio is not afraid of you. The outspoken professor, who vehemently opposed decriminalizing gay sex as a member of the Singapore parliament, is ready to rumble:

We can be united in commitment to this principle [of academic freedom], without slavishly bowing to a demanded uniformity or dogma of political correctness set by elite diktat. I cannot say I am impressed by this ugly brand of politicking which I hope is not endemic….

I am disappointed at the intolerant animosity directed at me by strangers who do not know me and have decided to act on their own prejudices, forged from whatever sources, I am nonetheless glad that there are still some at NYU, who uphold a commitment to academic freedom and who entertain dissent with respect. As a recent NYU graduate, a Muslim friend of mine said, one must have courage in the face of bullying.

Dr. Thio can’t be prejudiced. Some of her best friends are Muslim!

Although her defense of the Singaporean statute against gay sex has been dismissed by one prominent American law professor as “dumb” and “embarrassing[],” Dr. Thio is not unaware of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in this area:

[C]ertain Americans have to realize the fact that there are a diversity of views on the subject and it is not a settled matter; there is no universal norm and it is nothing short of moral imperialism to suggest there is. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is no consensus on this even within the U.S. Supreme Court and American society at large, even post Lawrence v. Texas.

Dr. Thio is fighting political correctness with political correctness, accusing LGBT activists of cultural imperialism. Yikes! Find something to bite down on, kids, ‘cause she’s not planning to use lube pull her punches.

Meanwhile, the NYU Law School administration has (finally) issued a public statement on L’Affaire Thio.

Read the statement, after the jump.

Check it out over at the Jack Higgins Gallery.

Update: Yes, commenters, we know the cartoon is about U of I. Please resist the lawyerly impulse to take everything so literally. Thanks.

Earlier: Dean Mark Sargent — You Can Call Him John
Prior ATL coverage of the University of Illinois College of Law (scroll down)

The University of Illinois College of Law is embroiled in a scandal over admitting politically connected students under government pressure. But the school’s faculty is done taking it on the chin from the Chicago Tribune.

At the end of June, the Tribune posted emails from a former College of Law Dean, Heidi Hurd. The emails suggest that Hurd was trying to bargain for jobs for her graduates, in exchange for admitting underqualified students.

But last week, Hurd claimed she was just kidding. In an open letter to the Chicago Tribune, Hurd writes:

Contrary to recent headlines, the College of Law did not seek or receive any jobs from anyone in exchange for the admission of students. It did not enter into a “jobs-for-entry scheme” or engage in quid-pro-quo exchanges of admissions favors for employment favors. Indeed, it takes very little to make clear that the employment challenges of students who are not academically successful could never be overcome by anyone’s promises to furnish the College with job opportunities, as the recently published exchanges should have made clear. While my sarcasm was clearly lost on the tin ears of some, my e-mail exchanges in response to queries about this were on their face facetious.

You can go back and read the emails here. Is that sarcasm or quid-pro-quo?

But Hurd is not the only person writing open letters to the Chicago Tribune. There are 16 University of Illinois professors who are mad as hell, and are not going to take it anymore.

Details after the jump.

It appears that Mark A. Sargent’s abrupt resignation as dean of Villanova Law had nothing to do with the Peanut Girl controversy, or his more recent email faux pas.

It’s more likely that it had to do with an Eliot Spitzer problem: patronizing prostitutes. But at least the public-minded dean helped the police crack a local prostitution ring!

Ex-dean helped police, report says [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Earlier: Farewell, Dean Sargent: ‘Peanut Girl’ dean resigns at Villanova.

One of our favorite law school deans is stepping down. Dean Mark A. Sargent — best known for L’Affaire Peanut Girl, and more recently gracing these pages after memorably quipping in a school-wide email that “The internet really is a type of hell!” — is departing as dean of Villanova Law.

One student’s reaction to the news:

We did NOT, contrary to popular belief, celebrate like munchkins [rejoicing in] the Wicked Witch’s death when the “Peanut Girl” transferred — but we are definitely doing so now (unless, of course, Dean Sargent is ill — in which case we wish him the best).

Sadly, Dean Sargent may be ill; he is stepping down for “personal and medical reasons.” We wish him a speedy recovery. We also hope his successor is similarly skilled in the use of the “reply all” function.

Read the announcement, from Villanova President Peter Donohue, after the jump.

As we have previously reported, DePaul College of Law Dean, Glen Weissenberger was ousted after he sent a letter to the ABA as part of the school’s accreditation review. At first blush, it looked like a university politics fight between Dean Weissenberger and DePaul University Provost, Helmut Epp. But now it appears that the acrimony between the Dean and the Provost goes all the way to eleven.

Provost Epp held a meeting with DePaul College of Law students, and The Shark reported that notes from the meeting ended up on Facebook. Tax Prof Blog has summarized the main allegations that Provost Epp leveled at Dean Weissenberger:

* University officials gave Dean Weissenberger the opportunity to resign, but he refused.

* Dean Weissenberger consistently spent more than the law school budget allowed, in excess of $1 million.

* Dean Weissenberger filled four positions at the law school without permission from the provost.

* Dean Weissenberger’s decision to contact the ABA was “highly irregular” and “making mischief.”

But in this mud fight, the Provost isn’t getting the last word. After the jump, the dean responds to the Provost.

This morning, we mentioned the University of Illinois College of Law admissions scandal. It appears that former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich pressured the University of Illinois Chancellor, Richard Herman, and Heidi Hurd, former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, to admit underqualified students who were politically connected. In exchange for admitting those students, university officials attempted to obtain jobs for graduates of the College of Law.

The Chicago Tribune reports the results of its investigation into the law school:

The documents show for the first time efforts to seek favors — in this case, jobs — for admissions, the most troubling evidence yet of how Illinois’ entrenched system of patronage crept into the state’s most prestigious public university.

They also detail the law school’s system for handling “Special Admits,” students backed by the politically connected, expanding the scope of a scandal prompted by a Chicago Tribune investigation.

The paper has published the incriminating emails (PDF) it has uncovered. Warning, these emails are not safe for naive people who are unaccustomed with the “Chicago style” of getting things done. Here’s an exchange between the Chancellor and the Dean about what jobs would be appropriate in exchange for admitting politically connected students:

I suppose there are worse things than a dean trying to aggressively secure employment for her law graduates can’t pass the bar and can’t think. Of course, you’d hope that the dean would be even more focused on educating students so that they can pass the bar and, you know, think — but why cry over spilled milk?

In fact, some Illinois law graduates we spoke with had a very positive impression of Dean Hurd. Depending, of course, on what you mean by positive.

Some student impressions of the dean, and more emails, after the jump.

We told you so — over a week ago. This past weekend, at the ACS National Convention, we received further confirmation from Yale Law School sources. So today’s announcement of Professor Robert Post as the new dean of YLS comes as no surprise.

The official announcement from Yale president Richard Levin, plus one student’s take on the Post pick, after the jump.