Northwestern University School of Law

Lawyerly Lairs: Dean Van Zandt’s Delicious Listing

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Isn’t it nice when people who do good also do well? David Van Zandt — the outgoing dean of Northwestern Law, and the incoming president of The New School — is a beloved figure, at NU Law and beyond. Professionally, he’s an innovator in legal education; personally, he’s a great guy. We’re big fans of his here at Above the Law, especially since he once wrote a guest commentary for our pages (on law school rankings).

When Dean Van Zandt announced his departure, Northwestern Law students were heartbroken. But don’t shed tears for DVZ: he’s going to a better place. Hello, New York City! [FN1]

And assuming The New School doesn’t provide its new president with housing, Dean Van Zandt should be able to snap up a fabulous pad for himself here in Gotham. He has put his Chicago mansion on the market, for a very pretty penny. If he succeeds in selling it for anywhere near the asking price, he’ll be able to live large in NYC.

Dean Van Zandt bought the home back in 1996, for $922,550. How much is it on the market for today?

Let’s find out — and ogle some pictures of the house, inside and out….

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Northwestern Law Student Emails Hand-Job Offer to Entire Law School

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You know how cars can be equipped with an ignition interlock device that prevents the engine from being started if the driver is intoxicated? Can we get one of those thingies for the personal computer, Blackberry, or any other device people can use to send email? Because I’m pretty sure a Northwestern Law student could have used a little technological warning before she logged on to her email this weekend.

Over the weekend we received an email that was (I can only assume) intended for an officer on the Northwestern Student Bar Association. But it was accidentally sent out to the entire NU law school student body. Whoops.

These are the things that happen when you try to email people at 12:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning….

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Most Schools Would Like Law School Transparency to Just Go Away

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In July, we profiled the efforts of a group of Vanderbilt law students who are trying to bring more accuracy and transparency to the employment statistics provided by law schools. Their group, Law School Transparency, has requested all ABA-accredited schools to provide useful information to prospective law students — information that neither the ABA nor U.S. News currently collects.

Without the regulatory hammer of ABA (which the organization inexplicably refuses to wield), or the public shaming of U.S News (a for-profit magazine, not an industry watchdog), LST is up against some long odds. They’re trying their best, but their interim report indicates that thus far, 188 law schools have completely ignored their efforts to report simple facts on the employment prospects of law school graduates.

In fact, to this point no school (not even Vanderbilt Law) has agreed to provide the information LST is requesting. Poor Zenovia Evans would have starved to death by now.

But 11 schools did find the time to send out a courtesy letter citing the reasons these schools cooked up to justify keeping people in the dark about employment prospects for law school graduates…

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Legal Education Loses a Warrior: Northwestern’s David Van Zandt Leaves to Take Over The New School

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Law school deans come, law school deans go, but this departure hurts. As Dean of Northwestern Law School, David Van Zandt has been a strong voice for a more practice-oriented approach to legal education, and he’s been doing it from the unusual perch of top 14 law school.

But at the end of the year he will leave to become the President of the New School. And boy are they happy. From the New School’s press release:

“We are proud to welcome David Van Zandt to The New School,” said Michael J. Johnston, chair of the Board of Trustees. “Since 1919, New School leadership has stood at the vanguard of American higher education. The New School today has emerged as a major degree-granting university with academic strengths in the humanities and social sciences, design, public administration, and the performing arts. I am confident that David Van Zandt will make lasting and meaningful contributions here, building on our legacy of preparing socially responsible citizens for the challenges of the future. I along with the rest of the Board and the university community look forward to working with David.”

Dr. Van Zandt will assume his new position as president of The New School on January 1, 2011. He succeeds the university’s current president, Bob Kerrey, who will remain as New School president until the end of 2010 to ensure a seamless transition. Kerrey, who was appointed in 2001, led The New School during a period of unprecedented growth.

Dean Van Zandt deserves the praise. But the sadness coming out of Northwestern is palpable. The kids at Northwestern Law were very attached to their dean…

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An Interview With Northwestern’s Resident Pop Star

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Would you trade in being a pop star to be a legal rockstar? Last week, we wrote about So-eun Lee, a South Korean pop star who left behind her music career to attend Northwestern Law.

We emailed with the now-2L to find out how she achieved pop stardom back in Seoul and whether it seems easier to break into the music industry than the legal industry these days. We also found out she goes by Nikki Lee here in the States.

ATL: How did you break into the music industry in South Korea?

I participated in a national song writing contest when I was thirteen, and it was broadcast on television. I got calls from various recording companies after that went on air, and that was the beginning.

ATL: Why did you decide to leave your music career for the law? Are you glad you decided to go to law school?

I am glad, although I have to admit that sometimes during the last year I wondered why I ever decided to come. I did music for a long time, for eleven years, and I felt and knew that I wanted a change in direction. I was a spokesperson for a couple of organizations as an artist, and I wanted to be able to know and participate in the substantive issues instead of just being the “face” of something, and a legal education seemed like the right path.

So what substantive issues is she diving into this summer?

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Law Student of the Day: Korean Popstar at Northwestern

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We occasionally write about famous law school students here at Above the Law, such as Georgetown rising-3Ls Kaavya Viswanathan (aka the alleged Harvard plagiarist) and Top Model Sara Hallmark, and Southwestern 1L Jerry O’Connell (now on sabbatical).

Sometimes, a law school is graced by the presence of a famous classmate and fellow students are completely unaware of their good luck — if, for example, that law student is huge overseas but little-known on this shore.

When Lee So-eun got into Northwestern Law School, it was national news in South Korea. From the Chosun in June 2009:

Singer Lee So-eun has been accepted at a number of law schools in the United States. Lee’s management on Wednesday said the singer, who debuted as a high schooler in 1998, received offers from Northwestern, Cornell, Georgetown and Notre Dame.

Lee had been preparing for U.S. law school since she graduated with a degree in English Literature from Korea University in 2007. She has chosen Northwestern University Law School in Chicago. “I plan to leave for the U.S. in July, and want to focus on international and human rights law,” she said.

So what did she give up to go to law school?

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Congratulations to Our 2010 Law Revue Video Contest Winner: Northwestern!

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Over 16,000 votes were cast in our second annual Law Revue video contest. We now bestow the 2010 Law Revue Video Contest crown upon….

Wait, hold on a sec. Unfortunately, there were allegations of voting irregularities.

And according to our friends at Vizu, which hosted our poll, it appears that the allegations may have merit….

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Open Thread: 2011 U.S. News Law School Rankings (6 – 15)

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Let’s continue our march through the U.S. News law school rankings. Today we finish up the traditional top-14 — and we’ll throw in the schools tied for 15th, because we’re pretty sick of hearing UT and UCLA students whine. To refresh your memory, here’s the next group of schools:

6. NYU
7. Berkeley
7. Penn
9. Michigan
10. UVA
11. Duke
11. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown
15. UCLA
15. Texas

All joking aside, dropping to #6 is really not that big of a deal. NYU Law students will be fine — check out how the kicked it on the basketball court just after the rankings came out…

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Rankings Are Valuable (And Here to Stay)
So let’s focus on making them better.

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Ed. note: In advance of the soon-to-be-released U.S. News and World Report law school rankings, we wanted to get a fresh take on why the rankings are something we should care about. So we reached out to one of the most well-known proponents of law school rankings, Dean David E. Van Zandt of the Northwestern University School of Law. His guest post appears below.

By David Van Zandt

The debates about the merits of the U.S. News & World Reports annual law school rankings undoubtedly will escalate with the imminent release of the new rankings. The rankings indeed are far from perfect. (I myself think there should be a different weighting of variables.) And we, as legal educators and practitioners, should continue to share our concerns about the methodology and weightings used by U.S. News.

That said, my unpopular position on law school rankings essentially remains unchanged for the past decade. I strongly believe in them. Rankings offer prospective law students an important source of consumer information with which to evaluate law schools.

Frankly, I believe we need more rankings. I especially would welcome additional rankings that would focus on employer perspectives and employment outcomes. Business Week’s rankings of MBA programs, for example, do a much better job of focusing on employers and allowing them to rank graduates of schools based on specific desired qualities and outcomes. However, just having more independent publications (as occurs in the business school world) rank law schools in different ways would help…

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So let’s focus on making them better.“

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Northwestern SBA President Now In Trouble With the Real Police (UPDATE: Charge Dismissed)

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CORRECTION AND UPDATE (12/6/2010): We are advised as follows by a knowledgeable source: “There was never a charge of ‘fleeing’ the police or anything of the sort. Todd was, in fact, ‘pulled over’ while parked in the parking lot of his hotel and the only charge against him, driving under the influence, has been dismissed.”

We’ve had quite a bit of fun around these parts with the Northwestern Student Bar Association’s role as PC Police for the entire Northwestern Law community. You’ll remember that the Northwestern SBA admonished students for using “any racial or sexual epithet[s]” around exam time — e.g., “that exam raped me.”

But now tipsters report that outgoing SBA president Todd Belcore is in trouble with duly recognized officers of the law, and it’s got nothing to do with his language:

[O]n a school trip to MS, Todd Belcore was arrested for DUI and fleeing from the police. The people on the trip were warned not to discuss the arrest to avoid the news getting to you guys.

Getting hemmed up on a DUI in Mississippi? That is so gay.

Various Mississippi sheriffs’ departments declined to talk about the incident, but additional sources confirmed the reports….

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