UC Berkeley

How Much Does Your Law Professor Make? Berkeley Law Edition

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Earlier this week, we took a look at faculty salaries at UVA Law School. They’re freely available online because UVA is a public law school. The UVA student newspaper obtained the records through FOIA and then posted them on the web. (If you have a problem with such information being made public, sorry. The best I can do is channel Justice Scalia and tell you: “Amend the statute.” )

We don’t want to pick on UVA, so we’re going to take a look at law professor compensation at a few state law schools. Going down the latest U.S. News rankings, we find ourselves at the ninth-best law school in the nation, Berkeley Law aka Boalt Hall.

The word “Berkeley” conjures up images of long-haired hippies smoking copious amounts of marijuana. But in light of their lush salaries, Berkeley law professors could roll joints using hundred-dollar bills….

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Princeton Review Rankings Part Deux: The Toughest Law Schools To Get Into, And More!

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Earlier this week, we brought our readers news of the latest Princeton Review law school rankings for Best Career Prospects. Basing a “career prospects” ranking on surveys of current students, students who have yet to embark upon their careers, could be questioned methodologically — but you ate that s**t up like Halloween candy, so let’s give you more.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at the new rankings in categories that current law students actually know something about: the law schools that are the toughest to get into, and the law schools with the most competitive students. While one of these rankings lists is consistent with conventional wisdom, the other might surprise you.

MOAR RANKINGS, after the jump….

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The 50 Most Relevant Law Professors

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Professor John C. Yoo

Some liberals view Professor John Yoo as a sadist. They cite Professor Yoo’s involvement in the so-called “torture memos” during his time as a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

But I think Professor Yoo is a masochist. Only a masochist would try to develop a citation-based system for ranking the relevance of law professors.

Relevant law professors? Yes, they exist!

Let’s learn about Professor Yoo’s ranking system and see who comes out on top. An added bonus: he also has a list of the top 50 most efficient law professors. Yes, law professors are efficient too!

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Studying for the LSAT Makes You Smarter… At Doing Well on the LSAT

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I’ve long argued that the LSAT doesn’t test a person’s raw intellectual horsepower so much as it tests how well a person prepared for the LSAT. It’s a reading comprehension test that rewards prior achievement instead of future potential. It can be taught. It can be gamed. It can be beat.

Others argue that it really does get to the heart of one’s “intelligence,” and their baseline ability to perform critical thinking tasks.

There is a new study out that says, basically, that I’m right, but I’m sure both sides will find something supportive in the findings. The study looks at the way studying for the LSAT impacts the physical brain chemistry of test takers. One thing I think we’ll all agree on is that merely studying for the LSAT messes with your head….

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.30.12

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* Vietnam is now getting on the right side of history. A song, played on a same sex saxophone. A gay man sound, a lesbian sound, a cry that tells us love isn’t just for heteros. It’s telling me, to hold you tight, and dance like homophobia makes no sense in the world. [WSJ Law Blog]

* If corporations are people, that means they also get to have religion. We can’t be too far away from social conservatives trying to ban same-industry corporate mergers. [The Atlantic]

* Yeah, what I really want to hear is a 0L giving advice about how to choose which law school to go to. [Huffington Post]

* Once again, Romney really seems to support some kind of government-mandated health insurance so long as he’s not talking to Americans while he’s running for President. [Wonkblog / Washington Post]

* Whistling at whales could be a crime, because you don’t want to encourage them. No, I’m not making a BBW joke. I’m talking about actual whales. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* So if we ban illegal immigrants from getting government assistance for an abortion, then aren’t we kind of supporting anchor babies? [Associated Press]

* Lat and friend model t-shirts designed by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (for His Honor’s Romanian barbecue). [Twitter]

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Calling Dr. Law: Yale Will Offer a Ph.D. in Law for Would-Be Legal Academics

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Last year, my colleague Elie Mystal opined as follows: “Any lawyer who calls himself ‘doctor,’ like a Ph.D., should get punched in the mouth.” Given the self-aggrandizing nature of a lawyer taking on the additional title of “doctor,” I can’t say I disagree with him (with all due respect to the efforts on Facebook to get lawyers referred to as doctors).

But what if lawyers — more specifically, aspiring law professors — actually got Ph.D. degrees in law? That’s what will soon be happening at Yale Law School. The school just announced a new “Ph.D. in Law” program, aimed at aspiring law professors.

How will this program work? And is it a good idea? I reached out to a number of prominent law professors, all graduates of YLS themselves, for thoughts on their alma mater’s plan to grant a new degree….

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Quote of the Day: The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

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John Yoo

John Yoo teaching constitutional law to the next generation of lawyers and judges is a perverse mockery of what a law school education should be.

– Stephanie Tang, a spokesperson for the Bay Area chapter of World Can’t Wait, commenting on the anti-war group’s reasons for protesting Yoo’s continued employment by the law school this morning outside Boalt Hall’s commencement ceremony.

(See what Yoo had to say about today’s protest, after the jump.)

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ATL March Madness (2012): Michigan Is The Most Honest Law School

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Above the Law readers are a surprising bunch. After three weeks of voting, the University of Michigan Law School has emerged as the most honest law school in all the land.

Michigan. Can you believe it? I guess all the “Wolverine Scholars” shadiness didn’t stick.

Let’s check out the bracket and the final vote total for Michigan’s victory…

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ATL March Madness (2012): The Most Honest Law School FINAL

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We are at the final showdown for our March Madness bracket, and all the private school sissy-boys have been kicked to the curb. Apparently, you can’t buy your way into a moral or ethical principle. Only the state can inculcate you into virtue.

For the first time, I think ever or at least as long as I’ve been here, in an ATL contest of law schools, the final battle is between two state schools. And it happens in our contest about honesty and ethics. I guess there’s a lot of truth that comes out after a long round of flip-cup….

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True Story: Harvard Law Sells Naming Rights to Its New Bathrooms, and a Berkeley Law Professor Couldn’t Be Happier

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The new face of Harvard Law School has a funny side.

This week, Harvard Law School unveiled its brand new Wasserstein Hall — a behemoth of a law building that will serve the needs of Harvard law students for generations, maybe even centuries. I was not invited to any of the gala events; my invitation must have been lost in the mail. But I can’t wait to see the finished product. Rumor has it that there’s a state-of-the-art debtor’s prison carved into the building’s foundation.

Obviously, a project of this magnitude required a major fundraising effort. Harvard has never been shy about naming things after big donors. Remember, the university itself is named after a guy who made one of the wisest donations of books ever. Wasserstein Hall contains the Caspersen Student Center, and enough commemorative plaques to fill a plaque store.

The building also contains the Falik Men’s Room.

No, I didn’t make that up. I’m not that clever. I’ve got pictures. I’ve even talked to the benefactor who made the gift….

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