Last week, Professor Volokh asked his readers to help him figure out “which kind of lawyers read which kinds of blogs.” He was particularly interested in in-hous counsel at major business firms, and readers were kind enough to provide lists of blogs checked daily or subscribed to in RSS feeds. Next month, I’ll be giving a presentation in Columbus, OH to a group of securities regulators on the topic of “how securities lawyers use blogs.” I’d greatly appreciate comments on how lawyers in general (or [...]]]> Sometimes, the law professor blogosphere resembles an echo chamber. We write posts that are commented on and linked to by other bloggers; occasionally, a post gets cited in a law review article or even a judicial opinion.

Last week, Professor Volokh asked his readers to help him figure out “which kind of lawyers read which kinds of blogs.” He was particularly interested in in-hous counsel at major business firms, and readers were kind enough to provide lists of blogs checked daily or subscribed to in RSS feeds. Next month, I’ll be giving a presentation in Columbus, OH to a group of securities regulators on the topic of “how securities lawyers use blogs.” I’d greatly appreciate comments on how lawyers in general (or business lawyers in particular) use blogs, and what blogs or kinds of blogs are most useful. Feel free to post comments here or e-mail me. Anyone willing to be quoted (with or without attribution) in a public presentation should feel free to let me know. This is a blog post in which I’m begging, or a “bleg,” for those less familiar with the vernacular of the bloggentsia.

Lawyers seem to use blogs in a number of ways. As consumers of blogs, lawyers may follow the latest developments in their areas of practice, or in related areas they may not have time to cover in the course of their ordinary practice. Lawyers also consume blogs for the same reasons they buy copies of American Lawyer magazine: for gossip, salary and revenue data, and the like. As producers of blogs, lawyers seem to use blogs as a form of financially inexpensive (but certainly time consuming) advertising. By providing regular updates to readers, lawyers attract hits and links and attention from across the country that may lead to far greater professional recognition than the traditional “1-555-Sue-4You” billboards and TV ads.

Solomon explains that the ballots task voters to “Identify the law schools you are familiar with, and then rate the academic quality of their J.D. program at each of these schools.”

One of the remarkable aspects of this charge is that voters are asked to [...]]]> Professors are ablog about the U.S. News ballots recently arrived in law school mailrooms around the country. At Moneylaw, rankings guru Tom Bell (Chapman Law) relates interesting news of possible voting irregularities in the academic reputation balloting — with individuals other than deans, associate deans, recruiting chairs and most-recently-tenured profs receiving ballots even though they aren’t supposed to be U.S. News voters. At Prawfs, Jason Solomon (Georgia) reminds voters they are supposed to be assessing schools’ quality, rather than reputation.

Solomon explains that the ballots task voters to “Identify the law schools you are familiar with, and then rate the academic quality of their J.D. program at each of these schools.”

One of the remarkable aspects of this charge is that voters are asked to identify the schools they are “familiar” with, and rank only those schools. One wonders how many ballots contain “un-ranked” schools. That is, do voters really decline to rank programs they don’t know much about? Sure, you know the schools you went to, that you fight with over recruits, and you might have a single conference or blogging pal on the faculties of any number of schools. You might vote high on schools you like or went to, low on those which sport unpleasant types, and of course “game” the system by giving your own school a “5″ and its rivals a “1.” But my guess is, for the vast majority of voters for the vast majority of the nation’s two-hundred law schools, any knowledge they have is at best a fleeting snapshot of a far more robust J.D. program.

U.S. News could easily purge the ignorance from this system by subjecting voters to a “familiarity” test. In order to have votes for particular schools count, for instance, voters could be required to name at least two (or three) active faculty members at the school, or provide some other mildly accurate indicator of quality or lack thereof (“sub-80% bar passage”; “Roger Williams top 50 outside of the top 50 ranked faculty”; etc.). If voters can’t come up with a name for a single faculty member or relevant indicator of quality, or be bothered to look one up on google, then they could select “Ignorant” with respect to a particular school.

To be sure, the fact that no one knows about a particular school might tell us something relevant. It might tell us that the school’s faculty could be more prominent, oriented out of the building, etc. Or it might tell us nothing — that the voter simply has never encountered any meaningful point of reference for a school that doesn’t get to the NCAA final four or the BCS bowls and is located 2500 miles away. U.S. News could do us a favor by reporting not just the mean ranking a school receives, but also the pecentage of voters who selected “Ignorant” for each of the “ranked” schools. If 80% of voters are “ignorant” about the quality of the University of West Dakota law school, that might be more noteworthy than that the school — like so many others — ended up with a mean peer assessment somewhere in the 2.0 – 2.5 range.

Then again, I’m still waiting for someone to put a law rankings ballot up for sale on ebay.

Jo(e) thought s/he made a smart decision when s/he started work at a “Tier 2-Tier 3″ law school in the middle of America a few years ago by electing a portable and individualized pension plan, rather than the traditional defined benefit plan most professors of an earlier generation had chosen. Jo(e) observed increased mobility by professors over the course of their careers, and thought there was a chance s/he might someday move to another school or community. The traditional 20-year pension plan seemed inconsistent with professional trends, and Jo(e) questioned whether the traditional pension system would be solvent when s/he faced retirement.

Jo(e) watched his/her pension [...]]]> Jo(e) the law professor has mixed emotions when it comes to the economic and financial turmoil of recent weeks.

Jo(e) thought s/he made a smart decision when s/he started work at a “Tier 2-Tier 3″ law school in the middle of America a few years ago by electing a portable and individualized pension plan, rather than the traditional defined benefit plan most professors of an earlier generation had chosen. Jo(e) observed increased mobility by professors over the course of their careers, and thought there was a chance s/he might someday move to another school or community. The traditional 20-year pension plan seemed inconsistent with professional trends, and Jo(e) questioned whether the traditional pension system would be solvent when s/he faced retirement.

Jo(e) watched his/her pension fund contributions grow during those pre-tenure years. This year, s/he noticed, with some anxiety, that his/her account now had less money in it then s/he had contributed. Distressing, needless to say.

Yet Jo(e) gets a kind of pervese happiness in seeing law school classmates-turned I-bankers transformed into handout-seeking neo-socialists.

Jo(e) thinks the root of today’s crisis has to do with the lack of lawyers involved in the real estate transactions that launched this downward spiral. Real estate “agents” with undeniable conflicts of interest steered buyers into homes they couldn’t afford and mortgages they couldn’t bear. Lawyers, those ethical founts of wisdom, might have protected buyers from the kinds of products that now seem so toxic. And Jo(e) knows that bad economic times have a way of inflating law school class sizes, which means more money for schools facing budget cuts and more room for selectivity in law school admissions.

Jo(e) is intrigued that one of the major party candidates for president had a professor-like educational background and academic inclination. At the same time, Jo(e) has long been a fan of the other party’s independent-minded nominee.

U.S. News has not made clear the precise formula to be used to rate these part-time programs, but one of the factors is “part-time peer assessment.” I am struck that professors at schools with no part-time programs are being asked to rate the part-time programs of schools that do offer this option. It might have been better to ask only [...]]]> U.S. News “academic reputation” ballots are apparently out. This year, as TaxProf Paul Caron and voter Austen Parrish at Prawfs report, the magazine is asking voters to nominate “top-quality part-time J.D. programs.” This is likely an effort to counter criticism that the magazine’s possible inclusion of part-time students’ credentials in the overall law rankings will devastate genuine part-time programs across the country.

U.S. News has not made clear the precise formula to be used to rate these part-time programs, but one of the factors is “part-time peer assessment.” I am struck that professors at schools with no part-time programs are being asked to rate the part-time programs of schools that do offer this option. It might have been better to ask only those schools with part-time programs to evaluate other part-time programs. It also seems like U.S. News could rank evening programs, rather than part-time programs, to avoid letting schools’ more controversial but often larger part-time day programs cloud the rankings. But I digress.

Are the things that make a full-time program strong equally relevant in evaluating part-time programs? Perhaps so, but other factors may bear special attention in evaluating part-time J.D. offerings. In my opinion (having taught evening classes at three law schools offering part-time J.D.s), students at outstanding part-time programs are well integrated in the intellectual, academic, and extracurricular life of the law school.

No one will be surprised when Georgetown, George Washington, and other big-city schools with part-time programs rich in highly credentialed working students end up at the top of the new U.S. News part-time rankings. But with respect to those and any other programs voters are thinking of suggesting, what to me makes a part-time program “great” is that it offers working professionals, parents, etc., the chance to earn a J.D. on a “flexible” schedule yet with all of the academic and intellectual opportunities that law school is supposed to provide. How can a potential voter tell how well integrated a part-time program is? I’d suggest a few factors and be interested in what others might think:

1. How often do full-time faculty teach at night?

While there certainly are many outstanding adjuncts who bring their talents into the law school at night, one factor that would seem to me to indicate a school’s commitment to a real part-time program would be how often full-time doctrinal faculty teach at night. If a school’s full-time teachers only rarely teach at night, leaving first-year and core “bar” subjects taught by adjuncts, then the school may not be affording the same diversity of instructional perspectives to night students it gives to day students.

2. How long has a part-time program been offered?

If a part-time program was added after U.S. News began ranking law schools, I think it’s safe to presume it was an effort to “game” the rankings rather than to provide meaningful educational opportunities. Some law schools that are now full-time started as part-time programs and part-time education remains a central aspect of their educational offerings. Schools with a long track record of preparing non-traditional students for success on the bar and in legal practice are likely to be more committed to providing part-time students a full educational experience.

3. What do part-time program alums do?

On a similar note, it would seem that the quality of part-time J.D.s’ post-law school experiences would say something about the programs. If a student is working as a legislative correspondent before starting the part-time J.D. program, and in the same job afterwards, then the school may not have provided a transformational law school experience. Schools with part-time programs that have produced leading lawyers, federal and state judges, and the like, should be recognized for the efforts that faculty expend in teaching those evening and summer courses.

One of my favorites is the term “toxic assets.” (When members of the pro-bailout forces describe these assets, which taxpayers are supposed to buy, they typically use the less caustic phrase “troubled assets“). During my brief venture over to the business school to take an accounting class, I seem to recall something about balance sheets involving “assets” and “liabilities,” but I don’t remember where I am supposed to put toxic assets in my ledger. Dinner might be considered an asset, but if it is poison, it would seem to me to be more of a liability. Toxic assets are [...]]]> Like most of the “crises” that captivate Washington’s attention, current economic and financial affiars have produced some interesting new terms, concepts and phrases.

One of my favorites is the term “toxic assets.” (When members of the pro-bailout forces describe these assets, which taxpayers are supposed to buy, they typically use the less caustic phrase “troubled assets“). During my brief venture over to the business school to take an accounting class, I seem to recall something about balance sheets involving “assets” and “liabilities,” but I don’t remember where I am supposed to put toxic assets in my ledger. Dinner might be considered an asset, but if it is poison, it would seem to me to be more of a liability. Toxic assets are nothing more than assets that are overpriced or overvalued — perhaps dramatically so. Yet saying that taxpayers should purchase or otherwise guarantee “overpriced assets”, well, that doesn’t have a very good ring.

Another concept I found amusing was President Bush’s assertion in his Tuesday morning plea to the nation (and its elected representatives) that to do nothing would not return us to the “smooth functioning of the free market“. Funny idea. I could show you a few hundred abandoned factories and warehouses on the drive up I75 from Toledo to Detroit that suggest the free market functions in anything but a smooth way. Capitalism’s “creative destruction” has always involved tremendous dislocation during transition periods.

And then there was Senator McCain’s amusing statement in Friday’s debate that a bailout was necessary to “keep these institutions stable.” Another wonderfully interesting phrase. I thought that, by definition, institutions were stable. If something isn’t stable, well, it’s not much of an institution, is it?