Five states will use the Uniform Bar Examination for the first time this summer, and two other states are slated to use it in 2014. That will bring the total number of states using the three-year-old exam to 13, and experts expect more in the near future.
Jim Rigos, owner of Rigos Professional Education Programs, said he expects a majority of the states will adopt the UBE within three years.
Be sure to read our January issue to access the full article and find out who else made the list.
After a failed effort to get approval to cease operating a first year program at its Carlisle, Penn. campus, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law is now moving forward with plans to separate its two campuses as separately accredited law schools by 2015.
“This is a disappointing but understandable outcome,” said Philip McConnaughay, dean of the law school. “This will result in Carlisle having an admissions strategy and mission different from the State College campus.”
Law school enrollment is down 9 percent from a year ago and 15 percent from 2010, the American Bar Association recently reported.
The ABA Section of Legal Education released the preliminary numbers for the first time ahead of its normal publication in the spring, on account of media speculation about the drop in enrollment.
The National Jurist has named 24 legal educators and one legal education public policy advocate to its 2012 list of the most influential people in legal education.
The magazine requested nominations from every law school in the nation, and received more than 85. It’s editorial team narrowed the list down to 50 and then asked 350 people in legal education, including, every law school dean, to rate each nominee based on how much they influenced them in the past 12 months.
Arizona State University’s plans to build a $120 million building in downtown Phoenix are a step closer to reality. A Phoenix city committee recommended to the city manager to negotiate contracts with ASU. ASU is asking the city to provide land for free for the first 10 years and to contribute $12 million to the project.
The city council must still approve the deal and the ASU Board of Regents will vote on it in December.
New York University Law School is the second top tier school to announce significant curricular changes in the past year.
The school is revamping the third-year of law school so that students can spend their final semester studying in Buenos Aires, Paris or Shanghai, working in Washington, D.C. or completing a one-year concentration in a specialized area like environmental, patent or tax law.
It said the purpose of the changes is to ensure that “NYU Law graduates are optimally equipped to compete in the twenty-first century legal marketplace.”
Lincoln Memorial University has done an about face in its attempt to gain American Bar Association accreditation. The Tennessee law school had sued the ABA last year after it was denied accreditation because it failed to show that graduates would have a good chance of graduating, passing the bar exam and landing a job. Read the story here.
The school recently announced it had withdrawn the lawsuit and dropped its appeal of the ABA’s denial for provisional approval.
A former employee at Thomas Jefferson School of Law admitted that she fabricated graduate employment outcomes for the class of 2006.
A new study finds that law schools with diverse faculties are also likely to have diverse law review memberships. But, only 31 percent of Editor In Chief positions at law reviews are held by women.