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A Well-Traveled Path From Ivy League to Supreme Court
Law School News |
2010/09/05 23:23
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pJustice Clarence Thomas recalled the reaction from “self-proclaimed smart bloggers” when he looked beyond the Ivy League to hire law clerks from Creighton, George Mason, George Washington and Rutgers for the Supreme Court term that started in 2008. /pp“They referred to my clerks last year as TTT — third-tier trash,” he told students at the University of Florida in February. “That’s the attitude that you’re up against.” /ppJustice Thomas’s hiring was certainly out of step with that of his colleagues. About half of the law clerks who have served the justices since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court in 2005 attended two law schools — Harvard and Yale. Another quarter attended just four others — Virginia, Stanford, Chicago and Columbia. /ppIn remarks to law students at American University Washington College of Law last year, Justice Antonin Scalia was unapologetic about this trend. /pp“By and large,” he said, “I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, O.K.?” /ppJustice Thomas said he took a different approach. “I have a preference, actually, for non-Ivy League law clerks, simply because I think clerks should come from a wide range of backgrounds,” he said. “I don’t have that pedigree. I’m not part of this sort of new or faux nobility.” /ppJustice Thomas, who grew up poor in rural Georgia, attended Yale Law School, as did Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor. The other justices all attended Harvard Law School, though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg transferred to Columbia and graduated from there. Justice Ginsburg has said that she has chosen clerks based in part on recommendations from David Schizer, a former clerk of hers who is now dean of Columbia Law School, and from Justice Elena Kagan when she was dean of Harvard Law School.
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Dean From Northwestern Picked to Lead New School
Law School News |
2010/09/01 23:24
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| pThe trustees of the New School, an eclectic university in downtown Manhattan, selected David E. Van Zandt, dean of the Northwestern Law School, on Thursday to be its eighth president. /ppDr. Van Zandt, 57, will replace Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska senator and presidential candidate, whose nine-year tenure was characterized by a huge expansion of the university, but also by student sit-ins and criticism from the faculty over what his detractors said was an autocratic leadership style. /ppMr. Kerrey, who will be 67 on Friday, announced in May 2009 that he would step down when his contract expired in July 2011. He will instead stay on through the end of December 2010. /ppThe contrasts between the two leaders are immediately apparent. Dr. Van Zandt is an academic, not a politician, and has a reputation for driving change through low-key, data-driven discussion and consensus. Mr. Kerrey is the first to admit he loves controversy and welcomes passionate debate. /ppDr. Van Zandt will be charged with further integrating the disparate pieces of the New School, which has eight academic divisions, including the well-known Parsons the New School for Design and the less-known Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts. (Among the things Mr. Kerrey was criticized for were those awkward names, part of a branding effort in 2005 that aimed to improve cohesion. Indeed, Dr. Van Zandt said that when he was contacted about the job, he did not know Parsons was part of the New School.) /ppMr. Kerrey centralized much of the university’s administrative and operational functions, but said there was still work to be done to integrate the academic divisions. “It is no longer is a confederation, though there are people who think it should be,” Mr. Kerrey said Thursday. /ppMichael J. Johnston, the chairman of the board of trustees, said the search committee and board were attracted to Dr. Van Zandt’s record of change at Northwestern. “He stood out as a person of balance — not only an academic and someone who loves order and process, and not only a teacher with a passion for learning, but someone who spent 15 years as a really good agent of change at Northwestern.” Mr. Johnston said. /ppHe said the search committee was originally concerned that Dr. Van Zandt’s leadership experience — at a law school — was too narrow, but as the interviews progressed, it was clear he had the breadth they sought. /ppa href=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/06/BA6U1F7B6E.DTL#ixzz0yp2uH1MJ/a /p |
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Stanford team's law books help Afghan students
Law School News |
2010/09/01 23:23
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pIn fall 2007, Afghanistan had a new Constitution and eager students lining up to learn its laws. What it didn't have was law books./ppSeven thousand miles away, two students at Stanford University's law school thought they could help./ppStanford law Professor Erik Jensen smiled as he recalled the two law students, Alexander Benard and Eli Sugarman, standing in his office doorway, asking him to help them write textbooks for law students in Afghanistan./ppI gave them a few ideas, wished them luck and turned back to my computer, he said. But, in the end, I have a hard time looking commitment in the eye and saying no./ppThat year, Jensen, Benard, Sugarman and a handful of classmates formed the Afghan Legal Education Project. They gave themselves a crash course in Afghanistan's laws, politics and history and began writing their first textbook, An Introduction to the Law of Afghanistan, an online version for use at the American University in Afghanistan, a fledgling school in Kabul that was introducing a law program.
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