Law Commons^™

The 2019 Revealed-Preferences Ranking Of Law Schools, Christopher J. Ryan, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 2017, we published A Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools, which presented the first (intentionally) objective ranking of law schools. Other law school rankings are subjective because their purpose is to tell prospective law students where to matriculate. Our “revealed preferences” ranking is objective because its purpose is to ask where prospective law students actually choose to matriculate. In other words, subjective rankings tell students what they should want, but our objective ranking reveals what students actually want. These rankings were originally based on an average of the previous five years of LSAT and GPA quartile and median averages …

A Revealed Preferences Approach To Ranking Law Schools, Brian L. Frye, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) “Best Law Schools Rankings” defines the market for legal education. Law schools compete to improve their standing in the U.S. News rankings and fear any decline. But the U.S. News rankings are controversial, at least in part because they rely on factors that are poor proxies for quality, like peer reputation and expenditures per student. While many alternative law school rankings exist, none have challenged the market dominance of the U.S. News rankings. Presumably the U.S. News rankings benefit from a first-mover advantage, other rankings fail to provide a clearly superior alternative, …

Race And Equality Across The Law School Curriculum: The Law Of Tax Exemption, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

What is the relevance of race to tax law? The race issues are apparent when one studies a subject like constitutional law. The Constitution concerns itself explicitly with such matters as defining rights of citizenship, allocating powers of government, and determining rights with respect to property. Given the history of our country -- with slavery followed by periods of de jure and de facto racial discrimination -- these constitutional law matters obviously must have racial dimensions.

Tax law, however, does not generally concern itself explicitly with matters of race. Tax law is often thought of as completely race neutral in …

Class Participation: Random Calling And Anonymous Grading, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

My perception is that opposition has been growing to law teachers' demanding student participation in class. At least one new teacher recently suggested to me that no good reason supports calling on students who have not volunteered. Many teachers, not to mention students, find something like an invasion of the student's dignity in that practice. Other teachers worry about the pitfalls of calling on or not calling on members of ethnic or gender groups, so they simply lecture or call only on volunteers. On another, indirectly related issue, my perception is that students often do not trust the anonymity of …

“Some Kind Of Lawyer”: Two Journeys From Classroom To Courtroom And Beyond, Terry Birdwhistell

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In January 1996 a panel of the American Bar Association released a report concluding that "discrimination continues to permeate the structures, practices and attitudes of the legal profession." It has been a long journey in women's efforts to obtain equity in both law schools and in the legal profession generally. This article is composed of two interviews with University of Kentucky College of Law graduates: Norma Boster Adams (’52) and Annette McGee Cunningham (’80). Twenty-eight years separated Norma Adams and Annette Cunningham at the College of Law. They faced different obstacles and chose varied paths to success. While each can …

Lawyer Supply And Demand In Kentucky Over The Next Decade, Alvin L. Goldman

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Projecting future needs is a painstaking and hazardous affair. Avoiding such pain, however, is even more hazardous. There is good reason to attempt to project the next decade's need for, and potential supply of, new lawyers in Kentucky. Adequate legal services are an important ingredient in orderly economic growth and an essential element in preserving a free society. On the other hand, an over-abundance of lawyers can depress the economics of the profession to the point at which its ability to sustain desired standards of ethical conduct and to attract a high caliber of new talent are both threatened. Moreover, …