Mark Gordon remembers Mario Cuomo not just as a three-term governor of New York and a former employer, but as the man who convinced him to change careers.

Not by talking Gordon into it, at least not in the sense that phrase usually implies. Rather, the governor routinely used the argumentation skills honed in law school to talk through public-policy issues with Gordon and other aides. The debates, which Cuomo invariably won, helped him evaluate different sides of public policy-issues and determine his own position.

Although Gordon had just completed a master’s degree in international affairs at Columbia University in 1982, watching Cuomo, he said, convinced him to enroll in law school. It was a decision that led, ultimately, to his selection in January as president and dean of the William Mitchell College of Law. Continue reading →

The first-year students hadn’t completed their first month at Columbia Law when Gillian Lester, a California transplant and the school’s incoming dean, gave them a challenge and a promise.

“If we succeed here together, you will not only be trained to be the best lawyers in the nation,” she told the students at a September dinner. “You will be the leaders of the next generation.” Continue reading →

Steep declines in U.S. law school enrollment showed signs of slowing this year amid improving U.S. economic growth and increasing retirement by baby-boomers.

Altogether, 37,924 students began working toward juris doctorate degrees at the 204 institutions accredited by the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the government-designated regulator for law schools. That marked a 4.4 percent drop from the previous year — the smallest since numbers began falling — and a 28 percent slide since the historic high of 52,488 in 2010, according to an ABA statement and archived data.

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A record drop in scores on the standardized bar exam used in almost every state — forcing thousands of prospective lawyers to retake the test — is drawing scrutiny from law school deans nationwide.

Among their questions are whether the biggest slide in almost 40 years indicates technical flaws in the test or the scoring as well as whether the exam is keeping pace with a rapidly changing curriculum.
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Concordia University School of Law

Concordia University School of Law’s request for provisional accreditation, which would allow degree-holders to take the bar exam anywhere in the U.S., will be considered at an American Bar Association meeting almost a month after scheduled commencement ceremonies for the school’s first graduating class.

What the timing means is not yet clear. Concordia had been vying for accreditation before the end of the academic year so graduates would be eligible to take the bar as soon as possible and spokeswoman Madeline Turnock said the university may be able to adjust its calendar so that degrees are conferred after a decision by the Council and the Accreditation Committee of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the government-designated national accrediting agency for law schools. Continue reading →

Tradition called for naming the virus that Dr. Peter Piot identified in 1976 after the Zairian village where it first appeared, but the Belgian doctor feared that would stigmatize both the small community and its inhabitants.

Instead, he named the virus – which causes hemorrhaging and fever – after a river: Ebola. His concern proved prescient. Four decades later, the largest outbreak of Ebola to date has stigmatized entire African countries, with some U.S. politicians advocating travel bans and seeking to quarantine American aid workers who have treated the virus’s victims. Continue reading →

Harvard University is standing by a new sexual harassment policy implemented this fall despite criticisms from more than two dozen law school professors, who say it fails to protect the rights of accused students and that it lacked sufficient faculty input. Continue reading →