Nancy Rapoport's Blogspot

An important opinion piece for Memorial Day.

2012-05-25T20:04:00.000-06:00

Tom Manion's piece in the Wall Street Journal (here) is exceptionally moving, and it's a must-read for Memorial Day.

We quite literally can never repay the debt that we owe our troops. But we owe it to them to recognize their bravery and sacrifice, not just on Memorial Day, but every day.

A new chapter.

2012-05-25T16:55:00.003-06:00

Yesterday afternoon, UNLV's President announced that John White, our law school's dean, would be UNLV's next provost. We will be doing a dean search this coming year, but in the meantime, I'll be our school's Interim Dean, with the transition happening mid-summer. Here's what I sent to our community:

Dear Boyd Community,

I know that we all wish Dean White well in his new position as UNLV's next Executive Vice President and Provost. He has done many wonderful things for our school: preserving our financial stability during one of the worst recessions in history, adding talented faculty and staff members to our already strong ranks, and helping to guide us through a rethinking of our first-year curriculum.

I'm happy to be serving as Interim Dean as we search for our next permanent dean. We are at a pivotal point in legal education. Legal practice has changed dramatically, and we are not likely to see a return to the old approaches to practicing law. Our students will be looking to us to help them find a way to adapt to this "new normal." We need to continue to provide our students with the right mix of analytical and communication skills, a deep understanding of substantive law, and an ability to use law as one way--but not the only way--to solve complicated problems. We also need to think creatively about how to adapt our strengths in this changing environment.

This year will be busy for us. In addition to the dean search, we'll have the ABA site inspection and will embark on our next strategic plan. For us to be able to make informed decisions, we'll need to do a fair amount of research on legal education and the practice of law. The good news is that we have a strong and growing alumni base and a significant amount of goodwill in the legal community. I'm sure that we will be able to tap the knowledge of our friends near and far to help us in our decision-making.

It's an honor for me to serve our school in this capacity. We have a remarkable school, filled with talented, engaged, and collegial people. Here's to preserving the best of what we have and finding even more ways to be outstanding.

It is an honor, and I think of Boyd as a very special (strong school and collegial environment) place.

Funny column to start the week.

2012-05-14T08:37:00.000-06:00

From today's WSJ (here).

Grab-bag of great essays.

2012-05-06T09:20:00.001-06:00

See Augusten Burroughs's WSJ piece, How to Live Unhappily Ever After (here); this one on When the Troops Were Very Young (here); and the book review of "If You Were Only White" (here).

Woof out for Kaitlin!

2012-05-01T21:25:00.003-06:00

Our friends Tommy and Dee-Dee have a wonderful granddaughter named Kaitlin. Kaitlin is facing a serious medical condition with grace and bravery. If you'd like to send all three of them some good vibes, please click here to upload a picture of your pet "woofing" for Kaitlin.

Here are some of ours:

If you look closely at the top one, you'll see how we bribed the girls to stay still for a little bit.

R.I.P., Judge Paskay.

2012-04-30T13:57:00.003-06:00

A remarkable man. I'll miss him.

Do I really expect some law schools to close in the next few years? Yes. Yes, I do.

2012-04-27T15:17:00.000-06:00

In this cross-post on our Law School Survival Manual blog, I attempt to clarify that--although the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy is bleak--it's not quite as bad as I glibly said it was on the Bloomberg Law podcast. But it is bad, and something has to give. As I indicated in my most recent essay about legal education (here), some schools aren't going to be able to justify their continued existence. Even some very good schools are tightening their belts (see here).

And the job market for most lawyers is shrinking, not expanding. Check out this Dealbook Q&A (here) with Michael Trotter. His predictions are sobering.

When you combine the trends in law jobs with the increasing cost of attending law school (check out one of my favorite blogs, The Legal Whiteboard)--and you combine those two things with the fact that most student loans are non-dischargeable--you get a lot of law deans who are facing a lot of sleepless nights. Law professors should also be nervous, because tenure won't protect them from being laid off when their law schools close.

It's time to rethink what we mean when we talk about legal education. That's a complex subject, but it's crucial that law professors have honest, non-turfy, non-pointy-headed-academic discussions about what we're doing and what we should be doing.

Oh, and my Buck Rogers reference in the interview? That's from one of my favorite movies, The Right Stuff. Here's the quote (from the imdb.com site):

Gordon Cooper: You boys know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.
Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Yep. No tuition, no school. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Probably not a relative,* but a really cool guy. RIP, Bernard Rapoport.

2012-04-24T08:25:00.002-06:00

Here's the New York Times obituary of Bernard Rapoport.

*Of course, theoretically, all Rapoports are related....

Congrats to my buddy Sherri Wattenbarger!

2012-04-23T07:22:00.002-06:00

This article tickled the heck out of me.

2012-04-21T05:51:00.000-06:00

Especially the observations about academia--see here.

More shameless self-promotion: my article on fees in chapter 11 cases is out.

2012-04-13T15:13:00.000-06:00

You can download it here.

I loved the blog The Legal Whiteboard even before . . .

2012-04-11T14:33:00.002-06:00

Jeff Lipshaw so kindly posted about my latest piece (here). Thanks, Jeff!

Shameless self-promotion: my most recent article about legal education.

2012-04-11T10:36:00.003-06:00

Available at SSRN (here).

Titanic.

2012-04-10T08:19:00.001-06:00

It will be 100 years ago this coming weekend, and there are so many news stories about Titanic that I hardly know where to begin. But we can start here, here, here, and here.

Wow.

2012-04-08T13:04:00.002-06:00

Hear the interview of a Titanic survivor here.

R.I.P. Gary Hartman

2012-04-04T11:26:00.000-06:00

I just heard about Gary Hartman's passing (here) and my heart goes out to Susan and the rest of his family and friends.

Gary was one of the first people I met at UHLC, and what I loved most about him was his ability to tell me the truth, even when he knew I wasn't going to like hearing it. He cared passionately about the school and his colleagues.

He was especially good during emergencies. In the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison, when Houston was hard-hit and our law school was among the hardest-hit, he was there, on the ground, making sure that things were working and solving the problems that come with every natural disaster. But for the work of Gary and a few others, not only would we not have had a physical site for the school but we would also not have had a way of communicating with each other. Many people might have been discouraged to the point of giving up, but Gary used his creativity and his wicked sense of humor (the obituary says that better than I ever could) to keep up morale and give us perspective.

Deans have very few people whom they can trust, and few in whom they can confide. Gary was a trusted confidante. For those who knew him, their lives were the better for it. R.I.P., Gary.

Blaming the wrong person.

2012-03-31T17:15:00.002-06:00

As I'm reading this story, I'm getting deja vu. Some students at U Conn's law school somehow believe that the soon-to-be-former dean caused a drop in U Conn's rankings. How, exactly, would he have done that? Let's guess:

1. He called up future employers and told them not to hire U Conn graduates.
2. He told his dean of admissions to pick some applicants on the basis of things other than UGPA and LSAT.
3. He conspired with the 779 other people receiving the academic reputation survey to make sure that U Conn was not rated as highly as, say, Yale. He also made sure that everyone who received the USNWR survey actually returned it.
4. Ditto with the judges, lawyers, and law firms ranking the schools.
5. And he cratered the economy, which dried up budgets and donations as if they were so many plums in direct sun in Death Valley.

The problem with the rankings is that deans have horrible choices--and very little power. They could lie about their statistics. They could make choices solely designed to maximize their USNWR rankings, without regard to any other effect those choices could have on the school. Or they can work with their team to run the best school possible with the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and budgets that they have or could reasonably be expected to get.

If reputation is 40% of the score, then deans also have to wrestle with the halo effect, which will give some schools more of a bump than they might otherwise deserve. ("School X must be better than School Y, because School X has been ranked more highly than School Y for years.") Deans also have to wrestle with the fact that the other 194 schools being ranked aren't staying static, either.

So when I read about Dean Paul stepping down, I think that he's being scapegoated. U Conn students, remember this: at some point, each of you may be in a position with a lot of responsibility but not a lot of power to effect change. You'll be blamed for things that are not your fault. And you'll feel just as frustrated as Dean Paul feels now.

Some very intelligent comments about public discourse.

2012-03-07T09:06:00.000-06:00

See Jon Ralston's opinion (here) and David Brooks's opinion (here).

The news article that a lawyer does not want to see when she's having her morning coffee.

2012-03-02T11:51:00.000-06:00

See here. Shades of Arthur Andersen's shredding scandal. Having a rogue manager (assuming that's what happened) shred documents, counter to attorney instructions, is one of a lawyer's worst nightmares.

Yet another reason why my buddy Bernie Burk is cool (and funny).

2012-02-27T08:57:00.000-06:00

See here.

Kvelling about the review of Randy Gordon's book.

2012-02-24T15:50:00.002-06:00

One of my buddies, Randy Gordon, has just gotten a really nice review of his really good book called Rehumanizing Law: A Theory of Law and Democracy. The review in Harvard Law Review said, in part:

Not only does Rehumanizing Law provide an insightful analysis of narrative both within and without the law, but the book, which is peppered with discussions and excerpts of famous cases, poems, novels, and plays, also often proves amusing, enriching, and entertaining.

Not only is Randy a double-Ph.D., but he's an exceptionally good lawyer, too. Now you know why I'm kvelling.

Playing through the pain.

2012-02-22T09:15:00.004-06:00

Great essay in the Wall Street Journal (here).

Bloomberg Law on the 10 greatest legal movie lines.

2012-02-21T19:50:00.001-06:00

See here. I feel very self-actualized. I use nine of these movies when I talk about lawyers in pop culture, and I use five of the same clips that Bloomberg Law used. Enjoy.

A hearty congrats to Omar Alaniz!

2012-02-20T15:38:00.001-06:00

My buddy Eric Van Horn just sent me links to Omar's latest honor (see here and here). Omar has just been given the ABA Young Lawyers Division National Outstanding Young Lawyer Award.

Totally deserving, Omar! BRAVO!

Who can't love an op-ed piece about corporate greed that refers to Nozick?

2012-02-15T10:56:00.003-06:00

See the Financial Times piece by John Kay here.