Nearly a quarter of American Bar Association-accredited law schools are currently named for an individual. Among those 45 schools, 23 bear the names of donors or were renamed for someone as a result of a donation. The remainder are named for historical figures—think Thomas Jefferson School of Law or the John Marshall Law School—or people who were key to the school’s history. Eight are named for former U.S. Supreme Court justices, while another eight bear the names of their founders, former deans or university officials.
Thus, fewer than 9% of law schools at present are named for donors, and all but four of those rebrandings occurred during the past 20 years. The last decade has been particularly lucrative, with 13 law schools revising their names in honor of donors.Speaking of law schools, here's a published opinion today involving a SoCal law school.
Also of note: Today's DJ has William Domnarski's The Problem with Bad Judges, which opines at length about Judge Alex Kozinksi, including:
His was an enforcing sadism personality on full display in oral arguments which undermined lawyers through insult, humiliation and punishment. Believing he was always right and fueled by an outrageous ego, sense of self-esteem, and belief in his own brilliance, he perverted the very nature of oral argument and the idea that judges were neutrals by making arguments for the parties he favored that even their lawyers were not making. There was pushback by his colleagues only at the margins, usually with them jumping in to help lawyers -- one lawyer told me she felt like a bug pinned to a board when questioned by Kozinski -- being manipulated to force concessions and even abandon arguments.
It's up to the judges themselves to conform behavior, but we know from Kozinski's reign of terror that judges don't seem up to the job. They didn't confront him -- say, en mass in his chambers -- telling him to cut out his damaging nonsense and get with the judicial obligation program.
Posts
