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Abstract:
The law school rankings published by US News and World Report have changed and continue to change the law school world, affecting both the demand and supply sides of legal education. Are the rankings valid? Are they changing schools for the better? The US News rankings mislead both applicants and law schools. As measures of educational quality, the US News rankings are seriously flawed. They overweight criteria that matter little, such as bar pass rate. They exclude criteria that matter greatly, such as job satisfaction. At least two of the seemingly valid criteria incorporated into the US News rankings are illusory; the reputation surveys done by US News do not tap into independent professional opinion but instead measure opinions that are echos of US News and, thus, add little reliability to the results that would be reached on other criteria. A more serious problem is the effect of US News rankings on the operation of law schools and students who desire admission. The rankings have created incentives for students who want to be lawyers to go to schools that have grade inflation and take easy courses at those schools. The US News rankings have created incentives for schools to teach to the bar exam, spend money on glossy publications, raise tuition, increase the number of transfer students, and admit students according to their bubble ability (their aptitude for taking multiple-choice standardized exams) rather than their prospects for contributing to the learning environment at the law school or their prospects for becoming effective and responsible lawyers.

Rankings, echo effect, incentives

Abstract:
The article first compares economics and behavioral biology, examining the assumptions, core concepts, methodological tenets, and emphases of the two fields. Building on this, the article then compares the applied interdisciplinary fields of law and economics, on one hand, with law and behavioral biology, on the other - highlighting not only the most important similarities, but also the most important differences.

The article subsequently explores ways that biological perspectives on human behavior may prove useful, by improving economic models and the behavioral insights they generate. The article concludes that although there are important differences between the two fields, the overlaps between economics and biology warrant even greater congress between these two disciplines, and expanded exchange between the legal thinkers interested in each of them.

law, economics, biology, evolutionary analysis in law, behavioral biology, evolution, behavior, evolutionary economics, game theory, bioeconomics, neuroeconomics, tastes, preferences

Abstract:
The rules of law governing estates in land and future interests are boiled down as much as possible, but hopefully not more so.

Estates, Future Interests, Rule against Perpetuities

Abstract:
This article is the first report on the results of the Indiana Law Alumni Survey, conducted on Indiana University Law School - Bloomington alumni over the last six years. The survey asks for responses from law alumni five and fifteen years out of law school to examine their reflections on their experiences with law school and their experiences in their careers. Extensive data are collected on alumni careers, type of practice, hours of work, income and job satisfaction, as well as personal and family characteristics.

The results show that Indiana alumni were active students, and are generally very satisfied when they think back to their law school experiences. Indiana alumni found law school particularly satisfying intellectually. Women were particularly satisfied with their law school experience. Students' participation in extra-curricular activities and employment may be indicative of their future career plans, as it seems that students chose to participate in activities they believed would help for the particular career they wanted to pursue.

We also find that, after graduation, Indiana alumni use their talents and skills to undertake successful careers in a variety of professional settings while attempting to balance work with family life. Traditional gender roles affect family life and career as male alumni are more focused on earning income and are more likely to be the primary breadwinner in any marital relationship, while our female alums report significantly greater childcare responsibilities. Women, Blacks, and Hispanics tend to be found in greater proportions as government attorneys, public interest attorneys or acting as corporate counsel, and the women who go into private practice tend to be found disproportionately in the larger law firms. Women and Blacks report lower incomes than men who are predominately found in private practice, while they report similar job satisfaction. Women tend to report higher levels of satisfaction with their families. The personal traits of the examined lawyers and the family choices they make can have profound effects on their careers.

Legal Profession, Income, Job Satisfaction, Empirical, Race, Gender

Abstract:
U.S. News & World Report (USN&WR) publishes rankings of American Law Schools. The popularity of the rankings raises the question of whether the rankings influence the behavior of law school applicants, law schools, law teachers, lawyers, or employers. This study explores some indicia of USN&WR influence. In particular, we attempt to determine whether USN&WR rankings have influenced 1) law faculty members who respond to the USN&WR survey of law school quality, 2) lawyers who respond to USN&WR surveys, 3) law school applicants, 4) employers who hire law school graduates, and 5) administrators who set tuition. We find significant effects on the first three groups, echo effects of USN&WR rankings that are folded back into subsequent rankings. We do not find important effects on salaries or tuitions.

Note to referee: This paper was accepted for a poster session at CELS in 2006. Since then, we have changed the estimation technique (we are now using Arellano-Bond estimators as our primary method instead of fixed effects) and have somewhat modified model specifications. We also significantly changed the discussion and added a formal proof of a statement about the effect of the echo factors.

law school rankings, returns to education

Abstract:
This paper presents a variation on the Rubin-Priest theory of the evolution of common law rules toward efficiency. It offers the fee tail and similar restraints on alienation as examples of how inefficient rules can lead to inefficient uses of land, which cause owners to seek the help of courts in freeing their lands from the inefficient constraints. In other words, there is a feedback loop that provides courts with opportunities to overturn inefficient common law rules. We should expect this common law drift toward efficiency to be stronger for property rules than for tort rules. Because efficient property rules are important to a healthy economy, the common law process may have an internal advantage in its external competition with other legal systems.

evolution, fee tail, perpetuities, common law, property

Abstract:
U.S. News and World Report (USNAWR) rankings have created incentives that have changed law school admissions. The rankings pressure schools to admit applicants with high numbers rather than those who would do the most to improve the admitting law school or the bar to which it sends its graduates. Much attention has already been paid to decreased minority admissions stemming from increased weight on the LSAT. The shoe that has not dropped, but will soon fall, is the undergraduate grade point average (UGPA). When law schools give this the attention that USNAWR mandates, the diversity of law school classes will suffer further erosion. The best hope for the future is for 1) the LSAC to create a Universal Index (UI) combining each student's LSAT and UGPA and report that to all admissions offices, 2) the ABA to collect the UI median, P25, and P75, and 3) USNAWR to use the UI median in its ranking formula instead of the LSAT and UGPA medians.

Law school, Rankings, USN&WR, minority admissions, universal index

Abstract:
This article presents data on graduates of a law school located at a large, midwestern public university. It presents responses to survey questions relating to various personal and job characteristics, including income from the practice of law and career satisfaction. It compares the responses across various demographic groups, including type of practice, gender, race, and ethnicity. We find that lawyers in large private law firms make more money than lawyers in small private practices, who, in turn, make more than those in government or public interest positions. Career satisfaction is greatest for lawyers in corporate counsel, public interest, and government jobs, followed by larger firms, and then smaller private firms. We find that women earn substantially lower incomes than men, but most of the difference can be eliminated by accounting for time taken away from paid work for childcare, among other factors. Both blacks and Hispanics make significantly less money than majority lawyers 15 years after graduation. Regarding overall satisfaction with careers, women appear to be sensitive to the number of hours of work, probably because of child-care responsibilities. Our analysis suggests that blacks and Hispanics enjoy career satisfaction in the practice of law that is not significantly lower than that of majority lawyers.

Legal Profession, Discrimination, Gender, Sex, Race, Income, Job Satisfaction

Abstract:
In some special but frequently occurring situations, such as adverse possession, eminent domain, regulatory takings, and taxation, the law allows, or effects, involuntary transfers of rights. Property belonging to one person shifts to another even though the former owner has not relinquished his claim. These involuntary reallocations of rights raise issues of efficiency. Scholars looking at law through an economic lens have made the positive claim that the common law is efficient and have advanced the normative claim that the law should be efficient. The purpose of this essay is to show how the application of results from psychological experiments can enhance both the positive and normative economic analysis of law. On the positive front, the notion of loss aversion may, for example, help us to understand the adverse possession and takings doctrines. In the normative domain, the experiments expose an additional limitation on the application of the Coase theorem, suggest some improvements to the law of just compensation, and indicate that some modes of legal change may be better than others.

Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, Adverse Possession, Takings, Just Compensation, Taxation, Private Property, Coase Theorem

Abstract:
Evolutionary Theory can be helpful in understanding the law and determining what it should be. There are two ways in which the evolutionary perspective differs from an economic perspective on law. Not only does the evolutionary approach shift our attention from the world today to the environment of evolutionary adaptation, it shifts our focus from rational individuals to rational genes and from rational behaviors to rational design of mental architecture. Finally, the law of law's leverage makes predictions about the relative elasticities of demand for all sorts of behaviors, including those that did and did not exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.

Evolution, tastes, irrational brain, law and economics, EEA, environment of evolutionary adaptedness, Trivers-Willard

Abstract:
The First Amendment is often analyzed using the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas. Making use of memetic analysis, this article suggests that ideas should not be treated as inert products that we choose but as living things that sometimes exert some influence over their environment. Some of the ideas are more adept at surviving than others, and the ones that survive will not necessarily be good for humans. To account for the ability of some memes to replicate dangerously, the First Amendment should be read to allow governments to punish a speaker who advocates or threatens physical injury (other than punishment by the state) to the person or possessions of those who promote, oppose, or fail to espouse a certain idea. In other words, the constitution should allow us to be somewhat more intolerant of intolerance.

First Amendment, memes, memetic replication, marketplace of ideas, constitution, Brandenburg

Abstract:
A single action of an individual is highly influenced not only by personal interests and desires, but also by a complex network of social influences. Because of this vast outside social pressure within society, the legal ramifications of individual action must also be studied in a multidimensional way to incorporate these social values. One effective means to do so is to begin linking the socioeconomic paradigm into traditional legal study through the use of teaching simulations. This article brings forth a new method involving hand-on simulations and outlines its necessity within the legal sphere. Through these simulations, students are able to have an active and experiential concept of the way in which personal and social values influence reasonable action.

Socioeconomic, Simulation, Social Context Jurisprudence, Teaching

Abstract:
This essay discusses the land-use doctrines of real covenants, equitable servitudes, easements, profits, and licenses. As it is limited to the private arrangements regarding the use of land, perhaps 'land promises' would describe it best. Private land-use controls remain a viable means of controlling externalities, even in this era of public zoning, because they can be more carefully tailored to particular situations and are supported by more meaningful 'consent' of the governed. Very little of this land use law has received proper economic treatment. Nevertheless, this essay suggests economic rationales for some of the requirements and distinctions in the rules, many of which are under attack by reformers as being overly complicated. In short, the essay attempts to make economic sense of the complex law of land promises.

Abstract:
This essay discusses common law, equity and statutory rules governing gratuitous transfers of assets in the United States and Great Britain. One of the recurring questions of inheritance law is how to increase the chances of reaching the result the transferor wanted. Sometimes in tension with the goal of following the decedent's intent are the objectives of reducing the individual costs of transfer and maintaining the dispute resolution system. Another issue is how far to allow the transferor's intent to control future ownership of property, i.e., to what extent to allow property to be governed by the "dead hand of the past". In its discussion of intestate succession, wills, and trusts, this essay highlights those interwoven policy threads in the fabric of inheritance law.