In a decision scrutinizing how colleges investigate sexual assault allegations, Connecticut’s highest court ruled Friday that a former Yale student is not immune from a defamation lawsuit by a fellow student who was exonerated in criminal court after she accused him of rape.

The Connecticut court ruled 7-0 that because he had fewer rights to defend himself in university proceedings than he would in criminal court, the rape accuser can’t benefit fully from immunity granted to witnesses in criminal proceedings.

The unanimous ruling came despite warnings from more than a dozen violence prevention groups that such immunity is crucial to prevent rape victims from being discouraged to come forward.

It’s one of the few state court rulings on the topic in any U.S. court and could be cited widely in future cases, legal experts said. It ruled that Jane Doe, the pseudonym she used in court proceedings, was not immune from liability for statements she made to Yale investigators accusing fellow student Saifullah Khan of raping her in her dorm room in October 2015.

The decision could add to the already vexing problem of sexual assaults going unreported, violence prevention groups said in a brief to the state Supreme Court.

“Without protections from retaliation, including absolute immunity, victims will be dissuaded from using school reporting and disciplinary processes and will lose out on their education while perpetrators dodge accountability,” a lawyer for the groups wrote in a filing supporting the accuser’s immunity rights.

Khan is suing Doe and Yale over the rape allegations and his November 2018 expulsion from the school, saying the sex was consensual. Khan was criminally charged, but a jury acquitted him earlier in 2018.

The dean of UCLA’s law school has been chosen as the next head of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison, the university system’s regents announced Monday.

Jennifer Mnookin was picked to succeed outgoing Chancellor Rebecca Blank, the regents said. Mnookin holds a law degree from Yale and has served as dean of the School of Law at UCLA since 2015. She also has served as a law professor at the University of Virginia.

Mnookin beat out four other finalists for the job, including UW-Madison Provost John Scholz; University of Pittsburgh provost and philosophy professor Ann Cudd; Marie Lynn Miranda, a Notre Dame statistics professor; and Daniel Reed, a University of Utah computer professor and former provost.

In the university’s announcement of the hire, Mnookin said she feels lawyers are uniquely positioned to be leaders.

“Lawyers have to listen carefully,” she said. “They have to think strategically. They are, fundamentally, trained as problem solvers and sometimes have to persuade people that don’t necessarily see the world the way they do. They also have to be willing to engage across difference and think seriously about alternative points of view. I do think those are qualities that I will bring to this role as chancellor.”

Emory University in Atlanta will remove the names of a former psychologist and a former U.S. Supreme Court justice from campus institutions and professorships.

President Gregory Fenves announced the changes on Thursday. They follow his decision to convene a committee in 2020 to examine people whose names are honored by Emory.

The Yerkes National Primate Research Center is named for psychologist and primatologist Robert Yerkes, who the university said “vigorously supported” eugenics. That idea called for genetic improvement of humans and was often used to discriminate against racial minority groups and people with disabilities. The facility will become the Emory National Primate Research Center.

Two professorships in the university’s law school now named for L.Q.C. Lamar, an Emory graduate who wrote Mississippi’s secession ordinance and defended slavery and white supremacy, will become Emory School of Law Distinguished Professors.

Georgia’s largest private university already renamed a dormitory that honored a president who defended slavery and named a building on its Oxford campus for Horace Johnson Jr., a Black judge who died of an apparent heart attack in 2020 less than a week after testing positive for COVID-19.

A legal scholar and author is set to become the next president of the Vermont Law School, the school’s trustees announced.

Rodney A. Smolla will become president on July 1. Smolla is coming to Vermont from from Widener University Delaware Law School, where he has served as dean and professor of law since 2015, the school announced on Thursday.

Vermont Law School said Smolla’s appointment represents the first in a series of personnel and operational changes designed to enhance the school’s environmental restorative justice programs and appeal to a wider audience of prospective students and donors.

Smolla is known for his work in constitutional law, civil rights, freedom of speech, and mass media law, particularly matters relating to libel and privacy, the school said.

“His unique blend of university and law school experience, combined with an impressive scholarly record and inclusive leadership style, is going to provide VLS with tremendous momentum as we redefine the way we educate the future leaders for the community and world,” said Vermont Law School Trustee Chair Glenn Berger.

Enough already with the Supreme Court justices with Harvard and Yale degrees. That’s the message from one of Congress’ top Democrats to President Joe Biden, and a prominent Republican senator agrees.

Eight of the nine members of the current court went to law school at either Harvard or Yale. But it would be good if the person named to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer doesn’t have an Ivy League degree, according to Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican. The bipartisan message from the two South Carolina lawmakers neatly aligns with the background of the South Carolina judge they’ve praised as a good candidate to fill the seat.

Biden, a Democrat, has pledged to make history by nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Clyburn, Congress’ highest-ranking Black member, says Biden should be concerned about the court’s lack of educational diversity, too.

“We run the risk of creating an elite society,” said Clyburn, a graduate of South Carolina State University. “We’ve got to recognize that people come from all walks of life, and we ought not dismiss anyone because of that.”

Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings for the eventual nominee, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he’d like to see the court “have a little more balance, some common sense on it. Everybody doesn’t have to be from Harvard and Yale. It’s OK to go to a public university and get your law degree.”

Clyburn is a particularly prominent voice in the debate over whom the nominee should be. At Biden’s lowest moment in the 2020 presidential campaign, it was Clyburn who suggested he pledge to name the first Black woman justice if given the opportunity as president. Biden’s ultimate promise and Clyburn’s endorsement helped Biden decisively win South Carolina’s primary. The win revived his campaign and helped propel him to the White House.

Enough already with the Supreme Court justices with Harvard and Yale degrees. That’s the message from one of Congress’ top Democrats to President Joe Biden, and a prominent Republican senator agrees.

Eight of the nine members of the current court went to law school at either Harvard or Yale. But it would be good if the person named to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer doesn’t have an Ivy League degree, according to Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican. The bipartisan message from the two South Carolina lawmakers neatly aligns with the background of the South Carolina judge they’ve praised as a good candidate to fill the seat.

Biden, a Democrat, has pledged to make history by nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Clyburn, Congress’ highest-ranking Black member, says Biden should be concerned about the court’s lack of educational diversity, too.

“We run the risk of creating an elite society,” said Clyburn, a graduate of South Carolina State University. “We’ve got to recognize that people come from all walks of life, and we ought not dismiss anyone because of that.”

Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings for the eventual nominee, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he’d like to see the court “have a little more balance, some common sense on it. Everybody doesn’t have to be from Harvard and Yale. It’s OK to go to a public university and get your law degree.”

The University of Wyoming is planning a $10 million expansion to its law school that coincides with the college's centennial celebration next year.

The Laramie Boomerang reported Thursday that the renovation to the College of Law is expected to be completed in December 2020, but the university expects most of the project to be done in time for the celebration in September 2020.

The university says U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is expected to speak for the law school celebration.

Law school dean Klint Alexander told university trustees that $4 million has already been raised for the project, which is still in the design phase.

The expansion project aims to bring the school's various legal clinics into the law building.

George Mason University law student Matthew Long still has three months of schoolwork before graduation, but this week he and two classmates had a case before the Supreme Court.

The group of students is part of a new class dedicated to Supreme Court work at the Fairfax, Va., school. Nationwide, more than a half dozen law schools offer similar courses.

The students don't get to argue the cases. They aren't even lawyers yet. But students participating in the so-called Supreme Court clinics get to do everything else: research issues, draft briefs and consult with the lawyer actually presenting the case to the high court.

"We're all very much aware that you can go your entire legal career without ever being on a case before this court, and it's unbelievable that we'd have this experience as law students," Long, 26, said as he stood outside the Supreme Court after Monday's arguments in a case about a man in prison for murder in Colorado and time limits involved in his case.

Stanford University started the first Supreme Court clinic for students in 2004 and is still involved in the most cases. But schools with clinics now include Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas. In the past three years, clinics report that students have been involved in about 1 out of every 6 cases argued before the court. This week, students are participating in two of the court's cases.

A federal judge in Philadelphia has reduced a $5 million punitive damage award to two law school professors who said they were defamed by a legal publishing firm that released a book addendum bearing their names even though they didn't work on it.

U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam said there was little dispute about the facts. But he said the $2.5 million awards to University of Pennsylvania professor David Rudovsky and Widener Law School professor Leonard Sosnov exceeded the actual damage to their reputations.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says Fullam cut the award for each man to $110,000, which combined with $90,000 in compensatory damages means that each would get $200,000.

A spokesman for West Publishing Corp. hailed the ruling but said it did not go far enough.

Sixty-nine law school deans from around the country are endorsing Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. The deans are praising Kagan, herself a onetime dean of the Harvard Law School, saying she is superbly qualified.

In a letter to the chairman and top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the leading legal academics say Kagan has first-rate legal skills, a respected body of work on constitutional law, enormous intelligence, and a flair for forging coalitions.

The Judiciary panel is set to begin hearings on Kagan's nomination on June 28. She's drawn praise from liberals and a handful of conservatives, including Miguel Estrada, a failed federal appeals court nominee chosen by former President George W. Bush.

There’s an old expression about what to expect in law school:  “The first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death."  The Phoenix School of Law is doing everything it can to take the fear out of law school by preparing incoming students for what lies ahead.

The PhoenixLaw Summer Boot Camp will help students sharpen their critical thinking, writing and analytical reasoning skills, and lay the groundwork required for success in law school and beyond.  The four-day program begins July 28th - two weeks before the start of the fall semester, and is intended to ease the transition from undergraduate students to law school and motivate students to succeed.

According to the American Bar Association, almost 50,000 students enrolled in law schools during the 2008-2009 academic year, but as trends show, less than a third of those students will actually graduate with their law degree.  Most students bring old study habits they used in college – or a natural intellectual ability that got them by.  These habits don’t always work in law school.  Understanding the material and memorizing is not enough, since there is a tremendous amount of written analysis in a specific legal form that must also learned.    Students who begin law school with less proficient study skills find law school difficult, and may possibly end their first year on academic probation or worse – dropping out.  PhoenixLaw’s Summer Boot Camp is aimed at students who may need the extra help in getting prepared for the three-year (or longer) road ahead.

“Success is a journey, not a destination. This program is the start of the journey for these students as they begin their pursuit of a J.D.,” says Jasmine Crowe, PSL Boot Camp Creator.  “My hope is that participants will gain valuable knowledge and tips to help them be successful in their journey ahead.”

Crowe adds that this Boot Camp is a pilot program, and that attendance is limited to fifty students.  Because PSL has rolling enrollment (new classes begin in fall and spring), more Boot Camps may be added each semester.

During the boot camp, students will learn the essential study skills for law school; build a basic understanding of the law; understand how to brief a case; and learn the skills of reading, writing and thinking like a lawyer.  The courses will be taught by PSL professors, and will give the students and faculty a head start on building a mentoring relationship.   While attending the boot camp, students will also become familiar with the school’s many features, and out-of-state students will get a chance to discover the Phoenix area.   

The $99 registration fee covers all meals, housing (Hilton Garden Inn), transportation and program materials.  More information and registration for the Phoenix School of Law Boot Camp is available at www.phoenixlaw.edu/lawbootcamp. 

About Phoenix School of Law

Phoenix School of Law is Arizona’s only law school offering full-time, part-time day, and part-time evening programs. The School received provisional approval from the American Bar Association in June 2007.  PhoenixLaw’s mission pillars are to provide student outcome-centered education, produce professionally prepared graduates, and serve the underserved. For more information about PhoenixLaw, visit www.phoenixlaw.edu or call 602-682-6800.

The rising cost of law school is becoming a sore subject as the number of high-paying jobs shrink.

With large numbers of unemployed or underemployed lawyers who borrowed heavily to pay for their educations, legal educators face growing skepticism about the value of a law degree. Anonymous critics have started blogs with harsh names such as "Big Debt, Small Law" or "The Jobless Juris Doctor."

With three-year programs at top schools costing nearly $150,000, not including room, board or even books, some of the criticism is coming from inside the legal profession. Christine Hurt, a law professor at the University of Illinois, suggests that the market for legal education is strikingly similar to the subprime mortgage market. Her theory, which she posted on "The Conglomerate Blog" last week, goes like this:

Double-digit tuition increases in the last 25 years have priced law schools out of reach for many. Yet the promise of a career at a big law firm with its six-figure paychecks kept boosting enrollment. Easy credit allowed more students to finance their law degrees. All of a sudden law firms lay off droves of attorneys and limit the number of new hires, leaving graduates out of work with more than $100,000 in loans to repay.