Yesterday’s Observer article about NDLS student discontent — in particular, some quotes therein from 3L Jimmy Paulino about the faculty — has inspired a flurry of responses, both here on the blog and in print. Fellow 3L Brian Foster has a lengthy letter in today’s Observer defending the faculty and criticizing Paulino’s remarks. Also, the following letter was posted on a Facebook group (see after the jump):
Dear Editor,
As alumnae of the law school, we feel that we must respond to the April 17 article, “Law Students Show Discontent.” We certainly share our former classmates’ concern with NDLS’ recent drop in the rankings, the adequacy of the current building, the planned new building, recent faculty departures and the administration in general. However, we cannot agree with Jimmy Paulino’s assessment of faculty quality.
In our three years as JD students, we had the good fortune of being taught by the most talented, dedicated, and intelligent professors we could ever hope for. They may have been hard on us in our first year classes, but over three years the overwhelming majority of our professors went above and beyond their classroom duties. We can recall many, many times when a professor assisted us with our personal research interests, advised us on career opportunities, stayed late at night to assist us with clinical work, gave us a home phone number to call in case we needed help with anything and even hosted us for a meal at his home. We have had professors who shared our political viewpoints, disagreed with us vehemently or who never gave us the slightest hint as to their political leanings, and we can say with certainty that none of our professors ever allowed their political views to influence his treatment of students. Our education was enhanced by the Catholic atmosphere of the law school as issues of faith, ethics and morality permeated discussions on any subject.
Like Jimmy, we were often annoyed by our required courses. As public interest lawyers, we were more burdened by required corporate and tax law classes than by classes on ethics and philosophy. But even those tedious subjects are taught by dedicated, enthusiastic faculty who did their best to make their subjects interesting and uncomplicated for their less-than-enthusiastic students. Criticizing a professor because one did not like his class or teaching style is unfair, and we can vouch for the quality of the professors who taught our jurisprudence and ethics classes as well as the quality of the material taught.
We also share our classmates’ concerns about the number of course offerings. There are more classes offered on corporate law than any other subject, and we often struggled to fill up our schedules with courses geared toward public interest work. We hope that the administration will make a real effort to retain the stellar current faculty, including library and clinical faculty, and hire new faculty in all areas of law.
Law school was far from the best three years of our life. We, like the current JD students, were constantly frustrated with an unresponsive and sometimes malicious administration, substandard facilities and limited course offerings. But we credit NDLS’ excellent faculty with making those three years as enjoyable as law school could possibly be and with forming us into the ethical, hardworking and open-minded lawyers we are today. We consider ourselves not only better lawyers but better people for having known and learned from them; and whatever our concerns about the leadership of the law school, we will always lend them the highest praise. They earn it every day.
Kate Leahy, Jessie Tannenbaum and Lenore Vanderzee
NDLS Alumnae, 2006
UPDATE: Jimmy responds.
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Categories: Notre Dame, Law School
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April 18th, 2007 at 12:46:03 pm
Three cheers for Brian Foster. Bill Donahue at the Catholic League couldn’t have said it any better. Paulino’s anti-Catholic slurs might get a pass at Berkeley, but not at Notre Dame.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:52:02 pm
It was good of Jessie and Lenore to point out the numerous points of agreement. They disagreed one one point and the way it was described. But there are plenty of other legit beefs.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:55:40 pm
Foster says the faculty is “on balance one of the finest assemblages of teachers from which I have had the privilege to learn.” This is just as personal a description as Paulino offered.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:27:41 pm
anon,
This is just as personal a description as Paulino offered.
Uh, your point being what, exactly? Nobody would argue that Mr. Foster’s stating objective truth; rather, it’s that his opinion is more well-founded, rational, and widely-held than Jimmy’s.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:37:40 pm
Widely-held is fine. Maybe students on the whole went to undergraduate institutions and high schools with less quality faculty. Lord knows, based on the pennants in the lounge, that students hail from quite the variety of schools. Maybe Paulino experienced better in his prior education, which included graduate school, and has been disappointed.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:40:09 pm
does denying the holocaust ever happened rise to the level of a criminal offence?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/122134be-ed14-11db-9520-000b5df10621.html
April 18th, 2007 at 1:44:29 pm
Maybe Paulino experienced better in his prior education, which included graduate school, and has been disappointed.
Perfectly within his right; perhaps he expected better out of NDLS’ faculty. But this isn’t responsive to what I think can fairly be described as Jimmy’s most controversial complaint — that poor quality in teaching is due to a commitment to Catholic professors at the expense of better teachers.
It’s one thing for Jimmy to suggest that he has had better faculty experiences elsewhere — a very plausible claim. But from where does he pull this assertion that it’s about NDLS caring more about Catholic faculty than teaching quality?
That, to me, requires a basis in facts. Jimmy must have had someone in mind when he said it. It’s not a large faculty. Who was it? I wonder what examples he would suggest.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:47:59 pm
Jimmy made an ass of himself and should just end the controversy by apologizing.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:49:47 pm
Or by writing a letter-to-the-editor. I heard he thinks he was misquoted, which happens all the time with daily college rags.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:51:28 pm
Friendly Advice to Mr. Paulino:
Insulting Catholics at Notre Dame is not the way to Win Friends and Influence People.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:55:46 pm
Um… more corporate classes than any other subject? WTF? You have to be kidding me. The other points are very well taken but that one is way off the mark. Their perception of a lot of corporate classes is colored by their lack of desire to learn corporate law. For those who actually want to practice corporate law, this school is woefully inadequate in comparison to the top 20 law schools which this school should aspire to compete with.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:56:46 pm
Pat - I think you meant to say that Jimmy “like” made an ass of himself.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:05:58 pm
The comments calling Jimmy anti-Catholic are a little overblown. He doesn’t disparage all Catholics, just conservative ones.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:23:35 pm
Anon, there ARE more corporate classes than any other subject. That doesn’t mean there are enough, just that there are more of them. Imagine what it’s like for people who want to practice, say, IP, civil rights or environmental law.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:26:43 pm
Corporate/business related classes offered at UCLA THIS YEAR, omitting those offered at ND (so, presumably not every other year like we tend to do here):
- Insurance Law
- Business bankruptcy
- Doing Business in China
- Entertainment Guilds
- Financial Analysis
- Motion Picture Distribution (well, kind of related)
- Corporate tax policy
- Business Strategy Digital Fr. (Not exactly sure what this is)
- Real Estate Finance
- Business Plan M&A
- Business Plan M&A Topics (both in addition to regular M&A)
- Corporate Finance (oh, wait we offer that here, every 3 years:)
- Elements of Economic Organizations
- International Business Transactions
- International Investment & Finance
- Lifecycle of Corporations
I’d say that there is a GOOD reason this school is not top twenty when you look at this list. Granted, UCLA is a bigger school in terms of students, but the huge difference in course offerings is not fully justified by our smaller size.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30:15 pm
Two El,
Good point re: IP law. That area is also seriously lacking here. I would beg to differ that more corporate classes are offered than any other. There are far more litigation oriented classes than anything else offered at this school. As for civil rights, this school is very competitive with others, especially considering size. There are 4 courses offered here on environmental law (Biodiversity, Environmental, Advanced Environment, & International Environmental). Considering how many people actually want to practice environmental law, that is pretty good.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:38:05 pm
Also, often in the past two years corporate/tax classes were scheduled to be conflicting. For instance, this semester Real Estate Transactions and Taxation of Business Enterprises were offered at the same time.
While I don’t know about what specialty has the most classes, I do know that I ran out of corporate law classes after my 2L year.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:40:31 pm
Nebraska,
It does in many European countries, where there is no First Amendment. It never will here.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:47:54 pm
Thanks Three El. Yeah what genious decided to schedule those two classes at the same time?
April 18th, 2007 at 2:59:12 pm
Haha! I love this debate. Listening to law students is like listening to philosophers, with the added hilarity that the arguments are twice as bad.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:19:16 pm
UCLA’s average class size is about 320. ND’s is about 180. That makes UCLA over 50% larger than ND. Also, UCLA has 69 full-time faculty, compared to ND’s 32. Those are two immense differences, which are much more than enough to explain any difference in course offerings. If you want to complain about course selection, you’ll have to start attacking student body size (which no one at ND seriously wants to do), or faculty size (which, presumably, will have one less excuse upon the completion of a new building to host more faculty).
Last semester, five upper-level corporate law classes were offered, along with an upper-level tax course. Two courses (Real Estate Transactions and the IP seminar) were full, and the next-closest still had 22 seats available. In the Fall, eight upper-level corporate law classes were offered, along with an upper-level tax course. Three were relatively full, but all had openings. Concededly, I’m not looking to see if there were any duplicate classes, I’m not going back before that, and I’m not looking for conflicts. But, therefore, coupled with the possibility of attending the MBA school for further classes, more than a dozen courses existed this year alone for those interested in corporate work, and almost all of them had seats available.
Also, Mark McKenna has been hired as a visiting professor next year from SLU, an IP specialist. It definitely shows a commitment, at least at some level, to expanding some of the course selection.
April 18th, 2007 at 3:58:51 pm
“Law school was far from the best three years of our life.” Did these students go to college?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:19:19 pm
Excellent information, Derek. Thank you.
The Insurance Law course at UCLA especially jumped out at me. So many students are working in that area after graduation. There’s just so much work there.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:21:54 pm
If UCLA had only 50% more corporate classes than ND, then I would agree with your analysis, but UCLA has every class ND offers that is corporate transactional plus the ones listed above. The fact that seats are available in some classes is not dispositive of whether or not there are enough classes offered. As you mentioned, you were not looking for duplicates or conflicts. Many of us had probably already taken all or most of the classes offered in previous semesters. Also, the problem may be circular - a lack of a wide range of classes in this area leads to less students pursuing it. The plain fact is that those of us who go into corporate practice will be at a disadvantage when other associates have superior training for the job. Unfortunately, many students who are deciding where to go to law school do not realize what they want to do, let alone how important certain classes may be. They rely on the fact that they will be attending a top tier law school and will therefore be prepared on a top-tier level for nearly any practice of law (especially one as common a corporate transactional work). For those students who have chosen certain areas of law, they are disappointed in ND’s ability to live up to these expectations.
I do not see 8 corporate classes offered in fall. I found: (1) BA (which will be a repeat every semester, so you definitely double count this one); (2) Antitrust; (3) Accounting for lawyers (which is not available to those people who took accounting as undergrads, selecting out many who want to go into corporate law. Not to mention, this class is more about accounting than LAW); (4) Law & Econ; (5) Corporate Reorg (I am assuming you counted this, although it is not transactional in any way - it is litigation based); (6) secured transactions; and (7) federal income taxation (this is not corporate, we have Business Tax for that, not to mention if you count this one it is certainly double counted). What other class are you including in this list?
I am so tired of hearing the excuse that once the new building is built, all problems will be solved. First of all, that doesn’t help the current 1 & 2Ls who are already here. Second, the dean is supposed to be a dynamic problem solver who sees issues like having one corporate professor and finds solutions. While not a long term solution by any means, there is always the option of finding well respected practitioners in the area to teach one course a year as an adjunct. This is done already to a certain extent, but it might be a good idea to expand the program because these professors don’t require offices. I am sure that if the administration committed to providing students with more variety they could find more solutions to these problems. It is the dean’s job to think of creative solutions and I have not witnessed much creativity.
Also, if UCLA has 50% more students and 69 faculty, then ND by comparison should have around 46 faculty. So, right there we see a huge difference. If we had 14 more professors as well qualified as the ones we already have, this law school would be dramatically improved. Look at what a huge difference adding Professor O’Connell has made to the law school - now we actually have a legitimate international law program! Imagine 14 more. That is great that they hired McKenna - more of that is certainly in order.
All the students here, whether or not they are interested in practicing in one of the areas (like corporate) that is under-represented, should expect more of this school. We have all invested 3 years and thousands of dollars in this school. We should be graduating from an institution that provides a superior legal education in many different areas. We should want our classmates to go on to great things in all areas of the law.
In my opinion, the law school has a great foundation: world class faculty, a nationally recognized and respected name, a collegiate atmosphere, entertaining sports :), and the extra hook that it is Catholic, which appeals to many, among many other things. The dean needs to use all of these advantages to solve the problems facing the law school rather than finding excuses for them.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:29:32 pm
Complaining that there are not enough corporate classes taught here? Gah! Need I remind you that HALF of the required courses (and 2/3 of the credits) for non-1L classes are transactional? BA and Fed Tax anyone? Other courses I recall being offered, just off the top of my head: Mergers & Acquisitions, Securities Regulation, Taxation of Business Enterprises, Trusts & Estates, Estate & Gift Taxation (these last two aren’t exactly “corporate” but are arguably related), International Tax, Real Estate Transactions, Payment Systems, Secured Transactions, Anti-Trust. Considering I’ve only taken one of those and that I HATE everything corporate or transactional, the fact that I can think of 10 courses off the top of my head pretty much kills this theory. If you added those courses to BA and Fed Tax, that would be 11 corporate/transactional courses. Considering law students take approximately 30 courses (5 per semester for 6 semesters), one could theoretically over one-third of his/her courses to be corporate/transactional - and I’m not even counting any first-year classes in this category, even though contracts and property are definitely related. As Derek pointed out, you can also take classes in the business school. Between first-year contracts and property, upper-level corporate/transactional classes, and the business school, the carefully planning law student could probably take a sold 50% of his/her courses in corporate law. If you really think you need to take even more business classes, then perhaps you should have gone to business school. Trust me, we are not hurting for corporate classes.
Classes being offered at conflicting times is a very different issue than the course offerings themselves.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:29:57 pm
Classes at the business school? Please. If we wanted to go to a #39 business school we would have done that. We are here to learn the LAW.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:31:24 pm
Anon, I counted all the upper-level 701xx courses, excluding BA.
1. Accounting for Lawyers
2. Secured Transactions
3. Commercial Law - Sales
4. Business Torts
5. Corporate Reorganization
6. Antitrust
7. Not-for-Profit Organizations
8. IP Survey
Also, the 706xx upper-level tax course, excluding FedTax, was Estate & Gift Taxation. I also excluded from my count the 709xx course, which includes Patent Law, and the 731xx seminars, which include Commercial Law of IP and Law & Econ.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:34:20 pm
Trust and Estates and Estate and Gift tax are not corporate. Most of the other classes are on the bar. A school attempting to break back into top twent (or 25) standing should be offering the same kind of diversity in transactional classes as other schools ranked similarly. The focus here in this debate is on corporate, but I am sure if we looked at many other areas, ND would be seriously lacking as well. The law school would be more improved by acknowledging that more courses should be taught and working to solve the problem than just making excuses. If you think there were classes that should have been offered in your preferred area of practice, you should speak up as well.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:43:19 pm
Ah, now I see, Anon, I think we were talking past each other. I meant Fall of 2006. In Fall of 2007, for 701xx, it’s:
1. Accounting for Lawyers
2. Secured Transactions
3. Business Torts
4. Real Estate Transactions
5. Corporate Reorganization
6. Antitrust
7. Mergers & Acquisitions
8. Law & Economics
For 709xx, it’s two courses, Patent Law and Products Liability. For a 731xx seminar, it’s Law & Accounting Seminar.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:50:17 pm
This school needs a financing or venture capital course. So much of what many transational lawyers do is related to financing that it is an obvious hole. Just ensuring that this one class is taught would make a big difference in preparing future corporate attorneys.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:53:24 pm
I think a venture capital course would be a great idea.
For the record, I’m trying to refute the claim that there “aren’t enough” corporate law courses, particularly in relation to our school’s and faculty’s size. If you think our faculty size should be larger, or if you think the quality of the courses offered is inadequate, I think the focus of criticism should be directed there.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:58:44 pm
Anon, I’ll take your word on that because as I mentioned before, I’m not a corporate or transactional person at all. I have no doubt that there are business law courses that would improve our law school if offered. But I do think singling out business law as THE area that our school is lacking is quite overblown. It’s not as if business law courses are not being offered because some other field is over-represented. Other courses that would improve our law school: more on civil rights, more on public interest law, more clinical opportunities, and most important (IMHO) is a better first-year legal writing program. We need more course offerings, period. But it’s not like corporate law is the black sheep of the law school.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:58:45 pm
In response to the letter from Kate, Jesse & Lenore, I can certainly understand their frustration with course offerings in their desired areas. I am not sure whether any or all of them were on journals, but for many students who are, the school could make a very small change to help. From what I understand, most of the co-curricular offerings are public interest based. Allowing students to take those courses and be on a journal may give students who are interested in public interest more opportunities. It is a change like this that may make a huge difference to some students. I am certainly not saying that these three women would have found enough options in their chosen areas if this change was made, but it would be a step.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:02:05 pm
3L No. 27. I totally agree with everything you said. Corporate law was given as an example of the short comings, mostly because of the inaccurate statement above that “There are more classes offered on corporate law than any other subject.”
100% - the legal writing program is probably the first area of concern that should be addressed as it is directly linked to the ability to perform as a summer associate and attorney in every aspect of the law.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:07:50 pm
In her attempt to keep a job for which she is manifestly ill-suited, Patty O’Hara has found an unlikely ally: Jimmy Paulino. Thanks to the Observer article in general and Jimmy’s comments in particular, the discussion has changed into a discussion of the faculty, the “Catholic” nature of the school, and everything else under the sun except the single thing we should be focusing on: the inept leadership at the top. Not only does the change of subject take the heat of O’Hara, but the article’s vitriolic tone makes it easy for defenders of the status quo to tar every advocate of reform with the same brush.
In partial defense of Jimmy, anyone who has argued with him in class knows he often speaks in hyperbole. Maybe he was doing so this time and does not really believe what he said, but even if so, he is at least guilty of poor judgment in how he spoke to this reporter. The Observer deserves its share of the blame for its typical sloppy hit job journalism.
I second Brian’s defense of the faculty, with the exception of a few older faculty whose skill set simply does not include teaching. However, this has nothing to do with either their catholicism or even their conservatism. Once again, I’m upset over this whole mess because it makes any real reform that much harder.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:20:55 pm
Dave, that was my reaction exactly. It is unfortunate that the article chose to focus on (and that Jimmy commented on) what it did. The tone of the comments will make people discount real problems by pointing to the extreme nature of the quotes.
With one glaring exception, the faculty at ND are exceptional teachers. That we can take a required course without purchasing the materials, reading or even paying attention in class and still pass is definitely a joke. But, as others have pointed out, that is a flaw in the tenure system that many schools face. That being said, it is certainly not one of the biggest problems the school faces.
I wish that we could see suggestions and ideas for improvements rather than insults and excuses. Patty is clearly a smart lady - she got the job after all. She must have the ability to come up with solutions to problems and be forward-thinking. She needs to prove her ability to do so, because, let’s face it, she probably isn’t going anywhere no matter what we say.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:25:02 pm
Perhaps a well crafted letter to the editor from Jimmy is in order to explain his real concerns with the law school and disclaim the anti-Catholic bias that his comments to the Observer conveyed to many people who read them.
April 18th, 2007 at 5:33:36 pm
Melissa, I am glad we agree on what needs to be done and glad we agree (I think) that while you and I have different political views, that the professors here on all sides of the aisle treat students and ideas fairly.
I’d add a second glaring exception to the teaching list. But neither of the “exceptions” are secret. For the required class, it is easy to take it with a different teacher. For the other, one can just avoid her classes.
I’ve heard that people loved O’Hara as a teacher when she was teaching. Who knows–in a perfect world we might be able to solve the lack of business classes and the leadership crisis at the same time. I don’t think anyone (seriously) thinks she is either a bad person or an intellectual lightweight, it’s just that she has not done well in this job and something must be done.
Jimmy could always (if he wanted) write a letter to The Observer. But if he really wants to get a message out, he should post here. :-)
April 18th, 2007 at 5:36:04 pm
But if he really wants to get a message out, he should post here.
Heh. See above. :)
April 18th, 2007 at 5:50:30 pm
Um, could we stop dumping on Professor Rodes, please? I know no one wants to mention him by name, but seriously — he’s a brilliant and kind man who goes out of his way to try to make ethics interesting. It’s not his fault that it’s a one credit, pass-fail course that most people completely ignore. When I do my exit questionnaire, one of the things I will recommend is that the BA, Fed Tax, and Jurisprudence requirements be abolished and a new, three-credit Ethics and Legal Philosophy class be the only required class beyond the first year.
Then again, students would probably complain, because then they couldn’t just blow ethics off.
Moreover, Ethics II is no more of a blow-off, joke course than Ethics I, where the only reason to buy the materials is to be prepared on your one on-call day. Or, for that matter, Professional Responsibility. Or either of the canon law classes. But I guess Rodes is the easy target, right?
April 18th, 2007 at 5:56:44 pm
Bob Rodes is one of the finest men I know and I deeply regret that some 20 year old hubristic know-it-alls think that their time would be better spent with more “practical†classes than taking a few hours out of their life to learn from a man who has thought deeply about life and the common good and contributed some brilliant scholarship to the field of jurisprudence. Talk about the height of arrogance.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:07:38 pm
Who can understand a word Rodes says?
April 18th, 2007 at 6:19:33 pm
anon — Wednesday, April 18, 2007 @ 6:07:38 pm ….you are an ass.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:34:53 pm
Who was it who said these students are lame? I’m beginning to believe you.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:07:27 pm
I second the praise for Rodes. I had him for MLH and it was a great class- both fun and I learned a lot. And I could understand every word he says, anon #42. Where I come from, we consider it rude to mock stroke victims. So maybe you should shut up and make a little more effort to appreciate that you are studying under a brilliant and enthusiastic man.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:17:23 pm
Without dragging this out (okay, dragging this out), some of you need a clarification on what a corporate law class is. For instance, Accounting for Lawyers, as noted above, is accounting-based, and has nothing to do with corporate law. Business Torts is actually quite narrow, as it deals almost exclusively with unfair competition (which the prof actually refers to it as) and has a litigation bent to it. The title Law & Economics is misleading, as I understand it to me more of a philosophy class than anything remotely corporate.
What I (and I believe most of my classmates are referring to) are classes like Corporate Finance, which was cancelled less than a week before classes began last Fall. My understanding is that ND couldn’t find a professor for BA, so Velasco had to teach it again, precluding him from teaching CF. Other examples would include those similar to UCLA’s.
Just posting to point this out, not to criticize anyone for being mistaken, especially Derek or 3L. :)
April 19th, 2007 at 9:57:16 pm
“That we can take a required course without purchasing the materials, reading or even paying attention in class and still pass is definitely a joke.”
Please tell me you are talking about Jurisprudence? That is what I am banking on.