Donald J. Guter served as dean of the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh between 2005 and 2008. Prior to his service there, he served as Judge Advocate General in the Navy, leading a group of 1,800 lawyers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. By comparison, in 2007 South Texas College of Law had 1,252 students enrolled. The school, located in Houston, is known for its trial advocacy program.  The only other Texas law school currently searching for a dean is Texas Tech.  Dean Walter Huffman, who is currently the dean of the law school at Texas Tech, will be retiring at the end of the semester.

List of Students who Passed

Bar Passage Rates for First Time Examinees:

1. Southern Methodist University 93.97%
2. University of Houston 93.33%
3. Baylor 91.58%
4. University of Texas 90.24%
5. South Texas 89.57%
6. St. Mary’s 87.23%
7. Texas Tech 85.64%
8. Texas Wesleyan University 77.10%
9. Texas Southern University 59.71%

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The greatest improvement over the July 2007 passage rates was seen at Southern Methodist University with a 1.53% increase in the school’s bar passage rate, which placed SMU at the top of the July 2008 charts. Texas Wesleyan saw the most precipitous drop with a 14% decline in its passage rate since last year. While seven of the nine Texas law schools had passage rates of over 85%, this year’s top passage rate of 93.97% (at SMU) fell short of the July 2007 top passage rate of 97.85%. (Baylor).

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Before arriving at Texas Tech School of Law, Brian Shannon graduated first in his class from the University of Texas School of Law in 1982. He went on to work at the Pentagon for the Office of the General Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force before joining Hughes & Luce in 1986. Two years later, Professor Shannon joined the faculty of the Texas Tech School of Law. Since that time, Professor Shannon served as Associate Dean of Programs, Student Affairs, and Academic Affairs during separate terms. Professor Shannon currently holds the Charles “Tex” Thornton Professor of Law endowed chair.

A prolific author, Professor Shannon has written extensively on issues relating to mental illnesses and alternative dispute resolution. Texas Criminal Procedure and the Offender with Mental Illness, which he co-authored with Professor Daniel Benson, has become the primary reference book for issues relating to mental health in Texas. In 2007, Professor Shannon’s article on reforming the insanity defense in Texas received the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Law Review Article Award. Professor Shannon also received the award in 2002 for his article entitled, Confidentiality of Texas Mediations: Ruminations on Some Thorny Problems. Professor Shannon allowed both his article to be published through Texas Tech Law Review, bringing further recognition to the school and to Texas Tech Law Review.

In 2000, Brian Shannon filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit and later in the Supreme Court in the case of PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin. Working pro bono, Professor Shannon advocated on behalf of Casey Martin, a golfer who was diagnosed with a medical condition known as Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, which limited Martin’s ability to walk the golf course during competitions as required by PGA Tour guidelines. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of Casey Martin, allowing him to use a motorized cart in PGA golf tournaments.

Professor Shannon is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve on the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities. He served as a chair of the State Bar of Texas’ committee on Disability Issues and is slated to be the next NCAA representative for Texas Tech.

Professor Shannon has strong ties to the Lubbock area, as a long-time resident and as President-elect of the Lubbock Bar Association. Having served in various leadership positions at Texas Tech, Professor Shannon offers the experience and insight needed to build on the success the law school has seen under the leadership of Dean Huffman. Professor Shannon’s academic credentials and unassuming manner make him universally liked and respected among law students, faculty, and members of the legal community at large, and if selected he will no doubt live up to the expectations of everyone who believes he is the ideal successor to Dean Huffman.

Top Marks by Category:

Career Services Office: Southern Methodist University

Students Felt Prepared to Practice on Graduation: Baylor University

Collegiality: University of Houston

Technology: Southern Methodist University

Teaching Quality: Southern Methodist University

Library Services: Texas Wesleyan

Faculty Accessibility: Texas Tech School of Law

Student Diversity: Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law

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Most Influential Professors:

SMU – Gregory S. Crespi

Texas Wesleyan – Aric K. Short

Texas Tech – Gerry W. Beyer

University of Houston – John Mixon

South Texas – Geoffrey S. Corn

Baylor University – Larry Bates

St. Mary’s – John W. Teeter Jr.

Texas Southern – Fernando Colon-Navarro and April Walker

Overall Rankings:

1. Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law (103 students responding)

2. Texas Wesleyan University School of Law (72 students responding)

3. Texas Tech University School of Law (164 students responding)

4. University of Texas School of Law (246 students responding)

5. University of Houston Law Center (153 students responding)

6. South Texas College of Law (126 students responding)

7. Baylor University School of Law (113 students responding)

8. St. Mary’s University School of Law (76 students responding)

9. Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law (79 students responding)

Check out the complete story and the law school deans’ responses at Texas Lawyer.

1. Download and complete the Third Year Bard Card Application. (Word, PDF)

• Review pages 1-5.
• Complete the student information section of page 6. Page 6 will need to be signed and notarized.
• Complete page 7. Page 7 will need to be signed by one of the law school deans.
• Page 8 requires information on the student and supervising attorney. Tip: You can find pre-fill most of the requested information for your supervising attorney by searching the Texas Bar Directory. Page 8 will also need to be signed by the supervising attorney.
• Complete page 10-12, and have the supervising attorney sign pages 11 and 12. Page 12 will need to be notarized.

2. Download and complete the Authorization and Release (Word, PDF) with the supervising attorney’s information. This will need to be signed by the attorney and notarized.

3. Mail pages 6-8 and 9-12 of the Bar Card Application, along with the Authorization and Release form and a check for $10 made out to the State Bar of Texas to the following address:

The State Bar of Texas

Membership Department

P. O. Box 12487

Austin, TX 78711

4. The turnaround time for third year bar card applications is anywhere from two to five weeks, so make sure you apply early.

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Although the publication rate per professor is a useful tool to compare one aspect of a law school’s ranking, the measure is subject to a number of limitations. First, it does not take into account how many times the published articles were cited, a measure that focuses more on the quality of articles written rather than the quantity. Second, the publication rates per professor measure do not reflect how many professors were actually published in a given time frame. Professors who publish a large number of articles increase the overall publication rate for the whole school. For example over the last year, Antonio Gidi of University of Houston published ten articles and Bernard Black at the University of Texas published fourteen articles.

The findings are subject to the limitations of the source data. The data for the number of papers published comes from the Social Science Research Network. While the SSRN has a majority of the scholarly works published, SSRN only publishes those articles made available by the authors for publication through SSRN. SSRN data also reflects the year in which the article was first made available through SSRN, not the year which the paper was first published. For the sake of consistency, the numbers used in the full-time faculty column were based on the numbers most recently published by the ABA through lsac.org.

One final note, while the publication rates are often referred to and are commonly used as one measure in deriving law school rankings, it is important to note that at least one in depth study concluded that there is little correlation between publication or citation rates and effective teaching.

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On a related note, my thanks to Bryan Jepson for getting me a signed copy of Justice Scalia’s new book during my visit to D.C. last month.

While the City of Dallas and the University of North Texas prepare to open the doors of the new law school in 2010, the proposal for the new law school has yet to receive legislative approval. In April 2007, the Texas Senate approved Senate Bill 105 authorizing the creation of the school, but the measure has yet to be approved by the House. A similar measure died in the House in 2005.

The announcement comes just days after the Associated Press reported on the growth of new law schools outpacing the number of jobs available to law students. A debate hosted by Robert Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams between Dean Chemerinsky (of Duke, who heading to the new UC Irvine) and Dean Guernsey (of Albany) on the issue of whether the nation has too many law schools can be found here.

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The cost/earnings ratio (C/E ratio) reflects how much every dollar earned by a first-year associate cost the associate over the course of their law school career. Since C/E ratios reflect the cost of going to law school, the lower the C/E ratio is, the better. The Return Ratio is the inverse of the C/E ratio, and it reflects the how much each dollar expended in law school is worth on graduation.

While these numbers don’t reflect opportunity costs, the time value of money, or the cost of borrowing the money, they do offer an interesting glimpse into the economics of attending law school, and help in determining which schools offer the “best deals.”

Interestingly, higher cost/earnings ratios don’t translate directly to higher debt/earnings ratio. The D/E ratios, which I will discuss later this week, provide a better sense of the average cost of attending law school for students who use student loans to finance their education.

Sources and Assumptions: All the data used reflects 2007 figures, since that is the most recent year that a complete data set was available. Data sources include the school websites, Princeton Review, and U.S. News and World Reports.

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Nationally, Columbia topped the list with an average starting salary of $145,000. Duke, Michigan, Northwestern, and Chicago rounded out the top five schools, each coming in at $135,000.

To put the Texas salaries into perspective, making $75,000 in Austin is comparable to making $160,000 in Manhattan.