Outside Counsel

Lexis-Nexis just sent me review copies of the Second Edition of James Alexander Tanford and Layne S. Keele's "The Pretrial Process" and its document supplement. I've only just glanced at them so far but they seem like they would be a useful foundation for a course similar to mine. I note that they are not too unreasonably priced: the textbook is $49 bucks and the supplement is $25. I'd be inclined to assign just the supplement, I think.

Professor Tanford teaches at Indiana Bloomington, and I am counting on the Hoosiers this March. Professor Keele was a student of Professor Tanford's and now teaches at the Faulkner University School of Law. He graduated from IU in 2005, clerked for a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, and practiced in the IP department for the Dallas office of a fairly large firm, I guess for four or five years. For the rest of his life he will say, "When I was a litigator..."

Alabama has five law schools. If you'd put a gun to my head this morning I'd have guessed that it had only one-- the University of Alabama-- or maybe two, the other being a part of a historically black university. I'd have been wrong. As far as I can tell there is no HBCU law school in Alabama. What they've got are a law school at 'Bama (Roll Tide!); the Birmingham School of Law (providing "high quality affordable legal education to individuals who choose not to attend a traditional law school for financial, family or occupational reasons"); the Cumberland School of Law, at Samford University (the 11th oldest law school in the United States-- Cordell Hull attended Cumberland, which moved to Birmingham from Tennessee in 1961);the Miles College School of Law a stand-alone entity, unaffiliated with any university, founded in 1974; and Faulkner ("As part of the Faulkner University community, the School of Law shares Faulkner University's mission to glorify God by embracing academic excellence and emphasizing a strong commitment to integrity within a caring Christian environment.") This Gavin Stevens fan is sad to report that just as there is no connection between Miles Davis and Miles College School of Law there is likewise no connection to William Faulkner at Faulkner.

So here's my question: Does the Yellowhammer State, with a population of nearly 5 million folks, need five law schools? Why? One's basically a night school; one looks sketchy and religious; Faulkner is just plain old religious; and one-- Cumberland-- is a Tier 3 school that wasn't useful enough to its hometown to hang on there. I mean, it's not like any of these places are rolling out civil rights lawyers, are they?  I don't want to break anybody's rice bowl, but wouldn't it be better for all concerned if Professor Keele and everybody else teaching law anywhere except Tuscaloosa all went back to practice? Professor Keele's book looks fine, and his other publications appear legit, but I can't tell you that he is really adding anything to the Science of Jurisprudence that he couldn't contribute from the private sector. And Professor Keele seems like he's probably among the cream of the State of Alabama law faculty crop.