The Faculty Lounge

Let It Bleed

"Let It Bleed," written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, was the title track on the Stones' 1969 album of the same name. This was the last Stones' album with Brian Jones, who was fired and replaced by Mick Taylor midway through recording. He died about a month later. Neither Jones nor Taylor played on the "Let It Bleed" cut, with Keith Richards doing all the guitar work. In later concert appearances, Richards and Taylor (playing slide) traded riffs.

Not sure why Jagger plays an inaudible acoustic guitar in concert:

Monterey College of Law Seeks President and CEO

This just in:

Monterey College of Law (“MCL”), a not-for-profit, California Accredited Law School (“CALS”) founded in 1972 and today a system of four community-identified campuses and a hybrid online option serving the Northern and Central California region, seeks a new President and CEO (the “President”), following the announced July 2025 retirement of its current president after 20 years of exemplary service.

MCL provides one of the most robust alternative models to the kind of traditional legal education that necessitates residence near an ABA-approved campus and imposes a high financial burden on students for tuition and other costs of attendance. In doing so, MCL remains committed to the vision of its founding practitioners and judges. They believed it important to provide a high- quality legal education in a part-time evening program at a reasonable cost for working adults who did not have access to a traditional ABA-approved law school and who wanted to serve their local communities. More than 50 years later, MCL continues to expand access to legal services and justice by providing affordable, high-quality, community-based legal education at four California campuses located in Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield and Santa Rosa—communities that are among the most significant areas of population growth in the state. MCL also offers one of the first California-accredited online hybrid JD programs, where students complete 85-90% of the curriculum in a combined synchronous/asynchronous online model.

In 2015, MCL began a strategy of regional expansion by extending its proven academic programs from Monterey to additional California communities that are likewise remote from other law schools. MCL opened San Luis Obispo College of Law in 2015, Kern County College of Law in 2016, its online hybrid program in 2018 and Empire College of Law in Santa Rosa in 2023. In addition to its academic programs, MCL provides the only comprehensive free and low-cost legal services available to all Monterey County residents through its Community Justice Center. MCL is also home to the Mandell Gisnet Center for Conflict Management, which offers training in alternative dispute resolution to law students and the Monterey community.

Law Professor Lauren Gilbert Settles with St. Thomas University

In several previous posts,  I described how my client, tenured full Professor Lauren Gilbert, was initially summarily terminated by St. Thomas University College of Law, then reinstated after I sued the University. The ABA Journal wrote a couple of articles about the termination and the lawsuit, which led to the STU releasing an updated termination letter to the ABA Journal, which quoted from the letter over Professor Gilbert's objection.  (See, here.)  As noted in the ABA Journal, this case has now been settled.  As a term of the settlement, STU has issued the following statement:

"On August 28, 2024, in response to a request from a journalist at the ABA Journal, we provided a copy of a letter that we sent to Professor Lauren Gilbert, which set forth St. Thomas University's grounds for dismissal of Professor Lauren Gilbert to that journalist. A story was then published in the ABA Journal which had the potential to create false impressions about Professor Gilbert and harm her reputation. Specifically, the article referenced a statement by the University in the letter that Professor Gilbert had an "inappropriate relationship" with a student. The University now recognizes that this language could have been construed as suggesting that Professor Gilbert had a relationship with a student that was outside the bounds of a professional professor/student relationship, such as a dating or an intimate relationship. This was not what was meant by the term "inappropriate relationship" and the University does not have any evidence that Professor Gilbert engaged in any dating, intimate relationship, or sexual conduct with a student in any form. To the extent that readers of the ABA Journal story drew any such conclusions, we regret any confusion or false impression caused by the use of this phrase. 

 

Separately, the ABA Journal story also mentioned statements within the letter that referenced an agreement that Professor Gilbert would not return to campus while personnel matters were pending, and included a comment from a University spokesperson that "tenure is not a shield for inappropriate conduct that endangers the community and/or our students." This statement in the letter was a general statement and was not meant to apply specifically to Professor Gilbert. The University now recognizes that this statement, and other comments in the article, may have the potential to create the impression that Professor Gilbert was restricted from campus because she was deemed to be a danger to students or community members. The University wishes to clarify that Professor Gilbert herself was not considered to be a physical danger to anyone, but because the University had previously found that she had not followed a University policy on reporting potential threats, the University preferred that she not return to campus. However, Professor Gilbert voluntarily agreed to temporarily refrain from visiting the campus as part of settlement negotiations. We deeply regret any confusion or incorrect impression, and any harm to Professor Gilbert's reputation that the release of the letter may have caused. 

 

We are pleased to report that the settlement negotiations were successful and that Professor Gilbert and STU have agreed to amicably part ways."

Please join me in wishing Professor Gilbert the best of luck as she embarks on the next chapter of her life.

  

Update: Additional coverage at law.com here.

 

Taboo Trades Podcast at ContractsProf Blog

Jeremy Telman has a nice discussion of a recent episode of the Taboo Trades Podcast over at the ContractsProf Blog. He has a long discussion of both the episode with Marc Edelman (embedded below), as well as the paper we're discussing, The Collegiate Employee Athlete (in the Illinois Law Review), coauthored with Michael A. McCann and John T. Holden. Although Jeremy notes that he expected to hate the episode and disagree with all of it, he found it surprisingly persuasive, for at least some athletes at some schools. You should, of course, read the full post here. 

More importantly, with characteristic generosity, Jeremy praises the UVA Law students involved in the podcast: 

Kim Krawiec (right), joined by guest hosts UVA Law 3Ls Olivia King and Alyssa Marshall, interviewed Marc Edelman (below left) about his recent publication (with Michael A. McCann and John T. Holden), The Collegiate Employee Athlete in the Illinois Law Review. Professor Krawiec's podcast operates like a live seminar, with well-prepared students, who have read the guest's work, posing well-crafted questions to which the guest responds.

You can find all of the episodes here, as well as in the usual places like apple, Spotify, and amazon. 

 

Hiring Announcement: Queen's University

From a recent email message:

The Faculty of Law at Queen’s University is seeking qualified candidates for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor, or tenured faculty position at the rank of Associate Professor, in Labour and Employment Law focusing on the intersection of labour and employment law and emerging technologies and the future of work.  The successful applicant will also be appointed as the Director of the Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace.

The full job posting can be found on the Faculty of Law website at: https://law.queensu.ca/faculty-recruitment

The application deadline is January 5, 2025.

The University of Kentucky College of Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

The University of Kentucky (UK) seeks a strategic and collaborative leader with a distinguished scholarly profile to serve as the next Dean of the J. David Rosenberg College of Law (Rosenberg College of Law).

UK is a leading land-grant and public Research 1 university located in the beautiful Bluegrass region of Central Kentucky. Counted among the highest level of Carnegie Research institutions, the University is continuing its rise as one of the nation’s premier public research universities with expectations of growing significantly in stature across all dimensions of the institution’s mission - teaching, research, service, and care.

The Rosenberg College of Law was founded in 1908. Its mission is to be an outstanding public law school by preparing students to be lawyers and leaders to serve the country and the Commonwealth, produce widely recognized legal scholarship, and contribute to the advancement of justice. The Rosenberg College of Law takes this responsibility seriously and fulfills its mission by engaging communities across Kentucky to serve our community and the profession by enhancing public understanding of law, engaging in law reform, delivering continuing legal education, and providing legal services to the indigent.

 

Peking University School of Transnational Law (STL) Seeks Faculty

This just in:

Peking University School of Transnational Law (STL) invites applications for tenure-track and tenured faculty positions from highly qualified individuals. While we welcome candidates from all fields, we are particularly interested in scholars specializing in law and technology (including AI) and intellectual property (IP) laws. We also seek candidates with experience teaching first-year required courses as part of a J.D. curriculum.

Opportunities for tenure-track and tenured appointments extend to a wide range of subjects, including much of the first-year J.D. curriculum (in particular, Business Associations, U.S. Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Property and Torts) as well as upper-level courses with comparative components (a broad category that includes, as illustrative examples, international business transactions, energy law, and environmental law). We especially welcome applications from candidates who can teach courses in law and technology (including AI) and intellectual property (IP) laws.

 

CFP: Global Conversations in International Business Transactions

From our friends at Washington & Lee. Pdf is linked here Download London Roundtable Call for papers-Revised

Tulane Law Seeks Forrester Fellows and VAP

This just in:

Tulane Law School invites applications for its Forrester Fellowship and Visiting Assistant Professor positions, both of which are designed for promising scholars who plan to apply for tenure-track law school positions. Both positions are full-time faculty in the law school and are encouraged to participate in all aspects of the intellectual life of the school. The law school provides significant support and mentorship, a professional travel budget, and opportunities to present works-in-progress in faculty workshops. Interested candidates may apply here:  Apply - Interfolio

Tulane’s Forrester Fellows teach legal writing in the first-year curriculum to first-year law students in a program coordinated by the Director of Legal Writing. Fellows are appointed to a one-year term with the possibility of a single one-year renewal. Applicants must have a JD from an ABA-accredited law school, outstanding academic credentials, and significant law-related practice and/or clerkship experience. If you have any questions about this position, please contact Erin Donelon at [email protected].

Tulane’s visiting assistant professor position is supported by the Murphy Institute at Tulane (http://murphy.tulane.edu/home/), an interdisciplinary unit specializing in political economy that draws faculty from the university’s departments of economics, philosophy, history, and political science. The position is designed for scholars focusing on regulation of economic activity very broadly construed (including, for example, research with a methodological or analytical focus relevant to scholars of regulation).  If you have any questions about this position, please contact Adam Feibelman at [email protected].