A replacement for Elena Kagan as dean of Harvard Law School has been named. It's the well-liked law school professor Martha Minow.

Harvard University President Drew Faust announced the news to HLS students, today:

I am delighted to let you know that Martha Minow has agreed to serve as the next Dean of Harvard Law School. She will take up her duties on July 1.

Martha has been a member of the HLS faculty since 1981, and she has served the school with extraordinary dedication and energy. She is an eminent scholar of uncommon range and imagination, a greatly admired teacher who guided the school's recent curricular review, and an outstanding citizen not only of the Law School but of the University, with impressive experience in academic leadership roles. She has a clear-eyed view of the challenges and opportunities facing the Law School, and a talent for bringing people together to work through important academic and institutional issues. Most of all, she has a passion for the law and for all that legal scholarship, education, and practice can do to advance the public good. I look forward to welcoming Martha to the University's Council of Deans and to working closely with her in the years to come.

Faust also thanked interim Dean Howell Jackson for his service over the past few months.

More on Minow after the jump.

The upcoming retirement of Justice David Souter has led to lots of speculation about the next Supreme. We held a poll here at ATL, including some of the potential nominees that have been mentioned most often by the legal press. Almost 10,000 ATL readers put Sonia Sotomayor, with 28% of the vote, and Elena Kagan, with 20% of the vote, at the top of their list (see full results after the jump).

Obama says he wants a Supreme with empathy. Given that, Clerquette at Underneath Their Robes asks whether the smart money is on solicitor general and ex-Harvard dean Elena Kagan:

The question of course, is which judicial fox will occupy the Souter seat. As you know, our/ATL's leaderboard points to General Kagan and Judge Sotomayor as front-runners. But, while some Court-watchers (and POTUS fans) are unabashedly agog at the possibility of the "diversity double" that would be accomplished by Judge Sotomayor's nomination, a few interesting rumblings to the contrary have emerged. Point I: a number of commenters, including Adam Liptak of the New York Times, have pointed out that the notion of promoting "diversity" amongst the Supremes requires both consideration of personal characteristics and credentials and a good, hard look at the presumptive nominees' path to power. Given the homogeneity of the current bench, which consists entirely of former federal judges (who are, admittedly, irresistible!), might POTUS seize this opportunity to mix it up a little? He has, after all, identified Justice Earl Warren as his personal judicial dreamboat, citing Justice Warren's political background and the pragmatism with which it infused his juristic decision-making.

But wait: there's more! In an article so chock-full of Article III gossip that Clerquette read much of it while breathing into a paper bag (narrowly avoiding a dramatic swoon) esteemed law professor Jeffrey Rosen writes that Judge Sotomayor may not be quite ready for prime time. Although she gets high marks for sass and biographical appeal -- not insignificant qualities -- Rosen reports that some have raised doubts about her strength on the merits. For example, he writes, many of his sources have "expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative." Gasp! Juicier yet, Rosen quotes a former Second Circuit clerk who opined that Sotomayor was "'not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench.'" The clerk also noted that Judge Sotomayor had what sound (to this blogress) like patent indicia of divadom: specifically, said the clerk, "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue."

Wow, Professor Rosen, don't hold back. Those are strong words, and are getting some strong reactions. Glenn Greenwald at Salon excoriated Rosen for the attack piece.

In our initial post, we proposed an unofficial "David Lat to SCOTUS" campaign. You all came up with some interesting suggestions as well. More speculation on Souter's replacement, and some dark horse candidates, after the jump.

* The Senate Judiciary Committee will discuss Obama's nomination of Harvard law school dean Elena Kagan as solicitor general. [The Washington Post]

* Three federal judges in California ruled that the state must reduce its prison population by a third. [Los Angeles Times]

* Lawyers for the Obama administration surprised San Francisco by making the same state-secrets argument as Bush in the extraordinary rendition case. [The New York Times]

* The SEC makes a deal with Madoff. [The Washington Post]

* Meanwhile, the SEC chairman steps down after falling to the 50 billion dollar thief. [Bloomberg]

* 50 cent won a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend. "...this is a complete and total victory for 50," one of his lawyers said. [Punk.BZ]

President Barack Obama has hit the ground running. Even before President Obama was done flubbing taking the oath of office, the revamped White House website was launched. You can check the WH website, including the new "Briefing Room" blog, for news of notable nominations and appointments.

We'll also follow personnel news here on Above the Law, at least with respect to leading lawyers (most of them bound for the Department of Justice and the White House Counsel's office). We've covered some notable nominations already. E.g, Eric Holder for attorney general; Elena Kagan for solicitrix general; Cass Sunstein for regulatory czar; and Kathy Ruemmler for PADAG.

A few more names have surfaced since then. Some of them pertain to the Office of Legal Counsel, the most prestigious DOJ component to work for other than the Solicitor General's office (and arguably more powerful). We once dubbed OLC the Finishing School for the Elect:

If you don't land a Supreme Court clerkship that immediately follows your feeder judge clerkship, cool your heels at the OLC, then reapply to the Court. Success is practically guaranteed!

As previously reported, with the Senate's consent, the headmistress of the Finishing School will be Dawn Johnsen (pictured). Professor Johnsen teaches law at Indiana University - Bloomington and served at OLC during the Clinton Administration, as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, so she is well-prepared for the job. When we spoke at IU almost two years ago, students we met were already speculating that Professor Johnsen -- described as a "brilliant" scholar, even if not the clearest or most effective classroom teacher -- might someday return to government.

Professor Johnson will be joined by two more academics: Professor David Barron, of Harvard Law School, and Professor Marty Lederman, of Georgetown Law School. To learn more about their appointments, see Politico and Balkinization, respectively. Professor Lederman may be familiar to many of you as an active contributor in the legal blogosphere, having blogged for Balkinization and SCOTUSblog.

Since President Obama is a former legal academic, it should come as no surprise that he's recruiting so many law profs to join the upper echelons of his administration. The marquee names of Kagan, Sunstein, Johnsen, Barron and Lederman will also be joined by one of the brightest young stars of the legal firmament: Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal (pictured), of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld fame. As reported by the Legal Times (via the WSJ Law Blog), wunderkind Katyal has been tapped to serve as Elena Kagan's right-hand man, principal deputy solicitor general.

For a comprehensive listing of the top legal eagles in the Obama Administration, see this handy round-up over at the BLT. As you can see, these are big, boldface names -- gods and goddesses of our profession. Congratulations and good luck to all of them (not that they'll need it).

We'll have more hiring news -- including items about less celestial beings, more junior lawyers, people you might actually know -- in subsequent posts. If you have info to share, please email us. Thanks.

Update: Add Harvard's Einer Elhauge to the list of legal academics bound for the Obama Administration. Details via Brian Leiter.

Marty Lederman joins the Office of Legal Counsel [Balkinization]
Katyal Tapped as Principal Deputy in SG's Office [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
DOJ in Flux [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
Georgetown to Lose Lederman and Katyal to OLC, SG's Office [WSJ Law Blog]
Another Bush critic to OLC [Politico]
More Departures from Academia to the Obama Administration: Lederman from Georgetown, Barron from Harvard [Leiter's Law School Reports]

Many have speculated that Harvard Law School's hot and high-powered dean, Elena Kagan, might be a Supreme Court nominee in an Obama administration.

Dean Kagan is one step closer to sitting on the Court. Assuming her confirmation process goes smoothly -- which it surely will, given how universally adored and admired she is, by liberals and conservatives alike -- Elena Kagan will soon be arguing before the SCOTUS, as the Solicitor General of the United States.

As expected, President-elect Barack Obama has selected her as his SG nominee. From a message just sent out by Dean Kagan:

I am writing to all of you - the community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Harvard Law School - to let you know that today President-elect Barack Obama will announce his intention to nominate me to serve as Solicitor General of the United States. If confirmed by the Senate, I will resign the deanship of the Law School and take a leave of absence from the faculty.

If Dean Kagan makes the jump from solicitor general to justice, it won't be unprecedented. The justice for whom she clerked, Thurgood Marshall, served as SG from 1965 to 1967, until President Johnson appointed him to the Court.

Back in 2007, Dean Kagan lost out on the presidency of Harvard University. Near the end of the Clinton Administration, she was nominated to the Most High D.C. Circuit, but never confirmed. Is 2009 going to be her year?

The full announcement from Dean Kagan to the HLS community, after the jump.

We just brought you news of Stanford Law School changing its grading system. Now Harvard Law School is following suit.

Dean Elena Kagan just sent this message out to the HLS student body:

To all students:

I am writing to let you know that the faculty decided yesterday to move to a grading system with fewer classifications than we have now. The new classifications, much as at Yale and Stanford, will be Honors-Pass-Low Pass-Fail. The faculty believes that this decision will promote pedagogical excellence and innovation and further strengthen the intellectual community in which we all live. The new system will apply to students entering HLS in fall 2009; yet to be determined is whether it also will apply to some or all classes of current students.

The faculty began consideration of this issue last year, and has consulted with groups of students, alumni, and other employers in the course of our discussions. Before making a decision on whether to implement the system now, for all or some of our current students, I want to make sure that any interested student has a chance to express his or her views. To provide this opportunity, I will hold a "town hall" meeting on Thursday, October 2 from 2:30 to 3:30 in Austin North. I look forward to seeing you some of you there.

Best,
Elena Kagan

Was there an epidemic of A's that caused these sweeping changes at Harvard and Stanford?

Like Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer's message back in May, Kagan's message leaves open the question of what kind of honors HLS will be doling out. Don't count on Harvard's system being any less complicated then Stanford's. Remember, Harvard is moving away from a ridiculous 15-point system that nobody understands anyway.

But the crucial question is whether this new system will be applied retroactively to the classes of 2009 and 2010. If I were in either of those classes, I'd stop worrying about the economy and show up for the debate, on October 2nd.

We're attending the 2008 National Convention of the American Constitution Society (aka the Federalist Society of the Left, for those of you not familiar with the ACS). It's being held today and tomorrow at the Hyatt Regency here in Washington, DC. The theme of this year's conference: "Revitalizing Our Democracy: Progress and Possibilities." Read: "Welcome President Obama: It's Good To Be Back in the House!"

We may be filing some dispatches from the proceedings. We'd liveblog the panels contemporaneously, but neither the hotel wireless nor our wi-fi card worked inside the hotel's subterranean ballroom. So we will post in between sessions, when we can.

These comments -- essentially a liveblog, but posted after the fact -- will have an unpolished, stream-of-consciousness quality. Expect lots of randomness (and typos).

The first report, about the very interesting (and star-studded) plenary panel, "Law and Justice Policies in a New Administration," appears after the jump.

Under the leadership of the beloved Elena Kagan, Harvard Law School continues to raid other schools for law professor talent. Word on the street is that another big hire is in the works. This past weekend, Dean Kagan crowed about her coup before a group of admitted students, saying it would be announced later this week.

We checked for news and gossip over at Leiter's Law School Reports, the definitive source for information about senior-level appointments in legal academia, but didn't see anything. Any guesses as to who will be snatched by HLS next?

In addition to the Harvard name (and endowment), Dean Kagan has other weapons in her arsenal for doing battle in the recruitment wars. She wooed Feldsuk with a million-dollar mansion, and Cass Sunstein with a million-dollar bab[e]. What fabulous prizes will Kagan bestow upon her latest hire?

Feel free to speculate and opine in the comments, or by email. Thanks.

If we knew anything about sports, we'd say this is the legal academic equivalent of Major Player X leaving Super-Elite Team Y for Super-Elite Team Z. But we don't. So we'll just say it's one of the biggest law school hiring coups since Harvard Law School snatched half of Feldsuk from NYU.

HLS strikes again -- but this time around, the victim of their poaching is U. Chicago (where we'll be making an appearance later this week, by the way). From the Harvard Law School website:

Renowned legal scholar and political theorist Cass R. Sunstein '78 has accepted an offer to join the Harvard Law School faculty, Dean Elena Kagan '86 announced today. Sunstein, currently a tenured professor at the University of Chicago Law School, will begin teaching at HLS in the fall. He will also become director of the new Program on Risk Regulation.

"Cass Sunstein is the preeminent legal scholar of our time -- the most wide-ranging, the most prolific, the most cited, and the most influential," said Kagan. "His work in any one of the fields he pursues -- administrative law and policy, constitutional law and theory, behavioral economics and law, environmental law, to name a non-exhaustive few -- would put him in the very front ranks of legal scholars; the combination is singular and breathtaking...."

Some tipsters' takes:

"I imagine a lot of Chicago alums will be annoyed at the least."

"Yet another high-profile move to HLS. Dean Kagan has done an amazing job these past few years getting big names out to Cambridge. (I’m just annoyed because I decided to take Admin Law this semester.)"

"[W]e just learned that although Martha Nussbaum turned down Harvard and Brown last week, Cass Sunstein ACCEPTED his Harvard Law offer! I'm torn - HUGE get in Sunstein, proving Elena Kagan is unstoppable, but is this trouble for the power couple?"

In December, we attended Professor Sunstein's 2007 Distinguished Lecture at AEI in Washington, DC (where we're currently based). We were mighty impressed by the good professor, who wasn't just brilliant and articulate, but also funny and self-effacing. Congrats to HLS and Dean Kagan on this latest addition to the Cambridge constellation of legal geniuses!

Update: Additional analysis of the Sunstein move from Professor Brian Leiter appears here. It seems that all is well in Sunstein-Nussbaum land. Per Professor Leiter:

[A]s Cass told me, he will be keeping his Chicago apartment and an office at the University of Chicago Law School, and he will also continue teaching part-time at Chicago as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor of Law (probably in the winter quarters).

Further Update / Correction: Uh, scratch that. As you may have surmised from some of the comments, Professors Nussbaum and Sunstein are no longer an item. Professor Sunstein has a new honey, Professor Samantha Power, of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He's moving to Harvard in part because of this new romance. More details here.

Sunstein, Harvard, Chicago [Leiter's Law School Reports]
Nussbaum Declines Harvard, Brown Offers, and Will Remain at Chicago [Leiter's Law School Reports]
Sunstein to join Harvard Law School faculty [Harvard Law School]
Cass Sunstein bio [University of Chicago Law School]
2007 Distinguished Lecture: Extremism [American Enterprise Institute]

Oh you Harvard Law School kids! We poke some fun at the (rather silly) proposal to rename the HLS sections, which are currently identified by numbers. And then we get grief for it in the comments, including a claim that we "have very little understanding of irony or satire" (even though the survey didn't seem very satirical to us, aside from a single throwaway line about Hogwarts).*

Anyway, to satisfy any defensive HLSers, we'll now publish a tip we received that makes the Law School seem slightly less ridiculous:

[I]t's not the HLS administration's idea to do this; it is basically the idea of a single 1L. I was at the student government meeting in which this idea was first proposed, and it came from a 1L section representative. Because 1L participation is strongly encouraged, no one wanted to shoot him down (even though many people thought the idea was silly).

Someone suggested sending out a poll to see if other students agreed, and if so, the student government would pass on the poll results to the administration. My hunch is that students will vote against it, and regardless the faculty/admin almost certainly would not support the idea. That's the back story.

What a relief! Our faith in Harvard Law School's wise (and super-hot) leader, Dean Elena Kagan, has been restored.

* That same comments thread also included an odd digression on whether there are too many undergraduates at the Hemenway gym. Funny -- when we were in law school, undergrads in the gym were viewed as a GOOD thing...

Earlier: Wherein Harvard Law School Hits Itself Over the Head With a Silly Stick

Our condolences to Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. Dean Kagan, who was under consideration for the president of Harvard University, was passed over for the job in favor of historian Drew Gilpin Faust (aka "Dr. Faust").

But maybe it's for the best. As Harvard president, it can be tough not to make enemies. See, e.g., Larry Summers.

(Unless you want to be kinda boring and ineffectual. See, e.g., Neil Rudenstine.)

And enemies are not what a possible Supreme Court nominee wants. Especially a nominee who, like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, generally plays well with others -- even those who hold divergent ideological views.

From a Princeton tipster:

The most recent edition of the Princeton Alumni Weekly has an interesting tidbit about Anne-Marie Slaughter and Elena Kagan (who have creepily similar resumes):

"'Elena has an extraordinary talent for not making enemies,' says Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, who became friendly with Kagan when both were Sachs Scholars at Oxford (Kagan coxed the boat in which Slaughter rowed), and later taught with her at Chicago and Harvard law schools."

How hot is that??? Perhaps you could create a "fantasy legal academic crew team," with, e.g., Charles Fried as stroke (naturally -- he's quite the gym bunny) and Bruce A. in bow. Think of the Photoshop head-pasting potential!

We are well aware of Dean Kagan's hotness (since she was nominated in our law school deans hotties contest). But we had no idea she was also an athlete.

How neat! Dean Kagan, you can yell "Stroke!" at us anytime.

A 'Rebellious Daughter' to Lead Harvard [New York Times]

Lots of interesting moves, both actual and rumored, to report upon today.

Possible promotion:

* Elena Kagan, the popular (and hot) dean of Harvard Law School, is being considered for the presidency of Harvard University.

In government:

* New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is on a hiring spree (just like his successor as AG, Andrew Cuomo). Lloyd Constantine, who currently heads a 40-lawyer firm, will serve as a senior advisor to Spitzer. Debra Bachrach, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, will direct the state's Medicaid program. Joseph Baker, bureau chief for health care under AG Spitzer, will take over as deputy secretary for health and human services.

"You're Fired":

* Former Apple in-house lawyer Wendy Howell was discreetly discharged, late last year, for her role in the options backdating fiasco.

Reunited and it feels so good:

* Structured finance lawyers William Cullen, Janet Barbiere and Bola Oloko, to Thacher Proffitt & Wood, from Sidley & Austin. The trio left Thacher Proffitt together in 1997 (back when Barbiere and Oloko were still associates; they were recently promoted to partnership at Sidley).

Other lateral moves:

* Bankruptcy lawyer Steven Wilamowsky, to Bingham McCutchen, from Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Headhunters at Harvard May Pick a Woman [New York Times]
NY Bankruptcy Partner Switches Firms [NYLawyer.com]
NY Trio Returns to Firm They Left in the '90s [NYLawyer.com]
Spitzer Taps Three NY Lawyers to Fill Key Positions [NYLawyer.com]
Apple Quietly Canned Lawyer Who Backdated [The Recorder via Law.com]

Over at Bench Memos, Ed Whelan -- one of our favorite commentators on matters judicial -- provides a great account of Justice Antonin Scalia's recent visit to his alma mater, Harvard Law School. Here's an excerpt:

The dinner that Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan hosted on Wednesday evening to honor the 20th anniversary of Justice Scalia’s appointment to the Supreme Court was a delightful event, far exceeding my hopeful expectations.

In her own remarks honoring Justice Scalia, Dean Kagan was eloquent, warm-spirited, insightful, and very amusing. She presented Justice Scalia with a letter from Chief Justice Roberts congratulating him on reaching the “midpoint” (or some similar term) of his service on the Court. With wonderfully apt remarks, she also gave him, as a memento of the dinner (which featured salmon as the main course), the framed original of a humorous letter from the great Justice Joseph Story offering thanks for a gift of salmon. The celebratory remarks of professors Charles Fried, Laurence Tribe, and John Manning were likewise excellent.

Read the full report here. As Whelan notes, the welcome extended to Justice Scalia in Cambridge -- by law school dean hottie Elena Kagan -- was notably warmer than the somewhat chilly reception accorded to Nino in New Haven.

Harvard Law School Celebration of Justice Scalia [Bench Memos on National Review Online]

Earlier: An Addendum on Nino in New Haven

An interesting update to our prior post about Justice Antonin Scalia's recent appearance at the Yale Law School. From a current YLS student:

Some of us were bothered -- though not exactly surprised -- by Dean Harold Koh's tepid introduction of Justice Scalia. Koh couldn't seem to find anything warm and welcoming to say about Scalia. Rather, he spent his entire introduction praising Christine Jolls.

It was as though Scalia wasn't even there. Koh's lack of hospitality was particularly striking when compared to how he often gushes about other relatively unremarkable visiting speakers.

Like our correspondent, we're not entirely surprised. We haven't met Dean Koh in person, and he wasn't dean when we were at Yale. But we have heard through the YLS alumni grapevine that he is more ideologically motivated, and less evenhanded, than his predecessor as dean, Tony Kronman.

We've also heard Dean Koh compared to Dean Elena Kagan of Harvard Law School in this regard. Dean Kagan is politically active on the liberal side. Like Dean Koh, she served in the Clinton Administration (as a domestic policy advisor and in the White House Counsel's office). She was nominated to the D.C. Circuit by President Clinton, but was denied a vote, and she's a possible SCOTUS nominee in a Hillary Clinton Democratic administration. But despite her personal leanings, Dean Kagan has been widely praised for supporting intellectual and ideological diversity on the Harvard Law School campus.

(Also, Dean Kagan was a nominee in our Law School Dean Hotties contest. She did not prevail, losing out to a Yalie (Asha Rangappa). But just like the Oscars, it's an honor just to be nominated.)

Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Did Poor Justice Scalia Have to Spend the Night in New Haven?
Law School Dean Hotties: Your Female Nominees

"Harvard Law On A Heterodox Spree, Listing to Right" [Volokh Conspiracy]

Only a few hours remain for voting in our Law School Dean Hotties contests. Click here to vote on the women, click here to vote on the men, and click here to vote on the male alternates.

One of the female candidates, Associate Dean Leah Jackson of Baylor Law School, has commented on the contest. When contacted by the Baylor school newspaper, the Baylor Lariat, she offered these thoughts:

"I was truly shocked to show up on such a list," Jackson said via e-mail Tuesday.

Jackson noted that the contest was "a cute little piece," but said she would "enjoy it more if the comments focused on how bright, accomplished and respected each of the women on the page are."

Similar sentiments have been voiced by some commenters over at Feministing (a blog name that, truth be told, makes us uncomfortable every time we read it).

We take issue with these comments. Obviously a number of reader testimonials focused on the looks of the nominees -- because this is, after all, a beauty contest. But many other comments focused on other attributes. Here are just a few examples:

"[Leah Jackson] teaches Tax: Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, and Partnership Taxation. And what's more sexy than tax law?"

"How could any contest for hot law school deans NOT include Elena Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School? Any woman who can climb to the top of an institution as stodgy and male-dominated as HLS is a hottie per se."

"[Elena Kagan is] (1) among the Elect (clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Marshall), (2) former Associate Counsel to President Clinton, and (3) a one-time nominee to the D.C. Circuit -- which, as we all know, is the sexiest court in the country (even more sexy than the SCOTUS). How can you say no to all that?"

"Not only is Dean Toni Massaro brilliant, attractive, and self-assured, she's also a cancer survivor AND a lesbian. It's easy to make Advanced Con Law sexy, but how many Deans could get 3rd year students out of bed every morning for an 8 am class and have a packed classroom?"

"One couldn't ask for a better dean than Toni Massaro. In addition to her fantastic fundraising, she brought Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to be the Distinguished Jurist in Residence here. She also convinced Iranian Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi to come aboard as a Distinguished Visiting Faculty in Human Rights."

"[Maureen O'Rourke's] fiery exterior is complemented by her brilliant intellect. She graduated at the top of her college class and with Honors in all her classes at Yale Law School. Dean O'Rourke has it all."

"I write to nominate Asha Rangappa in your beautiful law school dean contest. First, she's a genius: Princeton, Yale Law, a Fulbright, a First Circuit clerk. Second, she's totally badass: from 2002 to 2005, she worked in the FBI as a Special Agent, focusing on counterintelligence investigations in New York City. How cool is that?"

"Dean Mary Jo Wiggins is hot inside and out. By far, she is one of my favorite people at USD Law. She is beautiful, elegant, and carries herself with dignity and class. She is brilliant and accomplished (see here and here), yet she's never condescending or arrogant (unlike certain other professors)."

If these comments are sexist, then call us sexist.*

It seems to us that feminists in the 21st century -- as opposed to, say, the 1970's -- should not object to being praised for their brains AND their beauty. Being recognized for one's accomplishments AND attractiveness are not mutually exclusive.

To be a feminist in good standing, you don't need to look like the late Andrea Dworkin. There is nothing wrong with looking like, say, Gloria Steinem. And feminists who happen to look more like Steinem than Dworkin shouldn't have to apologize or feel guilty for doing so.

* Did a certain number of Fark readers have sexist comments to offer, both on Fark and ATL? Sure. But what do you expect from a bunch of acne-ridden adolescents who spend all day playing video games in their parents' basements?

Assistant Dean More Than Pretty Face [Baylor Lariat]
Female Law School Dean 'Hotties' Contest [Feministing]
Take the Bait? Or Not? [Feminist Law Professors]

You may be wondering how the number of votes tallied in our Law School Dean hotties contest, on the women's side, went from about 1,000 to over 7,000 -- basically over the weekend. The answer, in a word: Fark.

Fark is a hugely popular website, started by a fellow named Drew Curtis, that collects weird news and humor. It can be very funny, as long as you don't mind juvenile jokes, and a little -- or a lot of -- vulgarity.

(Yes, Fark is even more juvenile and vulgar than ATL. Think of it as the xoxohth message board, but without the ambition.)

Anyway, Fark linked to the Law School Hotties contest, and the rest is history.

Fark has a large and active community of commenters. A number of them had some, er, interesting things to say about the candidates.

Check out some selected excerpts from their comments, after the jump.

Sorry it took us so long. Without further ado, we proudly present the female nominees in our first annual Law School Dean Hotties Contest.

To review the nomination rules, click here. As we explained, you were free to nominate deans other than THE dean of the law school -- e.g., deputy, assistant, or associate deans. They just needed to have "dean" somewhere in their title.

This contest has only seven contestants. But we believe that what the field may lack in quantity, it more than makes up for in quality.

Take a look at the photos and testimonials for the female finalists -- and cast your vote for America's Hottest Female Law School Dean -- after the jump.

Celebrity sighting columns are a staple of gossip magazines and gossip blogs. E.g., Gawker Stalker, Wonk'd, Judicial Sightations. So, in this spirit, we proudly present The Eyes of the Law -- your source for all the legal celebrity sightings that are fit to print (and a few that aren't).

Since we don't get out that much -- we get an electrical shock if we stray ten feet from our keyboard -- we need your help. We'll need you to make the sightings and submit them to us, by email (subject line: "Sighting"). Then we'll publish them on the internet, for all the world to enjoy. (We've already received a few; keep 'em coming!)

A few tips and guidelines to help you in your celeb-spotting:

(1) When you make a sighting, please be as observant as possible. How was the person looking -- hot, or not? What were they wearing? What kind of mood were they in? Were they alone, or with others?

(2) On a related note, digital photographs to support your sighting are especially welcome. A thousand words, etc.

(3) A true "sighting" requires seeing the personality outside of their natural habitat -- and preferably doing something that one might not expect them to be doing. So sightings of federal judges in courthouses and law school deans in the halls of their schools don't count. But we welcome sightings of judges or deans at, say, a baseball game -- or, better yet, a nudie bar.

Here are the types of people who qualify as sighting subjects in our book:

(1) any federal judge (but we're talking Article III here -- no bankruptcy or magistrate judges, ick);

(2) any member of a state's highest court;

(3) a state court judge from a lower court, but only if they're notorious for doing the kinds of things that state court judges are known for doing (e.g., using a penis pump on the bench, facilitating the escape of a violent felon, etc.);

(4) famous practicing lawyers, like David Boies, Ted Olson, Mark Geragos, or Ben Brafman (if you have to explain who they are, they're not famous);

(5) prominent law school deans, like current Yale dean Harold Koh, current Harvard dean Elena Kagan, and former Stanford dean Kathleen Sullivan;

(6) well-known law professors, like Laurence Tribe, Lawrence Lessig, Lani Guinier, or Anita Hill (no, your first-year legal writing instructor doesn't count); and

(7) law-related television personalities, like Judge Judy Sheindlin, Nancy Grace, or Jeffrey Toobin.

This list is not exhaustive; we may have overlooked certain categories of legal eagles that we'd like you to spot. But it gives you a good idea of the kinds of people we're interested in.

So enough idle chatter; get to it. Rustle up some juicy sightings, and submit them to us forthwith, by email. Much thanks!

A new website, like Above the Law, can take some getting used to. And we're still working out various glitches and kinks. Please bear with us, and please give us your feedback about any problems you encounter; it's very helpful. (And yes, we are considering a font overhaul. If you have views on that subject, pro or con, post 'em in the comments.)

This is just a quick, admittedly pedantic post, to help familiarize you with the features of this site. Think of it as a little "user's manual" for maximizing your enjoyment of ATL:

1. "After the jump" = Click on the little "Continue reading" link at the end of the post excerpt on the main page.

2. You can also read a post in its entirety, or generate a link to it, by clicking on either (a) the title of the post, or (b) the "Permalink" icon (that little paper-clip icon in the lower right-hand corner of each post).

3. You can email a post to a friend or colleague by clicking on the little envelope icon in the corner.

4. The most emailed articles appear in the column on the left-hand side of the page. We monitor this closely because it shows us what you, our readership, find most interesting. Then we can pander to you even more shamelessly.

5. You can append a comment to a post by clicking on the little bubble icon. Cute!

6. At the end of each post, after the words "Posted in:", you'll see what are called "Tags." These are specific subjects discussed at Above the Law. If you click on the Tag in question, you'll be taken to a page that collects all the posts about that topic. This allows you to see our coverage of a subject over time, or how a story unfolded.

Before we bore experienced readers to tears, here are two more novel things worth checking out:

1. The Forum. It's in the left-hand column. If there's not enough to do in the comments section, you can now start your own discussions completely independent of our ten or twelve chunks of commentary, news, and pining after litigatrices like Mary Kay Vyskocil and Rosemary Alito (that's coming next month).

Registration can be anonymous. Why review that redline of the merger agreement when you can argue over whether HLS Dean Elena Kagan could destroy Columbia Dean David Schizer in a steel cage match? (See here.) Or speculate on who will be the next great "feeder judge" to the Supreme Court? (See here. And yes, we agree with "Mac": judicial hottie Jeffrey Sutton (6th Cir.) is already funneling his kids to Nino. One this Term, one next Term).

To register for the Forum, click HERE. We reserve the right to indulge our god complexes and delete your posts (or ban users) for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: we thought the post was off-topic, the post was promoting Internet Viagra, or we were bored and deleting users is MU-HA-HA... fun. That said, we're extremely lazy totalitarians and aren't inclined to delete anything unless extremely provoked. Or bored.

2. The Archives. Also accessible through the left-hand column. If you click on the word "Archive" -- no, we don't think you're retarded, we're just really anal -- you'll be taken to the ATL archives, where past posts are collected and organized by topic and by date. We've actually been secretly "testblogging" here since July -- think of it as our answer to the Katie Couric "shadow show" -- so there's a lot of stuff to check out, even though we only went "live" this week.

That's enough administrative crap for now. Back to matters of, er, "substance"!