Law school drops from rankings

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

UNLV's Boyd School of Law found itself kicked off the U.S. News & World Report list of the top 100 law schools in the nation Monday.

The law school fell from No. 90 to the unranked third tier, placing UNLV anywhere between 101 and 150. Richard Morgan, Boyd's dean, blames the fall primarily on problems in the school's job placement office that have since been resolved.

Only 60 percent of Boyd law school students had a job lined up when they graduated in 2004, compared with a national average of 72 percent. About 82 percent of graduates had jobs within nine months, compared with 94 percent nationally.

Morgan said high staff turnover in the job placement office made it difficult to help place graduates in jobs and to track employment rates. He believes the current director of that office, Julie Foster, will be able to turn those numbers around.

The law school also has made some progress in improving its bar exam pass rate, but that progress has not been reflected in the rankings yet, Morgan said. In 2004, only 65 percent of Boyd students passed the bar the first time. Last year it was 69 percent, Morgan said.

"I'm hoping with improving bar exam numbers and improving placement numbers the rankings will improve," Morgan said.

U.S. News ranked the law school's training in legal writing as seventh best in the nation for the second year in a row. Its dispute-resolution program was ranked in a four-way tie for No. 13, and its legal clinic ranked No. 27, along with two other universities.

U.S. News also listed UNLV's law school as one of the more diverse in the country and as one of the least expensive for both in-state and out-of-state tuition.

If you can't get in to see Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison on Thursday night at UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall, stroll over to the Barrick Museum Auditorium for a free lecture on the "dark side of the universe."

Less than 1 percent of the material in the universe is stars, and the rest is made up of dark matter and dark energy, says Michael S. Turner, a University of Chicago astrophysicist. Turner will explain how the darkness of the universe holds everything together and how dark energy is causing the universe to expand at a faster rate.

The public lecture is the first presentation sponsored by the official Arthur C. Clark Center. It is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

There's also a free lecture at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday by law professor Ann McGinley about legal issues surroundings hotel employees who are sexually harassed by customers. The example she will discuss is based on a case at the Hard Rock Hotel involving blackjack dealers. But McGinley also will talk about harassment of casino cocktail waitresses, exotic dancers and brothel prostitutes elsewhere.

Finally on Monday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Wiener will discuss some of the early controversies surrounding nuclear fallout from the Nevada Test Site and how they relate to current debates over Yucca Mountain. The lecture is at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Barrick Museum Auditorium.

UNLV doctoral student Jennifer Golanics is flying to New York City to compete Thursday in the 2006 National Collegiate Rock Paper Scissors Invitational Tournament.

The 23-year-old educational psychology doctoral student won the chance to compete at the Madison Square Garden tournament by entering a drawing at Rebelbooks, a used bookstore across the street from the Maryland Parkway campus. Golanics, a New Jersey native, said she is competing to earn $300 of guaranteed spending money and the chance to win the $5,000 grand prize.

That $300 will come in handy when she flies to San Francisco on Saturday to present her master's thesis on online education at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, Golanics said.

"I'm pretty sure I have a 50 percent chance of winning against whomever I go up against," said Golanics, unworried that her "trainer" will no longer be able to attend the competition with her. "I don't think there is any kind of strategy involved in playing that game."

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