Bellias reject Virginia offer, stay at NDLS

Big, and good, news for Notre Dame Law School: Professors A.J. and Patricia Bellia have turned down tenured offers from the University of Virginia Law School, which is ranked in the U.S. News Top 10, and will stay at NDLS. Brian Leiter calls this a "major retention coup for Notre Dame."

My impression is that it's almost an article of faith among some NDLS critics, skeptics and detractors that the school's young superstar professors, such as the Bellias, will inevitably be "poached" by other, higher-ranking law schools in due course. This development appears to contradict that belief, which is a very good thing.

As Leiter says, "Notre Dame has long had a strong reputation among practitioners ... but the school has also noticeably strengthened its faculty from a scholarly point of view in the last decade." Indeed, during last year's unfortunate "Paulinogate" incident, one thing that became crystal clear was that pretty much everyone, even those who strongly criticize the law school for various things, totally disagreed with Jimmy's criticisms of the faculty: there was almost universal agreement among Irish Trojan commenters that the NDLS faculty rocks. And the Bellias are a big part of that, so it's great that they're staying put. Indeed, I daresay this is a much bigger deal than last week's news that NDLS had climbed back to #22 in those flawed U.S. News rankings. Those numbers may vary from year to year, but if profs like the Bellias are staying put, the law school will be just fine.

Comments

[BK]

Very good news indeed.

[ndlaw2006]

I don't think poaching is inevitable, but these offers have been on the table for a while -- since the two of them visited at UVA last year. . . .

And they are extremely nice people who I've never heard say a bad thing about POH, but it is awfully coincidental that this announcement comes so soon after the announcement of her impending retirement.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The ellipses above indicate where I deleted a portion of this comment that seemed to be revealing private information about the Bellias. If this information is in fact public, the author may feel free to e-mail me at irishtrojan[at]gmail.com and clarify.]

[Lauren]

P. Bellia is easily one of my favorite professors/teachers of all time. She's a brilliant woman (EIC of Yale Law Journal) AND a great professor: engaging, humble, quick and challenging. I never had AJ (I couldn't cheat on Tricia like that) but this is a great victory for NDLS.

[ndls07]

"these offers have been on the table for a while "

Just to clarify, the offers were on the table for less than a year, having been extended at the very end of spring semester 2007 when they visited. It's not at all uncommon for academics to hold such offers for a full year, or more, before declining or accepting. Under these circumstances, I would not read anything at all into the length of time between the extension of the offer and the Bellias' declining of same. That's just how things are done in this arena.