Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm looking at the role of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in the new Move the Needle initiative to improve diversity in the legal profession. I've also got a few thoughts on the long-awaited Dan Markel murder trial, and how the Florida State law professor's death shook the academy. Will justice be served?

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

Can Northwestern Law "Move the Needle?"

Another day, another attempt to improve diversity in the legal profession.

I'll admit that was my initial reaction when I heard about Diversity Labs' new Move the Needle initiative, which is a partnership between five law firms and general counsel from 26 corporations to foster more diversity in the profession. The participants are ponying up $5 million over five years for the project. It's not that I think lawyer diversity isn't a worthy goal. Given the demographics of lawyers in this county, it's an imperative. It's just that I've seen many of these efforts announced to much fanfare, then fade to the background when they fail to produce measurable improvements.

But it caught my attention that Move the Needle had also pulled Northwestern into the effort as the exclusive law school partner. What would a law school be doing in a program focused on large firm attorneys? To get answers, I called up Kit Chaskin, director of gender initiatives at the law school. Before I get into what she told me, here are some basics about Move the Needle. (If you want more details, go here or here.) In a nutshell, five large law firms are setting specific diversity goals for themselves, then spending the next five years figuring out how to meet those goals. Transparency is an important aspect of the project, with firms sharing notes with each other and, eventually, the entire profession. The project has also assembled a cohort of experts with backgrounds in different areas—think executive management or data—that the participants can tap as they work toward achieving their goals.

I asked Chaskin why she thinks Move the Needle will succeed when so many other diversity initiatives haven't lived up to the hype. She agreed that diversity in the legal profession has proved to be a tough to achieve but she pointed to three aspects of Move the Needle that she believes set it apart. First, firms collaborating with each other is fairly unusual, and should help identify solutions more efficiently. Second, Move the Needle is leaning heavily on data to develop programming. Finally, the commitment to transparency for the whole profession means firms that aren't among the five initial participants will be able to piggyback off the solutions Move the Needle produces.

So what is Northwestern doing in the mix? Two things: Chaskin—who used to head up the women's initiative network at Reed Smith, where she was a partner for 11 years—is the chair the project's group of "community leaders," i.e. those aforementioned experts. In that capacity, she will help participants and experts stay focused on the gender aspects of diversity in the legal profession, which is her area of expertise. And she will help translate expertise and research into workable solutions. Second, Northwestern law faculty will contribute research and other academic support to the initiative.

As I spoke with Chaskin, I found it easy to see how Move the Needle will benefit from Northwestern's involvement, but it was less clear to me what the law school will get out of the deal, beyond the benefit of graduating students into—hopefully—a profession less dominated by white men. But Chaskin said there are a few direct upsides. First, the partnership with Diversity Labs means the organization hosts events and brings people to campus on an ongoing basis, which is good for the school. Second, Northwestern plans to reach out to its alumni at these five participating firms and engage them in the work their firms are doing.

My thoughts: Despite my overall skepticism about legal diversity programs, I think Northwestern is smart to get involved in Move the Needle. The school isn't funding it—that falls to the law firms. So if this proves to be the program that actually, ahem, moves the needle on diversity, Northwestern gets bragging rights without having to write checks. And any chance the school has to partner up with legal employers is probably good on the job placement front. The prospect of notching some real diversity gains is, of course, the real prize.

I also think Northwestern and Dean Kimberly Yuracko are smart to push gender diversity to the forefront. Yuracko established the school's gender initiative, which aims to address where in the pipeline women are leaving the profession and how to bring them back. My take is that it's more than just window dressing. (I don't know of too many other law schools with a director of gender initiatives, like Chaskin.) In addition to Move the Needle, Northwestern recently launched a program called Step Forward, which helps a select group of female Northwestern law grads reenter the profession. The program doesn't focus on returning to corporate settings, however. It aims to help them find "meaningful work" in public interest or government settings. That's a long-winded way to say that I applaud Northwestern for stepping up and trying to find solutions to some of the problems that plague the legal profession. Here's hoping they find success.

Seeking Justice for a Law Professor

Jury selection began today in the trial against Sigfredo Garcia and Katherine Magbanua, who stand accused in an alleged murder-hire-plot that left Florida State University law professor Dan Markel dead. I'm not going to get into all the backstory—you can read my preview of the trial here, which has the basics of what went down. But it seems worth noting that more than five years have passed since Markel was gunned down in the driveway of his Tallahassee home. That's five years that his family, friends and colleagues have been waiting for answers, and justice.

I had spoken with Markel a few times in the course of my reporting before he died, though I did not know him well. I was more aware of him as a rising star in the academy, primarily though his blogging at PrawfsBlawg, which lives on in his absence.

Even casual observers know at this point that the story of his murder and the theories as to who was behind it has become a true-crime sensation—fodder for television shows and podcasts. To say the killing was a shock to the legal academy is an understatement. I think to some extent it shattered the illusion that violent crime simply doesn't happen to law professors. I racked my brain and the closest parallel I can come up with is the 2002 shooting at Appalachian School of Law, when a disgruntled former student returned to campus and shot and killed two faculty members and a student.

Markel's death serves as a reminder that the Ivory Tower doesn't insulate academics from the harsh realities of the world, even though they work in an environment that is on the whole fairly non-threatening. My guess is that when most law professors assess their safety risks, they focus more on the possibility of an Appalachian-style shooting than what allegedly happened to Markel—an ordered hit.

We will have to wait and see what a jury decides about Garcia and Magbanua, but I know I'll have plenty of company in following what happens in the courtroom.

Extra Credit Reading

The latest Law School Survey of Student Engagement concludes that law students are far less competitive than many people believe.

Law professors are finally getting on board with Twitter. The number of legal academics on Twitter increased 500% between 2012 and 2019, a survey found.

A former facilities director embezzled $1.6 million from the University of Texas Law School, an audit has found.

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I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]