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.

For those of you living under a rock, last week was a big one for legal academics, with four law profs sharing their views of whether President Trump's Ukraine dealings constitute impeachable offenses. But there's a dark side to taking on such a prominent and politically charged duty, which Stanford's Pamela Karlan, Harvard's Noah Feldman, UNC's Michael Gerhardt, and George Washington's Jonathan Turley discovered firsthand. Next up is a look at the Ohio's Expedited Pardon Project, which calls on law students from Ohio State and Akron to help ex-felons find a quicker path to pardons.

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"Mamas, Don't Let You Babies Go to Harvard or Stanford Law Schools"

Let's get real: It's not every day that law professors play a starring role in the news of the day. But last week, a quartet of academics and constitutional law experts took center stage as they provided hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. One's assessment of their performance on Capitol Hill probably boils down to politics: Those leaning left credited three of the professors—whom were called as witnesses by Democrats—for laying out a clear argument that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses. While Republicans gravitated toward the one professor who testified that the bar for impeachment had not been met. (You can find a recap of their testimony here.)

Stanford Law's Pamela Karlan, Harvard Law's Noah Feldman, and the University of North Carolina School of Law's Michael Gerhardt argued for impeachment, while George Washington University Law School's Jonathan Turley argued against it. I'm not going to delve into their credentials if you don't know them, but you can read more about them here. Suffice it to say all four are heavyweights and big names in the academy, and they are experienced as congressional witnesses and in the media.

I want to focus on the aftermath of their testimony and what happens when academics are thrust into the spotlight. Not surprisingly, the testimony was fodder for the late night hosts and comedians. My favorite segment was this one from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which seized on a comment from Congressman Louie Gohmert—a Republican from Texas who went to Baylor Law—who said the expert's testimony should serve as a warning to potential law students and their parents. "Mamas, don't let you babies grow up to go to Harvard or Stanford Law Schools," he said during a post-hearing press conference. (Gohmert appears around the four-minute mark.) Noah then envisions a scene where wannabe Harvard students shamefully hide their acceptance letter from a disapproving mother.

Being ashamed of Harvard Law is, of course, perfect comic material, but there was a much less funny side of the testimony, by which I mean the vitriol aimed at the professors for providing their views. It wasn't just Gohmert who took shots at the law professors, and nowhere was the reaction more vile than the rough-and-tumble world of social media. Karlan got the worst of it, which sadly isn't surprising given the Internet's track record of attacking women. Part of the blowback stemmed from Karlan's unfortunate decision to crack a joke involving Barron Trump to make the point that President Trump does not have the powers of a king. Karlan apologized for invoking the name of the president's 13-year-old son during her testimony, but much of the negative reaction involved questioning her expertise and, worse still, her appearance and other irrelevant personal characteristics.

Meanwhile, critics dug through Feldman's prior statements about impeachment, his work with Facebook, as well as this 2008 explanation of Sharia law that appeared in the New York Times to try to undermine the credibility of his testimony. As for Turley, he wrote on Twitter that "liberals" are trying to get him fired from his law professor post as a result of his testimony. (Such a move is highly unlikely, given that Turley is a tenured professor, among other things.)

All of which is to say that getting the call to testify in such a high-profile Congressional investigation with such high stakes is a huge honor for a law professor, but it comes with some unpleasant side effects. Of course people will pick apart your political affiliations and prior scholarship and commentary, and unfortunately some will make derogatory comments about unrelated things such as being a dead ringer for Henry Kissinger (Gerhardt) or a perfect bond villain (Feldman.)

So what about all the thousands of law professors who weren't asked to appear in Washington's big show? Not content to sit it out, they have circulated their own open letter declaring Trump's conduct involving Ukraine as "clearly impeachable." As of Monday, more than 750 legal academics had signed on.

Pardon Me, Ohio Law Schools

Law students at two Ohio campuses are getting a pretty cool opportunity to help ex-felons secure pardons in the state.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine last week unveiled the Expedited Pardon Project, which is a pilot between his office, the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and the Reentry Clinic at The University of Akron School of Law.

Under the program, law students from both schools will screen pardon applications from one-time criminals. To be eligible, they must have been out of prison for at least 10 years and have lived model lives in that time. They must meet numerous qualifications that include employment, community service and the payment of all fines and restitution. The Ohio Parole Board will then determine whether or not to forward the application to DeWine. The plan is for the entire process—which now takes years—to happen within six months. Securing a pardon can have many benefits for, including easier access to housing, employment and educational opportunities.

"Lawyers have exceptional authority in our democratic society and with that authority comes exceptional responsibility," said Akron law dean Christopher Peters. "The pardon project brings this responsibility to life by mobilizing lawyers, legal educators and lawyers in training to help deserving Ohioans who have served their debt to society to reintegrate into that society."

My Take: I really like this idea. It obviously serves a public good: Ex-felons who are successfully reintegrated into society shouldn't be held in limbo for years if they are strong candidates for a pardon. And I think this is exactly the type of work that will get law students jazzed about the possibilities of how they can use their law degree to improve society. It's a task that can be performed relatively quickly and offers a big benefit to the people who secure pardons. It's a win-win.

Extra Credit Reading

The U.S. Department of Education has released some interesting data on median borrowing and starting earnings among law graduates. You can find the numbers for the T-14 here, for all California law schools here, and for the New York schools here.

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) will start asking legal employers whether summer associates or associates are required to sign mandatory arbitration agreements, in yet another win in the People's Parity Project's fight to end the practice.

Here's how New York law schools did on the July 2019 bar exam.

Thanks for reading Ahead of the Curve. Sign up for the newsletter and check out past issues here. 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]