Derek T. Muller
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derektmuller.bsky.social
Derek T. Muller
@derektmuller.bsky.social
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School. 2024 Election Contributor for CNN. Election law, federal courts, & legal education. Rhymes with duller.
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
🟣 Idea #44 — new from @derektmuller.bsky.social — “America’s Recount Addiction” 💡

Part of the @nyulaw.bsky.social Democracy Project "100 Ideas in 100 days" series

Read the full piece here 👉 democracyproject.org/posts/americ...
America's Recount Addiction
A broad range of views on democracy to help break the stalemate caused by partisan conflict.
democracyproject.org
November 4, 2025 at 1:09 PM
New over at EOD: "The ABA is inventing new principles for law school accreditation, quietly abolishing others" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/9/...
September 15, 2025 at 1:11 PM
"ABA Council on Legal Education ignores critics, offers no substantive responses, and says 'full speed ahead' with disrupting legal education at most of the nation's law schools"
leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2025/...
August 19, 2025 at 3:10 PM
While I continued to blog at both Excess of Democracy and the Election Law Blog, many of my legal ed posts will be cross-posted or modified in some form to a Substack, the Law School Docket, if you are interested: derektmuller.substack.com
Law School Docket | Derek T. Muller | Substack
An occasional look at the topics affecting legal education and the legal profession, with an emphasis on data analysis, strategic objectives, and the bigger picture. Click to read Law School Docket, b...
derektmuller.substack.com
July 31, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Two recent posts on how the OBBB law will affect legal education and student loans.

First, "Law schools are unprepared for a likely coming cap on federal student loans" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/6/...
Law schools are unprepared for a likely coming cap on federal student loans — Excess of Democracy
July 3, 2025 update: The final enacted law caps professional loans in any one year at $50,000 and $200,000 in the aggregate. For three-year law students, this is effectively a $150,000 cap, so the ana...
excessofdemocracy.com
July 7, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
Derek Muller argues against new ABA experiential proposal, in great detail. Worth reading
My comment in opposition to the ABA's proposed amendments to Standards 303, 304, and 311 — Excess of Democracy
I write in my individual capacity to express my opposition to the Proposal to amend Standards 303, 304, and 311.   I.       The Council has a formal position agains...
excessofdemocracy.com
June 26, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
Sam Issacharoff and Derek Muller say that a solution to the nationwide injunctions problem already exists —> using the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

Read more for their argument below 👇

www.justsecurity.org/114260/reloc...
Relocating Nationwide Injunctions
Consolidating cases allows a clear, expedited path to Supreme Court review, helping quickly address matters involving executive orders.
www.justsecurity.org
June 9, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
Stop Blaming Social Media for Everything: The Minimal
Effects of Facebook in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election www.jonathanmladd.com/uploads/5/3/...
May 2, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Although I know essentially nothing about antitrust law, it's incidents like this that suggest it, whatever it is, may need some reconsideration.
Top law schools move up summer associate job interviews to May and June," via Karen Sloan. (To be clear, these are interviews in May/June for summer jobs that will start *a year-plus later.*)
reuters.com/legal/legali...
April 21, 2025 at 10:26 AM
In 2014, the ABA "Task Force on the Future of Legal Education" suggested lessening programmatic requirements on law schools in an effort to lower costs and improve innovation.
April 14, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Law school admins simultaneously critiquing state bars for excluding a cohort of prospective lawyers while praising the ABA for excluding a cohort of prospective lawyers is on brand.
The AALS warned in an open letter, opens new tab that eliminating state ABA accreditation rules would weaken public protections and limit law student and lawyer mobility reut.rs/3E278cr
April 10, 2025 at 11:39 PM
New over at EOD: "Benchmarking law school rankings against expectations, performance, and rankings tactics" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/4/...
Benchmarking law school rankings against expectations, performance, and rankings tactics — Excess of Democracy
Whenever the USNWR law school rankings are released, there are typical cries of “how did X school move to Y?” This usually reflects a kind of mental benchmark—schools X ought to be at not-Y but en...
excessofdemocracy.com
April 9, 2025 at 1:31 PM
I was thinking of doing a law school ranking of "most deceptively named law schools" and it was going to end with 3. Samford 2. Drake 1. Elon.
April 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
New over at EOD: "Elite schools got what they wanted--a more transparent, volatile rankings system that disadvantages them"
excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/4/...
Elite schools got what they wanted--a more transparent, volatile rankings system that disadvantages them — Excess of Democracy
Back in 2022, I mused as Yale and Harvard launched a “boycott” of the USNWR rankings that it was not clear what their “endgame” was. As I wrote then: Whether it’s Ralph Waldo Emerson or The Wire...
excessofdemocracy.com
April 8, 2025 at 1:51 PM
How it started, how it's going.
April 8, 2025 at 1:25 AM
So SCOTUSblog spent years and years removing PDF links to decisions and replacing them with Casetext links, and now that Casetext has been sold off every single one of those links is now dead?
April 2, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
Girgis on Normative Considerations and General Liberties, buff.ly/tICeY52 - Sherif Girgis (Notre Dame Law School) has posted Unfinished Liberties, Inevitable Balancing (Colum. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)) on SSRN.
buff.ly
April 1, 2025 at 11:30 AM
We're now at the point where we are observing the 10-year anniversary of incredibly bad takes.
March 27, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Lengthy new post over at EOD: "In 2025, law school admissions practices continue to look at the LSAT like it's 2005" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/3/...
March 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Derek T. Muller
Now collecting information about entry-level law school hires. prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/...
PrawfsBlawg: Lawsky Entry Level Hiring Report 2025 - Call for Information
prawfsblawg.blogs.com
March 24, 2025 at 1:07 AM