each year, the US News & World Reports‘s rankings of top colleges, law schools, and medical schools land to a chorus of groans and cheers. The rankings began in 1983, and were originally drawn solely from peer reviews of institutions. Did the provost at Brown think better of the University of Virginia than the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? Since then, the publication has tinkered with the rankings several times—taking into account factors such as how many students an institution rejects each year, how much it costs to attend, and the student-to-faculty ratio—to give more rigor to its methodology.

College leaders have mixed feelings about the listing. They criticize the formula for the things it doesn’t count—such as aid for low-income students and graduation rates—while simultaneously lauding their institution’s own position on the leaderboard, at least for those at the top.

But in recent months, even some

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News

ALI Elects New Members

ALI Elects New Members

The American Law Institute has elected new members who will bring their expertise to ALI’s work of clarifying the law through Restatements, Principles, and Model Codes.

“As 2022 comes to a close, I am pleased to welcome our final group of new ALI members,” said ALI President David F. Levi. “In 2023, ALI will celebrate its 100th anniversary. We are moving into our second century at a time when the United States is divided on many issues and many Americans are skeptical of all institutions, including our courts and legal system. This makes our work all the more important, and our new members are essential to that work. It is only through the efforts of our talented, diverse and dedicated membership body that we can continue our work protecting and preserving the rule of law. I look forward to our new members joining us in

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Conservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.

The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority.

Eight conservative groups that submitted amicus briefs in the supreme court case have received close to $90m from dark money donors since 2016, according to Accountable.US, a liberal leaning watchdog group that tracks government corruption.

Several of these conservative bastions are also champions of restrictive voting laws.

Conservatives want the supreme court to adopt the independent state legislature theory, a

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Today, the White House released the first edition of a new resource titled Building a Clean Energy Economy: A Guidebook to the Inflation Reduction Act’s Investments in Clean Energy and Climate Action, which provides clear descriptions of the law’s tax incentives and funding programs to build a clean energy economy, lower energy costs, tackle climate change, and reduce harmful pollution. The Guidebook will help state, local, territorial, and Tribal leaders, the private sector, non-profit organizations, homeowners, and communities better understand how they can benefit from these investments and unlock the full potential of the law. The Guidebook walks through the law program-by-program and provides background on each program’s purpose, eligibility requirements, period of availability, and other key details.

In a letter at the beginning of the Guidebook, John Podesta, President Biden’s Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, said:

“When President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law

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Baker Tilly is seeking to partner with a law firm in the US as a global accounting firm aiming to expand the range of services it can offer clients.

“The legal network for Baker Tilly will be in the US in the near future,” the firm’s chief executive officer, Alan Whitman, said in an interview.

The move would boost competition for US law firms, who are already seeing non-lawyer-owned legal operations gaining footholds in states such as Arizona and Utah that are testing new service-delivery models.

Baker Tilly International a year ago announced an alliance with UK law practice Freeths. The move made Freeths the first stand-alone law firm in Europe to become an independent member of the accountancy’s network.

The accounting firm touted the Freeths move as advancing an expansion into commercial law. The 600-plus attorneys at the law firm advise businesses in areas including mergers and acquisitions, insolvency

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