Derek T. Muller

How a largely forgotten Supreme Court case can help prevent an executive branch takeover of federal elections An FBI raid on a Georgia elections facility has sparked concern about Trump administration interference in the 2026 midterms. An obscure 1970s Supreme Court case provides guardrails against that.

Could the Trump Administration use the FBI to sow distrust about the midterm elections?

1970’s Roudebush v. Hartke decision sets a clear legal precedent that the federal government has no place interfering with how states deal with challenges to election integrity. buff.ly/l7r4y36

America's Recount Addiction A broad range of views on democracy to help break the stalemate caused by partisan conflict.

🟣 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...

New over at EOD: "The ABA is inventing new principles for law school accreditation, quietly abolishing others" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/9/...

"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/...

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...

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

Will the new student loan law hobble some law schools' reliance on non-JD forms of revenue? — Excess of Democracy I wrote earlier about how law schools are unprepared for a new cap on federal student loans. The new law caps the amount a student can borrow in any one year of a JD programs at $50,000 and at $200,...

Second, "Will the new student loan law hobble some law schools' reliance on non-JD forms of revenue?" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/7/...

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...

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/...

Oh now that is interesting. Hadn't considered that angle....

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...

Derek Muller argues against new ABA experiential proposal, in great detail. Worth reading

Relocating Nationwide Injunctions Consolidating cases allows a clear, expedited path to Supreme Court review, helping quickly address matters involving executive orders.

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...

1. LAX to In-n-Out.

2. Barstow & Victorville into the Cajon Canyon.

Stop Blaming Social Media for Everything: The Minimal
Effects of Facebook in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election www.jonathanmladd.com/uploads/5/3/...

For context, see www.nalp.org/open_letter_...

Although I know essentially nothing about antitrust law, it's incidents like this that suggest it, whatever it is, may need some reconsideration.

Iowa overhauls its recount rules #ELB As a former Iowa resident who saw the 6-vote margin of decision in Iowa’s Second Congressional District in 2020, I saw that the state’s recount laws could use a face lift. In 2025, the Iowa legislatur...

New over at ELB: "Iowa overhauls its recount rules" electionlawblog.org?p=149457

Law firm pro bono deals and the second Trump administration — Excess of Democracy While a great deal has been written about the recent pressure the second Trump administration has brought to bear on some of the largest law firms in the United State, I want to focus for a minute on the pro bono financial commitments. I do not intend to write about the strategy of negotiation here,

New over at EOD: "Law firm pro bono deals and the second Trump administration" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/4/...

As with so many new requirements from the ABA, I anticipate fairly little actual change for students and fairly significant administrative costs of appearing to comply with these new requirements.

Law faculty are now "required" "to participate every three years in educational activities that promote effective teaching."

Full-time faculty "absent extraordinary circumstances" "shall teach at least 80 percent" of the credit hours (it was previously "substantially all").

Schools must now review "learning outcomes at least every five years."

"All courses" in the first year "shall include at least one formative assessment" that includes "feedback" along with "academic support" for students who "fail to attain a satisfactory level of achievement.

Sections of a course must now have "the same minimum learning outcomes."

This year, the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar has instituted extensive changes designed to micromanage individual sections of courses, what kinds of assessment must be completed in the first year, & more.

www.americanbar.org/content/dam/...

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.

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.

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...

New over at EOD: "Benchmarking law school rankings against expectations, performance, and rankings tactics" excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/4/...

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.

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...

New over at EOD: "Elite schools got what they wanted--a more transparent, volatile rankings system that disadvantages them"
excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2025/4/...

How it started, how it's going.

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?