Irvine's new law school — the one that was, then wasn't, and now is run by Erwin Chemerinsky — got a huge number of applicants for its first class and by taking just 4% was more selective than Yale, the Wall Street Journal's law blog notices.

Well done, Irvine. So how’d Chemerinsky et al. pull it off? Well, it probably didn’t hurt that the school was offering free tuition for all three years to all the members of the first class.

California residents admitted at UCLA and Berkeley law schools in ‘08 pay $31,103, non -residents $41,624, says the blog.