Loyola of New Orleans, Exonerated?
Here’s some follow-up on yesterday’s write-up of a recent Fifth Circuit opinion (PDF). In its per curiam opinion, the court benchslapped one Roger Phipps, counsel for the appellant, for being utterly unprepared at oral argument. The argument included this exchange:
Judge: I must say, Morgan is a case that is directly relevant to this case. And for you representing the Plaintiff to get up here—it’s a Supreme Court case—and say you haven’t read it. Where did they teach you that?
Phipps: They didn’t teach me much, Your Honor.
Judge: At Tulane, is it?
Phipps: Loyola.
Judge: Okay. Well, I must say, that may be an all time first.
Phipps: That’s why I wore a suit today, Your Honor.
But which Loyola Law School is lucky enough to call Mr. Phipps an alumnus? Loyola of Chicago, Los Angeles, or New Orleans? Professor Alan Childress wrote the following at the Legal Profession Blog:
A commenter below states that the ‘Loyola’ in question (Mr. Phipps’s alma mater) is Loyola-Chicago, not New Orleans, citing the Martindale-Hubbell Directory which indeed says so. But all other internet evidence (and an email to me from a colleague who went to school with him) strongly suggests that Roger Dale Phipps is a graduate, J.D. 1990, of Loyola-New Orleans.
But down in the Big Easy, they beg to differ. Earlier today, the career services office at Loyola - New Orleans sent out this email:
To: [Loyola New Orleans students]
Subject: RE: Trivia
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:48:44 -0500There is a US 5th Circuit case that is being circulated nationally about an attorney. In the footnotes — the transcript excerpts between the judicial panel and the attorney — the attorney mentions a certain law school by name.
Students and local attorneys have been emailing me concerned that this nationally circulated document will precede their applications for job search purposes and/or is an embarrassment to our school.
The bad news is that, “yes, this is embarrassing representation on behalf of the attorney.”
The GOOD NEWS is that the attorney mentioned is NOT a Loyola New Orleans graduate.
Good Luck on Your Exams!
Career Services
Professor Childress remains unconvinced. Read his response, after the jump.
In the comments to his post, after being notified of the email, Professor Childress writes:
They should have left this alone. Please post the update when they send out an email confirming that he is a graduate but it is listed wrong in Martindale-Hubbell.As I said, I wish it were not Loyola NO, and I don’t blame the school or my friends who teach there. What can they do to prevent this kind of issue 20 years later?
But if the school’s CS office is somehow citing this blog as in error and correcting it without having read all the information on it, including the Martindale-Hubbell mistake, then it is poor research. I would love to be wrong, but it is not fair to attack me without having read the post. I certainly have done all I can to confirm the truth of his record, but reliance on Martindale-Hubbell is misplaced.
We’ve contacted the Loyola - New Orleans career services office, to find out the basis for their concluding that Roger Phipps is not an alum. We will let you know if and when we hear back from them.
Update: Here is Roger Phipps’s Martindale-Hubbell listing. No law school information is provided.
Further Update: We have a call in to Roger Phipps. We’ll let you know if and when he gets back to us.
(53) 
Comments
Firsties! Yee haw!!
"Students and local attorneys have been emailing me concerned that this nationally circulated document will precede their applications for job search purposes and/or is an embarrassment to our school."
Every law school has some embarrassing graduates. The Clintons graduated from Yale Law School.
Would anyone seriously worry that one or two clowns would harm their school's reputation? Seems alarmist to me.
SEN - "We will let you now [sic] if and when we hear back from them." look what happens when i leave, this is just atrocious.
Dude, just ask Phipps.
This is kind of hilarious. It's not as if there are law schools out there teaching people not to read cases before arguing in court.
What's noteworthy is not the half-assed fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants awyering, you can see that multiple times in any courtroom in the country every day, it's that a court actually called him on it.
3:31--it might, if the school didn't have many other well-known graduates who were respected. I mean, if all you knew about school X was that the Unabomber graduated from there, then the school would look bad. However, since it's Harvard, you've got a number of presidents, entertainers, writers, and thinkers to fall back on.
For example, all I know about the U. of Florida is that its human waste dumps went on to NFL careers and felonious assaults and steroid use, and that it continually places highly in athletic polls in various sports, leading me to assume it values athletics over academics and character and that its TTT. But show me a bunch of recent Florida grads who are famous and academic and full of integrity, my opinion changes.
Loyola Trivia:
In Latin "loyola" means producer of mediocre lawyers.
As unfortunate as it may be, this must be Loyola--New Orleans. Consider that Phipps & Phipps is based in New Orleans. (This firm also seems to have a thing about suing Tulane.) Consider also that LoyNO is the only Loyola within the Fifth Circuit, and Phipps is saying "Loyola" without a qualifier and right after mentioning Tulane--and the Fifth Circuit courthouse is in New Orleans. If one refers to "Loyola" in New Orleans, especially when Tulane is the other option, it would undoubtedly be LoyNo to which one is referring. (Then again, Phipps doesn't seem like the most reliable of authorities upon which to base an opinion.) And, just to come clean as both a basis for and a disclaimer to my conclusions, I happen to be a Tulane alum. I would say, also, that this type of conduct is not typical of the Loyola students and grads I have known, but there are plenty of clowns like this who graduate from all kinds of law schools.
I heard he graduated from Penn State Law school at U Penn.....
Doesn't strike me as alarmist. Schools like Yale don't need to worry about their reps. A couple bad apples won't hurt them. But schools like the Loyolas do.
His office is in New Orleans so it's not too far of a stretch to assume that's the Loyola he is talking about.
3:48 - I concur.
Childress is right - Loyola NO just opened itself up to more TTT bashing and an even bigger black eye.
This is all news to me.
When did Loyola in New Orleans get a law school?
Also, when did Tulane get a law school?
MarHub off of Lexis.com:
ROGER PHIPPS
Phipps & Phipps
541 Exposition Boulevard
New Orleans, Louisiana
(Orleans Parish)
POSITION: Member
PRACTICE-AREAS: Business Law; Business Litigation; Commercial Law.
ADMITTED: 1990
LAW-SCHOOL: Loyola University - Chicago, IL (J.D.)
COLLEGE: Indiana State University (B.S.)
BORN: 1951
ISLN: 915571817
As a brand new lawyer I witnessed the following exchange in Federal Court between the judge and an AUSA at a hearing on a motion for summary judgment:
The Court: "Mr. S, how do you respond to the plaintiff's principal argument?"
Mr. S.: (Shuffling of papers and feet, general stammering)
The Court: "Mr. S, do you have any idea what the plaintiff's principal argument is?"
Mr. S.: (Shuffling of papers and feet, general stammering)
The Court: "Mr. S, have you even read the plaintiff's brief?"
Mr. S.: (Shuffling of papers and feet, general stammering)
Court: "Sit down Mr. S."
It was a great lesson to a new lawyer to never show up unprepared. The sad thing is that Mr. S seemed totally untroubled by the whole experience and simply took a seat.
He went to Indiana State for undergrad. I count that as support for the idea that he went law school in Chicago.
At a moot court competition I once saw a UVA student piss himself before an oral argument and had to stand behind a podium to hide the embarrassing evidence.
4:15: Good point. But there is evidence that points the other way, too. The 5th Circuit judge had in his (her?) mind that he went to a Louisiana law school (grads from which, they clearly see many).
At least we know it wasn't Loyola in Los Angeles (can't say LA in this case!)
i'm a proud tulane grad and i take offense to the question "when did Tulane get a law school?"
according to the TLS web site:
Q-2. Is Tulane a new law school?
A-2. Legal studies were established in 1847, making Tulane the 12th oldest law school in the country.
http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsabout/index.aspx?id=1876&ekmensel=c580fa7b_42_0_1876_10
4:38 -- You are wrong. I just ordered online a JD from Tulane and it is now being mailed to me.
3:43... Just a word on Florida. It has produced more Article III judges than all but four law schools in the country (H,Y,G,C). Just saying, that's all. Gotta support the team.
Lots of Loyola talk on Kash's "Sexperts" board.
4:41 - could you provide me with your address? i need to mail you a copy of the _chicago manual of style_ so that you can learn how to write a sentence without splitting an infinitive. see sections 5.106 and 5.160.
love and kisses,
4:38
4:41 - could you provide me with your address? i need to mail you a copy of the _chicago manual of style_ so that you can learn how to write a sentence without splitting an infinitive. see sections 5.106 and 5.160.
love and kisses,
4:38
Someone give Roger Phipps a call (504-899-0763) and just ASK him which Loyola already.
Martindale-Hubbell, New Orleans-- ROGER PHIPPS
Copyright 2008 by Reed Elsevier Inc.
MARTINDALE-HUBBELL (R) LAW DIRECTORY
Practice Profiles Section
ROGER PHIPPS
Phipps & Phipps
541 Exposition Boulevard
New Orleans, Louisiana
(Orleans Parish)
POSITION: Member
PRACTICE-AREAS: Business Law; Business Litigation; Commercial Law.
ADMITTED: 1990
LAW-SCHOOL: Loyola University - Chicago, IL (J.D.)
COLLEGE: Indiana State University (B.S.)
BORN: 1951
ISLN: 915571817
4:38/4:52--
Keep your Manual of Style. There's no infinitive in that post.
We know what the Martindale-Hubbell entry says. But Childress claims that it's an error.
It's easy to see how a mistake could have been made. I think you have to just check a box or fill in a number for your law school. If you are one line off, you end up entering a different Loyola.
How about loyal ATL readers at Loyola-NO and Loyola-CHI check out the 1990 law school class photo composites, undoubtedly hanging somewhere in those schools, and report back?
Maybe also check a few years prior, since this clown may have needed a multiple attempts to pass the bar exam.
Posters that criticize other posters grammar on ATL = GINORMOUS DOUCHEBAGS
its also particularly douchey to criticize someone's law school. just plain rude.
Phipps & Phipps:
http://hometown.aol.com/__121b_syXXAO0hg43pt10ZHfcJLFZQd5LpkxgaNRQ9dZRHiyjS+wmql1WMbg==
Martindale made a similar error on my undergraduate school. Took their sweet time in fixing it, too.
This story hurts the rep of all the Loyolas -- especially NO, given the context. How many people are going to follow up and find out which one it was? I bet not many.
testing
4:38, if Tulane had to put that Q&A on their website, they obviously get that question a lot, which probably isn't the best sign...
What is your problem 3:34?
What is your problem 3:34? Just plain meanness?
Sorry, I just don't buy that all of this obsessive handwringing about "what if they think it's MY Loyola!!! I won't be able to get a job!!!!"
These people need to get a grip and be honest with themselves; their job opportunities would be not more limited than they are already. Just as the fact that Creighton recently produced a SCOTUS clerk does not mean that Williams and Connelly and Wachtell are going to be banging down the doors at career services at Creighton, one clueless attorney who happened to graduate from whichever Loyola will not besmirch the entire reputation of the school, and torpedo job opportunities for students. Hiring partners are well with the reputations of law schools, and a few outliers at Harvard, Yale, or even Seton Hall, Loyola, are not going to make a huge difference. The same firms will continue to recruit the same kinds of students at either Loyola/Chicago or Loyola/New Orleans.
"The GOOD NEWS is that the attorney mentioned is NOT a Loyola New Orleans graduate."
Real classy on the part of Loyola New Orleans Career Services to word it this way on e-mail, BTW. Whoever wrote this better hope karma isn't going to bite them on their collective butts; hope no Loyola New Orleans grad ever screws up royally in court, and Loyola Chicago uses this same gloating tone to point out that the attorney in question is NOT a Loyola Chicago grad.
The e-mail Loyola-NO sent out said that he isn't a Loyola-NO graduate. It didn't say he was never a law student there.
If he did, say, his first two years at Loyola-NO and then transferred and graduated from another school, his response to the court would be honest (they didn't teach him much at Loyola-NO), and the e-mail from career services would be technically correct (however evasive).
In defense of Loyola- Chicago they do have alumni that actually work for prestigious firms and have power in the profession, unlike Loyola- NO.
If you don't believe me check this out: http://www.winston.com/index.cfm?contentID=24&itemID=10594
The only amusing thing here is that the Morgan case wasn't even relevant.
Isn't the case relevant if the judge decides it's relevant?
Don't they believe in that no-common-law thing in Louisiana? Read cases? Ha! Read the code!
Actually, 1:28 may be on to something. Case law in Louisiana does not have the importance it would have in other jurisdictions; I think this guy could hide behind his being a good civil law lawyer, and not bothering with that loose judicial interpretation nonsense.
Tu who?
It is confirmed that he did in fact graduate from Loyola-New Orleans and not from Loyola-Chicago.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2008/04/update-fwiw-y-1.html
So where is the retraction e-mail and apology from the Loyola/New Orleans school? They are just going to leave that "RE: Trivia" e-mail out there as if it were true?
I doubt if a reply will be forthcoming. LoyNo's administrators are notorious for lack of follow through.
My guess is that the research did not even involve a visit to Martin-Hubble but, rather, a “yell” down the administrative hall to see if anyone knew Phipps. I guess from the mass email no one responded to the inquiry.
Does the N.O. Loyola's dean wear a suit? Or was it 'yes' on the suit, but 'no' on the shoes? I can't remember.
12:42,
There is this Loyola-NO graduate, whom I would say had a bit power in the profession:
http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/skellywright_box.htm
Retraction: sources report that suit and shoes are worn at the same time but uncertain if they match. That, of course, is just a matter of personal preference.
12:16
12:16,
I'm not sure what your comment means? Does the Loyola-NO's dean not wear shoes?