It’s hard to believe that another year has passed, but here we are. It’s December 31st, New Year’s Eve. The weather is turning cold, the Republican presidential contest is heating up, and it’s time to review this year’s biggest stories on Above the Law.
Consistent with past practice, we will refrain from offering our subjective judgments on the most important stories of the year. Instead, just as we did back in 2010 and 2009, we’ll identify the ten biggest stories of the past year as decided by you, our readers. With the help of our friends at Google Analytics, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten posts for 2011, based on traffic.
In terms of overall topics, the most popular category page for the year was Law Schools, for the second year in a row. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the year was an eventful one for the legal academy. It would be fair to describe 2011 as an annus horribilis for the law school world, with various forces laying siege to the ivory tower. The attackers include not just unemployed lawyers turned scambloggers, but the mainstream media, led by David Segal of the New York Times; plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have already sued several law schools (and have announced plans to sue at least 15 more in 2012); and even a tenured law professor calling for reform (Paul Campos, currently in the lead for 2011 Lawyer of the Year).
The second most-popular category at ATL: Biglaw. Although we’ve expanded our small-firm and in-house coverage dramatically here at Above the Law, adding multiple columnists in each space, our coverage of large law firms still draws major traffic and drives discussions.
Now, on to the ten most popular individual posts on Above the Law in 2011….
Continue reading “Above The Law’s Top Ten Most Popular Stories of 2011″
This is probably a fashion don't.
We’ve been down this road before, but society still seems to think that female lawyers and law students don’t know the basics of fashion. Maybe it’s true, especially given the number of events on this topic that repeat the same information ad infinitum. We’ve seen seminars on how to have fashion sense for the workplace, followed by lessons on fashion dos and don’ts. When will the madness end?
We thought that we had gotten the point across on this in October: ladies, if you dress like hookers, the only jobs you’ll get will be underneath a partner’s desk.
But apparently that message fell on deaf ears, because one law school’s Career & Professional Development Office had to co-sponsor an event with the school’s Women Law Students Association on how to properly dress for an interview….
Continue reading “A Message from Career Services: Ladies, Please Learn How to Dress Yourselves”
If you’re a law student, you probably checked your email first thing this morning for one reason or another. Maybe you were waiting to hear back from a professor. Maybe you were praying for a snow day and hoping that classes were canceled. Either way, you probably weren’t expecting to see something like this from your law school:
What the hell? If the proposed war on gunners started today, Above the Law didn’t get the memo. Which law school sponsored a “Killing Spree”?
Continue reading “Did You Attend Today’s ‘Killing Spree’?”
Ah, high school. Such fond memories.
Here at Above the Law, we know that lawyers like detailed instructions for completing even the simplest of tasks. It follows that the future lawyers of America need similar instruction. Recall that law students at Cardozo Law School needed to be told how to walk in the snow.
It’s the beginning of a new school year, and starting fresh at law school is hard. So, if you think walking is tough, just imagine the anxiety that law students across the country were confronted with when they received their locker assignments.
These kids must have so much pent up post-traumatic stress from getting shoved into their lockers in high school that they repressed the ability to use combination locks. Where do these students go to law school, and what is the school doing to assist them?
Continue reading “How Can Law Students Win the War Against Their Lockers?”
Recruiting athletes isn’t just for sports coaches. Many law firm hiring partners like to acquire athletes as well. The thinking is that successful athletes possess many of the traits sought in talented attorneys.
Athletes are disciplined, hardworking, and mentally tough. They are focused and strategic thinkers. If they play a team sport, then they probably excel at teamwork too.
So it shouldn’t come as a shock that Williams & Connolly, a firm full of fearsome litigators who love to win, has a great athlete among its 2011 summer associate class. This individual, who has traveled around the world playing his sport, is our latest celebrity summer associate. (We’ve previously profiled actor Wai Choy, a former co-star of Lindsay Lohan, and Phil Alito, son of Sam.)
Who is this star athlete turned Williams & Connolly summer associate, and what sport does he play?
Continue reading “Celebrity Summer Associate: A Star Athlete”
Welcome Texas!
As you are all know, the University of Texas School of Law has moved into the “top 14″ in this year’s U.S. News law school rankings. It’s a bit of cheat for U.S. News: Texas is technically tied for 14th, which means that the magazine has actually managed to cram 15 schools into its top 14. I’d complain more, but I’m a fan of a Big (We Can’t Count To) Ten school.
While we all know that Texas is in the top 14, very few of you remember the significance of the top 14 in the first place. The top 14 isn’t as arbitrary as it sounds. Since U.S. News started publishing these law school rankings, no school that ranked in the inaugural top 14 has ever been ranked outside of the top 14, and no school that did not rank in the top 14 that first year has ever cracked that list. Until now.
The top 14 has been a way to distinguish elite institutions that are nearly interchangeable with one another from really good law schools that are just a cut below. When viewed that way, Texas’s inclusion was probably long overdue.
Let’s take a look at some of the other movement in this rarefied group of law schools….
Continue reading “Open Thread: 2012 U.S. News Law School Rankings (7 – 14)”
Scrooge McDuck must have attended the right law school.
Another day, another set of law school rankings. The world’s appetite for these things knows no bounds. Earlier this week, we covered U.S. News & World Report’s best law schools as ranked by law firm recruiters — and the reader interest and traffic were off the charts. Apparently there’s no such thing as “rankings fatigue.”
(Wait until we launch our list of law schools ranked by the quality of the toilet paper in their public restrooms. Because that’s something that actually matters to law students — probably more than, say, the number of volumes in the library, or even the square footage of the place.)
Today we bring you law school rankings by Forbes. The eye-catching title of Kurt Badenhausen’s post: “The Best Law Schools For Getting Rich.” Because you all went to law school in the hopes of becoming rich, right?
(If so, that was pretty dumb. According to some observers, a junior associate’s salary means you’re poor, and even a midlevel- to senior-associate salary doesn’t make you rich. Partner-level compensation is better, but even a million or two won’t get you access to the top slam pieces.)
Okay, let’s take a look at this list of law schools ranked by their graduates’ median compensation. Some of the schools on it may surprise you….
Continue reading “The Best Law Schools — For Getting Rich”
Ed. note: Gabe Acevedo will be covering LegalTech for Above the Law this year. If you are interested in communicating with someone from ATL about LegalTech coverage, please contact Gabe at gabe@abovethelaw.com. Thanks.
It seems that judges are no longer afraid to unleash the power of the gavel when it comes to e-discovery violations.
There has been quite a buzz in the e-discovery community this week about an article in the Duke Law Journal by attorneys Dan H. Willoughby Jr., Rose Hunter Jones, and Gregory R. Antine, of King & Spalding LLP. Willoughby is the partner in charge of the firm’s Discovery Center, and Jones and Antine both practice in the e-discovery arena.
The article, entitled Sanctions for E-Discovery Violations: By the Numbers, was mentioned in the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog, tweeted extensively, and summarized in vendor blogs such as Catalyst and Clearwell.
So what are the authors’ findings? Let’s take a closer look…
Continue reading “Judges Making More of a Case for E-Discovery Sanctions”
Amy Chua
If you’re going to be a diva, then own it. Was this lesson lost on Yale law professor Amy Chua, the author of an incendiary essay in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, and a new book about Eastern versus Western parenting styles, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?
Professor Chua seems to have it all: brains and beauty; an incredible academic career, with an endowed chair at Yale Law School; a hunky husband, fellow YLS prof Jed Rubenfeld; and two lovely and accomplished daughters. (Speaking of Chua’s kids, does anyone know where her oldest girl, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, is attending, or applying to attend, college? To Asian parents, sending a child to a top college is the ultimate vindication.)
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld
But Amy Chua may need to work on her bitch-goddess qualities. After her controversial essay about the superiority of Chinese mothers and hard-ass Asian parenting set the blogosphere on fire — and sent her book rocketing to #5 on the Amazon bestseller list — Chua backtracked a bit, instead of defiantly standing her ground.
In interviews with the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, among other outlets, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” seemed to turn into a pussycat….
Continue reading “Yale Law Prof Amy Chua Backs Away from Controversial Claims About Superiority of Chinese Mothers”
Late last night, Congress passed a compromise tax bill that will, among other things, cap the estate tax at 35% (with a $5 million exemption). If not for this compromise, the estate tax would have returned in 2011, at rates as high as 55 percent (with a $1 million exemption).
Hallelujah. Anytime you can save wealthy dead people millions of dollars during a time of crushing federal deficits, that’s something you just have to do. Way to go, Obama. When I voted for you in 2008, really I was just trying to vote for four more years of Bush’s ruinous fiscal policies.
Obama isn’t just saving money for all the dauphins eager to get their hands on their inheritances; he could be saving lives. Duke Law professor Richard Schmalbeck apparently thinks that rich old people might have killed themselves in droves over the next two weeks. Schmalbeck suggests that after spending a lifetime working hard and earning money, hundreds “or even a few thousand” of the aging rich might have committed suicide in the waning days of 2010, in order to pass on as much of their money to their children as they can before the estate tax returns in 2011.
I shudder to think that somebody would commodify their own life in such a way. But then again, I’m not rich. Maybe you only get rich in this country by being the kind of person who would gladly kill yourself if the price is right…
Continue reading “Estate Tax Compromise Could Save Thousands of Lives (of Millionaires)”
Last spring, Duke Law students had a fit because Duke undergrads were taking up valuable space in the law library. I admit, I enjoy having a little bit of fun with Duke Law students (haters gotta hate), but I’m with them on this one.
Undergraduates have two or three libraries (or maybe more, I don’t know if Duke is one of those schools where every major department has a library in its campus headquarters) where they can go play footsie and pretend to study. Or they can go to the business school library (the MBA kids are all at the bar “networking”) or the medical school library (the would-be doctors are busy being bought by drug companies or conducting unnecessary tests).
But at the law library people need to work. You can’t learn the law without spending a lot of time quietly reading the opinions of old white men (shut up “law firms,” nobody spends three years and $100K to learn practical lawyering skills). Those cases aren’t going to brief themselves! Law students need a quiet environment to think deeply and prepare for the eight hours of terrified regurgitation to come.
It looks like the administrators of Duke finally got the message…
Continue reading “Duke Undergrads Expelled From Duke Law Library in Preparation for Finals”
You know what scares me? There’s a version of my career where I end up as the bizzaro version of Tucker Max. The “fat, black, and married” version of Tucker Max. The “other guy” who used douchebag behavior to get through elite institutions, just like Tucker Max.
It’s like, if I everything goes wrong for me but I end up with a book and a movie deal, I’ll be a Tucker Max clone. It’s not likely, but the mere possibility of it keeps me up at night. I’m a nice guy, really, I am. I’m not nice to, like, people or anything, but I have a good soul. I don’t want to be the black Tucker Max! And I’m not.
But then I read things like Max’s latest tweet, and I think “Dear God, is that what I could become?”…
Continue reading “Tucker Max Gets Sued By Duke Law”
As I was putting together last Friday’s post about the challenges faced by Duke Law School in recruiting minorities, I had this Gchat conversation with former ATL editor and Duke alum, Kashmir Hill (paraphrased and annotated in various places):
KASH: Good post. But one issue: there are actually a lot of black people living in Durham.
ELIE: Not to pull a Nifong but I don’t think I’ll get a lot of blowback by suggesting Durham isn’t a bastion of racial harmony.
KASH: Yes, there are tensions, but there are a lot of African-Americans who live in Durham.
ELIE: And it’s certainly not a ‘black city’ like Atlanta or anything.
KASH: Yes, but a lot of black people live there. I’d change it.
ELIE: You’re missing the point. The point is whether or not Durham is a welcoming place for blacks.
KASH: But you wrote that there “aren’t a lot of brothers in Durham,” and there are.
ELIE: For Christ’s sake, I’m not saying no black person has ever set foot in Durham. I’m saying that Durham isn’t a black city. Maybe it looks like a black city to white people who get freaked out when they see two brothers on a corner, but it’s not a black city.
KASH: Maybe it looks like a white city to people freaked out by cold, hard demographic statistics.
ELIE: [increasingly annoyed]: Look, NOBODY is going to give me s**t for a throwaway line that’s a segue from a Chris Rock joke to the larger point I’m trying to make. It’s one line in a 1500-word post. Come on.
KASH: [remembering/enjoying that she no longer has to work with me]: Just saying dude… lots of black people in Durham.
350-plus comments, numerous emails, and a boatload of tweets later, it appears that I was wrong. Dead wrong. Much to my surprise, people were very invested in the “but Durham has black friends” argument.
Fair enough. There are a lot of black people living in Durham, and I was wrong to suggest anything else. Next time I want to hang out with a bunch of black people, instead of going to Atlanta or Zimbabwe, I’ll go to Durham, North Carolina. Happy?
Now that I’ve accepted that Durham has a healthy population of African-Americans, can we get back to the discussion about whether or not black people actually want to live there? Because the people at Duke Law School seem to think that Durham is holding them back when it comes to minority recruitment, and I doubt that quoting demographic data is really what prospective minority law students are looking for…
Continue reading “On Duke Law School, Durham, and Perceptions of Racism”
This picture is worth a thousand diversity brochures.
Duke Law School is known for a lot of things: its top 14 ranking, 100% employment rate, and crown as douchiest law school in the nation. It’s not known as a friendly school towards black people.
Why? Well, that’s what Duke Law wants to find out. A tipster reports that Duke Law has been sending around a questionnaire to the few minority students currently at the school. It aims to figure out what recruiters should tell minority students thinking about matriculating at Duke Law.
You know what they say — there is no such thing as a stupid question…
Continue reading “Duke Law School Asks: Why Do Black People Hate Us?”
Any of you guys want a job at the law school?
If I reported that Duke Law School was turning to Craigslist to find its next dean, the U.S. News people would issue “revised” rankings to knock Duke out of the top tier. Heck, if I told you that Duke Law was looking for a new 1L contracts professor on Craigslist, at the very least that report would be met with widespread ridicule.
Of course, Duke would never grab a new dean off of Craigslist. Deans are in charge of making the law school money, and there’s no way Duke would rely on Craigslist, even in part, to fill that responsibility. And picking up a law professor off of Craigslist would make the school look intellectually weak, so there’s little chance of that ever happening either.
But when it comes to providing services that Duke Law students actually need — well, then Duke is just fine leaving the professional futures of its students in the hands of whomever Duke can find hanging out on the CL….
Continue reading “Duke Law Turns to Craigslist to Fill Key Administrative Role”
Dean David Levi of Duke Law School
Law schools — as Elie likes to remind readers on a frequent basis — are businesses. Like any good CEO should, Duke Law School dean David Levi has written an editorial defending his product: young lawyers.
In the National Law Journal, he starts off by acknowledging that the legal market for young lawyers is in worse shape than Duke’s reputation after the lacrosse scandal, and that this is “understandable” given the laws of supply and demand. (A subtle acknowledgment of there being too many law schools?) He then writes:
What is not understandable is the surprising amount of criticism heaped upon younger lawyers, offered as if to justify placing a disproportionate share of the economic downturn on their shoulders.
The criticism comes from law firm managers, in-house counsel and former lawyers who now comment on the legal profession…
Ahem. *Uncomfortable pause.*
They most likely represent a minority view, but they are vocal. They say that clients are no longer willing to pay for the work of young associates because their work is “worthless.” We might expect clients to make any argument that could lead to a lower bill, particularly during an economic downturn. But it is wrong and surprising for experienced lawyers inside and outside of firms to acquiesce in, even reinforce, this line of argument.
So how does Dean Levi undermine the argument?
Continue reading “Duke Law School Dean David Levi Comes Out Swinging for Young Lawyers”
It’s become clear that many college graduates make their decision to go to law school based on apathy, a critical misunderstanding of the legal market, and shocking hubris. As we’ve said many times, the decision to go to law school has become disassociated from the expected value of going to law school.
Prospective law students are flocking to law schools in droves. What’s going on at Duke Law School right now is just the latest evidence. Here’s part of a letter Duke Law sent out to people on its waitlist:
Since our tuition deposit deadline at the end of April, the class has been completely full. Although a few people have requested deferrals or otherwise changed their plans for the fall, we have not yet been able to make any additional offers of admission.
When the reigning champion of our douchiest law school competition is getting inundated with applications, you can see why law schools are quite comfortable charging more and more tuition…
Continue reading “Duke Law Waitlist Proves There’s No End in Sight To Lawyer Oversupply Problem”
When the U.S. News rankings came out this year, Duke Law School had fallen out of the top ten. But one thing that hadn’t fallen was its Graduates Employed At Graduation statistic. As Elie noted (with skepticism), Duke reported that 100% of its 2008 graduates were employed.
Elie wondered how that was possible given the economic climate in 2008. Though the climate in 2009 was even worse, Duke maintained its perfect score. However, we’re told that Duke will likely not have a 100% in this box for its class of 2010.
As Duke Law News reported, Duke worked hard to ensure its graduates had jobs. While it didn’t go the SMU route of paying employers to “test drive” its graduates, it does now provide stipends to some of its unemployed graduates to allow them to work for a couple months at no cost to employers. Using SMU’s car metaphor, the law school pays for the gas while Dukies and prospective employers take a little spin. Duke calls it “The Bridge to Practice” program.
It started in 2008 — employing the nine graduates who would have otherwise ruined that nice round 100%. The numbers of participants have increased since then, as the economy has worsened.
We interviewed a couple of them about the experience. The escalating numbers and Bridgers’ stories, including how much Duke pays, after the jump.
Continue reading “The Secret to ’100% Employed at Graduation’: Duke’s Bridge to Practice”
There’s a crisis at Duke Law School. No, it’s not that the school fell out of the Top Ten in the U.S. News rankings. It’s that the law library is being invaded by filthy little pests: Duke undergrads.
Duke law students don’t appear to think highly of their young classmates. They seem to blame the undergrads for their supposedly undeserved douchiest law school victory.
The icky BA/BS infestation was a problem last semester as well, leading one Blue Devil to leave a sloppy handwritten sign near the printers: “Print double-sided, a**hole. Also, please use your own library.” Much to law students’ frustration, the policy at the university is that all students are granted access to all libraries.
This semester, the war on trespassing undergrads is better organized. Each morning, Duke J.D. wannabes flyer the library with the sign at right (unredacted version after the jump), and one infuriated 2L created a Facebook protest group — It’s still the LAW library (even during finals). The Duke Law School administration has taken note of the problem, and responded — appropriately, via posting to the wall of the Facebook group.
But the war does not look good for Duke Law School. The troops are in retreat, and they appear to be fleeing to the Duke business school library…
Continue reading “Douchiest Law School Students Don’t Like Douchey Undergrads in the Duke Law Library”
Let’s continue our march through the U.S. News law school rankings. Today we finish up the traditional top-14 — and we’ll throw in the schools tied for 15th, because we’re pretty sick of hearing UT and UCLA students whine. To refresh your memory, here’s the next group of schools:
6. NYU
7. Berkeley
7. Penn
9. Michigan
10. UVA
11. Duke
11. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown
15. UCLA
15. Texas
All joking aside, dropping to #6 is really not that big of a deal. NYU Law students will be fine — check out how the kicked it on the basketball court just after the rankings came out…
Continue reading “Open Thread: 2011 U.S. News Law School Rankings (6 – 15)”
