We have reported on the proposed merger of Southern New England School of Law with the University of Massachusetts, which would bring the first public law school to the state. At the time, I wrote:

I mean no offense by this, but isn’t the Southern New England School of Law not a very good law school? There’s a reason the school isn’t accredited, right? I just don’t see how raising the profile of bad law schools is the right way to go.

Apparently, Southern New England School of Law took offense. The Boston Globe reports:

“My students and faculty have been maligned,” the school’s dean, Robert Ward, said during a recent tour of campus, a 75,000-square-foot three-story building next to an outlet mall in North Dartmouth.

Ward acknowledged his school has a way to go to meet national accreditation standards, but said it is far from the crumbling, financially destitute failure critics portray it to be.

He noted a retired appeals court judge — a Harvard Law graduate, no less — among his 13-member faculty.

Putting aside the question of whether or not Southern New England is a good school, can we get back to the question of whether Massachusetts needs a public law school?

The influx of law students into the profession — and the deflationary pressure they bring to legal salaries — just can’t be stopped. There are too many prospective law students. And they aren’t listening to reason.

We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes, drums… drums in the deep. We cannot get out … they are coming.

The University of Iowa College of Law — that’s right, Iowa — is receiving a record number of applications. The administration sent out this, almost taunting, email:

Greetings from The University of Iowa College of Law:

We have nearly completed a busy Fall travel schedule. Also, it has been a very successful travel season, as reflected in our total application numbers to date: Applications to The University of Iowa College of Law have increased 62% versus this time last year, and the quality and diversity of those applications has increased significantly, as well. It is still early in the admissions season, so we will see if these positive signs hold up over the long term. These increases do, however, reinforce the strengths of The University of Iowa College of Law:

I don’t even know how to make sense of a 62% increase in applications. But I’ll try after the jump.

Career service offices can be scary places these days, given the tough job-searching environment for law school students. The summer plans of many 1Ls and 2Ls are still up in the air this year, as firm offers are sparse.

Many law school students have given up hope of finding a job. One law school may be giving up hope too. Boston College Law School is considering an alternative to a summer gig: summer classes.

From an email sent out by BC Law Associate Dean Mike Cassidy:

We have heard from many students that the summer legal job market is very difficult, and that if there were an option to earn credit for summer study (while perhaps working in a non legal setting to pay the bills) some students might find this option very attractive, especially if it would help them accelerate their degrees.

So BC students may be able to spend the summer working as Starbucks baristas while taking classes. Are they really raring to finish up their degrees and get into the job market for real?

Trick-or-treaters can get into serious trouble on Halloween. Especially if their Halloween activities involve arson. Or blackface. Or guns.

A student at BYU Law School donned a costume last week that was police-raid worthy. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

When Attorney General Mark Shurtleff spoke at a BYU Law School criminal procedures class Thursday, one law student came to class dressed in full SWAT gear, including an armor belt, and some students said he had carried a gun on campus, although they weren’t sure it was real.

Yeah, that’s probably taking All Saints’ Day Eve a little too far.

In this season of costumed crusaders, one person has decided to dress up as a Notre Dame 1L. Only he’s not doing it to get candy on Halloween. Instead, he’s just some creepy douchebag that is rolling around.

But he’s freaked out the Notre Dame administration. They felt compelled to send around a warning to the law school:

Dear Members of the Law School Community-

Please be aware that a person identifying himself as a Notre Dame 1L student was in the building yesterday (accompanied by another person). He informally chatted with several individuals and identified himself as either Gary Stearley or Gabriel Stearley. While here, he also utilized various law school services (e.g., fax machine, NDLS logo apparel purchases from SBA). A photo of the individual (taken from Facebook) is attached to this email.

This person is not a Notre Dame student, and it is our understanding that a person with this name has engaged in false-identity behavior elsewhere in the past. The issue has been reported to ND Security. If you see this person in the building, please notify Notre Dame Security immediately at 1-5555.

In the meantime, please remember that despite the collegial setting of the law school, you should always take precautions to protect your personal property while in the building.

After the jump, learn the face of the impostor.

Yesterday we reported on this announcement by Brooklyn Law School:

This semester we have received several warnings from our Internet service provider that copyrighted movies and TV shows are being downloaded illegally via our wireless network. The Information Technology office is now ascertaining who is doing this. Once we have names of the individuals involved, we intend to give them to the copyright holders for enforcement purposes.

This stance proved unpopular with BLS students, as well as ATL readers. In a poll, about 75 percent of readers answered “yes” when asked, “Should Brooklyn Law School do more to protect its students from being sued for illegal downloading?”

It seems that Brooklyn Law School has had a change of heart. Check out the email that went out this afternoon, plus selected reader comments, after the jump.

Apparently so. From a student at Brooklyn Law School:

Today we received this e-mail from the administration, which is causing quite an uproar among the student body.

The gist of it seems to be that, contrary to the practice of other schools, BLS will begin actively investigating [illegal] downloading and proactively providing names of people to media [companies] so [the individuals in question] can be sued.

I believe the typical practice at other schools (graduate and undergraduate) and institutions is to wait for a subpoena and either cooperate or fight the subpoena, not to go out of their way to inform on their students.

The total cost of attendance at Brooklyn Law for the 2009-2010 academic year, for full-time students not living with their parents (God forbid), is a shade over $66,000. Shouldn’t that buy BLS’s silence?

Or is the law school in the right here? Shouldn’t law students, i.e., future lawyers, know and follow the law?

UPDATE: Brooklyn Law has announced a change in this policy.

Read the email and take a poll, after the jump.

Last week, we mentioned the disturbing employment statistics for the University of Colorado Law School. Colorado Law Week had reported that only 35% of the school’s students were employed upon graduation.

Apparently the publication got it wrong. After doing some digging, a Colorado Law professor explained how the mistake was made:

The news story got the stat backwards: as of May 2009 graduation, we had 35% unemployed, not 35% employed. Of course, even 35% unemployed is unfortunate, and much worse than CU law’s ordinarily strong employment figures: in the prior two years (i.e., pre-recession), we had just 11-17% unemployed upon graduation, and that figure dropped to only 3-6% unemployed 9 months after graduation, a stat that had made us proud. I don’t know other schools’ figures, but it’s very unfortunate the newspaper decided to single out CU based on an incorrect stat.

Well, that’s a big difference. Colorado’s accurate “employed upon graduation” statistic probably brings it in line with quite a number of state law schools.

The numbers are still far from ideal, and prospective law students should take note (and consider learning a marketable skill like plumbing). But at least students heading for the Rockies don’t have to be disproportionately concerned about their career prospects.

Earlier: A ‘Rocky Mountain High’ Jobless Rate

The Government Accountability Office has released a new report on the rising cost of legal education. Who is to blame? Not the ABA. Not university presidents using their law schools as cash cows.

According to the GAO, the U.S. News law school rankings put law school deans in a “resource intensive” competition to rise up the U.S. News list. The two key slides from the 44-page GAO report (PDF) are below:

The GAO makes a provocative argument. Let’s discuss it after the jump.

The competition between NYU Law and Columbia Law is always fierce — even when it is a race to the penny-pinching bottom. Two weeks ago, we told you that Columbia is now charging students for plastic forks (though chopsticks remain free).

Not to be outdone, a disgruntled NYU Law tipster reports:

So I’m in my last year at NYU Law and just had a fairly shocking experience…. I went to the lounge to get a cup for water from the water fountain. I grabbed a cup and walked away, and the cashier yelled at me. I thought she thought I was stealing a cup of coffee, so I told her I just wanted water. She said “that’s 25 cents.” I said “no, I just want water.” She said “I know,that’ll be 25 cents. We have to pay for those cups.” The worst part? It was a cup from Starbucks with the “we proudly serve Starbucks coffee” logo on the side.

Indignation from our tipster, plus a clarification about Columbia cutlery, after the jump.

Yesterday, UC Hastings College of Law told its students about next year’s prospective tuition. Due to the graphic nature of the content below, viewer discretion is advised. Please remember that Hastings is a public law school:

Let’s put those horrifying figures in appropriate context, Stanford Law School’s tuition for this academic year is $42,420. Stanford of course could go as high as Hastings in 2010 - 2011. But at least right now it looks like students will pay more to go law school at Hastings than at Stanford.

Tsu-nami, Snake! Tsunami!

After the jump, the Daily Journal tries to make sense of it all.

CORRECTION: It appears that the jobless rate reported below is INCORRECT. Please click here for the correct information.

I really hope that students at the University of Colorado Law School have enjoyed their time in Boulder. I hear it is beautiful country out there. But it’s no country for old law students who want a job. The ABA Journal reports on the terrible employment situation for Colorado law students:

The numbers are bleak for the class of 2009 at the University of Colorado School of Law.

About 35 percent of the students had jobs at graduation, down from 55 percent the year before, Law Week Colorado reports.

On a totally related note, Law Week Colorado has this interesting statistic from the July 2009 Colorado bar exam:

In 2009, more people passed the July Colorado bar exam than in any other year this decade. But the boom in the number of new lawyers is happening during a bust in the job market.

Future Colorado law students, please take note. There are no jobs for you. Do not apply. I repeat, “The way is shut. It was made by those who are dead. And the dead keep it. The way is shut.”

For those already in the pipeline, is there any hope?

A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned the Princeton Review law school rankings. The rankings are based on law student surveys, which may explain why the rankings bear little relationship to reality.

But Paul Caron of Tax Prof Blog has looked at Princeton Review’s underlying data, and he’s come up with some interesting info about how much law students are studying.

Here are the top ten schools in terms of study hours per day:

Villanova law students, you guys are lying. You cannot possibly average 7.5 hours of study a day unless you are (a) skipping class or (b) really dumb.

After the jump, let’s take a look at the schools that report the least amount of study time.

Earlier this summer, we wrote about the University of Illinois College of Law admissions scandal. Former Illinois governor (and soon to be ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ star) Rod Blagojevich pressured University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman and Heidi Hurd, former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, to admit underqualified students who were politically connected.

In the eyes of some, it wasn’t all bad. Hurd was reluctant to accept under-performers. In exchange for her willingness to admit TTT students, university officials attempted to obtain jobs for struggling law school grads and offered scholarship money to recruit better students. The admission of one underqualified student meant jobs for five offer-less law grads.

Herman’s severance package isn’t too bad either:

Herman will continue to receive his current salary in a new position: special assistant to the interim president, Hardy said. But he will forgo a $300,000 retention bonus that was due in June.

In June, when his chancellor contract would have been up, he will take a one-year paid sabbatical at a new faculty salary of $244,444. The following year, he will be required to teach two courses a year as a tenured mathematics professor, fewer than his original contract that called for teaching four courses a year.

U. of I. President B. Joseph White and six university trustees have already been replaced. Asked why it took him so long to step down, Herman basically said he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. He told the press that he believed he “‘was serving the greater good’ of the university by not alienating powerful people who wanted favors.”

Earlier: University of Illinois College of Law Scandal: Now With Emails

U. of I. Chancellor Herman resigns, will join faculty [Chicago Breaking News]

Think back to taking law school exams as a 1L. Remember the IRAC method — Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion?

One horny creative female law student in Los Angeles has decided to deploy IRAC towards carnal ends. Via craigslist, she recently filed a brief in the matter of You & Me Doing It v. You & Me Not Doing It (2009).

Read her brief, an eloquent attempt to get inside a classmate’s briefs, after the jump.

From Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal:

Getting rejected by Harvard Law School was “the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Winning admission to HLS is the dream of many a college student (not just Elle Woods). Being a Harvard Law alum puts you on the fast track to a prestigious law firm job with a $160,000 starting salary (and allows you to attend exclusive dating events).

So why was HLS rejection Zucker’s lucky break? Click on the link below for the full story (and a possible implicit dig at UVA Law, which Zucker got into but never attended).

Jeff Zucker [Digital Facility]

When we tried to launch the ill-fated Courtship Connection, a matching service for ATL readers, we were stymied. Matchmaking was hard (especially when people didn’t respond to our e-mails).

Maybe we should have organized singles parties instead. That’s how the Ivy Plus Society operates. Whereas Courtship Connection sought to match up legal types, this dating society wants to bring together potential mates from elite universities. It had its inaugural D.C. event on Friday, reports ABC News:

Requirements for membership in TIPS are strict. Attendees must have attended one of the eight Ivy League schools or a handful of other TIPS-approved institutions. The University of Chicago and the Naval Academy qualify for the list.

If you were a graduate University of Virginia School of Law graduate, OK, you can attend. But, if you studied at UVA only as an undergraduate, sorry. UVA doesn’t make the grade.

[UPDATE: As noted by a commenter, UVA undergrad is now on the list. Perhaps there was an outcry over its original omission?]

“You can only be so superficial for so long,” said one young college graduate at Friday night’s event, who preferred to remain anonymous. He said he’s tired of trying to meet potential mates at general admission bars and parties. “I would like to find people of equivalent educational background — too dicey to go to a bar and find that. It’s nice to know, generally, people are going to be closer to your intellectual range.”

Because it’s not superficial to date only people from top-ranked schools…

So which law schools make the cut for Ivy League Plus?

Although Above the Law is based in New York, we adore our West Coast readers. We try to post stories that would be of special interest to them as often as possible, typically later in the day to account for the time difference. (We have one such post coming out after this one; we’re not done for the day.)

And we regularly visit the Left Coast. For information about two upcoming events that we’ll be participating in later this week — a talk at King Hall on Thursday, and a social networking conference at Boalt Hall on Friday — check out the links below.

• Social Networks: Friends or Foes? [Boalt Hall - UC Berkeley School of Law]
• King Hall LSA presents Above the Law’s David Lat [King Hall - UC Davis School of Law]
• King Hall LSA presents Above the Law’s David Lat [Facebook]

P.S. As previously explained, we generally don’t do event plugs on the ATL main page, unless we or one of our advertisers is involved. But if your event is free / non-commercial, you can promote it in ATL’s Community section. If your event is not free, you can advertise it with us. E.g., the Legal Reform Summit in D.C. (October 28), or the ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference in Philadelphia (November 12-13). Thanks!

Thomas M. Cooley Law School — ranked #12 among ABA accredited schools, according to Thomas M. Cooley Law School — is looking to raise tuition. The school has been expanding, but apparently enrollment is down. So, predictably, the school decided to raise rates on its students.

An email informing Cooley students of the change was sent over the summer by Cooley’s president and dean, Don LeDuc. The last paragraph reads as follows:

Of course, we wish that we did not have to increase tuition, but the reality is that the cost of operation escalates and enrollment varies. The May 2009 class came in below the usual size, and transfers remain too high. Our operating revenue is tuition-based, so tuition must be set based on projected enrollment numbers. This year, the cost of financing our facilities at Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Auburn Hills increased due to the dislocation in the financial markets (the Ann Arbor facility is leased, so it does not contribute to the increased financing cost). It is in everyone’s interest to recruit new first-year students and to retain them in the second and third year.

How will students react to this?

SMU Dedman School of Law in Texas has turned out at least one charmer. We now have evidence that it can produce the not-so-charming type as well. Multiple readers alerted us to this thread on Reddit.com: How to Get Kicked Out of Grad School Before You Even Start.

It’s an email conversation between Jonathan Eakman, an SMU Dedman law school student, and the admissions office of the SMU Cox School of Business. Eakman was supposed to start the MBA portion of a JD/MBA joint program this fall. Before starting classes, MBA students must complete three mandatory online tests. These emails track Eakman’s series of excuses for not taking the tests. They include “having too much fun this summer” and “a car wreck, computer problems, stupid family issues and a kidney stone scare.”

He asks the admissions office to “be cool on this” since, in a previous job, he “dodged having to take responsibility for a billion dollar budget, so [he knows] what [he’s] doing.” It only gets more hilarious from there.

We contacted Jonathan Eakman by Facebook. After the jump, we give you the email thread as well as the postscript. SMU Cox Business School did not greet Eakman with open arms on the first day of school.