Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law 3L Dave Johnston recently made a good showing on the online game show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

He's not a millionaire, but thanks to his performance, and a little help from TruTV (formerly Court TV) anchor, Ashleigh Banfield, he is $50,000 richer. She was the celeb expert the show offered him for his "ask the expert" lifeline. He used it when he didn't know the answer to "'One woman writes a novel, another reads it, and the third lives it' is the premise of what movie?"

His answer options were "A: Cold Mountain, B: The Hours, C: Memoirs of a Geisha, D: Atonement." From the New York Post:

Banfield correctly told Johnston it was "The Hours," which won him $16,000. He went on to win $50,000 and promised to take Banfield to lunch. Banfield told us, "He took me to Gus' Place in the Village today and brought along friends from the office where he's a summer intern. But since he's using his winnings to pay the nearly $40,000 tuition for next semester, I picked up the check."

We're not impressed by Johnston's lack of familiarity with chick flicks, but we are impressed by his finagling a celebrity lunch out of the experience. The moment was captured by his BlackBerry in the photo at right.

Johnston notes that Banfield was slightly off. His 3L tuition will be $44,000, not "nearly $40,000." So he appreciated the free lunch even more. He tells us about it, after the jump.

The University of Miami Law School of Law has decided to give their admitted students a preview of what it's really like to be a lawyer in today's market. Dean Patricia White sent around this letter to the school's admitted students:

Every year our Admissions Office uses our past experience with acceptance rates to decide how many students to admit. In these economically troubled times past experience has turned out to be a poor guide. An unprecedented percentage of applicants admitted to the University of Miami Law School have accepted our offer. This will give us a larger than optimal first-year class. Accordingly we are offering an incentive to defer admission until Fall 2010. If you wish to take advantage of this offer you must notify us by e-mail [Redacted] or facsimile [Redacted] by July 10, 2009.

Don't get too down about the recession. We still have enough time to build an immense fallout shelter in the soft limestone cliffs of Missouri. Of course, they'll have to be some sort of lottery.

After the jump, the UM Law School dean is pretty honest about what is going on with its new admits.

As we have previously reported, DePaul College of Law Dean, Glen Weissenberger was ousted after he sent a letter to the ABA as part of the school's accreditation review. At first blush, it looked like a university politics fight between Dean Weissenberger and DePaul University Provost, Helmut Epp. But now it appears that the acrimony between the Dean and the Provost goes all the way to eleven.

Provost Epp held a meeting with DePaul College of Law students, and The Shark reported that notes from the meeting ended up on Facebook. Tax Prof Blog has summarized the main allegations that Provost Epp leveled at Dean Weissenberger:

* University officials gave Dean Weissenberger the opportunity to resign, but he refused.

* Dean Weissenberger consistently spent more than the law school budget allowed, in excess of $1 million.

* Dean Weissenberger filled four positions at the law school without permission from the provost.

* Dean Weissenberger's decision to contact the ABA was "highly irregular" and "making mischief."

But in this mud fight, the Provost isn't getting the last word. After the jump, the dean responds to the Provost.

This morning, we mentioned that the University of Illinois College of Law admission's scandal. It appears that former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich pressured University of Illinois Chancellor, Richard Herman, and Heidi Hurd -- former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law -- to admit under qualified students who were politically connected. In exchange for admitting those students, university officials attempted to obtain jobs for graduates of the College of Law.

The Chicago Tribune reports the results from its investigation of Illinois law school:

The documents show for the first time efforts to seek favors -- in this case, jobs -- for admissions, the most troubling evidence yet of how Illinois' entrenched system of patronage crept into the state's most prestigious public university.

They also detail the law school's system for handling "Special Admits," students backed by the politically connected, expanding the scope of a scandal prompted by a Chicago Tribune investigation.

The paper has published the incriminating emails it has uncovered. Warning, these emails are not safe for naive people who are unaccustomed with the "Chicago-style" of getting things done. Here's an exchange between the Chancellor and the Dean about what jobs would be appropriate in exchange for admitting politically connected students:

I suppose there are worse things than a Dean trying to aggressively secure employment for her law graduates that can't pass the bar and can't think. Of course, you'd hope that the Dean would be even more focused on educating students so that they can pass the bar and, you know, think -- but why cry over spilled milk.

In fact, some Illinois law graduates we spoke with had a very positive impression of Dean Hurd. Depending, of course, on what you mean by positive.

Some student impressions of the dean and more emails after the jump.

The dean of the DePaul University College of Law, Glen Weissenberger, has been removed. But this doesn't sound like your ordinary law school administration shuffle. Dean Weissenberger alleged that there was a significant mistake in the documents DePaul sumbitted to the ABA for its accreditation review, and now he is gone.

The university provost told the faculty and staff yesterday:

Dear College of Law Faculty and Staff,

I write today to inform you that there will be a change in leadership at the College of Law effective immediately. At my recommendation, the president and I have removed Glen Weissenberger as dean and hired a new interim dean who will be announced soon.

I can assure you that this decision, which is being made in the best interests of our students and the College of Law, was made only after long and careful thought and consideration. I respect all you have accomplished under Glen's leadership. However, the working relationship between the dean and the administration had deteriorated to the point where it had become difficult to accomplish the college's work, hence my recommendation to the president for this action.

Our faculty and staff are the lifeblood of the College of Law, and I recognize that you have a right to be informed about why I made this difficult decision. I invite all faculty and staff to attend a private meeting at [Redacted] where I will answer questions to the best of my ability, recognizing that this is, in part, a personnel matter and I will not be able to answer all inquiries.

We have selected a highly qualified and respected member of the legal community to serve as interim dean, ensure a smooth transition and continue the momentum you have given to the college. I look forward to making an announcement about the candidate in the very near future.

Sincerely,

Helmut Epp
Provost

We reached out to Dean Weissenberger and his response suggested that this situation is far beyond a mere administrative disagreement.

Details after the jump. And an update.

We usually wouldn't recommend that law school students try to pay their tuition through gambling -- but if you're a former poker pro, it might not be such a bad idea.

Leo Wolpert, a rising 2L at the University of Virginia, just won "Event 29," a $10,000 no-limit hold 'em heads-up tournament in the World Series of Poker. From the Poker Pages:

Wolpert is a 26-year-old former professional poker player who is currently attending law school. He is enrolled at the University of Virginia. He just completed his first year. He graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. He spent two years as a poker pro, mostly playing online. Wolpert was so successful that he built up a huge bankroll playing mostly cash games. He decided to use his poker winnings to go back to school.

His total winnings in Event 29: $652,682 $625,682. With that in the bank and a law degree from UVA, we see a bright future in the cards for Wolpert.

Former pro Leo Wolpert wins Event 29 [ESPN]
World Series of Poker Leo Wolpert Wins Event 29 $10K HeadsUp [PokerPages News]

A replacement for Elena Kagan as dean of Harvard Law School has been named. It's the well-liked law school professor Martha Minow.

Harvard University President Drew Faust announced the news to HLS students, today:

I am delighted to let you know that Martha Minow has agreed to serve as the next Dean of Harvard Law School. She will take up her duties on July 1.

Martha has been a member of the HLS faculty since 1981, and she has served the school with extraordinary dedication and energy. She is an eminent scholar of uncommon range and imagination, a greatly admired teacher who guided the school's recent curricular review, and an outstanding citizen not only of the Law School but of the University, with impressive experience in academic leadership roles. She has a clear-eyed view of the challenges and opportunities facing the Law School, and a talent for bringing people together to work through important academic and institutional issues. Most of all, she has a passion for the law and for all that legal scholarship, education, and practice can do to advance the public good. I look forward to welcoming Martha to the University's Council of Deans and to working closely with her in the years to come.

Faust also thanked interim Dean Howell Jackson for his service over the past few months.

More on Minow after the jump.

As if creating new law schools from scratch wasn't enough, now the schools themselves are starting to breed. Legal Blog Watch reports that The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is metastasizing and creating a hybrid undergraduate program:

The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is branching out. It is launching the nation's first college dedicated exclusively to the teaching of history, including American legal history. To be called the American College of History and Legal Studies, the college will open its doors in August 2010 in Salem, N.H., according to an MSL announcement.

The ACHLS will be an undergraduate "completion college," offering only junior- and senior-year courses. After completing their junior year, students who meet certain criteria will have the option of starting law school at MSL. These students will receive their bachelor's degrees after the first year of law school.

Let me get this straight: you spend a whole year of college learning legal history, and then you still have to go through three years of law school at Andover? So it's kind of like an extra fourth year of law school that is even more useless to a practicing attorney than the long three years that come after it?

HOW DOES THIS HELP ANYBODY GET A JOB??????

Sorry, I didn't mean to go all-caps there. It's just my head, and the blood coming out of my ears. And the eye: lidless, wreathed in flame.

I take my blood pressure medication after the jump.

Remember the days when junior associates thought that work-life balance was important? Remember when people thought that law firms could be forced to change to accommodate associates who wanted to be lawyers and have personal lives?

Those days are seemingly over. An interesting post on Law21 suggests that the quest for work-life balance (WLB) is pretty much dead:

[T]he market has changed just a little. After 10,000 lawyer and staff layoffs at large US and UK firms, even the most active WLB boosters have toned down talk that might earn them the dreaded "entitlement" label. Articles and posts that reference the term "work-life balance" now do so in an environment of cold pragmatism: Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog and Dawn Wagenaar at The Complete Lawyer provide good recent examples. Realist observers like Dan Hull and Scott Greenfield have gained the upper hand in the WLB discussion -- check out this slam-bang debate at Legal OnRamp about "work-life balance" generational expectations.

We have mentioned before that law students and junior associates have lost any kind of leverage over law firms. People are desperate for jobs, and firms feel they can pretty much do what they want. But some people think that the work-life balance attempt was doomed to fail:

Where proponents of "work-life balance" went off-track, to my mind, was that they argued the duty to ensure a satisfactory proportion between a lawyer's work and the rest of her life was an institutional responsibility -- that it was up to the law firm, basically. The firms disagreed, and all they had to do was wait for the marketplace to turn their way to make that clear.

Law firms aren't going to unilaterally change their business models for the sake of WLB. No law firm ever budged an inch on its billable quotas or offered associates more money and perks because its partners genuinely felt they should be nicer employers -- appeals to conscience at partners' meetings don't have a roaring record of success. Firms change their working conditions as the talent market dictates. In a seller's market like the one we've just had, they play nice; in a buyer's market like this, they don't.

But just because the movement towards better working conditions has been stalled, it doesn't mean that many young lawyers don't still need better working conditions.

Let's remember how this all got started, after the jump.

Graduation usually marks a high point in our lives. Ceremonies celebrate graduates' achievements and their bright futures. But this year, grads are faced with a rocky economy, a terrible job market, and predictions that things will stay this way for quite some time. A sign of the dire times: Harvard grads used their ceremony as a staging ground for a protest against layoffs.

New York Magazine conducted an unscientific survey of 2009 graduates to see what they think about the future. New York City may be ground zero for the fiscal meltdown, but NY Mag managed to find people who are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and hopeful about the future:

We were startled by the fact that, circumstances be damned, we found very little bitterness at all -- caution, yes; worry too -- but judging from the responses to our questions, this is a reflexively optimistic cadre of graduates, feeling, if anything, existentially freed up by this era of radical change. They're nervous about the job market but figure it'll sort itself out.

The survey included 200 students from 10 schools. Among the allegedly hopeful lot are a bunch of Fordham Law students, photographed above.

If your depression over the End of Biglaw is still weighing on you, read on. Maybe the delusional optimism of the 2009 grads is contagious. (Or read on if you're curious to find out when the majority of those surveyed lost their virginity.)

My thoughts on the proliferation of American law schools have been well documented. But let's take a moment to look at the other side of the argument.

Thomas M. Cooley Law School -- which already pumps out 12,000 degrees a year to swarm like locusts across the great state of Michigan -- is opening a new law school campus. In Ann Arbor. Because, clearly the University of Michigan law school just isn't serving all of the people in Ann Arbor that need a law degree. Last night, Cooley students were told the great news:

Tomorrow, Cooley will announce to the public that the American Bar Association granted acquiescence to open a new campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan this September. We will do so in the facility currently occupied by Ave Maria School of Law, which is leaving Michigan at the end of this month to begin operations in Naples, Florida this fall. We will be leasing the facility for three years with an option to purchase it, but will have no other relationship with Ave Maria. In essence, Cooley's Ann Arbor branch campus replaces Ave Maria School of Law.

Sure, I know replacing one largely irrelevant law school with another sounds bad, but you're just not seeing the full upside. Thanks to schools like Cooley, we are one step closer to the glorious world where every single educated person also holds a law degree.

And that is a world worth living in! After the jump, join in my grand vision for the future.

We've been keeping track of law schools that are coming up with new programs to help their graduates navigate the terrible job market. Even if these measures help a law school (a) keep its "employed upon graduation" statistic high or (b) make money, law students need all the help they can get right now.

The administration of the University of Michigan Law School availed themselves of the quiet time after graduation to come up with some new programs:

With exams behind us and the new class of summer starters now on campus, we anticipate a busy and productive academic year ahead. However, these are not ordinary times in our world, as we face a continued global recession and uncertain legal employment landscape; it is not "business as usual." These times require a proactive and strategic effort on the part of the whole Law School community, and so I write to update you on some of the work the Law School has undertaken to mitigate the negative consequences of the economic downturn for Michigan Law students, as well as offer some guidance on how best to approach employment searches for 2009/2010.

It's certainly a better use of their time than fending off FOIA requests. The law school announced a slew of new programs aimed at recent graduates and rising 2Ls and 3Ls.

Additional details after the jump.

On Monday, we warned you that student loan forgiveness programs were under attack. Today, the University of North Carolina School of Law informed students that the school could not afford to make the promised loan repayments to students in low income jobs. Here's the email from UNC Law Dean Jack Boger:

We are writing to share news about a regrettable delay in our implementation of the new LRAP program at UNC School of Law. Unfortunately, because of the grave economic downturn that has hit the North Carolina state budget, we will not be able to go forward this spring with Loan Repayment Assistance Program funding. As you may know, various statewide freezes and other severe restrictions have been imposed this spring on all state funds, including the UNC law school account that was designated for LRAP purposes. Moreover, the state has made clear that it intends to 'recapture' those funds to meet its larger budgetary needs sometime before June 30, the end of this fiscal year. This will leave us without the financial means to make LRAP awards.

While we share your disappointment with this turn of events, we remain committed to the LRAP program - and will keep your application on file. We hope to be able to relaunch this program sometime during the 2009-10 fiscal year.

Thank you for your patience, and for your help in the development of this program. We also thank you for your continued support of Carolina Law.

Sincerely yours,

Jack Boger, Dean, UNC School of Law

UNC Law seems to be developing a pattern of raising people's hopes, and then dashing them.

A student affected by this decision shares an interesting viewpoint after the jump.

Hallelujah! Bring me the finest bagels and muffins from throughout the land! According to the ABA Journal, the ABA is going to take a serious look at the accreditation and review standards for law schools:

For months, the ABA's law school accrediting body has quietly been working on a comprehensive review of its often controversial standards governing legal education....

The most significant change in the Standards for Approval of Law Schools is likely to be a move away from evaluating law schools on the basis of criteria that measure "input"--such things as faculty size, budget and physical plant. Instead, the Legal Education Section would evaluate law schools more heavily on the basis of "outcome" measures.

Outcomes? As in whether students actually learn anything from law school? Or whether they are able to get a job after law school?

The essential difference is that outcome measures would focus on what students actually take away from their educational experience at a particular law school rather than what the school teaches, and how, explained E. Christopher Johnson Jr. Johnson was one of three members of the Accreditation Standards Review Committee of the ABA's Legal Education Section, who gave a status report on the committee's work at a program held in Chicago on Friday during the 35th ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility....

"It is a sea change to tell law schools you should focus more on outcomes as measures," said committee member Steven C. Bahls, the president of Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. He chairs the outcome assessment subcommittee.

Oh my God. Something good. Something good could be happening!

More details after the jump.

We've been trying to stay on top of all the things law schools can do to help their students who have been crushed by the current economic environment. Although it's a little bit late, it looks like Columbia Law School will be offering a helping hand for some of its recent graduates that haven't been able to find a job.

On Friday, Dean David Schizer offered five fellowships to the Columbia class of 2009:

I am delighted to announce the creation of five new fellowship opportunities for graduates pursuing careers in public interest law and government service: the Social Justice Pathways Fellowships. Each of the fellowships will carry a $25,000 stipend to fund up to eight months of work. The members of the J.D. Class of 2009 are the first class eligible to become Social Justice Pathways Fellows.

These fellowships serve two important purposes. First, they allow qualified graduates committed to a career in public interest law to gain the experience, skills and networks that will assist them to get full-time jobs in their fields. Second, they provide talented young lawyers to organizations that are confronting great demand and diminished resources.

Cue the "they're only doing this to massage their U.S. News 'employed upon graduation' statistic" in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

More details after the jump.

Two weeks ago, we reported on Syracuse College of Law changing its exam guidelines in an attempt to thwart cheaters. Fordham Law School also had some academic dishonesty issues. Fortunately, this new cheating phenomenon is not limited to New York State. The National Law Journal reports:

When a Florida Coastal School of Law student last year spotted notecards poking out of a fellow test-taker's pocket during finals, she kept her head down and focused on the exam in front of her. "I've never been one to rat people out," said the student, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Her classmate was returning from a bathroom break during a final exam, and it was pretty clear to her that cheating was afoot. Like thousands of law students each year, the Florida Coastal student and her classmates had signed an honor code on their first day of school. Law schools rely on honor codes to keep students from cheating. The codes reflect the self-policing nature of law school academic integrity regimes, and they appeal to students' sense of fair play to keep them in line.

Cheating at Florida Coastal? Noooooooo!

What is your friendly, neighborhood American Bar Association doing about the scourge of cheating at accredited law schools? We explore after the jump.

When students at New York Law School can't find work, sometimes they resort to tearing the clothes off of 1Ls. So we applaud Lev Ekster, an NYLS alumnus, for his non-violent approach to the economic crisis:

Recent law school grad Lev Ekster is going from court to cupcakes. When the New York Law School student realized he wouldn't land a law firm job this year, he turned to entrepreneurship. Inspiration struck after a disappointing trip to Magnolia Bakery, where he waited in an excruciatingly long line for what he deemed a "dry and tasteless" cupcake. "The experience reminded me of my parents' stories of waiting in line for bread," says the native Ukrainian.

Yes, this story reminded us of breadlines too.

The mobile cupcake service is called Cupcake Stop, and it should be rumbling by a street corner near you. If you're interested -- not just in cupcakes, but possible employment -- take note:

[A]ccording to their recent Twitter post, they're hiring:

Now hiring, part-time and full-time employees in NYC. Food prep license is preferred, not required. Fun job! email jobs@cupcakestop.com

Why shouldn't every NYLS student get in on the entrepreneurial act? We have additional details, after the jump.

Some law students might be considering suing their schools now that a bright future in Biglaw seems like such a dim possibility. We can imagine lawsuits alleging false promises of golden handcuffs sweeping the land.

But the only suit against a school we've seen recently is reported by the National Law Journal (via the Minn Lawyer Blog). And the cause for the ADA suit against the New England School of Law is flunking the student without regard for his brain damage:

According to court papers, the plaintiff, Seva Brodsky, was expelled after failing two courses in the spring of 2005, and later learned from medical testing that his "memory and organizational deficits" likely stemmed from an accident in the early 1980s.

The plaintiff claimed he presented medical evidence to the school at a readmission hearing in November 2005 and was told that academic success in a relevant program would boost his chances for readmission.

Despite lots of chatter around the Web, there are some things that are unclear to us:

Every time you open a law school, somewhere a kitten dies.

The University of North Texas is pushing to open a new, mean green law school:

Dallas will be home to the state's next public law school under a bill that won tentative House approval today.

Budget woes mean funding for the law school remains uncertain, at least for the next two years. At that point, officials could come back to the Legislature again for funding, or seek tuition revenue bonds instead. But for now, the budget the Legislature is poised to approve does not include the $40 million needed to establish the school.

Still, North Texas lawmakers said simply getting approval for the University of North Texas Law School -- which already passed the Senate -- is a great achievement. This is the third legislative session in which they've pushed for it.

This seems like a good time to mention that there are 200 accredited law schools already pumping out J.D.s like rabbits on fertility drugs. Compare that -- as some commenters did last night -- with the 130 or so accredited medical schools. In terms of exclusivity, the legal profession is on the beach at Bethpage Black, while everybody else is enjoying an excellent tee time at Winged Foot.

It's not even like North Texas needed a law school. More details after the jump.

I'll admit, I've never really understood the utility of cheating on a test. Even if you don't get caught, what have you really gained from getting a couple of extra questions right? A third of a grade? A full grade? It just strikes me as ridiculously hypocritical. If you really care that much about your grades, isn't it better to just put in the work over the course of the semester? And if you don't care about your grades, why do you suddenly lose your nerve at the very end?

In any event, I suppose the terrible economy is making a lot of people think creatively about what their transcript will look like when it comes time to find a job. It looks like a spate of cheating scandals has erupted among some New York law schools.

The Syracuse University College of Law is so worried about the problem that it is cracking down on people with weak bladder control:

Students can now use the rest room only once during an exam, which can last four hours, because some are suspected of using cell phones or looking at papers in the bathrooms. Students with medical reasons to use the rest room more often than once per exam must provide medical documentation to a dean.

"During this exam period, we have received a significant number of reports from (first-year) students alleging academic dishonesty," read an e-mail sent by law school deans to first-year students.

Forty years I been asking permission to piss. I can't squeeze a drop without say-so.

While Syracuse adopts the Depends Honor Code, Fordham hasn't decided if it will do anything at all. Details after the jump.