Although they didn’t make the finals, these videos were worth watching.

Do you have something to say about your law school’s U.S. News ranking? This is the place to do it!

* Dear professors, please try to understand that most people who experience normal, human emotions are more concerned with the future of American law students than they are with whether or not American law schools can survive by bilking the hell out of foreigners. [PrawfsBlawg]

* In Canada, they raided somebody’s Super Bowl party to bust up an illegal gambling ring. They never would have done this during the Grey Cup. [CTV News]

* Apparently some kind of law something happened on Downton Abbey last night? I missed it, because staring at a dark stadium is literally more interesting than that freaking show. [Law and More]

* Thomson Reuters is getting out of the academic book publishing business. If only law professors would do the same thing. [TaxProf Blog]

* Is Washington & Lee’s “experiential” curriculum working? [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* Just to be clear, torturing people only works in the movies and television. [Politics USA]

* Cleary might become an ATL feeder firm. [Legal Cheek]

* Here’s an excerpt from a fun interview with David Lat, in which he talks about asking Richard Posner out on a date. [California Lawyer]

And there’s video, which you can watch for CLE credit, after the jump….

Lat participated in Legally Speaking, a series of in-depth interviews with prominent lawyers, judges, and academics, co-produced by California Lawyer and UC Hastings College of the Law.

You can watch Lat’s interview with Professor Evan Lee via the embed below. You can check out earlier interviews — with luminaries like Justice Stephen Breyer, Professor Alan Dershowitz, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor Harold Koh, Professor Larry Lessig, and novelist Scott Turow — over here. California CLE credit is available for watching each video.

At one leading law school, 1Ls are already getting busted for drinking in the library…

* Merry Christmas! House Republicans will get one less lump of coal in their stockings this year after accepting a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts. [New York Times] * Another birther lawsuit has been thrown out, but Orly Taitz won’t be stopped. She’s like the Energizer Bunny of questionable litigation. She’ll…

Today, we have news that both Virginia and Pennsyltucky Pennsylvania have released the results of the July 2011 bar exam. Our congratulations go out to everyone who passed. And for those who didn’t, better luck next time (but on the upside, it’s Friday, so it wouldn’t be completely inappropriate for you to drink yourself into…

I was explaining to new Above the Law helper Natasha Lydon how things work in the ATL, and I said: “Basically, from now until finals, we’ll be able to run a ‘stupid law student story’ every day. The kids are stressed, and it’s starting to show.” On cue, I received an email from a law…

And now things get interesting. As we continue to run through the U.S. News 2012 law school rankings, we get to a crucial set of schools. The schools in this batch are certainly top tier, but they’re not “top 14″; for the most part, though, they charge like top 14 schools (especially the private ones).…

* How did Howrey start to unravel? The trouble might have started in Europe. [Washington Post] * Congratulations to Arvo Mikkanen, a Native American nominee to the federal bench in Oklahoma (and “an all-around great dude,” according to a tipster). [The Atlantic] * Washington & Lee Law School, which we recently praised for its honesty…

Well, it’s a start. If you think it’s a good thing for law schools to be more transparent about the employment prospects of their students, then you have to applaud Washington & Lee Law School. The school had been building a bit of a reputation for taking an outside-the-box approach to legal education, but that…