Baylor Law School

Welcome, Law Students: We’ve Found Some Appropriate Music To Herald Your Coming

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Bagpipes are the red-headed stepchildren of musical instruments. They’re interesting for a second, then you wish they’d go away.

Welcome, law students. Welcome to the old ones meandering back to campus after a summer of making money and connections. Welcome to the new ones who do not yet realize that the previous sentence was a complete joke. Welcome to all.

Let’s have some music. I’m thinking something upbeat. Maybe some trumpets, or a guitar, or… wait… bagpipes? Somebody welcomes students to law school with bagpipes?

Isn’t that what you play at a funeral?

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Pro Se Filing of the Day: Baylor Law Discriminates Against People Whose GPAs Predate Grade Inflation

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Whether you like it or not, people are going to go back and forth on grade inflation until the end of time. Some think it’s God’s gift to gunners, and some don’t. But if you’ve decided to embark upon your legal career later in life, it may seem like there’s no way to compete with millennials whose college report cards are so littered with inflated grades that they might as well be printed in glitter and accompanied by gold stars.

And that is exactly what one certified public accountant alleges in a lawsuit that he’s filed himself against Baylor Law School — the same school that accidentally released its incoming students’ GPAs and LSAT scores, as you may recall….

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Morning Docket: 05.04.12

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* My Big Fat Dewey Compensation Guarantee: it’s like a movie that no one wants to watch, except it’s happening in real life. But at least the partners got their draws, right? [Reuters; DealBook / NYT]

* Why didn’t John Edwards’s former aide disclose to the government that he refused to lie under oath about his affair? “Because you never asked.” Best. Response. Ever. [MSNBC]

* Maybe Mintz Levin didn’t belong on the list of the Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms after all. The firm’s been sued twice in recent years for sexual discrimination. Oops. [Careerist]

* Baylor Law claimed the top pass rate on the Texas bar exam for the fifteenth time since 2001. Unfortunately, Baylor Law cannot claim a top pass rate on disclosure of private student information. [Baylor University]

* In America, lawyers are pissing off state bar associations by offering their services on Groupon. En México, no es un problema. There, you can buy gift cards for the gift that keeps on giving… divorce! [Huffington Post]

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Another Perspective on the Baylor Law Admissions Data and Affirmative Action

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Last Wednesday, we reported on Baylor Law School’s inadvertent release of personal academic information for its entire admitted class — names, addresses, GPAs, LSAT scores, and scholarship offers. Last Friday, my colleague Elie Mystal used this data to argue in defense of affirmative action.

We believe in offering a wide range of perspectives here at Above the Law. That’s one thing that’s nice about having four full-time writer/editors — myself, Elie, Staci Zaretsky, Chris Danzig — and about a dozen outside columnists.

Today we bring you a different viewpoint on the Baylor law admissions data. Prominent lawyer and blogger Ted Frank, previously profiled in these pages for his work in the class-action area, uses the same data to argue against affirmative action.

Let’s hear what he has to say, shall we?

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The Baylor Law Data Dump, Now With Race and Scholarships

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On Wednesday, we reported on Baylor Law School accidentally releasing personal academic information for its entire admitted class. It was a massive screw-up, and on Wednesday, we showed you the GPA and LSAT scores for Baylor’s admitted students (with the students’ names redacted, of course).

But there were other fields available in the accidentally released spreadsheet, including racial categorizations for each student and scholarship information. I didn’t include the race field earlier this week because, frankly, I didn’t want the entire news story (of the screw-up) to be overrun by a discussion about race and affirmative action.

But, look, I ain’t afraid of you people. Getting a complete racial breakdown of the class to go along with their grades and LSAT scores is a look inside the law school admissions process that we don’t often get to see.

So, let’s play our game. Looking at the Baylor numbers, you can see the affirmative action “bump” in LSAT scores, and to my eyes, it really shows how foolish the opponents of affirmative action really are….

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Baylor Law Screw-Up Reveals Personal Data of Entire Admitted Class: Data That We’ve Got

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There are data breaches, and then there are data dummies. The people at Baylor Law seem to be in the latter category.

Nobody was trying to steal the personal information of the admitted students at Baylor Law. But a screw-up by someone at the school resulted in all of the personal information of the admitted class getting transmitted to everybody else in the admitted class.

All of it. Names, addresses, grades, and LSAT scores. Pretty much everything besides social security numbers.

And, we have it….

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