Brooklyn Law School

* Bob McCulloch, the prosecutor who handled (mishandled?) the Michael Brown / Darren Wilson case in Ferguson, Missouri, was recently named as “Prosecutor of the Year” by the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. This probably wasn’t a good idea. [Slate]

* American Apparel filed for bankruptcy, and rather than Biglaw firms representing the embattled clothier, they’re trying to snatch up fees. Skadden, White & Case, and Paul Hastings are each owed quite the pretty penny. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* Which law school dean was just named as senior counsel at Dentons, the largest law firm in the world? That would be Nicholas Allard of Brooklyn Law School. Perhaps this law dean’s academic cash flow wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

* “Unless the industry cleans itself up, we can expect more lawsuits like this in the future.” In an interesting turn of events, the marijuana industry is now seeing its first product liability suit. A protip for growers: No one wants to smoke fungicide. [Los Angeles Times]

* Just when you thought patent trolls couldn’t get any worse, they started to harass members of the fashion industry. Copyright trolls (i.e., Stephen Doniger and Scott Alan Burroughs) are suing over textile prints left and right, and that’s so last season. [Fortune]

It's hard out here for a dean.

Is this consolation prize enough to defray the costs of attending a law school that can’t net you a job offer?

* With sagging enrollment and disappointing job statistics, offering students some tuition reimbursement if they’re still unemployed nine months after graduation is a great way to put asses in seats. We’ll have more to say about this news later today. [New York Times]

* Testimony in the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal trial got a little more interesting when jurors learned that the plan to cook the firm’s books to the tune of more than $50 million was hatched after a pricey steak dinner at Del Frisco’s. Don’t all evil Biglaw plans come together after an expensive steak dinner? [DealBook / New York Times]

* These people just won the criminal justice reform lottery: In case you missed it, President Barack Obama commuted the sentenced of 46 nonviolent drug offenders in order to shine a light on punishments that didn’t fit the crimes committed. [POLITICO]

* Pay close attention to this information, gunners, because it probably applies to you. Per a new study conducted by two Colorado Law professors, LSAT scores are an “overvalued predictor” of future law school grades and résumé builders don’t matter. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Osvaldo Miranda Diaz, the lawyer who called Cuba’s criminal justice system “disgusting” during a presentation he gave to visiting U.S. lawyers, secured a full ride for Duke Law’s LLM program thanks to one of his audience members. Congrats! [Daily Business Review]

* Aww man, nothing’s going right for this firm: After facing mass defections that forced it to move to a smaller office, struggling law firm Gordon Silver is locked in a legal battle with its former landlord to the tune of $786,000 in rent that allegedly went unpaid. [VEGAS INC.]

* Ted Cruz isn’t the only person Ted Olson has a bone to pick with. Justice Scalia thinks the Obergefell decision is a “threat to American democracy,” but Olson disagrees: “[W]ith respect to Justice Scalia, who I do have great respect for, he is wrong.” [National Law Journal]

* Brooklyn Law School is selling off buildings left and right, and one of its prime pieces of real estate could sell for up to $30 million. According to Dean Nick Allard, its sale will serve as a “better advantage for the future of the law school.” [New York Daily News]

* Lawyers, make sure to draft your documents carefully, or else you could wind up getting screwed by an errant comma (or the lack thereof). An Ohio woman got out of a summons because she pointed out a missing comma in a local ordinance. [Lexicon Valley / Slate]

* From the sound of it, not all Uber drivers want to become Uber employees; some of them are perfectly content to be classified as independent contractors. That’s probably going to screw up that whole typicality requirement for this would-be class-action suit. [Forbes]

* Uber is building a 70-lawyer in-house group. Constantly going to outside counsel got too spendy after partners instituted surge pricing on all billable hours over 80/week. [Law and More]

* Justice Ginsburg presided over a same-sex wedding yesterday. Could she have tipped her hand on the upcoming marriage equality decisions by consistently emphasizing the word “Constitution”? The article begins: “The groom and groom strolled down the aisle to the mellow strains of ‘Mr. Sandman.'” The first time I read that I thought it said, “Enter Sandman,” which, admit it, would be a much cooler wedding song. [New York Times]

* Professor Rick Hasen, for one, thinks that might be exactly what RBG just did, noting her history of offering sly hints about the outcomes of unannounced decisions. [Election Law Blog]

* Is there a legal solution to save Charleston Law? That’s interesting, but the bigger takeaway from this piece is that one of the board members actually left the stage during commencement after the invocation denounced greed. You cannot make this stuff up. [Post and Courier]

* Those pesky nuns. [Lowering the Bar]

* Stanford’s student commencement speaker crowdsourced her speech. It was all going along fine until the 3 minutes segment where she just yelled, “Baba Booey” over and over again. [Forbes]

* California releases its February bar exam results. The only thing in California lower than those passage rates are the reservoirs, amiright? [Bar Exam Stats]

* Richard Hsu talks with Henry Bushkin, Johnny Carson’s lawyer and the author of a new book about the late “King of Late Night.” [Hsu Untied]

* Happy birthday to Professor Joseph Crea of Brooklyn Law School who celebrates his 100th birthday today at the school. [SF Gate]

* In case you haven’t read the transcripts from yesterday’s same-sex marriage arguments at the Supreme Court and you still want to have some talking points at the water cooler at the office, here are six of the more “provocative” questions that the justices asked. [WSJ Law Blog]

* HBO is filming a TV movie called “Confirmation” about Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 nomination hearings. Kerry Washington will play Anita Hill and Wendell Pierce will play our silent justice. No one puts a pube on Olivia Pope’s Coke can and gets away with it! [Hollywood Reporter]

* If you’re not interested in the CliffsNotes version of the same-sex marriage arguments at SCOTUS, you should know the justices were split along their usual ideological lines, and Justice Kennedy seemed even more wishy-washy than normal. [New York Times]

* You’re my boy, Blue! Brooklyn Law School will honor 100-year-old Professor Joseph Crea this summer. He’s been teaching at the school for more than five decades, and looks like a well-preserved academic artifact. Congratulations! [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

* Still high off its top passage rate for the February 2015 Florida bar exam and thanks to an anonymous $1 million gift, Ave Maria Law announced that it will be purchasing its campus… and launching a totally unrelated $3.2 million capital campaign. [News-Press]

* If you’re looking to take a year off before law school, then perhaps you ought to consider becoming a paralegal, a research analyst, or an investment banker. At least one of those jobs will make you reconsider your future. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Brooklyn Law’s dean thinks “too much power rests with the [NCBE],” and that we need a new way to license lawyers. Brooklyn Law’s July 2014 bar passage rate was ~10 percent lower than the year prior, so perhaps he doesn’t like how those grapes taste. [National Law Journal]

* A man on trial for a bank robbery committed in 2013 pooped his pants while on the stand, removed some of said poop from his pants, and started eating it because the Virgin Mary told him to do it. If you couldn’t tell, he’s got an insanity defense. [Inquisitr]

* A new Citigroup report says Biglaw firms are at “high risk for cyberintrusions,” but so few will admit that they’ve been hacked it’s impossible to tell if the problem is growing. Don’t worry, clients, your confidential files might be safe. [DealBook / New York Times]

* People may think “this is a crappy, for-profit school that didn’t make it. But it could have been a great law school.” Charleston Law’s founding dean wrote a damning blog post about his colleagues for their attempts to sell the school to InfiLaw. [Post and Courier]

* “[B]eing well-dressed and having a law school diploma” isn’t enough to ensure that you’ll get a job anymore. Quick, take some advice from the career services dean at a school where 47.2 percent of recent grads are working full-time as lawyers. [Huffington Post]

* While she may have “one of the broadest and most expansive roles” in West Wing history, thanks to this article, Valerie Jarrett can add a new title to her résumé: “Obama Whisperer.” [New Republic]

* Alumni from failed firms — or “dead firm alums,” which makes them sound like ghosts — have been having reunions to remember the good times at their former Biglaw homes. Aww, cute. [Am Law Daily]

* Everyone’s freaking out about the decline in bar exam scores, even deans. Brooklyn Law’s dean got into it with the NCBE’s head over her “offensive” comments about July ’14 takers. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Speaking of the bar exam, here’s a comparison between the amount students pay in law school tuition and the likelihood of passing the test on the first try. Spoiler: it doesn’t really matter. [Huffington Post]

* Here’s how to determine how badly you screwed up the LSAT. Step 1) Realize you took the test because you don’t know what else to do with your life. No more steps. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* “When a law firm is on a verge of insolvency, the last thing you want is for the most productive partners to leave.” The latest ruling in the Dewey & LeBoeuf case has Biglaw partners talking about “run[ning] for the exits.” [New York Law Journal]

* Oh mon dieu! Thanks to a botched French translation of an English press release, the Cote d’Ivoire Bar Association may file criminal proceedings against two Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe attorneys for fraud. [Am Law Daily]

* Michele Roberts, the former Skaddenite who’s now the first woman to lead the National Basketball Players Association, thinks women need to learn how to develop business. [National Law Journal]

* It seems that the dean of Brooklyn Law School has willingly signed up to be roasted by some of his students. This might be a bad decision on his part, but he’s a brave human being. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

* What’s the “right” number of law schools to apply to, and how can you figure out what the “right” number is for yourself? It’s magic, plain and simple. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* A murder suspect grabbed his phone and asked Siri to help him dispose of a dead body. I’ll bet Siri gave him s**tty directions on doing that, too. [USA Today] * Criminal defeated by the same dastardly device that plagued a famous Far Side cartoon. [Lowering the Bar] * Congratulations to Brooklyn Law School’s BLIP clinic for successfully fighting off a patent troll. How’s that for practical law school experience! [Medium] * “As long as there is demonstrated interest and commitment by sufficiently financed local owners and a dedicated, passionate local fan base, leagues prefer not to move teams.” So says Buffalo Law professor Nellie Drew. Shhh. Don’t tell her about where the Baltimore Ravens came from, it would break her heart. [University of Buffalo] * We get more worked up about law students charged with crimes. Like murder and arson. I mean, obviously Above the Law does because that’s part of our beat, but I mean “we” as in everybody. Why is that? [Law and More] * Avvo just released a new iPhone app for lawyers. Among the new features is an opportunity to be alerted as soon as a question in your practice area is asked. [Avvo] * Ha. This cartoon. [Twitter] * After a two-year absence, we welcome VC Deal Lawyer back to blogging! [VC Deal Lawyer]

* Justice Sonia Sotomayor insists that her meeting with Hillary Clinton at Costco wasn’t planned. She just wanted to say hello to the “other lady,” as referenced by the woman at the store’s pharmacy counter. [Washington Post]

* Six U.K. firm leaders got together to talk about how to run their practices during challenging economic times. It turns out they’d prefer not to run their firms into the ground. [The Lawyer]

* Look out everyone, because Taylor Wessing, an international law firm that’s known for its IP, media, and telecommunications work, is storming both coasts of the United States in its very own dual office launch Biglaw blitzkrieg. [Am Law Daily]

* “It is a shameful canard that student loans and indebtedness are the cause of high tuition. They are not; they are the symptom,” says a law dean standing up for his students. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* If you want to go to law school and you’ve got an undergrad degree in a technical area like engineering, then congrats. You might stand to get a job after graduation. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

When a tuition cut doesn't make everybody happy, I'm the voice of reason.

Will an almost $25K decrease make a difference when it comes to loan payments? It depends.

* Dentons still has the urge to merge with a U.S. firm, and now it’s trying to tempt Patton Boggs away from Squire Sanders with a “serious overture.” Bow chika bow wow. [The Lawyer]

* Despite all the outrage over Albany Law’s faculty buyouts, some have already accepted the package offered. Looks like anything’s possible for the right price. [Albany Business Review]

* Guess which law school is cutting tuition by a whole lot? Some hints: it’s in New York and it’s been selling off real estate. We’ll have more on this later. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Perhaps this could be considered a gift of provisional accreditation: Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Attorney General in President George W. Bush’s administration, is now dean at Belmont Law. [The Tennessean]

* Take a look at this new paper by Professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld on race and culture in law school admissions. Actually, it’s fake, but it’s sad that it could, in theory, be very real. [Washington Post]

* Zac Efron is going to star as a Yale Law grad forced by criminals to work in the world’s largest Biglaw firm in a film adaptation of John Grisham’s book, The Associate. OMG, he’s so cute. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Our thoughts go out to the families of those wounded and killed during the Fort Hood shooting. [AP]

* SCOTUS seems divided over its greenhouse gas regulation case. Just remember, justices, there’s “no such thing as greenhouse gas,” and if you think there is, you can “go f@ck yourself and die.” [Legal Times]

* DLA Piper, Fenwick & West, and William Fry are advising on the King.com (aka Candy Crush) IPO. Cool. Know that the public will refuse to invest until those damn chocolate blockers go away. [The Lawyer]

* “Guys like them are the reason people hate lawyers.” When your lawyers do you this badly, you end up living in one of their homes as part of a settlement. Of course this happened in Florida. [Sun Sentinel]

* If you’re in the market for an apartment, we hear Brooklyn Law School just sold a bunch of its student housing to a real estate developer. Per the dean, the school is now so small the apartments were unnecessary. Yikes. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

* Amanda Bynes took a plea deal on her DUI charge. She’ll serve three years of probation and pay a fine. Maybe when she’s done, she’ll pull a Lohan and appear naked in a movie. Young men can hope. [CNN]

* Man tried to rob a convenience store so he could go back to prison. And he almost screwed that up… [KMOV] * The CIA’s former lawyer explains how torture came to be a go-to national policy. According to John Rizzo, author of the forthcoming Company Man (affiliate link), George W. Bush basically had no conception of what was going on, which makes a lot of sense anyway. [The New Yorker] * Brooklyn Law’s Dean Nick Allard makes predictions for law schools in 2014. “[P]eople will look back at 2014 and say it marked the start of the new world of law: a renaissance where the respect and reputation of lawyers and law schools began to rise by measurable benchmarks.” Go ahead and laugh, I’ll wait. [TaxProf Blog] * Paul, Weiss picks up tax partner Scott Sontag from Weil Gotshal. (Congrats to both firms, by the way, on tying for the #9 spot in our list of top-ranked law firms for 2013.) [Paul, Weiss] * Nooooooooooooo! Judge Richard Kopf is ending his blog. [Hercules and the Umpire] * And the hits keep on coming. Professor Kyle Graham is also leaving the blogosphere. [Non Curat Lex] * The Ninth Circuit will start streaming all of its oral arguments next week. If you want to help them out, tune in. No promises that the panel will excoriate any prosecutors this time. [Ninth Circuit]

The school-by-school breakdown of the New York bar exam results is out. Let's take a look!

Which law schools and feeder judges produced the most Supreme Court clerks for October Term 2013?

* Who says bipartisanship is dead? Senators McCain and Gillibrand hammer Obama’s nominee for Navy Undersecretary. Gillibrand went after her specifically over prosecuting sexual assaults. [Breaking Defense] * Lawyers per capita by state. For everyone who says lawyers make the world worse, note that Arkansas has the fewest lawyers per capita and do with that information what you will. [Law School Tuition Bubble] * A bunch of rabbis were arrested for plotting to kidnap and torture a guy into granting a Jewish divorce. This is a thing? [Wall Street Journal] * Professor Larry Lessig thinks the administration should have made originalist arguments in the McCutcheon case to salvage campaign finance limits. First, I don’t see why this would have worked. Second, someone in Washington has to be an adult and resist the urge to make stupid arguments just because someone might listen. [The Atlantic] * An agent is facing 14 felony counts for giving improper benefits to college athletes. For all the alleged cheating, you’d think UNC would be better at football. [Forbes] * A Texas judge ordered a teen to move back in with a sex offender. This was a poor decision. [USA Today] * Upon hearing former NYC Mayor David Dinkins saying, “You don’t need to be too smart to be a lawyer, so I went to law school,” the dean of New York Law School said, “So you went to Brooklyn Law School?” Which of course Dinkins did. What is wrong with NYU’s Tribeca campus? [NYLS (exchange begins at 23:00)] * Is this related to the law? Not really. Is it the cast of Archer doing the video of Danger Zone? Yes…