Caveat Venditor: Throwback To The Days Of Junk Employment Statistics
Deceptive statistics are not yet a thing of the past.
ATL March Madness: And Then There Were 16 Law School Scandals
Vote now in the Sweet 16 of our Best Law School Scandals contest.
Opus 2 Steps Up Its AI Game With Acquisition Of A Legal Tech Startup
With the addition of Uncover’s technology, the litigation software is delivering rapid innovation.
ATL March Madness: Best Law School Scandal
It's time to get voting in ATL's annual March Madness bracket!
Morning Docket: 11.25.15
* Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit completely obliterated a Wisconsin law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Posner said any health benefits conferred by the law were "nonexistent." [Reuters] * Judge Richard Sullivan (S.D.N.Y.) wasn't a fan of the Bank of China essentially telling Gucci to "suck it up" when it came to "ridiculous" delays in providing counterfeiters' records, so he held the bank in contempt and is considering assessing millions of dollars in fines. [WSJ Law Blog] * A Pennsylvania attorney activist who launched the "Kane is not Able" campaign has asked the state's highest court to provide clarification on how AG Kathleen Kane should delegate her duties considering the fact she has a suspended law license. [PennLive.com] * A proposed class-action suit has been filed against fashion company Kate Spade over its alleged "imaginary discount prices." If this goes the way of the $4.88M Michael Kors settlement over the same issue, then Kate Spade could be in trouble. [Consumerist] * "Talk about being uprooted!" Vendors who sell wares outside of Brooklyn Law are pissed about the school's plans to install planters on the sidewalks around the building, thereby kicking the vendors not to the curb, but out onto the street. [Brooklyn Paper]
Stats Of The Week: New York State Bar Exam Results By School
A school-by-school look at the latest grim New York State bar passage rates.
Morning Docket: 10.09.15
* 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]
Filevine’s New Legal AI Platform LOIS Turns AI Into A True Legal Coworker
Legal work isn’t slowing down, and the firms that win won’t be the ones working harder — they’ll be the ones working smarter.
Being A Law School Dean Right Now Is Really, Really, Really Hard
It's hard out here for a dean.
Which Law School Is Offering Partial Tuition Refunds For Students Who Can’t Get Jobs?
Is this consolation prize enough to defray the costs of attending a law school that can’t net you a job offer?
Morning Docket: 07.14.15
* 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]
Morning Docket: 07.10.15
* 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]
AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice—But Tools Aren’t The Real Differentiator.
Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession.
Non-Sequiturs: 05.18.15
* 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]
Morning Docket: 04.29.15
* 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]
Morning Docket: 03.27.15
* 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]
Morning Docket: 11.11.14
* 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]
Morning Docket: 11.04.14
* “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]