Cooley Law / Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Morning Docket: 09.21.11

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* Hey, Preet Bharara, even Lady Gaga can read your poker face when you’re going all in on an allegation of Full Tilt Ponzi. Maybe Lederer and Ferguson will finally fold. [Wall Street Journal]

* You know what this country really needs? More doctors who don’t believe in science. Another stem cell research case is going up to the D.C. Circuit. [Bloomberg]

* The last 9/11 wrongful death suit has been settled. Lessons learned: airport screeners might not know what Mace is, but they sure can lift and separate your balls. [New York Times]

* Cooley Law held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus. We’re good at surviving natural disasters, but a tsunami of unemployed lawyers might break this profession. [Miami Herald]

* A group of drag queens in Florida got busted for thieving the essentials — bras, boas, and butt pads. As RuPaul would say, you better work. Or steal. You know, whatever. [New York Daily News]

* Guys in my high school middle school used to have the ACLU file lawsuits over breathalyzer tests all the time. It was no big deal. [MSNBC]

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Morning Docket: 08.19.11

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Smile for mommy.

* This Cooley lawsuit is a “mystery.” They don’t game the numbers, they just do what “everybody else does.” Need a rimshot? [National Law Journal]

* Yesterday team Bingham McCutchen struck out swinging, and now Frank McCourt is poised to hit it out of the park. [Boston Herald]

* Recent law grads can kiss their overtime goodbye in California. Even the unlicensed can be “learned” in this profession. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Whitey Bulger’s girlfriend pleaded not guilty to harboring the alleged Boston gang boss. Way to stand by your man to avoid a mob hit. [CNN]

* No plum smuggling for old men. According to this age discrimination lawsuit, a Speedo is a Speedon’t for men over the age of 50. [New York Daily News]

* Think you can get away with looting during a London riot? Not when your mom’s a total narc. Not cool mom, not cool. [BBC News]

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Cooley Law and NYLS Hit With Class Action Lawsuits

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July shaped up to be a pretty good month for going after lower-ranked law schools. It isn’t even mid-August, but this month might end up even better.

Early in July, we reported that Kurzon Strauss, a small law firm based in New York, was trolling Craigslist for plaintiffs to sue Thomas M. Cooley Law School over its employment reporting practices. Cooley Law decided to strike first, suing the firm for defamation. And at about the same time, New York Law School and its dean, Richard Matasar, got ripped a new one in the New York Times.

And now, both law schools are getting sued for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and deceptive business practices — à la Alaburda v. TJSL, the lawsuit filed back in May against Thomas Jefferson School of Law by an unhappy alumna.

Karmic revenge sure is sweet….

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Because Cooley Law Really Needs Another Campus

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It’s time for some news from the second-best law school in the country, namely, Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Members of the Cooley Law administration had to find something to do with themselves when not busy defending the school’s honor by suing the internet.

Boasting four campuses and more than 15,000 graduates in Michigan wasn’t enough for this elite law school. The nation’s #2 law school needs MOAR CAMPUSES (and unemployed graduates). So the administration started cooking up a plan to remedy this issue, on the down low.

Yet another Cooley Law campus will soon be invading a state near you on the east coast. But which one will be plagued with more unemployed law school graduates?

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Morning Docket: 08.08.11

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* A scam blogger hit it hard last week, calling Cooley out for policing the internet. Guess we know why s/he chose to go by “Rockstar.” [Detroit Free Press]

* Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to remember the life of slain Mercer Law School graduate, Lauren Giddings. Rest in peace. [Baltimore Sun]

* Other than the fact that this dude waited nearly a decade to sue, Facebook now says it has “smoking gun” evidence that Paul Ceglia’s case is a fraud. Like. [Bloomberg]

* The Innocence Project says that past DNA evidence is a “poor judge of character.” You’d say that, too, if you exonerated a future rapist. [New York Daily News]

* Lady Gaga is being sued for copyright infringement. Seriously? Get it straight, lady: Gaga only copies from Madonna. [Daily Mail]

* In this economy, to get a job you have to make believe you love the law. Career advice for old farts can be applicable for young lawyers, too. [Boston Globe]

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Cooley Lawsuit Update: One Of The ‘Cooley Four’ Responds To The Law School’s Complaint

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You see what happens, Cooley? You see what happens when you sue anonymous commenters on the internet?

We’re only on day two of Cooley’s reputation defense lawsuits, and it’s already obvious that the lawsuits have made it possible for more people to be more critical of the education offered by the school.

So far, the most damning statement about Cooley’s education has come from Cooley itself. Cooley president Don LeDuc said that the school filed these suits “to protect Cooley’s reputation and stand up for our students and more than 15,000 graduates.”

And yet, of those 15,000 graduates, when it came time to defend Cooley’s reputation, the school went with lawyers who were not educated at Cooley.

Not only did the school not use its own graduates for this work, one of the anonymous commenters the school is suing appears to be a recent Cooley graduate former Cooley Law student. I mean, with friends like these, right?

CORRECTION (7/16/11): It appears that this commenter did not graduate from Cooley, but instead studied there for a time before transferring out.

In any event, that defendant has decided to respond to the Cooley lawsuit…

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Thomas Cooley Sues A Law Firm And Four ‘John Does’ On the Internet

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Cooley President Don LeDuc

Earlier this month, we reported that somebody was looking to Craigslist for potential plaintiffs to sue Thomas M. Cooley Law School over the school’s published post-graduate employment statistics. As many of you know, Thomas Jefferson School of Law has already been hit with such a lawsuit.

Well, apparently Cooley isn’t going to sit around and wait for somebody to sue them. Instead, the school is going to sue first.

A message from Cooley president Don LeDuc informed students that Cooley is suing a New York law firm and four anonymous “John Doe” commentators on the internet. We haven’t seen the lawsuit, so we don’t know exactly who the school is suing. According to LeDuc, Cooley is not trying to “police the internet.” Instead he says the school is trying to defend its reputation and the value of a Cooley Law degree.

You can read his full letter to students below….

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Cooley Law Dropout Learns a Lesson in Res Judicata

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Cooley law school logo.jpgWhenever we write about Thomas M. Cooley Law School, commenters cannot resist reminding us of Cooley’s business model. The school admits a large number of 1Ls. If they can’t hack it, they are dismissed.

So what happens to the kids who couldn’t hack it at Cooley? Well, sometimes they sue the school for discrimination. But, because they washed out at Cooley, sometimes they still haven’t learned some very basic 1L principles — like res judicata. Here’s the summary of the Sixth Circuit opinion in the case of Buck v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School:

Plaintiff appeals from the district court’s dismissal of her lawsuit against her former law school as barred by res judicata and a lack of causation. She previously litigated earlier acts of discrimination against her law school in Michigan state courts, and had secured a preliminary injunction allowing her to attend classes. She was then dismissed from the law school on academic grounds. Because plaintiff should have supplemented her complaint in state court with claims that arose during the pendency of that suit, she is precluded by res judicata from raising these claims now. Therefore, we AFFIRM.

It’s a shame that Cooley admits people who can’t understand basic principles of civil procedure. Even if plaintiff Buck had a good argument for setting aside the principle of res judicata, she does a terrible job of making her case to the Sixth Circuit ….

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