Employment Statistics

* 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]

This law school is trying to pull a fast one for the sake of its employment statistics.

* Hillary Clinton is making a mad dash for Biglaw bucks to support her presidential run. This week, she’ll be at an event hosted by Sullivan & Cromwell, and next week, she’ll be at an event hosted by a Chadbourne & Park partner. Ooh la la, fancy schmancy! [Bloomberg Politics]

* Dewey know why this firm failed? Back before D&L declared bankruptcy, the firm’s most successful rainmakers were asked to give up half of their gigantic salaries in an attempt to stave off the worst… but they didn’t want to. We suppose that’s the way the cartel crumbles. [Am Law Daily]

* Bickel & Brewer, the fearsome Texas litigation boutique, recently broke up, and now it’ll simply be known as Brewer. John Bickel, who invoked the firm’s partnership retirement clause, is now ensconced as senior counsel at Fish & Richardson. [Texas Lawbook]

* This career services dean is here to tell you a tale about law school job stats. You see, law schools don’t have an unemployment problem — instead, they have a “J.D. Advantage” problem (aka, jobs they took because they couldn’t get lawyer jobs). [Huffington Post]

* This is yet another reason why people are considering Fordham’s Fashion Law LL.M.: “Every designer should have a minimum degree of legal literacy, if only to know when to seek a legal opinion — and to avoid being sent to sit at the kids’ table.” [New York Times]

If the statistics of lower enrollment and higher employment continue, a solid, yet perhaps narrower, path for law schools will begin to emerge in the next few years.

Columnist Renwei Chung offers his thoughts on the latest job data from the ABA.

* Floyd Mayweather’s lawyer says that his client will post Suge Knight’s insanely high $10 million bail if he wins his fight against Manny Pacquiao. Suge says he was “really going to pull for him to win, but now [he’s] going to have to pray for him to win.” [Los Angeles Times]

* Northwestern University School of Law is launching a first-of-its-kind loan repayment assistance program to help grads in “modestly salaried private sector jobs” — that is, if you make less than $85,000, the school will pay your loan interest for up to a year. [National Law Journal via CBS]

* If you haven’t heard, the class of 2014 was much more employed than the class of 2013 by a factor of a few percentage points. Apply to law school right now! (No, don’t do that. The class of 2014 was smaller, so it looks like the job stats were better.) [ABA Journal]

* “[T]he jury is out and the only sane thing you can say about Dentons is check back in three years.” Hot on the heels of the announced merger between Dentons and McKenna Long, many lawyers are running for the exits. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* If you’re interested in going to law school on the east coast, then you may want to take a look at this list of schools, ranked by total employment of the class of 2014. We’d shudder to see what this list would look like if only long-term, full-time jobs were used. [BostInno]

* A lawyer who’s suing former U.S. Representative Aaron Schock on behalf of a campaign donor says he’s been unable to locate the disgraced politician to serve him. What will happen now? We bet you can find out on the next episode of Downton Abbey. [ABC News]

Entry-level hiring is up. FWIW.

It’s not enticing to make your future debt payment the most certain thing about your future.

Which law school graduates have the most debt of all? U.S. News has a ranking for that!

What if law schools were assigned “credit ratings” like the ones that are given to corporations?

If you're thinking about applying to law school, you need to crunch the job numbers for yourself.

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal sector added 2,300 jobs in 2014. Our sincere condolences go out to all those who are still “too overqualified but too under-experienced,” all at the same time, to get hired. [Am Law Daily]

* This lawyer protested jury duty by emailing the judge to say she’d “blame the plaintiff” for making her work nights and weekends for her client, but she can only blame herself for having to spend the night in jail. Oopsie! [Daily Report (reg. req.)]

* “Would it be great if all unpaid internships paid really well? Sure. It would also be great if my dog made breakfast for me every morning, but I am not going to file a lawsuit over it.” Yep. [Los Angeles Times]

* The law school transparency movement has come quite far since its inception, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. Encourage your school to hurry up and “publish what it has at its fingertips.” [Law.com]

* UVA Law held its Softball Invitational this weekend. A Duke Law dude emailed us to say his school sucks at basketball, but it’s awesome at law school softball. Sweet accomplishment, brah. [Newsplex]

* If the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal defendants end up going to trial, it’s fair to say the star witnesses in the case will be those who’ve already pleaded guilty — all seven of them. [Am Law Daily]

* Biglaw firms are constantly shrinking in size, leaving many office buildings wide open. Landlords are desperate to put asses in seats, so it’s kind of like law school. [Washington Post]

* “A judicial post is not an hereditary position.” There’s nepotism, and then there’s nepotism, and this Georgia judge is really trying to keep it all in the family. He’s basically ensured that his seat on the bench will go to his daughter. [Daily Report (reg. req.)]

* Let’s keep the rankings party going with an infographic about job rates and median starting salaries. Law schools tied for first place with $160K Biglaw salaries: 21. Not shocked. [U.S. News & World Report]

* The family of Danielle Thomas, the woman who was murdered by indebted law school grad Jason Bohn, is suing the NYPD with claims that the police ignored her calls for help. Sad. 🙁 [New York Post]

* Stan Stallworth, the Sidley partner accused of sexual assault, has hired a prominent criminal defense attorney to represent him in the case while the firm stands by its man. [Am Law Daily]

* Wall Street regulators are considering approval of a formidable version of the Volcker Rule that would ban banks from proprietary trading. Voting occurs later today. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Skadden Arps has asked a judge to toss an FLSA lawsuit filed against the firm by one of its document reviewers. Aww, silly contract attorney — there’s no way you’re getting overtime pay. [Law360 (sub. req.)]

* Weil Gotshal is still leaking like a sieve. This time, Bruce Colbath, a partner from the firm’s New York office, defected to the Antitrust and Trade Regulation practice group at Sheppard Mullin. [Market Wired]

* Lawyerly Lairs, China Edition: Raymond Li, chair of the Greater China practice at Paul Hastings, just purchased a townhouse for about $95 million. He paid for it in straight cash, homie. [Wall Street Journal]

* They’re extremely tardy to the party, but if the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar gets its way, law schools will be subject to random audits of their employment stats. [ABA Journal]

* It’s a tough job that “can really beat you down,” but an organization called Gideon’s Promise just made it a whole lot easier for law students to secure jobs as public defenders in the South. [National Law Journal]

Moving collection of employment stats to ten months from nine months is notable only for its uselessness.

* Dewey know which Biglaw firms and ex-partners were sued by the failed firm’s bankruptcy estate? Sadly, they must all be asking, “Howrey going to survive now that Allan Diamond is on the case?” [Am Law Daily]

* You’d probably love to work as an associate on a 9-5 schedule with billable requirements so low you’d get canned anywhere else. There’s just one catch: You’d have a “proportionately lower salary.” [Daily Report]

* “Law professors and law deans are paid too much,” so the ABA is reducing tenure requirements for law school accreditation, which will make it easier for them to be laid off. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* The ABA also decided to cut law schools some slack in terms of graduates’ employment data, and it’s likely due to the U.S. News rankings reckoning. Say hello to the 10-months-after graduation jobs statistic. [National Law Journal]

* Following the Windsor ruling, the Social Security Administration is paying claims for married gay couples living in states where same-sex marriage is recognized. As for the rest, better luck next time. [BuzzFeed]

* Would-be senator Cory Booker has taken annual payouts from his former firm, Trenk DiPasquale, since he left. You may remember that firm’s name from the C&D letter seen around the world. [New York Post]

* Author John Grisham was so pissed his books were banned at Guantánamo Bay that he took up the cause of prisoners wrongfully accused, detained for years, and released without apology. [New York Times]

* Almost as if to add insult to injury, Bernie Madoff was allegedly involved in a love triangle with one of his employees who’s about to go to trial. Apparently having dirty money is a desirable trait in a man. [Reuters]

* Amanda Bynes is still in the psych ward on a 5150, and her mother was granted a temporary conservatorship over her cray cray kid’s financial affairs. Way to follow in Britney Spears’s footsteps. [CNN]

The law school litigation movement is still alive and well in California.

* Hiring a Supreme Court clerk might not be worth a $500,000 gamble for some Biglaw firms. Some will take that sweet sign-on bonus and remove their golden handcuffs before a year is out. [Capital Comment / Washingtonian]

* Akin Gump partner and D.C. Circuit nominee Patricia Millett won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee by a margin of 10-8 along party lines, and now her nomination will head to the full Senate for a vote. [Huffington Post]

* President Obama nominated Michelle Friedland and John Owens, two young Munger Tolles & Olson partners, for seats on the Ninth Circuit. If confirmed, that’ll make three partners from the same firm on the bench. [The Recorder]

* Sorry, law firms, but it’s no longer cool to inflate hourly billing rates for contract attorneys when you pay them substantially less. You can thank Ted Frank for this judicial revelation. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education thinks that just about everything having to do with law schools is “deeply flawed” and needs “serious re-engineering.” How comforting. [ABA Journal]

* Law School Transparency is willing to assist schools with the reporting of their ABA post-graduation job placement statistics, for a price. How much is integrity worth these days? [National Law Journal]

* For $25K, Casey Anthony’s bankruptcy trustee won’t make her sell the worldwide rights to her story — like her theory of the crime she was acquitted of, it “exists solely within [her] mind.” [Sun-Sentinel]

Another look at the ATL Top 50 Law Schools, broken out by individual data points. Is your law school on any of these top five lists?

If law deans hadn't squandered all their credibility long ago, this proposal wouldn't sound so suspicious.