Fun Fact of the Day

Fun Fact of the Day: The Incredible, Shrinking Law Schools

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‘What is this? A law school for ants?’

Approximately three fourths of 201 ABA-approved law schools experienced declines in first-year enrollment. Ninety law schools reported declines exceeding 10 percent from last year, while fewer than 10 had increases of 10 percent or more.

– Information on law school enrollment reported in a recent American Bar Association press release.

(Those are the facts, but what does it mean?)

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Fun (and Depressing) Fact of the Day: Two-Thirds of Americans Are Pretty Freakin’ Dumb

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How many justices can you name?

Despite all the recent controversy surrounding U.S. Supreme Court decisions on health care, immigration and other issues, nearly two-thirds of Americans can’t name even a single member of the Supreme Court.

– a depressing conclusion drawn from a recent FindLaw telephone survey on the Supreme Court.

(What else can be learned from the absurd results of this survey?)

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Fun Fact of the Day: That’s Supposed to Be a Discount?

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– the total cost for hotel accommodations during the July 2012 New York Bar Exam at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center in Albany, one of the NY BOLE-approved test sites. Their “special rate” for the bar exam is $209.00 per night. The same room goes for $179.00 per night the following week.

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Fun Fact of the Day: Happy Law Day, Everybody! (Except for You, SCOTUS)

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Our courts are the guarantors of civil justice, social order, and public safety, and we must do everything we can to enable their critical work. The courthouse doors must be open and the necessary services must be in place to allow all litigants, judges, and juries to operate efficiently. Likewise, we must ensure that access to justice is not an abstract theory, but a concrete commitment that delivers the promise of counsel and assistance for all who seek it.

– Barack Obama, in today’s presidential proclamation regarding Law Day.

(The theme for this year’s Law Day is “No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom,” but it’s not clear that people still trust the justice coming from our highest court…)

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Fun Fact of the Day: ‘All Apologies’ for Killing Obamacare?

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It is hard to beat Nirvana’s “Complete Sub Pop Singles.” And I’m a big fan of the Kooks. It’s very catchy and a little less loud than Nirvana and a little more family-friendly.

– Paul Clement, the former Solicitor General and current Bancroft partner who argued Obamacare in the Supreme Court, discussing his musical tastes with the New York Times.

(Additional fun facts, plus a link to the full interview, after the jump.)

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Fun Fact of the Day: That’s a Totally LINsane Deal!

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Jeremy Lin

The wife of an Upper West Side lawyer paid $42,388 in an intense online auction so that her husband could meet Jeremy Lin — and take home his game-worn jersey.

– the going price for a meet-and-greet session with New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin, along with his game-worn jersey, was noted in a New York Post article about the CharityBuzz.com prize that Pamela Schecter won for her husband, attorney Mitchell Schecter. The estimated value of the prize was $3,200.

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Fun Fact of the Day: Talk Dirty to Me

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Prosecutable hate speech in 17th-century Massachusetts included calling people “dogs,” “rogues” and even “queens” (though the last referred to prostitution); magistrates took serious umbrage at being labeled “poopes” (“dolts”).

– John McWhorter, the noted linguist, in his New York Times review this past weekend of Speaking American: A History of English in the United States.

(Additional fun facts about language and the law — specifically, facts about statutes criminalizing oral sex — after the jump.)

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Fun Fact of the Day: Lawyers and the One Percent

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Scrooge McDuck: he is the 1 percent (but not a lawyer).

Lawyers are the fourth most well-represented occupational group among the nation’s top 1 percent (which, for purposes of the study, consists of households with a pretax income of $380,000, excluding capital gains).

– a New York Times analysis of data collected by the University of Minnesota Population Center.

Additional interesting facts and links — including which occupations ranked ahead of lawyers, and what percentage of lawyers belong to the 1 percent — appear after the jump.

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Fun Fact of the Day: Legal Eagles Don’t Soar As Pundits

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Finally, those prognosticators with a law degree were more likely to be wrong.

– one of the findings of a research paper, Are Talking Heads Blowing Hot Air? An Analysis of the Accuracy of Forecasts in the Political Media, analyzing the accuracy of predictions by 26 leading print and television commentators. (The top five most accurate pundits were Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Ed Rendell, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi.)

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Fun Fact of the Day: Surprising?

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Performance on the LSAT is negatively correlated with networking ability.

– Vice Provost and Professor Sheldon Zedeck of UC Berkeley, at a panel entitled Beyond Grades and Scores: Factors Predicting Lawyer Success and Effectiveness, at the annual NALP conference (which concluded yesterday).

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