Illinois Law

* What will happen if SCOTUS were to overturn Roe v. Wade? For one, abortion wouldn’t automatically become illegal across America — that would be up to each individual state. In fact, some states have “trigger laws” ready to go to ban abortion if Roe is ever overturned. Hopefully this won’t happen any time soon, or ever. [BuzzFeed]

* The University of Illinois at Chicago is moving forward with its planned merger with John Marshall Law School to to establish the UI Chicago John Marshall College of Law. Dean Vikram Amar of Illinois Law wants to make very sure that everyone knows this is “not a joint enterprise in any way.” [News-Gazette; Chicago Tribune]

* Bless their hearts, but it looks like Winstead won’t be taking Troutman Sanders to the rodeo after all. According to inside sources, this Texas-sized merger was simply not meant to be due to billing rates and preferred clientele. [Texas Lawyer]

* All rise for new royalty at Dechert, for Sheila L. Birnbaum, the “Queen of Torts” is here! Her Majesty left Quinn Emanuel and brought 28 other lawyers and staff with her to form a product liability and mass torts team at the firm. [Big Law Business]

* The White House has named Steven Dillingham as its nominee to direct the U.S. Census Bureau. In case you weren’t aware, Dillingham has a law degree from the University of South Carolina. No word yet on whether he’s still practicing. [NPR]

There's a lot to keep law school deans busy over the summer.

In light of how high bar-exam stakes are today, we need to ask some basic questions about this crucial test.

Some of Judge Posner's points are clearly correct; in other cases, the situation is more complicated than he seems to appreciate.

* Nurkhan Zhumabekov, a lawyer in Kazakhstan, is suing the Russian-Kazakh television channel First Channel-Eurasia for allegedly “insulting Kazakhs.” Nobody tell this guy about Borat, OK? [Radio Free Europe]

* The too perfect name of the litigants in Loving v. Virginia is finally getting its due. Loving, a new film about the case that legalized interracial marriage, looks primed to garner some Oscar buzz. [Hollywood Reporter]

* Illinois Law graduates were a no-show at graduation; Jane Genova wonders why. [Law and More]

* Poorly written laws and regulations are part of why the Supreme Court has to get involved in the immigration case of U.S. v. Texas, as Laura Murray-Tjan explains. [Huffington Post]

* Is there a way to save access to personal email accounts at work without compromising a law firm’s security? [Authentic8]

* Laverne Cox has been cast in CBS’s new legal drama, Doubt, along with Katherine Heigl and Steven Pasquale. [Jezebel]

* Radiohead isn’t being a “Paranoid Android,” they may be getting sued. [Radio.com]

Dean Vikram Amar offers advice to law students about how to show their stuff come exam time.

Please welcome our newest columnist, Dean Vikram Amar of the University of Illinois College of Law, who will be writing about legal education.

Vikram Amar of Illinois Law explains why he's excited about his new job and outlines his priorities as dean.

An aquatic look at which law firms' alumni have the top spots at the largest U.S. law firms.

Illinois Law has been fined by the ABA. Is that enough to deter others who might want to cheat on the U.S. News rankings?

Still reeling from the producers’ decision to include one Latino contestant four seasons ago, The Bachelor franchise is back in Narnia this season with another all-white cast. Available for fake engagement this season is a sexy, seasoned, Biglaw attorney. Just kidding! Erika Uhlig, 23, is a completely average looking 2L at the University of Illinois College of Law. To precisely no one's shock, a law school classmate of Erika's reports that “she’s a bitch"....

Just in case you weren’t able to get your fill of legal news in your Christmas stocking this year, here’s a news round-up from the long, holiday weekend….

Members of the University of Illinois College of Law community received sad and disturbing news yesterday when they learned that a faculty member at the law school was the victim of an apparent hate crime. The law professor (who remains anonymous at the request of the University) was found on the second floor of the […]

After reading our Quote of the Day, you might get an inkling as to the reason why Paul Pless, former dean of admissions at the University of Illinois College of Law, no longer has a job there....

It’s time to check in on the scandal involving the University of Illinois College of Law and its false reporting on the qualifications of its admitted students. Every time we do look at Illinois, the school tells us that “this time” they’ve figured out the full extent of the problem — and it’s a bigger […]

The University of Illinois College of Law has had to restate the LSAT scores and GPAs of its admitted students for the last three years. If you've been following the story, you know that Illinois Law had previously admitted that it misstated admissions data for a year. Some of you really want to talk about how Illinois has been lying all this time. It's like some of you think that the ABA is actually going to do something to punish Illinois....

Another day, another controversy over something hanging in a law school. Why is law school decor such a charged issue these days? As some of may already know, I served as vice president of the Yale Federalist Society when I was in law school. My campaign was non-controversial. At the time, the VP was responsible […]

The University of Illinois College of Law knows a thing our two about scandals. It’s a public university in one of the most politically corrupt states in the union, so we can forgive the occasional admissions scandal (like the one that popped up back in 2009). You’d think that a school which has had its […]