Law School Deans

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.02.15

    * McDermott Will & Emery poached six partners from K&L Gates as part of its Dallas office “re-launch.” Their poor paralegals: Right now, the lawyers are working in temporary offices, and don’t have access to land lines. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Dean Paul Mahoney of UVA Law announced he’ll be stepping down from his position on June 30, 2016, after eight years of dedicated service to the school. Law students, please lower your collars to a half-pop in light of this news. [UVA Today]

    * Dewey think these defendants are full of themselves? The former leaders of this failed firm had insane and enviable compensation packages, but that doesn’t mean their multimillion-dollar guarantees weren’t justified — or even deserved. [Am Law Daily]

    * Experts speculate that the Justice Department’s case against FIFA could strengthen its global power, but of course, that will hinge on whether Loretta Lynch can get RICO charges to stick for conduct that took place overseas. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * After months of going back and forth on their urge to merge, Hiscock & Barclay completed its combination with Damon Morey. The new 275-lawyer firm will be known as Barclay Damon, and could possibly become a member of the Am Law 200. [Syracuse.com]

    * Legal marijuana business need lawyers and bankers, but those willing to advise them are few and far between. If you want to join the green rush and learn how to help these people comply with the law, come to our marijuana law reception later this month. [Forbes]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.29.15

    * It may have taken two years, but Lindsay Lohan finally completed her community service for her reckless driving conviction. In other news, for the first time in almost eight years, the Hollywood has-been is off probation. Yay! [Los Angeles Times]

    * A former staff attorney at Drinker Biddle was suspended from practice after overbilling his time doing doc review work by just a tad — 418.5 hours, to be exact. He owes the firm $12,500 to be paid in monthly installments of $100. [Legal Intelligencer]

    * An ex-assistant dean and a professor at Cleveland-Marshall Law filed suit against Dean Craig Boise, claiming he retaliated against them after they assisted the faculty in unionizing. This, after they were offered raises of $0 or $666. [Northeast Ohio Media]

    * Someone’s allegedly been a very bad boy: Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted by a federal grand jury for lying to the FBI in an attempt to conceal payoffs to a third party to cover up his “prior bad acts.” We wonder what those “bad acts” were… [BuzzFeed News]

    * We bet you didn’t know that if you get convicted for sex on the beach you’d have to serve jail time and register as a sex offender. Protip: Don’t let 3-year-olds catch you doing the dirty in public. You’ll regret it for life (or until you win an appeal). [Bradenton Herald]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.18.15

    * Jose Baez of Casey Anthony trial fame gave the commencement address at Valparaiso Law this weekend and let graduates know that they, too, can be attorneys, even if they’ve been financially irresponsible. They’re letting this man teach at Harvard Law now. [The Times]

    * Suffolk Law and Cardozo Law will have new deans this summer, and both are planning for smaller classes. Considering Suffolk’s plummeting LSAT scores (and standards?), its new dean may have bigger problems to deal with than filling seats. [National Law Journal]

    * He “Pressure Drop[ped]” the ball: If you could take the LSAT or open for the Rolling Stones with Toots and the Maytals, which would you pick? This Paul Hastings partner took the test, and says it’s his only regret about choosing law over music. [Am Law Daily]

    * Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have been sentenced to death last week, but it’s highly unlikely that his punishment will be carried out any time soon, if at all. Instead, he’ll be putting his lawyers to work for time ad infinitum. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “[D]on’t let anyone say that Charleston School of Law was already in trouble.” A local attorney says that this soon-to-fail law school only started circling the drain after its proposed sale to InfiLaw was announced. That’s quite the indictment. [Post and Courier]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 05.12.15

    * Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC Irvine School of Law thinks it’s time for California to follow New York’s lead and adopt the Uniform Bar Exam. After all, if doctors don’t have to take separate exams each time they move to a new state, lawyers shouldn’t have to do it either. [Los Angeles Times]

    * A jury just returned a verdict of $0 for a police officer who was severely burned after spilling a cup of free Starbucks coffee in his lap. The pictures of the burns that were used as evidence are pretty nasty, so you’ll obviously want to check them out. [NPR; WTVD]

    * According to a survey conducted by Kaplan Test Prep, 56 percent of recent law grads would have preferred to condense their schooling to two years, while just 34 percent of prospective law students felt similarly. Oh, to be that naive again. [National Law Journal]

    * Violent besties? As it turns out, the gun altercation George Zimmerman was involved in yesterday was apparently part of some sort of ongoing feud with Matthew Apperson, the same man he threatened to kill in a road rage incident last year. [Crimesider / CBS News]

    * If you’re wondering what you should do during the summer before going to law school, then you can take the advice of this future gunner and possibly enroll in a pre-law prep course and work yourself to death, or you can relax. It’s up to you. [The Diamondback]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.16.15

    * At least a dozen professors from UT Law have had their identities stolen, and they only found out about it after their tax returns were rejected. As it turns out, the data thief had already filed their returns for them. Law profs’ tax refund checks must be tasty. [American-Statesman]

    * If you’ve been wondering what kind of salary it’d take to woo away the dean of one of the top law schools in the nation to become your university’s president, wonder no more. The answer is $660K per year. Way to go, Dean Schill! Play on, playa. [Register-Guard]

    * If you thought the list of the legal profession’s luminaries was looking like a giant sausage party, then you should check out this new ranking of the “most accomplished female attorneys working in the legal profession today.” [National Law Journal]

    * Biglaw, bigger egos? Law firm managing partners aren’t feeling as confident as they once were about economic and legal industry growth, but they’re totally jazzed about their own firms’ potential for revenue growth and the demand for their services. [Am Law Daily]

    * Another law school makes big changes thanks to legal academia’s rocky road: Loyola Law in L.A. is planning a 25% enrollment cut and is taking $20 million from its university’s endowment to entice students to attend with fat scholarships. [Los Angeles Loyolan]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.15.15

    * Sorry, Chicago Law, but it looks like you’re going to lose your dean. Michael Schill, the school’s departing dean, will leave to assume the presidency at the University of Oregon. It’s an upgrade for UO, and a potential downgrade for UChiLaw. Yikes… [Willamette Week]

    * FYI, D.C. Circuit litigants, you really need to “avoid using acronyms that are not widely known.” This is your second warning, your colleagues have already been benchslapped for this behavior, and the clerk’s office literally can’t even anymore. [National Law Journal]

    * After six months spent completing a domestic violence program, the battery charge against Judge Mark Fuller has been dropped and expunged from his record. Whether he’ll be allowed to keep his job on the federal bench is another story entirely. [Reuters]

    * Your law school application is a great place to explain why your undergraduate GPA is so damn low, because at this point in the process, the law school of your choice may be happy that you actually have a pulse. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

    * Theo Shaw, a member of the “Jena Six” who had to spend 7 months in jail because he couldn’t afford bail for his alleged participation in a gang-beating, is going to law school on a full ride. He’s “profoundly grateful” to Washington Law. Congrats! [Business Insider]

  • Sponsored

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.10.15

    * Moonlighting for Biglaw partners: golf caddy? This Alston & Bird partner spent the week caddying for Gunn Yang at the 2015 Masters Tournament. Oh, to watch a partner be subservient and lug someone else’s junk around all day. [Am Law Daily]

    * Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is suing each of her judicial colleagues over a constitutional amendment that could get her demoted from her seat of power. Maybe this judicial diva is a “total bitch” after all. [New York Times]

    * If you plan to run for president of this country and hope to discuss reform of the criminal justice system while you’re shaking hands and kissing babies on the campaign trail, you better be prepared to answer each and every one of these questions. [Washington Post]

    * “I want to see in an application that … Law School is a default option for you.” At least one elite law school “actively preference[s]” work experience after college. Get a job. It’ll probably be easier now than after you graduate from law school. [Harvard Crimson]

    * Aside from absurd tuition rates and deceptive employment statistics, here’s one more absolutely vital thing that members of the legal profession should consider tossing out during their spring cleaning sessions: the third year of law school. [Washington Post]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.08.15

    * “Take it from me, dealing with the complex criminal legal system can be difficult and intimidating for most people.” This ex-Troutman Sanders partner may be facing nine felony charges, but who cares? He’s starting his own firm. [Am Law Daily]

    * It’s kind of cute when law school deans lie to themselves to make themselves feel better. For example, the dean of Oregon Law says now is “excellent” time go to go law school, and he doesn’t make decisions “based on what moves the rankings needle.” [Daily Emerald]

    * Per the latest Altman Weil survey, the first quarter of 2015 was one of the best ever for law firm mergers. The pace with which law firms merged was the second-quickest since the company started tracking mergers to begin with in 2007. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

    * The Rutgers Board of Governors has approved of the proposed merger between Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden Law. Now they just have to wait for the ABA’s rubber stamp, which they’ll obviously get — the ABA would rubber stamp a shoe. [NJ Advance Media]

    * “[T]he law is a noble profession – but it’s also an oversubscribed one, due in large part to excessive federal lending.” Maybe if the government stopped handing out student loans like candy, law schools would be forced to lower their tuition rates. [Washington Post]

    * The University of Virginia’s chapter of Phi Kappa Psi is definitely going to try to sue Rolling Stone over its fraternity gang-rape story, but the question is whether “bad journalism [will] amount to legal liability.” What do you think about this? [WSJ Law Blog]

  • Morning Docket

    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

    Morning Docket: 03.23.15

    * This would-be POTUS can’t jump? Ted Ruger, Penn Law’s new dean, used to hang out with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz during law school, and he’d “like to think that [their] legal skills far exceeded [their] mediocre basketball skills.” [Philadelphia Inquirer]

    * Why do we still need law schools considering the crisis in the legal academy? Please allow Noah Feldman of Harvard Law — an unbiased law professor — to explain why “law school is absolutely essential — not for lawyers with clients, but for our society as a whole.” [Bloomberg View]

    * Apparently there’s some major drama going down with regard to which attorneys will argue the same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court. It seems that no one wants to give up their 15 minutes of fame before the high court. Sigh. [National Law Journal]

    * These days, law schools are looking at more than their applicants’ GPAs and LSAT scores. Prospective law students now need to be “well-rounded and involved.” For what it’s worth, not minding going into debt is a helpful trait, too. [Omaha World-Herald]

    * Another day, another gender bias lawsuit in Silicon Valley: This time around, Tina Huang, a female software engineer who used to work for Twitter, is alleging that the company’s secret promotion process bypasses women and favors men. [CNET]

Sponsored

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 03.09.15

    * Amal Clooney, the attorney who tamed George Clooney’s heart and is now considered one of the most famous human rights lawyers in the world, will be teaching at a New York law school this spring. Which one? We’ll have more on this fun news later today. [USA Today]

    * Talk about a Hail Mary play: The ACLU has decided to come to the defense of a very unlikely cause. Per a recently filed federal brief, the organization thinks that the USPTO’s cancellation of the Redskins trademark was unconstitutional. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * According to a new BARBRI study, the vast majority of third-year law students think they’re ready to go when it comes to practicing law, but the lawyers who have had the (dis)pleasure to work with new graduates don’t seem to agree. [National Law Journal]

    * “Those kinds of jobs are never going to be enough to absorb the number of people graduating from law school over the next five or 10 years.” Northeastern’s dean laughs in Biglaw’s face — his grads measure their success in other ways. [Boston Business Journal]

    * Ellen Pao’s “racy” gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins serves as a harsh criticism of the sexist culture of Silicon Valley. Luckily, jury members will be able to busy themselves with the case’s more lurid details. [The Upshot / New York Times]

    * Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency is working on a new podcast that will help prospective law students to see what working in the legal profession is really like. “I Am The Law” debuted in January 2015, and it’s worth a listen. [U.S. News & World Report]

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.26.15

    * Kim Kardashian is reportedly seeking law firm experience despite having no “legal training” or “redeeming qualities,” and she wants Amal Clooney to give her a hand. [Legal Cheek]

    * Do you remember Jennifer Gaubert, the New Orleans lawyer and radio host who hooked up with her cab driver… on video? She’s been sentenced. [Times-Picayune]

    * Supreme Court hears attorneys’ fees case. Baker Botts wants to get paid, yo. [Washington Post]

    * With three NFL teams publicly announcing their intention to build multi-billion dollar arenas in L.A., now’s a good time to mention that firms specializing in sports work have a pretty sweet business model. [The American Lawyer]

    * That was fast. Days after Dean Nora Demleitner announced that she was stepping down, Washington & Lee already has a new dean. [TaxProf Blog]

    * Jury slams Apple with $533 Million verdict. As they say, everything’s bigger in Texas. [The Litigation Daily]

  • Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 02.24.15

    * An Idaho legislator asked if we could replace gynecological exams with women swallowing a tiny camera. In his defense, how else can you tell girls they can get pregnant from a blowjob? Audio of the hearing below the jump. [Lowering the Bar]

    * “Man tells cops he was drunk when he stole horse for ride to Mardi Gras parade.” I don’t think that’s a defense. In fact, being drunk may be an element for that one. [Times-Picayune]

    * Update on the dean searches at Wyoming Law, DePaul Law, and West Virginia Law. [all courtesy of The Faculty Lounge]

    * Legally related Instagram accounts worth following (in addition to @ATLblog). At least if you’re in the UK. [Legal Cheek]

    * Did you know the former General Counsel of Starbucks has a fusion folk/blues/jazz/rock band? Apparently everyone who works at Starbucks has a band on the side. [Hsu Untied]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXxPfNHp37g

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 02.19.15

    * “Let’s face it: There are some people here that will not vote for her unless she says what they want her to say, that the president committed an illegal act by these [immigration] executive orders.” Loretta Lynch is having a tough time making Republican friends. [The Hill]

    * Some new details have been released on the investigation into DLA Piper associate David Messerschmitt’s death. Per police records, he was stabbed in the back, and was found in his hotel room with “lubricant and condom” and an “enema.” We’ll have more on this development later today. [Legal Times]

    * The rankings are coming! THE RANKINGS ARE COMING! Rankings guru Bob Morse, the man who holds law school deans’ jobs in his hands, says the 2016 U.S. News Law School Rankings will be out on March 10. [Morse Code / U.S. News & World Report]

    * A patent lawyer with Asperger’s syndrome is suing Patterson & Sheridan for discrimination. In his suit, he claims that a prominent partner was allowed to continually harass him in a purported quest to drive him out. Ah, law firm life. [The Recorder]

    * The case against the ex-leaders of Dewey & LeBoeuf hinges on the testimony of the failed firm’s former employees. Defense attorneys, of course, are trying to get things barred from admission — including one defendant’s link to a mob member. [New York Law Journal]

    * “We’re still in the same position we’ve been in. There’s progress, but things are moving at a snail’s pace.” As we mentioned earlier this week, according to NALP, the percentage of women associates in law firms is up… but not by much. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * One of the best law schools in the country will have a brand new dean come this summer. Congratulations to Theodore Ruger, a longtime law professor who will assume the deanship at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in July. [Philadelphia Inquirer]