Law School Deans

* Many lawyers may think that Biglaw is in recovery what with its record gross revenues and profits, but if you adjust the numbers for inflation, the overall picture looks pretty grim. Reality certainly does bite, folks. [American Lawyer]

* Please pay up and shut up: Alas, seven partners who sought to dismiss the clawback suits filed against them by failed firm Dewey & LeBoeuf’s bankruptcy liquidation trustee were denied in court this week. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Thomas Jefferson School of Law restructured its debt to avoid default, and now its dean has announced he doesn’t think the school’s enrollment will ever return to its former glory. Aww. [National Law Journal]

* Warren Gladders, the WUSTL Law grad turned bank robber, received 45 years in jail for his getaway shootout with the cops. It’ll run consecutively with his 24-year robbery sentence. [St. Louis Post Dispatch]

* The judge overseeing the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial made the unusual decision to bar the public from watching the testimony of the defense’s first witness. We’re now awaiting Nancy Grace’s anuerysm. [AP]

* Squire Patton Boggs may be lobbying for Ebola drugs, but Reed Smith has launched a Global Ebola Task Force. Don’t worry, folks, the firm doesn’t want to “sensationalize” the outbreak. [Washingtonian]

* Hong Kong is great for lawyers interested in corporate misconduct. “I’ve barely had a weekend off for the last eight months,” says this partner who’s really excited about a not having a life. [Bloomberg]

* As we noted, New York is considering adopting the Uniform Bar Exam. Touro Law’s dean thinks the format change could be “jolting” for students, but the head of the NY BOLE doesn’t agree. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Wayne State Law is freezing tuition and giving a scholarship to incoming student that’s equal to a 14 percent tuition cut. That’s one way to combat a 13 percent drop in enrollment. [Detroit Free Press]

* Whittier Law is one of the “most challenged” when it comes to its graduates’ ability to obtain legal employment. Just one in four students gets to be a lawyer after graduation. [Orange County Register]

How much will next year cost for these students already paying over $50K/year?

Alleged perjury dogs dean on way out of the door.

* Per the First Circuit, plaintiffs who successfully challenge the Defense of Marriage Act in court aren’t entitled to attorneys’ fees. The Department of Justice had no comment. [National Law Journal]

* Florida Coastal Law finished second-to-last in bar passage for the July 2014 exam, with 58% of grads passing. It was one of Florida Coastal’s worst performances to date. [Florida Times-Union]

* ASU Law got a $10M donation, its largest ever. “The remarkable thing about it is we didn’t ask him for it,” says the dean, which is a slightly better response than Drexel’s dean had. [The Republic]

* Much to his defense team’s chagrin, accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial will remain in Boston. The media spectacle is set to begin in January 2015. [New York Times]

* Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino of Jersey Shore fame was indicted on tax fraud charges to the tune of $8.9M. He pleaded not guilty yesterday afternoon. There aren’t tanning beds in jail. 🙁 [Asbury Park Press]

Damning with faint praise.

We can't say whether or not this student cheated. We can however, troll this law school for its pretty terrible grasp on how the justice system is supposed to work....

Law is no longer seen as the golden calf.

* A website has been set up to collect stories, videos, photos, memories, and more, to share with slain Professor Dan Markel’s young sons. His memorial is scheduled for next Tuesday. [Prawfsblawg] * What would happen if lawyers gave out GPS directions? [Legal Cheek] * George Mason Law is looking for a new dean. Brush off that résumé, Elie! [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * Is it me, or do we need to buy Justice Kagan a new outfit? [Josh Blackman's Blog] * The scion of a Biglaw Bigwig (go ahead and guess which firm…) arrested for filming and distributing video of his sexual escapades with his girlfriend without her permission. It’s like revenge porn without the revenge element. [Law and More] * Don’t bring creeps with you to a jury trial. [What About Clients?]

* A unanimous Seventh Circuit panel, in an opinion by Judge Posner, just struck down Wisconsin and Indiana’s bans on same-sex marriage. The result isn’t surprising in light of the blistering benchslaps delivered by Judge Posner at oral argument, but the timing is faster than usual (for a federal appellate opinion in a high-profile case, not for the prolific Posner). [BuzzFeed]

* Bad news for Cahill Gordon: the Third Circuit just revived a fraud case against the high-powered firm and one of its clients, a unit of BASF. [WSJ Law Blog]

* And badder news for BP: a federal judge just concluded that the oil giant was grossly negligent in connection with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. [New York Times]

* Freshfields gets fresh talent, adding former Wachtell partner Mitchell Presser and former Skadden partner James Douglas to its ranks. [American Lawyer]

* The dean of Seton Hall Law, Patrick Hobbs, will step down from the deanship at the end of the current academic year. Congratulations to Dean Hobbs on a long and successful tenure. [South Orange Juice]

* And congratulations to John Grisham and Jason Bailey, winners of, respectively, the 2014 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and the 2014 ABA Journal/Ross Short Fiction Contest. [ABA Journal]

* Brittany McGrath, Brooklyn Law class of 2014, RIP. [TaxProf Blog]

A law school so shady the authorities are looking into it.

* Let’s get ready to rumble! Not wanting to be left out of the party, Oklahoma has also asked the Supreme Court to take a look at its same-sex marriage statute which was recently slapped down by the Tenth Circuit. [National Law Journal]

* Dewey know what financial restructuring adviser Joff Mitchell of Zolfo Cooper said to this failing firm’s partners right before it flopped for good? “Look, there is no way here to save this firm.” Ouch. That had to have sucked. [Forbes]

* The examiner who was appointed to monitor law firm billing for the City of Detroit’s bankruptcy is now questioning Dentons’ fees of up to $27K per month to talk to the press. Whoa there… [Detroit Free Press]

* Working Mother and Flex-Time Lawyers have released the latest ranking of the Top 50 Law Firms for Women. Vivia Chen feels “a bit dirty” after reading the list — and you probably should, too. [The Careerist]

* Leisure Suit Larry’s successors are here to stay for a while: Case Western Reserve Law’s co-interim deans will stay on in their current positions for the upcoming school year. [Crain’s Cleveland Business]

It's not that Dean Chemerinsky is wrong, it's just that a consistent blind spot clouds his argument...

Is the ABA trying to troll all of us?

If you fail the bar exam, it's not the end of the world; just ask these six celebrities, whose lives and careers turned out fabulously!

What do the parties have to say about the settlement in Professor Raymond Ku's lawsuit against Larry Mitchell, former dean of Case Western Law?

* Justice Sonia Sotomayor insists that her meeting with Hillary Clinton at Costco wasn’t planned. She just wanted to say hello to the “other lady,” as referenced by the woman at the store’s pharmacy counter. [Washington Post]

* Six U.K. firm leaders got together to talk about how to run their practices during challenging economic times. It turns out they’d prefer not to run their firms into the ground. [The Lawyer]

* Look out everyone, because Taylor Wessing, an international law firm that’s known for its IP, media, and telecommunications work, is storming both coasts of the United States in its very own dual office launch Biglaw blitzkrieg. [Am Law Daily]

* “It is a shameful canard that student loans and indebtedness are the cause of high tuition. They are not; they are the symptom,” says a law dean standing up for his students. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* If you want to go to law school and you’ve got an undergrad degree in a technical area like engineering, then congrats. You might stand to get a job after graduation. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

What weight should be given to solo practice and to "JD Advantage" jobs in law school rankings?

* They know where to find a deal: Justice Sonia Sotomayor ran into Hillary Clinton at Costco this weekend where the former secretary of state was hawking her book (affiliate link). It’s almost like this wasn’t arranged. [Huffington Post]

* “[T]his is my chance to do what I love and I am going to seize it!” Judge Randall Rader stepped down from his role as chief of the Federal Circuit less than a month ago following an ethics issue, and now he’s retiring for good. [Reuters]

* The government says that Zachary Warren’s prestigious legal accomplishments “left him well-able to understand the criminal nature of his conduct at Dewey.” Ouch, the People just turned it around on him. [WSJ Law Blog]

* “The reasons they have are the reasons they have.” The ex-dean of Indiana Tech Law quit his job weeks ago, but no one has any idea why. We guess he got out while the getting was still good. [Journal Gazette]

* Kenan Gay, the Charlotte Law student charged with murder after allegedly tossing a man into traffic, was acquitted. He graduated this spring. Nice work, but loans are still a life sentence, bro. [Charlotte Observer]

* It’s been 20 years since the O.J. Simpson case — aka the “trial of the century” — came to its dramatic conclusion. If you want to know what happened to all of the lawyers involved, we’ve got you covered. [CNN]

A respected dean says law schools aren't in recovery, and things may get worse in the future.