Michael Simkovic

If you have a law degree, do you believe attending law school was worth it? If you are currently in law school, are you happy with your decision?

* Seton Hall Law Professor Michael Simkovic — he of the million-dollar law degree study — is back with a vengeance. Pay no attention to that law school scam op-ed in the New York Times; very few law school graduates are actually defaulting on their crushing loan debt. [ABA Journal]

* The U.S. Senate is finally looking into what’s going on with predatory pharmaceutical pricing at companies like Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Turing Pharmaceuticals, both of which have recently hiked up the price on lifesaving drugs to an absurdly exorbitant degree. [Reuters]

* Judge Arnold Ogden Jones II, a North Carolina state court jurist, has been accused of attempting to bribe an FBI agent with “a couple of cases of beer” in exchange for information. It better have been some damn good beer, Your Honor. [News & Observer]

* Complaints about tuition be damned, because law schools are still churning out pricey LL.M. programs like its their job. Fordham Law’s compliance program may be useful for some, but it comes with a $53,000 price tag. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA]

* Law schools have been in a “death spiral” since applications started to drop along with admissions standards and student debt started to increase exponentially, but some will survive if the ABA steps in and polices accreditation and gainful employment. [Forbes]

An oversight in an earlier article gives rise to some more troubling observations.

Law professor is tired of all the bad news about the legal market and he wants law schools to do a better spin job.

When you think about it, the idea that students should uncritically go to law school is a classic poker bluff. And when someone calls your bluff it can make you crazy.

* Loretta Lynch might actually get confirmed, you guys! Senate Republicans have agreed to a bipartisan deal on human trafficking legislation which should end the Lynch logjam. America in 2015, “human trafficking bad” now requires months of negotiation. [CNN]

* Our old friend Professor Michael Simkovic is back and defending the decision to go to law school based on part-time job numbers because, hey, that’s how the Bureau of Labor measures unemployment so it must be the same for judging employment for struggling J.D.s. Professor Bernie Burk gives a thorough, thoughtful, and respectful retort. [The Faculty Lounge]

* Meanwhile, failing to learn the lesson of America, students seeking law degrees skyrocket in the UK. Thomas Cooley considers Norfolk campus. [Legal Cheek]

* The property law of Downton Abbey. It teaches the most important lesson of property — historically it’s really, really good to be a wealthy white guy. [Vanderbilt Law Review]

* Digging into a less heralded subsidiary argument in the marriage equality cases: the “proceed with caution” rhetoric intended to push the issue to the backburner. [NYU Law Review]

* On that note, same-sex marriage kills babies!!! Well, no, not really. But that is the argument one former Scalia clerk is making for some reason. [Dorf on Law]

* Looks like Europe is going to hit Putin where it hurts… an antitrust courtroom. That’ll learn him! [New York Times]

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

* As we mentioned, U.S. News is giving law schools less credit for hiring their own grads. Rumor has it that a few schools would’ve done better in the rankings but for their high percentage of school-funded jobs. Which ones? [WSJ Law Blog]

* Two students in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity from Oklahoma University were expelled after a video of their racist chanting was leaked online. Lawyers want to know: was their expulsion a First Amendment violation? [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* UC Irvine Law debuted on the 2016 U.S. News law school rankings at No. 30, missing Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s goal of starting out as a Top 20 school. Not to worry, Dean, there are still ways to game the rankings. Keep your head up! [National Law Journal]

* Don’t bother delaying your law school education just because the economy’s bad. The professors who told us that a law degree is worth $1 million think that its value will only drop by about $30K in times when unemployment is high. Yeah, okay. [ABA Journal]

* The grisly murder of DLA Piper associate David Messerschmitt, who was found stabbed to death in a Washington, D.C., hotel, remains unsolved. Police are still searching for the “person of interest” who was seen on video from the hotel’s security camera. [Legal Times]

A look at the findings of a survey of students currently studying for the LSAT regarding the legal education landscape.

* Could this be the worst judge in the country? [WFPL News] * “Study Finds College Still More Worthwhile Than Spending 4 Years Chained To Radiator.” Congrats to Michael Simkovic on his new paper. [The Onion] * The next Hobby Lobby could be Notre Dame, who wants the right to not have to pay for insurance that might possibly allow women to purchase birth control that kind of but aren’t really abortifacients in any scientific sense. It’s represented pro bono by Jones Day. Honestly, I don’t have it in for Jones Day, but it seems like every… single… damn… time I write something about a firm doing awful things I end up typing J-O-N-E-S-D-A-Y at some point in the article. [MSNBC] * Helpful judge tells criminal to change his ways — not because he’s a criminal, but because he’s a really bad criminal. [Huffington Post] * J.D.s should consider panhandling as a legitimate career alternative. [Law and More] * Lat explains why apprenticeship should be an option for becoming a lawyer. But what if you just love law school so much. [New York Times] * Remember when Examsoft screwed up the bar exam and the Twittersphere went nuts? WBEZ spoke with Lat about what went down. Embed below… [SoundCloud]

A gathering of legally-themed humor from around the Internet.

Here are 7 funny or interesting comments from a recent conference about legal education reform.

* A comprehensive analysis of the New York Times wedding announcements over the years. As the research team frames the question, “What do the world’s most self-important people think is important?” Unsurprisingly, the answer is “where they went to law school.” [News Genius / Rap Genius] * The National Jurist would like to deceive convince the potential law school class of 2017 that there will be tons of jobs for them. Apparently the legions of unemployed lawyers now will just disappear in some sort of legal industry Carousel. [National Jurist] * Elizabeth Wurtzel’s mom loves Al Jazeera because she hates pundits and talking heads. Like, for instance, Elizabeth Wurtzel. [The Daily Beast] * Walter Olson of Overlawyered is going on the road. There are a lot of stops; check if he’s coming to a town near you. You could totally tag one of these venues in a big slip-and-fall case. [Overlawyered] * The million-dollar-law-degree guys mount another defense. [Am Law Daily via Law School Tuition Bubble] * In the midst of a slew of law deans stepping down, Dean Patricia Salkin thinks this is the perfect time to become a law dean. Elie already put his hat in the ring for every available position via Facebook. [The Faculty Lounge] * Military personnel are guaranteed benefits for same-sex partners. Including personnel in state national guard units. But Texas has decided to deny those benefits. Yeehaw! In all seriousness, this is why all those liberals rooting for state marijuana ballot measures against the feds needed a little more foresight. [Dallas Voice] * An interview with Helen Wan, the author of The Partner Track: A Novel (affiliate link). Keep on the lookout for David’s coming interview with Helen. [CNN]

Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith Esq. answers the question: Is BigLaw really “alive, well, and rich”?

The George Zimmerman verdict, Detroit's bankruptcy, and revisiting the "$1 million law degree"

A terrible study on the value of a law degree seems purposely misleading.