When we crowned the University of Michigan Law School as our Most Honest Law School, my colleague Elie Mystal chalked it up to their good, old Midwestern values. But just a few weeks after winning our March Madness competition, Michigan Law actually did something really honest — the school released all of its employer statistics for the classes of 2009 – 2011 (not to mention that it was the first elite law school to release its 2010 NALP report to Law School Transparency). Now if that’s not transparent, then we really don’t know what is.
While you ponder when the rest of the T14 is going to step up to the plate and reveal all of its employment information, we’ll help you analyze the data, and tell you what it could mean for you….
* Dear readers, legal pundits, regular pundits, and the public at large: Please stop with this nonsense of how Sandra Fluke should sue Rush Limbaugh. Because I swear to God, if you guys make me indirectly defend Limbaugh, I will wear you guys out like the dirty little sluts you are. [Politico]
* Which founding partner of a major law firm has abs of steel? [Dealbreaker]
* A ranking of top moot court programs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the schools that are best at moot court are the schools that spend the most time lying to their students about how there’s a single goddamn employer out there who cares about moot court. [TaxProf Blog]
* People think I hate cops, but I have nothing on Republicans in the Indiana House of Representatives. Those guys are such cop haters that they want to pass a law to make it okay to kill them if they enter your house. All I want is to be able to get away with saying “yo’ mama” if they try to falsely arrest you in your own home. [Recess Appointments]
* This legal assistant reminds me of what Lane Pryce might have said if he had been sacked for a job as a legal assistant. [Roll on Friday]
* Really, it’s the pro-death penalty crowd that wants us to be more like Communist China. [A Public Defender]
* Congratulations to the new leaders at Ms. JD. [Ms. JD]
* Michigan man sues movie theater for overpriced snacks. He’s not suing for amount they charge to see movies over the past atrocious season, he just wants to spend less while he’s sucking down Goobers and watching them. (One quick side note on the Oscars ’cause I was sick last week: F*** you, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Maybe they should re-release Margin Call with Zach Quinto replaced by a French mime so you guys might notice something at least 1% of this country cares about.) [Huffington Post]
* Speaking of presidents, the Arizona and Michigan primary elections are today. I know folks on the coast often don’t pay too much attention to those middle-of-the-country states, but it will be interesting to see what the Illegal Immigration State and Crippled American Auto State have to say about our ragtag bunch of Republican presidential candidates. [New York Times]
* Emails published yesterday by Wikileaks appear to show that certain Pakistani military intelligence knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding in the months before Seal Team Six raided his garrison and killed him. I hope Wikileaks has juicier material in the pipeline? [Telegraph (U.K.)]
* Congratulations to Tony West, who will become acting associate attorney general, the No. 3 post in the Justice Department. [Chicago Tribune]
* Interesting report on tensions between the White House and the NSA, which has tried to get permission to monitor private web activity, perhaps at the expense of privacy. But Google knows everything you do on your computer, so why shouldn’t the government? [Washington Post]
Some people believe that attending a “top 14″ law school will magically guarantee you a job. If that’s the case, why are so many “T14″ law students trying to force their way into law offices?
Or, to be more precise, law school offices. A few months ago, we wrote about a UVA law student who was charged with breaking and entering. The space in question: the registrar’s office. The police alleged that the student might have been trying to steal transcript paper.
Could that have been the beginning of a trend? Over the holiday weekend, two students at another leading law school were arrested after an alleged break-in….
This is the preferred currency to induce drunk college girls to flash you.
Hey ladies, next time you are tipsy, need a ride, and can’t find a cab, just hail a cop. If you are pretty, he might just pick you up and take you anywhere you want to go, provided you flash him your boobs, of course (duh).
There is a bizarre story coming out of Central Michigan University that seems to be right at the nexus of abusive police power and drunk co-eds.
I’m siding girls, but I’m not sure the cop should have to go to jail for five years for pulling a TOGTFO move….
Mountain Dew: a mouse could not survive in this environment, according to PepsiCo counsel.
* Pepsi lawyers offer a creative (if disturbing) defense to a lawsuit by a man who claims he found a mouse in his Mountain Dew. [Madison County Record via The Atlantic Wire]
* Jamin Soderstrom, a (rather cute) former S&C associate and current Fifth Circuit clerk, has written a book (affiliate link) analyzing the qualifications of presidential candidates and the relationship between résumés and presidential success. [Tex Parte Blog]
* If you’re a law professor / blogger who wants to get a rise out of fellow profs, write posts in praise of Paul Campos (just voted our 2011 Lawyer of the Year — congrats again, Professor Campos). [PrawfsBlawg]
– Roland Davenport, a Michigan solo practitioner, commenting on the sad state of Santa Claus couture during the holiday season. Davenport, who attended what he calls “the Harvard of Santa Claus schools,” has been dressing up as Santa and performing at holiday parties for the past eight years.
Davenport’s real, white beard and $750 red suit are considered prestigious by the competition, and his Santa retainer reflects it.
Michigan Law School, a state school, charges $46,586 per year in tuition. It then conservatively expects students to incur another $18K-plus in living expenses to bring the price tag for one year’s worth of a Michigan legal education to $64,716 for in-state residents. That prices out to $194,148 for the full three years, and that’s assuming that Michigan doesn’t raise tuition while you are there.
And Michigan is one of the few places that can, more or less, claim that it’s worth it. To be sure, it’s not worth it for all the students. Remember, Louisville Law Dean Jim Chen just told us that people need to make three to six times their law school’s yearly tuition in annual salary if they go to school on loans and want to one day be financially sound homeowners. Some Michigan grads are banking upwards of $279,516, but certainly not all.
Still, one would expect a significant amount of that high tuition goes toward making Michigan Law what it is, and keeping the professional opportunities rolling for Michigan graduates.
Apparently, keeping Michigan Law what it is involves paying Michigan Law Dean Evan Caminker quite a tidy sum….
* Close, but no cigar? The ABA has updated the way that it will collect graduate employment and salary data from law schools, but the new method could still use a few tweaks. [National Law Journal]
* British barristers behaving badly: Kevin Steele, a former Mishcon de Reya partner, was convicted of fraud and forgery charges in connection with a $28M loan scam. They don’t serve tea and crumpets in jail. [Legal Week]
* Joshua Monson, the serial defense attorney stabber, was in court yesterday for sentencing. Still no word on whether he was wheeled in on a Hannibal Lecter-esque gurney to prevent more stabby behavior. [CNN]
* No, Ophelia, when you’re a transgender prisoner in Virginia, the state is not going to pay for your sex change operation, no matter how many courts you appeal to. [Houston Chronicle]
* Will Rima Fakih, 2010′s Miss USA, have to do jail time in Michigan for reportedly being a “super-drunk”? Check back after we get the results from the swimsuit competition. [MLive.com]
Remember Venus Springs? She’s the former Mayer Brown associate who alleged discrimination and filed a Title VII complaint against the firm after being fired in September 2008. Well, she’s back, and she’s brought a whole new lawsuit to the table.
So, who is Springs suing this time, and what are her allegations? We’ll give you that information, plus the details of the benchslap associated with her latest case, after the jump….
What does it mean to be “newly admitted?” To us, it means endless possibilities!
We recognize that you already possess the ability and intelligence to succeed in a variety of legal professions. Our job is to expose you to various practice areas in a way that ensures those very attributes are successfully applied. Our seasoned and successful faculty present unique programs that provide an approachable and practical understanding of the avenues of achievement available as you launch a fruitful, enjoyable and promising career.
Our Live Bridge the Gap weekends satisfy the entire year of New York Newly-Admitted CLE Credits in only two days!
After physically attending a full weekend, you will receive:
• 3.0 Ethics CLE credits,
• 6.0 Skills CLE credits, and
• 7.0 Professional Practice and/or Law Practice Management CLE credits
Date: Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9, 2013 Time: 9:00 a.m. – 4:35 p.m. (EST) Location:
55 Exchange Place
5th Floor
New York, NY 10006
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
When we crowned the University of Michigan Law School as our Most Honest Law School, my colleague Elie Mystal chalked it up to their good, old Midwestern values. But just a few weeks after winning our March Madness competition, Michigan Law actually did something really honest — the school released all of its employer statistics for the classes of 2009 – 2011 (not to mention that it was the first elite law school to release its 2010 NALP report to Law School Transparency). Now if that’s not transparent, then we really don’t know what is. 
