NYU Law School

NYU Law Dean To Step Down At The End Of the School Year

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Richard Revesz

Big news in the land of top law schools: NYU Law School Dean Richard Revesz will be stepping down from his position at the end of the academic year. Revesz most recently revamped NYU’s 3L curriculum. He leaves behind one of the best law schools in the nation (and some swanky faculty housing).

As David Lat just put it to me over Gchat, “Revesz has been there for ten years and he has seen it all — the boom and the bust of the legal profession.” As a current NYU student wrote to us, Revesz leaves “big shoes to fill, and I just hope that the next dean is just as successful at keeping our amazing professors here and attracting top-flight talent from other schools. His record on both counts has been superb.”

Despite its overall success, Ricky Revesz’s tenure was not without controversy. Let’s review some highlights (along with some UPDATES), after the jump….

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NYU Law Revamps 3L Year: This Pig’s Lipstick Has An International Flair

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My, NYU Law’s new 3L program sure looks pretty.

The third year of law school is an utterly useless waste of time that exists only to fatten the coffers of American law schools and we all know it. The vestigial human tail is more useful for climbing trees than 3L year is for career advancement.

Of course, the third year of law school is never going away, unless you think that law schools are in the business of giving away a third of their income just because it’s the right thing to do. Like the coccyx, it’s so integrated into the whole system that we can’t really just get rid of it. The ABA mandates it, and everybody loves it when their primary regulator requires an artificial price floor.

Today, NYU Law School is announcing an interesting solution to this problem that it has with taking money from students without teaching them anything useful: it’s going to try not teaching them anything at all! That’s right folks, NYU is “revamping” 3L year to give students more opportunities to study abroad. Because whenever you are gouging students for an additional year of education that nobody needs, you might as well make some other university actually deal with them for the year.

Oh, and this plan comes to you with the Cravath stamp of approval. So you know it’s very prestigious….

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Morning Docket: 10.17.12

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* Oh, by the way Dewey & LeBoeuf partners, the little contribution plan you signed that received court approval last week might not protect you from your former landlord’s claims for back rent. Hope you’ve all got an extra $45 million sitting in the bank. [Am Law Daily]

* Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson will finally get to claim her seat as chief justice of the state’s high court after official judicial recognition — on both the state and federal level — that the year 1994 does indeed come before 1995. [Bloomberg]

* No matter how hard law school administrators wish it were so, or how much they beg Jim Leipold of NALP, he’s never going to be able to describe the current entry-level legal job market as “good.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* NYU Law School is changing its third-year program in the hopes of making a “good” market materialize. If you ship students to foreign countries for class, maybe they’ll get jobs there. [DealBook / New York Times]

* “[W]e’re determined to do everything we can to help them find jobs and meaningful careers.” We bet Brooklyn Law’s dean is also determined to avoid more litigation about employment statistics. [New York Law Journal]

* Has the other shoe finally dropped? After the Second Circuit ruled that YSL could sell monochromatic shoes, the fashion house decided to drop its trademark counterclaims against Christian Louboutin. [Businessweek]

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Career Alternatives For Attorneys: Television Screenwriter

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There’s a lot of talk around these parts about the versatility — or lack thereof — of a law degree. In this kind of a legal job market, career services officers (and let’s face it, your own family) will continue to shout from the rooftops that you can do just about anything with a law degree.

That being said, while a J.D. degree won’t be of much help to you in, say, landscape architecture, it will be of great service to you if you’re able to land a writing gig on one of the most-watched legal dramedies on cable television.

How does one go from Biglaw to the front page of Funny or Die? Furthermore, how does one get a writer’s credit on a new hit series like The Newsroom? Let’s find out….

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Princeton Review Ranks The Law Schools With The Best Career Prospects

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Good news, everyone! Princeton Review — the other, other white meat U.S. News — has released its very own law school rankings. This year, we are treated to the Best 168 Law Schools Rankings. As usual, the rankings are divided into 11 categories filled with mostly nonsensical results. After all, where else will you find Cooley Law on a list for having the “Most Competitive Students”?

But nonetheless, in this kind of a down market, everyone’s been itching to see a rankings list of the law schools that will verily ensure graduates’ employability (except for the purposes of suing over employment statistics, of course). Honestly, why go to law school in the first place if as a result you’re only qualified to stock shelves at the local convenience store?

That’s why everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Princeton Review released its somewhat-ridiculous “Best Career Prospects” rankings list. Because any list that doesn’t include Yale is sure to be worth reading….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Solicitous

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Happy Friday, Legal Eagle Wedding Watchers! You’re in for a treat. This edition’s contestant couples have the whole package: true love, good looks, and enviable legal credentials. Prepare to be consumed with envy.

Administrative note: We’ll be finishing up the summer’s weddings in our next installment, so if there’s a wedding you think is a must-see, send us an e-mail or a tweet and call the announcement to our attention.

Without further ado, here are our finalists:

Lindsay Rosenthal and Joshua Klein

Jane Baker and Brian Burgess

Lilian Yip and Anthony Yang

Keep reading for more about these couples and to see a list of other recent lawyer nuptials….

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.01.12

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* The ABA is gearing up for its annual meeting in Chicago. I’ll note (with a lack of surprise) that I was not invited. [ABA Journal]

* At that meeting, the ABA will once again consider accrediting foreign law schools. American lawyers have shouted down this idea twice before, but if the ABA has a chance to screw over its constituents it simply must keep trying. [National Law Journal]

* Here, we see NYU’s Dean Richard Revesz defend the economic value of an “expensive” NYU Law degree without actually using any economic facts or statistics. [Constitutional Daily]

* Please tell me this Ted Cruz yahoo wackjob Republican Senatorial candidate isn’t going to become an ongoing part of my life. [Mother Jones]

* Only lawyers could complicate the word “shall” to the point that it loses all meaning. [Legal Blog Watch]

* I thought casinos killed you with the expensive gambling, not the free alcohol. [Overlawyered]

* Another positive review for Mark Hermann’s Inside Straight. [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]

* An interesting conversation with NYU professor David Garland about the death penalty. It won’t kill you to check it out. [Cruel and Unusual]

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Morning Docket: 07.26.12

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* “There’s no future in working for Dewey & LeBoeuf,” but maybe if the firm’s few remaining employees can hold on for a little while longer, then perhaps they’ll be able to take home some bonus cash. [Am Law Daily]

* Doctors in Arizona are trying to block part of a new law that makes it a crime for physicians to perform abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Well, somebody wasn’t paying attention in Con Law. [Bloomberg]

* All it took was an investigation by the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission to get this judge to change his tune and apologize for throwing a lawyer in jail for the crime of representing his client. [WZZM]

* What do recent law school grads think about Yale Law’s new Ph.D. program? Most aren’t willing to spend the time or money to “resolve [their] next career crisis by going back to school.” [U.S. News & World Report]

* Come on, you’re not the 99 percent. Clinic members from NYU Law and Fordham Law wrote a report criticizing the NYPD’s response to the Occupy Wall Street movement. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Wait, law schools are slow to adopt something that may benefit their students? What else is new? Corporate compliance classes are few and far between, even though they could get you a job. [WSJ Law Blog]

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Don’t Pee on My Leg

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Hey, did you guys know that Asian people sometimes marry Jewish people? No? Well, the New York Times has noticed, and they’re totally on it! Here’s the paper’s investigative masterpiece on Asian-Jewish intermixing, which manages a paragraph linking Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld to the Beastie Boys.

We await a hard-hitting NYT piece on the cultural implications of the WGWAG.

Meanwhile, it’s high wedding season for couples of all races and creeds. Here are three of the most outstanding:

Debra Elias and Seth Grossman

Ebonie Hazle and David Rochelson

Laurie Pila and Gregory Sheindlin

More on these couples, plus other lawyer weddings, after the jump….

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Quote of the Day: The Law Is Serious Business (Seriously)

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Chen Guangcheng

The fundamental question the Chinese government must face is lawlessness. China does not lack laws, but the rule of law.

– Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times. Guangcheng is currently studying law at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School.

(Keep reading to see how Guangcheng describes the lawless conduct he and his family have allegedly faced — at the hands of law enforcement — in his homeland.)

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