They took on six figures of (non-dischargeable) debt to go to law school, and now they hang their laundry in the street.
Most installments of Lawyerly Lairs, our inside look at the nests of legal eagles, involve residences (and occasionally offices) of utter fabulosity. Just look at our latest Lairs: a $5.9 million apartment on Park Avenue, a $4.6 million prewar coop on the Upper East Side, and a $1.7 million penthouse on the Upper West Side.
We realize that most Americans, or even most lawyers, don’t live in such luxury. And we’re interested in learning about how the other half lives. If you’d like to have your home featured in Lawyerly Lairs, even if it isn’t a million-dollar mansion, feel free to email us, subject line “Lawyerly Lairs.” (If you’re trying to sell your home, send us the listing; exposure to Above the Law’s large audience could be beneficial.)
We’ll get the 99 percent ball rolling with a look at two current law students who braved the brutal renters’ market here in New York. What school do they attend, and how did their hunt turn out?
Continue reading “Lawyerly Lairs: The 99 Percent Edition”
The faculty at NYU Law are our poster children for law professors who lazily reuse old exams, instead of ripping themselves away from their largely unread law review articles long enough to write a new issue spotter.
Apparently, the school really likes being on that poster. Despite the fact that we’ve been highlighting this issue at the school since at least 2009, the faculty continues to use old exams. Students who find them enjoy an unfair advantage over students who are not skilled in the art of internet sleuthing. In fact, it seems NYU Law doesn’t even have a fully thought-out policy regarding exam reuse.
It must be a great life. Every time an NYU Law prof reuses an old exam (to the outrage of students), I have to write an entirely new post — even though the underlying issues of laziness and disregard for student concerns are the same. But if I were employed by NYU, I wouldn’t even have to go through the motions, I could just take the most recent post I wrote decrying the NYU Law faculty doing this, change the dates, and go back to watching the Australian Open on television. Does anybody know if NYU is hiring?
Actually, the latest example really is deserving of its own post. Because this time an NYU Law Vice Dean got into the mix and exposed a disturbing lack of understanding about the problem…
Continue reading “At NYU Law, Using The Same Exam Three Times In A Row Is Apparently Not A Problem”
Stephen Gillers
The lawsuit is doomed. The antitrust argument seems to be that the A.B.A. is limiting the number of law schools. But there are 200 A.B.A.-approved law schools, so if the council’s secret agenda is to limit competition, it’s doing a lousy job.
– Stephen Gillers, New York University law professor and legal ethics expert, commenting on Duncan Law’s chances of prevailing in its antitrust lawsuit against the ABA.
It’s that time of the year again. No, we’re not talking about the Above the Law holiday party, which happened already. Or the ATL holiday card contest, which is now underway.
It’s time for celebration of a different sort — time to celebrate, and congratulate, the latest class of Skadden Fellows. The winners of these prestigious public interest fellowships were just announced, as they are every December.
As explained in the Skadden Fellowship Foundation’s press release, the 28 new fellows are graduating law students or judicial law clerks who are devoting their careers to public interest work. They’ll be working for organizations located in nine states and the District of Columbia, “focusing on issues ranging from the health and safety of low-wage immigrant workers in California to representing Russian-speaking victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking in New York.”
(Baby Jesus would be proud of what they do. Unless they work for the ACLU and try to ruin his birthday.)
Who are the Skadden fellows for 2012? Which law schools produced the most fellows? And what’s different about this year’s program compared to past years?
Continue reading “Congratulations to the 2012 Skadden Fellows”
How hard is it to write an exam for a course you’ve taught all semester? Seriously, tell me, how hard is it? On a scale of one to ten — ten involving programing a rocket ship, one somewhere around putting on pants in the morning — where does formulating a law school exam rate? A two? Maybe three if you are teaching the course for the first time?
It cannot possibly be so hard that you have to use the same exam over and over again, in the digital age. We’re not talking about something as complicated as the wheel. A law school exam can be reinvented, every year, with subtle and simple changes.
Using the exact same exam is just lazy. There’s no other word for it. LAZY. The high cost of law school is largely attributed to the hefty salaries of law school faculty. The least these people can do is write a novel exam each and every semester that they teach.
And yet during this finals period alone, we’ve got students from three law schools, including two law schools in the top ten, alleging that their professors couldn’t be bothered to come up with fresh exams for this year’s students….
Continue reading “Stop Reusing Your Old Exams, You LAZY Law School Professors!”
Ya ni panimayou?
* Time to separate the men from the boys (but don’t tell Sandusky). An accuser has hired Jeff Anderson of clergy sex abuse fame, and he wants damages. [Wall Street Journal]
* RajRaj is trying to stay out of jail. He thinks he’s got a shot at getting his Galleon convictions vacated, but he’s probably got a better shot at curing diabetes. [New York Law Journal]
* And speaking of Galleon, lawyers, take note: “you don’t get a pass.” Ex-Ropes & Gray attorney Brien Santarlas was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday. [Bloomberg]
* Emory Law has invented a new way to throw loan money in the garbage. At the bargain basement price of $45K, how could you resist? [National Law Journal]
* Twenty people have been charged with luring illegal, eastern European beauties to work in New York strip clubs. Prepare for some new job listings from the NYU Law career services office. [CNN]
The voting for the best legally themed Halloween costume was close this year.
Very close.
The contest pitted a group against a couple. It pitted NYU Law against the University of Minnesota Law School — Big City v. Heartland. And when all the votes were counted, the final margin was seven votes, out of over 2,400 votes cast!
Should we have a run-off? Hell no! This isn’t youth soccer. The votes are final and winner takes all. Let’s see who gets the coveted Above the Law t-shirt(s)….
Continue reading “2011 Legally Themed Halloween Costume Contest Winner”
Oh Halloween, a time when the keenest minds have an opportunity to dress up as obscure legal concepts that will baffle their friends.
But not Above the Law readers. Oh, we get the jokes, all the jokes. Which is probably a little sad….
Continue reading “Legally Themed Halloween Costume Contest: 2011″
Elie's therapy dog.
Has law school gotten so bad that law students really need therapy dogs as standard issue on campus? I mean, therapy dogs are for disabled people or old people who need some company before they die.
Monty, the Yale Law School therapy dog, was a cute story we wrote about a while ago. But that was just for fun.
Is the mental beating that people take in law school really so bad that they need a furry friend to soothe them?
Perhaps so, because now schools that aren’t even ranked as highly as Yale want their own therapy dogs….
Continue reading “All Dogs Go to Law School?”
NYU Law School seems to have a problem with graffiti. Hate graffiti. Last year, NYU had to bring in the NYPD hate crimes task force to deal with somebody who scrawled “damn orthodox jews” in the main NYU Law building.
This year, there’s been another incident of hateful graffiti at the law school. Honestly, I don’t know why the kids can’t keep this stuff on the 6 train where it belongs. Or maybe they should be tagging up some phat outlines instead of defacing their school.
Apparently this graffiti was anti-gay and directed at one specific student….
Continue reading “NYU Students Should ‘Tag’ Their Resumes, Not Their Hallways”
In case I haven’t said this already, welcome back, law students. When you guys are gone over the summer, we have to report on real scandals and real issues.
But now that you guys are back on campus, it’s time to fire up the “dumb law student story” machine.
NYU Law, you’re up first….
Continue reading “NYU Law: SBA President v. Treasurer v. Decorum v. Things Law Students Care About”
Judge Ginsburg: back to school.
* Judge Douglas Ginsburg (D.C. Cir.) is taking senior status and joining the NYU Law faculty. Query how this will affect his feeding (and no, we’re not talking about New York versus D.C. restaurants). [The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times]
* “Two Examples of Things Not to Say When You’re at Your Local IRS Office.” [Going Concern]
* Speaking of efficiency-challenged government entities, how can the U.S. postal service be fixed? Professor Gerard Magliocca floats some ideas. [Concurring Opinions]
Madonna: going to court.
* Should you rinse religion from your résumé? Reflections from Professor Paul Horwitz. [PrawfsBlawg]
* The Material Girl is going to trial — over the trademark to “Material Girl.” [Fashionista]
* It’s not just law schools that are getting sued for fraud; it’s happening to art schools too. [PetaPixel]
* Elsewhere in litigation land, Quinn Emanuel is making bank — by suing banks. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* What’s the deal with high-frequency trading algorithms? Fear not; the SEC is on the case. [Dealbreaker]
This year, we’ve heard a few horror stories from the poor and downtrodden students of NYU Law School –- and that is not the way we’d usually characterize these students.
But when the recession hit, NYU Law’s students were hit even harder. Some 3Ls were unemployed; so unemployed that Barrister’s Ball tickets had to be subsidized. Some 3Ls were so poor that they can’t afford black market commencement tickets. Holla! Livin’ in squala!
How could the school better use student tuition dollars to avoid these problems in the future? How could the school improve its students’ quality of life? These circumstances were likely difficult for the school’s administration to address, so it seems that they decided not to address them at all.
Instead, the school did this:
Yep, NYU Law bought a $3.5 million condo in the West Village….
Continue reading “Tuition Dollars Hard at Work: A Palatial Pad for NYU Law Profs”
Are tickets to law school commencement like organs? Or babies?
They’re not as necessary as organs, and they’re not as adorable as babies. But are graduation tickets, like organs and babies, so sacred that we should not allow them to be distributed through the free market?
(Some folks, like certain Chicago School law-and-economics types, think that we should be allowed to sell organs and/or babies. For better or worse, however, the rest of society hasn’t gone along with them.)
Let’s take a look at the commencement controversy brewing at one noteworthy law school….
Continue reading “Should There Be a Market in Law School Commencement Tickets?”
We started taking submissions for our third annual Law Revue Video Contest way back in March. It’s taken us so long to review the videos because we’ve had scheduling challenges with our special, returning, awesome guest judge. As you’d already know if you follow Above the Law on Twitter, editor emerita Kashmir Hill has returned to her ATL roots, to pass judgment on the funny videos submitted by our wonderful readers.
This year, 25 law schools submitted nearly 30 videos for the contest. Some of them were entertaining, others excruciating less so.
We’ll start with the latter. If we may paraphrase The Simpsons: other legal blogs reward knowledge, Above the Law punishes ignorance.
Aww… just kidding. We really just want to give shout-outs to as many law schools as we can. And we figure the students who submitted these clips are grown adults who won’t mind some gentle ribbing.
Of course, if you submitted a video we’ve singled out for dishonorable mention, you might want to whip out the Astroglide before you read the comments, just to make sure the ribbing feels gentle enough. Your three ATL editors aren’t that harsh, but we can’t speak for the commenters….
Continue reading “Law Revue Video Contest: Dishonorable Mentions”
It’s a familiar refrain around these parts: it’s tough to find legal employment, unless you got into one of the top law schools. The prevailing wisdom is that students at the “best” (i.e., highest-ranked) law schools have been protected from the recession-dampened job market facing recent graduates of most American law schools. “HYS” (Harvard, Yale, Stanford), “CCN” (Columbia, Chicago, NYU) — these law schools are thought to be safe bets for people who would like to be employed upon graduation.
But are they?
We know that things aren’t as bad for students at top schools as they are for people attending schools that are not ranked as highly by U.S. News. But that doesn’t mean a degree from a “T6″ school parts the jobless sea and leads graduates to the promised land of gainful employment.
In fact, at this late date in the law school calendar, we know that there are 3Ls at great schools staring into the abyss of post-graduate unemployment. The proof comes from the charity that employed students are trying to extend to their unemployed brethren…
Continue reading “Evidence That Students At Top Schools Are Also Getting Crunched By The Weak Job Market”
Remember that ironic message about the versatility of a law degree?
Now we bring you an ironic message about the value of a law degree….
Continue reading “Ironic Message About the Value of a Law Degree”
Matthew Kluger aka Big Gay Matt
“Aww, Matt, why do you have to go around giving us a bad name?”
Ever since Matthew Kluger was charged in a massive insider trading case, involving an alleged conspiracy that spanned 17 years and generated more than $32 million in profit, the foregoing question could be asked by many groups: Cornell grads, NYU law grads, Cravath lawyers, Skadden lawyers, and Wilson Sonsini lawyers.
Tonight we can add more groups to the list: Fried Frank lawyers, and gays — specifically, gay dads.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier tonight, Matt Kluger worked at yet another major law firm: Fried Frank. After he was fired by the firm in 2002, he sued, claiming that partners there discriminated against him because he’s gay — and a father of three, with parenting responsibilities.
Just when you thought this case couldn’t get any weirder, it just did. Matthew Kluger is gay. And a dad. With three kids. Thanks for sending America such a positive image of LGBT parents, Matt!
Let’s take a closer look at Kluger’s suit against Fried Frank — and additional details about Matt Kluger’s complicated personal life, gleaned from ATL tipsters….
Continue reading “Matt Kluger, Ex-Biglaw Associate Charged With Insider Trading, Is A Gay Dad — and Once Sued Fried Frank Over It”
Matthew Kluger
There’s no contest today for Lawyer of the Day honors. The clear winner is Matthew Kluger, a former associate at three leading law firms, who has been charged in a massive insider trading case. Kluger stands accused of reaping more than $32 million in profit over the course of a 17-year conspiracy, which also allegedly involved a trader, Garrett Bauer. (Kluger and Bauer might not be as big as Raj Rajaratnam, who’s pretty hefty, but their supposed scheme is nothing to scoff at.)
The charges were filed by Paul Fishman, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey (disclosure: my former office). Fishman claims that Matt Kluger passed along insider information that eventually made its way, via an unnamed co-conspirator, to Garrett Bauer, who traded on it. According to the complaint, Kluger and Bauer invested more than $109 million in the scheme, which yielded profits of more than $32.2 million.
Where did Kluger allegedly obtain the inside information? From the three Biglaw firms where he once worked on M&A deals….
Continue reading “Ex-Associate at Three Top Firms Charged With Massive Insider Trading”
