As applications fall, some law schools have been increasing their recruitment of minority students -- and columnist Shannon Achimalbe is torn about these efforts.
If you're thinking about applying to law school, try answering these questions from columnist Shannon Achimalbe -- which might motivate you to study harder or to reconsider applying.
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* This would-be POTUS can't jump? Ted Ruger, Penn Law's new dean, used to hang out with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz during law school, and he'd "like to think that [their] legal skills far exceeded [their] mediocre basketball skills." [Philadelphia Inquirer] * Why do we still need law schools considering the crisis in the legal academy? Please allow Noah Feldman of Harvard Law -- an unbiased law professor -- to explain why "law school is absolutely essential -- not for lawyers with clients, but for our society as a whole." [Bloomberg View] * Apparently there's some major drama going down with regard to which attorneys will argue the same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court. It seems that no one wants to give up their 15 minutes of fame before the high court. Sigh. [National Law Journal] * These days, law schools are looking at more than their applicants' GPAs and LSAT scores. Prospective law students now need to be "well-rounded and involved." For what it's worth, not minding going into debt is a helpful trait, too. [Omaha World-Herald] * Another day, another gender bias lawsuit in Silicon Valley: This time around, Tina Huang, a female software engineer who used to work for Twitter, is alleging that the company's secret promotion process bypasses women and favors men. [CNET]
* Per a recent study, the class of 2010 is still screwed when it comes to securing work as attorneys. There are plenty of would-be lawyers working in "tennis instruction, office management, lingerie sales, and pest control." [WSJ Law Blog] * Law schools may be admitting less qualified students, but when the bar exam results are bad, it's obviously the bar exam's fault. Is it even fair to make new lawyers have to pass a bar exam at all? We should have more on this bar exam backlash later today. [DealBook / New York Times] * Following layoffs in two other firms' litigation practices, McDermott Will & Emery is losing three of its top litigation partners. Two are expected to decamp to Paul Hastings, and one is abandoning ship for King & Spalding. Yikes! [Big Law Business / Bloomberg] * Law school applications are on the verge of hitting a 15-year low. Don't worry, cautions LSAC, because "the rate of decline [in applications] is slowing." Check out the sad (yet amazing) picture in the article and see if it makes you feel better. [Bloomberg Business] * Undergrads at Villanova got a crash course in how to pay for law school this week, and were hopefully scared straight when they found out the majority of law students take out loans and "typically accumulate around $100,000-$200,000 in debt." [The Villanovan]
* A ballsy decision dripping with prestige? It seems that a few too many students at Yale Law School requested access to their student admissions evaluation records under FERPA, so instead of handing them over, Yale deleted them. [New Republic]
* Here's some good news for women attorneys visiting clients in Massachusetts jails: you'll no longer be forced to lift up your shirt and shake out your bra if your underwire makes the metal detector go off. Instead, you'll get felt up a pat down. [Boston Globe]
* According to early data culled for the Am Law 100 rankings, from revenue to profits per partner to revenue per lawyer, Winston & Strawn posted record financial results in 2014. Perhaps the days of no-offers and layoffs are long gone for this firm. [Am Law Daily]
* Just because more people took the LSAT in February, it doesn't mean that the law school crisis is over. It does, however, mean that law school administrators may soon be wishcasting the year-over-year growth of their first-year classes. [National Law Journal]
* Rahul Gupta, the graduate student who used the tried and true "my girlfriend did it" defense during his trial for the fatal stabbing of a Georgetown Law student, was convicted on first-degree murder charges yesterday. He'll be sentenced on April 16. [WJLA]
You may be surprised by some of the schools that made the list…
* President Obama recently authorized a study into whether student loan debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy. For now, any changes made to the bankruptcy code will likely apply only to private loans, so it looks like many law school graduates won't be declaring bankruptcy any time soon. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)] * As we've mentioned numerous times in the past, the across-the-board drop in law school applications has inspired some law schools to do crazy things like shortening the length of time it takes to get a degree and lowering tuition. Hmm, more law schools should go crazy. [U.S. News & World Report] * In the wake of much criticism of its plan to eliminate the LSAT for some students to gain admission to Iowa Law, the school's dean offers an explanation: it'll help her school compete to attract students who would otherwise have gone to T14 schools. [The Gazette] * Even though law schools are in trouble, a legislator in Texas is still lobbying the state to subsidize the creation of a new law school in the Rio Grande Valley because he has a "hard time believing there are no jobs for attorneys out there." [Cleburne Times-Review] * If you find that law schools aren't reacting quickly enough to the crisis at hand, there are other options for you out there. While law schools implode as their tuition skyrockets, it seems that those who have fled the law are now trying to become engineers. [Quartz]