Royal Furgeson Jr.

  • Morning Docket: 10.04.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.04.17

    * Two-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will travel to Wales next weekend to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Swansea University, but that’s not the only honor she’ll receive while there. Swansea’s law school is being renamed, and will soon be known as the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law. Congratulations! [Wales Online]

    * Special counsel Robert Mueller has added an appellate lawyer from the Justice Department’s criminal division to his team. Per a spokesperson, Scott Meisler, who had not been previously identified as being involved, joined the effort in mid-June. Meisler is a 2005 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. [Reuters]

    * Winston & Strawn may have more than 900 lawyers, but according to the firm’s managing partner, that’s still not good enough. You can soon expect the firm’s corporate transactions practice in New York to expand, its D.C. office to grow in size, and its West Coast presence to double or triple. [Big Law Business]

    * According to Altman Weil’s MergerLine, law firm mergers are now on pace to break a 2015 record. Thus far in 2017, 76 tie-ups have been announced, which may lead the industry to surpass its previous high of 91 mergers. The number of law firm combinations could even exceed 100 this year. Exciting times… [Am Law Daily]

    * Retired U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson Jr. will be retiring as founding dean of the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law as of June 30, 2018. Why is Furgeson planning to retire with only five years as dean under his belt? He’s almost 76, and “plan[s] to do a lot of things when [he’s] 80 — but not this job.” [Law.com]

  • Morning Docket: 08.11.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.11.16

    * “Could a firm with a different business model suffer, potentially, if they don’t match the $180,000? Maybe.” Law firms may be competing for fewer students than in years prior thanks to decreased law school enrollment, but Biglaw’s new starting salary scale doesn’t seem to have made a big impact on the summer associate applicant pool — at most schools, OCI participation has held steady or risen only slightly since last year. [Law.com]

    * “Are you listening? He just flat out lied. … [I]t could be bad.” In a text message that was included in a federal court filing earlier this week, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie claimed that the governor lied when he told the media none of his staff knew about a plan to block George Washington Bridge traffic. Uh-oh! [New York Times]

    * “We’ll tell the council that there’s a giant need for affordable law schools like us, and we’re going to meet that need.” After learning it was unlikely his school would receive accreditation due to students’ poor qualifications, Dean Royal Furgeson Jr. of UNT Dallas Law shrugged it off, saying the school would “get a fair hearing.” [ABA Journal]

    * Robert Schulman, a former partner at Hunton & Williams, has been indicted for allegedly trading on insider information ahead of Pfizer’s $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals, a client he represented in 2010 while at the firm. He, along with his investment adviser, will face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. [Big Law Business]

    * Yet another Biglaw firm has partnered with a financial company to assist its attorneys with their law school debt. Miller Canfield is working with Social Finance (SoFi) to provide loan refinancing options to the firm’s associates to help “ease the financial burden” of their heavy six-figure debt loads. [Grand Rapids Business Journal]

    * “They’re being terribly exploited.” Lichten and Bright, a New York labor law firm, has contacted hundreds of UFC fighters in an effort to unionize them and help get them benefits that other sports unions share, like health insurance, pensions, and the ability to negotiate the terms of their contracts with the mixed martial arts giant. [MMA Junkie]