Student Debt

Maybe claiming undue hardship isn't as impossible as it seems, if you truly have no hope...

Should you care about a "best value" list that was made by using incorrect data?

Should this law student take a year off from school? Your editors debate -- and you can vote in our reader poll.

A federal judge calls for systemic change in the law school student loan system...

* In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate. Putting politics aside, this is a great pick, if only because Ryan is so handsome. Seriously, he’s a total stud. [Wall Street Journal]

* “How can I be the one guy with a good degree who is going to be chronically unemployed?” Sadly, many lawyers are still looking for jobs after (multiple) layoffs, but thanks to a lack of positions, employment is just “not in the cards” for them. [New York Times]

* Deadliest clerkship? The Washington, D.C. judge who presided over one of the most violent mass shooting cases in the nation’s capital was reportedly held up at gunpoint last week, with her law clerk in tow. [Fox DC]

* Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Texas. Judge Sam Sparks “know[s] the smell of bad fish,” and now wants to know why the USADA waited so long to bring charges against Lance Armstrong. [Bloomberg]

* After reversing a bankruptcy court’s decision that loan repayment would be an “undue hardship” for a law-school debtor, a judge took the time to rip law schools a new one over escalating tuition. [Oregonian]

* Match.com class-action plaintiffs found no love in court after a federal judge ruled that the dating website hadn’t breached its user agreement. Much like their love lives, their claims aren’t getting any action. [Reuters]

* A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client: 23% of all cases filed in the federal court for the S.D.N.Y. are brought by pro-se litigants, and the vast majority of them seem to have lost their minds. [New York Post]

Which law schools have reported inaccurate figures for their graduates' average indebtedness?

The student speaker at Cooley Law's graduation offers an... interesting perspective...

* Dewey know how much Stephen Horvath has made since D&L went belly up at the end of May? Thus far, he’s raked in $190K, and that just covers his pay through the end of June. That’s only $1.97M a year, no big deal. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* You might not be able to get a full-time job in this economy, but if you’re a contract attorney with foreign-language skills, you’ll probably be able to land some pretty sweet Biglaw firm gigs, even if you’re just doing doc review. [Wall Street Journal]

* Did the NCAA overstep its legal boundaries when sanctioning Penn State? At least one sports law professor thinks so, and he actually wishes that the school had challenged the scope of the sports organization’s authority. [CNN]

* Wait, female Senate aides in Minnesota can have affairs with their superiors and get away with it, while male aides get fired for doing the same exact thing? That’s blatant sexism, and you should totally sue. [ABC News]

* Rather than be “super boring,” this would-be Senator has dubbed herself “the diva of the district.” We know all about the Touro Law student who’s running for New York Senate. We’ll have more on this later. [POLITICO]

* Law school debtor Jason Bohn was arraigned on first-degree murder charges, and entered a not-guilty plea. According to his attorney, Bohn apparently suffers from “extreme emotional disturbance.” [New York Post]

* Know your rights? If you’re accused of hit-and-run and vehicular assault charges, it’s always a great idea to cry, repeatedly ask if you’re under arrest, and tell everyone that you’re a law student. [Spokesman-Review]

* Well, this is graphic: the trials and tribulations of a law student interning at a law firm and blogging about all of the hot lesbian action she’s getting, including encounters with a co-worker. [Daily Intel / New York Magazine]

You probably never thought that your student loans would be both financially and romantically ruinous, but as it turns out, young adults aren’t keen on getting into bed with six-figures of debt every night.

* Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one Supreme Court justice thinks that things will be back to normal at One First Street come the start of the next term, despite his colleagues’ loose lips. [National Law Journal]

* Hourly billing rates for associate are on the rise nationwide, while partner and counsel billing rates only saw modest bumps. Is Biglaw back in business, or is this just another “retention strategy”? [New York Law Journal]

* This is a really hard to believe newspaper headline: “Law firm recognizes employees have life outside of work.” Carlton Fields, what kind of gypsy voodoo magic spells are you casting? [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

* Another day, another editorial about the “irretrievably broken” state of legal education in our country. But the ABA admins needn’t worry their oblivious little heads, because people will keep applying. [New York Times]

* And in today’s disturbing law school debtor news, Jason Bohn’s charge was upgraded to first-degree murder after a DA announced via indictment that Bohn allegedly intended to torture his victim. [New York Post]

* “Quite frankly, these are the actions of a dirty old man.” You can look, but never lick: it’s not really a good thing when a judge uses a sentence like this to describe an attorney’s alleged client relations skills. [CBS News]

* For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball fraud game. Lenny Dykstra pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud among a potpourri of other felony counts, and he’ll now face up to 20 years in prison. [CNN]

* Canadian comes to America, goes into $100,000 worth of law school debt, and has no job. Mwahahaha, Canada, let’s see your superior health care system find a cure for that! [Globe and Mail] * Wait, you’re not supposed to take your baby along when you go to see a prostitute? Okay. Got it. See, that’s the kind of tip that isn’t in any of the Dr. Spock books. [Wave3] * Ben Bernanke can time travel… [Dealbreaker] * … While John Mara, owner of the WORLD CHAMPION New York Giants, simply revises history. [Forbes] * Alan Dershowitz received a “D” on his first legal writing assignment. Apparently, his Yale Law School professor, the great Guido Calebresi, told him, “You write like you’re having a conversation with your friends in Brooklyn,” and then helped him work on his technique. Little did Calebresi or Dershowitz know that writing like you’re having a conversation with friends could lead to a successful life as a legal blogger. Boy, did they miss out! [Yale Alumni Magazine] * Kenny Heitz, an Irell & Manella partner and former UCLA basketball champion, passed away. [Daily News] Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe foresaw the Obamacare Tax Holding, and we’ve got video evidence to prove it…. How Appealing pointed us to the link below. This will make Tribe’s Con Law class even harder to get into this fall. Remember HLSers, competing classmates can’t register if both their hands are broken:

Miami 2Ls will not have to pay a tuition hike, because the Dean promised them they wouldn't...

Wife of a 3L tries to stop her husband from being a total idiot...

The weird societies that emerge at strange law schools...

When it comes to law school, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sometimes you need to take a risk in order to reap the rewards.

Who is to blame for all of the problems in the legal profession? The answer might surprise you.

How can we fix the broken model of law school economics? Professor Brian Tamanaha has some ideas.

* It must stink to be out $150 trillion dollars thanks to MF Global. Not as much as it stinks being bats**t crazy, but still. [Dealbreaker] * Here’s another way of rating the effectiveness of law professors that has nothing to do with whether or not they are good at being law professors. [Tax Prof Blog] * Sports agent who seems to be a professional defendant. [Sports Money / Forbes] * Debt, but no degree, sounds tough. But it’s not always worse than more debt with a useless degree. [Washington Post] * Romney embraces a birther. [ABC News] * This is a beautiful day to live in Manhattan. [Hayden Planetarium]

If you can go to law school without incurring too much debt, it might be a good idea.

Paying off your debt all at once, in cash, and living the dream...