Student Loans

Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 05.14.14

* When people tell you that you can do anything with a law degree, they’re wrong. Sounds like… everything Elie writes. [Slate] * Student debt is dragging down the economy. Is today “every news outlet catches up with Elie Day”? [New York Times] * Everyone’s talking about the law student turned prostitute. What about the law professor who was a gigolo? [The Nota Bene] * Baker Hostetler lawyer leaving the law to start a gym. With any luck he’ll have a championship dodgeball team in no time. [Crain's Cleveland Business] * Just a reminder, there isn’t a “telling a university everything you’ve done for an oral history” privilege. [BBC] * An argument for Republicans to get serious about loosening the reins on technological innovation like the Republican Party of old. But that might require saying no to some billionaire donor, so that’s off the table. [The American Conservative] * Professor Will Baude pointed us to a fun new law professor blog from Professor Richard Re, soon to be of UCLA Law, with an even more fun title. Here he compares Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Schuette to Quidditch. [Re's Judicata] * A new show about law school. It’s supposedly about criminal law, but the trailer looks more like a professional responsibility fact pattern. [YouTube]

By Joe Patrice
Attorney Misconduct

Morning Docket: 04.30.14

* For the third year in a row, Skadden has topped the list of the Biglaw firms GCs love to pay, the firms with the best brands. Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins rounded out the top three. Congratulations! [PRWeb] * A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law yesterday, noting that it “only tenuously serve[d] the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud.” Ouch. Sorry about that, Scott Walker. [Bloomberg] * Hot on the heels of the release of the second annual ATL Law School Rankings, we’ve got a list of the law schools where graduates reportedly have the least amount of debt. We’ll have more on this news later today. [The Short List / U.S. News & World Report] * It was kind of like the night of the living dead in Oklahoma last night, where an execution was botched so badly the defendant attempted to rise up off the table. That must have been horrific. [New York Times] * Here’s an eligible bachelor alert: After being suspended from practice for six months for filming “upskirt” videos of women in public, this in-house lawyer has been reinstated. [Legal Intelligencer (reg. req.)] * Poor Justice Lori Douglas. Not only are her kinky S&M pictures floating around somewhere online, but the man who took them — her husband, Jack King — just died. RIP, good sir. [CTV Winnipeg News] * NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, a former Cravath lawyer, fouled L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling out of the league, but people are questioning whether his punishment was legal. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

By Staci Zaretsky
Facebook

Non-Sequiturs: 04.17.14

* Cheerios is claiming that “Liking” them on Facebook constitutes a waiver of the right to sue. Let’s take this moment to encourage everyone to Like Above the Law on Facebook. [NY Times] * New study determines that the United States is an oligarchy instead of a democracy. You're telling me a government explicitly founded on the principle that only a handful of wealthy men should have a voice grew into an oligarchy? Quelle surprise! * Oh look, John Edwards is back. [Slate] * In the continuing saga of NYU’s allegedly shady spending, there are now reports that former NYU Law Dean and current NYU President John Sexton used school funds to convert two apartments into a duplex for his son. His son was married to an NYU Law employee and as I’ve said before, a school located in housing-scarce Manhattan should be able to do something to house professors, but as they say, “the optics” aren’t good. [Chronicle of Higher Education] * Musings on what it’s like to clerk in the midst of “flyover country” (presumably like my early childhood home of Des Moines). It makes a valiant effort to redeem itself at the end, but this article is exactly why most parts of the country think New Yorkers are elitist dicks. Which, we kind of are, but you don’t want to broadcast that. [Ramblings on Appeal] * The government is profiting handsomely from law students. Is that really a bad thing? [Law & Economics Prof Blog] * A D.C. law professor is now a movie star. [Washington City Paper] * The judge in the New Orleans Affordable Housing case may know the real identity of one of the anonymous commenters in the case. And if one of the anonymous trolls was a federal prosecutor poisoning the well in the case — like everyone suspects — it could aid the defense. [Times-Picayune] * For those of you across the pond, there’s a one-day event for lawyers on the business case for Corporate Social Responsibility. It’s in England because American companies have already passed on the idea of corporate responsibility. [International Law Society]

By Joe Patrice
Biglaw

Morning Docket: 04.03.14

* Dentons still has the urge to merge with a U.S. firm, and now it’s trying to tempt Patton Boggs away from Squire Sanders with a “serious overture.” Bow chika bow wow. [The Lawyer] * Despite all the outrage over Albany Law’s faculty buyouts, some have already accepted the package offered. Looks like anything’s possible for the right price. [Albany Business Review] * Guess which law school is cutting tuition by a whole lot? Some hints: it’s in New York and it’s been selling off real estate. We’ll have more on this later. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)] * Perhaps this could be considered a gift of provisional accreditation: Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Attorney General in President George W. Bush’s administration, is now dean at Belmont Law. [The Tennessean] * Take a look at this new paper by Professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld on race and culture in law school admissions. Actually, it’s fake, but it’s sad that it could, in theory, be very real. [Washington Post] * Zac Efron is going to star as a Yale Law grad forced by criminals to work in the world’s largest Biglaw firm in a film adaptation of John Grisham’s book, The Associate. OMG, he’s so cute. [Hollywood Reporter] * Our thoughts go out to the families of those wounded and killed during the Fort Hood shooting. [AP]

By Staci Zaretsky