Tenure

Morning Docket: 04.30.13

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Just married civil unioned!

* Underneath this jurist’s robe you’ll find a sling. Justice Stephen Breyer had to have shoulder replacement surgery this weekend thanks to his latest bike accident, but he’s expected to make a full recovery. [Associated Press]

* A Ninth Circuit judge has ruled that an assistant federal public defender and her wife are entitled to federal health benefits. Take that, DOMA. [Courthouse News Service]

* Judy Clarke, one of the nation’s best capital defense lawyers, will be joining Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s legal team. She’s pretty good at keeping people alive, but we’ll see how this one goes for her. [Bloomberg]

* The ABA may do away with faculty tenure requirements for accreditation. No security of position? It looks like there’s a storm coming, law professors, so go get your bread and milk! [National Law Journal]

* Prospective law students are being counseled to take advantage of the smaller applicant pool, but it won’t look so small when they can’t get jobs. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* “Gay marriage? Hell no, let’s make all marriages civil unions.” Minnesota senators want to put couples on an even playing field — one that isn’t recognized by the government. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.29.13

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* The saddest thing about prisons getting rated on Yelp is owning the bar down the street with fewer stars. [Simple Justice]

* Sending “LOL totes glty” is a bad idea. [IT-Lex]

* The chief of the Brooklyn DA’s gang bureau probably should have spent more time with the civil rights bureau. [NY Post]

* People don’t really pay attention to the U.S. News Best Intellectual Property Program rankings — though it’d help if they did. [Science to Law]

* UNLV’s Nancy Rapoport thinks law schools are no better than Enron. That sounds about right. [TaxProf Blog]

* When it comes to the Boston bombings, Logan Beirne answers, “What would George Washington do?” [Reuters]

* Tenure has put a crimp in the ability of law schools to excel in the ranking system that considers publication. [Ramblings on Appeal]

* Kickstarter plug: A progressive Yale student took a year off to make a documentary about a conservative activist group, the Tennessee 9-12 Project, to show civility and respect. [Kickstarter]

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.31.12

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Oh my god, he’s got a gun!

* Interim SLU Law Dean Tom Keefe said he’s nobody’s “butt boy.” Will that change if Father Lawrence Biondi succeeds in eliminating tenure? Your move, Keefe. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

* Defending one’s right to carry an AK-47 around a park is kind of like defending your right to drink milkshakes and eat waffle fries until your heart explodes. There’s no f**king point, other than really wanting to show you can. Except that milkshakes are delicious. Guns, not so much. [FindLaw]

* A penny saved is a penny earned grounds for a huge lawsuit. [Daily Business Review]

* Japan said Samsung didn’t infringe on Apple’s patents. Woooo. Three different Apple v. Samsung cases down, 10 million more countries to go. [Ars Technica]

* The TSA should seriously come out and say they just want to see us naked. Then at least we’d all be on the same page. [Threat Level / Wired]

* Ms. Spanjer, yeeeah, we’re sorry but you’re going to have to change your son’s name. As you’re probably aware, he’s deaf. I know, so sad. He’s a wonderful child, but when he signs his name, it looks like a gun. And, obviously, we have no tolerance for violence at this pre-school. [Jonathan Turley]

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Law Professor Basically Tells Student to Stop Being Such a Whiny Little Person

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Yesterday we received an email with the following subject line: “the problem with tenure.” Now, I actually think that this tip illustrates the problem with law students and the classic awesomeness of tenure, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

What we can at least agree on is that we have a story about a law professor executing a stern, verbal smackdown of a law student who tried to go over the professor’s head to complain.

Let this just be a reminder to everybody that they need to respect the chain of command….

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ABA Takes on Law Schools… Over Tenure

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Is the American Bar Association going to deal with the unmitigated proliferation of law schools? No. Will the ABA deal with overflow of lawyers entering the profession at a time when few well-paying legal jobs seem to be available? No. Will the organization seriously address the rising cost of legal education? Not really.

Instead, the ABA committee on law school accreditation wants to take a look at tenure. The National Law Journal reports:

Should the American Bar Association require law schools to maintain a tenure system?

The committee reviewing the ABA’s accreditation standards doesn’t think so. It has floated a proposal that would eliminate the term “tenure” from the ABA standards covering job security and academic freedom. The committee also wants to kill a requirement that law schools provide clinical faculty members with job protections similar to those enjoyed by full-time professors.

Excuse me, I’m gonna need to throw my coffee cup at something…

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