Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Comment of the Week: My Three Biggest Fears

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We’ve got some major news since our last installment of the Comment of the Week series: the first winner out of four rounds of the competition has claimed his prize. Congratulations again to guest9999999, who proved that at least one person reads these columns. I suppose we’ve got to cherish the small things in life.

This week, when choosing our top comment, we decided to go with one from a post that all of the Above the Law editors thought was pretty funny, but in the end, the topic apparently made our readers believe that I was even dumber than they had originally thought — as if such a thing were even humanly possible.

Of course, I’m talking about the Cooley Law shoeshiner post….

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Morning Docket: 06.15.12

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Now a dangerous weapon in MA.

* The first day of jury deliberations in the Rajat Gupta insider-trading case ended without a verdict. Benula Bensam’s boredom is epic — the poor girl can’t even blog about the trial anymore. [Bloomberg]

* Baker & McKenzie is celebrating its 50th year in Toronto, Canada by handing out spring bonuses luring in lateral hires. Welcome aboard to Kent Beattie, formerly of Slavies Davies. [Globe and Mail]

* You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape Sandusky’s love. Alleged Victim No. 9 testified that he screamed for help in vain while staying in the former coach’s allegedly “soundproof” basement. [CNN]

* It’s hard out here for a shoeshiner: Cooley Law grads suing their alma mater over allegedly misleading employment statistics may face an “uphill battle” when it comes to fraud allegations. [WSJ Law Blog]

* The CEO of Caesars Entertainment has proclaimed that he has “tremendous confidence” that online poker will become legal in the near future. So much for keeping your poker face on that one, eh? [MSN Money]

* Imagine my surprise when I found out that a yet another man in Springfield, MA, was arrested for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Here’s the surprise… the dangerous weapon was wasabi sauce. [TIME]

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Cooley Law Grad or Troll… Is There Even a Difference?
(C/O ’93 Grad Claims He’s Employed as a Shoeshiner)

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Yesterday, we brought you a story about Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s lack of interest in reducing its class sizes based on a “perceived benefit to society.” If you haven’t been paying attention, that “perceived benefit” could mean improved employment opportunities for Cooley Law graduates in a challenging legal job market. But perhaps the school’s administration could be convinced to change course when they catch wind of this purported graduate’s entrepreneurial employment situation.

We recently received a tip from a fellow who claims that he graduated from Cooley Law in 1993. It would seem that even as a graduate of the second-best law school in the nation, the job market was so tough that when someone told him to get his shine box, he took the phrase literally. He says he’s been working as a shoeshiner ever since.

We know that this seems absolutely wild, but to be honest, we couldn’t tell if we were being legitimately trolled, if only because he claimed to be a graduate of Cooley Law. We’ve provided our correspondence with this fellow after the jump….

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(C/O ’93 Grad Claims He’s Employed as a Shoeshiner)”

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Cooley Law Will Say Anything To Justify Its Behavior

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It’s pretty well established that the people running Thomas M. Cooley Law School have no sense of shame. They invented their own stupid law school rankings and then had the audacity to rank themselves #2. They’re already the second-biggest law school in the nation, but they’re opening another campus, this time in Florida. Cooley really doesn’t care what you think (or what the graduates who are suing them think), so long as there are enough prospective law students to fill their incoming class.

As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) did a big article this weekend about law schools that are taking a thoughtful approach to class size given the challenging legal job market. In the article, Cooley evidently didn’t mind looking like the thoughtless school that does what it wants and dares somebody to stop them.

Again, if you know Cooley’s history, that’s to be expected. It’s just their hypocrisy can be a little hard to swallow…

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Morning Docket: 06.11.12

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* Have you ever wondered why Justice Clarence Thomas hasn’t spoken during oral arguments before SCOTUS in more than six years? It’s probably because he hates them so much that he thinks we should “do away” with them entirely. [Charlotte Observer]

* Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, he of unparalleled oral advocacy skills, claims that there’s “no magic formula for time management” — but having a superior legal mind certainly helps the situation when preparing for argument. [Appellate Daily]

* It’s “highly likely” that Rajat Gupta will won’t take the witness stand to testify in his own defense at his insider-trading trial. Query what Benula Bensam would have written to Judge Rakoff about that. [Los Angeles Times]

* If you’re thinking of hopping on the “blame the ABA” bandwagon in defense of your employment statistics, think again. A federal judge rejected Cooley Law’s argument on that front last week. [National Law Journal]

* Meanwhile, Cooley “isn’t interested in reducing the size of its entering class on the basis of the perceived benefit to society,” but at least ten other schools will be reducing class sizes. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* A judge denied Jerry Sandusky’s motion to dismiss the charges against him. The former football coach clearly needed 1-800-REALITY check if he seriously thought that his request was going to be granted. [CNN]

* If you’re planning on living rent-free in New York City for almost a decade, make sure you’re doing it in a building that isn’t up to code. You’ll never be evicted thanks to this Court of Appeals ruling. [New York Times]

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Quote of the Day: The Broken Economics of Legal Education

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Brian Tamanaha

The average debt of law graduates tops $100,000, and most new lawyers do not earn salaries sufficient to make the monthly payments on this debt. More than one-third of law graduates in recent years have failed to obtain lawyer jobs. Thousands of new law graduates will enter a government-sponsored debt relief program, and many will never fully pay off their law school debt.

– Washington University Law professor Brian Tamanaha, author of Failing Law Schools (affiliate link), painting a rosy picture of what life is like for recent law school graduates.

(What can be done to remedy this situation? Additional insights from Professor Tamanaha, after the jump.)

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Quote of the Day: Exceeding Expectations of Idiocy

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Jeffrey Martlew

These numbers indicate the Tampa Bay area was ready for a law school.

– Thomas M. Cooley Law’s Associate Dean Jeffrey Martlew, commenting on a student enrollment that was double the size originally projected and “exceeded … expectations” at the law school’s new Tampa Bay campus in Florida.

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Morning Docket: 05.08.12

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The Snooki Defense

* Aw, come on, Mort, Dewey really have to pay you $61M? In case you missed it last night, the only thing that made the former vice chairman’s departure memo dramatic was the insane amount that he claims he’s owed. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Congratulations to Jacqueline H. Nguyen on her confirmation to the Ninth Circuit. She’s the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appellate court, so she’s earned our judicial diva title (in a good way). You go girl! [Los Angeles Times]

* Google might’ve infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights, but a jury couldn’t decide if it constituted fair use. Sorry, Judge Alsup, but with that kind of a decision, you can bet your ass that there’ll be an appeal. [New York Times]

* A Harvard Law professor has come to Elizabeth Warren’s defense, claiming that an alleged affirmative action advantage played no role in her hiring. And besides, even if it did, it only played 1/32 of a role. [Boston Herald]

* Classes at Cooley Law’s Tampa Bay campus began last night. Unsurprisingly, the inaugural class is double the size originally projected, because everyone wants to attend the second-best school in the nation. [MLive]

* Albany Law will be having a three-day conference on the legal implications of the Civil War. This could be a little more exciting if presenters wore reenactment garb and did battle when it was over. [National Law Journal]

* Jury selection is underway in a second degree murder trial that will forever be known as the case where a defendant first raised the “Snooki Defense.” He didn’t kill his wife… but her spray tan did. [CBS Miami]

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.07.12

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* I bought the excellent Mayweather/Cotto fight this weekend. Floyd looked great for a guy who was too much of a coward to fight Manny Pacquiao. But the sweet science is dying. In its place, a bunch of grabbing and submission could be legalized in New York. [New York Daily News]

* Speaking of boxing, hey football, I bet 40 years ago nobody thought this would ever happen to boxing. [Overlawyered]

* Cooley Law subpoenas Professor Paul Campos. [Inside the Law School Scam]

* Accusing the president of “thuggery,” just another day on the campaign trail. [Election Law Blog]

* These kids are smiling because those diplomas were free, folks. [OC Register]

* Here is a visual representation of the Dewey & LeBoeuf partner departures (which have also been captured in tabular form by Am Law Daily). [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* I think if more lawyers drew inspiration from Jeanne d’Arc, more recent graduates would light themselves on fire. [Amicae Curiae via Blawg Review]

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Lawsuit of the Day: Pimply-Faced Cooley Law Grad Sues Photo Studio Over Email Blast of ‘Embarrassing’ Picture

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Ah, law school graduation. It’s a time for you and your classmates to reminisce about all of the good times you’ve had together, and some of the bad times, too. These people have gotten you through the past three (or four) years of your life, and they’ll always remember you in the most flattering light.

Unless, of course, your complexion is cause for major concern.

It’s not every day that your law school classmates are reportedly email-bombed with photos of you that look like before-and-after Proactiv ads. But that’s what one recent Cooley Law graduate alleges in his complaint against the photo studio that took his senior picture….

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